Defensive Zone Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  About this Book

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Roster

  Other Titles by Catherine Gayle

  About the Author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the work of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

  Defensive Zone

  Copyright © 2017 by Catherine Gayle

  Cover Design by Kim Killion, The Killion Group

  Published by Night Shift Publishing at Smashwords

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

  For more information: [email protected]

  This one’s for my mother, because she’s my hero, and for all the doctors and nurses who made sure I was still around to finish it.

  Portland Storm defenseman Cody “Harry” Williams owes his coach everything—especially for bailing him out of trouble in the past. How does he want Cody to repay him? By keeping his hands to himself around the coach’s sensual and mischievous daughter. All signs point to this task being easier said than done…

  Up-and-coming fashion designer Dani Weber always gets what she wants—and she wants Cody Williams. Cody’s sexy, geeky-chic bowties and hard-to-get attitude only make her want him more, and now Cody’s resistance is fading…and fast.

  One call is all it would take to land Cody on the trading block, ending their flirtation before it gains any traction. Cody is squarely in the Defensive Zone, but the only way for the two of them to obtain what they really want is to go on the offensive—together.

  DEFENSIVE ZONE is Book 15 in the Portland Storm hockey romance series written by USA Today bestselling author Catherine Gayle. If you enjoy it, look for the other books in the series.

  BREAKAWAY

  ON THE FLY

  TAKING A SHOT

  LIGHT THE LAMP

  DELAY OF GAME

  DOUBLE MAJOR

  IN THE ZONE

  HOLIDAY HAT TRICK

  COMEBACK

  DROPPING GLOVES

  HOME ICE

  MISTLETOE MISCONDUCT

  LOSING AN EDGE

  GAME BREAKER

  DEFENSIVE ZONE

  POWER PLAY

  NEUTRAL ZONE

  FREE AGENT

  There are also currently two boxed sets of books within the series, if you would prefer to purchase them in that way. A third will release soon.

  PORTLAND STORM: THE FIRST PERIOD (Contains Breakaway, On the Fly, Taking a Shot, and Light the Lamp)

  PORTLAND STORM: THE SECOND PERIOD (Contains Delay of Game, Double Major, In the Zone, Holiday Hat Trick, and Comeback)

  PORTLAND STORM: THE THIRD PERIOD (Contains Dropping Gloves, Home Ice, Mistletoe Misconduct, Losing an Edge, and Game Breaker)

  Also, join Catherine’s mailing list to receive ICE BREAKER, a Portland Storm short story prequel that you can’t get anywhere else.

  Want to join in the Portland Storm discussion? Join the Facebook group at Cat’s House.

  Interested in buying your own customizable Portland Storm and Tulsa Thunderbirds jerseys, T-shirts, and more? Find out how here.

  “MY PATRONUS HAS a first name, it’s D-I-R-T-Y. My Patronus has a second name, it’s H-A-R-R-Y.” The tune fell from my lips like a greeting for an old friend, despite the words being brand new and entirely of my own making. Mine were better than the original, anyway. Because Harry was hella better than bologna, no matter which way you sliced things.

  There wasn’t a chance I’d stop singing to myself anytime soon. Not on a day like today. I kept humming the tune as I measured and cut fabric in the spare-bedroom-turned-fashion-design-headquarters in my sister’s house. My excitement was palpable, practically oozing from my pores, so there was absolutely no point trying to contain it. Besides, no one was here to witness my idiocy, so it wasn’t like it mattered how ridiculously I acted. I could sing and dance to my heart’s content, and no one else need ever know.

  What was so great about today, though? Today was Dirty Harry Day, whether he realized it or not.

  I kept humming the ditty while having difficulty not doing a jig as I worked. Visions of Cody “Dirty Harry” Williams—the sexiest ginger-haired-and-bearded hockey player alive—kept bouncing around in my head. And then there were his eyes. They were as dark as the midnight sky, especially when he glared at me. It wasn’t exactly a glare, per se. More of a lusty, needy, not-sure-what-to-do-with-me look that made me wet and achy with wanting him. Good Lord, that man did a number on me.

  For the purpose of full disclosure, he was only known as Dirty Harry to me. Everyone else just called him Harry, a moniker he’d earned in his rookie season with the Portland Storm due to his resemblance to the British royal, a man who was—quite literally, in my esteemed opinion—sex on a stick.

  Both of them were, for that matter.

  But my Harry was somehow even hotter than the prince, which was saying something. Probably because of the air of mystery surrounding him. And I just knew he was a dirty, dirty bird, an idea that turned me on like none other.

  Something about Harry just did it for me.

  There was no way his bow-tie-and-sweater-vest routine was for real. This guy was not your friendly neighborhood Mr. Rogers. Not even close. I didn’t know what his particular filthy persuasions might be, but I’d be damned if he didn’t have a few.

  And I intended to learn, firsthand, what they might be. The sooner, the better, too.

