Bruiser Read online

  Shea barely spared him a glance before looking back at me, her fair skin blushing deep pink. “Porter—it’s not that I don’t like you.”

  “Damn,” Lukas muttered.

  “Hudson,” I corrected her. “If you’re going to tell me I’m unfit to mentor your kid, at least use my name.” Because I wanted to hear it from her lips, even just once.

  “Mr. Porter,” she said with her I-mean-business voice. “I’m so sorry, but with your lifestyle and career obligations, it’s just not fair for you to mentor Elliott.”

  “Isn’t that for me to decide?”

  Her blush deepened. “With all due respect, she’s my daughter. It’s for me to decide.”

  “Fair enough. But I have the time for Elliott. I like her. She’s smart and honest.”

  She fidgeted with her glasses, pushing them up her nose. “Yes. I know. And opinionated,” she threw a look over her shoulder at Elliott, who had folded her arms across her chest again.

  “I think that’s why I like her,” I said honestly.

  She wavered, I saw it in her eyes. Then she lifted her chin in the air. “It’s just...not appropriate.”

  “Mom!”

  “I’m sorry, Elliott. It’s not. Grab your bag. I’m taking you home.”

  Elliott shot me a pleading glance.

  “Nothing I can do about it. Your mom is the boss.”

  “Even in your building,” Lukas laughed.

  I glared over at him. “Not funny.”

  “Your building?” Shea asked.

  “According to one of the volunteers out there, it’s his building,” Lukas answered.

  “No, it belongs to the Dorsal Club, just like the door says.”

  “He bought it for us,” Clara answered, watching Elliott get her backpack from the hanging pegs at the back of the room. “Rescued us like a real knight in shining armor.”

  “I’m not anyone’s knight,” I countered.

  Shea’s forehead puckered.

  “Mom, please?” Elliott asked again, her backpack slung over her shoulders.

  Shea softened as she looked at her daughter, then at me through the corner of her eye. “I just...you can’t. I’m sorry, Elliott.” She turned fully toward me. “Mr. Porter. I’m so sorry.”

  Without another word, she took Elliott’s hand and walked toward the conference room door. Elliott looked back at me, sadness coming off her in waves so strong I could almost feel them.

  “You know why they really chose me over Ormond?” I asked her, needing to see her smile again.

  “Why?” she asked, nearly at the door.

  “I’m better.”

  She grinned, and my heart lightened just a bit.

  “And so humble,” she laughed.

  Shea halted at the door, looking back at me.

  “I don’t lie,” I said, looking her straight in the eye as I answered her daughter. “And I never present myself as something other than what I am. I’m sorry that’s not good enough for you.”

  She blinked rapidly, then left, taking Elliott with her.

  * * *

  Three days later, I still hadn’t shaken the encounter, Elliott, or Shea’s rejection.

  What the hell was so wrong with me that I couldn’t mentor her daughter? I at least deserved an explanation, and I was going to get one.

  The drink I carried sloshed in the plastic cup as I made my way through the maze of cubicles in the social services office. The atmosphere was chaotic. Phones rang, file cabinets closed, children raced by, chased by a woman with a clipboard. A few babies cried, as did the parents who held them.

  I looked the way the security guard had directed me and found a pop of color—Shea’s hair—standing out amongst the seemingly endless sea of gray.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I heard her say as I approached her desk.

  “You’re sure?” a woman asked, clutching a tissue and a blue folder.

  “I am,” Shea assured her.

  I stopped just outside the opening to her cubicle, turning my back to the doorway. Damn, I hadn’t given a single thought to what her day might be like, or what she even did on an average day. All I’d thought about was convincing her to let me mentor Elliott.

  “These programs are going to give you that relief you need to get everything back on track,” Shea told the woman.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” the woman replied.

  “You don’t have to,” Shea responded, her voice closer.

  I turned, drawn like a magnet to any chance I had to see her.

  “It’s my job, and one I’m more than happy to do. You just take care of Marie and Mark. That’s the best thank you I could get.”

