Fire And Ice

TOMMY STRETCHED LANGUIDLY across the empty bed, aware of the morning light filtering through his closed eyelids. How long had it been since he’d slept in? Right after his injury bed rest had been the order of the day, but by six every morning he’d been wide-awake, cruising through the news channels and absorbing every word in the newspapers and medical journals while eating the breakfast the visiting nurse delivered.

Now Tommy squinted at the bedside clock, surprised to find it half past nine. He picked up a note propped against the lamp. “See you at five” was scrawled in barely legible letters along with a capital J. He put the note back down then joined his hands behind his head and grinned.

Coming to Albuquerque to see Jena had been his best idea yet. No Greek-American sports agent who spoke a million miles a minute knocking down his door. No physical therapists telling him what he was doing was all wrong for his knee. No team owner telling him via the coach that they needed him back on the ice now. No one but him and Jena and the sexual playground they’d made out of her ultra-modern apartment.

He glanced around, having gotten used to his surroundings remarkably quickly. His own place in L.A. was done in pale woods with wood-framed furniture covered in overstuffed brightly colored pillows and cushions, the walls dotted with framed old movie posters. Bogart was a favorite of his, as was Spencer Tracy. And, of course, you couldn’t go wrong with Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, although their posters were a little more recent. Growing up with the long winters in Minnesota, there seemed to be little more to do than go to the movies or play hockey. He’d preferred the matinees where they still showed the old films, while his sisters attended the new runs at night. And while he’d taken to hockey, Jamie, Sandie, Mandie and Lainie had trained as figure skaters.

He rubbed the stubble along his jaw and wondered what Jena had done at the same age.

He remembered her two friends from the bar. Childhood friends, Jena had said. The blonde—Dulcy, Jena had told him later—had looked like she’d needed some lightening up, while Marie…well, if he’d had a younger sister, he guessed she would have looked pretty much like her. Cute and hungry, appearing not to know what part of life to bite off first, and too scared to try.

But Jena… He couldn’t quite figure her out. Which was likely the reason he was so drawn to her. So many people he could pigeonhole in two minutes flat. But he’d spent the past four days with Jena and still didn’t have a clue what she was all about. A daring wildcat in bed, and remarkably bold during conversations, it wasn’t until much later that he’d realized she hadn’t revealed a bit of herself while she’d gotten him to tell her his life story.

Most guys probably wouldn’t question her behavior. Hell, they’d likely celebrate it. What man wouldn’t want a woman with apparently no past who wanted you and didn’t have an agenda when she jumped into bed with you?

She’d said her parents had died….

Tommy dry-washed his face with his hands. Had she mentioned how they had died? Or how old she’d been at the time? If she had, he couldn’t remember. He’d been too busy concentrating on her decadent mouth as she devoured first her pizza, then inadvertently inhaled the fruit he’d fed her. And, of course, he’d been busy answering the questions he was now afraid were meant to distract him.

He pushed up to sit, gingerly moving his leg over the side of the bed and doing a few stretches before standing on it. He checked the brace, then grabbed a pair of skivvies from his duffel before heading for the bathroom, intending to catch a shower before responding to the soft whining on the other side of the kitchen door. He had a good half hour before twelve-year-old Paula showed up to walk Caramel. Maybe he’d leave a note for her and see to the task himself. He could use exercise that didn’t include a mattress. And perhaps the cold morning air could help clear his conflicting thoughts as far as the dog’s mistress was concerned.

It didn’t sit well with him, knowing that while Jena shared herself with him completely on a physical plane, emotionally she was as much of a mystery as she’d been when he met her. Perhaps even more so, because he was sure her block wasn’t inadvertent but intentional. The mystery was fine for a one-night stand. The exchange of names wasn’t really necessary in those cases, much less the details of one’s childhood. But as the nights accumulated, no matter how much time separated the first from the second, their bond was deepening. Although, he suspected, not on an emotional level. Not for Jena.