  According to my intel, he was due to return to Portland sometime today.

  The new National Hockey League season would be getting underway in a few weeks’ time, which meant that the Storm’s training camp was just around the corner. Most of the married guys and those with families had already returned well before now in order to get settled in so their kids could start the new school year, but now the singletons were starting to trickle back into town.

  As a matter of fact, Harry might already be here. None of my sources had been able to track down what flight he would be on, so we were just operating on guesswork. They only wanted to stalk him at the airport and maybe get him to sign their boobs or something. I wanted a hell of a lot more than that. Which meant I needed to finish my workday soon.

  Whether he’d already stepped foot in the city or not, as soon as I finished up for the day, I’d be checking my sources one more time before going out on a recon mission.

  The sad truth was that he’d been trying to avoid me for months, and I’d had more than enough of that for one lifetime, thank you very much. It was time to put an end to his shenanigans once and for all. The guy had even gone so far as to present a fictional girlfriend to the world, and I could only imagine he’d stooped to that level in order to throw me off the scent. After some hot and heavy flirtation between the two of us last season, during the times I’d been home from school, all of a sudden he’d decided he had to steer clear of me because of some stupid promise he’d made
to my father.

  Well, fuck that shit. My father didn’t get to have any sort of say in my love life, and he got even less of a say in my sex life. And frankly, sex was what I really wanted from Harry.

  I didn’t have any delusions of grandeur about riding off into the sunset toward a wedding or making babies with him or anything. I was only twenty years old. I wasn’t ready for eternal monogamy or anything like that, and I was nowhere close to thinking about making babies. I was having way too much fun discovering what I liked—and I liked Harry.

  But he’d gone on Eye of the Storm, a behind-the-scenes web show about the team, during the playoffs last season and claimed that this Jasinda chick was his soul mate.

  Lies. Complete and total bullshit.

  The Internet had practically exploded with the news, before a handful of other pseudostalkers and I had uncovered the truth about his fake significant other. Turned out she was a regular at several Portland hot spots for the lesbian crowd, and she was almost always seen with this one other chick in particular. Oh, yeah. And those two liked to suck one another’s faces off in public all the time.

  Not Jasinda and Harry. Jasinda and the other chick.

  I wasn’t sure what he was trying to pull by making out that she was his girlfriend, but I hadn’t bought it, and I’d let him know what a lying liar he was.

  That hadn’t convinced him to ignore the promise he’d made to my dad. Yet. But now I was back in Portland to stay, so he was going to have to try a hell of a lot harder to shake me off if that was what he truly wanted.

  Based on the way he’d kissed me—back before Dad had tried to run him off—I wasn’t buying that for a second. So I had no doubt I’d be able to convince him we needed to have a little fling. We just had to get past his hang-ups, whatever they might be. Not a big deal. After that? Smooth sailing, and all the orgasms we could handle. Easy peasy.

  I glanced up at the clock. Almost lunchtime. Definitely almost time to knock off for the day to do some Harry stalking. I still had a fitting scheduled for late afternoon, but that wouldn’t take long, and I could do some recon between now and then. I measured my fabric one more time before making the cut, just to be sure I had everything right.

  My cell phone pinged with a message, so I dropped my scissors and swiped the screen. It was from Bea Castillo, my absolute, most favoritest client in the history of ever. She also happened to be my only client, currently. Which meant she had been my first client, so she would always be my favorite. That was just how it was going to work.

  Bea: Need to reschedule. A parent begged for a meeting after school today because her son’s being bullied. I have to do this.

  I’d never tell her this, but I danced around the room in victory. If we weren’t meeting this afternoon, I could start my Harry stalking ASAP and probably finagle a way to run into him.

  Me: No problem. This weekend? Next week? You tell me when and I’ll work it out.

  Bea: Sunday afternoon? I can be there around two, if that works.

  Me: Done deal. See you then!

  Score! I finished cutting the pieces I’d measured, but as soon as that was done, I started clearing everything away. I had enough finished designs ready to go for Bea’s fitting, and if she wasn’t coming this afternoon, there was no reason for me to keep slaving away. I could get started on Operation: Harry Watch sooner than planned.

  But first, I needed sustenance.

  My sister, Katie, and her husband, Jamie, lived in the house they owned next door. Back before they’d gotten married, they’d bought these his-and-hers houses right next to each other. But Katie had never gotten around to selling hers after the wedding even though they lived in his.

  Sometimes she still came over to write music in her recording studio or sit in the swing out in the backyard while she tried to work through songwriter’s block. Since the wedding, they had occasionally offered it up to one of Jamie’s Portland Storm teammates if a guy got called up from the minors unexpectedly and didn’t want to live in a hotel or if there was a mid-season trade and the new guy needed time to find a place of his own. Jamie was the team captain, so I supposed it was kind of his duty to be sure all the newbies were looked after or something. But when I’d needed a place to work over my summer break from school—and to get out from under our parents’ watchful eyes—she’d offered me this house and said I could use one of the guest bedrooms for my workspace.

