Captain My Captain (NHL Scorpions #0.5) Read online

  Captain, My Captain

  By

  Nikki Worrell

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events of locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Nikki Worrell

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Also by Nikki Worrell

  Stories For Amanda – October 2013

  The Enforcer (NHL Scorpions Book #1) – May 2013

  Goalie Interference (NHL Scorpions Book #2)-Nov 2013

  What Mother Doesn’t Know (Novella) – April 2014

  Table of Contents

  Glossary of Hockey Terms

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Connect with Nikki

  Glossary of Hockey Terms

  Five-hole: The area right between the goalie’s legs.

  Backchecking: Checking in the defensive zone when the opposing team is attacking.

  Boarding: Checking a defenseless player against the boards, usually causing their face/head to hit the boards first.

  Checking: Using the hip or body to knock an opponent against the boards or to the ice.

  Deke: When a player handles the puck in a way that makes the opponent move out of position, allowing that player to get past.

  Face-off: The method used to begin play. One player from each team fights for the puck as the official drops it to the ice between them.

  Forechecking: Checking in the offensive zone in order to get the puck.

  Gordie Howe Hat-Trick: Getting a goal, an assist, and having a fight all in one game.

  Hat-Trick: Three goals in one game. Fans traditionally throw their hats on the ice.

  Major Penalty: Five-minute penalty.

  Minor Penalty: Two-minute penalty.

  Offside: When a player crosses the blue line in the offensive zone before the puck.

  Poke Check: Poking the puck away with the stick.

  Power Play: Results in the one team losing a player for two minutes or more, giving the other team an advantage to score.

  Slew Foot: Sweeping or kicking out a player’s skate causing them to fall backwards. Usually results in a match penalty (removed from the game and assessed a five-minute penalty for statistical purposes).

  Trapezoid (Trap): Area behind the goalie’s net (behind goal line) where the goalie can play the puck. This is the only area behind the goal line that the goalie can play the puck without receiving a penalty.

  War Room: Office in Toronto where video is sent to review a questionable goal.

  Prologue

  The noise from the crowd was deafening. Keith Lambert, the twenty-two-year-old captain of the Flyers, loved it. Every decibel. However, he could tell by the way Sammy Read was fidgeting with his helmet that the constant chants of “Saaaaaamy, Saaaaaamy” were seriously screwing with the goalie’s focus. The louder the crowd grew, the more agitated Sammy got, which could only be good for Philadelphia—Sammy was Vancouver’s goalie.

  They were playing their final game of the season—the most important game they’d play. The Flyers and Canucks were competing for the hardest trophy to win in any sport—the Stanley Cup.

  There are eighty-two games in the regular season alone. If you place high enough to even make the playoffs, you then face four seven-game series. If you win each series, and go all the way to the end, you’ve won sixteen playoff games.

  Hockey also has a grueling schedule, sometimes traveling coast-to-coast from one day to the next. Aside from the intense travel, the daily physical strains put on hockey players are far more than any one person would choose to endure. Their adrenaline spikes up to maximum levels for sixty minutes of play. They’re in full sprint each time their skates hit the ice. No other sport demands quite so much of its players.

  They were down to the last fourteen minutes of the seventh game in the last series. Winner takes all. “Come on, guys. Keep up the energy! We’ve got this.” Keith spared a second to scan the crowd. The splashes of blue on the fans wearing the visiting team’s jerseys stuck out in the sea of orange Philly’s fans wore. We can’t blow this. “Let’s do it! G, take the face-off.”

  Jake Gourneau’s head snapped up at Keith’s words. “Huh? You want me to take it?” Keith always took the face-offs.

  “Yeah, man. You’re better against Drake. I don’t have anything to prove. I just want that Cup.” Keith slapped him on the butt with his stick and took the winger’s position as G bent low to take the face-off.

  Gourneau won the draw, but it wasn’t enough. It took a bad bounce off Keith’s stick and went directly to Vancouver’s winger who immediately tried to slap it high into the net, but Ward saw it all the way and snagged it out of the air with his glove hand, mere inches before it crossed the goal line.

  “Fuck, that was close, G. Take it again.” Being so close to their own goalie for the face-off was intimidating so late in the game with a tie score. It could be game changing if they lost the faceoff. We need to clear the zone!

  Beads of sweat glistened on G’s forehead as he got into position again. One drop, then two hit the ice. The crowd was loud as the referee held the puck about two feet up, between Drake and Gourneau, waiting until he was good and ready to drop it. And still they waited. Drake got antsy and stepped back to get a better grip on his stick and the ref straightened up. “Get in position Drake or I’ll let someone else take this faceoff.”

  With the threat of losing his spot on the circle looming, Drake skated back up to the ref and got into position. Seconds ticked by and still the ref didn’t drop the puck.

  “Drop the puck!” The crowd started yelling. “Ref, drop the puck!”

  The puck hit the ice and bounced back up. G got a piece of it and it flew back to Keith, but was high in the air. Keith hit it straight down with his hand to land on the ice in front of him. He got his stick on it and weaved his way through two Canucks.

