Any Bit of Luck (Richland Renegades #2)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Have you heard the whispers? If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck… it’s probably a slump. ~Penni’s Puckleberry Tea

Shep

Ping-Pong.

Two paddles, one tiny white ball of chaos.

That’s all it took for Merri Wylie to turn me into a thief.

A damn Ping-Pong match and a wager I couldn’t resist.

Hockey players lived and died by superstition.

Some guys treated their sticks like sacred artifacts.

Others walked miles to avoid passing the visitor’s locker room.

My needs ran simpler—one pair of game-day socks.

Charcoal with a gold stripe. Nothing fancy.

I washed them myself between games, only wore them on the ice.

Did that mean I had a game day superstition? Not really. Just a routine. One that regularly put me in the highlight reels and earned me a sweet NHL contract.

Until one of the equipment managers swept through like a tornado, sucked up my socks along with all the rest of the crap players left around after a game. He’d tossed my socks in the industrial washer without a second thought.

The socks disappeared and so did my scoring.

Tonight’s game felt like the final nail in the coffin. My team, the Richland Renegades, scored. We closed out the game 3-1.

Ask me how many of those points I contributed.

Nada.

Zilch.

Zero.

Twelve games since that idiot lost my socks. Twelve games since I’d scored a freaking point. Twelve.

Twelve. Miserable. Failures.

My golden boy reputation—the one that earned me that sweet top-of-the-league contract—was on the cusp of being a joke. Instead of awe-inspiring clips for the fans to pass around, the NHL pundits were calling for me to be traded.

I was a washed-up, no-scoring waste of a Renegades jersey.

Overly dramatic? Maybe

But true. Sickeningly, disgustingly, inescapably true.

I surged to my feet and kicked the bench.

It crashed to its side, loud enough that every head turned my way.

I ignored them all. Especially that grinning asshole, Charlie Taft.

He’d been gunning for more ice time and with my big fat zero on the tally, he was getting it.

I shot him a single finger salute and turned back to face my locker.

“Whoa, brácha. It’s a slump,” Boh Zacha said over my shoulder. “You were on a hot streak since last season. You were bound to cool off.”

I cut my closest friend and linemate a glare. “I don’t have slumps.”

“Before now, when was the last time you went scoreless in a single game?”

Four years ago against the stupid ass Rangers. Fourth game of the season.

I wasn’t due a slump. No, I suffered the curse of a clueless equipment manager. “That fucking Denmark.”

“He’s new, Shep. Cut the man some slack.”

“What, he never worked with hockey players before? Then what the hell was he doing in the locker room?”

“Eager to please, I guess.”

The knot in my stomach twisted tighter, every shot I missed tonight replaying in my head. I’d planned to retire a Renegade. Now? I might not even make it through the season.

After physical therapy, where I studiously avoided eye contact and pretended not to notice the pat on my shoulder held more pity than encouragement, I joined Zacha in the player lounge.

We passed the time with a friendly Ping-Pong match on the heavy-duty table built to withstand the bumps and abuse of a professional hockey team.

Friendly for me, since Zacha was losing so hard it was doing good things for my ego. I bounced the little ball off the table, ready to grind his ego to dust with a couple more rounds.

“No nazdar, sluní?ko.”

Zacha’s “hello, sunshine” floated over the Ping-Pong table, coated with enough curious surprise to have me looking over my shoulder to see what caught his attention.

The senior video coach stood just inside the player lounge beside a woman I didn’t recognize.

A woman dressed in head-to-toe sunshine yellow.

But then she laughed.

The sound danced across the room, light and sweet, raising the hair on the back of my neck. Zacha strolled around to my side of the table. I shuffled a step to the side and we plopped our asses onto its solid edge to take in the scene at the other end of the player lounge.

The woman stood beside the senior video coach as he motioned toward the rack of tablets we used to review plays. Copper-penny-colored hair swung at her back as she nodded along with whatever Sellers said as he pointed to the multiple smart screens and outlets lining the wall.

“Sister of his?” I asked.

We had one woman on the coaching staff, Linda Ballenger.

She’d started a couple years ago and elevated our North American recruitment by a million miles.

Ballenger wore no-nonsense suits when she had to meet with the bigwigs, but typically sported team polos and casual gear.

She did not wear mile-high heels and fluffy skirts that swayed with her every move.