  The two women appeared in the hallway as Shea pulled her in for a hug.

  Her eyebrows skyrocketed over her black glasses when she saw me standing there. I resisted the urge to shift my weight or run my fingers over my hair. I wasn't thirteen. This wasn’t junior high. I refused to let a pint-sized firecracker make me sweat.

  Clammy hands did not equal sweat, damn it.

  “I’ll see you next month, okay?” Shea asked.

  “Absolutely. Thank you, Miss Shea.” The woman wiped away tears from big, brown eyes, and looked away from me, scurrying by, keeping to the far side of the hallway like I might bite her.

  Or hit her.

  I’d never hit a woman in my life, but she didn’t know that. And I was anything but little. I flattened myself against the thin wall of the cubicle to give her as much space as I could.

  “Porter?” Shea asked, her voice thin and soft.

  “Hudson,” I corrected her again.

  She smoothed her hands over the curve of her denim-clad hips. “Right. What are you doing here?” Her light blue top brought out the slight bluish tinge to her gray eyes.

  “I brought you bubble tea,” I said, offering her the large, black-dotted beverage I’d carried from three blocks over.

  “You what?” Her eyes dropped to the tea and then rose to meet mine.

  “I brought you...bubble tea,” I said again. Fuck, I was an NHL star who netted millions a year, and still awkward as fuck when it came to this woman.

  Her mouth dropped open slightly, and my gaze dipped. Her lips were full and a delicious shade of pink without the tint of makeup. I could kiss her all day and not worry about getting smeared by cosmetics. Honestly, I’d kiss her all day even if she was slathered in red lipstick. Then I’d walk around downtown Seattle with her brand all over my face, wearing her approval—her permission—like a badge of honor.

  If I ever let her out of my bed.

  “I saw you drinking it at Connor’s barbecue, right? Honeydew?” I waited another few seconds as she gawked up at me. “Bubble tea.”

  “Bubble tea,” she repeated.

  “Don’t make me say it again. It’s a ridiculous name.”

  Her lips quirked up, and her posture softened. “Okay, umm...come in? I have about twenty minutes until I have to head out to do a home visit.”

  I followed her into her space and perched on the edge of her desk as I handed her the tea.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “I can’t believe you remember what I was drinking.” She sat in her chair and put the straw to her lips, taking a sip.

  “I’m good at things like that.” And every detail when it comes to you.

  “Mmmm,” she half-moaned, and I clenched the side of the desk. “So good. Okay, Mr. Porter, you didn’t just stop by to bring me tea, so what’s up?”

  “I want to mentor Elliott.”

  “I thought this had been asked and answered.” Her soft tone diminished the bite in her words.

  “I’m here for reconsideration.” I ran my fingers through my hair before I could stop myself from the nervous tell. “Look. You don’t like me. I don’t know why, and I really don’t have to. Elliott is your daughter, and you don’t have to explain your reasons—I have to prove myself. There’s a difference.”

  “There is,” she agreed,
taking another sip. I braced my palms on either side of me and leaned down so there were only a couple of feet between us, but she didn’t roll her chair away, just looked up at me with those expectant gray eyes. “So prove yourself.”

  I had my toe in the door.

  “Right. Okay. I’ve been background checked so thoroughly I’m sure you could know my blood type if you wanted. I graduated from the University of Ottawa with not just perfect grades, but perfect attendance. That means I show up. I don’t walk away when I make a commitment.”

  “Like your current commitment to beat the crap out of people?” she asked, tilting her head as she sipped the tea.

  “Whoa. I’m a hockey player. I don’t just run around the streets of Seattle punching people.” That had never been my M.O.

  “Are you telling me that you’ve never had a fight off the ice?”

  My jaw clenched. “I’ve had one or two.”

  She turned in her chair, reaching up to open a cabinet. The inside was decorated with pictures of Elliott—in some, Shea looked like a kid herself as she held her baby daughter. She tugged down a paper, and I cringed, seeing the bright red banner across the top.

