e thought of Chelsea and their conversation about control....

He thought of Chelsea playing hockey in her little skirt. If he wasn’t very, very careful, he might end up liking her too much too.

Friday night when Bo got home from work, she handed Chelsea a business card. On the front was the name and information of a media company that the Chinook organization used to produce all their commercials. Handwritten on the back was the name and number of the talent agency they used.

“I thought you might be interested,” Bo said. “Most of the time we use the players in our advertising, but sometimes we use local actors.”

She looked the card over and checked out the agency on the Internet. She’d be in Seattle for several more months. Depending on where she decided to have her breast surgery, maybe longer. She had to figure out something to do with her time, other than watch TV, go to nightclubs, answer Mark Bressler’s fan e-mail, and set up appointments with real estate agents. So why not? If she didn’t like the talent agency, she’d know within moments of walking in the doors. No harm, no foul. She’d take her résumé and leave.

On her way to work Monday, she called the agency and set up a meeting for Tuesday when Mark would be coaching Derek. An hour later, she switched cars and drove Mark to see the house in Bellevue. The seven-thousand-square-foot mansion on the waterfront in Newport Shores was filled with hand-crafted parquet flooring and massive oak timbers. The huge windows at the rear of the house looked out over a large backyard with a cabana and spa next to the swimming pool. It had a bar and a temperature-controlled wine room. As for opulence, it was on par with the house he currently lived in and had the added bonus of being priced a million dollars less.

Mark stood in the pantry about the size of Bo’s entire apartment and said, “I don’t need a house this big.”

Chelsea was pretty sure she’d told him the total square footage before they left his house.

“And I don’t want to live behind gates,” he added.

He’d never mentioned his aversion to gates, but if he’d looked at the information about the house that she’d printed out for him, he would have known. After they left the estate, she looked at him across the Mercedes and asked, “Do you sit around and think up ways to be difficult or is it a natural reflex? Like breathing.”

He put his mirrored glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I thought I was being nice today.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged.

She shook her head. “I didn’t notice.” She paid more attention as she drove him to the dentist. And she supposed if sitting in uncomfortable silence equaled being nice for him, then yeah, he was nice. But an hour later on the way home from the dentist, he totally blew it with his horrid backseat driving again. Oddly enough, sh fe found it more relaxing than his efforts to be nice.

“The light’s about to turn red.”

“It’s still yellow,” she pointed out as she sped through the intersection. “I thought you were going to be nice.”

“I can’t when I’m worried about getting killed. Are you sure you have a valid driver’s license?”

“Yes. Issued by the state of California.”

“Well, that explains it.”

Behind her sunglasses she rolled her eyes and changed the conversation. “Did you have cavities?”

“It wasn’t that kind of appointment. He just wanted to check my implants to make sure they are still okay.”

Chelsea knew about dental implants. She had a friend who’d knocked out her front teeth in a surfing accident. The dentist had drilled screws into her upper jaw, then stuck porcelain crowns on the spikes. If a person hadn’t known she’d had her teeth knocked out, you wouldn’t be able to tell. “How many do you have?”

“Three implants and four crowns.” He pointed to the top left side of his mouth. “I’m lucky.”

She wondered what he considered unlucky.

Tuesday afternoon she took her portfolio to the talent agency in downtown Seattle. She met with the owner, Alanna Bell, who reminded Chelsea a little of Janeane Garafalo. But the Janeane of ten years ago, before the actress had turned all bitter about life.

“What’s your real hair color?” Alanna asked as she riffled through a file folder.

“The last I checked, it was brown.”

“I could find more work for you if your hair isn’t two colors. Would you be willing to dye it if I asked you?”

She looked at all the posters and signed photographs on the wall of Alanna’s office. The vibe in the agency felt good. Right, and she should know. She’d met her fair share of sleazy agents. “I’d consider it, yes.”

“I see you’ve studied at the Theater of Arts.”

“Yes. As well as a few years at UCLA.”

