Body Check Read online

  “No kidding.” Kevin gave a sly smile before popping a fry in his mouth. “Thinking about the publicist?”

  Ty flashed his famous scowl, the one meant as a serious warning to the opposing team that he meant business. “Right.”

  “She was kind of cute.”

  “I guess. I didn’t really notice.”

  Kevin chuckled. “Liar.” He took a big, juicy bite of his burger, washing the food down quickly with a shot of Coke. “Hey, listen. Abby wanted to know if you’d like to come over for dinner Friday night.”

  “Name the time and I’ll be there.”

  “Let me find out from the chef and I’ll get back to you.” Kevin paused, drowning a french fry in a pool of ketchup. “You can bring someone if you want.”

  Ty’s gaze was unyielding. “You know I don’t date seriously during the season.”

  “Yeah, well, I just thought . . .” Kevin shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “You really think I was rude to that publicist?” Ty asked abruptly. He knew what Kevin was driving at.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Ty reluctantly admitted, feeling bad as an image of Janna’s momentarily stunned expression flashed through his mind. He hated to think she’d come away with a poor first impression of him and would probably be loaded for bear the next time their paths crossed. “I guess I’ll talk to her at practice tomorrow,” he murmured.

  “And say what?”

  “That she caught me at a bad time, blah blah blah. ”

  “Blah blah blah being that you still refuse to do any PR.”

  Ty raised his glass high to Kevin in mock salute. “To my brilliant teammate, who’s finally catching on.”

  “Bastard,” Kevin grumbled affectionately. “Stubborn, ball-busting bastard.”

  Changing the subject, Ty began talking about Coach “Tubs” Matthias, and who he thought might need a little work on defense. But even as the words flowed effortlessly from his mouth, his mind was elsewhere. He was in the locker room, apologizing to Janna MacNeil, returning that sweet smile of hers that he’d rejected earlier, explaining to her that really, he wasn’t a total jerk. He caught his mind wandering and forced his thoughts back to the conversation at hand, while issuing a warning to himself in his head. He was going to have to watch himself and steer clear of Janna MacNeil, or there was going to be big trouble.

  And trouble, especially where his heart was concerned, was the one thing he couldn’t afford.

  CHAPTER 02

  Returning to the Blades PR office at “Met Gar,” Janna was greeted by the sight of the Bull hunkering down over an open pizza box. On one of the leather couches opposite him sat Jack Cowley. Also an assistant director of PR, Cowley was in charge of gathering the stats, game notes, and other bits of info that the beat writers and network commentators needed each day. Janna wasn’t sure she liked Jack, with his perpetual tan, Hugh Grant “do”, and lock-jawed way of talking. There was something unctuous about him, insincere, especially in his dealings with Lou. She was willing to suspend judgment until she knew him better, but she got the distinctly creepy feeling that his version of getting acquainted might be radically different from hers.

  “So, how’d it go?” Lou asked hopefully, holding aloft a slice of pie for her. He’d been thrilled when she came up with the idea of getting each player to sign up for three charity events. Janna waved the pizza slice away and Lou shrugged, biting off the tip before putting it back in the box. “You catch Gallagher?”

  “Yup.” Janna perched on the arm of the couch opposite Jack’s. “He won’t do it.”

  “Keep working on him,” Lou instructed. “Pain in the ass,” he muttered as an afterthought.

  “I got Gill and Lubov,” Janna informed him.

  “That’s a good start. Gill is a good guy, he’ll do almost anything. Lubov will need you to hold his hand. His grasp of English isn’t too hot.”

  “I gathered that already,” Janna said wryly. “Who else do you think I should go after right now?”

  “Hhhmm.” Lou tipped so far back in his swivel chair Janna was afraid he was going to topple over backward and crash through the bank of smoky, tinted windows behind him. “Try Michael Dante or Barry Fontaine. They’re both single, good-looking guys. You get them to do some charity gigs, get them some ink in a women’s mag, that’ll help.”

  Janna nodded. She wasn’t completely sure who Dante or Fontaine were, at least not on sight. But she’d learn. “Maybe they’d be willing to be part of a bachelor auction,” she suggested, thinking aloud.

