Page 59 of The Puck Stops Here

‘And that had to be you?’

‘When you grow up with a man like our father, it shapes you in some way. For me, I craved stability and control. A future no longer threatened by the unknown, my brother and mother safe from his reach and on a better path. Family is a motivation like no other.’

‘Of course it is,’ she agreed, but she couldn’t forget that he’d promised Sissishewashis family too. Promised her the exact same future and then taken it away.

‘Leaving Ashbury Falls was a clean break for us all, it was what we needed, and we haven’t looked back.’

But she was going to make him look back, and she was going make him see Sienna if it killed her…

* * *

‘You’re doing it again.’

Blake didn’t slow, his punches landing hard and fast against the bag. He didn’t have the patience for Larsson’s comments today.

‘What is it this time?’

He shifted his stance, went at it again and Larsson chuckled, his big frame locked in a hands-free squat.

‘You got it bad.’

Blake grabbed the punch bag as it swung back at him. ‘Got what bad?’

‘Foxy has you all…’ Larsson shook his huge hands either side of his head. ‘Tokig. Crazy.’

Foxy. Dammit. He’d said it out loud once, maybe twice, and now they were all calling her it.

‘Her name’s Astrid.’

Larsson’s blue eyes danced. ‘Realbad.’

‘Do you want to take this up in the ring?’

Because Blake couldn’t care that the guy at a towering six foot seven, had four inches on him and umpteen pounds, he was ready to go. At something, anything…

‘I’m not that stupid.’ Larsson dropped the barbell and brushed off his hands. ‘We have a game tomorrow.’

They did. And hell, Blake’s head was elsewhere. Currently in a room upstairs with his brother and a certain pair of overly inquisitive, mind-bending, honeyed eyes.

He wasn’t sure what disturbed him more – the line of questioning or his brother being alone with her – but one thing was painfully clear, he wanted her.

He wanted to be better than his brother to get her, too.

And he’d never been better than his brother. Not ever.

9

Aiden was easy to talk to. If not for Sissi, she’d go as far as to say he was a pleasure. Astrid could see why he was so well regarded in the sport and beyond. Why his exes – aside from the all-important Sissi – never had a bad word to say about him, too.

None of it fuelled her karma quest, but all of it made great fodder for her article.

‘A model player, a model pupil.’ She reflected on what he’d said about his schooldays. ‘And you still found the time to save your brother from flunking out, too.’

‘That’s not what I said.’

She smiled. ‘Okay you said you forced him to study with you when it was clear he’d rather be out with his mates.’

‘Even the best hockey players need to make the grade for the best scholarships.’

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