Tacker Read online

  “Okay, Nënë… His Lordship is calling for my presence at the supper table,” I say, not the least bit abashed by talking to her grave. “Sorry I can’t stay longer, but really… not much more to report. I’ll come back in a few days.”

  I get no response besides a slight breeze from the west. Is it her answering me? Who knows, but I like to think so.

  “Love you,” I say before turning and heading to the Gator.

  “Wash your hands,” Raul orders me as soon as I walk into the kitchen. He’s stirring taco meat in a pan, and I can smell fresh corn shells roasting in the oven. On the counter, several spice bottles are lined up, because Raul would rather die than use pre-packaged stuff.

  I head to the sink and give my hands a good scrub, my stomach rumbling with hunger. For lunch, I had a package of peanut butter and cheese crackers, and nothing for breakfast prior to that. I wouldn’t be having this meal of tacos and what looks like charro beans in a pot on the stove if it weren’t for Raul.

  I’m terrible at cooking, and I’m a sucker for anything that comes in a convenient package. In addition to managing the ranch, Raul has taken it upon himself to get at least one home-cooked meal in me per day if he can manage it.

  At first, I’d thought to complain about it because he does so much for so little anyway, but then I realized… Raul has an empty home. His wife died years ago, and all his kids have moved away. If he doesn’t eat with me, he would be alone in one of the small staff cabins on the land. That’s a sadness I don’t want to bear.

  “Grab us a few beers,” he says as he turns the stove off and grabs a pot holder.

  I do as he asks because an ice-cold beer after a long day of work is always the best-tasting kind. Raul pulls the hot corn shells out of the oven, placing them on the Formica counter. After I open the beers and put them on the tiny kitchen table, I move to accept a plate from Raul that he’d pulled out of the cupboard.

  I load up three tacos with the meat, beans, and freshly grated cheddar Raul has in a bowl. He never bothers with lettuce and tomato, but I spoon on some green tomatillo sauce he made. My mouth waters slightly in anticipation.

  Raul had worked this ranch long before I bought it at auction with the help of my mother. It was here that I had my very first riding lessons from none other than Raul himself when I was twelve. He was a gentle and patient teacher, and he curated a love for horses within me. It was a special outlet for me, where I could be free from my horrible memories of the time before Helen rescued me.

  When I bought the ranch, it was only done with the promise by Raul that he would stay on and help me with my vision to use horses as a means of healing. Not like he had anywhere to go. He’s sixty-seven and most employers think that’s too old, but frankly… I couldn’t do any of this without him.

  At the table, the only sound is the crunch of tacos and the occasional slurp of beer. Eventually, Raul asks, “What’s the deal with the new client?”

  He knows I can’t tell him any details about my counseling with Tacker, but that hasn’t even begun yet. I shrug. “He’s not talking yet, so I put him to work in the stalls.”

  Raul chuckles. “That usually gets their gums flapping.”

  “He noticed my accent,” I say as I pick up my beer bottle.

  “You must have been nervous,” he says with a sage nod. He knows me that well.

  “Well, his counseling is mandatory, and I have to report back to his employer. I expect our next meeting will be more productive.”

  “He’s going to be difficult for you,” Raul murmurs, and I can hear the worry in his voice. He always worries for me. Has since the day I met him almost twenty years ago when I took my first riding lesson from him. “You might need to share a bit of yourself with him to get him to open up.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to do that,” I reply as I pick up my beer. I hold it up for a moment, pondering. “I wonder what the best approach to take with him is. You were in the barn… you heard how averse he is to anything that promises him even a sliver of hope.”

  “Just hit him with your rays of sunshine, Nora. You have a special talent in making people believe in the best.”

  I snort, because he’s very much exaggerating. I don’t have special powers or talent. I’m a good listener, though. And, through my education and training, I know how to give the proper kind of guidance.

  I’ll google him tonight to get the basic background on him. Maybe that will give me some ideas on how to handle our next session on Friday.