  “And is this one of the two?” She pointed to the split-frame front page, which boasted a picture of Connor, our power forward, with his sister over his shoulder, and me mid-punch right beside him as I took out a much smaller guy.

  It was anything but flattering.

  “Right. Yeah, see, that was her drug-dealer.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “And I was just trying to—wait. You don’t care?” This time it was my mouth dropping open.

  “Nope. Reasons never sway me. Not when it comes to Elliott.” She sipped at her tea like we were discussing the weather, not my worthiness in her eyes.

  “That’s. I…” I blinked. “I don’t have words.”

  “You don’t need them.” She put the cup on her desk and leaned back in the chair. “Look, Porter—”

  “Hudson.”

  “I like you. I know Connor likes you. I know you’re a good guy. I’ve read your background check from when he was adopting Hannah. I also know that you were arrested for assault at fifteen, and it just got worse from there.”

  “Did the report say why?” I nearly growled.

  She swallowed but showed no other reaction to my change in tone. “No, and it doesn’t matter. I know it didn’t stick. Nothing you ever do sticks. You can beat guys up on the ice, or on the street, and you’re...Teflon. And that’s okay. I’m sure you have your reasons. But those reasons will never be good enough to bring that kind of violence around my daughter.”

  “I would never hurt Elliott. Or you.” I willed my hands to relax, my posture to soften. Someone had hurt Shea. Her reaction wasn’t simply from being a social worker. There was history that I had to be sensitive to even without knowing the specific details, if I wanted to help Elliott.

  “And I know that. I think. But I just can’t let her be around any level of violence.”

  “I’d be a good mentor for her,” I argued. “She needs someone who can dish that sass back at her. Challenge her. Who shares her love of a sport that you don’t.”

  Pink stained her cheeks. “I know she loves hockey. It’s not like I don’t monitor her web history. But allowing her to sneak in some time watching it, and thrusting her right into the heart of your...chaos are two different things. It isn’t something I can do.”

  “Name one other person who could be a better mentor for her,” I challenged.

  “Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”

  I scoffed. “She’s a little busy, don’t you think?”

  “You asked.”

  “You’re frustrating.”

  “You’re oddly insistent.” She tilted her head again, and my palms itched to feel the soft skin of her cheeks. To cup her face and kiss her blind. Fuck, I was even further from that fantasy than I had been when I’d walked in.

  My fate with Shea had been decided the minute she’d read my file.

  “I just want to help,” I said. “I like her.”

  “And she likes you. Trust me. I’ve had about fourteen billion pleas from her to reconsider. But you can’t be serious, Porter. You’re an NHL star. I get wanting good press, but you can’t slap Elliott on an endorsement ad and think it gets you there.”

  My jaw flexed once. Twice. I sucked a deep breath in through my teeth and let it out through my nose.

  “You know about the endorsement deal.”

  She quirked an eyebrow at me. “That you donated money to the Boys & Girls Club, named a building and get to profit from it? Yes. I know. And my kid isn’t part of that transaction.” She folded her arms under her breasts and gave me a look that said she wasn’t going to be swayed.

  I hopped off her desk. “Right. Okay. I get that you see the worst in humanity on a daily basis. Dads who beat their kids. Moms who deal drugs. Neglected babies. Abandoned wives. I understand that your first instinct is to see the worst in people, and I don’t fault you for it. Hell, I respect you, Shea. I respect every single thing you do and know you give your job one hundred percent. You save lives. I just play hockey.”

  “Porter, that’s not what I meant.” She stood, only coming up to my mid-chest in her little ballet flats.

  “Hudson,” I emphasized. “I’m a person beneath that jersey. Behind those reports. So I’ll say this one time, not because it’s your business, but because I’m hoping you’ll reconsider so I can mentor Elliott. I was arrested at fifteen for beating the shit out of my alcoholic dad, who was going at my mom with a knife when I got home from practice.”

  Her lips parted and her eyes flew wide.

