Puck Love by Carmen Jenner (8)

The following day I wake late to a quiet house, and a note from Van on my pillow that reads,

I should have been alarmed that he’d been in my room while I slept, like some kind of creeper, but I smile instead because he remembered our conversation from yesterday. I let the note flutter back to the pillow, and I roll over. I can’t remember the last time I slept in, but wintery sunlight is streaming through my window, and for a long time I just lie here, watching it pool on the waxed floorboards.

Eventually, the pangs in my stomach force me to go in search of food. I help myself to coffee, and forage through Van’s kitchen cupboards for sustenance before settling on a bagel. At least, I think it’s supposed to be a bagel. It’s sticky, sweet, covered in seeds, and a little misshapen. It’s almost impossible to halve so that it will fit in the toaster, and when I’m done, I discover that the lashings of cream cheese I put on top don’t go over as well as I’d planned. The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth so I clean up my mess and wander back to the den with a second cup of coffee in hand. I don’t dare turn on the giant flat-screen. I have no interest in the outside world right now, and I still haven’t made up my mind as to what the hell I’m going to do. I know I can’t stay here forever. Emmett and Van have been far too kind to me already, but the thought of leaving sends my heart hammering against my ribcage and my nerves into overdrive. I set down the cup of coffee and smooth my hands over the soft leather couch. I wish I had my guitar right now, because I’ll go crazy fidgeting if I can’t find something to keep my hands busy.

Van might be able to help with that.

Shut up, brain.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Van’s preposterous shiny black Hummer pulls up the drive, and I practically sit on my hands to keep from running to the window like a little kid. A beat later, he opens the door and he and Emmett step inside, bringing a blast of cold with them.

“Oh no, she’s robbed us blind,” Van says with a grin that makes me think about keeping my hands busy again.

“Very funny.”

“Hi, Stella,” Emmett says, giving me a little wave.

“Hey Emmett.”

Van gives him a playful shove, and Emmett punches him in the arm and wanders off to his room, where he slams the door. Van shrugs and kicks off his shoes. “Did you get my note?”

“I did, thank you. It was nice to have the clarification that I wasn’t about to be murdered after waking in a strange house.”

“I thought you’d like it.” He takes several more steps toward me. “Did you eat?”

The way he says this, his voice all deep and husky, makes me want more . . . food. Of course. Not other things, like getting naked with hot hockey players who are made of grunt and sweat and too much time spent in the gym—and possibly in the bedroom.

What the hell is wrong with me? I don’t date hockey players. I don’t have time for relationships. Besides, I’m sure he’s used to women that are more experienced, and I haven’t the slightest idea how to keep someone like Van Ross satisfied.

“I ate,” I say quietly. I also blush all the way to my hairline.

“What are you doing, sitting here all by yourself?”

“Thinking too much.”

He nods, as if he understands what’s going on inside my head. “Okay, that’s it. Get up.”

“What?”

“Come on, country. We’re springing you from this joint.”

“You are?”

“Emmett, we’re heading down to the woods. You wanna come? There might be moose.”

He calls from behind his bedroom door, “Has Stella seen moose?”

“I don’t know. Has she?” Van says, studying my face. Why does everything feel like a loaded question with him?

“Only once. The other night, when I crashed my car. My life has been surprisingly moose-free up until I totaled my car attempting not to hit one.”

A moment later, Emmett’s door opens a crack and he pokes his head out. “You hit a moose?”

“Emmett loves moose, almost as much as he loves you.”

“Fuck you, Van.”

“Oh, come on, buddy. Stella knows I’m just kidding.”

Emmett looks to me for conformation, and I nod. “Totally.”

“Come on, let’s go introduce Stella to Bullwinkle J. Moose,” Van says.

“Bullwinkle is not code for your penis, is it?” I fold my arms and glare up at him. Van just laughs as he climbs the stairs, and I’m left wondering if he really has taken one too many pucks to the head.

When he returns a few minutes later he’s decked out head to toe in hunting gear and carrying what looks like more of the same. He lobs the armful of fabric at me, and I catch it, though mostly I just get drowned in a puddle of waterproof clothing.

“What is this?”

“Can’t hunt moose without blending into your surrounds.” Van takes a key from his pocket and opens a locked chest across the room that I assumed was housing cushions and throw rugs, but he pulls out a rifle and my blood turns as frosty as the weather outside.

“Hunt? I thought you said we were just going to introduce ourselves?”

“Relax. We don’t ever shoot anything. It’s just for protection.”

“Protection from what?”

“Bears, cougars, wolves . . .”

“You forgot wolverines,” Emmett says.