And he didn’t think it wise to explore that avenue just yet. Not knowing what he did—or didn’t—about Jena.

As he stepped under the shower’s hot spray and began to soap up with her spicy soap he suspected didn’t come off a regular store shelf, he wondered about her personal life up until now. She was, what? Around the same age as him? Thirty or pretty near to that. Had she ever been married? Ever come close?

Of course, he hadn’t told her that he had been married once. Very briefly. Back when he was still young and stupid enough to mistake lust for love. It was his first year on the circuit and one of the rink groupies who followed the team to as many as the games as they could had targeted him in her crosshairs. His career had been going like gangbusters at the same time. The new up-and-comer with a bright future. Landing the cover of Sports Illustrated hadn’t hurt.

A month later they were married.

And a month after that he returned to their hotel room after a game in Toronto to find her in bed with one of the team’s longtime heroes.

He shut off the water and scrubbed himself with a thick, black towel. The strange thing of it was that neither his ex-wife nor his fellow team member had seemed particularly shocked that he had found them. Rather, they’d been surprised that he’d cared that his friend was boinking his wife.

She’d argued that certainly he’d known of her goal to bed every major hockey star in the western hemisphere, hadn’t he? The expensive rock on her finger hadn’t changed that. And it was all right with her if he slept with groupies, she’d told him. He would anyway once the honeymoon was over.

The only thing that was over at that moment was their marriage—if there really had been a marriage to begin with.

He’d pretty much accepted life as it came after that. And had never really met anyone he wanted more than a quick roll in the hay with. Until Jena, that is.

But it was important that he get to know her if this—whatever was happening between them—was to go any further. And he found he wanted that. Very much. Or else he would have left days ago.

The sound of the doorbell pealed through the apartment. Tommy slowed his movements and stared in the direction of the front door. Too early for Paula, but maybe she had something else on tap this morning and was getting an early start. Stepping out of the tub, he wrapped the towel around his midsection then strode to stare through the peephole. A deliveryman stood in the hall holding a package, about to ring the bell again.

“Yes?” he called.

He watched the man’s gaze fix on the peephole. “Delivery for a Tommy Brodie.”

Delivery? For him?

Damn, how had Kostas found him so quickly? He raked his fingers through his damp hair and unlocked and opened the door. As he signed for the package he heard footsteps on the staircase coming from upstairs. Paula bounded to a stop as Tom handed the deliveryman back his clipboard.

He waited until the guy started out before he told Paula, “I was thinking I’d look after the little mongrel today, give you a break.”

Jena had introduced him to the preteen the morning after his arrival and since then the red-haired girl with braces had stared at him as if he walked on water. He grimaced. Hell, he’d settle for walking without a limp right now.

“Okay, Mr. Wild…I mean, Brodie.”

Tommy grinned and handed her the money she would have made for the day’s activities, then went back inside the apartment and closed the door, package in hand.

The return address was local. He frowned and ripped open the end as he walked to the kitchen and opened the swinging door with his shoulder, letting out the ecstatic pup.

His brows rose high on his forehead as he got an eyeful of the box’s contents. A tux?

He stared at the monkey suit as if it might grow legs and challenge him to a choking match even as Caramel ran circles around his ankles, yipping up a storm.

Tommy shoved the suit back into the box, then ripped the envelope from the top.

“Formal Christmas party tonight,” Jena wrote, along with an address. “Meet me there at six.”

He took the suit out again and draped it over the back of a black leather chair, a slip of paper floating to the floor by his feet. He bent over and snatched it up. It wasn’t a rental. Jena had dumped good money by buying the damn thing.

Tommy absently rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension building there. When was the last time he’d worn a tux? It didn’t take him long to remember. He’d been nineteen at his oldest sister Jamie’s wedding. And he’d completely ruined the rental by pulling and plucking and generally setting out to destroy the confining suit of clothes before it destroyed him.