  Seeing Callahan in front of him, almost at the blue line, he made a fast pass and rushed to join him, hoping G would catch up to them and they could have a three-on-two rush at the net.

  The Canucks defensemen were ready to shut them down, but Callahan executed a beautiful deke and went through them to take a shot that rebounded off Sammy’s goalie pad. Keith was right there to gather the puck for another shot, but Sammy covered it and the play was called dead. Dammit!

  After a couple of more plays, which bore no fruit for either team, the clock was down to three minutes. Vancouver called a time-out to give their best players a chance to catch their breath.

  At the Flyers’ bench, tensions ran high. Ward ripped off his goalie mask while he squirted water over his head to cool down. Gourneau was re-taping his stick—that didn’t need re-taping—and nodding his head as the coach spoke. Keith continually banged his foot against the boards while trying to convince himself that it was just another game. Their coach made one request before they went back onto the ice.

  “Go out there and get me a goal!” One finger waved in the air and he shook it for emphasis. “Just one goal.”

  “Fuck yeah.”

  “Hell yeah.”

  “You got it, Coach.”

  “Let’s do it!”

  The boys skated out to the face-off circle in Van
couver’s zone and prepared to get that elusive goal. The puck hit the ice, and Vancouver won it. Drake shot it in front of him to a waiting winger. Between the two of them, with some help from their other winger, they made it all the way to Philly’s zone where Ward was waiting, hunched over, his glove hand up and at the ready.

  Drake took the puck and skated around the back of the net. Fighting through Callahan and Lambert, he faked a pass to the front. Using that precious millisecond of inattention from the Flyers around him, he wrapped the puck around the net from behind. The Canucks on the bench went wild.

  It was as if time stopped. Keith looked at his teammates on the ice around him, brows raised and mouth open in abject disbelief. It couldn’t be! Keith never saw it, G never saw it, and Ward sure as hell never saw it, but damn if that puck wasn’t sitting in the fucking net. The Canucks had just won the coveted Cup—in Philly’s arena.

  Chapter 1

  A couple of weeks after losing the Cup found Keith on the golf course with his father, getting back to normal off-season life. Most of his teammates had gone home to visit their families, scattered through Europe and Canada. Born and raised in southern New Jersey, Keith was the lone American of the team. Philly was the only pro team he’d ever played for, so he never had to venture far from home.

  “You feeling any better yet, son?” Mr. Lambert knew Keith still had the sour taste of loss on his tongue.

  A gusty sigh escaped the younger Lambert as he ran a hand distractedly through his windblown hair and looked at his father, shrugging his shoulders. “I guess a little. God, we were so close! I just keep thinking—if we could just have one more shot...”

  “I know. I swear my heart stopped beating when I saw that puck go in the net, but you boys had a great year. Your performance in the playoffs, all the way up to the finals…” He broke off, his voice husky with emotion. “You gave it everything you had, son. I’m so damn proud of you.”

  “Thanks, Pop. It still sucks though.”

  Mr. Lambert winced sympathetically as he lined up his next shot. “Yeah, it does.”

  The bell coming from Keith’s watch reminded him that he was meeting his girlfriend in an hour. “Let’s finish up, Pop. I’m meeting Phoebe for dinner soon.”

  “When are you going to cut that girl loose? She’s not the one for you.” Mr. Lambert put his hand up to stop Keith from talking. “I know. It’s none of my business. Your mother and I, we don’t hate her, she’s just not the one for you. I think you feel more for her than she does for you.”

  “While I appreciate your concern, Pop, I think you’re wrong. But you are right about it not being your business.” Keith meant no disrespect to his father, but he wasn’t a kid who needed his parents to make his decisions for him anymore.

  “Okay. Enough said. We’ll butt out.” He pulled his club back, took his shot and watched the ball sail over the fairway, sweetly landing right on the edge of it, putting the last nail in the coffin. Keith had never beaten his father at golf, and that wasn’t going to change that day.

  ***

  “Hey, babe. Get us another round, will you?” Phoebe’s girlfriends looked at her knowingly, waiting to see how long it took Keith to make yet another bar run. There wasn’t much of anything she couldn’t get him to do for her. Truth be told, since they’d been together, she’d gotten kind of lazy. Why do things for yourself when you had a hot boyfriend to do them for you?

  They were supposed to be there alone, but Phoebe’s girlfriends conveniently appeared as they were ordering drinks and sat down with them. Keith knew they saw him as an ATM, and to his embarrassment, he went along with it. The guys he hung out with constantly told him to dump Phoebe—and her friends—but when they were alone, she was great. Really, she was the perfect girlfriend.

  “Jesus he’s got a great ass, not to mention that sexy, wavy hair. I mean really, those thick locks? How about the one that droops right over his forehead? So friggin cute,” Tori said as she watched Keith walk over to the bar.

  “Hey, girl. Eyes forward. He’s still mine.” The one thing Phoebe didn’t appreciate was his height. He was only three inches taller than her five foot seven. And he was lean. Muscled, but lean. She typically liked men with big, in your face, muscles.

  “Still yours? What does that mean? Is something wrong with you two?”

