Hot Puck, A Rough Riders Hockey Novel
Hot Puck: Chapter 1

Beckett Croft angled to stop just inches from the referee, spraying ice over the prick’s skates. This guy had been favoring the Anaheim Ducks since the first puck drop.

Leaning in, Beckett pinned the ref with all the frustration that had built up over the first two periods of the game.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Beckett kept his voice down, but it took more control than he thought he had left. This guy had been favoring the Anaheim Ducks all goddamned game. “Donovan wasn’t even close. Decker faked that trip. You ought to at least call him on embellishment.”

As the Washington Rough Riders’ captain, Beckett was the only player who could talk to—or in this case, challenge—the ref’s calls. Normally, he handled his job with stoic intensity. Setting an example for his teammates was an important part of the position, one he took seriously. But so was calling bullshit.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job.” The ref grabbed the puck from another member of his four-man team. Before he skated away, he warned, “If you want to stay on the ice, Croft, lose the attitude.”

“Fucking A.” He blinked sweat from his eyes as he skated into the face-off formation. “This is bullshit.”

Tate Donovan, one of their highest scorers, glided past on his way toward the penalty box with “Even it up, Beck.”

“You know it.”

Beckett had two major jobs on the ice—protection and punishment. He was one of the team’s two designated enforcers. And Donovan was right, this was a good time to even up the score—if not on the board, where they were already tied with the Ducks two-two—certainly on the ice, where the ref had fallen short.

There was more than one way to seek justice.

With twelve minutes left of the second period, Fall Out Boy blasted over the arena’s speakers, background to the announcer’s voice hyping the Rough Riders’ lineup. And while the fifteen thousand fans filling their home stadium in downtown Washington, DC cheered with steadfast belief in their team, Beckett’s chest tightened with each second that ticked past.

His team was approaching the middle of their season and the acclaimed Winter Classic. They needed this win to advance into the finals. Beckett himself was approaching the end of his contract with his team, and he needed this win just as badly to secure his personal and professional goals.

The puck dropped. Savage chipped it to Hendrix. Hendrix smacked it to Saber. Saber swept toward the Ducks’ goal and passed to Beckett.

Decker appeared on Beckett’s flank, blocking the goal. And goddammit, he was fucking sick of this guy. He faked left, drove right, and flew behind the net, passing to Savage.

Savage took the shot. The smack of the puck echoed off the ice. A sound that pumped adrenaline through Beckett’s blood.

The Ducks’ goalie, a fresh young hotshot from Canada, blocked the puck, and Saber grabbed the rebound while Beckett bullied the Ducks’ defenseman out of his teammate’s path. He pushed toward the opposite end of the rink in time to witness Hendrix out-skate one Duck, out-stick another, and swing toward the goal.

Energy buzzed like live wires between the players. Everyone’s focus was honed and intense. Cheering in the stands had faded into white noise. All Beckett heard was the rasp of his breath and the beat of his heart or the occasional call from a teammate.

In split-second intervals, Beckett saw Hendrix set up, take stock of those around him, pull his stick back—

Decker’s angle of approach shifted, and the Duck drove toward Hendrix. Beckett pushed every ounce of power he owned into his thighs, driving his skates forward. But he didn’t reach the men before Decker slammed Hendrix against the boards so hard, the Rough Rider came off his feet, banged his head on the glass, and broke his hockey stick.

Yet the refs remained silent. No roughing call.

Before Hendrix had even gotten back on his skates, Decker was driving the puck toward the Rough Riders’ goal.

This was fucked. It was also over. Beckett was done watching the other team pummel his teammates without consequences.

Fury put speed into Beckett’s skates. Donovan blasted out of the penalty box and immediately crowded Decker toward the wall. Beckett angled toward the bastard, lowered his shoulder, and threw all two hundred pounds of himself—along with a decent amount of momentum—into the Duck.

The clatter of equipment filled Beckett’s ears a split second before Decker hit the boards. Then the thunder of the Plexiglas rumbled through his ears and rattled his brain, followed by ravenous spectator approval.

Adrenaline gushed through Beckett’s system, and he used it to catch up with his teammates. He traded the puck a few times with Saber and Donovan as they jockeyed for an opening between the Ducks’ pipes. Decker intercepted a pass between Hendrix and Donovan and ran the puck toward the opposite end of the rink. The fans howled in disappointment.

“No fucking way,” Beckett said under his breath.

