Page 9 of Offside and Off-Limits (Love in Maple Falls #2)

CADE

I take a breather, my heart rate drumming as I gaze out the window at the trees punctuating the lush grass of my yard.

The realtor who rented me this place told me I’d love the tranquility.

At first, I thought the silence might drive me crazy.

But now, as I look out at the trees with their leaves turning from shades of green to golds and oranges and reds, I get what she meant.

This place is good for the soul.

Yup, I’ve become that guy, the one who needs his personal space to recharge .

Maybe that’s part of the new, more mature me? Or maybe I’m just enjoying being in this new town I call home.

“Lennox, you spotting me or what?” Jamie says, and I turn to see my team captain lying on the bench in my newly set up gym—the gym with the best view in all of Maple Falls.

I gave an open invitation to all the guys on the team at practice to use my gym, and today both Jamie Hayes and Carson “Bama” Crane have taken me up on the offer.

“How much you pressing today, Captain? Want to push those boundaries?” I ask as I position myself over his head.

Carson grunts as he pushes up from a squat, a crazy number of weights held on a bar across his shoulders. We both turn to watch him.

“Man, that’s impressive, Crane,” I say, but he’s too busy concentrating on not being crushed by the massive weight to reply.

“Nah. Just the usual. I’m still sore from yesterday’s practice. I’m convinced Coach Hauser is a sadist,” Jamie says.

I flash him a smile. “That’s because you’re an old man these days, old man.”

“Hey, less of the old. I’ve only got a year on you. Ready?”

I lift the weighted bar from its hooks and help to lower it down to Jamie’s chest. “Got it?” I ask and he nods. I let go and watch as he pumps the iron with practiced precision, grunting with the exertion.

“You might be old, but you’ve still got it,” I tell him.

When he gets to the end of his set, his face is red, perspiration beading on his forehead. He pulls himself up. “Okay. Your turn.”

“Yes, Captain,” I say with a small salute. I win a bat on the arm from him for my trouble.

“If only you’d show me that kind of deference on the ice.”

“ Deference ? You swallowed a dictionary this morning?”

“It’s a word,” he replies.

“Yeah, I know it’s a word. It’s just not a word I’ve heard you use before. ”

“Me neither,” says Carson before he chugs some water.

Jamie rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Assume the position, Lennox.”

I chuckle as I lie down on the bench he just vacated, warm from his efforts, and get into position. Jamie spots me as I do my set, and by the time I’m done, I’m sweating as hard as he was, my muscles shaking from the effort.

“Nice form,” my captain says. “Don’t you think, Crane?”

“Looked good to me,” Carson replies as he does a bicep curl.

“So, what do you think of the team?” Jamie asks as I pull off my damp T-shirt that was sticking to me and towel myself down. I collect my water bottle and take a much-needed swig of water.

I wipe the sweat from my forehead with the towel. “I think it's gonna take some time for us to learn to work together, but there’s a lot of talent.” I turn to Carson. “I’m glad you’re on my team these days, Crane. No offense, but when we used to come up against you on the Blades, I hated you.”

“None taken,” he replies. “I hated you, too.”

And I can’t help but smile at the image of the great winger sitting on a unicorn.

“Yeah, it's weird when you're playing against a guy one day and the next you gotta play nice when you're on the same team. But that's the League, my friends,” Jamie says. “How are you finding the move to this small town? Hallmark movie enough for you?”

I laugh. “You got that right. My mom loves Hallmark movies, particularly around the holidays. The first thing she said when I told her I was moving here to Maple Falls is that I might find a local girl and fall in love.”

“Never say never,” Jamie replies.

My mind instantly turns to Clara Johnson and the way she felt in my arms the other day on the ice. The way her blue-eyed gaze captured mine, her full lips forming a surprised “o.” It would have been so easy to lean down and brush a soft kiss against those lips. So easy.

It was a total Hallmark movie moment.

“I like it here,” Bama ekes out mid bicep curl.

“Me, too. This place is the total opposite of Manhattan, but it’s growing on me,” I say.

“Yeah,” Jamie replies with a laugh. “We’ve gone from millions of people to what? A few thousand?”

“Ten thousand, I think. Or eleven?” I reply.

“Whatever the number, it’s a shock to the system to have all this nature everywhere, right?” He gestures at the view. “That’s a lot of trees.”

“I like ’em,” Carson says, returning his hand weights to the stack.

I smile at him. “Yeah, me too. It’s peaceful.”