  “No, I guess I’m just getting a little bored. I mean, Keith is great and all, but there are so many other great guys around, you know?”

  Tori pulled her glasses down to the edge of her nose as she tilted her head down to look at Phoebe in incredulity. “Are you insane?” With a sweep of her hand, she indicated the other girls sitting with them. “Any one of us would kill for a chance to have Keith Lambert worship us, wouldn’t we, Vicki? Deb? Damn, Pheebs, he’s got you on a pedestal so high, if you fell off, you’d never even hit the ground.”

  “Well, we’re not there yet so, whatever.” Phoebe gave the girls a weak smile. She was saved from having to say anything further by Keith returning with their drinks.

  “Why do you all look so serious?” Keith set down a tray with four beers and a glass of white wine on it. As he passed the drinks out, he waited for an answer.

  “Oh, nothing, sweetie. Just girl talk.” With her hand on his thigh, she leaned over and kissed him sweetly, bringing an immediate smile to his lips.

  “So, would you ladies like to stay and join us for dinner?” To his eternal delight, they declined. Tori answered for them.

  “No thanks, Keith. We were on our way to Chinatown when we saw your car out front, so we just stopped in to say hi.” The clock on the wall over the bar showed them that they’d been sitting there for a half an hour already. “We’ll just finish this round and go. Thank you, by the way.”

  “Sure, no problem.” They made polite, inane conversation for a bit before the girls left.

  “What do you want to eat, Keith?”

  He reached over and ran his thumb along her bottom lip. “You. Just you.”

  Phoebe grabbed his hand and stood up. Aside from enjoying Keith’s deep pockets, he was fantastic in bed. Sex with him was something she’d never say no to. “Let’s go. We can grab something after.”

  A burst of laughter left his lips as she hauled him out of his chair. “Yes, ma’am.”

  They barely made it back to Jersey alive. Phoebe’s hands were all over him as he drove. When they were in the middle of the Ben Franklin Bridge, she had his pants unzipped and was stroking him, almost to the point of no return.

  “Jesus, babe. You have to stop or it’s going to be over before we even get home.”

  “Sorry, but I can’t seem to keep my hands to myself.”

  “Almost there. Just a little bit farther.”

  “Nope. Can’t wait.” She threw off her seatbelt and leaned over, taking him into her mouth as he drove.

  “Oh God. That’s …Jesus, that’s good, Pheebs, but you might want to slow down.”

  She didn’t slow down. At all. She continued to lick and suck him.

  “Phoebe …”

  “Do it, baby.” She said, her mouth full.

  “Ah, Jesus. We’re gonna die, and I don’t even care.” He tried to concentrate on not hitting the barrier as he exploded into her mouth.

  When she’d licked him clean, she sat back in her seat and re-buckled her seatbelt. “You owe me one hell of an orgasm,” she said with a cat ate the canary grin on her face.

  “Just give me about thirty minutes, Pheebs, and it’s all yours.”

  Several hours later, he’d repaid her three times—and enjoyed every minute of it.

  Chapter 2

  June 23rd. Keith Lambert would never forget that day. Ever. Not if he lived to be as old as the Egyptian pyramids. Never.

  “What the fuck is going on with my phone?” Keith and Phoebe were sitting in his living room watching reruns of The Big Bang Theory. “How the hell can I have ten texts all of the sudden?” Right as he was swiping his phone to open his texts, the ringer w
ent off. Abandoning the texts, he answered it instead.

  “Hey Sean, what’s up?” Even though he was friendly enough with Callahan, he was surprised to see his name on the caller ID.

  “Hey, man. I just saw. That’s really fucked up! You okay?”

  “With what? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Before he could explain, there was a knock on the door. “Hold on a sec, Sean.”

  Keith’s agent, Ted Malone, was standing on the other side. “Have you been on the Internet, Keith?”

  “No, but my phone’s going crazy. What’s going on?”

  “Maybe you can call them back.” Ted motioned toward the phone still in Keith’s hand.

  “Hey, Callahan. I’m going to call you back, okay?”

  “Sure, man. I want you to know, we’re all sick over this.”

  “Yeah. Uh, okay. Later.” Keith put his phone on vibrate to prevent anyone else from interrupting until he figured out what the hell was going on.

  With his teammates calling and his agent at the door, he had a sinking feeling he knew what might be coming. “So?”

  “Look, Keith. You know you’re one of the best players in the league. One of the most respected, but the league is, first and foremost, a business. You know we weren’t able to get you a no-trade clause when you signed with the Flyers.” Ted was obviously stalling, which wasn’t like him.

  “Just spit it out, Ted.”

  “Okay, kid, here it is. You’re going to California. You were traded this morning to the San Diego Scorpions. Their captain, Alex Shvrenik, is coming here, along with a third-round draft pick—it’s a good trade for both teams, but apparently someone leaked it and it’s all over social media websites. I came over here as soon as I knew it was finalized.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? They don’t even have the decency to tell me about it first? That’s a goddamn joke!” Sweat was already forming on Keith’s brow. He knew his face was flushed. Saying he was pissed off was an understatement. “Why? Why would they do it? I’ve given everything to this team. Everything!”