Alanna handed her a monolog from White Oleander. Chelsea wasn’t a huge fan of cold readings, but it was part of the business. She took a deep breath, cleared her head of everything but the words in front of her, and read: “The Santa Anas blew in hot…” When she was through, she set the paper on the desk and waited as she had countless times before. But this time there was something different. Strangely enough, sitting in the agent’s office a thousand miles from Hollywood, cold reading, she felt the teasing nibble of the acting bug. Only it was calmer than it had been in years. She didn’t have to prove anything to anyone here in Seattle. Least of all herself. There was no pressure to meet the right people or compete for the right part that would launch her career. Here she could just act. She could relax and have fun with it. Something she hadn’t done in a while.

k" w“I might have some background work for you this weekend.” She glanced down at Chelsea’s résumé. “HBO is sending up a crew to shoot around the Seattle Music Experience.”

Chelsea groaned inside. She wasn’t a fan of standing around in the background for hours, but it was a start and wouldn’t interfere with her real job. “Sounds great.”

“I assume you have a union card?”

Chelsea dug it out of her wallet and slid it across the desk. After several more moments, she shook Alanna’s hand and drove to Medina. Keeping her head in acting and exercising her craft before she returned to L.A. was a good idea. She’d heard of well-known actors and actresses who, after a few big movies, had left the spotlight to act in off-Broadway shows, only to return rejuvenated and with a clearer head. She’d never understood it before, but now she did. Her own head felt clearer. Chasing the dream for ten years had robbed her of the joy of acting. The fun of getting to play someone else for a while.

She drove down Mark’s street and pulled up next to the curb. It was a little after two, and Mark stood in the middle of his long driveway, one hand on his cane, the other on his hip. Instead of his regular uniform of white T-shirt and jogging pants, he wore a dark green polo and jeans. A beige ball cap shaded his eyes and cast a shadow across the lower half of his face. Derek stood several feet away, hockey stick in his hands, pushing a puck from side to side. Chelsea parked on the street to give them plenty of room. A slight breeze ruffled her hair and the bottom of her Burberry kilt skirt as she walked toward him. A pair of dark glasses shaded her eyes from the sun.

“How long do I have to do this?” the boy asked.

“Until you can do it and keep your head up,” Mark answered, looking so big and imposing next to such a skinny kid.

Chelsea stopped in front of him and pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head. “Do you guys need anything?”

He looked at her, and the shadow from his hat slid down his nose to the bow of his top lip. “Like what?”

“Water? Gatorade?”

Slowly, one corner of his mouth lifted. “No. That isn’t what I need.”

“Then what do you need?”

From within the shadow of his brim, his gaze lowered from her eyes to her mouth, down her chin and throat to the front of her white blouse. His attention felt almost like a physical caress. Her stomach got all light and her breath got stuck in her lungs as his gaze paused mid-chest before sliding to her skirt and bare thighs. Within the shadow of his hat she felt the heat of his brown eyes, and she half expected him to say that what he needed was her.

“How was your meeting?” he asked.

“What meeting?”

“With the talent agent.” He turned to watch Derek and she could breathe again. “Isn’t that where you went?”

Oh, that meeting. “It was good. She wants me to do background work at that Seattle Music Experience by the Space Needle.”

“What k’s background work?” he asked without taking his attention from Derek.

“It’s just like it sounds. It means I stand in the background looking like I’m doing something important.” She pushed her hair from her face. “She asked me to dye my hair one color.”

“Head up and roll your wrists,” he called out to Derek. “Did you tell her no?”

She glanced up at him and her mouth parted in surprise. “You hate my hair.”

“I don’t hate it.”

“You said I looked like a Russian just off the boat.”

“I was talking more about your clothes.” He looked down at her, and once again the shadow of his hat slid to the bow of his top lip. “Your hair’s not so bad. I’ve gotten used to it.”

“Is this you trying to be nice again?”

“No. If I was trying to be nice, I’d tell you that you look good.”

Chelsea glanced down at her white blouse and Burberry kilt. “Because it’s more conservative than what I usually wear?”

