Page 22 of Rebel Bride
Sure, Summer, you sweet dummy. They’ll be just dyin’ to get you back on the payroll after you made one of their players look like a loser.
Shelby Mae, you are supposed to be dead to me!
Cue backwoods cackle.
That ornery bitch was right, though. Ryder might call me out of a fatherly concern for my well-being, but he sure as hell would not be offering me a job now. One other person might be in my corner, though. Scott Kincaid, the assistant head of scouting, had been mentoring me over the last year. One evening in the owners’ box, I’d made a comment about the NCAA Frozen Four to Scott, and we’d had a great chat about hockey prospects. When I told him I made slide decks for Ryder and even sometimes added my own commentary, he asked if I was willing to do some research for him.
So began my first meaningful professional relationship. I didn’t have the cajónes to ask Ryder for true mentorship—and what would I say? Oh, Mr. Calloway, any pointers for the woman who makes your coffee and picks up your dry cleaning? (Dash’s digs had taken residence in my head.) But Scott was willing to sit with me at lunchtime in the staff break room and answer my questions about the hockey business and scouting. And when Dash was on the road, I spent my evenings trawling college websites and creating reports, desperate to prove there was more to me than a powerful man’s personal assistant.
Then Dash found out. One night, I’d fallen asleep on the sofa with my laptop open, only waking when Dash shook my shoulder at five in the morning.
“Waiting up for me, honey?”
We didn’t live together then. We’d dated for close to four years, had even broken up several times, when I suspected Dash had not been faithful to me on away trips. He never admitted anything but inevitably he would draw me back in. It was hard to work for an organization and ignore one of the assets. So, we would start dating again because I was lonely and thought he was charming, if a little immature. Definitely not husband material. But he had a key to my apartment and usually slipped into my bed after an away trip, freshly showered with no trace of another woman.
That morning, he had sat beside me on the sofa as I shook myself awake.
“What’s this about?” He pointed at the laptop screen with its rows of data in spreadsheets. “You ranking other guys?”
“Just a little work for Ryder,” I fudged. “Scouting prospects.”
“Babe, you shouldn’t be doing this off the clock. He’s taking advantage.”
“I don’t mind. I like learning about how the business works. I don’t want to be his assistant forever.”
“No one says you have to do that. You’ve got so much more going for you, Summer.”
At the time, I’d interpreted it as encouragement, the water my arid heart needed. I floated on a cloud of happiness, confident I could do anything. That I was more. Six weeks later, Dash proposed in the Empty Net in front of the entire team and its fans, and against my better judgment, I accepted, mostly so as not to embarrass him.
Later, he put any doubts I raised at ease, and I let myself be persuaded that we would be a super couple of hockey. The star on the ice, the brains behind the scenes. Our story was still taking shape, the outlines fuzzy. But if I continued to work with Scott, learned the ins and outs of the franchise business, I would get what I wanted. All the way from Thunder Creek, Shelby Mae Landry would have completely reinvented herself.
Instead I had let Dash steal my shine. Turned out that when he said I had much more going for me, he meant my ascension to the role of Mrs. Dash Carter.
Now, I looked at the message thread from him. I went back to the beginning, or rather the beginning of the end, starting with my text to him.
Please forgive me. I can’t do this.
Then the texts started flowing.
Summer, where are you?
We can talk about this. Just come back.
Why aren’t you answering?
Did my mother say something?
Summer, this is childish.
Fine, be like that.
Texts seemed inadequate at this point, yet I wasn’t ready to talk to him.
Summer, you sure are a coward. So much for reinventin’ yourself.
I had no response for that one. As usual, Shelby Mae was right.
Chapter Eight
