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Chapter Two

“A brutal ending to a record-breaking year. Key players out to injury and suspension. Official word from the team is Zacha’s out with a lower body injury, but rumor on the street is it’s another concussion. Will he recover or is this the end of his stellar career?” Renegades Rinkside Report

Novy

Two minutes ago, the man wobbling on one crutch in front of me looked like a treat for the eyes. Now, with spaghetti noodles slipping from his shaggy, dark hair—special spaghetti I’d gotten up early this morning to prepare for Scout—he looked less than picture perfect. Half of a cherry tomato slid down his white T-shirt to land on the floor with a soundless splat .

I tore my gaze from shoulders that pulled the food-splattered cotton tight over a broad chest and surveyed the damage. The travel mug filled with a pecan and blueberry smoothie remained intact, but everything else was ruined beyond saving. So much for delivering my best friend a delicious, home-cooked meal to buoy her spirits.

A noodle slid from my hair to dangle in my line of sight and I swiped it away. I needed to clean up before I headed to Scout’s room. She’d die laughing at me in this state and she really didn’t need any more ammunition than she already had after a lifetime of friendship.

The lawyer who’d launched the container catastrophe ignored me and fussed over the hockey player I’d recognize anywhere, while simultaneously directing the facility staff to bring a wheelchair. I squatted down to grab my purse, shaking off the noodles and broccoli and tomatoes. Avoiding the stares of staff and strangers, I leaned to snatch up my phone that thankfully hadn’t slid too far in the mess on the floor. I peeled a torn leaf of baby spinach from the screen. Unbroken screen, at least. Just more food residue. I sighed, and lunging back to my feet, headed for the restroom I’d seen when searching for a sign to the Sunshine Suites.

“Hey! Wait a minute.”

I gritted my teeth and turned back to face the big man, arched a brow when he narrowed his eyes on me. “Yes?”

“Come here so I can talk to you.” His slightly accented voice cracked through the room with the sharp tone of a man who expected to be obeyed.

As if I would jump at his command. Not happening. I shook the cropped hem of my denim jacket with fingers that trembled with a temper I refused to succumb to, the buttons and doodads decorating the denim jangling happily as a broccoli floret tumbled from my collar. “I’m a little busy, wouldn’t you know.”

His mouth popped open, but before he could spew any more rudeness in my direction, I spun around and headed for the restroom.

“Get that thing away from me!” The grumbly outburst ricocheted off the walls, but I didn’t look back. “I sure as hell do not need a wheelchair. Kurva, I need you people to get out of my way!”

At least I could take comfort in the fact that it wasn’t only me he treated with such rancor. Anger radiated off him like the stench of a three day bender. And no amount of sexy could mitigate his level of nasty attitude.

I used his distraction to slip into the women’s restroom. Twisting the lock behind me, I lodged my bag on the counter and took stock in the huge mirror. Holy cow. Olive oil greased my long bangs back to my ponytail and shined up my face, smearing my mascara into some righteous gothic mask. The oil and liquids from the wonderful meal I’d made Scout destroyed my laced-up cami top, but I could probably salvage the jacket and jeans.

I blew out a long, disgusted breath. Snatching a handful of paper towels, I blotted the worst of the oil from my hair. Just as I was shrugging out of my jacket, someone hammered on the locked door. “Taken,” I called, though surely that should be obvious, what with the lock and all.

“Open up so I can talk to you.”

He had to be kidding. The door rattled on its hinges as he pounded the surface again. “Are you seriously banging on the door to the women’s restroom?”

“Look, I need you to go along with what I said earlier. Open this door and I’ll explain. I can make it worth your while.”

What had he said earlier? Something about my being his designated guardian. In what world did people ask perfect strangers to be their guardians? So what if I did recognize him?

I’d followed Boh Zacha’s career since he joined the Renegades. I wasn’t the sort to wink at a perfect stranger. I’d thought my intention would be obvious, a secret little I know who you are wink. And yeah, okay, I’d possibly followed his career a little closer than all the other players.

