Hating the Rookie: Laketown Hockey Series Read online

  Troy yard sailed onto the ice in front of me. His stick clattered out of his hands and slid to the boards, and his blue mouth guard shot out beside him.

  Coach Covington blew his whistle.

  “Bishop!” he shouted.

  I knew that I was getting kicked out and turned to leave before Troy could get up. But as I skated off the ice, I heard his blades scraping behind me two seconds too late. He caught me in the shoulder and I flew back onto my ass and my other shoulder slammed into the boards. I hopped back onto my feet, gloves dropped, and charged back at Troy. The whistle was blowing in the background, but it seemed like it was a million miles away. All I wanted to do was hurt Troy. And hurt him badly.

  I drew back my fist and reached for his sweater, ready to swing, but something was holding me back.

  “Easy,” I heard a voice in my ear and the world started to come back into focus. I tried to free my punching arm, but someone had a firm grip on it – the same with my left. Justin and Leo were holding Troy back and I glanced to the side and saw that Dylan and Fitzy were the ones on me.

  “Simmer down, Rookie,” Fitzy growled. “I thought that he wasn’t going to be a problem.”

  Justin and Leo had released Troy, but my captors still had a firm grip on my arms. “Can we let you go?” Dylan asked. For a tall thin guy, he sure had some serious grip strength – there were going to be bruises on my arms for days.

  My entire body was coiled tightly, but as Coach Covington skated in between us all the fight disappeared from my body. “Yeah.” I shook my arms and the guys let go.

  Coach pointed to the dressing room. He didn’t have to say anything. I hung my head and swore under my breath as I skated off the ice. Once I was in the dressing room, I let the rage fly. I raised my stick over my head and smashed it on the floor, but when it didn’t break, I turned and baseball swung it at the wall. Satisfied with ruining a very expensive piece of equipment, I sat on the bench and chugged from my water bottle in between bouts of rapid breathing. I kept my eyes trained on the door. I had to be ready if Troy walked in ready to fight. But, he didn’t. I got kicked out in the first twenty minutes of a two-hour practice, and when I realized that Troy was still on the ice, I knew I had made a terrible mistake.

  Could I have compromised my spot on the first line for the game against the Thunder? When it became apparent that Troy wasn’t going to charge into the dressing room like a bull and try to beat the shit out of me, I showered and got dressed.

  Then I waited.

  Chapter 17 - Brianna

  IT HAD BEEN TWO DAYS since I’d seen Brodie. The longest forty-eight hours of my life.

  And counting.

  Since I’d discovered what he’d been doing for my parents. I felt like I was being ripped in half. My heart yearned to see him, like it might stop beating if his damn Jeep didn’t come around the bend anytime soon, yet, my brain was afraid. My body, well, my body ached whenever I thought about his hand on my waist that night on the dock.

  That night seemed like another world away. I didn’t know whether Brodie was busy with hockey, or busy avoiding me. Maybe he realized that the trip to the island had been a mistake. That touching me had been a mistake.

  But I knew that it wasn’t.

  Brodie had grown up since high school, and I hadn’t. I was still holding onto the past.

  Pacing Cabin One, the phone ringing in my ear, I bit at the nail on my thumb, waiting for Nora to answer my call.

  “Hello?”

  “I talked to them.”

  “About what?”

  “Well, both of the things, the cancer and Brodie. And Nora, you’re not going to believe this.”

  “You sound like you’re crying.”

  I was holding back tears, I felt like I’d been holding them back for two days straight.

  “I’m not.” My voice wavered.

  “Okay, Bree.” She knew I was lying.

  “My mom is going to be okay.”

  “That’s a relief.” I could hear her exhale through the phone.

  “But Brodie...”

  “Oh, God.” She groaned. “What about that asshole? Did you get him fired?”

  I explained everything to Nora and for the first time since I’d known her, she seemed lost for words.

  “Well, what do you think?” I asked.

  There was just dead air.

  “Nora?”

