f you’re so innocent, how did I end up with my hand on...

She gasped. “This wasn’t my fault! You grabbed me and pulled me down next to you.” She pointed at him. “And then you kissed me.”

A frown pulled at the corners of his mouth. “You didn’t seem to mind.”

Mark looked across the chaise at his assistant. Her hair was messy and her lips a bit swollen. His fingers tightened around the handle of his cane to keep from grabbing her again. To keep from pushing her down and sliding his hand up her smooth thigh to her tight little butt.

“Well, at first I was in shock. Then I was just waiting for you to relax so I could get away.” She shrugged her shoulder like the little actress she was. “I was just about to knee you in the nut sac and run.”

He laughed. No wonder she was out of work. She just wasn’t that convincing. Not when he could still hear her long, needy moan in his head.

The doorbell rang once more. “I’m not expecting anyone,” he said. “Did you set anything up without telling me?”

“Of course not. Maybe it’s the Realtor. She’s really excited about a house in Bellevue.”

He held his hands wide and didn’t need to look down to know there was an obvious bulge in the front of his jeans. “You’re going to have to get that.”

Her gaze slid down his chest to the zipper closing the front of his Lucky’s. For several long seconds she stared at his erection as red crept up her cheeks. “Oh.” She spun on the heels of her sandals and practically ran from the room.

Mark watched her go, then leaned over to grab the remote from the end table. He turned off the television and tossed the remote on the chaise. He’d been dreaming of her. Again. He’d been dreaming of her and then she’d become a living, breathing part of that dream. When he’d first awakened and looked up at her, he’d been confused. In his dream she’d been naked, and they’d been having mad, crazy sex. Then he’d opened his eyes and she was wearing that horrible Pucci dress.

He moved to the French doors and looked out into his backyard and the golf course beyond. Pulling her down beside him and kissing her neck was all a dreamy haze, reality mixed with fantasy. But the sound of her hungry moan had cleared the confusion, and he’d lifted his head to look at her. He’d had a fleeting thought that he should stop, but then she’d pulled his head down to hers and kissed him with her wet mouth and smooth tongue. Any thought of stopping instantly vanished, replaced by darker, hotter thoughts. Thoughts of doing all the naughty little things he’d been doing to her naughty little body for the past week in his dreams. He didn’t know if that made him lonely or obsessed or sick. Maybe it made him all three.

“There’s som ^eone here to see you.”

Mark turned back to the room, ready to tell her to get rid of whoever had shown up on his porch. He opened his mouth, but the words never passed his lips. His gaze landed on a skinny kid with short red hair stuck to his head, bright copper freckles on his face, and gold-rimmed glasses. Mark’s memory after the accident might be spotty, but he remembered the boy in the doorway. It was hard to forget a kid who completely lacked basic hockey fundamentals. The kid skated like a windmill, chopped at the puck, and whacked the other kids in the shins. “Hello, Derek. How’s it going?”

“Good, Coach Bressler.”

What was the kid doing here, and how had he found Mark? “What can I do for you?”

“I got your e-mail. So I’m here.”

Mark raised his gaze to Chelsea, who stood by the boy’s side. Her face was carefully blank. He knew that look. She was guilty as hell. “I’m kind of forgetful because of the accident,” he told the boy. “So you’ll have to remind me what I wrote in the e-mail.”

Derek held up a pair of inline skates, tied together. “That I should come show you my hockey stops.”

Chelsea’s jaw dropped and she shook her head. “You did not write that.”

He tilted his head to one side and folded his arms across his T-shirt. “What else didn’t I write?”

Chelsea’s eyes narrowed as she stared down at the kid by her side. “You didn’t write that he should come here and practice, that’s for sure.”

Derek looked up at Chelsea, and behind the lenses of his glasses, his eyes narrowed too. “How do you know?”

“Well, I…I…I spell-check all Mr. Bressler’s e-mails before he sends them out. Because of his memory problem, and all that.”

It was a bad lie, but the kid bought it. He nodded and turned his attention to Mark. “I could help, maybe. My mom helps me with flash cards.”

The last thing Mark needed was for the kid to show up tomorrow with flash cards. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m much better now. How did you get my address?”

Derek pushed up his glasses with his free hand. “The Internet.”

The kid’s answer was alarming. If an eight-year-old boy could find him, who else could?

“I’m sure you’ve broken some sort of law. First by somehow hacking Mr. Bressler’s e-mail and now by finding his house.”