  “Atta girl.” Lou pitched forward, the front legs of his chair hitting the gray carpet with a muffled thump. “That’d be perfect for them. In the meantime, I’m sure you know the drill: Once you get to know the guys, then you’ll know who’s willing to do what, and the job will be a piece of cake.”

  “Oh, right.” Janna snorted derisively. “Ty Gallagher is a nightmare.”

  “But if anyone can get him to toe the line,” Lou crooned, “it’s you, baby doll. I got full confidence in your abilities.”

  I’m glad one of us does, Janna thought. Meanwhile, the Bull prattled on. “We’ll talk more tomorrow about who you might want to corral into doing what. In the meantime, maybe you should—” He stopped himself, chuckling. “Madonn’, will you listen to me, telling you your job? You know what to do, it’s why I hired you.” With great effort he rose, stuffing his shirttails into his pants. “And now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta run. One of the big boys upstairs wants to see me, Christ only knows what for.”

  “They probably want your help sticking pins in a Gallagher voodoo doll,” Janna offered.

  “Probably.” Lou couldn’t resist one more large bite of the pizza slice he’d offered Janna.

  “One other thing before you go,” she said.

  “Mmm?”

  “Do any of the wives ever go to practice?”

  “Sometimes,” said Lou. “Kevin Gill’s wife, Abby, is there pretty regularly. Why?”

  “Because I want to feel them out, see if any of them would be willing to do an ‘At Home With’ feature for a magazine or E! or something like that,” said Janna. “We need to play up the married players, too, show there are some family men on the team.”

  Lou beamed at Jack Cowley. “What did I tell ya? Is this broad stacked in the brains department or what?” He turned back to Janna. “Sounds great. Now I really gotta run. We can drive up together tomorrow. Be here at nine sharp.” Rolling up the rest of the pizza slice, he crammed it into his mouth, waving good-bye to Janna and Jack as he waddled toward the elevators, humming to himself.

  “Unbelievable,” sighed Jack, rising, his carefully cultivated voice ringing with disapproval. “The man’s going to keel over dead one of these days from sheer gluttony.”

  “At least he’ll die happy,” Janna noted, trying to ignore the fact that her coworker was eyeing her breasts as if they were long lost friends.

  “Care to get some lunch?” he asked smoothly, closing in on her.

  Janna forced an appreciative smile. “I’d love to, but being the new kid on the block, I really have to get up to speed here. Some other time, maybe.”

  “As you wish,” Jack Cowley drawled regally, sauntering from Lou’s office.

  As you wish? Janna thought, watching him go. Who does he think he is, Patrick Stewart? What a pretentious yutz. She’d been too charitable in suspending judgment on him. Her first instinct had been right: Jack Cowley was creepy, no two ways about it. As for Ty Gallagher, she was glad Lou seemed aware it would take more than one shot to persuade Captain Uncooperative to do some publicity. She’d been worried that the strength of her reputation might work against her, and Lou would expect her to come back with Gallagher’s scalp dangling from her belt on her first day out. But he seemed just as aware as anyone of the challenge she faced—a challenge she was determined to rise to. Gathering up her papers, she walked to her own office, her thoughts on Ty and how best to get him to play the Kidco way.
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  It was close to seven by the time Janna got home—not bad, by PR standards, for a day in the office. She knew that once the season “officially” started in October she’d be required to stick around for games on home ice, which probably meant she’d get in around midnight. Lou wanted her to go on the road with the team a few times, too, just to get a feel for what it was like. And then of course, there were the charity golf tournaments and hockey games and auctions and dances and fund-raising dinners she’d be arranging for and attending with “the guys,” as Lou fondly called the players. One day soon, she hoped, she’d think of them as simply the guys, too. But for now, they were still a rare and exotic species, one whose habits and habitat she was still largely unfamiliar with.

  She opened the apartment door and was assaulted by a blast of frigid air-conditioning, a sure sign her roommate, Theresa, was back from the location shoot she’d been on. Closing the door behind her, Janna could hear her warbling in the shower. She poked her head in the bathroom and jokingly shouted, “Honey, I’m home!”