  Finally, she spoke. “Do you believe that he’s changed – that he’s grown up? And, more importantly, are you ready to forgive him?” I could picture her holding up her pointer finger at me as she doled out her advice.

  I’d had two solid days to think about it – and I’d never been surer of anything in my life.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “What was that?”

  I knew that she’d heard me.

  “Yes,” I said it louder with a lot more conviction.

  “Then you need to tell him – BUT –

  “I need to be prepared for the fact that he might still hate me.”

  “You got it. And Bree.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Remember, if he does, you will be okay.”

  I smiled at my phone that was starting to get very hot by my ear. “I think you missed your calling as a therapist.”

  “Your bill is in the mail,” she laughed. “Let me know how it goes.”

  We said goodbye and I set the phone down on the arm of the porch swing. I wanted to lie down on the floral cushion, but one look at my paint-stained pants told me that would be a bad idea. I sunk onto the stairs of Cabin One and watched the boats bobbing with the incoming waves, bouncing off the white bumpers that ran along the sides of each slip.

  My heart leaped into my throat when I heard a car approaching. Too many times I’d looked up, pulse racing, to see my parents’ car. Or, the fancy Mercedes SUV that the developer drove. He had been to see my parents twice, his offer to purchase Casper Cove getting smaller and smaller with each visit. That bastard could smell blood in the water and he knew it.

  But today, the shiny blue Jeep geared down as it approached Cabin Three. I took a deep breath, wished that I wasn’t wearing a paint-covered oversized t-shirt with a rainbow trout on it, and marched off to meet Brodie at his cabin.

  “Hey,” he said as I approached. His tone was cold. I took a step back.

  “Hi,” I smiled.

  He grabbed his hockey bag from the back of the car and tossed it onto the porch.

  “Can we talk?” I rubbed my hands on the thighs of my canvas work pants.

  He looked up at the ceiling of the porch and squeezed his eyes shut. “No, Brianna. I don’t think that there’s anything for us to talk about.”

  My face felt like it was on fire. It was as though Brodie had dumped gasoline over the top of my head and had lit the match with his words.

  I took another step back and he seemed to soften.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’ve had a bad day. What do you want to talk about?”

  He sat down in his hammock and cracked open a beer.

  “Nothing, just stuff for the regatta. It can wait.”

  He chugged his beer and nodded.

  “Sorry about your day,” I muttered and turned to walk away.

  “Bree,” he said.

  I froze.

  “Brianna,” he corrected.

  I turned, knowing that he wasn’t going to say anything I wanted to hear.

  “Ramona wants to know if you’ll be her sailing partner. For the regatta. She needs another person in the Sunfish with her.”

  “Sure,” I tried to force a smile onto my lips and managed a tight-lipped version. “Tell Mona I’d be honored to be her crew.”

  I lingered, wondering if I should just rip off the band-aid and tell him how I was feeling.

  “And?” His voice was irritated.

  “Nothing.” I turned and walked away feeling damn good that I hadn’t done something stupid – like tell him I still loved him.

  Chap
ter 18 – Brodie

  THE HEATWAVE WAS RELENTLESS and I wiped the sweat off my forehead as I put the cover back on the batteries.

  The terminals on the batteries for the solar panels were corroding, but that wasn’t the problem. I went to look for Stan to give him the bad news. I passed by Bonnie’s garden and saw that Brianna was there weeding with her mother. Bonnie looked up and saw me walking by and waved at me with her garden glove. Brianna didn’t look up, but I knew that she saw me.

  She had wanted to ask me something yesterday, but I was too worked up from seeing Troy. I thought that I was ready to forget about the past, but that was until the past showed up on the ice with me and stared me in the face. I rubbed at my shoulder, the one that had taken the hit. I had tried with Brianna, but she and her friend had embarrassed me in front of the guys.

  Now, she was avoiding me. It was probably for the best. She was going back to university at the end of the summer, and I had to get my mind back in the game.