  “I have no regrets about throwing that piece of shit out of my life. Our lives. It saved my mother, my brother, and if I have to pay for that with a record you shouldn’t even be able to access because it’s sealed, then so be it. Second, I donated about eleven million for that building, which is less than I make in a year. A year, Shea. Did it secure me that endorsement? Sure. And when you finally realize that endorsement was a contract for a million dollars a year for the next five years, and you do the math, maybe you’ll reconsider.”

  “I…I…” Her mouth opened and shut.

  “I would never allow the press near me, or Elliott. Or had you not noticed that I don’t do interviews. That I didn’t do one at the Dorsal center?”

  “I didn’t,” she admitted.

  “I’m more than a jersey. More than these,” I lifted my hands, “which, yes, is why I was picked up by the Sharks. I protect my team. I protect my family. And if that’s still not good enough for you, then…” I shook my head. “Then I guess there’s nothing else to say.”

  She deflated, which somehow made her eyes even bigger. “I just…”

  Before she could stammer out another excuse, or tell me I still wasn’t good enough for her or her daughter, I opened my wallet, flipped past the pictures of my mother and brother, and pulled out a card. “I know you’ve made up your mind, and I won’t push you again. But just in case you change your mind, I think I’d be good for her.” Good for you, too.

  Unwilling to even accidentally brush her hand when she obviously wanted nothing to do with me, I placed the card on the smooth surface of her desk.

  Then I walked out.

  Chapter 2

  Shea

  Subject Name: Melissa Carter

  Age: Seventeen

  Report: Has one-year-old son. Liam Carter. Boy’s biological father has multiple arrests for domestic violence and burglary. Melissa currently homeless after fleeing the residence with child.

  A cold chill snaked down my spine as I read the case file. The kind of freezing ice that threatened to rob me of breath and thought, and despite sitting at my desk, I shot back in time.

  Elliott wailing in my arms, not even a year old yet.

  Cracked drywall in fist-shaped holes.

  “Shea?” Grace stood at the edge of my desk, her long, dark hair hanging off h
er shoulders as she tilted her head at me.

  “Hmm?” I blinked away the burning in my eyes, straightening my spine as I looked up at my friend and co-worker.

  “You’re three o’clock is here,” she said, but the concern coloring her brown eyes didn’t clear. “You okay?”

  Grace knew some of my history, though it took years of working together and endless coffee dates to let her in. Our daughters were instant BFFs, but I had walls around my heart that were hard to breach. Grace had earned my trust after she’d sat with me for nine hours in the emergency room a few years ago when Elliott had to get three stitches in her bottom lip because she’d busted it during a softball game.

  “Yes,” I finally said, shaking off the memories that tangled in my chest. “This one,” I said, a bit more quietly, pointing to the computer screen, “reminds me of someone I used to know.” Not a complete lie, but this wasn’t us drinking wine on her couch. We were at work, and I didn’t need or want to let my past dominate my present.

  She eyed the opened case file, then me, and pressed her lips together. Gathering enough but never pushing. Grace squeezed my shoulder on the way back to her cubicle. “We need a Taco Tuesday,” she said, settling back into her chair. Her cubicle was only ten feet away from mine.

  “I could definitely go for that,” I said, standing and smoothing my shirt. The material was modest but hugged my curves in a way that made me feel both professional and a little sexy. Not that I was dressing up for anyone special—like someone who sporadically showed up to bring me bubble tea.

  Heat rushed through my body at the memory of how Porter’s massive frame had filled my cubicle. The way his voice was soft, almost timid, as he’d made his case. I was still reeling from it. Still feeling that slight ache...

  But I hadn’t wanted or needed a man in nine years.

  “Make the reservation,” I called over my shoulder as I walked toward the waiting area.

  “On it,” Grace answered.

  And then I was walking through two sets of doors, my ballet flats clicking against the tiled floor. I scanned the faces waiting to be seen, and my heart lurched. It didn’t matter that a cranky one-year-old boy clung to her neck, I would’ve been able to pick her out even if the baby wasn’t with her. Because her face—I’d seen that emotionally drained, haunted look before. I’d felt the crack of pain and heat that came from gaining a bruise like the one spiderwebbed over her left cheek.