But now? Now, nothing could induce me to spend time in his company, not even time enough to tell him no. He’d sent me sprawling across the floor, destroyed my clothes, wrecked the meal I’d made my closest friend, and failed to deliver even a hint of an apology.

Words to send him to hell in a handbasket dangled from the tip of my tongue, but I bit them back. What did they say about his type? Noisy and aggressive and annoying? Don’t feed the trolls.

“Mr. Zacha, please step away from the restroom door.”

The crisp, feminine voice of a professional. Must be the woman I’d seen wearing a staff ID badge around her neck. A minute later, the attorney’s voice joined hers, his tone much more cajoling.

Of course the Renegades organization would seek out the best care for one of their best players. For their top line left winger, second in points only to Shep Landon, the league’s top scoring forward? They’d break out all the stops. He’d disappeared in the middle of the playoffs after a car accident. Guess he was more injured than they’d let be known.

Not that I cared. What I knew about hockey could fit on a bar napkin, bestowed on me by my hockey-loving bestie. I moistened a paper towel, dragged it under my eyes and smeared the mascara around on my face as the noise from the trio outside the door faded. A few more swipes and I’d done what damage control I could. I still smelled like Mediterranean mackerel, but at least I could visit with Scout and not embarrass either of us. Not too much, anyway.

I heaved my bag over my arm and picked up the travel mug. Heart suddenly pounding, my eyes darted over the quartz countertop. My skates! Somehow in the drama of colliding with a too-cocky-for-his-own-good hockey player, I’d lost my skates. The lobby. They had to be in the lobby.

I put my ear to the door, catching the distant sound of someone saying goodbye, maybe? But I couldn’t detect Zacha’s rumbly growl. Hopefully he’d moved on to ruin someone else’s day.

Channeling the clueless character in old horror flicks who always went to investigate the mysterious sounds in the pitch dark basement, I eased the bathroom door open. No irritable hockey players in the wide corridor outside the restroom. I stepped through and crept back into the lobby.

A uniformed staff member mopped up the remnants of the container fiasco. The woman with the official badge had disappeared, and the attorney in the baggy suit stood outside under the canopy, his phone to his ear. Good signs I might slip through the lobby undetected.

I scanned the interior and headed toward the back in hopes of finding my way to the elusive Sunshine Suites. But the man I was quickly coming to label my nemesis leaned against the wall at the entrance to a hallway on the far side of the lobby. He of the wide shoulders and scruffy jaw. His crutches winged out into the walkway, barring passage.

And dangling from one large hand, my bright pink skates.

My heeled sandals snapped as I closed in on Bohdan Zacha. His eyes scanned me from head to foot, a clinical appraisal that still raised the tiny hairs along the back of my neck.

I tilted my chin up. “I’ll take those.”

“Look, I’ve only got a minute before Walsh gets back. Hear me out. I saw you pull in, that beat up old Honda you’re driving. Go along with me and I’ll replace it with this year’s model today.”

My gaze shot to my car out in the lot, the bumper just poking out in the row of vehicles. Yeah, it’d seen better days, but in no way did it qualify as “beat up” and it ran perfectly, got great gas mileage and was paid for.

When I turned back to him, he nodded, as if everything was settled and I'd already agreed to whatever he had in mind. I tugged the opening of my jacket, setting the pins and buttons to jingling. Just past him in the hall was an elevator, along with a big sign listing off the floors and rooms. Sunshine Suites, fourth floor. A little burst of adrenaline had my fingertips tingling.

I inched closer, extended my hand to take the skates. “Oh, my beat up old Honda suits me just fine, thanks.”

His fingers tightened on the laces of my skates and for a second, it looked like he was going to jerk them out of reach. He didn’t and I let out the breath I’d sucked in when they were back in my hands.

I picked the skates from his hold. “Thank you ever so much,” I said and skirted past the crutch he rudely extended halfway across the hallway and scurried to the elevator. In a movie, the doors would have slid open right then and I could have made a grand exit. Instead, I stood there shoving my finger against the call button as if my life depended on it.

He stalked after me, the stomp-swish rhythm of his gait loud in the corridor.