  The gray ponytail flashed in the corner of my eye. “Stan,” I yelled. He didn’t hear me and disappeared into the tool shed. I jogged over and banged on the door before stepping in behind him. The last thing I needed was to scare him while he held a saw in his hand.

  “Stan,” I said.

  “Whoa.” He jumped a little. “Don’t sneak up on a guy like that,” he chuckled.

  “We have to talk about the batteries.”

  “Is it the terminals?” he asked, as he shuffled paint cans around on the dusty shelves.

  “Kind of.” I was dreading the next part. “The cables have been cut.”

  “Cut?” Stan turned to face me, his eyes huge behind his circular Harry Potter glasses. “You mean frayed?”

  “No, someone has deliberately cut the cables.”

  Stan steadied himself by holding onto one of the shelves. “I was afraid of that.”

  “Let me set up some cameras. I’ll catch them in the act.”

  “Do you think it’s the developers?” Stan asked.

  “Well, not directly. I think that they hired someone to come in and sabotage things.”

  “Like the waterline.” For someone who looked for the best in people, Stan was catching on quickly.

  “Like the waterline,” I concurred.

  “Those greedy corporate...”

  “Assholes,” I finished.

  As if on cue, a sleek Mercedes pulled up in front of the main cabin. “Speak of the devil.” Stan’s lips drew narrow and he strode past me, heading straight to the car. I followed behind, just in case the old man needed some muscle.

  “Stan.” a short stocky man stepped out of the Mercedes. “How are you doing?” He extended his hand for Stan to shake, which, to my chagrin, he did.

  “Things are great here man,” Stan smiled. And I knew in Stan’s world, they were. He had a way of seeing the best of things.

  “Have you had the chance to consider my offer?”

  “I’ve already told you; we’re not interested in selling.” Stan crossed his arms.

  “I thought you might say that. I’ve sweetened the offer a little bit.” The man handed him an envelope. Stan tucked it under his arm.

  “You aren’t even going to look at it?” The graying man with the potbelly shook his head.

  “We need something to start the bonfire with this weekend.” As Stan walked away, he waved the envelope in the air. “Thanks for stopping by.”

  I knew Stan better than my own father, and that was his way of telling the developer to go to hell. The man’s fat face turned beet red, his bulbous nose almost purple.

  “He’ll regret that,” he said to me. “You might want to talk some sense into that old man.”

  The developer’s eyes seemed black like his pupils took up the entire iris, and I swore that I saw him smirk as he grunted and hoisted himself into the SUV.

  “Who was that?”

  I jumped at Brianna’s voice. She and Bonnie stood behind me.

  “That’s the developer for Buckwheat Bay,” Bonnie sighed. “Let me guess, he had another final offer.”

  “He did and Stan told him to go fuck himself.”

  “He did?” Bonnie smiled.

  “No,” I laughed. “Well, he did in his own way.”

  Bonnie rushed after her husband leaving Brianna standing next to me.

  “I have an idea, but I need your help,” she said.” She pulled the gardening gloves off her hands. “That is if you’re interested in saving this place.”

  Her eyes were shimmering and I could tell that seeing the developer had made her upset.

  “I would do anything to help your parents.”

  “I know,” she whispered. A tear slid down her cheek. “I know.” She wiped at her cheek with her garden glove, leaving a smear of dirt across her cheek.

  My heart softened. “What’s your idea?”

  “It’s actually Nora’s.”

  I pursed my lips. “Okay. What’s Nora’s idea?” I crossed my arms across my chest. Nora had spent four days here and I was dubious that her idea was any good.

  “Come, let’s walk.” Brianna gestured to a wide path.

  I nodded and we set off together, heading towards Bonnie’s garden. “What makes this place special?” she asked.

  “Is this a trick question?”

  “No, I’m serious. Why would someone want to come here?”

  The sun was beating down on my head, and the garden loomed ahead of us. It seemed to have taken on a life of its own in the past few weeks, the tomato plants had grown taller than me. “The lake is nice. The cabins are cute.”

