Free Nothing but Trouble (Chinooks #5) by Rachel Gibson Page A

time,” she said as she turned off the hazard lights. “There are lots of hot guys like Colin around. Guys who look good in a pair of jeans and a wife-beater. Those guys are fun, but they aren’t real boyfriend material.” She belted herself in.
    “So poor Colin is off your list?”
    “Nah. I’d go out with him.” She shrugged. “He thinks I’m spunky.”
    “That’s one word for you.” He grabbed his sunglasses from the collar of his T-shirt. “Another word would be ‘pit bull.’”
    “Yes.” She slid the car into drive and pulled away from the Spitfire. “But I’m your pit bull.”
    “Lucky me.” He put on the glasses and buckled his seat belt.
    He said it like he didn’t mean it, but he would. She glanced at the GPS and continued northeast. “Have you seen the front page of the Seattle Times sports section?”
    He turned and looked out the passenger window. “’Fraid not.”
    Which she found a little surprising since he’d been the captain of the Chinooks until six months ago. “Half the page is filled with a photo of a group of guys standing on a yacht somewhere, and someone is pouring beer from the Stanley Cup on women in bikinis.”
    He didn’t respond. Maybe he was in too much pain. She’d broken her tailbone falling off a table once. At the time, she’d had one too many cherry bombs and had been convinced she was some sort of exotic belly dancer. Which was ridiculous since she’d never had a lesson and danced about as well as she sang. The next morning her tailbone had hurt like a son of a bitch and she could hardly move without swearing. So she could kind of relate to Mark’s mood. “At first I was a little appalled, but Jules told me that it’s okay and even allowed. Everyone on the team gets a day with the cup to do whatever he wants to do with it. Within reason, of course. There are rules. Although I think they’re pretty lax.” She glanced at the GPS and took a slight right. “But I guess you already know all that.”
    “Yeah. I already know that.”
    “So, what day do you want the Stanley Cup? Just let me know and I’ll make it happen.”
    “I don’t want the fucking cup,” he said without emotion.
    She looked over at the back of his dark head. “You’re kidding. Why? Jules says you’re a huge part of the reason the team made it into the finals.”
    “Who the hell is Jules?”
    “Julian Garcia. He’s Mrs. Duffy’s assistant. Kind of like I’m your assistant. Only Jules knows a lot about hockey and I know squat about the game.” She shrugged. “Jules said you deserve more credit for building the team than anyone else.” Okay, maybe she’d embellished a wee bit. But blowing smoke up celebrity butt was part of her job. In the spirit of smoke blowing, she added, “More credit than Ty Savage.”
    “I don’t want to hear that asshole’s name.”
    Okay. Someone sounded bitter. “Well, you’ve earned a day with the cup just like the other guys. Probably more because you were the captain and you—”
    “I need to stop at a pharmacy on the way home,” he interrupted and pointed toward the left. “There’s a Bartell Drugs.”
    She slowed, cut across three lanes, and pulled into the parking lot.
    “Jesus Christ! You’re going to get us killed.”
    “You wanted Bartell.”
    “Yeah, but I thought you’d take a U at the light like a normal person.”
    “I am a normal person.” She parked by the front doors and looked across the car into the mirrored image in his sunglasses. His jaw was clenched like she’d done something wrong. There hadn’t been any other cars that close, and everyone knew that a miss was as good as a mile. She was pretty sure she’d learned that rule in drivers’ ed class. “I thought maybe you need to fill a prescription? Like right now!”
    He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “I have my prescriptions delivered.” He grabbed two twenties and handed them to her.
    She guessed that meant she was going in by