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  Ally pulled open a drawer to find a knife for the puzzle box. “Mmmm, something smells wonderful, Ruby.” Ally inhaled the hearty smell wafting around in the little kitchen.

  “I threw a roast into the crock pot when I got here this morning. It should be ready around five.”

  Leave it to Ruby to have dinner covered.

  “Ruby, you are too good to us. What would we do without you?” Ally asked without expecting an answer.

  “Well, Miss Queen of the Drive-Thru, you would figure something out!” Ruby chuckled. “I hate to miss the new puzzle kick off, but I really should be going. My son and daughter-in-law are coming over for dinner tonight.” Ruby began gathering her things. “See you tomorrow Kay!” she yelled to Gram.

  “Bye, Ruby. Thank you for your help today,” Gram said.

  “Here, Ruby, let me walk you out,” Ally insisted and opened the front door for her.

  When they got outside and out of Gram‘s earshot, Ally asked, “How is she?”

  “She’s doing really well.” But then, Ruby’s smile quickly faded and her eyes grew serious. “She’s worried about you more than anything else.”

  “Oh, please, Ruby. I’m fine.” Ally waved her hand to dismiss the ridiculous notion.

  Ruby shook her head. She wasn‘t buying it. “Your Gram seems to think you have taken on more than you can handle and I happen to agree with her. We’re worried about you. You’ve already been forced to grow up way too fast when you were saddled with your Gram’s health problems and her care giving.” Ally pictured herself as a pack mule ‘saddled’ with cases of Metamucil and Ensure while Ruby continued. “She’s worried that you’re missing out on the fun of being a regular twenty-something girl.”

  “Thanks for your concern, Ruby, but I’m fine. Really. I already have Izzy to remind me of everything I’m missing out on. Noncommittal sex, drunken kegger sprees, one night stands…“ Ally ticked off the list of things Izzy was always rattling on about. “Seriously, Rube, I’m fine.”

  “Just try to take some time for yourself once in a while. Okay, hon?” Ruby gave her a motherly pat on the arm. “Gram doesn’t want to be the cause of your reclusion.”

  Ally stood on the sidewalk minutes after Ruby’s Volkswagen had puttered away down the street. Their conversation replayed in her mind. Gram hadn’t been the sole reason for Ally’s hermit-like tendencies, but she had sure been an awfully good excuse.

  Chapter Two

  Pain In the Neck

  Benjamin Price woke up and looked over at the empty side of the king-sized bed. The bed spread was still smooth and neatly pulled up over the spare pillow. Sometimes it bothered him to be alone, but during the season he didn’t really have time for a relationship. Or so he told himself. Plenty of his teammates had families and they managed to make time for their wives and children.

  Ben had dated an abundance of women in the past but they had always flaked out on him when they realized how hectic a hockey season schedule was. Or they ended up cheating on him when he was away. With a schedule of 82 games, 40 of them being away, he was away a lot. Some women used him as a conquest in order to be able to say they had been with a professional athlete. Some were convenient to him because he often got lonely. After all, he was a man with needs of his own. But, nonetheless, they were empty attempts at a relationship. In the end, he wanted someone to come home to. Someone to share in his wins and losses. Not someone who only wanted him when the team was winning and then dropped him like a hot potato when the team lost. Was that too much to ask?

  He loved his life, though. He worked hard to get where he was now. The training, the workouts, the discipline. Being a hockey player was his dream and he had proudly achieved it all on his own. But now it was time to share his life with someone who had his best interests at heart.

  Ben’s teammates were his family. He was raised by a single mom after his dad left when he was too little to remember him. His uncle had been the father figure in his life. Uncle Bobby had taught Ben how to skate, how to tie a tie, how to be a man. He was constantly giving Ben pointers and areas to work on. He always said, “If you’re gonna bother to do this, do it right.”