  “Be out in a minute!” Theresa trilled back over the din of rushing water. Janna knew “a minute” in Theresa-time meant at least ten in regular time, so she made for the living room, peeling off her navy linen blazer and slinging it over the back of the couch before heading to the kitchen for a Perrier.

  She and Theresa had been roommates for close to four years, coworkers on The Wild and the Free for two. Janna always thought of Terry as being “real” New York: Brooklyn-born and raised, wisecracking, opinionated, zero-to-low tolerance for BS. She was still doing PR at the soap. By now, the two of them were definitely earning more than enough money to rent apartments of their own, but neither of them really wanted to. Why, they reasoned, live alone when you could live with a friend? Besides, neither wanted to give up the apartment.

  A moderately sized two bedroom on First and Fifty-ninth, it boasted high ceilings, polished parquet floors, and a full-size kitchen, which was important to Janna, who loved to cook—not that she was home much to hone her culinary talents. The sunken living room featured a huge Italianate marble fireplace, and a wall of windows looked out onto the 59th Street bridge, a convenient viewing place for the New York Marathon, which Theresa ran in every year. Their decorating style was funky-eclectic, a mix and match of the modern with the antique. A framed Picasso reproduction hung above a rusted Victorian birdcage that was perched on a port table, while a large, overstuffed chintz sofa was offset by a battered old steamer trunk that served as a coffee table. The TV set was hidden away in an antique French armoire, while the CD player was in plain view atop a nicked, old parson’s table that Theresa found at a yard sale. The room was always filled with fresh flowers, a passion the two of them shared. Somehow, it all worked.

  Janna’s favorite room in the whole apartment was her bedroom. Granted, it was the smaller of the two, with barely enough space for her beloved, mahogany sleigh bed, but she’d willingly sacrificed the extra space for French doors that opened out onto a tiny terrace where she kept tidy rows of cracked terra cotta pots filled with aromatic herbs. Lemon balm, lavender, basil, thyme, coriander, oregano, sage, fennel . . . Whenever Janna was feeling stressed, she would simply pluck some leaves, crush them between her fingers, and bring them to her nose, inhaling deeply. It was a calming technique her father had taught her, and it worked every time.

  “Hey.”

  Janna had just finished pouring her Perrier into a wine glass—she’d read somewhere that using fancy glasses for ordinary drinks could elevate one’s spirits, although this seemed dubious—and was on her way to the living room when Theresa came scurrying out of the bathroom in her robe, a towel wrapped around her head like a turban, making her look like some sort of exotic Italian princess.

  “How was Key West?” Janna asked, kicking off her Blahniks.

  “Hot. Whoever had the bright idea to do a location shoot in Key West in early September should be killed.” Sighing deeply, Theresa plopped down next to Janna on the couch. “Your not being there really sucked. I had no one to laugh with at the sight of Nicholas Kastley in a Speedo.”

  Janna shuddered. Nicholas Kastley was one of the older actors; for years he’d been fighting Father Time in a grudge match and was losing badly. “It must have been harrowing.”

  “No, harrowing was being called to his room to help him apply Just for Men to the hair on his legs.”

  Janna halted mid-sip. “You’re kidding me.”

  “I wish I was. I’m telling you, the network doesn’t pay me enough to do this stuff.”

  “Yeah, but think of all the good material you’re gathering for your tell-all book,” Janna teased. “It’s a guaranteed best-seller, you know it is.”

  “Except I’ll have to change all their names or wait until they’re all dead to write it,” Theresa groused, helping herself to Janna’s glass, from which she drank deeply. “Mmm, that hits the spot.” She handed the glass back to Janna, her expression eager. “Enough about me. I want to hear all about those big, manly men on skates you’re being paid to hang around with.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “How many of them are single?”

  “Theresa,” Janna reproved. She knew this was coming. The minute Janna had told her friend she’d taken the job, Theresa had been on her to get the dirt about which guys were available.

