I glance at the small cut above my brow. There’s a little more bruising than I realized, but I’ll live. I have a splitting headache, and I look like shit. I’m tempted just to climb right on back in Van’s bed, but I can’t do that . . . because that would be crazy. I can’t sleep here. He might be a famous NHL player, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a psycho rapist. Okay, so maybe psycho rapist is a stretch, but I don’t know the first thing about these men.
What the hell have I done?
I spot the phone on the bedside table and think about picking it up to call Lana, only I don’t know her number. I’ve never had to learn the damn thing, what with it being saved in my phone and her being glued to my side for the last damn five years.
I could always call the police, but then what the hell would I say? I ran away from a stadium filled with twenty thousand people and drove drunk until I crashed into a mountain, and now some nice hockey player is holding me hostage until the snow clears. Oh, and he also pulled me from my car and held me all night to ensure I didn’t catch hyperthermia. Yeah, so not going to work. They’d think I was crazy. Because there’s every chance I may actually be crazy.
I pull on the clothing and nervously wipe my sweaty palms on my new jeans. Opening the door as quietly as I can, I attempt to listen to the men downstairs. Either they’re not talking or this house is huge, because I can’t hear a thing aside from the crackle of a fireplace downstairs. I tiptoe out of the room and find myself on a landing overlooking a huge den with wood and slate and rich brown buttery-looking leather couches, not at all like the ones occupying my Nashville home. There’s a huge open fireplace and a mantel decorated with . . . pucks? I quietly creep down the stairs and into the den. Yep, definitely pucks. That’s weird. Though I guess it’s not like I have photos on my mantel either. I warm my hands in front of the fireplace. I still smell like a distillery, but I don’t trust my new roomies enough yet to shower in a bathroom without a locking door. I walk through the huge house until I find the kitchen. It’s open plan, leading to an informal dining room and another living room that looks as if it’s rarely used. There’s a fireplace set into the back wall, framed on either side by two enormous windows and right in the middle is a hot tub. It’s surrounded by slate and stones, and it’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.
Van stands at the counter, spreading pancake batter into a hot skillet while Emmett sits at the dining table. He’s a lot shorter than his brother with lighter hair and a rounder face and body. He has Down syndrome. I couldn’t pinpoint his disability before because I was busy trying to attack the hockey player with an electric razor, and the whooshing of fear in my veins prevented me from making sound decisions and assessments.
I realize I’m staring when Van clears his throat. I glance sheepishly at the man in question.
Oh god, he is gorgeous. Not just the kind of guy you’d take a second look at but the “hello, pretty, I know we just met but I want to have your babies” kind of attractive. He’s also huge, which, granted, I didn’t miss when I felt him lying beneath me, but it’s so much more intimidating up close like this.
“Hungry?” I can tell by his tone that there’s more on the menu than just pancakes—all I have to do is say the word. I don’t trust myself to speak at all so I nod. My gaze rolls over his face. He might be pretty but his beard looks ridiculous after I got crafty with it.
“I’m sorry about your . . .” I trail off, pointing to my jawline.
“Well, I’m not gonna lie. I’m pretty pissed about it because you may have just cost us the season.”
I frown. “What? How exactly do you figure that?”
“Team’s superstitious. They don’t shave their beards once the season starts,” Emmett says.
“Oh. Well, it’s just a beard, right? I mean, how can that keep you from winning a hockey game?”
“Emmett’s still pissy with you, too,” Van whispers in an aside. “He’s your biggest fan.”
Emmett, apparently, isn’t hard of hearing because he shoots up from his chair and throws a pancake in our direction. It goes wide, but Van jumps out of the way as if it might actually hit him. “God, Van, you’re such a dick.”
I have to agree with Emmett, but I don’t say as much.
“And, it’s not just a game. Hockey is life,” Van says resolutely.
“Um . . . okay.” I make a face and then shoot him an apologetic smile. “Well, sorry.”
“Not yet, but you might be.” Van slowly looks me over, in much the same way that I look at chocolate. “I haven’t decided how you’re going to make it up to me yet.”
“Excuse me?”
“The playoff beard is not to be trifled with.”
Emmett chuckles. “It’s not a playoff beard if you’re not at the playoffs, dumbass.”
“Emmett, shut the fuck up. You know it takes me all season to grow the beard in.”
I give him a smirk of my own. “It’s because of your baby face, isn’t it?”
“You know you’re really ungrateful for someone whose life I saved.”
I give a scoffing laugh. “Oh my god, you’re serious?”
“Hell yes, I’m serious. Have you seen outside? You’d be a popsicle right now if I hadn’t pulled you from your vehicle to warm you up.”
“Well, thank you for saving my life.” I use air quotes around the last three words of the sentence because I’m almost one hundred percent sure he’s exaggerating. “But I should probably be going.”
“But it’s Pancake Sunday.”
“Pancake Sunday?”
“Yeah, every Sunday lunch is Pancake Sunday. Right, Emmett?”
“Right.” Emmett has returned to his seat and shovels more of the breakfast food in his mouth.
“What? Americans don’t do pancakes for lunch on Sundays?”
I shake my head. “Not usually. We mostly eat lunch foods for lunch.”
Van covers the plate in his hand with the spatula. “Shhh, don’t worry, baby. She doesn’t know you like I do.”
I can’t help but laugh, and this earns me a wink. He shoves the plate at me, so I have no choice but to take it. “Go sit your ass down, Hart. You can’t go anywhere without soaking up some of that alcohol from your bloodstream.”
I give him a tight smile.
“You hear that, Emmett? The girl whose picture you jack it to every night is gonna be your lunch date.”