  Ben could have rebelled against his mother and joined the other kids at school who skipped class and smoked cigarettes behind the gym. But instead, he immersed himself in his sport and trained and practiced and never took his eyes off his goal. His mom had been so proud. She had attended his games religiously and supported him every step of the way. She had juggled her work schedule so that she could always be there cheering him on from the stands.

  Even when his mom got sick and began to fade away right before his very eyes, he worked through the pain of her illness by practicing shooting the puck into the wee hours of the morning. When she became too weak to leave her bed, must less attend his games, he would keep a constant vigil and dedicate every goal he made to her. She passed away on a bleak winter morning in November. When he felt himself start to slip into depression, his teammates and their families took him in like a warm blanket. They accepted him as one of their own.

  Not only was it camaraderie on and off the ice, but an actual network of people who welcomed him into their lives and homes. Thanksgiving was spent with Cody Lambert, the captain of the team, and his wife and kids. Ben felt at home sitting around the dinner table with them and their growing family. For Christmas, he would hang out with defenseman J.D. Mason and his wife Darla. And at New Year’s, the party was usually at either Ben’s best friend Dom Devereaux’s or goaltender Alexandre Sebastien’s house. The guys were always there for him. It was a tight knit group of people who shared his passion for the game and who could relate to the rigors of traveling, training and injury.

  There was one area that Ben felt out of sync with them. He felt like he was standing still next to them as their own families grew. Cody had twin sons and his wife Laina was pregnant again with their third child. It was the one thing that made him feel like an outsider. His teammates’ wives had set him up on dates before, but Ben never seemed to really click with any of them. He wanted to share a spark with someone. He didn’t want to be with someone just for the sake of not being alone.

  Ben thought a relationship needed to have meaning to him. Like the game of hockey. He couldn’t imagine going without the smell of the ice on game day, the roar of the crowd when he made a goal, the reflection of the lights in the ice after the Zamboni smoothed it over during intermission. That was what he wanted. A woman he couldn’t imagine living without.

  He shook away the thought and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. It was time to get ready for the day ahead, not daydream about what his life was lacking. His hefty salary allowed him to live comfortably and he was grateful at how fortunate he was to play a sport for a living. The rest would come eventually.

  Squinting at the morning sunlight streaming in through the floor to ceiling windows, Ben sat up and stretched. His muscles were sore and tight, a constant reminder of his occupation. Achy bones and ligaments never let him forget old injuries. Being a professional ice hockey player required focus, drive and a high tolerance for pain. Sometimes it was a sport as cold and hard as the surface it was played on. Hockey was grueling and taxing, but he wouldn’t trade his scars for anything in the world.

  Ben looked over at Moose, his giant dog that was sprawled out at the foot of the bed. Moose was an apricot colored English Mastiff and roughly the size of a Shetland pony. Ben couldn’t remember Moose ever being small, even when he bought him as a puppy a few years before.

  Ben sighed. Moose always looked sad with his big brown eyes that sat atop his droopy jowls. “Just once, I’d like to wake up to a face besides your ugly mug.” Ben patted the dog’s giant head and headed for the shower.

  His bare feet padded across the cold marble tile of the bathroom floor and he turned on the shower as hot as he could stand it and prepared himself for the team‘s morning practice.

  The hot jet stream felt good on his aching back and shoulders. Last
night’s game was exhausting and their stint in overtime had thoroughly worn him out. Standing under the shower spray, he went over every minute of the game in his mind. Even though they had managed a win, there were plenty of plays to think about that went wrong.

  Unfortunately, his team the Red Valley Razors were not the darlings of the United National Hockey League. The team had never won a Gordie Prince Cup in their franchise history. The Cup was the UNHL’s championship trophy. The Razors had had a rough start in the season and an even rockier mid-season. Now, with only a handful of games left in the season, Ben hoped they could work the kinks out and end the season with a somewhat dignified finish.