  But, for now, there are more important things to discuss at dinner. I take a sip of my beer, put the bottle back down, and then lean forward. “So… tonight’s bingo at the community center. I heard Tillie’s grandson say she was going,” I tease.

  “So,” Raul replies gruffly, his focus on his tacos suddenly super intense.

  “So, you should go sit with her. She’s totally sweet on you.”

  “Cierra esa boca,” he grumbles—a gentle rebuke for my ribbing—but his cheeks are turning slightly red under the dark tan he has. “I’m too old to be worrying about who’s sweet on me and who’s not.”

  “MaryBeth Henson is most definitely not sweet on you,” I say with a snort.

  “Good,” he replies with a smirk. “She’s a harridan.”

  MaryBeth helps me with the ranch house, cleaning it for me every few weeks. I’m so busy that mopping floors and dusting furniture are the lowest activities on my priority list. So I broke down and hired her to help out.

  While Raul lives in guest quarters on the ranch, he freely moves in and out of the main house, often taking most meals with me. For some reason, he and MaryBeth don’t get along.

  “It’s just,” I hedge a little, not willing to give up on Tillie. “I don’t want you to be lonely. You pour your heart and soul into this ranch and into me—”

  “Exactly,” he says, cutting me off. “I have you.”

  Raul’s wife died nine years ago. She was a sweet woman who doted on him. They have two children and five grandchildren, but they all migrated and moved east so he doesn’t see them a lot. While I love him like a father and a best friend, I know my offerings to him have their own shortcomings. I want him to have someone in his life who will focus on him one hundred percent. Tillie would do that if he’d let her.

  “I love you,” I say gently. “I just want you to be happy.”

  “You want everyone to be happy, Nora. You want everyone to find the same peace you have, and I can only offer you two truths about that. First… I’m happy just as I am, and I don’t lack for anything. And second, not everyone has the ability to find peace. Some prefer to stay in the dark.”

  He’s talking about Tacker now.

  Another slight warning that I’ve got my hands full with this client.

  CHAPTER 6

  Tacker

  As I pace around my apartment, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. I got my workout in, which included a seven-mile run this morning. After I made a healthy breakfast, I went grocery shopping, adding more healthy items to my cupboards and refrigerator. Admittedly over the last two weeks since the crash, I haven’t been following the best of regimens when it comes to food and exercise. I think in my mind, I’d given up believing the Vengeance would want me. I’d started my slow descent into losing my six-pack to a pot belly.

  Since meeting with management on Monday and accepting their terms, I’ve kicked it at the gym. Rid my apartment of the Cheetos and Cocoa Puffs I’d been living on.

  Actually went and got a haircut.

  I’m slowly making my way back, and now all I have to accomplish is the dreaded “talk” tomorrow with Nora that will supposedly start off my counseling sessions. The terms of my place on the team are clear… talk my shit out with a counselor and fix my shit so it doesn’t negatively impact the team.

  There is no in between.

  And it’s really a no-brainer.

  It’s not like I have to really think this through. If I had a be
st friend, I wouldn’t be calling him or her up to ask their advice on what I should do. If I had parents I was close to, it’s not a situation where their wisdom and love would give me guidance.

  But I have neither a best friend nor parents to turn to, so it’s kind of moot.

  I make my way into the kitchen, but there’s nothing to do. The counters are spotless, the dishes are done, and I even mopped the floor two days ago.

  I suppose I could go buy a table and chairs to go in here. Maybe even a couch and a coffee table for the living room? My furniture consists of a recliner and lamp there, and an air mattress in the bedroom. I’ve lived such a minimal existence since MJ died. I didn’t really need anything else. Mine and MJ’s house in Dallas was sold fully furnished. I’d only kept my clothes and a few things from the kitchen to cook with. I didn’t want anything to remind me of the home I’d shared with MJ.