“So basically, everything then?” I swallow hard.

“Can’t forget the rabid puck bunnies, either.”

Emmett nods sagely. “Good point.”

“Do I even want to know what they are?”

“Probably not.” Emmett’s now decked out head to toe in camouflage, too. They both look ridiculous. I guess this hunting moose thing is happening whether I go or not, and the thought of sitting here alone twiddling my thumbs doesn’t really appeal, so I gather up the clothing that will no doubt make me, too, look like a lumberjack, and I head upstairs to change.

The pants are far too big. So is the jacket. I feel ridiculous, but Van’s expression when I come down the stairs looking like a cammo marshmallow is sort of adorable, so I decide I may as well continue impersonating the Stay Puft man. We pile into the Hummer—with some difficulty, I might add—and Van reverses the beast. It really is a beast. I don’t understand why anyone needs a car this big, but for all its size, it does seem to navigate the side of the mountain far better than my stolen SUV. Which is no longer parked in a snow drift near Van’s house.

“Did you move my car?”

“Oh yeah. Tim came and towed it this morning. I’m surprised it didn’t wake you. It’s not easy to get a truck up here.”

Well, that information would have been useful several hours ago. I could always ask Van to drop me somewhere but then I’ll be on a plane to wherever the hell Lana and my next show are scheduled to be. Right now, that’s the very last thing I want.

Twenty minutes into the drive, we pass a building that looks a little like Hogwarts nestled into the base of the mountain. It seems oddly familiar, but it isn’t until we pass it that I put two and two together. I recognize it from the sign on the highway.

“Van, isn’t that the hotel I asked you to drive me to yesterday?”

“Er . . .”

I slap his arm. “Oh my god, you lied to me.”

“You don’t wanna stay there. Seriously, the second you check in everyone’s going to know about it.”

“I thought you said the only way to get there was over the mountain.”

“It is, unless, of course, you take the road.”

“The road that was supposed to be closed?”

“Yep, that’s the one.”

“Van . . .”

“Come on, country, where’s your sense of adventure? If you’d checked in to that hotel you’d already be back to your miserable life. This way, you get the break you so desperately need, and the bonus of two strapping young gentlemen for company. Tell me it wasn’t smart to lie.”

“It wasn’t smart to lie,” I say, but I think my smile tells him everything I won’t say.

“Here’s the thing—you have to be absolutely quiet,” Van says, as he settles in the snow beside me.

“Okay.”

“You can’t make a sound,” Emmett says too loudly. I glance at Van, expecting him to shush his brother like he just did me, but he winks. I’m freezing my ass off out here. I’d much rather be sitting cozy at Lodge Ross with a hot chocolate that I’m not supposed to drink. Instead, I’m knee-deep in snow, decked out in cammo and sporting black war paint under my eyes like a football player.

I hunker down between the two boys, using their bodies as a shield against the cold, and when I’m sure I’m about to die of hyperthermia we hear a guttural bellowing sound. “Hear that?” Van whispers.

I gulp, not sure I want some mammoth moose coming toward me, but after an hour of freezing my boobs off, a bull finally enters the grove. He’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen, with a deep brown coat and antlers so wide they must be at least six feet from end to end. I still.

Emmet whispers, “See it, Stella?”

I can’t speak—I can only nod. I don’t know if it’s the size of the beast that I find the most intimidating or the fact that it’s walking in tight circles and butting its head into trees.

“Oh shit,” Van whispers.

The moose looks right at us and sways a little.

“Oh shit? Oh shit, what?”

“He’s got brainworm.”

“What does that mean?” I hiss back. Panic swirls in my gut. The zombie moose charges for us, then falls down in the snow, but it’s back on its feet again in a matter of seconds. I shriek and take several steps back.

“You’re gonna need to go,” Van shouts.

I’m frozen to the spot, watching the animal stumble and fall. “What are you going to do?”

“I gotta put him down.”

The moose charges again, and this time I don’t wait to be told to move. I run. With flailing arms, I take off through the forest, but the moose runs, too, right on after me. Somewhere far behind, above the sounds of a one thousand-pound moose chasing me, I hear a shot ring out from the opposite direction, and Van shouts, “Stella!”

Emmett’s voice echoes his, but I keep running, and then I hear something bearing down on me, a huge body thundering through the woods, and I think I’m done. I can’t look back for the fear of running headfirst into a tree, but that panic is nothing when my legs go out from under me as I’m crash-tackled to the ground. I scream, tense, and wait for the moose to eat me alive or spear me right through, but I land hard on the forest floor with . . . Van, on top of me? All the air is squeezed from my lungs.