“I didn’t break any law! His e-mail is on the paper we got last year. And I just put his name in Whosit and got the address.”

What was Whosit?

Chelsea shook one finger at Derek. “Even if you didn’t break any laws, which I’m not so sure about, it’s rude to just show up at people’s houses. Does your mother know where you are?”

Derek shrugged one skinny shoulder. “My older sister is at the mall and my m c maom’s at work. She won’t get off until six.”

“Where do you live?” Mark asked.

“Redmond.”

“How did you get here?”

“Bike.”

No wonder the kid’s hair was stuck to his head. “Do you want some water or a soda?” He couldn’t have the kid die of dehydration before he sent him back home.

Derek nodded. “Do you have Gatorade? Like we drank in hockey camp?”

“Probably.” He tightened his grip on the cane and headed toward the door. “And you need to call your mom and tell her that you’re here.”

“Do I have to, Coach? Can’t I just leave before she gets home?”

“No.” Mark moved to the threshold and motioned for Derek to precede him. The boy moved out of the way, and Mark gazed down into Chelsea’s face. “You and I will talk later.”

She stuck her chin up in the air. “I never told him to come over and practice.”

He looked into the variegated blue in her eyes. “Not about that.”

“About what?”

He lowered his attention to her mouth. “About what happened before Derek rang the doorbell.”

“Oh, that.”

“Yeah, that.” Although he really didn’t know what there was to say about that. Other than he was sorry and it wouldn’t happen again.

He tore his gaze from his assistant’s mouth and followed the kid down the hall. Derek’s socks slid down his skinny shins as he walked. “Are you in hockey camp this year?”

Derek shook his head. “My mom said we don’t got the money this year.”

Mark knew that a lot of kids got their hockey camp fee paid for through one of the Chinooks’ various organizations. He was fairly sure Derek had been one of those kids last year. “Didn’t you get a scholarship?”

“Not this year.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know.”

Mark walked beside Derek into the kitchen. The light bounced off the kid’s red hair, glasses, and the white, white skin between all those freckles.

“What name did we pick out for you last year?” he asked as he moved to the refrigerator and opened it.

Derek set his skates on the floor beside his feet. “The Hackster.”

“That’s right.” At camp, each kid got a hockey name. Derek was the Hackster for the way he hacked at the puck. Mark pulled out a bottle of green Gatorade and opened it with the palm of his right hand.

“Does it hurt?”

Mark looked up. “What?”

“Your hand.”

He tossed the cap on the granite island and flexed his fingers. The middle one stayed perfectly stiff. “It kind of aches sometimes. Not as much as it used to.” He handed Derek the bottle.

“Does your middle finger bend?”

Mark held up his hand and showed the kid. “Nope. It stays like this no matter what.”

“That’s cool.”

He laughed. “You think so?”

“Yep. You can flip people off and not get in trouble.” Derek took a long drink until he ran out of breath and lowered the bottle. “The school can’t call your mom,” he said between gasps, “’cause it’s not your fault.”

True. In his case, the school would have called his grandmother, who would have told his father, who would have skinned his behind.

“Are you going to play hockey again?”

Mark shook his head and looked down at the cap on the granite island. His agent had called him earlier that afternoon about possibly commentating for ESPN. “Afraid not.” While he wasn’t ruling it out, he’d wait for a solid offer. He wasn’t all that excited about sitting in a studio and talking about the game rather than being on the ice where the action took place. But as his agent had pointed out, job offers for Mark Bressler were drying up as fast as endorsement deals.

“My mom took me to a playoffs game against Detroit. We won three to one.” Derek took another drink, then pushed his glasses up. “Ty Savage put a hit on McCarty in retaliation for the hit McCarty put on Savage in game four. It was a good game, but it would have been better if you’d been there.” Derek looked up. His eyes glazed with hero worship. “You’re the best player ever. Better than Savage.”

Mark wouldn’t go so far as to say he was better than Ty Savage. Well, maybe a little.

“Even better than Gretzky.”

Mark wasn’t so sure he was better than Gretzky, but one thing he was absolutely sure of: He’d never been comfortable in the hero role. He’d played hockey. He’d never saved a life or put his own life on the line. He’d never been a damn hero, but it seemed important to Derek. “Thanks, Hackster.”

Derek set his bottle on the island. “Do you want to see my stops?”