He sprinted across the ice as Decker set up for a play. Beckett saw three moves ahead, the way a chess master spied a checkmate in the near future with perfect accuracy. He pushed every ounce of strength available into his legs. In his peripheral vision, Beckett saw Donovan come up on his left. Savage on his right. Perfect positioning to grab the puck and go.

He braced himself and hit Decker hard, driving them both into the boards. Their bodies slammed with thundering impact, drowning out their curses and the cheering crowd. The puck was long gone, swept down the ice by Beckett’s teammates.

Decker’s frustration finally exploded. Instead of heading back into play, the Duck twisted and hammered a right hook at Beckett’s face. He dodged the punch, and the momentum swung Decker ninety degrees. His skate blade caught on Beckett’s, and before he could untangle himself, Beckett went down hard, hitting the ice on his ass. The impact nailed his tailbone, driving a steel shaft of pain straight up his spine. Every molecule of air in his lungs froze. Beckett hadn’t even reclaimed his breath before Decker shoved him backward. Beckett’s helmet cracked against the ice.

Hard.

So hard, a burst of black filled his vision, immediately followed by blinding white light and stabbing pain.

Beckett tried to push Decker off, but his arms wouldn’t move. He ordered his body to twist and roll. Still, he didn’t move.

His brain hurt. Bad.

His head felt wobbly. And light. Like it was floating off his neck.

Overhead, the goal siren echoed through the arena. The dome erupted in earsplitting applause. And even though the sounds came to him from a distance, like he had cotton stuffed in his ears, Beckett felt a sliver of gratification.

We’ve got the lead was his last thought before his mind went dark.

Eden Kennedy frowned at one of the dozens of EKG strips her boss had collected for her to study.

She sat cross-legged on the gurney pushed up against a cement wall in the lower level of the Verizon arena and laid the tape above her textbook, where she flipped through the pages dedicated to EKGs and the pathology found within the various strokes.

Her partner on the ambulance tonight, Gabe, a die-hard hockey fan, had his face all but pressed up against the glass that surrounded the rink. That left her free to focus on all these squiggly lines.

She rested her elbow on her knee and her forehead in her hand. “This is way too much like reading ink blots.”

Eden barely heard her own words over the noise rocking the stadium. She’d gotten pretty good at tuning out almost everything and everyone when she needed to focus on the job or her studies, but this noise was wearing on her concentration and her nerves. And as each hour of study time for tomorrow’s midterm dwindled away, her stress mounted. She was now at the tearing-her-eyelashes-out tension level.

“I think we’ve got something.” Gabe’s yell barely registered beneath the dense foam plugs she’d stuffed in her ears upon arriving at the stadium.

Eden lifted her gaze from the EKG strips to shoot a glare at Gabe, who stood ten feet away, but he was still focused on the rink. The only reason she’d agreed to work this extra shift was because he’d promised her nothing ever happened. He’d promised her she’d get all sorts of extra study time. But since he wasn’t looking at her, Eden followed suit and ignored him. It was going to take a hell of a lot more than that vague warning to get Eden to take him seriously.

The announcer’s voice rose over the noise and seemed to vibrate inside her body.

Eden cringed, squeezing her eyes shut and holding her head with both hands. “God, I hate hockey.”

Her words were once again sucked into the chaotic void beneath the metal dome.

“Eden,” Gabe said again, louder this time as he turned toward her. “I think we’re going in.”

“I doubt it,” she muttered.

The teams had physical therapists and team physicians. Gabe hadn’t hauled a guy in yet this season, and it was already November. Besides, these were professional hockey players. A notch above MMA fighters in her book only because at least they played a game in between fights that required some skill. Considering their brutal tendencies, Eden couldn’t fathom a reason to bring them in, barring a heart attack, stroke, broken bone sticking through the skin…

“Eden.”

“Jesus.” Eden slapped her textbook closed, pushed off the gurney, and wandered toward the mouth of the tunnel running beneath the stadium to meet Gabe. As she neared the rink, the cold wrapped around her, and she pulled her uniform jacket tighter.

The stadium had filled since she’d last looked, and a sea of royal blue created a thick tiered ring around the ice. “Damn. There are way too many people in our society who will pay to watch a fight.”

“They’re paying to watch hockey,” Gabe told her. “The fights come with the territory.”

Whatever. “This shift was supposed to be a cakewalk.”

“This never happens…” He trailed off as a man in slacks and a Rough Riders warm-up jacket stepped onto the ice in dress shoes. With a referee on either side of him, he held their arms for support as he jogged across the ice to the group huddled near the arena’s far wall. “That must be the team doc.”

