Wild Zone (Rough Riders Hockey 4)

Olivia was already shaking her head. Tate would be humiliated. He would be livid. He would hate her. Aside from the deterring thought of over six feet of muscle furious with her, the realization of how far his opinion of her had fallen cut into her heart. She couldn’t face seeing it in his eyes. Especially not after all this turmoil.

“He’s not going to—“ She started. “Wait. What job?”

“The banquet, Liv. Tate is our client for the banquet. So you’re going to talk to him, because not only do we need that job, but you have to work with him.”

“I— But—”

“You make sure that Tate Donovan has nothing but good things to say about all the women in this family before you board another fucking plane.”

6

Tate pushed toward the net with a puck on the blade of his stick.

Wait. Fire. Score.

Wait. Fire. Score.

Beckett came at him and reached in.

Wait.

Tate let the puck glide just beyond his teammate’s blade.

Beckett’s reach tipped his body weight past the center point, creating space on the ice for Tate to shoot without interference.

Fire.

Tate slammed the puck, rocketing it toward the net, right past Beckett. His teammate was way too far off balance to recover in time to block.

Score.

“Yes,” he hissed as he let the forward momentum swing him around the goal.

Beckett picked up one of the many stray pucks on the ice and took up Tate’s previous position as offense. Tate claimed defense and did what he could to crowd Beckett, messing with his attempt to master calculated hang time.

They’d been running drills like this for over an hour. All after already picking up a practice game earlier that day with eight of their teammates and chasing after a bunch of rambunctious ten-year-olds for four hours that morning. But Beckett didn’t complain. He didn’t bitch. He didn’t beg off and tell Tate he had to go home to Eden, who had the day off and was home with Beckett’s daughter, Lily.

Even when Tate knew Beckett would rather be home with them, he was still sweating his ass out with Tate because Beckett understood the therapeutic value of working out your frustrations on the ice. And Tate needed it because even two days after mistaking Quinn for Olivia, he still felt like an absolute fool.

Beckett scored and Tate picked up another puck, switching positions again.

“All right.” Beckett wiped his sweaty face on his shirtsleeve. “I’m done takin’ it easy on you now.”

Tate laughed, though it sounded more like footsteps on gravel.

“No net for you pretty boy,” Beckett said, putting force into his skates and coming at Tate hard.

Adrenalin spiked and muscle memory had Tate maneuvering to get past Beckett. But his teammate was as good as they came and when Beckett kicked up the heat, he was like a fucking cement wall. The only thing Tate had on the man was speed. So he poured on the juice, used a little fancy footwork, added some well-honed stick work, and still couldn’t get past him.

“Goddammit,” Tate complained. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

“Bet you say that to all the boys,” he said as he blocked again. And again. And again.

“Motherfucker.”

“Can’t go through me.” Hip check. “Can’t go around me.” Another block. “What are you gonna do?”

Go under you. Tate tapped the puck between Beckett’s legs then reached around him and dove for it, stick outstretched. The edge of his stick tapped the puck a second before Tate landed chest first on the ice. His momentum propelled the puck into the net.