Page 3 of My Pucking Enemy (The Milwaukee Frost #4)

Wren

The thing about having a dad that’s dodged several international police forces, risen to the top of several global wanted lists, and made very scary, very important friends all over the world is this: When he wants to call you, he’ll call you.

Again and again. From different phone numbers, all with different area and country codes.

And you’ll never be sure whether it’s him calling, or someone you might really need to answer to, like your parole officer, a hospital, your new landlord.

And no matter where you are, your phone will just keep buzzing in your pocket.

Reminding you that he wants to get in touch with you, and that he won’t stop until he does.

Answering him the other day at the arena was a mistake. And I’m not going to let it happen again, especially considering the fact that Luca McKenzie got close enough that he just might have been able to overhear parts of the conversation.

“What’s bothering you, baby?”

I jump and turn, eyes meeting my grandmother’s.

She’s sitting in a worn-out armchair, the fingers of her right hand worrying the frayed edges.

The other hand is tucked into a custom brace, her fingers wrapped around a little pad to keep her from rubbing sores into her palms or from clenching the fist too tight.

There’s no way I can tell her about Dad calling me. It’ll just remind her of all the ways her son has betrayed her.

Of course she can sense my tension. I realize that, as I’ve been making her bed the way she likes, I’ve been snapping and tossing the pillows a little harder than I need to.

When the aides catch me doing it, they always tell me not to bother—that it’s their job.

But I know Gran likes the bottom a little looser, so it doesn’t tug so hard on her toes. And I like to make it that way for her.

“Nothing,” I say. I sit on the bed and look up to the ceiling and let out a breath. “You know how I started that new job?”

She nods—of course she knows. Following a bout of strokes, she’s lost the use of her left side, but her thoughts and speech were mercifully intact.

We used to live together in Maryland while I was working with the FBI, but I just couldn’t maintain the round-the-clock care she needed.

After years of a shitty Maryland care home, I moved her across the country and preemptively put her into this very nice home in the Milwaukee area. She didn’t think we moved for fun.

“Well, there’s this guy…” I start, and her face lights up with hope. I’m quick to shake my head at her. “No, not like that, Gran. He’s a pain in the ass.”

“That’s how it always starts,” she jokes, and I ignore her, flopping onto my back and lacing my fingers together on my stomach. For the five years I spent at the FBI, she was constantly urging me to go out and meet people.

But dating has never felt like it fit into my life.

Not when I spent so much of it pretending to be someone else.

Every time I go on a date, I find myself figuring out exactly who the other person wants to see, and giving them that.

It complicates things when they fall in love with someone who doesn’t exist.

“What’s his name?” she asks, ever the busybody.

“Luca,” I say, and “Maybe it always started like that for you, but not me.”

I know Gran is thinking about her love story with my grandfather.

Hating his guts, then crossing the line from loathing to loving.

“I’ve barely even talked to him, but I can just tell that he has these ideas about me.

I mean, he walked into my first meeting already insinuating that I shouldn’t even be there. ”

She sucks in a dramatic breath, “He said that?”

“Well, no—not in so many words. But that’s what he implied.”

Gran gives me a look that says she clearly thinks I was reading too much into it.

I sigh, roll my eyes, and straighten back up, wanting to move on from the discussion. “Didn’t you get a new chess set? Let’s play a round.”

I gather the table and assemble it in front of her, setting up the board and situating myself in the chair across from her, watching as she moves her first pawn.

But from the look she’s giving me, I know she’s still thinking about our discussion—about Luca. I could tell her that she’s wrong about this one, that I just have a feeling, but that will only open up the discussion again.

So, instead, I just focus on playing, anticipating her moves and untangling her strategy so I can come out with a win—like I always do.

***

Luca McKenzie is watching me.

Not in a You’re cute and I want you to know it kind of way, but in a I really don’t like you kind of way.

From the moment I set foot back onto Frost property, I can feel his eyes tracking me.

After my meeting with the HR manager, during which she re-iterates my ridiculously high salary, I bump into Luca in the hallway.

Before their training starts, I try to get to know some of the players in the lounge, and Luca appears in the back of the room, folding himself casually into an armchair—gaze never leaving me.

The only time there’s any reprieve is when he’s down on the ice practicing, and I’m the one watching him. But even then, there’s a certain presence about him that makes me feel like he might turn around and fix me with a serious stare at any moment.

When I was eleven and making my way through Italy with my dad, he met and fell in love with this Sicilian woman who ended up robbing us blind in the middle of the night.

It was my first introduction to the idea of an all-consuming person.

From the night that he met her until months after she had clearly betrayed us, my father was obsessed, organizing his life around her, following her wherever she wanted to go.

It was the moment I realized a single person could come into your life like a storm, sweep through, distract you, then hang around the edges, dark clouds always looming.

And Luca McKenzie seems like he might be that kind of person. Here I am in a new city, with a new job, settling my Gran in her home, and he’s the most constant thing on my mind.

“Watch that back check!” Luca hollers, and Uncle Vic seconds it, the two of them working together to adjust the team during scrimmage.

Luca isn’t a normal team captain—that much is becoming clearer to me the more I observe things. He’s far more involved in this team than any other captain I’ve seen.

As practice goes on, I pull up a browser and Google him, scrolling through the results until I find an article titled “Everything You Need To Know About Luca McKenzie and His Frost Family Dynasty”.

For the next twenty minutes, I read about him—that he was an all-stater in high school and had his pick of D1 colleges. How he had a short career with the Rangers—during which he won Rookie of the Year and broke one of their scoring records. Then came onboard at the Frost.

Their first season was a bust, with the team fizzling out before they even hit the play-offs. Some sort of personal drama imploding with Luca, Callum Hendricks, and Sloane McKenzie—the team manager and CEO of Slap Shot, a hockey-focused online outlet.

During their second season, they struggled with effective defensive strategy, and last year they had more goals allowed in the first half of the season than the previous two years combined. More reading reveals a problem with the goalie, which seems to be remedied now.

When I click onto a video interview of Luca, I make sure to lower the volume. I doubt they can hear me all the way down on the ice, but the last thing I need is for him to know that I’m cyberstalking him.

“…this is going to be the year,” he says confidently on the screen. He’s lounging in a chair next to a late-night talk host, a confident, easy smile on his face. “Trust me, this is a good time to be a Frost fan.”

Through the rest of the interview, he charms and flirts, and the interviewer asks him all the right questions, leaning forward with her chin on her palm.

But when she asks him about his wife, he shuts her down, saying, with a slight edge, “Oh, family is personal, Bailey.”

“I can respect that—you’re a very private guy.”

It’s ridiculous, the ease with which he manages to dodge any question about his sister, wife—anything to do with his personal life, he instantly shuts down.

“So, what do you think?” a voice says.

I snap my laptop closed so fast, I feel like a teenager looking at porn. Uncle Vic stands to the side, and when I look up at him, he glances suspiciously at my screen.

“Do you have the film from last year?” I ask, rising smoothly and avoiding any questions about what I was just doing. “I want to start studying up on the other teams.”

He nods, and just before he leads me away, I feel a prickling on the back of my neck.

When I turn, I see Luca McKenzie—the last guy on the ice—casually bouncing a puck on his stick…and looking right up at me.

I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge, so I raise a hand to him, giving him a cheeky smile and tilting my head.

To my surprise, he raises his hand back, but it feels less like a wave and more like a signal—a warning.

“You coming?”

I snap my gaze away before Uncle Vic notices me staring and hurry up the stairs with him, feeling Luca’s probing gaze on me the entire time.