“All you have to do is sign some papers, go along with whatever Walsh says. We can make it work, I know it. You get a new car and I get out of this place. Want something besides a Honda? Name it. Anything’s on the table.”

One hand clutched the skates to my chest, while the other slapped the elevator call button two more times. No way was I looking at Mr. Handsome-and-Oblivious again. I’d always been a sucker for that scruffy, needs-a-shave look. And the way the veins popped from the back of his hand gripping the crutches all the way up into his muscular forearm was enough to make my morning. If he hadn’t also dumped me to the gleaming marble floor, stalked me to the restroom and missed about half a dozen opportunities to apologize.

The elevator dinged and I scurried inside, my finger jamming on the close door button.

The man in the bad suit stalked up behind Zacha. “Mr. Zacha—”

“A minute, Walsh, we’re talking here.”

But the attorney stalled him long enough for the doors to close with him on the wrong side. I slumped back against the wall of the elevator car and let out my breath.

Not how I expected to ever “meet” Bohdan Zacha.

Not that I’d ever imagined meeting him.

Not that I’d ever admit to imagining meeting him.

By the time the doors slid wide again, I’d put a smile back on my face and stepped out. I hadn’t seen Scout since she’d come to stay here and I missed my best friend. Texts, calls and even video didn’t cut it. My phone chirped a message just as I found her room. In typical Scout fashion, she had her door propped open with a chair, the music blaring and sunshine streaming through a wall of windows at the opposite side of the room.

“Is that you pinging my phone?”

She sat on a luxurious version of a hospital bed with pillows propped behind her head, her leg encased in a neon pink cast from her ankle to her thigh. Recessed lighting and the big windows lent a soft glow to the room instead of the harsh clinical fluorescent bulbs that lit up most hospitals. High-end furniture in soft, classic patterns and neutral beige gave the room the feel of a five star suite. Nearly nice enough to forget my friend was in a specialty medical clinic for concussion patients.

Scout jerked up at my words, and a line of sutures traced from her auburn eyebrow, across her temple and into her hairline. I winced before I could stop myself, and she grinned.

“Gruesome, right?”

“No, Scout—”

“I’m kidding, girl. Don’t freak out. My mother’s already lined up a plastics consult. In California, of course. What she has against Virginia plastic surgeons, I have yet to figure out.” She winked the eye that wasn’t black and blue and purple and yellow. “Pull up a chair and explain why you’ve arrived empty-handed. You promised goodies!”

I dug the travel mug out of my overstuffed bag and passed it over. “That’s it. That’s all that’s left , I should say.”

“What happened? Never say you messed up in the kitchen?”

I shot her a mean look as I hauled a chair closer to the bed. Resting my bag and skates atop the mattress at her side, I sat back with an exaggerated groan. “Not since I was twelve and I let you read me the directions in a recipe, thank you very much.” I shifted, settling in to start my story in comfort. “When I came into the lobby, I apparently interrupted an escape attempt.”

“No way!”

“Way. This gorgeous man—huge, all muscly arms and chest and shoulders and a week’s worth of scruff on the sharpest jaw this side of Henry Cavill—waving his crutches in the air like he was landing a plane. He had his eyes on me as I entered and I was gonna give him a little ‘come hither’ smile, but then he up and declared I was here as his guardian .”

“No way.” This time her voice held plenty of disbelief.

I couldn’t blame her. We both knew I’d never sent a man a ‘come hither’ glance in the history of ever. “Way,” I said again with a heavy nod. “He was arguing with a man in a suit, an attorney, and a woman who looked like she once led a World War I battalion into battle. He said I was his Designated Medical Guardian and even tried to trap me in the lobby.” Slight exaggeration, but close enough.

Scout rolled her eyes, shoving her finger in my direction. “Why do these things always happen to you? Why can I never step into alternate dimensions? I swear, Novy, you get all the fun.”

I laughed. “Fun! You were telling me to find the elevators, and the signage in that lobby leaves a lot to be desired. The next thing I knew, the lawyer knocked Gorgeous Guy’s crutches out from under him and he lost his balance and boom ! Down he went. Unfortunately, he took me down with him. Like some weird human domino effect.”