Not really, but when the kid looked at him like that, he couldn’t say no. “Sure.” He pointed to Derek’s skates. “You can show me on the front drive.” It was long enough that the kid wouldn’t run into anything, except Chelsea’s car. But really, what was one more dent?

Derek grabbed his skates, and the two of them headed toward the front of the house. As they moved past the office, Chelsea stuck her head out of the door.

“Can I talk to you, Mr. Bressler?”

He put his hand on Derek’s shoulder. “Go ahead and put your skates on outside. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Okay, Coach.”

He watched Derek close the big door behind him before he approached his assistant. He was sure she’d want to talk about the kiss. “I’m sorry about grabbing you earlier,” he said, getting it over with. “It won’t happen again.”

She pushed up the corners of her lips. “Let’s just forget it ever happened.”

“Can you do that?” In his experience, women didn’t tend to forget something like that. They liked to pick at it and dissect it for days.

“Oh yeah.” She chuckled and waved a hand over her head as if the memory had been swept away. Her movement raised the hem of her hideous dress up her thigh. The laugh was a little too fake to convince anyone, least of all him. “Not a big deal. I’d already forgotten it.”

Liar. He took a step closer and stopped a few inches from her, forcing her to tilt her head back and look up at him as if she was waiting for his kiss. “I’m glad you’re not going to make a big deal out of it. I was half asleep.” Now it was his turn to lie. “And all doped up.” He hadn’t taken any Vicodin since that morning.

Her smile fell. “I think we’ve already established that we are not even remotely attracted to each other. You think my face is okay, but not my body. And while I find you…” She held up one hand and tilted it from one side to the other. “…okay, you’re rude and your personality sucks. And I like a man with a good personality.”

He doubted that like hell. “Right.”

“I do,” she tried to argue.

“You’re talking like a homely girl.” And she was far from homely. “Only homely girls like guys for their personality.”

She pointed at him. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. That was really rude.”

He shrugged. “Maybe, but it’s true.”

She frowned and folded her arms beneath her breasts. “What happened earlier isn’t what I needed to talk over with you. An agent from Windemere called regarding a house in Bellevue. It’s about to go on the market, and the agent wanted to show it to you first.”

“Set it up for next week.”

“She wanted to show it today.”

He shook his head and moved to the front door. The less time he spent with his assistant at the moment, the better. “I’ve got a date with the Hackster.”

“The kid is trouble.”

Derek wasn’t the only one. Mark looked over his shoulder at his cute little assistant with the sassy hair and smart mouth. The woman was nothing but trouble.

He opened the front door and closed it behind him. Derek sat on the porch fastening his skates. “That girl’s mean.”

“Chelsea?” He put the tip of his cane on the stair below and stepped down. Chelsea was many things. Annoying being the most prominent, but she wasn c, b’t mean.

“She gave me the stink eye.”

Mark laughed. “She didn’t give you the stink eye.” Although she had given Mark the stink eye on one or more occasions. The day she’d found out that sending her to buy those condoms had been a fool’s errand came to mind. “She just told you what you didn’t want to hear. You shouldn’t just show up at someone’s house. It’s rude.” He pulled his cell out of his pocket and handed it to the boy. “Call your mom.”

Derek finished buckling his skates. “Oh, man.”

“Did you think I’d forgotten?”

“Yes.” The kid punched the seven numbers and waited for the axe to fall. The grim line of his mouth turned to a smile and he whispered, “It’s going to her voice mail.”

Lucky break.

“Hi Mom. I went on a bike ride and ran into Coach Mark. I’ll be home by six. Love you. Bye.”

Mark let Derek’s little lie go for now.

The kid shut the phone and handed it to Mark. “I can skate backward now. I’ve been practicing in my basement.”

Mark dumped his phone in his back pocket. “Show me.”

Derek stood, and his ankles fell inward. He held his arms out to the sides and slowly moved his skates back and forth until he rolled to the center of the drive. He used a one-foot drag to stop. Much better than the snowplow he’d been using last summer, but his balance still sucked.

“That’s pretty good.”

Derek smiled as the late afternoon sun caught fire in his hair and bounced off his white forehead.

“Watch this.” He bent his knees, hunched over, and put pressure on the insides of the skates. He rolled back a couple of inches and beamed like he’d just scored a hat trick. What Derek lacked in skill, he made up for in heart. Heart was the one indefinable element that made a good player into a great player. No amount of drills could teach heart.