  Granted, she hadn’t been counting on me deciding not to go back to school this semester and starting up my own fashion design business out of her house, but I didn’t think she minded.

  At least not too much.

  The fact that I was constantly barging into their house and raiding their fridge probably stuck in her craw more than me commandeering her house for my own purposes. But, while I had no doubts that my new fashion line would take off and sell like hotcakes, and I’d be rolling in the dough someday in the not-too-distant future—confidence had never been an issue for me, after all, and particularly not when it came to my vision and skills—the truth was that so far, I was putting a lot more into the start-up than I was earning, even with my business loans (thank you, Dad, for co-signing) covering most of my expenses to date.

  The bigger reason for me mooching their food, though, was that I hated grocery shopping with the fire of a thousand suns. And since Jamie was almost always hungry because he burned more calories in a single day than my sister and I combined could consume in a week, they never had a shortage of things for me to munch on.

  One of these days, I’d try one of those grocery delivery services. In the meantime, I’d just keep raiding their stash. At least for however long they allowed me to get away with it.

  My stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten anything all day. For breakfast, I’d made coffee. With milk! But that had been all I’d put inside my body all day other than oodles of water. I’d been too caught up in creating this latest flowy tunic with a built-in tummy smoother for Bea to think about taking a break for food. Probably not my brightest move, but when I was focused on my work, unless a plate of hot, steaming, delicious food passed under my nose, I tended to forget all about it.

  Once everything had been carefully put away, I dug my cell phone out again and scanned for the latest Dirty Harry sighting info.

  I wasn’t particularly high-tech in gathering my information. I was, however, a Twitter ninja, an Instagram junkie, and a Snapchat fiend. There were some hardcore puck bunnies on all of those social media platforms who stalked lots of pro hockey players like Harry. And while they typically didn’t have any true insider info, like I did, they were pretty handy in terms of knowing a player’s general whereabouts.

  Sure enough, @luv8harry was able to help me out. She lived in Kelowna, British Columbia—Harry’s hometown—and had seen him making his way into the airport about four hours ago. I did a quick Google search on today’s flights. Most likely he was on the one due to land just after two. The next flight after that wouldn’t arrive until seven, and I couldn’t imagine he’d have been at the airport anywhere near that early for such a late flight.

  Which meant I had more than enough time to crash lunch at Jamie and Katie’s house. Excellent.

  Shoving my phone in my pocket, I headed out the back door and through the gate between the two properties. The back door at Jamie’s house was unlocked, as usual. They’d given up on trying to keep it locked, because I was always barging in like this at all hours of the day and night. Easier to just let me come and go as I pleased.

  Oreo, Katie’s black-and-white tuxedo cat, gave me an indignant meow as soon as I came through the door. I bent down to scratch her behind the ears, which satisfied her long enough to let me close the door.

  Jamie glanced up from the kitchen. He had on some Under Armour athletic gear, the moisture-wicking sort, and a towel draped around his shoulders like he’d just come in from the gym. His cat, Blackbeard, was on top of the towel and making himself at home. That cat was always on Jamie’s shoulders, but
he really loved it when Jamie was sweaty and stinky. Craziest thing I’d ever seen, but whatever. Cats were weird.

  Jamie raised a brow and laughed. “You couldn’t possibly smell lunch yet since I just got home to start cooking.”

  “What, you mean Katie didn’t have your food waiting for you? Bad wifey.”

  “She had a meeting with a couple of the guys from The End of All Things this morning,” he reminded me.

  Which, yes, I’d known about that. I’d just forgotten. Probably because it didn’t have anything to do with Harry, and I had been more than just a bit preoccupied lately. Katie might not be a bad wifey, but I might very well be a bad sister. “Right. When’s she due home?”

  Jamie picked up a butcher knife and started to chop a bell pepper. “Not until dinner. They’re in the studio. Working on a song for the new album. So that means it’s just the two of us. Good thing I’m prepping enough food for you to eat.” He winked to let me know he was teasing.

  I joined him in the kitchen, Oreo weaving her way between my feet with every step. When I got there, he nodded toward another cutting board, knife, and some veggies—a clear indication that if I wanted to eat, I could damn well help with the prep work. I shrugged and started chopping a cucumber. “So did you work out with Levi this morning?” I asked. Levi was Jamie’s younger brother, as well as one of the defensemen on the team.

  Jamie shook his head. “Nah. Levi and Cadence had a thing with Jonny, Sara, and the kids. It’s Connor’s birthday.”

  “So you were on your own today?”

  “I wish. Hammer and Soupy kicked my ass hard-core. Those two are like freaks in the gym.”

  I shrugged. “It’s because they’re old. Can’t keep up with you.”

  “I’m the one who can’t keep up.”

  I scoffed.