Before Eden could ask what happened—hoping this was all a dog-and-pony show for the fans—the announcer spoke.

“Beckett Croft took a hard fall in a scuffle with the Ducks’ Andrew Decker.”

Jeering rumbled through the crowd.

“Look.” Gabe pointed to the Jumbotron where a replay flashed over the screen.

The announcer continued to commentate. Eden didn’t understand the hockey language, but she did understand fight language—unfortunately so.

On the screen, the guy in blue rammed the guy in white against the glass with so much malice and intention and force, Eden’s stomach coiled into a knot. White retaliated, shoving back Blue, who then tripped over White’s skate. Blue hit the ice tailbone first.

Eden tensed and winced. Her hand instinctively moved from her hip to the base of her spine. Then White followed Blue to the ice and shoved him back. Blue’s head hit so hard, his helmet bounced. Referees stepped in, blocking sight of the players on the video.

Eden crossed her arms, trying to squeeze ugly feelings from her body. “Did I already mention that I hate hockey?”

Gabe didn’t answer. He was riveted to the replay.

“Guess there’s job security in perpetual human stupidity,” she muttered.

“Bet he shakes it off,” Gabe said, never looking away from the ice. “He’s one of the toughest in the league.”

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Gabe knew all about these East Coast winter sports and was a rabid Rough Riders fan. When their employer, Capital Ambulance, won the contract to transport Rough Riders players to the hospital in the event of an emergency, Gabe had jumped at the chance to staff as many of those shifts as he could grab. And then started begging, borrowing, and stealing the rest.

After working for the company for nearly two years, Eden had seniority, but she’d taken a huge step back and let the others claim these light-duty runs. She didn’t need any unnecessary exposure to violence or reminders of how it could slip into a life and ruin everything.

She heaved a sigh and looked at the scoreboard but couldn’t tell what any of the numbers meant. “How long until this is over? I’ve still got a lot of studying to do.”

“Excuse me.” Gabe and Eden turned. A man in his mid-forties came toward them from the tunnel. He wore nice slacks with a dress shirt, a tie, and a royal-blue warm-up jacket emblazoned with the Rough Riders’ logo. “I’m Paul, one of the Rough Riders’ assistant coaches. Doc Danbar wants Beckett to go in.”

Perfect. Eden heaved a breath but shoved her midterm to the back of her mind.

“Fine.” She returned to the gurney, grabbed the rails, and pushed it forward, then took one handle of the backboard and picked up the C-collar. “Let’s do this.”

The thought of having fifteen thousand pairs of eyes on her while she packaged this so-called elite athlete onto the backboard and then the gurney gave her butterflies. But, hell, she had to do what she had to do, right? And the sooner they dropped this loser at the emergency room, the sooner she could go home and replace some peace to study.

She glanced at Paul. “Do you have those grates for our shoes so we can walk on the—”

The crowd broke into cheers so loud, the noise drowned her words. She glanced toward the glass and found this Beckett guy gliding to the sidelines with the help of the team doctor and a referee.

“What the hell?” Eden threw the hand holding the C-collar out to the side. Her accusatory gaze shot to Paul. “He shouldn’t be on his feet. He could have a spine injury.”

A smile broke out over Paul’s face. “No one keeps Beckett Croft down if he doesn’t want to stay down.”

Eden had dealt with her share of uncooperative and even combative patients over the years, but she really wasn’t in the mood to deal with one tonight.

If the idiot wanted to risk becoming a paraplegic, who was she to try to save him from himself?

She tossed the board and the C-collar back onto the gurney. “Where do we pick him up?”

“Locker room.” Paul gestured for them to follow and started into the tunnel.

Gabe took control of the gurney, and Eden fell in beside him.

“Start your mental recorder,” she told Gabe under her breath. “We don’t need some big shot coming back later, blaming us because this Beckett guy’s in a wheelchair. I want every detail of this call in the report.”

Gabe gave a single nod. “Got it.” They slowed as Paul paused at a door, entered a code, and stepped through. “Hey,” Gabe asked Eden, “think I could ride in the back with him?”

Eden shot him a you-can’t-be-serious look.

Gabe shrugged and smiled. “I’m dying for his autograph.”

“And I’m dying for my paramedic’s license.” Which included a certain number of patient cases or hours as an EMT. Eden had opted for cases over hours since she worked at one of the busiest ambulance companies but couldn’t give a lot of hours.

