Penalty Box Read online

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  Praise for the novels of Deirdre Martin

  Total Rush

  “Total Rush is just that—a total rush, an absolute delight. Deirdre Martin is the reason I read romance novels. This contemporary romance is so well-written, [it] has a hero to-die-for and a romance that turns you into a puddle. It fills your heart to overflowing with love, acceptance, and the beauty of uniqueness. I laughed, I cried, I celebrated. It’s more than a read, it is a re-read. Brava, Ms. Martin, you‘ re the greatest!”

  —The Best Reviews

  “The book is well-written and makes you want to keep turning the pages to see what happens next.”

  —The Columbia (SC) State

  “Martin’s inventive take on opposites attracting is funny and poignant.”

  —Booklist

  “A heartwarming story of passion, acceptance, and most importantly, love, this book is definitely a Total Rush.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “Fast-paced, sexy, fun yet tender, the pages of Total Rush practically turn themselves. This is Deirdre Martin’s third novel and is as sensational as the first two. It’s now Gemma Dante’s turn to find love, and the attraction between her and Sean is dynamite. Total Rush is a definite winner.”

  —Romance Junkies

  Fair Play

  “Martin depicts the worlds of both professional hockey and ethnic Brooklyn with deftness and smart detail. She has an unerring eye for humorous family dynamics [and] sweet buoyancy.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Fast-paced, wisecracking, and an enjoyable story… Makes you feel like you’re flying.”

  —Rendezvous

  “A fun and witty story… The depth of characterizations and the unexpectedly moving passages make this an exceptional romance and a must-read for all fans of the genre.”

  —Booklist

  “A fine sports romance that will score big-time… Martin has provided a winner.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Sure to delight both fans of professional ice hockey and those who enjoy a good romance.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  Body Check

  “Heartwarming.”

  —Booklist

  “Combines sports and romance in a way that reminded me of Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s It Had To Be You, but Deirdre Martin has her own style and voice. Body Check is one of the best first novels I have read in a long time.”

  —All About Romance (Desert Island Keeper)

  “Deirdre Martin aims for the net and scores with Body Check.”

  —The Romance Reader (Four Hearts)

  “You don’t have to be a hockey fan to cheer for Body Check. Deirdre Martin brings readers a story that scores.”

  —The Word On Romance

  “Fun, fast-paced, and sexy, Body Check is a dazzling debut.”

  —Millie Criswell,

  USA Today bestselling author of No Strings Attached

  “Fun, delightful, emotional, and sexy, Body Check is an utterly enthralling, fast-paced novel. This is one author I eagerly look forward to reading more from.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “An engaging romance that scores a hat trick [with] a fine supporting cast.”

  —The Best Reviews

  Berkley Sensation books by Deirdre Martin

  BODY CHECK

  FAIR PLAY

  TOTAL RUSH

  THE PENALTY BOX

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), Cur. Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  THE PENALTY BOX

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / March 2006

  Copyright © 2006 by Deirdre Martin.

  Cover art by Monica Lind.

  Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

  Hand lettering by Ron Zinn.

  Interior text design by Kristin del Rosario.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 0-425-20890-7

  BERKLEY® SENSATION

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 987654321

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  For my brother,

  Bill, who daily proves F. Scott Fitzgerald wrong

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to:

  Jon and JoAnn Epps, Mike and Jacquie Powers, Nancy Herkness, and anyone else I might have missed who shared their youth hockey stories with me.

  My husband, Mark, for his patience and good humor.

  Elaine English and Allison McCabe.

  Mom, Dad, Bill, Allison, Beth, Jane, Dave, Tom, and the “lads” for continually reminding me what’s important.

  CHAPTER 1

  According, to Katie Fisher, there were two types of people in the world: those who attended
high school reunions, and those who did not. She herself definitely fell into the latter category, which is why she almost passed Diet Coke through her nose when her mother casually informed her she’d taken the liberty of RSVPing the invitation to Katie’s tenth high school reunion, saying she would attend.

  “You did WHAT?” Katie gasped, inhaling an ice cube.

