and intense that she’d worried they would propose before the waiter brought the main course, Brett seemed relaxed. In his element, even.
He didn’t appear to expect more from her than to enjoy the game and, maybe, to learn the definitions of “face-off,” “blue line” and “icing.” The last term he insisted wasn’t what went on a fudge cake, either. He’d told her there would be a quiz later, which she fully intended to ace.
“Well, what’s the verdict?” he asked as the Zamboni made its first wet pass around the ice. “Does hockey pass the muster?”
“Absolutely.” So did the company, though she didn’t mention that. “I’ll never be able to flip past a hockey game on TV again without stopping and comparing it to this. Hockey’s different in person.”
“It’s also a different experience in the nosebleed seats, but I’d just as soon skip that joy, if you don’t mind. Especially the racing pulse and lack of breath.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Afraid of heights?”
“Not afraid, exactly. I just prefer to keep my feet on God’s green earth is all.”
A chuckle bubbled low in her belly, and Tricia couldn’t stop it from frothing over. She felt guilty enjoying herself this much—almost too much. Were widows allowed to smile this often? Brett made a nasty face at her but finally laughed.
He shrugged. “Really, I like to watch the game better from up close, even if it’s harder to see the strategies, the cool passes and great screens.”
She shook her head at his funny bravado. Typical guy, he wouldn’t admit to being anything but fearless. “The game’s probably harder to see when you’re breathing into a brown paper bag or hanging your head between your knees.”
“There’s that, too,” Brett agreed. But something farther across the lower bowl of fan seats must have caught his attention because he looked away.
A videotape started playing on the four-sided scoreboard high above center ice, with Red Wings players scoring goals against various teams. Cheers and whoops erupted each time the tape showed the players in red and white firing the puck past an opposing goalie.
The next squeal Tricia heard came from her own lips, surprising her. Attending this game had been so much easier than she’d expected when Brett had first suggested it. At least this professional sport was hockey, rather than football and Rusty’s beloved Detroit Lions. Rusty had always said he would take the children to a Lions’ game when they were a little older. Just something else in a long list of things that would never happen now.
The temptation to grow maudlin filled her until she glanced at Brett. Turning back from whatever he’d been studying before, he patted her hand on the armrest and then lifted his soda from the seat’s drink holder. “I don’t know about you, but I’m having a great time.”
“Me, too,” she answered, trying not to react to what had been only a friendly touch. A buddy touch, nothing for her neck to get all warm about. She ought to feel lucky he hadn’t slapped her on the back the way men were wont to do with their friends to act chummy.
“And I think we should go out again.”
She wished he’d slapped her on the back instead of saying that. It had knocked the wind out of her, anyway. Her cheeks grew as heated as her neck, so Tricia took the coward’s way out and turned to sip her own cola.
“We’ll have to do something besides watch hockey, though. We’d never get playoff tickets.” He paused as if waiting for her to answer before he spoke again. “But if you don’t think that’s a good idea…”
As he allowed his words to trail away, letting her off the hook, her mind raced. Did she want an escape? This dating thing had no future, but they were having fun together, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed herself so much in adult company. And she really did need to get out more. They could probably even grow to be great pals, like some of the men attending this game together, if she only gave them a chance.
She was still convincing herself when Brett shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pressure—”
“I’d like that.”
Brett stared at her a few seconds and then grinned. “Well, good. That’ll be great.” He touched her hand again, and she had the strange feeling the brief caress wasn’t one a couple of hockey buddies might share. Their gazes met, and an awareness unfolded inside of her, until she forced herself to look away.
Obviously, she hadn’t explained the parameters of their new friendship to him, and he’d probably misunderstood her interest. With a quick brush to expel the tickle on her hand, she turned to him to clear up the misunderstanding.
However, whatever had caught her date’s attention near the Red Wings’ team box earlier had grabbed it again. The way his body tensed, he appeared at a strange full-alert. Tricia saw them then, several men, swilling tall plastic cups of beer and wearing jerseys for teams that weren’t playing. They crowded close around the tunnel through which hockey players were emerging from their locker rooms.
Someone must have alerted security guards to a possible disturbance because they were making their way across the stands. Before the guards reached the tunnel, though, one of the men upended his cup, narrowly missing a player.
At once, fists started flying—not from the players, who were being ushered by their teammates toward the ice, but from fans who took exception to the treatment of their hometown heroes. A huddle of bodies appeared from nowhere as reinforcements leaped into the fray and other fans stood to catch the action.
Brett came out of his seat just as quickly, but his movements were automatic—fast glances toward the exits and a hand reaching reflexively for his right hip. Coming away with nothing. A gun? A shiver clambered up Tricia’s spine, and bile backed up in her throat. Had he been reaching for a holster? Only after he patted his sweater-covered hip a few times did Brett lower into his seat again.
Further down the stands, security guards removed the instigators from the arena, but Tricia barely noticed. Brett shoved both hands back through his hair and shook his head as he turned back to her.
“Now that was embarrassing,” he said.
He seemed to want her to say something, but she could only stare, her blood now as cold in her veins as her cheeks from the arena’s refrigerated chill. Her pulse raced, and an icy sweat covered her hands. When she started to speak, she choked.
Brett’s eyes widened, and he reached over to pat her back, but she jerked away from his touch. The situation that had felt so comfortable before became awkward, and his nearness, suffocating.
Finally, she found her voice. “I need you to tell me something. Are you a cop?”
“I can’t believe no one ever told you I was a trooper,” Brett said with an exasperated sigh as he pulled out of the parking structure nearly an hour later. What he wanted to say was I can’t believe it matters so much that I’m a cop, but from her stiff posture and wringing hands, he’d be a fool not to see that it did.
She sat still in the car seat next to him, the same way she’d been for most of the game’s third period and even during the walk through the tunnel that connected the arena to the parking garage. Jubilant fans had packed in all around them, still cheering and making the cattle sounds of the exit ritual, but Tricia had been eerily silent. Her strange reaction cut him a lot deeper than it should have, like history coming back to bite him on the backside. But he wouldn’t sit back and wait for it to happen this time.
“No one mentioned my job at all?” he asked, still incredulous. “Nothing about me moving to Livingston County so I could be close to work at the Brighton Post?”
She released a long, slow breath. “Charity didn’t tell me anything about what you did.”
What Tricia didn’t say, what she couldn’t possibly have known, made more difference to