Forbidden Cowboy, Real Love (Canadian Small Town Hockey Romances #4)

1. Sonya

Sonya

S eville smelled like disappointment. Or maybe I was just projecting. Yeah, I was definitely projecting. I stepped out of the luxury sedan I rented at the airport and took another deep breath, finding a surprising lack of cow dung in the air. It was surprisingly…fresh.

That didn’t change the fact that Seville wasn’t where I wanted to be.

Or that I was overdressed for a town that looked like it rolled up its sidewalk at nightfall.

I looked down at my outfit, a figure-hugging blue dress I’d once worn to a wine bar in Boston and immediately regretted my wardrobe choice as it was surprisingly cold for early spring.

Seville wasn’t exactly a small town but it was much smaller than I was used to.

I remembered driving down “Main Street,” which was little more than a diner, a drugstore, a few small shops and a movie theater with three screens that probably played The Notebook on a continuous loop.

What I hadn’t passed was a Thai restaurant, a spa, a mall or even one damn nightclub.

“What the hell am I supposed to do here?” Knit?

Your job, my conscience piped up helpfully. Which was hilarious, since work was the reason I was here in Seville in the first place.

One minute I was a rising star in a D1 athletics department in Massachusetts, running social media for the men’s basketball team, dreaming of climbing the sports ladder to the NBA.

The next, some hotshot recruit posted a string of misogynistic garbage on his burner account which was just his name with the word “not” added in.

It went viral, and guess who caught the blame?

Not the player. Not the assistant coach who vouched for him.

Me.

I got the boot. My pink slip. Publicly fired. Against my will, I might add. PR said it was “optics.” I said it was bullshit.

Two months of job hunting had proven to me the one fact I never wanted to acknowledge: my name was garbage in college basketball—women’s and men’s—and I needed to leave the United States and head north to salvage what was left of my name.

I’d hoped to land a social media manager gig in Calgary or Alberta or even Montreal, a big city with a thriving night life and social scene.

Not small-town Canada.

But when Dad called, offering me a lifeline—a job as social media manager for the Seville Thunderhawks while I figured things out —I accepted. Reluctantly. It was still social media and it was still sports, even if it was the one sport I never wanted to be involved in again.

I’d spent most of my life trying to escape hockey.

My dad, Mac Simmons, was a legend on and off the ice, and hockey was his whole life.

On skates he’d broken records and had a good, but short run in the pros.

After a career-ending injury, Mom and I thought we’d get him back.

We were wrong. Dad wasn’t content to sit around at home with his wife and young daughter, oh no, he was far too restless, far too talented for that.

He’d taken his love of the game and parlayed it into his Act Two.

And then he became a legend off of the ice. As a coach.

Just when we thought we’d get him back, we lost him even more.

As a coach, he was always gone. Traveling from city to city with the team, glued to film, coming up with new plays to give his players an edge.

He was too wrapped up in practice schedules and hockey players to notice I was growing up without him.

It was easier when Mom was alive. She made following behind the bus an adventure—road trips, arena nachos, and hotel pools.

But shortly after my twelfth birthday, she died and it was just me, Dad, and a rotating roster of draft hopefuls.

He’d been too busy to buy my first bra. To nurse my first heartache.

To notice I was a shell of myself after losing Mom.

He hadn’t noticed me at all and I stopped trying to get his attention.

As soon as I graduated high school, I made my escape. Crossed the border for school in the States and put as much distance between me and hockey as humanly possible. Things were good. Things were blissfully hockey-free. I was happy and thriving.

Until I wasn’t.

Now I was in a small college town where my father had grown up trying to pick up the broken pieces of my career.

And live in the shadow of hockey once again.

It was fine, I told myself. It was the price I had to pay for accepting the lifeline, and it was.

I just hadn’t realized Seville was so damn small.

After a quick coffee stop at the kitschy café shop, I made my way to the three-bedroom family house that Dad called home.

It was so similar to the house I’d grown up in that I needed a minute to sit in the quiet of the rental car and get myself together.

This is my life now, I reminded myself when that familiar ache settled deep in my gut.

It’s either this or doing social media for big pharma.

“It’s just a house,” I said out loud before stepping from the car and making my way to the front door.

The front door swung open and Dad was there.

He looked older than the last time I saw him about five months ago, but still big and broad, stronger than most men his age.

He was grinning like I was a prodigal daughter coming home instead of the disgraced former rising star.

“There’s my princess,” he said, wrapping me in a bear hug that smelled like him.

Like sawdust and aftershave. His chest was as broad as ever, but the belly pressing into me had definitely grown since the last time I’d seen him.

“Too many celebratory meals, huh?” I teased, poking the growing belly under his Thunderhawks hoodie.

“Damn right. Seville’s got the best pie this side of the Rockies.” He patted his big belly, green eyes sparkling with joy. “And we’ve been on a hell of a winning streak.”

I rolled my eyes. It had only taken a few seconds before hockey entered the chat, but I managed a smile anyway.

“Well, what do you think of Seville so far?” His smile was hopeful as he ushered me inside. “She’s gorgeous, right?”

I nodded. “It is very picturesque, Dad. Despite its distinct lack of a Thai restaurant.”

He barked a laugh. “There’s a Chinese place that does Pad Thai if you ask real nice.”

“Ugh,” I groaned and laid my head on his shoulder because despite everything, I loved my dad. Our relationship was complicated, a thick mixture of love and resentment.

“C’mon, it’s not that bad,” he said with a sigh. “This is a nice town. You might even like it if you give it a chance.”

I followed him into the kitchen, my heels clicking on the tile.

The house was warm, homey in that lived-in, low-maintenance coach-dad kind of way.

Hockey sticks leaned in a corner by the door.

A stack of scouting binders sat on the coffee table.

DVDs and flash drives, likely filled with player stats and game footage. Some things never changed.

“You could be happy here, Sonya,” he said, like he actually believed it, or maybe he wanted to believe it. “Good people. Fresh start. Thunderhawks are a solid team with potential that’s finally coming to something.

I nodded, because I didn’t have a choice. It was the Thunderhawks or social media for a hemorrhoid medication brand.

At least with hockey, I’d still be working in the world of highly competitive sports.

Even if it was the last sport I ever wanted to be involved with.

On second thought, maybe I can make hemorrhoids sexy.