Free Losing an Edge (Portland Storm Book 13) by Catherine Gayle Page A

take the draw with his two wingers, Nate “Ghost” Golston and Axel “Jo-Jo” Johansson. The puck had barely hit the ice before Koz won it cleanly back to Hammer. He backed up a couple of strides and waited for each of the rest of us to settle in place. Once he had a clear lane, he saucered the puck over to me. His pass hit my stick right on the tape. I was already in motion, heading out of our defensive zone. A Colorado winger tried to poke-check the puck away from me, but I stickhandled my way around him and passed it up to Ghost, who was waiting at the blue line.
    Clean entry. We got in the zone and the forwards went to work.
    The Avs backchecked like crazy, trying to force the puck out of the zone. No luck. Koz had always been a crazy motherfucker, but he was even more doggedly determined when he had the puck on the stick. Ghost was small but strong as an ox and faster than should be legal. Jo-Jo could play keep-away for what feels like hours. When Bergy had gotten the idea to put those three together on a line a couple of months ago, it was like magic. All three of them started to play up to their potential—except for the fact that they still didn’t score as much as everyone hoped they would. They spent way too much time showing off their various skills and not enough time shooting the fucking puck toward the net.
    That was what they started doing now. The game started to feel like a passing clinic. We had the Avs hemmed into their zone and exhausted from chasing those three around, but no shots on net.
    Ghost got the puck down near the goal line, but that left him with a crazy angle to shoot from, and he had two big Colorado defensemen bearing down on him. Koz and Jo-Jo were both well covered. For some reason, the remaining Colorado winger was covering Hammer instead of me. Dumbass. I whacked my stick on the ice a couple of times to gain Ghost’s attention. In no time, the puck was screaming my way.
    One-timer. Right off the goalie’s pads.
    But all three of our forwards crashed the crease, and Ghost managed to tip the rebound high and tight, under the crossbar and in the net.
    “Fucking right,” Hammer shouted as he skated over and smacked his gloved hand on my helmet repeatedly. “That’s what you fucking do, kid. That’s why you’re going to earn the big bucks one day.”

    BY THE TIME I finished showering and dressing after the game, Ghost had already been called out to do the post-game interview with Anne Dennison. Better him than me. I sucked on camera. Put a hockey stick in my hands, and I was fine. But shove a mic in my face, and all I did was blush and stammer and answer in two-word sentences.
    The television and radio crews rarely requested me for interviews because it was next to impossible to get a decent sound bite out of me. Ghost tended to do well with them, though—especially when Anne conducted the interview. The two of them had been flirting with each other like nobody’s business all season, which only led to the guys ragging on him even more than we already did. He was the smallest guy on the team—and practically a fucking midget out on the ice compared to the rest of us—so he always took a lot of heat for anything and everything. His crush on Anne was only the latest fodder he’d let slip.
    I busied myself with tossing all my gear in my bag so the equipment guys could haul it out and tried not to pay attention to the pair of them. Ignoring them wasn’t easy, though. The way they’d set everything up here in Denver, Anne was conducting her interview about three stalls away from me.
    Ghost dragged a towel down his face and draped it around his shoulders, holding on to the ends of it in a way that caused his biceps to flex. Then he winked at her. Apparently he didn’t care that the cameras were catching his every move, as long as Anne noticed.
    She gave him a sly grin, which emphasized her exotic cheekbones. I had no idea what all ethnicities she came from. She looked partly