“Who’s being an old guy now?” Jamie asks with a sardonic laugh.

“I’m going to get a refill in the kitchen,” Carson says, holding up his water bottle.

Once he’s out of earshot, Jamie asks, “Do you think it’ll do what you want it to do?”

“What, the nature?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Nah, I mean the move here to small town USA, away from the temptations of the big city.”

Being my long-time teammate and friend, Jamie is one of the few people in my inner circle, and I trust him implicitly. He was there for my partying days, when I would change the woman on my arm more often than I would change my socks, and he was there when that lifestyle lost its lure for me.

He knows I leapt at the chance to be on this newly minted NHL team for a bunch of reasons, but right there at the top of the list was to leave that world well and truly behind.

I take a seat on the bench and let out a breath. “You know my reasons for being here.”

“Yup. ”

“And you know how much I need to reinvent myself.”

“Yup.”

“The thing is, I met a girl.” I twist my mouth as I wait for the inevitable to follow.

“What the heck? What are talking about? You met a girl? Have you learned nothing ?”

And there it is.

“I know, I know,” I say with a shrug, my palms up. “But this one’s different. Trust me.”

“She’s got a long tail and green scales?”

“She’s still human, dude,” I say with a shake of my head.

“Go on. Spill. Who is she?”

“You know the social media manager for the team?”

“You mean the blonde? What’s her name? Claire?”

“Clara,” I correct. “Clara Johnson.”

“You’ve got a thing for someone we work with? Lennox—” he warns, but I cut him off.

“It’s not like that. I’m the new me. I’m not interested in some fling with the woman. I…like her.”

“Because she’s hot.”

“No. Because she’s funny and sassy and speaks her mind. I like that in a woman.”

“And she’s hot.”

“Okay. I admit, she’s hot. I’m a guy. Of course I’m gonna like that about her.”

He chews on his lip, assessing me.

“What are you thinking? You’re freaking me out right now.”

“I’m thinking that you’re a total freaking idiot. That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Don’t pussy foot around the topic, Captain,” I reply.

“Remind me because I’m not sure my memory serves me all that well on this, but didn’t you hook up with…let me think…the owner of the Blades’s daughter ?”

He’s right. I did do that. And it did not end well.

Misty was cute and fun and hot—of course—and she told me she wanted a no-strings fling with what she called the “playboy” of the team. And stupid me, I thought she meant it. So, I did what most guys would do when they meet a hot woman promising a no-strings affair, and I went for it.

Sadly for me it turned out that Misty’s idea of no-strings and the rest of the world's idea bore very little similarity to one another.

When I told her I wasn't interested in anything more, she went crying to Daddy, telling him how I'd broken her heart. I fully expected to be traded within the week, but lucky for me, all I got was a rap on the knuckles for being a naughty boy.

I guess Patrick O'Mara didn't want to cut off his nose to spite his face just because his little girl had gotten involved with the wrong member of his team.

That was almost six years ago, and it should have served as a total wake up call for me.

“My advice, Lennox? Leave well alone. Go find some other woman who's got no connection to the team. You want to become the new Cade Lennox? Then you're gonna have to change your ways, by which I mean don't date the team’s social media manager.”

I throw my hands in the air. “Okay. I won't ask her out. I'll become a monk. Happy?”

“It's not a matter of me being happy or not. You came here to turn over a new leaf. So, turn over that leaf.”

I think of Clara’s worried look as she rushed off after that guy Joel accidentally livestreamed our dance. She clearly thought she was in trouble. “She might have lost her job anyway.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Did you see the video of us dancing on the ice?”

“That was dancing ?” he says, and I throw my towel at him.

“She was meant to be just filming it but the guy who took over from her livestreamed it. She didn't look happy when she left. ”

“I guess we'll find out tomorrow at practice. Coach told us someone was coming to film.”

“I guess we will.”

There’s a knock at the door.

“That'll be another delivery,” I say as I pad across the room.

“The Player Assimilation Liaison that the team gave me to help me settle in ordered a whole bunch of stuff for me.

I've had more deliveries here in the past couple days than I did in a month in Manhattan.” I make my way down the hallway and pull the door open, expecting a delivery guy in a uniform.

What I get makes me feel like someone shook up a soda can inside me and popped the lid.

“Well, if it’s not the Triple Threat,” I say as my gaze sweeps over the very woman I've just been told not to get anywhere near. Which makes her even more attractive, if I'm honest.

The lure of the forbidden.

I am so here for it.