“I’ll give you the call on paper,” Gabe offered, hopeful.

“Which would require you to lie.”

“I would never lie.” He pushed the gurney through the doorframe and shot a smile at Eden over his shoulder. “I’d just very carefully word my report.”

She was grinning at his excitement as she stepped into another hallway.

“I’m fucking fine, goddammit.”

The man’s bellow erupted from the next room and echoed off the concrete walls, startling Eden to a stop. Unease prickled over her skin. The fear response was automatic and still came now and then when she least expected it. Less and less as time passed and Eden’s life moved on, but the paramedic program was wearing her out. Fatigue kept her from compartmentalizing as well as she used to. Stress broke down her professional barriers more easily.

Eden rolled her gaze to the ceiling, searching for strength and patience.

“This is fucking bullshit. They need me on the ice. Do I look like I need to go to the fucking hospit— Ah, goddammit.”

Eden heard the pain in the man’s voice and smirked at Gabe. “Still want to ride in the back with him?”

She didn’t wait for his answer before stepping into the next room—obviously the main locker room. The space was large and well-appointed, with lacquered blue benches lining the walls. Each cubby space had been assigned with a brass nameplate. The team’s logo—a stylized image of a horse’s head wearing an intense expression—was everywhere: painted on walls, cut into carpet, carved into wood. A lot of money had been dumped into this space.

She took a quick glance around at the half-dozen men standing in a semicircle around Croft. He’d dropped to a seat on a bench in the middle of the room and was holding his head in both hands. His hair was dark, drenched, and standing up in every direction. He’d stripped off his jersey, and shoulder pads lay on the bench beside him. His muscles stretched a red long-sleeved shirt around thick biceps and across cut deltoids.

Eden wasn’t a small woman. At five foot seven, she worked out and carried her own tight frame of muscle. But in this room, surrounded by these men, she was acutely aware of the power surrounding her—and not just the physical power. Croft himself wielded a significant influence over these men. Men who she guessed wielded their own authority in other circles.

This room reeked of power and money and testosterone.

Eden knew all about that bullshit—and it meant less than nothing to her.

She rounded the bench and stepped between two of the men to stand in front of Croft.

“Mr. Croft,” she said in a professional but compassionate tone. “I’m with Capital Ambulance. After that hit, we need to stabilize your spine as quickly as possible. You shouldn’t be moving until you’ve been assessed by a physician. My partner and I are going to take you to Georgetown University Hospital.”

“Fuck.” His bitter anger cut into Eden’s stomach. She stood her ground, hoping she hadn’t flinched externally. “Give me a fucking minute. I’m gonna be fine. Jesus Christ, you’re all making something out of nothing.”

Everyone had the right to refuse medical care, and as far as her responsibilities went, she could walk away at any time after a mentally sound patient said no. But there was a bigger, more ethical part of her job. The part that drove people to seek this work in the first place: the desire to take care of others who couldn’t take care of themselves in times of trauma or stress or illness. And she believed it was part of her ethical job to recognize those who truly needed a doctor’s wisdom and guide them into skilled hands.

Considering this man hadn’t even stayed still after taking such a bad hit to the head, she’d definitely put him in the poor judgment category.

“You have to go, Beckett.” The team doctor delivered the assertion with what Eden thought was an overabundance of consideration. They were dealing with a grown man, not an angry two-year-old. “It’s concussion protocol.”

“Fuck protocol,” Croft yelled, pushing to his feet. His sheer size—around six foot three and at least two hundred pounds—made Eden take a step back. Made her gut flutter with alarm. “I wasn’t out more…” His words drifted away. His gaze went distant. “I wasn’t… More than…”

“Gabe.” Eden alerted him to Croft’s imminent drop. Gabe moved behind Croft, while Eden stepped closer and held out a hand. “Mr. Croft, you need to—”

He swayed, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his body went lax. All in the span of two seconds.

Eden got ahold of his forearms just as he pitched sideways and backward. She wasn’t able to do much more than guide him toward Gabe’s arms. The other men in the room jumped in, adding support to get Croft onto the floor and saving him from another crack to his skull—though Eden thought that might have helped knock some of Croft’s stupid loose. On the upside, this took the decision of whether or not to go to the emergency room out of Croft’s hands.

Eden took a quick pulse at Croft’s wrist while the team doctor hovered and the other men in the room twittered with concern. When she found Croft’s heartbeat steady and strong, she nodded at Gabe, who worked the C-collar into place around Croft’s neck.