I blanch and stare at Van in disbelief.
“Shut up, fucker! God, Van you’re such a child.” Emmett grabs an apple from the bowl on the table and throws it at his brother. Van plucks it from midair and takes a huge bite, grinning like a fool. I’m not sure what kind of crazy I just walked in on, and I don’t know whether to laugh or go running for the hills. “Such a dick.”
“Love you too, brother.” He points his spatula at me. “Syrup’s on the table, babe.”
“Er . . . thanks.”
Emmett slides the syrup towards me. It’s then that I notice there are three bottles of the stuff. One half gone in front of Emmett, another at the place setting opposite him and one right by me. Okay. I knew Canadians liked their syrup but this is . . . different. “That’s your bottle,” Emmett says, as if I’m lacking common sense.
“Do I need my own bottle?”
Emmett and Van just stare at me, and then Emmett shakes his head and Van goes back to flipping pancakes. Okay then. Guess that answers that.
Van comes and sits opposite Emmett and dumps a quarter of the bottle of his syrup on the plate before cutting up the pancake and shoveling it in his mouth. He chews a couple times but doesn’t bother finishing his food before he says, “So, Stella Hart.”
“Van . . .” I pause. “It’s Ross, right?”
“The one and only.” He shoves more pancake onto his fork, and I go back to studying my plate to avoid seeing his half-masticated breakfast as it rolls around inside his mouth. “What brings you to Banff?”
I’m not sure if he just sneezed or not so I say, “Bless you,” anyway.
“Emmett, you didn’t tell me she was one of those Hillsong types.”
“Hey, I ain’t a Hillsong anything. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
“Right, except for the fact that you can’t have sex before marriage.”
Guess he has me there, but judging by the smirk he throws my way and the barbed comments in his bedroom, I’m betting he already knew about my seriously lacking sex life. Why wouldn’t he? I’ve made a habit of letting the entire world know about my virgin status. I even have a club. Which was certainly not my idea, but something my earliest label had pushed on me because I’d been a seventeen-year-old girl when I’d hit it big. The longer I had schoolgirls, college students, and even parents contacting me to say that they appreciated the positive message I was putting out, the harder it became to move away from that. And so, I became the official poster child for never giving it up before marriage. I’m not opposed to it exactly, but I sure wish the tag line of ‘virgin’ didn’t follow me everywhere. There is more to me than the squeaky-clean image my label puts out, but no one wants to know about that Stella. That Stella Hart isn’t someone who ran out on a stadium full of fans.
“She’s blushing.” Emmett laughs. It’s true. I am blushing. Heat scolds my cheeks and I close my eyes because the butterflies are filling up my insides again, their wingbeats fan the flames of that familiar burn in my chest. They cram together, vying for room, smothering my lungs, stealing my breath.
“Em, ease up.” Van grasps my hand on the table top. His is sticky, but warm. “You okay?”
“Uh-huh.” I retract my hand from beneath his and fold it in my lap. I can’t breathe. I tug at the shirt collar as a cold sweat breaks out across my forehead and my cheeks turn to flame.
“Is it hot in here?” I glance at the fire and then at the glass bi-fold door on the other side of the room leading out to a deck. “I need air.”
I shoot back from my chair and stand. My head swims. I really can’t breathe. Van takes hold of my arm and guides me over to the door. I yank on the handle but it doesn’t come free. “How do you get this fucking thing open?”
“Hey, it’s okay. Give me a second.”
“I can’t breathe.”
He unbolts the top and bottom of the door, and it slides back with a blast of icy mountain air. It hits my cheeks, but it isn’t enough so I continue onto the deck. There’s actual ice on the boards, and I slip. I might have gone down in a heap, but Van is there to catch me. I look up into his blue eyes and whisper, “Why can’t I breathe?”
“I don’t know. You’re okay though. Just big, deep breaths. That’s it, country.” As I breathe deeply of this clean mountain air, I notice three things. First, Van’s arm is wrapped around my waist. His hands have somehow found their way under the hem of my shirt and are pressed firmly to the flesh of my lower back and abdomen. Two, my feet are so cold it’s painful. And three, I’m not panicking anymore, but staring up into that pretty, pretty face.
“There she is,” he murmurs, as if he isn’t talking to me at all.
I exhale, and my breath actually fogs. “I think I’m okay now.”
“Sure?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, clearly you don’t need any caffeine, but you want a water or something?”
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
“Because it’s what we Canadians do—be nice.” I frown and shoot him a look of disbelief. “What? You thought you southerners were the only ones who held that title? Oh, Canadians will have you beat at every turn. And not just with niceties. We kick your ass in hockey, too.”
I roll my eyes and follow him inside where I sit by Emmett again. He glances at me, and I feel a twinge of embarrassment when he says, “Does it get loud in your head, too?”
“Loud?”
“All the noise.”
“Kind of, yeah.”
“Me too. Van’s good at making the loud go away.”
“Yeah. I can see that about him.” I nod and glance at the man in question. He’s smiling as he runs the faucet and fills my glass. His eyes meet mine, as if he can sense my gaze on him, and they narrow as if he’s trying to figure out what I’m thinking.
Oh, if he only knew.
How is a guy like this still single? He’s gorgeous, apparently a good Samaritan, successful—if those pucks lining the mantel and the size of this house are anything to go by—and it’s obvious he loves his brother.
So why is Mr. Perfect all alone here in this mountain home? I bet he has a girlfriend—a perfect perky-boobed great-assed girlfriend who just about slays him in the sack.
It would figure that I would run away, find a man who comes pretty damn close to being Mr. Right, and everything would be oh, so wrong.