He chuckled. “Because your skirt’s short.” He pointed his cane at Derek. “You can stop now. I think you’re ready for some passes.” He walked into the garage, and when he returned, he had a hockey stick in his right hand. He thrust it toward Chelsea. “Derek, you’re going to feed passes to Chelsea.”

“Me?”

“Her? She’s a girl.”

“That’s right,” Mark agreed, and she half expected him to say something sexist. “She’s little and quick, so you better watch yourself.”

She took the stick and pointed to her feet. “I’m in three-inch heels.”

“You don’t have to move. All you have to do is stop the puck.”

“I’m wearing a skirt!”

“Then I guess you’re going to have to be really careful not to bend over.” Beneath the shadow hitting his top lip, he grinned. “I wouldn’t mind, but we have to keep it clean ’cause Derek’s a minor and I promised his mom.”

“The things I do for this job.” She kicked off her shoes and lowered her sunglasses to the bridge of her nose.

Mark walked several feet away and pointed to Derek. “Move down ice. Bring the puck up and just feed it to her.”

Derek moved down the driveway, barely able to stay up on his skates. Not only couldn’t he skate, but he got tangled up with his stick. A few times he nearly fell, and when he finally did shoot, it went wide and Chelsea had to run after it.

“You’re watching the puck,” Mark told him. “Keep your head up and your eyes where you want the puck to go.” He tried again, and once again he barely stayed on his skates and Chelsea had to run after the puck. After the fourth straight time, she was getting a little irritated.

=“0%”>

“I’m tired of running after your pucks,” she complained as she brought the puck to the middle of the driveway.

“Derek, what is the first rule of hockey?”

“No whining, Coach.”

Chelsea frowned and looked from Derek’s flushed face to Mark. “Is that in the official rule book?”

“Yes. Along with the importance of trash talk.” Keeping his right leg straight, Mark bent down and picked up the puck. “So let’s hear some chatter,” he said as he handed it to the kid.

“Okay, Coach.” This time as Derek skated toward her, he said, “Your hair is stupid and you have a stink eye.” He shot, and the puck hit Chelsea’s stick and bounced off.

“I have a what?”

“Stink eye.”

She raised a hand to the lenses of her glasses. “I do?”

Derek laughed and Mark shook his head. “No. Trash talk doesn’t have to be true. It just has to be distracting.” He picked up the puck and tossed it to Derek. “That was a good one. You do better when you’re not trying so hard.”

This time when he skated toward Chelsea, she was ready for him with something she figured was age-and Derek-appropriate. “You’re so skinny, you can hula hoop with a Cheerio,” she said, thinking she was pretty clever.

Derek shot. It went a little wide but she was able to stop it without have to run too far. He shook his head. “That was stupid.”

This from the kid who said she had a stink eye? She looked at Mark and he shrugged. “Maybe you should work on your trash talk.”

She wasn’t the only one. Other than stink eye, Derek didn’t have any other insults in his repertoire, and after he’d called her that three more times, she was ready to whack him with her stick. So when he got tangled up in his skates and fell, she wasn’t exactly feeling bad for him.

“Ouch.” He rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky.

“Are you okay?” Mark asked as he walked toward the kid.

“The stick hit my nuts.”

“Ohh.” Mark sucked in a breath through his teeth. “That sucks. Ringing the berries is the worst thing about hockey.”

The boy didn’t look too hurt. He wasn’t writhing in pain or anything, and Chelsea could think of a few things worse than berry-ringing pain. Like the puck hitting your face and getting your teeth knocked out.

“It really hurts.”

“I thought there was no whining in hockey,” she reminded them.

Mark scowled as if she’d said something really insensitive. “You can whine about a smashed nut.”

“Is that an actual clause in the rule book?”

“If it isn’t, it should be. Ev k sheryone knows that.” He got down on one knee beside the kid. “Are you going to be okay?”

Derek nodded. “I think so.” He sat up, and Chelsea was pretty sure if she hadn’t been standing there, the kid would have cupped himself.

“Then let’s call it a day,” Mark suggested, and helped Derek stand up.

