Fair Play (Hat Trick, Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

with the tension she was picking up from everyone in
the room, grew. She looked around her. All eyes stared straight ahead. A
movement in the back of the room caught her attention and she hid her wince
when her gaze locked with Bobby’s.
    His brows went up and his smug sneer morphed into an evil
smile.
    She turned to face forward.
    “As many of you know, my name is Rupert Smythe and I am Mr.
Edwin Lamont’s business manager.”
    That solved the mystery of his identity and the crowd’s
reaction to him.
    He continued on, launching into a tale about how much Mr.
Lamont had enjoyed hockey over the years, how he played as a boy and other drivel
Savannah assumed was meant to be reassuring.
    She tuned back into the details of Rupert Smythe’s message
when he said, “I’m sorry to say, though, that Mr. Lamont has decided to put the
Moncton Ice Cats up for sale.”
    Murmurs rippled across the room. Savannah sat perfectly
still, her heart pounding, her hopes for Moncton being the first leg of a long,
successful career in hockey taking a serious hit.
    “Why?” someone called from the back of the room.
    Mr. Smythe grimaced. “Well—” He paused, staring out at the
crowd as if searching for the answer. The silence drew out until Savannah wanted
to smack the man in the back of the head to get him to spit it out. “In truth,
the team has been losing money. The arena, too.”
    Both were owned by Lamont.
    “Other teams make money. What are you doing wrong?”
    Savannah almost smiled at that question. Bless Sheila’s
heart. She had brass ones.
    Rupert Smythe’s cheeks turned red. The man was handsome,
even when flustered and blushing. Almost pretty. Probably not a great attribute
when speaking to a room full of alpha-male hockey players.
    “Yes, well, it’s long and complicated, actually. But trust
me, it’s not something that is easily changed.”
    Pretty and dim-witted, apparently. Insulting the
intelligence of a woman like Sheila in a room full of her colleagues was going
to end badly.
    The players shifted in their chairs, no doubt fighting the
urge to stand up and act. Hockey players weren’t known for being passive. Most
of the people in this room lived to come off the boards fighting.
    She clenched her fingers in her lap and resisted the urge to
put a soothing hand on Garrick’s bouncing leg. New ownership, and possibly new
management, didn’t bode any better for a twelve-year veteran with a stubbornly
sore groin and hip than it did for the only woman athletic trainer in the
league.
    “It is our hope,” continued Rupert over the rumblings of the
crowd, “indeed our goal, to find a buyer soon who will be interested in keeping
the team intact.”
    The words helped silence some of the agitation.
    “You’ll be kept aware of the progress through Mark, your manager.”
As if everyone in the room didn’t know who Mark was.
    Mark’s thin smile spoke volumes.
    “And of course, all questions should be directed to him.”
    Of course . Mr. Rupert Smythe appeared to be fully
prepared to run from the room screaming before the barbarians got hold of him. Maybe
he wasn’t that dense after all. Right then, she sure wanted to body check him
and that shiny briefcase of his into the cement wall.
     
    Garrick rose from his seat as soon as the meeting was over,
careful to keep the wince off his face. Stupid fucking hip. He and
Savannah had been slowly making progress on his groin pull, but the hard work
was provoking the arthritis in his hip.
    Arthritis .
    The word made him feel…geriatric. It didn’t help that he was
damn close to hobbling as he stepped into the aisle.
    He caught Savannah watching him and stopped, forcing his
teammates to detour around him as they moved toward the door. Her narrow gaze
was fixed on his legs until it shifted to his throbbing hip.
    “What?” he asked. Defensive much?
    She shrugged. “Nothing.”
    Her pursed lips told him it was something, but he wasn’t about
to argue.
    She cocked her head