In fact, I couldn’t picture an actual woman I knew who looked like the one invading the player lounge. Not in real life. Now, back home in Three Corners, there might be a garage or two with a pin-up calendar…

Zacha lifted a shoulder in a negligent half-shrug. “Could be.”

When Sellers moved to head back out of the room the way they’d come in, I let out a holler before he left us drowning in curiosity. “Sellers! What’s the story?”

They turned, and Sellers leaned close to whisper something to the mystery woman that brought out a dimple in her heart-shaped face. The smile lingered as they approached, her skirt swaying with each step.

“Hey, guys. Meet Merri Wylie. She’ll be taking over for me soon.”

“What?” The word burst out, unintentionally harsh. I’d known Sellers was heading out to have a kid, but the idea of a woman taking over his role surprised me. I crossed my arms, doubling down. “Gonna organize shift films or something?”

Her lips twitched, but she seemed to squelch the would-be smile and settled her expression back to polite interest. Her green eyes sparkled, as if she delighted in a secret only she knew. Her almost-smile pierced through the funk of my scoring drought.

“Among other things, I’m sure.” She nodded toward the table. “Who’s winning?”

Zacha jerked a thumb in my direction. “Shep. Always Shep.”

Her grin widened as she sidled closer, skirt swinging around her legs, her bright hair slipping over her shoulder to curl along the vee of her shirt. “He wins a lot, huh?”

Zacha snorted. “We try not to talk about it.”

Her lips parted and a tiny dimple appeared in her left cheek as her polite smile morphed into a saucy grin. My heart thumped against my chest. She caught me staring, winked and my knees went weak. By the time she spoke, I was ready to drop to one knee—to propose or beg for mercy or both.

“Bet I could take him down,” she said.

My eyes bounced between hers, eating up the challenge radiating off her like I’d devour my favorite burger from Bootleggers Grill. “Just say when.”

She bounced up on her toes, the motion making her curves jiggle in all the best places. But I was a gentleman and didn’t look. Well, I didn’t look long.

She narrowed her gaze, and the tips of my ears burned. Busted. She flicked her finger on the paddle in my hand with a thunk. My eyes glued to her pursed lips as she spoke, her voice thick with sass and rippling straight into my bloodstream. “When.”

“Now, Merri,” said Sellers.

“No worries, friend. I promise to be gentle.”

A laugh burst from my chest. I spun the paddle, falling into the familiar dance of competition. “Awful confident, Ms. Wylie.”

“Oh yes.” Her springy hair bounced with her nod. “I am.” She pointed at my head then. “I win, I get the cap.”

My Goorin Stallion Special Edition. A year of wear had molded it perfectly to my skull.

She arched an auburn brow at my hesitation. “If you’re chicken, I understand. Ping-Pong pride is a fragile thing.”

I laughed again, hard enough I shook the table. This woman would have me wrapped around her little finger in nothing flat. “You’re on.”

“Excellent.” She reached between me and Zacha, and snatched up his abandoned paddle.

She spun the paddle in her hand as she walked around to the other side of the table, her skirts swishing with her exaggerated strut.

Midway, she paused, braced the slim fingers of one hand on the surface of the table and reached down to fiddle with her shoes with the other hand.

A second later, she sank several inches.

“Wouldn’t want to give you an unfair advantage, now would I, Mr. Landon? ”

When she added another wink, my pulse kicked into a gallop. I leaned around the table. Her shiny shoes sat lined up on the floor. I eyed her bare feet and her pretty toes with their nails painted golden yellow. “No, ma’am,” I said, “we sure wouldn’t want that.”

Her first serve set me back. By the third, she had my number. An underhand I never saw coming, then a smash that stole my point. Nothing I sent over the net fazed her. I scraped out a couple points between watching that dimple appear and disappear, but her skillful serves left me scrambling.

Zacha stood behind her next to Sellers, a smug smirk on his jerkoff face. He elbowed the senior video coach. “You’re a sneaky, sneaky man, Sellers.” He pitched his voice so I could hear him over the whoosh and crack of the ball hitting the table. “Who have you brought to our sacred table?”

When Merri ducked down to catch the ball rolling across the floor, I dragged my fascinated gaze from the plump curve of her rear to catch Sellers’ reply.

“Livie’s due in three weeks. Taking leave to help with the baby. Merri’s my replacement.”

“Arvon University, you said?”

Her next backhand sailed past while I strained to hear their conversation, yielding her another point my pride couldn’t afford.