Chelsea was certainly ready to quit. She walked back to where she’d left her shoes and dusted off the bottoms of her feet. She leaned on the stick as she slipped her feet inside her pumps.

Derek changed out of his skates and shoved them into his backpack. He handed Mark his stick and carefully climbed onto his bike. “Are you going to be okay to ride home? Do you need a ride?” Mark asked, and Derek shook his head.

“I’m all right, Coach.”

She guessed it was okay to make him ride his bike if he was exhausted. Just not with a “smashed nut.”

As Derek rode away, Mark moved toward the garage doors. “What do you have planned for the rest of the day?” he asked her.

“Answering your fan e-mails.” She followed him, letting her gaze travel from the back of his hat, down his neck and wide shoulders, to his tapered waist and hard butt. The man made everything look good. “Why?”

“Some of the guys are coming over to play poker tomorrow night. I thought if I wrote you out a list, you could go to the store and pick up some beer and snacks.”

“Now?”

“Yeah.” He took her stick and placed it on a shelf in front of a big gym bag. “I’ll give you some cash.” He pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and opened it. “Well, that sucks. I only have a five,” he said, and returned his wallet. “I guess that means we both go.”

She lifted a brow. “You shop? For your own groceries? Aren’t you too big a star?”

“You have me confused with one of your celebrities.” He moved to the back door and reached inside the house. He came back with a set of keys and tossed them to her. “There’s a Whole Foods down the street.”

“Are you going to backseat drive?”

“No.”

She stood her ground and refused to get into the car. “Promise?”

He raised his right hand and looked like he was flipping her off more than swearing an oath. “Not even if you sideswipe a tree and kill me.”

“Don’t tempt me.” She opened the door and slid inside. The seat was so far back, she couldn’t reach the steering wheel, let alone the pedals. “Have you been driving?”

“No.” He looked away and shut his door. “I was looking for something the other day.”

“What?”

“Something.”

He didn’t want to tell her, fine. As long as he didn’t turn into the b kurnackseat driver from hell, he could keep his secret. And surprisingly, he was true to his word. He didn’t complain at all about her driving. Not even when she tested him by coming to a rolling stop at a stop sign.

Whole Foods was one of those stores that took great pride in selling natural and organic foods to people who could afford it. The kind of place that had a killer deli and a kick-butt bakery. The kind that Chelsea generally avoided if she was shopping on her own dime.

She grabbed a cart and they hit the beer aisle first. Mark loaded up on local brew. Everything from Red Hook and Pyramid to beers she’d never heard of. He grabbed bags of blue chips and organic salsa. He bought crackers and three kinds of cheese. Prosciutto and thinly sliced salami.

“Do you know how to make nachos?” he asked as they headed toward the milk case.

“No.” There were certain boundaries she didn’t cross with employers. Slaving away in their kitchens was one of them.

“It can’t be that hard.”

“Then you do it.”

“I tried it once.” He shoved a quart of sour cream and a gallon of milk into the cart. “And I burned my hand and couldn’t wear my glove for a week.”

“Poor baby.”

“You can say that again. That burn was pretty much the reason I didn’t win the Art Ross Trophy in 2007.”

“The what trophy?”

“Art Ross. It’s the trophy given to a player who has the most points at the end of the regular season. Sidney Crosby won it that year. Beat me by five points, all on account of nachos.”

She chuckled. “Is that even true?”

He smiled and held up his bad hand like he was a Boy Scout again. He reached for bags of shredded cheese. “It’ll be easy. You won’t even have to grate the cheese.”

“Sorry. Making nachos is above my pay grade.”

He dropped the bags of cheddar into the cart. “What is your pay grade?”

“Why?”

“Just curious about what keeps you coming back every day.”

“My deep and abiding commitment to people in need,” she lied.

He shook his head. “Try again.”

She laughed. “I get paid fifteen bucks an hour.”

“Fifteen bucks an hour to answer e-mails and drive my car? That’s easy money.”

Spoken like a typical pain in the backside. “I have to put up with you and now Derek.”