“That explains the scent of olive oil and weird shiny spots in your hair and on your clothes.”

Shaking my head, I rolled my eyes. “Your food, everywhere. This seriously good Mediterranean-inspired dish with mackerel—extra good for concussion patients—and broccoli and cherry tomatoes. I ended up wearing most of it. And what wasn’t on me, was on him and the floor.”

I shook my head again, catching her laughing eyes. “Not funny, Scout Pendleton. I slaved over these recipes for you! I scoured every site I could find and dug into the most recent studies. And I found a bunch, too, figured out some recipes that matched the nutritional recommendations for concussion patients–”

“Because you love me and want me out of here as soon as possible and you’re the best best friend anyone ever had.”

“And don’t you forget it.” I gave her a wink before picking up my story. “He heaved his gorgeousness off me and I sat there, mortified. A normal guy would be all full of apologies, right? Not this one. Didn’t offer a ‘sorry’, ‘my bad’, nothing. I waited, I stared right at him, nothing . Who does that? I mean, he landed right on top of me.”

“And nothing? Maybe he’s like the guys in Grandfather’s set. Doesn’t notice the peons like us.”

“Something.” My gaze drifted around the luxury room. Scout Pendleton's father connected her to one of Virginia’s finest families. She was as much a peon as I was Mariyln Monroe reincarnated, but she didn’t live that wealthy lifestyle. Her parents had divorced before we met and her visits to the Pendleton side happened only when unavoidable. Her mother pulled strings when she could—hence the fancy concussion rehab, but Scout preferred things more low-key.

“What is this place, anyway?”

Scout grinned. “Something else, huh? Brightside is one of the few resident rehab facilities with a concussion specialty in the area. They focus mostly on sports injuries, with a reputation for being super discreet. They don’t have many residents at any given time, and seriously cater to the ones they do have. It was this or Mom was going to fly me out to California, and no one wanted that.”

She joked, but her chin trembled and I rolled my lips to hold back the words of sympathy I knew she didn’t want to hear. “How long will you have to stay?”

“Until I pass their concussion protocol. Boxes to check, yada yada. I’m nearly there, to be honest. Gotta get released soon. I’m not going to miss my turn with Clyde.”

I nodded. Scout loved the giant dog, even as she avoided conversation about the beast’s owner. The two of them had some sort of shared custody and it would gut Scout to miss her time with Clyde. “That’s great.”

“What’s the latest with the girls?”

The girls. Our roller derby team, the Richland Killbillies. A little over two years ago, Scout dragged me to a try-out event, begging and scheming until I agreed to participate. Never in a million years would I have guessed I’d be selected. I hadn’t skated since my early teens, after all. But it proved to be much like riding a bike. The instant I got my balance back, it was just a matter of working up the endurance.

The battle of actual derby bouts turned into another hurdle my soft heart had to take on, but with Scout goading me along, I learned to use my elbows with the best of them. Now, the team might as well be my family. Between practices, bouts, and get-togethers, I saw them more than my blood family, that was for sure.

“They’ve been blowing up my phone. Especially Berry.” Her lids dipped to hide her eyes, her fingers picking at her white hospital sheets. “We’re gonna lose our lease because of my screw up.”

“It’s not your fault, Scout.” The denial fell easily from my lips, infused with every ounce of the sincerity I felt. I’d always have my girl’s back, ride or die and I’d bring the shovel, besties for life.

We held our derby practices at an older rec center west of the city. Most days the place catered to the senior community, everything from line dancing to pottery classes. We’d been practicing in their largest room since the team’s inception with minimal issues.

New owners took over last year and they made it clear from the get-go; they wanted us gone. Hadn’t even pretended to hide that fact. Our practice track consisted of interlocking tiles set in a huge oval. But the room we used had several poles running from ceiling to floor. The tiled track avoided the narrow pillars. But when we practiced, we were on and off the track. Sometimes at high speeds, sometimes in a wipe-out, and sometimes that meant we weren’t always in control of our path. Scout’s crash into a pole at our last practice and her subsequent exit in an ambulance had given the owners all the ammunition they needed to decline to renew our lease.

