Students took groups on tours and showed off the new features—the new gym, a commercial-grade kitchen, an area for aesthetics like hairdressing and manicures, and a recording studio. Marc knew some of the kids giving the tours, and the pride on their faces as they showed off their new school made his gut warm. This was what it was all about.

He’d been lucky as a kid. His family wasn’t rich, but had had enough to be able to support his hockey dreams, and he’d had a caring family who’d been strict enough to make sure he knew boundaries, yet trusting enough to let him push those boundaries. When he saw kids who didn’t have those things, who had no one to set limits for them and got out of control, who didn’t have the resources to give them opportunities, he wanted so bad to do something. Now he had the money to do that and he enjoyed giving others the chances he’d had.

Lovey took in the tour with wide, interested eyes, asking questions and even joking with the teenagers. She seemed really cool with it all and he liked that.

He liked that a lot.

They schmoozed with city and Aces bigwigs. When he introduced her to Mick Rooney, one of the owners of the Aces, Mick picked up on her name right away. “Armstrong?”

She grinned. “Yeah. My brother plays for your team. Sometimes.”

Mick laughed. “Yeah.” There were no questioning or knowing looks, just class. “It’s really good to meet you, Lovey.”

Colby, the senior director of Communications for the Aces, joined them. Lovey instantly started chatting with him about communications, since visual communications and marketing were her background.

“Lovey’s going to help me with my social media stuff,” Marc told Colby and Mr. Rooney. “So I don’t screw up on Twitter.”

Colby grinned. “Great idea.”

This seemed to pique Mr. Rooney’s interest and he started asking Lovey more questions about her business and the clients she was acquiring.

They chatted and mingled more, and then people started leaving and Marc felt comfortable setting a hand on the small of Lovey’s back and leading her out.

“That was really cool.” She leaned her head back into the headrest on their way home. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You’re a pretty impressive guy.”

His head jerked around, then looked back at the road. “Uh. Thanks.”

“Seeing you like that, with all those important people, being all professional and charming…seeing all those kids who worship you, kids you obviously influence…and the money you’ve helped raise…” She paused and gave him a pointed look. “Or probably the money you’ve simply given them…?”

He shrugged.

She laughed softly. “Yeah. I thought so. Anyway…all that just makes me want to jump you and fuck your brains out.”

His insides gave a hot squeeze, right to his dick, and he choked on a laugh. “Uh. Thanks.” Wow. Was that what it took to turn her on? Who knew. “Can’t wait to get home,” he managed to say.

Only when they walked in, Army was there.

He looked up at them with a frown. “Where were you two?”

“At the grand opening of Fowler High School.”

“Huh.” Duncan looked at Lovey. “You went?”

“Yeah.” She kept her voice casual as she took off her coat. “I was sitting here bored so I asked if I could tag along. It was cool. Oleg and Olaf were there too.”

She sat on the couch and bent to unzip the tall boots she was wearing, then pulled them off and wiggled her toes on the carpet. “Ah, this feels good. That was a lot of standing and walking in these heels.”

“Guess I’m off to bed.” Marc tried not to reveal his reluctance to go there alone. “We’re leaving early in the morning for Miami.”

“Yeah, true.”

Marc caught Lovey’s eyes and gave her a “sorry” look. He saw the same emotion in hers.

Shit. This really sucked.

“Actually, I need something to eat.” He moved to the kitchen. Dinner had been a few hours ago. He slapped together a peanut butter and banana sandwich on thick whole grain bread and poured himself a glass of chocolate milk, while Lovey said good night and disappeared into her bedroom, carrying her boots.

She was moving out in a little over a month. She’d have a place of her own. He had to admit the idea of her not being around all the time didn’t exactly appeal to him…but the idea that they could have some privacy sure as hell did.

Of course, there was still the fact that Army didn’t want him touching his little sister. For a moment, Marc debated blurting out a confession to his roommate. Then sanity returned and stopped him. Army would kill him if he told him what they’d been up to.

But it was starting to feel like something was building between him and Lovey, something he didn’t want to stop. How could that happen when they had to sneak around keeping it secret? It made it feel cheap and sleazy, when it wasn’t like that at all.

With that dilemma churning inside him, he drained the milk and went into his own bedroom. Alone. And he was leaving for the next five days. Dammit.

Chapter 18

Lovey made the four-hour bus trip to Madison, where her parents picked her up and drove her to the farm to celebrate Thanksgiving. Friday night they all watched the Aces game against the Tampa Bay Lightning on TV. Andrew Ross was now paired with Ryan Kirby, the guy they’d called up from the farm team. Things seemed to click for them pretty well, with each of them feeding the puck to the forwards, one of them to Marc for the much-needed game-winning goal. Which was good.

But the bad part of the game had been when some asshole from the Lightning decided that rookie Ryan Kirby needed to learn his place and had gone after him with a vicious hit into the boards from behind. Ryan had been slow to rise and the replays had shown him going face-first into the boards. Jesus.

Her insides churning, she’d watched in dismay as he’d finally made it off the ice. She didn’t even know the guy, but she hated to see something like that. The Lightning player got a penalty and the game went on. Until the penalty was over; then the big dude was back on the ice and Marc took it on himself to send a message in return, by slamming the guy into the boards at first opportunity. The glass rattled alarmingly and the Tampa Bay player sagged. Then he spun around and dropped his gloves. Marc didn’t back down, his own mitts hitting the ice, and the two grappled and danced and threw punches.

Lovey swallowed hard, sitting on the edge of the couch, watching with wide eyes.

“Are you okay, Lovey?” Mom eyed her.

“Um, yeah.” Fighting never used to bother her. It was a part of the game. She’d accepted that along with every other part of the game she’d grown up with. But seeing Marc fighting…knowing how dangerous it was, or could be…shit. She did not like this.

Marc wrestled the guy to the ice and took one last hard swing before the linesmen moved in to pull them apart and put an end to the fight. Meanwhile, a couple of other small skirmishes had broken out as players came to the aid of their teammates, one of them Duncan wrestling with some guy who’d tried to grab Marc.

Lovey closed her eyes and did some deep breathing. Finally everyone was separated, gloves and sticks were picked up and returned to their owners, and the refs were working out all the penalties.

“That’ll get him five minutes in the sin bin,” Dad said.

Mom was still watching Lovey with a funny look on her face.

Yeah, Marc ended up with five for fighting. But as the team played with renewed energy, she knew why he’d done it. Five minutes in the box was a small price to pay for getting his team fired up, defending one another, especially the new guy, and backing one another up.