  “The lake is nice.” she agreed. “The cabins are cute, but they need a little work. But what do you think makes Casper Cove Cabins different from say, the hotels over in Buckwheat Bay?”

  “Your hippie parents,” I laughed.

  Brianna pulled a pea off a climbing vine, opened the pod, and popped one in her mouth. “My hippie parents and their homesteading ways.”

  I was starting to see where she was going with this. “Nora went back to the city and told all of her friends about this place. They all want to come here. Not to sit on the beach and play badminton. They want to eat food from an organic garden, they want to do yoga by candlelight, drink kombucha, eat freshly baked bread, and know that they’re not hurting the environment every time they turn on the electricity.”

  “You want to play up the environment thing.” I nodded as I stared at the garden. “Your dad was talking about putting in traditional electricity and replacing the woodstoves with oil-burning furnaces.”

  “Because they’re struggling,” Brianna said.

  “Right,” I agreed. “Where are they going to come up with the money to put in a solar system that can handle all of that? I suppose you’d want turbines too? Maybe rig up some kind of hydroelectric turbine on the property.”

  “Exactly.” Her eyes shone brightly.

  I was excited at the idea, and I could see it all coming to life right in front of my eyes. I knew exactly where we would put the panels and the turbines. “They could host retreats here in the offseason.”

  “Yes,” Brianna gushed. “My mom could teach people how to make sourdough bread.”

  “I think you’re actually onto something here. There’s only one problem. How?”

  Brianna stared at me intently. “That’s where you come in.”

  “Me?” I pointed to my chest.

  “Yes. You.” She smiled. “Mona told me that you were going to go to business school. You’re going to write a business proposal and Nora and I are going to shop it around, you know, to try to get some funding from the banks or something.”

  I was stunned. “I’m just a hockey player now.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re not fooling anyone,” she said. “I’ve never done a business proposal. Tell me what you need and I will start putting it together for you.”

  “I haven’t agreed yet.” My mind had gone back to the rink. The last thing I needed was som
ething else splitting my focus from what mattered most – hockey.

  “Think about it.”

  She squeezed my hand and then pulled her gloves on and stepped back into the garden.

  “Brianna, wait,” I said.

  She turned.

  “You’ve got dirt on your face.”

  She rubbed at her cheek, totally missing it. I stepped close enough to feel the heat of her body on my chest and rubbed the dirt away with my thumb. “Of course, I’ll help.”

  She smiled and squeezed my hand. I wanted to pull her body to mine and kiss her, dirty face and all. Before either of knew what was happening, her arms were wrapped around me and she practically squeezed the life out of me. I winced, both shoulders were bruised from my altercation with Troy.

  Troy. The reason that my body was hurting, and the reason I couldn’t be with her.

  I pulled back.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. She traced her fingers over the deeper purple bruise, leaving behind a trail of goosebumps.

  I shivered. “I’m fine.” I brushed her hand from my shoulder. “I’ll put together a list of financials I’ll need from your parents.”

  “Thanks, Brodie.” She backed up toward the garden. “Oh, and could you bring Mona out here one day this week? I want to go sailing with her, get in a practice run before the regatta.”

  “She’d love that. I’ll bring her out as soon as I can.”

  I left Brianna in the garden. I was good at writing business proposals, but I doubted that any bank would give the Corbetts the money it would need to turn Casper Cove Cabins into an awesome eco-resort. But dammit, I was going to try.

  AFTER HOCKEY PRACTICE, I swung by the house and picked up Ramona. She had squealed when I asked her if she wanted to go sailing with Bree. I had put together a complete list of the documents I would need to move forward with the proposal.

  “I’ve never been to Casper Cove.” Ramona was jittery in the seat next to me as we followed the trails through the smattering of cabins. “It’s so pretty here.”

  “It is,” I agreed.

  I stopped at the beach and Ramona hopped out. “Hi, Bree,” she waved with her entire arm.