“Derek’s an eggbeater. You should make human resources give you hazard pay.”

He must not have been told about the bonus. She wondered whether she should tell him. The Chinooks’ organization hadn’t ever told her not to mention it to anyone. She didn’t think it was kt t a secret, but something held her back. “Maybe I will if he ever connects with my shin.”

“First he has to stay on his feet.” He smiled, and it spread to the tiny creases in the corners of his eyes.

“Hello, Mark.”

He looked over his shoulder at the tall woman behind them. His smile fell. “Chrissy.”

“How are you doing?” The woman had platinum-blond hair and turquoise eyes. She was stunning, like a supermodel, but like a lot of models, she wasn’t perfect. Her nose was a little too long. Like Sarah Jessica Parker in The Family Stone. Not the Sarah Jessica of the Sex and the City movie. That Sarah Jessica was way too skinny.

He spread his arms. “Good.”

While Chrissy checked out Mark, Chelsea checked out Chrissy’s vintage Fendi satchel with the classic Fendi clasp in black. The purse was so difficult to find, it was practically an urban legend.

“You look good.”

“Still with the old man you married?”

Ouch. That sounded bitter, and Chelsea figured that Chrissy must be a former girlfriend. She was the sort of woman Chelsea would expect to see with him.

“Howard’s not that old, Mark. And, yes, we’re still together.”

“Not that old? He’s got to be seventy-five.”

“Sixty-five,” Chrissy corrected.

Sixty-five wasn’t old unless you were thirty-five. Which was how old the woman looked. But who was Chelsea to judge? She might have married an old guy to get her hands on that vintage Fendi too.

The woman’s attention turned to Chelsea. “Who’s your girlfriend?”

That someone would mistake her for Mark’s girlfriend was humorous. “Oh, I’m—”

“Chelsea,” he interrupted her. “This is Christine, my ex-wife.”

Wife? She remembered Mark had said something about his ex-wife getting a nose job. She wondered how big it had been before. “It’s nice to meet you.” She stuck out her hand.

Chrissy’s fingers barely touched Chelsea’s before she dropped her arm to her side and turned her attention back to Mark. “I heard you were in a rehabilitation hospital until last month.”

“I got your flowers. Very touching. Does Howard know?”

She adjusted the strap of her Fendi bag. “Yeah, sure. Are you still living in our house?”

“My house?” He slid his palm to the small of Chelsea’s back. She jumped a little at the weight of his hand. The warmth of his touch heated her skin through the cotton of her blouse and spread tingles up her spine and across her butt. This was Mark Bressler. The guy she was paid to work for. She shouldn’t be feeling anything. “I’m moving as soon as I find a new place,” he added. “Chelsea’s helping me out with that.”

“Are you in real estate?” she asked Chelsea.

“I’m an actress.”

Chrissy laughed. “Really?”

“Yeh,” Mark answered for her. “Chelsea’s acted in a lot of different stuff.”

“Such as?”

“The Bold and the Beautiful, Juno, CSI: Miami, and some ‘go meat’ commercial.”

She was shocked he’d remembered. “Hillshire Farms,” she clarified. She glanced up at him, then returned her gaze to his former wife. “I’ve mostly acted in the horror genre.”

Chrissy raised one disdainful brow. “Slasher movies?”

Mark’s voice was a deep velvet rumble when he said, “Chelsea’s a real screamer. You know I’ve always been partial to screamers.” He smiled, a slow, sexy curve of his lips.

“That was one of your problems.”

“That was never a problem.”

Maybe it was his smile. Maybe it was the warm touch of his hand, but Chelsea couldn’t help it. Her mind went there and she wondered exactly what the man did to make women scream. She’d never screamed. She’d come close once, but never actually screamed out loud.

Chrissy’s eyes narrowed. “I see the accident hasn’t changed you. You’re still the same old crude Mark.”

“See you around, Chrissy.” He removed his hand from Chelsea’s back and pushed the cart in the opposite direction from his ex.

Chelsea walked beside the cart and looked up at him out of the corner of her eye. “That was interesting.”