Mountain Man’s Naughty List (Log Cabin Christmas #2)

Chapter 1

ONE

THATCHER

“It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

The fierce glare Coach Dane gives me from across his mahogany desk says he disagrees. His fingers are tapping on his desk, making the Wayne Gretzky bobblehead on his desk nod as if he’s agreeing.

I like to think the Great One would be on my side.

“I’m serious,” I insist. “We… exchanged a few… words. I gave him a little love tap. I really don’t understand why everyone is making such a big deal about it.”

“Love tap?” he scowls. “Thatcher, you slugged the guy.”

“But I didn’t mean to send him into concussion protocol.” No matter how much I wanted to clock the guy at the time, I wouldn’t wish a concussion on anyone. “Besides, I was punished. The refs kicked me out of the game.”

Which, in my opinion, was a harsher punishment than I deserved.

Sure, I probably deserved to be thrown in the penalty box. God knows I needed to cool off for a few minutes. Getting a match penalty seemed excessive.

Coach Dane pinches the bridge of his nose. “You acted like a fool.”

“Well, you didn’t hear what he said.” I wrinkle my nose as if I’ve detected a fart.

Actually, that’s not a bad way to describe what the idiot said a moment before I laid him out. It was rotten. Like a particularly foul fart.

Coach releases a heavy sigh. “You know what they say about sticks and stones.”

“Yeah, yeah. They may break my bones and words will never harm me.”

“I was actually going to say, you can expect an ass-chewing from me if you get yourself ejected from a game for throwing punches like a punch teenager.”

I snort, my annoyance with this conversation growing by the minute. “Are you saying I’m too old to get into scuffles.”

“You’re damn right I’m saying you’re too old to get into scuffles.” Coach shakes his head. “I just don’t know what you were thinking getting into another fight on the ice.”

My patience is spent. “He was talking shit about Stevie, okay?”

Coach’s scowl softens. “Something about Stevie and Grady?”

My jaw hardens and I give a short nod. “He had some choice words about them.”

“And I’m guessing they weren’t complimentary.”

I snort. “I wish Stevie would have listened to me and stayed away from him. Better yet, Grady should have had the decency to keep his hands off of her.”

But no. They had to fall in love, go viral, and make me the butt of jokes in the locker room and on ice.

Mostly to talk about my sister’s body. What they’d like to do with it. Wondering if she’s “open for business” now that she’s been with one hockey player.

Every damn chance they get.

An older brother can only take so much. The betrayal of my best friend on the team. The shit-stirring from my opponents. It’s on them for crossing me when we’re decked out in pads and I’m holding a stick.

Basically, they have it fucking coming.

I grind my teeth together. “No one asks if my ‘slutty puck bunny sister’ has a favorite position and gets away with it.”

“Okay, fine. I get.” Coach Dane winces. “The little shit was cruising for a bruising.”

My grunt is response enough.

“I’ll even say, he might have gotten off easy.” He sighs and runs a hand over his jaw. “You have my sympathies. It’s just…”

“Just what?”

“Given the number of spats you’ve had lately, the league assumes you’re the aggressor.”

“And?”

“And… they seem to want to make an example of you.”

My stomach drops. “What do you mean?”

“Effective immediately, you’re suspended.”

“Suspended.” My hands ball into fists on my knees. “For how long?”

His jaw ticks. “If it was up to me, I’d say one game and you’d be back in the line-up.”

But it’s not up to him. “How long?” I ask again, struggling to spit out each word.

“Eight games.”

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” I jump to my feet, setting the bobblehead nodding again. “Eight games? That’s—that means…”

“That means you won’t be setting foot in the rink until after the holidays.”

“Merry fucking Christmas to me,” I grumble.

Coach shakes his head. “And the owners are so pissed, they don’t even want you here for practice.”

“Of course they don’t.”

My fists clench and unclench until my knuckles are white. The owners have had it out for me all season.

In my defense, how was I supposed to know their daughter was back from college and attending our end-of-season banquet?

If I’d known the cute woman in the short hot pink dress was her, I wouldn’t have paid her any attention.

I definitely wouldn’t have made out with her in the elevator after the awards ceremony.

I swallow to dislodge the lump growing in my throat. “So I’m suspended and banished?”

“Afraid so.”

I narrowly resist the urge to tell him what I really think. Using the colorful four-letter words just waiting to be said. But I don’t. Coach is only the messenger. He doesn’t deserve my anger.

Plus, while I have a hot head on the ice, I like to think I’m not a complete idiot the rest of the time. I’m smart enough to know that cursing out my coach won’t help my cause.

“I can’t play, I can’t practice.” I shake my head in disbelief. “What the hell am I supposed to do with myself?”

“I see that you have a couple of options,” Coach Dane says. “You can hide out in that penthouse of yours drinking yourself stupid.”

“Or?”

“Or, like you said, it’s the holidays. And you have them off for the first time since you were playing pee-wee.”

He has a point. Damn, I kind of hate that Coach is right all the time. I start to ask where I should go, when it hits me.

The scene of the crime. The cabin in Alaska where Grady was supposed to be rehabbing while he was actually falling for my sister.

After I’d cooled off, they’d told me about how dope it was. Outfitted with a game room, a chef’s kitchen, and a garage full of toys any wannabe mountain man would love.

Plus, with Grady still on the injured reserve list, I know he and Stevie planned to spend the holiday season there. I can blow off some steam with my two favorite people—even if they’re both still on my shit list.

“Okay,” I nod, warming to the idea. “I’ll go celebrate the holidays.”

“That’s the spirt,” Coach Dane says. “Go play. Have fun. Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Coach’s advice sticks with me through the next twenty-four hours as I make arrangements to meet the happy couple and one of Stevie’s friends. On the long-ass flight to Alaska, I turn the words over in my head.

Don’t do anything Coach wouldn’t do.

There’s just one thing. For the next two weeks, Coach doesn’t have any say in what I do. For all intents and purposes, I’m a free agent. Short of getting arrested, I can do whatever the hell I want.

Somewhere around the third in-flight bourbon, I ask the flight attendant for a piece of paper and a pen. I start a list of all the things I want to do but don’t for fear of getting my ass handed to me by Coach.

By the time I’ve landed in Alaska and been dropped off at the cabin, I have a good list going. Sinking on the leather couch in front of the already burning fireplace, I review my list:

Skip the gym.

Sleep past 6 a.m.

Drive too fast on a snow mobile.

Skinny dip in a frozen lake.

Drink a gallon of egg nog.

Bet on a game.

Shave the playoff beard I still have from last year.

Contemplating it a moment longer, and letting the words go a little blurry, I scribble down one more thing:

Get laid.

It’s not something Coach would frown upon, but what the hell. I’m here to have a good time. And getting good and thoroughly laid is the epitome of having a good time.

Satisfied with my list, I give it a goofy grin.

“This’ll be fun.”

My eye lids are heavy. Probably from the flight and all the bourbon I threw back. I’ll close my eyes. Just for a minute.

I mumble, “Get laid” and pass out.

When I open my eyes minutes, or hours later, I find a green-eyed blonde woman with curves for days leaning over me.