By the end of the month, the Richland Killbillies would be homeless.

Roller derby came with inherent dangers, injuries top of the list. Finding another place willing to rent to a bunch of wild women on skates wouldn’t be easy.

A sharp knock on the door jam had me twisting in my chair toward the entrance to Scout’s room. The lawyer from downstairs stood in the open doorway, his expression sheepish, but friendly. Had he followed me up here?

“So sorry to interrupt,” he said.

Evidently, not all that sorry, since he came right on in without an invitation. So much for the expectation of privacy.

“Mr. Zacha sent me up with an apology.” His glasses glinted in the artificial lighting, pale blue eyes sharp and assessing, belying his deferential manner.

“Mr. Zacha?” Scout pushed up straighter on her bed. Her voice carried a peculiar curiosity on the man’s name.

“Yes,” he said, moving to the foot of the hospital bed. He extended a business card toward me. “My name is Declan Walsh. I handle player relations for the team.”

“Team?”

But before Mr. Walsh could reply, Scout turned narrowed eyes on me. “Who exactly did you crash into, Novy?”

“I told you, some man on crutches.” Years of practice kept my voice even and my interest hidden. I’d already mentioned the shoulders and sex appeal. I’d revealed enough.

But heat flushed up my neck when Scout grinned. She turned her amusement to her newest guest. “What can we do for you, Mr. Walsh?”

“Besides proffering my client’s apologies, I did hope to discuss—”

“I’m not actually his guardian, you know that, right? I’m not anyone’s guardian,” I said before the shady attorney took us down a path I had no intention of traveling.

“Guardian?” Scout again, humor adding a high-pitched lilt to her voice. “That’s gotta be some weird clause my grandfather instigated. He’s a control freak with a whole lotta emphasis on the freak. Assigning random people as players’ guardians seems a stretch, though, even for him.”

Mr. Walsh straightened, his demeanor flipping on a dime to one of utmost attention. “Grandfather?”

Scout settled back against her pillows, bending her good leg to prop up her wrist. She gave the attorney a cursory nod, but trained her eyes on me. “You didn’t say it was a Renegade player you crashed into, Nov. Bohdan Zacha is in the same rehab as me? If you hadn’t already called dibs, you’d be racing me through every hallway until we found his room right about now.”“I did not call dibs!” The flush pushed up my neck and flamed into my cheeks. She teased. She’d only ever chase after one Renegade and we both knew it.

“JT Pendleton is your grandfather?” The attorney shifted closer again, his gaze bouncing between me and Scout.

“When I want Renegades tickets, he is,” Scout answered.

One corner of his mouth tilted up in a way that flashed a warning in my brain. His gaze fastened on me with fresh interest. “And your relationship… Novy, was it?”

“Novavline Dalton and Mr. Pendleton is not my grandfather.”

The attorney gave a polite laugh, but it didn’t take the crafty out of his expression. “My apologies, Ms. Dalton. We managed to wreck your visit with Ms. Pendleton. It is Ms. Pendleton?” He arched a brow at Scout who gave him an affirmative nod. The scary smile reappeared as he turned back to me. “What were you bringing? A nice home-cooked meal or something from a particular restaurant? May I order a replacement meal from a delivery service?”

“No delivery service dinner's gonna be a replacement for a Novy Meal. She’s a registered dietician. You should see her YouTube channel. Why, she’s practically famous on the clock ap—”

I interrupted my girl before she spilled all my secrets to a stranger. “Not the time, Scout.”

“Ah, then we lost a one-of-a-kind creation downstairs. Again, Ms. Dalton, our apologies.” He tilted his head in some sort of weird pseudo bow motion, smarmy smile on offer. “Ms. Pendleton is lucky to have you looking out for her.”

But his words didn’t match the calculation in his eyes. As much as Scout liked to avoid the Pendleton side of her family, she couldn’t entirely. And over the years, I’d attended plenty of events at her side. I wouldn’t cause trouble with a team attorney, but as he questioned me about my work under the guise of polite conversation, the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. Why did I feel like a criminal under interrogation?