“Are you fucking crazy? You’re going to get shot! There are hunters out here.”

I slap his chest. “You scared me half to death. Where’s the moose?”

“He’s down for now, I think.”

A shot goes off, ricocheting off a nearby tree. “Oh my god! Is someone shooting at us?”

“Yeah, Stella. That’s what happens when you run through the woods in a hunting area. They think you’re a deer. Stop!” Van says, and a man lets loose a string of colorful profanities. I glance up at Van. We hear another body thundering toward us through the underbrush, and suddenly, a man-bear holding a rifle is towering over us. Van gets to his feet and offers me a hand up. I take it, but only because I have no desire to fall on my ass in front of the big scary hunter.

“What the hell were you two thinkin’, eh?” The hunter points his finger in my face and then Van’s.

“Hey, don’t you talk to her like that, and don’t point your goddamn finger at my girlfriend.” My head snaps so fast in Van’s direction I’m surprised I don’t pull a muscle.

“I almost shot you two. I can’t afford to go shooting no humans when I’m just out here looking for a bull.”

“You shouldn’t hunt,” I say. “Animals aren’t sport.”

He turns angry black eyes on me. “Excuse me?”

“Babe, that’s enough.”

“Wait, I know you,” he says to Van. “You’re the Crushers’ center, aren’t you?”

“You’re a fan?” Van smiles, and he seems to deflate. For a half-second, I’m afraid of being recognized too, but this guy doesn’t really scream country music fan. More like classic rock, or death metal.

“I’m a Toronto fan.”

“Shit,” Van mutters.

“You beat the shit out of Cote and put him in the hospital. He was our best player. You’re the reason we didn’t make last year’s playoffs.”

“Come on, now, that’s a pretty big claim. Besides, he cross-checked my face. Way I see it, he had it coming.”

The hunter tightens his grip on his gun. Van must see it too, because he takes my hand. “Stella, babe, run.”

“What?” I say, and then he’s yanking me along behind him. We dash through the trees, back the way we came, collecting Emmett along the way. When we make it to the Hummer, I bend double, rest my hands on my knees and attempt to catch my breath. “Is he going to shoot us?”

“Nah, we lost him about a half a mile back. Damn, girl. I thought you worked out.”

“I do.” I hold my hand up to indicate he should wait. “But I’m not normally wrapped up like a marshmallow and running through the Canadian Rockies while some terrifying hockey-hunter whack job chases us with a rifle.”

Van laughs, and the bastard isn’t even out of breath. “You should see your face.”

“Oh my god, you’re an asshole, Van.”

“He is an asshole,” Emmett agrees, seemingly as out of breath as I am.

“Get in the car, Brother,” Van says. Emmett pokes his tongue out.

“What happened to the moose?”

“He ran right into a tree. Fell and didn’t get up. I flew right by him, and he didn’t even notice me.”

“You didn’t want to use the rifle in your hands and shoot him while he was chasing me?”

“No. I would have killed you.” He smiles sheepishly. “I’m a fucking terrible shot.”

My blood turns cold when I realize that I could have been slain by more than one hunter today. Oh my god. Let’s go hunt moose, he said. It’ll be fun, he said. That jackass. I frown at Van, and take a closer look at the gun in his hands. “Well, it don’t help that you bought the cheapest rifle on the market. There’s your first mistake right there.”

“What?” He gapes at me in disbelief.

“I know how to shoot a gun, Van. I grew up in Tennessee. Why the hell do you think I’m a vegetarian? My granddaddy shot anything that moved. I didn’t like it, and I especially didn’t like eating them after I’d seen the poor things skinned and strung up while the blood drained out of them.”

He has this glazed expression on his face. “I am all kinds of turned on right now.”

“Because I’m a vegetarian?”

“Because you know how to shoot a gun. Chicks with guns are hot.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh my god.” I throw my hands up in exasperation but Van moves closer. I take a step back and find myself leaning against the Hummer. He slides his hand into my hair, his huge palm grazing my cheek. Van leans in, and . . . Emmett slams his fist on the horn. “Come on, Van. I’m freezing my nuts off in here.”

Van chuckles. “Saved by the bell.”

I glance up at this gorgeous enigma of a man and sigh as he pulls away. I’m pretty sure it’s not the cold that’s making my face flush all over, and I have no doubt that he’s all too aware of it. I laugh nervously as Van smiles down at me with a knowing grin, and he backs away. I lean my head against the car and take several deep breaths. From a rampaging moose to hot hockey players, the Canadian wilderness is a dangerous place for a girl from Tennessee.