“Head of her department for two years now. You’ll love having her game nights. Never misses a call. Hasn’t been overruled on a coach’s challenge since taking over.”

Her match-winning loop shot past my defenses.

Her pretty green eyes gleamed as she slapped her paddle on the table with a flourish. “I know just what I’m going to do with my new cap.”

I pulled the trophy off, scrubbing my hand through the matted-down hair beneath. “Fair’s fair.”

She timed her victory well, as the rest of the team streamed into the lounge then.

I settled back with my hip wedged against the table as Sellers introduced her around.

She never lost her polite smile, greeting all the guys with handshakes and a friendly little detail about their play.

She’d studied up on my teammates and came prepared. Impressive.

She waved my cap over her head as she followed Sellers out of the lounge.

Zacha knocked his shoulder against mine. “Interesting.”

I grunted, my eyes still on the exit. I felt like the happy survivor of a whirlwind. At a loss for words and not one bit sorry about it.

“You know the team has a no fraternization policy, ne, brat?e?”

“Do we?” My brain clicked back online. A distraction from my scoring drought might be exactly what I needed. Flirting couldn’t possibly count as fraternization. And if a little flirting took the edge off my desperation to score, I’d flirt with a wildebeest.

And Merri Wylie, with her cute as pie dimple and sassy skirts, was a far cry from a wildebeest.

As the guys headed to the locker room to get geared up for practice, I grabbed a tablet from the rack and pulled up all the shifts from the last game and followed a little slower.

With Merri taking over for Sellers, she’d be the one loading up all the tablets, organizing shift videos, highlighting plays the coaching staff wanted us to study.

After practice, with nowhere more interesting to be, I returned to the player lounge and settled into one of the leather chairs.

Kicking my feet up on the ottoman with the tablet holding today’s videos, I flipped through every play, every move.

Noted every move I could have done differently, but also recognized the familiar spark simply wasn’t with me.

I may not be superstitious, but puck luck was puck luck. You had it or you didn’t.

For years, I’d been up close and personal with the elusive mojo known as puck luck. The charm of good fortune separating the haves from the have nots.

Somehow, this year I’d become the resident mascot for Team Have Not.

By the time I looked up from the highlight footage of my last failed game, the eerie quiet of the room hit me.

Everyone had cleared out while I’d buried my head in a search for impossible-to-find answers.

I shoved up from the chair, returned the tablet to its home under the smart screens and, with a lack of anything better to do, ambled out into the hall.

I should head on home. To the multi-million dollar loft I’d splurged on with my shiny new contract. To the fancy furniture and empty rooms.

But I’d been cursed with more than my fair share of curiosity and it did me dirty tonight, pulling me down the hall to peek into the office shared by the two video coaches.

Sellers and Wilson had shared the space for as long as I’d been a Renegade.

Wilson’s side was cluttered and peppered with paper coffee cups, empty water bottles and more cords than could ever be needed.

Sellers’ side wasn’t any tidier as stacked boxes covered the desk, with the one smack in the center topped with my Stallion cap.

She’d started moving in.

A peek wouldn’t hurt. The open box tempted me, like a treasure chest of girly chaos.

A pristine white desk organizer, a yellow daisy mouse pad and matching cheerful yellow mouse.

A flash of turquoise caught my eye beneath a cluster of white resin figures.

Fingers itching, I pulled it free. A tiny turquoise-haired Funko Pop, its yellow-rimmed glasses tilted at a jaunty angle.

A distant door slammed. I snatched my hand back, the little figure’s painted eyes staring up at me with an almost comical expression of accusation.

My imagination, of course. Clutching my pilfered trophy, I slipped from the office and hustled down the corridors to the locker room.

The backlit Renegades logo in the ceiling cast a faint glow, just enough to guide me.

I knew the labyrinthine layout of the team facility like the back of my hand.

Growing up two hours away in Mapleton, I held this place—this team—sacred, a childhood dream. To play here, to bleed Renegade blue, to one day see my number swaying from the rafters—that was the ambition that fueled me.

Open lockers lined the walls, each with a rack across the top to hold and dry our gloves, and a shelf to stash whatever we needed to stash.

Mine held a blue pen with the team name etched along the barrel, a gift from my little sister, and a package of promotional photos the PR department wanted me to sign.

I slipped the little blue-haired, yellow glasses-wearing Funko on the shelf.