  “Well?” Theresa prodded. “Any prospects?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Janna stalled, which was true. “Let me get to know them better and I’ll get back to you.”

  “The captain is good-looking,” Theresa observed aloud. She unwound the terrycloth turban from around her head and began vigorously toweling her long, wavy black hair. “What’s his name? Tim Gallagher?”

  “Ty Gallagher,” Janna corrected. She stiffened. “You think he’s good-looking?”

  “Why, you don’t?”

  “I haven’t really noticed.”

  “Then open your eyes, girl; he’s a hottie.”

  “I guess,” Janna replied mildly. Of course she had noticed, but she’d been trying not to think about it. For one thing, Ty Gallagher wasn’t her speed. She liked her men a bit more cerebral. For another, she knew she wouldn’t stand a chance with him. She wasn’t six feet tall, she’d never been on the cover of a magazine, she didn’t subsist on air and water, and her boobs—what boobs she had to speak of—were entirely her own. Ty Gallagher would never look at her in a million years.

  Theresa, meanwhile, was staring dreamily into space. “What about that new Russian guy?”

  “Alexei Lubov? Met him today.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “And he’s very young and can barely speak English.”

  “So? He’s gorgeous.”

  Janna eyed Theresa suspiciously. “How do you know?”

  Theresa drew herself up, insulted. “I don’t live under a rock, you know. There was a huge article on him in the Sentinel today. They called him ‘the Russian Rocket.’ ” The faraway look returned to her eyes. “I bet his accent makes him sound like one of those sexy spies in an old James Bond film.”

  “Actually, he sounds more like Boris Badenov.”

  “You’re from hell, you know that?” Dreaminess gave way to mild desperation. “Help me out here, Janna! I haven’t been on a date in three months.”

  “That’s not true. You just had lunch with that producer from Good Morning America.”

  “That doesn’t count. All he did was talk about how his ex-girlfriend left him for another woman. By the time lunch was done I was ready to turn into a lesbian, okay? He was a nightmare. Look, I’m tired of spending Saturday nights curled up alone watching The Movie Channel. Or playing third wheel to you and Robert.”

  Janna slumped on the couch. “Robert! Shoot. I was supposed to call him at lunch today.”

  “Relax, he probably wasn’t even home,” Theresa muttered, examining her nails. “He was probably out reciting his bad poetry to some poor slob who had no means of escape.”


  Janna was not amused. “Are you done yet?”

  “No. Why don’t you just dump him, Janna? You know you want to. He’s a pretentious mooch! You could do so much better than someone who smokes stinky French cigarettes and thinks that entitles him to the French pronunciation of his name! ‘Call me Ro-bear.’ Puh-lease!”

  “But how do you really feel?” Janna deadpanned.

  “The guy crashed here for six weeks before he found his own apartment and never once offered to pay for anything!” Theresa fumed. “Not only that, but he had the nerve to say that the only Italian woman on earth worthy of adoration is Sophia Lauren! Was that supposed to endear him to me?”

  “It could have been worse. He could have said Madonna. He was being poetic.”

  “He was being an ass.”

  “Cut him some slack, Theresa. He’s had a tough time. His father bailed on the family when he was ten and his mother’s not wrapped too tightly, okay?”

  “I agree, that’s sad,” Theresa admitted. “But I still think you could do better.”

  Janna rolled her eyes. They’d had this conversation so many times. Theresa just didn’t get it. Janna didn’t want to do better than Robert, at least not now. After three years, “the relationship” was comfortable and casual, something they could both maintain on automatic pilot. A ready-made date for the weekend if nothing more exciting was on the slate, a warm body in bed on those nights when one or both of them craved affection. It wasn’t going anywhere, which was just the way they wanted to keep it. That’s what Theresa didn’t understand. For her, every guy was potentially “the one,” a concept that Janna refused to buy into.

  “Don’t you worry about me. When the time is right, I will ditch Ro-bear and throw myself into the arms of my one true love.”

  Theresa frowned. “No need to be sarcastic.”

  “I’m not! When the time is right, I’ll know. But right now, this thing with Robert works fine for me.”