“Doc,” someone called behind them. “Looks like Kristoff’s going to need stitches.”

The doctor turned that direction with a disbelieving “Again?”

“We’ve got this,” Eden told him. It wasn’t like he was helping anyway. “Go ahead.”

The doctor moved on to his next patient, and Eden started on the straps attached to the backboard.

She kept a watch on Croft’s face, anticipating trouble if he regained consciousness before they had him secured. He reminded her more of a boxer than a hockey player, with the ugly green-and-yellow resolving bruise shadowing one eye and an inch worth of fresh stitches across the same brow. A few days’ worth of beard darkened the lower half of his face, but the balance and strong, squared angles of his features made him undeniably attractive.

Eden tightened the strap over his hips as Croft’s lashes fluttered. She met Gabe’s eyes and lifted her chin toward the opposite side of the gurney. “Rail.”

Her partner lifted the metal arm while Eden untwisted the final strap for Croft’s chest.

He opened his eyes and looked around, dark eyes flooded with confusion. Urgency created tension along Eden’s shoulders. She wanted to get him tied down before—

“What the—” Croft jerked his legs against the straps, and fury cut across his face. A look that brought back nightmares and chilled the pit of Eden’s stomach.

“Everything’s fine, Mr. Croft,” she said, sounding surprisingly calm. “We’ll have you out of this in—”

“Now.” He pulled himself upright and twisted to grab for the strap at his thighs. “You’ll get me out of this right fucking now.”

In her mind’s eye, she saw the spinal column as she’d studied it so intricately. Saw a potentially chipped vertebra cutting into his spinal cord. Saw delicate nerve endings wedged and compressed as he twisted and fought. She was momentarily caught between the urge to swear at him and the desire to throw her hands up and let him ruin the rest of his life.

“Mr. Croft,” Gabe said in what Eden called his dad voice, “you need to lie down.”

But Croft obviously had no respect for any kind of authority. He pulled on the strap in Eden’s hand.

“Mr. Croft—” Gabe repeated.

The buckle pinched Eden’s fingers, pain sliced through her hand, and her fraying patience snapped.

Eden planted her knee on the gurney at Croft’s hip, steadied herself with one hand on the edge, and pulled herself up to his level. Slapping her free hand to the center of his chest, Eden pushed him straight back and against the pad. An oomph drifted out of him, and he stared up at her with a mix of shock and confusion.

“Whoa, sugar.” He held up his hands, his dark eyes making a quick sweep of her body. “I usually save the rough stuff for the second date, but since you’re so good at it, I’ll compromise this time.” He met her gaze again, and his mouth lifted in a half smile. “Bring it, baby.”

A smattering of relieved laughter rounded the room. Eden experienced relief and embarrassment, frustration, and, yeah, a twinge of excitement. Because, okay, he was pretty hot when he smiled. Even for a hockey player.

Gabe stepped to the opposite side of the gurney, and in Eden’s peripheral vision, she noted his nervous gaze darting between them. “Mr. Croft, she’s probably not the one you want to tangle with. I’m far more congenial.”

Both Eden and Croft tilted their gazes toward Gabe.

Eden lifted a brow at him. “Really?”

Her partner smirked back. “Just trying to defuse the tension.”

It worked. When she and Croft locked gazes again, he was grinning. And damn, the boy had a smile that could melt steel.

“Are you done fighting and arguing and generally being an ass?” she asked, far less forceful than she’d been a moment ago, but stern enough to let Croft know she wasn’t backing down. “Are you going to let us do our jobs?”

“I don’t usually let anyone get between me and the ice”—his voice was warm and his gaze playful as he wrapped a hand around her wrist—“but I might make an exception for you.”

She didn’t get a chance to tell him how full of shit he was before he tried to pull her hand away and sit up. But Eden already had her weight balanced over him and used the miniscule advantage to keep him down.

“Look, we both know you could toss me across the room if you wanted. And I really have more important things to do than fight with you, Mr. Croft. I want you to hold still long enough to hear me out so you can make an informed decision.”

His mouth quirked again. “I’ve really got more important things to do than listen to your advice—”

“If you haven’t already completely fucked up your spine,” she said, forging ahead anyway, “continuing to move in the presence of an injury could do even more damage. So if you really love hockey and the rough stuff on the second date, you’ll hold still until we can get you to the hospital and make sure you didn’t do irreparable damage to your head, neck, or back. An injury like that could not only keep you from the things you love most, but it could keep you in a wheelchair for the rest of your life.”

