Page 2 of Mountain Man's Naughty List
My grunt is response enough.
“I’ll even say, he might have gotten off easy.” He sighs and runs a hand over his jaw. “You have my sympathies. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
“Given the number of spats you’ve had lately, the league assumes you’re the aggressor.”
“And?”
“And… they seem to want to make an example of you.”
My stomach drops. “What do you mean?”
“Effective immediately, you’re suspended.”
“Suspended.” My hands ball into fists on my knees. “For how long?”
His jaw ticks. “If it was up to me, I’d say one game and you’d be back in the line-up.”
But it’s not up to him. “How long?” I ask again, struggling to spit out each word.
“Eight games.”
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” I jump to my feet, setting the bobblehead nodding again. “Eight games? That’s—that means…”
“That means you won’t be setting foot in the rink until after the holidays.”
“Merry fucking Christmas to me,” I grumble.
Coach shakes his head. “And the owners are so pissed, they don’t even want you here for practice.”
“Of course they don’t.”
My fists clench and unclench until my knuckles are white. The owners have had it out for me all season.
In my defense, how was I supposed to know their daughter was back from college and attending our end-of-season banquet? If I’d known the cute woman in the short hot pink dress was her, I wouldn’t have paid her any attention. I definitely wouldn’t have made out with her in the elevator after the awards ceremony.
I swallow to dislodge the lump growing in my throat. “So I’m suspended and banished?”
“Afraid so.”
I narrowly resist the urge to tell him what I really think. Using the colorful four-letter words just waiting to be said. But I don’t. Coach is only the messenger. He doesn’t deserve my anger.
Plus, while I have a hot head on the ice, I like to think I’m not a complete idiot the rest of the time. I’m smart enough to know that cursing out my coach won’t help my cause.
“I can’t play, I can’t practice.” I shake my head in disbelief. “What the hell am I supposed to do with myself?”
“I see that you have a couple of options,” Coach Dane says. “You can hide out in that penthouse of yours drinking yourself stupid.”
“Or?”
“Or, like you said, it’s the holidays. And you have them off for the first time since you were playing pee-wee.”
He has a point. Damn, I kind of hate that Coach is right all the time. I start to ask where I should go, when it hits me.
The scene of the crime. The cabin in Alaska where Grady was supposed to be rehabbing while he was actually falling for my sister.
After I’d cooled off, they’d told me about how dope it was. Outfitted with a game room, a chef’s kitchen, and a garage full of toys any wannabe mountain man would love.