“You’re getting there.” Too bad heart wasn’t enough. “But you’re bent over looking at your feet. What’s the number one rule in hockey?”

“No whining.”

“Number two.”

“Keep your head up.”

“That’s right.” He pointed his cane at the boy. “Have you been practicing your step-overs and jumps?”

Derek sighed. “No.”

He lowered his cane and looked at his watch. “Keep your head up and get going to the end of the driveway and back.”

Chelsea pushed back the heavy drapes and watched Derek lift one knee and then the other. He marched toward the end of the driveway, his arms out from his shoulders. As he attempted to turn around, he fell on his skinny behind.

“Keep your head up,” Mark yelled.

Derek dusted himself off and marched all the way back. He reminded Chelsea of Rupert Grint in the first Harry Potter movie. Only geekier.

Mark met him in the center of the drive and handed him a half-full bottle of Gatorade. Chelsea couldn’t hear what Mark said to the boy, just the deep timbre of his voice. Derek nodded and drank.

Mark took the bottle and returned it to the shade of the porch. “Two small. One big,” he called out to the kid, and Derek began jumping in place. He immediately fell.

Chelsea let go of the curtain and moved from the office. She walked outside and stood next to Mark. “I thought he was going to show you a few stops and go home. Why are you making him march and jump up and down?”

“The kid needs to learn balance.” He pointed his cane at the boy and hollered, “Now change it up. Small jump. Big jump. Small jump. Big jump. Bend your knees, Derek.”

“Who are you? Mr. Miyagi?” She held her hands up in front of her, palms out. “Wax on. Wax off. Bend your knees, Derekson.”

He chuckled. “Something like that.” He walked to the center of the driveway, a slight hitch in his otherwise fluid steps and his cane a smooth extension of his arm. Chelsea folded her arms beneath her breasts and sat on the porch. Mark pointed down the driveway, said something about pushing and gliding. Falling down and getting back up again.

“Use your hips. Head up,” Mark called after him. After about fifteen minutes of pushing and gliding, the kid was clearly winded. His cheek had turned a bright red, one of his knees was skinned, and Chelsea almost felt sorry for him. Almost, but the little liar had made her look bad.

He collapsed on the porch next to Chelsea and reached for his Gatorade. “I’m getting good,” he said before he upended the bottle and drained it. Chelsea was no expert, but even she could see the kid had a long way to go before he approached “getting good.”

The boy looked up at Mark, his eyes filled with exhaustion and hero worship. “Maybe I could come back and practice some more.”

Right, like Mark would want the kid hanging around. He didn’t like anyone hanging around.

A frown line creased Mark’s brow as if he had a sudden headache. “Check with Chelsea to see which days I’m free next week.”

Chelsea was shocked. “You’re free Wednesday and Friday.”

Derek set down the bottle and unbuckled his skates. “I have summer band practice on Wednesday.”

Of course he did. He probably played the tuba. Most of the skinny band-os she’d ever known had played the tuba. Kind of like most of the short guys she’d ever known had driven trucks.

“How about Tuesday and Thursday?” Mark countered.

“You’re house hunting those two mornings.”

“I can come in the afternoon,” Derek said as he tied his shoes. He stood and shoved his skates into a backpack he’d hidden next to the porch. He zip c poped the backpack closed and threaded his stick arms through the straps.

“Have your mom call me.” Mark placed his right hand on the kid’s sweaty head. “When you get home, drink lots of water and get lots of rest.”

“Okay, Coach.”

Chelsea bit the side of her lip. Inside his crusty, cantankerous, jerk-wad, wrapped-up-in-rhino-skin exterior, he was a softie.

She stood as Derek moved to the front of the garage where he’d left his bike. “Shouldn’t we give him a ride?”

“Hell no.” Mark scoffed. “He needs to build up the strength in his legs. He’s as weak as a girl. Riding a bike will be good for him.” He turned to look at Chelsea, at her two-tone hair and wild dress. He had an assistant who was more trouble than she was worth, and now a skinny, star-struck, wimpy kid stopping by twice a week. How in the hell had that happened? “It’s getting close to five.”

“I was just about to leave. Need anything before I go?”

There she went again. Asking him what he needed. “Not a thing.” He moved back out into the driveway as Derek rode away.

“See you Monday, then,” Chelsea called after him.