  Eventually, Ben broke himself away from the shower, toweled off and went into the closet. He dressed in jeans and pulled a hooded sweatshirt over a black Quiksilver tee shirt. He slipped on a pair of Nike’s, grabbed his keys and went out the door. In the garage, next to his black Chevy Silverado, his black Corvette Z06 waited for him. She was sleek and sexy and most of all, fast. Ben’s best friend and teammate Dom referred to the car as ‘sex on wheels’. Then again, Dom found a way to associate anything and everything with sex.

  Ben had purchased the Corvette right after he was drafted and signed his first contract with the United National Hockey League. It was the type of car he dreamt of having when he was growing up and now it served as a reminder of his accomplishments.

  He drove slowly out of his neighborhood, keeping his speed under control for the sake of his neighbors. He turned up the volume on the Daughtry CD in the stereo and merged onto the north-bound freeway on-ramp. Finally able to accelerate the powerful engine, he merged onto the freeway and immediately slid over into the fast lane. Using all five hundred and five horsepower and driving no less than 85, he passed every other car on the road in a shiny black blur.

  Boat dealerships and several new housing developments lined the Interstate. Blue mountains formed a ring around the city, their snow-capped peaks white against the mid-day sky. The freeway curved and Ben took the August Dam Boulevard exit off the freeway. Mt. August dominated the northern sky, its jagged summit still covered with winter snow.

  The city of August Lake hadn’t quite caught up with the rest of Red Valley. It was a small lake town full of mom and pop stores, where every other building was vacant, or looked like it was anyway. August Lake was the only place Ben had been where the word “estates” referred to a mobile home park. Heavily rutted streets boasted rows of abandominiums and seedy dive bars. Ben liked the low-key feel of it, though. It was refreshing to drive through a place without a Starbucks on every corner. Since when did Americans drink so much coffee? But, then again, he was guilty as charged. A coffee from Starbucks had become part of his game day routine for years.

  As he drove further north, the oak trees turned into pine trees. He turned off the air conditioner and rolled the windows down, sucking in the crisp, fresh air. It always felt good to get out of the city and onto the open highway. The sky seemed bluer, the air cleaner, the trees greener. Escaping the noise and bustle of the city was an important part of his healing during the off season. Clearing his head was essential to balance the rigorous months of travel, practice and back to back games.

  But the season wasn’t over yet. Ben still had a half dozen games left before the team would know if they even made it to the playoffs. He tried to make it up to the dam whenever he had a day off, but his schedule was packed. In addition to their games, the team had practice a couple times per week, typically on non-game days when the team was at home.

  Ben liked the feel of his car on the windy mountain roads, the way it hugged the curves of the road and powered itself through the forest and up to the lake. A large green sign told him he was entering August Lake National Recreation Area. He drove past the boat ramp and after the road snaked up around the mountain it finally deposited him at the top of the dam.

  He pulled off the road at the Vista Point parking area and got out of the car. It was typically windy up here on top of the world. The wind rustled through the Douglas fir trees and Ponderosa Pines and howled into Ben’s ears and ruffled his brown hair. Twisted Manzanita trees and rows of Sugar Pines stood like soldiers standing guard around the lake. The blue water of August Lake lapped against the red clay shore. August Lake was the largest man-made reservoir in California with over three hundred miles of shoreline.

  Ben liked August Lake and its town. It reminded him of a smaller version of Denver, his home town. Coming to the dam surrounded by mountains made him feel closer to home.

  Here, there were no coaches yelling at him. No one slamming his body into the wall, no one fighting him for control of the puck. Just him and the water and the trees. It was a beautiful sight. A Golden Eagle soared overhead, it‘s screech echoed along the lush green hills. The dam was an intimidating, curved concrete structure, standing at six hundred feet high. Along with the huge lake and majestic mountain, the scene made Ben feel small despite his muscular six foot two frame. It was the only place that could put everything in his life into perspective.

  He was used to playing in front of thousands of people watching his every move, so it was nice to enjoy some down time once in a while. In the world of professional sports, every athlete had a place they could escape to for relaxation. A hobby or passion to take them away to unwind from the pressures that came with performing for the fans.