When she finished, the deep stillness in the room registered. For the first time since she’d entered the locker room, her lungs filled completely, and a sense of control returned. Her head cleared, and Eden scanned Croft’s face as if seeing it for the first time. Dark brown hair, rich brown eyes, bruises, stitches, sweat. And, man, he was handsome in a rough, almost brutal sort of way.

She eased back, but his big hand remained wrapped loosely around her wrist.

“So, what’s it going to be?” she asked. “Back on the ice for five minutes tonight? Or back on the ice for five years starting tomorrow?”

He relaxed into the gurney but didn’t release her or break her gaze. The faint crinkles at the corners of his eyes told Eden he found her amusing.

But then he confused her by saying, “I want to talk to Donovan before I leave.”

“On it,” someone behind her said, followed by the shuffle of movement as one of the men left the locker room.

Eden lowered her feet to the ground but had to continue leaning over the gurney with her arm in his grip. His gaze seemed to relax too, now scanning her face with a kind of intimacy that made her self-conscious.

“You’re a smart man,” she told him.

“And you’re a pretty little firecracker.”

Pretty? Hardly. She went makeup-free on the job, her hair pulled back into a boring bun. All very efficient and utilitarian, but definitely not pretty. But the compliment still created a hot little buzz low in her body.

She glanced down at his big scarred hand still circling her wrist, surprised at how gentle he could be after seeing what he’d done on the ice. But she’d known that kind of man before. The kind who could stroke a cheek as expertly as he could hammer it. “Think I could have my hand back now?”

Instead of releasing it, he stroked his thumb across the sensitive skin of her wrist, and heat coursed up her arm. “About that date—”

“There was no mention of a date.” She picked up the one remaining strap with her free hand. “Will you let me snap this? Just until we get you into the ambulance?”

“If you’ll talk date with me.”

Strangely enough, she got more come-ons as an EMT than she ever had as a cocktail waitress. “I was asking as a courtesy. You heard the doctor. You have to go in.”

“You’re pretty tough for a girl…”—he glanced down, where her name badge rested at her breast—“Kennedy. That a first or last name?”

The way the man could create heat with nothing but the slide of his eyes was unnerving. More so when she’d spent years building barriers he seemed to blow through with no effort.

She fastened the final strap over his chest and smiled. “Planning on filing a complaint?”

“The only complaint I’ve got is that you’re not taking me seriously.”

She lifted the gurney’s metal arm. “After that hit? Everything you say is suspect.”

He grinned—a big, high-on-life grin that blasted heat straight through Eden. His straight, white teeth contrasted with his dark stubble, and his gregariousness beamed like a beacon, sizzling in the air. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew how many times I’ve hit my head over the years.”

“Or maybe I’d say that explains a lot.”

“Good one.” His gaze lowered to her chest again. “Any relation to the Kennedys?”

“Pffft. Right. I’m really an heir to the Kennedy fortune. I do this on the side to create purpose in my life.”

Croft laughed. Eden met Gabe’s you-always-manage-to-win-them-over smirk with a shake of her head. He took the foot of the gurney as they maneuvered out of the locker room and into the cement tunnels toward the ambulance waiting in the bowels of the stadium.

Another player ran up alongside them, still in full uniform and gear, including helmet and skates. “You scared the hell out of us.” This had to be Donovan. He looked a few years younger than Croft and walked along with them through the corridor. “You okay?”

“Fine. Fucking concussion protocol. Listen…” Croft barely took a breath, and his gaze held Donovan’s with surprising intensity considering how lightly he’d been flirting with her only minutes ago. “Don’t let this sidetrack the guys. Get them to channel the emotion into the game and hold the momentum.”

“Got it.”

“With me out, the Ducks will bring in Souza,” Croft said.

“Leftie.”

“Cut everything off,” Croft instructed. “Don’t give them one fucking inch…”

He continued to coach Donovan until they reached the ambulance and loaded him inside. Even then he called, “Lead with your sticks, rebound, and keep them out of our zone.”

Gabe moved around to the driver’s door, and Eden took hold of the back door. Before she closed it, she glanced between the men. “Anything else?”

“Focus on the game, Tate. You got this. You guys got this.”

The other man nodded, glanced at Eden, and grinned, then told Croft, “Stop giving Kennedy such a hard time. Behave for a change.”

She offered Donovan a nod before she shut the door, then smiled down at Croft. “I like him.”