He raised a hand and moved to the garage door. He punched the code into the key pad, and the door slowly rose. If he was going to help the kid out, he needed his coach’s whistle. He ducked beneath the door and moved past his Mercedes. This week he hadn’t taken as much medication. His grasp was coming back in his right hand, and he was sure he could drive again soon. He flipped on a light and continued toward the shelves in the back.

The last time he’d seen his whistle and stopwatch, he’d shoved them in a gym bag. He leaned his cane against the wall and looked up at the floor-to-ceiling shelves. His gaze leveled on a blue equipment bag, and the air left his lungs as if he’d been punched in the chest. The bag was old and worn and had logged thousands of air miles. He didn’t need to look inside to know that it held his skates and pads. His helmet and jersey. His hockey shorts and socks were in there. Probably his protective cup too.

When management had come to him in the hospital to tell him the guys wanted to keep his stuff in his locker, he’d told them to pack it up and take it to his house. The guys had had enough to think about besides him. They hadn’t needed the daily reminder, and he hadn’t wanted to someday walk into the locker room and pack it all up.

Next to the equipment bag lay his long stick bag. And he didn’t need to see the Sher-Wood sticks inside to know that each blade had been manufactured especially for him, with a half-inch curve depth and a 6.0 lie. White grip tape wrapped around the handles, candy-caned down the black shafts, and wrapped heel to toe. His old life was in those two bags. Everything that he was and ever wanted to be. All that was left after nineteen years in the NHL was in those bags. That and the hero worship of one eight-year-old boy with skinny legs and weak ankles.

He’d told the boy he’d coach him twice a week, and he wasn’t quite sure how that had happened. One second he’d been thinking about getting inside out of the heat, and in the next he’d told the kid to check with Chelsea to see which days csee worked out best. He hadn’t even been thinking about coaching Derek, but the kid had looked up at him like Mark had once looked at guys like Phil Esposito and Bobby Hull. That look had dropped him quicker than a cheap shot to the cup.

He was a sucker. That explained it.

Of course, another explanation was that he didn’t have a lot going on in his life. He reached up and grabbed a smaller gym bag from one of the upper shelves. He had no job and no family. He was thirty-eight, divorced, and had no kids. His grandmother and father lived several states away. They had their own lives, and he saw them only about once a year.

What he did have was a house that was too big, a Mercedes he couldn’t yet drive, and an assistant who was driving him insane. The crazy part was that he was beginning to like Chelsea for no explainable reason. She had a smart mouth, and physically she wasn’t his type of woman. He was at least a foot taller than she and had to outweigh her by a hundred pounds. And as a general rule, he was attracted to women who liked him, not who looked at him as if he was a dickhead. Although he supposed he couldn’t blame her for that. He was a dickhead, which, surprisingly bothered him more than it used to.

He unzipped the bag, and inside was a whistle, a stopwatch, and a ball cap the kids from last year’s hockey camp had given him, with “#1 Coach” embroidered across it.

He took a few youth-sized sticks and orange cones off the shelf. Derek White didn’t have the innate skill to ever play professional hockey. He just wasn’t an athlete, but there were a lot of guys who loved the game and played in the beer leagues. Guys who were passionate and still had a lot of fun. Mark couldn’t remember the last time he’d laced up his skates with the sole purpose of having a good time.

He put the hat on his head and adjusted it a few times until he found the perfect spot. It felt good. Right. Like nothing had felt in a real long time. He’d loved hockey. Loved everything about it, but somewhere along the line, it had stopped being fun. Playing had been about winning. Every game. Every time.

From outside, he heard Chelsea’s car pull out of the driveway, and he moved toward the back door. He’d known his assistant for less than two weeks. Twelve days. It felt longer. She took charge of his days and invaded his sleep.

The other day she’d told him that he looked in control of his life. Hardly. Before the accident, he’d been in control on and off the ice. He’d controlled his personal life as well as his chaotic career. He’d controlled the sometimes out-of-control antics of his fellow teammates, and he’d controlled who walked into his home.

A nagging ache settled in his hip and thigh as he moved through the door and into the kitchen. He reached inside a drawer and pulled out a bottle of Vicodin. Now he controlled neither. He opened the bottle and looked down at the white pills spilling into his palm. It would be so easy. So easy to take a handful. To pop them into his mouth like PEZ and forget all his problems. To let the strong opiate do more than take away his pain. To let it numb his brain and pull him into a nice, cozy place where nothing mattered.