  The schedule of the Red Valley Razors was rigorous and exhausting right up to the end of the season. Today, Ben and Dom were appearing at the Razors’ Merchandise Store for a meet and greet autograph signing. The next day, the annual charity game was being held to help raise money for disadvantaged kids. After that, the Razors had three games in four nights, with a day off in Orlando before playing the Orlando Everblades in Florida.

  Ben loved his team, but couldn’t shake the feeling of uneasiness in his gut. Teamwork had been on a steady decline since mid-season and he didn’t think he was getting enough support from the other guys on the team. To make matters worse, injuries were sweeping through the team like the bubonic plague. Currently, the Razors had an astonishing twelve players out with assorted injuries. There definitely wasn’t an ‘I’ in team, but lately Ben felt like he was the ‘M’ and the ‘E‘.

  Not only was the team riddled with injuries, but rookies as well. It was beginning to feel like Ben was fighting an uphill battle and he longed to be a part of a team with more skill and experience. He at least owed that to himself. After all, he had dedicated his life to the sport. Hockey was his life. Hell, hockey was life.

  Ben’s cell phone rang, interrupting the calming silence of August Lake. Caller ID showed him it was his Uncle Bobby calling from Denver.

  “Mornin, Coach.”

  Ever since Ben was a little boy he had called his uncle “Coach”. And it was fitting. Bobby had had a spectacular career in hockey as a player and had been the one to teach Ben all about the game. And now, his Uncle Bobby was the Head Coach for the Colorado Blizzards.

  “Good game last night,” Coach said.

  Uncle Bobby was all business, but Ben was honored that he took the time to watch his games. Ben’s Aunt Nan had been proud to divulge the fact that Bobby recorded every one of Ben’s games. Ben grinned, knowing that his uncle had a soft spot for him under his tough exterior.

  “Thanks.”

  “I just wish they would play you more. It grinds my gears how those idiots in Ca-lee-fornia aren’t using you to your potential. You are the sparkplug of that team and they only have you playing fifteen minutes per game.”

  “Fourteen, last night,” Ben corrected.

  “My point exactly. It’s like their heads have been out in the sun too damn long. You are far more talented than they give you credit for out there.”

  “Thanks for your vote of confidence, Coach. My agent is trying to get me some more ice time.”

  “They shouldn’t have to be told that. That’s part of why your team is in the crapper. You are the driving force of that team but
they‘re holding you back.”

  “I know.”

  Ben thought about his own issues with the team. It had been a while since he was one hundred percent happy with the Razors. The team chemistry hadn’t been there and there were a lot of cliques. But, then again, his contract was due to expire that summer, which would give him the opportunity to make some changes. By this time next year it could all be different. Anything could happen.

  * * *

  Dominic Devereaux was fearless on the ice. At 6’4” and 235 pounds, he was the most coveted defenseman in the league. He would slam his opponent into the glass with no regards to his own personal safety or anyone else‘s. And he loved fighting. Fighting was his favorite perk of the sport. If the wrong move was made on the ice or a teammate was mistreated, he would pull off his helmet and gloves and send the punches flying. Where Ben had speed, Dom had brute. And plenty of it. Very rarely did he leave a game without shedding the blood of himself or an opposing team member.

  With a mix of adrenaline and testosterone flowing through his veins, he was an unstoppable force on, and off, the ice. His body was in the best shape of his life. He had spent grueling hours at the gym, honing it into the perfect weapon on the ice. And the perfect accessory between the sheets. Between his rock hard chest, well-defined abs and muscular thighs, he was a fine specimen of a man. The only imperfection on his face was the slight crook of his nose and a faint scar on his forehead. His nose had been broken during a past game and the scar had been a painful gash from a skate blade years ago. Now his battle scars provided him with a perfect ice breaker for the ladies. Chicks dig scars.

  Dom was born in a small Canadian village, but preferred the night life in America. With his deep voice and slight hint of an accent, women tended to lose their inhibitions and their panties when he was around.