  “I thought it would be fun,” her mother replied gaily, transferring a chicken casserole from the oven to the counter. She glanced over her shoulder at Katie with concern. “Are you all right, dear?”

  “Fine,” Katie rasped. “Nothing like a good choke to end the day with.”

  “Oh, you.” Her mother, a small, cheerful, doughy woman, clucked her tongue. She’d never quite gotten Katie’s sense of humor.

  Having narrowly avoided death by ice cube, Katie filled with dread at the thought of revisiting Didsbury High’s class of ‘96. She wasn’t a curmudgeon, or antisocial, or uppity. Nor had she contracted an unsavory social disease the way Lulu Davenport had, farted in the middle of chemistry class like Magnus Pane, or ruined the school’s annual production of “The Nutcracker Suite” by crashing into a cardboard Christmas tree onstage like Bridget Devlin. Katie’s sin had been unpopularity. High school had been painful.

  She’d grown up poor, the result of her father having died young, forcing her mother to support the family on a factory worker’s wages. It shouldn’t have made a difference—tiny Didsbury, Connecticut, prided itself on being a mixed community with rich and poor alike—but it did. In the status-driven world of high school, to be rich was to be “in,” to be poor “out.” Katie had been a girl in clean but unfashionable clothing who came from the wrong part of town. A girl who hadn’t had a home PC or a cell phone, who’d used public transportation because her mother hadn’t had a car she could toodle around in on the weekends. Not that she’d had anyone to toodle around with.

  Katie had also been brainy. Super-scary-knows-the-answer-to-every-question-the-teacher-asks brainy. To be a teenage brainiac was completely uncool, especially for a girl. It scared people. Especially guys. Especially jocks.

  Last but not least, Katie had also been fat, which in high school was the equivalent of being an untouchable. She was the girl whose pants size exceeded her age. Boys had walked behind her in the hall making oinking noises. Girls had slammed her into lockers or invited her to phantom social events.

  Nerdy, poor, and dumpy. Three strikes and you’re out. The story of Katie Fisher’s adolescent life.

  Just thinking about it got her annoyed at her mother all over again.

  “I can’t believe you did that to me.” She cringed as her mother deftly sprinkled Day-Glo orange Velveeta on top of the casserole and slid it back into the oven. “No way am I going.”

  Her mother clucked her tongue again. “Did what to you? You’ll have fun. You’ll get to see all your old friends.”

  “And who would that be? Ronald McDonald?”

  “I don’t know why you’re so hard on yourself, Katie. You’re a beautiful girl. You’re a successful professor of sociology.”

  “Now,” Katie corrected. “I wasn’t then.”

  “All the more reason to attend the reunion.”

  So that was why her mother wanted her to go. She wanted her former loser of a daughter to go forth and gloat.

  Maybe her mom was on to something here. Maybe it would be fun to walk into the reunion in her now svelte body and ramp up the va-va-voom, just to watch their jaws drop. Or to casually mention in conversation that she was now teaching at prestigious Fallowfield College in Vermont. Katie Fisher, the class of ‘96’s biggest loser, back in town in a big way. Vengeance is mine, sayeth Katie. But that wasn’t who she was. Nor was it why she was back in Didsbury.

  She was on a yearlong paid sabbatical, working on a book about sports and male identity. She could have stayed in Fallowfield to write the book; most of her research and interviews were done. But there was her nephew.

  “Where’s Tuck?” she asked her mother, who was now humming to herself as she set the table for dinner.

  Her mother frowned. “Upstairs on that computer you bought him.”

  “Mom, he needs the computer for school. Believe me.”

  “His eyes are going to go bad, playing all those crazy games. He sits up there for hours.” Her mother shot her a look of mild disapproval. “It’s not good, Katie.”

  Katie knew that look. Tuck was behaving the way Katie once had, hiding away in his room. Though Tuck was only nine, Katie knew he viewed his bedroom as his refuge, the one place where he could escape and not have to face the fact that his mother preferred a drink to him, and that no one knew who his father was, his mother included. Katie knew firsthand how painful being fatherless could be. She’d filled the void by turning to food, while her sister, Mina, had embraced booze and bad behavior instead. Katie wanted to make sure Tuck didn’t follow in her sister’s footsteps.