  But no one comes over—with the exception of Dax and Bishop storming my apartment the day before yesterday—when Bishop had told me to get my head out of my ass. I wish his words meant something to me, but they don’t.

  Not really.

  Okay, maybe a little bit. I mean… I live for hockey. It’s probably the only thing keeping me alive and when I commit to my team, I commit to them all. I want them to succeed, and, in that sense, I care about them deeply.

  So yeah… it fucking hurts a bit to know I’ve let them down.

  So maybe it does mean something worthwhile that they both took the time to come to see me after it was announced I’d be returning to the team.

  A knock on my door startles me badly, mainly because I’d been steeped in thoughts of visitors to my apartment and no one ever comes over. The fact I’ve got someone here to see me is shocking.

  But I’m also bored shitless, so I can’t say it bothers me. I move out of the kitchen, into my small dumpy living room, and then open the door without bothering to look through the peephole.

  I can only stare at the blond man standing on my threshold in complete and utter fucking shock.

  “Hey man,” he says with a grin, his green eyes flashing in the sunlight and crinkled at the edges.

  Aaron Wylde.

  Considered by some to be the wildest man in the league, both on and off the ice. It’s why most people just call him by his last name, Wylde, and why whenever we used to go out, he’d be swarmed by all the women.

  But I never called him Wylde. Only Aaron.

  He’s the man who, at one time, I considered my best friend when we both played for the Dallas Mustangs.

  Of course, that relationship ended when MJ died. I cut him out like I did everyone else.

  “Going to invite me in?” he asks, and it startles me.

  “Yeah,” I mutter, taking a step back. “Sorry. Just caught me off guard.”

  Aaron brushes past me, scanning my dump of an apartment. As I close the door, he says, “What a shithole.”

  “It works for me,” I reply, not in any way defending my choices. Just being matter of fact.

  He turns to face me, pushing his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know whether to hug you, shake your hand, or punch you in the face.”

  “Take your pick,” I say flatly, but I move into the kitchen to pull a bottle of water out of the fridge to offer him.

  He follows me in there, accepts the bottle, and just stares.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, leaning a hip against my counter and crossing my arms over my chest.

  “You weren’t at the team meeting this morning, but I figured someone would have texted you at the least,” he replies with a smile. “I got traded here.”

  “No shit,” I murmur, and there’s no hiding the happy tone in my voice that news brings. The trade deadline is at the end of next week, and I knew we’d be picking up some new blood.

  Aaron, in addition to being my best friend, was one of the most talented defensemen in the league. He’ll be an amazing addition to the Vengeance. Since we’re making a legit run for the Cup this year, it’s a great move on management’s part.

  “Let’s go get a beer and catch up,” he suggests.

  I shake my head. Not interested in catching up because that would involve telling him how shitty my life has been the last fifteen months. But I can’t even say that. Instead, I fall back on a better excuse. “Not allowed to drink.”

  Aaron’s eyes dull a bit, then drop down to the cast on my left wrist. “Got anything to do with that?”

  It’s no secret… my accident. It was in the news.

  Veteran Hockey Star in Drunk Driving Accident.

  That’s what the headlines said.

  It’s also no secret within the league that I was temporarily suspended from the team because of it. Aaron has no clue how deep the shit I was in was because he doesn’t know I drove my truck into that barricade intentionally.

  “Let’s go grab some lunch,” I suggest instead. I suppose we need to talk, seeing as he’s now firmly back in my life as a teammate. He’s been worried about me. We haven’t talked in several months, mainly because I kept blowing him off after MJ died. When I got traded to Arizona, there was almost a relief on my part to have distance from him, so I wouldn’t have to look at his worried expression anymore.

  I take Aaron to The Sneaky Saguaro, a large Tex-Mex restaurant and beer garden, boasting over one hundred and twenty-seven varieties of beer on tap. While I can’t drink and don’t want to anyway, Aaron will appreciate not only the beer, but also the hot waitresses in denim cut-off shorts, bare bellies, and big tits. He’s a certified player when it comes to women, and he might as well be introduced to The Sneaky Saguaro as it’s where the Vengeance usually hangs out after a game.