  She almost said something to her mother about Mina screwing up Tuck but held her tongue, knowing it would only upset her. Plus, she had to give credit where it was due. Mina was trying to get her act together. She had entered a residential rehab facility six weeks before. And Mina did have the presence of mind to ask their mother to take in Tuck while she was away. Tuck loved his grandmother, and she loved him. But that didn’t mean she had the energy or the means to care for a moody little boy who had seen and heard things he shouldn’t have. Katie decided to spend her sabbatical year in Didsbury to help her mother take care of Tuck. She wanted Tuck to know there was another adult in his life, apart from his grandmother, upon whom he could always count.

  Taking the last plate from her mother, Katie set it down on the table. “I’ll talk to Tuck if you want. Tell him to get out more, maybe join the Knights of Columbus or start playing golf.”

  Her mother shot her another look, albeit an affectionate one. “Thank you, Miss Wiseacre. He loves you, you know. Thinks you’re the bee’s knees.”

  “I think the same of him. And please don’t use expres-sions like ‘Bee’s knees’. It makes you sound like you’re ancient, which you’re not.”

  “Tell that to my joints.” She gave Katie’s arm a quick squeeze before hustling back to the stove to check on the broccoli. “So, you’re going, then?”

  “To talk to Tuck? I just said I was.”

  “No, to the reunion.”

  “Mom—”

  “Promise me you’ll at least think about it, Katie.”

  “Why is this so important to you?”

  “It’s not. I just think it’ll be good for you, that’s all.”

  “Mom, I hated high school. You know that. I would rather watch C-Span than deal with any of those people again.”

  “But you’re different now, and I bet they are, too. Or some of them. Go.”

  “I’ll think about it. But I’m not promising anything.”

  “You’ll go,” her mother trilled confidently.

  Katie just rolled her eyes.

  ———

  “I hate when she’s right,” Katie muttered to herself as she slumped behind the steering wheel of her Neon at the far end of the parking lot, the better to spy on former classmates entering Tivoli Gardens. The Tiv was a faux Bavarian catering house that served overcooked Wiener schnitzel and soggy tortes. Management made the male waitstaff dress in lederhosen and occasionally yodel, while Tiv waitresses sported the “lusty serving wench clutching a beer stein” look. It was the only space in town large enough to accommodate an event like a reunion.

  Katie had pretty much made up her mind not to go. But then she started thinking about what her mother had said. She was different. She had changed a lot in ten years. Didn’t it stand to reason that some of her former classmates had changed, too? The more she thought about it, the more curious she became. Who was different and who was the same? Who was divorced, married, successful, single, gay, unemployed, a parent, incommunicado, dead? Who’d stayed in town and who’d left?

  Be
sides, she was a sociologist. It was her job to analyze the collective behavior of organized groups of human beings. Going to the reunion would be like doing research.

  That wasn’t why she was going, though.

  To be honest, she was there because she had something to prove. She wanted to see everyone’s eyes bug out when they realized who she was. She knew it was petty to turn up with a not-so-hidden agenda that screamed, “Ha! You all thought I was a big fat loser, and look at me now!” but she couldn’t help it. She was human and wanted, if not revenge, then satisfaction. She wanted to see the “Wow, that’s Katie Fisher!” in their eyes.

  So here she was, dressed to the teeth and wearing more makeup than a drag queen at Mardi Gras. At least, that’s how it felt. Normally, Katie dressed casual but conservative: tweed blazers, turtlenecks, chinos, and practical shoes for running across campus. Rarely did she wear her long blond hair up, or even loose; she usually pulled it back in a pony-tail. But not tonight. Tonight it was up, soft golden tendrils falling around her oval face. She’d poured herself into the tightest little black dress she could find, showing off every firm curve of the body she killed herself to maintain. When Tuck had said, “Wow, Aunt Katie, you look hot!” she’d blushed furiously because it was true: She did look hot.