  We get settled into a booth on the second floor, and Aaron curls his big hand around a mug of draft beer. I sip on a glass of ice water as we peruse the menus, far longer than we need. It’s an avoidance on my part for sure, because the minute I’m done trying to decide what I want to eat, Aaron is going to want to talk.

  “So… I know some of what’s going on with you,” Aaron says out of the blue, and I let my eyes rise over the edge of the menu. “But the news is sort of vague on details. Going to fill me in?”

  Sighing, I set the menu on the table. Why I bothered to look, I have no clue. I always get the steak fajitas. Slouching into the booth, I clasp both hands on the table and give a slight shrug. “You can probably figure it out… haven’t been doing all that great here.”

  He knows I mean on a personal level, because I’ve been killing it out on the ice.

  “Drinking and driving?” he asks with a cocked eyebrow. “That’s not your style. You were never a big drinker.”

  “Yeah, well… have your fiancée die while you watch and that might change things,” I mutter.

  I wince as soon as the words come out, and there’s no stopping the backward flinch from Aaron as they strike.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. It’s the first time I’ve apologized for being an asshole since, well… I became an asshole. I have instant regret for doing that to him.

  Aaron raises a hand, waving me off. “What are you doing to move on?”

  It’s a bold question. Most people who would ask, I’d tell them to go fuck themselves for being nosy bastards.

  But this is Aaron and although I’ve successfully pushed him away over the last year, I have Bishop’s words ringing in my ears. Yes, he’d told me to get my head out of my ass, but he’d said something else I’d been thinking about.

  “You see, I want to win the fucking Cup. In order to do that, everybody on this team has to be playing at their maximum. You have to give forth every effort. And you have to rely on your teammates to do the same. That involves a certain amount of trust. And if you can’t open yourself up to the men on this team who would probably lay down their lives for you if asked, it’s not going to fucking work.”

  That had struck a chord within me, because what ultimately led me to the decision to stick with the team, even if I had to get th
e counseling I was so loathe to undergo, was that I wanted that camaraderie of the team back. It was the one thing that gave me self-worth while I continued to fuck up all the other aspects of my life.

  “I’m starting counseling tomorrow,” I offer. He blinks in surprise, his lips curling in approval. “It’s mandated by the team, so I have to do it.”

  “Good,” he says firmly. “You should have done that from the damn start.”

  He’s the only one I’d let talk to me that way. As my best friend, he’d said all sorts of things to me after the crash. Words of wisdom, support, and love. I’d tuned it all out, but if there was one person I should have listened to, it was Aaron.

  Let’s face it… I’m being forced to confront my emotional traumas. I have no choice but to move forward. How divine of an intervention was it that Aaron got traded to my team? That put this man back in my path, knowing he could offer me something I’ve been having a damn hard time accepting from others.

  “We have a lot of catching up to do,” I say, a tentative offer by me to repair our friendship.

  “Yes, we do,” he agrees with a smile. “No time like the present to get started on that.”

  He’s right. No sense at all in stalling. In fact, I’ll start with an admission that simply needs to be made. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Nora

  Pushing back into my office chair, I kick my booted feet up on my desk and stare at the ceiling. Tacker is due here at any moment for his first official counseling session, and I’ve been flip-flopping on how to handle him.

  I did indeed google him after dinner with Raul night before last. It was a wealth of information that explained exactly what was going on with him.

  First, I’d learned he is a hockey great. A veteran player who would be in the Hall of Fame sooner rather than later. I don’t know much about hockey, but I read enough to know he was beyond revered in the league for his talent. There were a few articles out of the Phoenix paper that predicted bringing Tacker to the Vengeance was one of the greatest moves in sports history.