The Mighty Quinns: Thom (10 page)

She could read the anger in his eyes and wished she could take back her words. “You haven’t. I was just suggesting that we should keep things simple between us.”

Malin could almost see him withdraw from her, his walls going up faster than she would have ever imagined. She felt a surge of pain so strong it took her breath away. Obviously Thom had been more invested in what was happening between them than she’d realized. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Forget I said that. It came out all wrong.”

“No, you’re right,” Thom interrupted. “Simple is best. Hell, I don’t know where I’ll be next month or the month after that. And you have a lot more important things to do in your life than hanging around with a guy like me.”

“A guy like you?” Malin frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“A messed up hockey player. Come on, Malin, you can admit it. If someone had told you last month that you’d be sleeping with a dumb hockey player, you would have told them they were crazy.”

“You’re probably right,” she said. “But as strange as it sounds, I really don’t think of you as a hockey player. I just think of you as...Thom Quinn.”

“Not Tommy the Beast?”

“No,” Malin said, shaking her head. “That’s just some silly character you play on the ice. That much was clear from the start.” Malin reached up and cupped his face between her hands, placing a soft but lingering kiss on his lips. “Are we all right?”

“Yeah,” Thom said, nodding. “We’re cool.” But the words were clipped.

Malin hopped off the stool. “I have to get over to the office. I should be back in a few hours.”

“I’ve got some things I have to do today, too,” Thom said. “I’m meeting up with my brothers later. We’re have dinner at Nana’s. I’ll be gone when you get back.”

“All right. So, I’ll see you...when I see you,” she said with an awkward smile.

Malin grabbed her things, gave him another kiss, then hurried out of the firehouse. Her car was parked in front at the curb, and she got inside and turned the key in the ignition. But as she drove toward the office, she found her thoughts occupied with the conversation she’d just had.

This had all started with her decision to help Thom shed his beastly persona. He would save his career and she would make hers. That had been the plan. But she had to admit that Thom had been right when he’d said part of that plan was to impress her father. A part of her had thought she could make Thom over into the kind of man her father might admire. Now she realized how naive that had been. Davis Pedersen loved his players, but he never thought of them as anything more than just commodities that could be sacrificed and traded one for another in the name of profit. And perhaps he would never think of her any differently, either.

When she got downtown, the streets were quiet. She pulled into the parking garage of the team’s headquarters. She noticed her father’s car parked in its reserved spot next to the elevator. As she walked inside, Malin thought about what she was going to say to him.

During the hockey season, the office was usually buzzing with activity from dawn until just before midnight. The team had made a commitment to be the fan-friendliest franchise in the league, and that meant careful attention to the team website as well as all the other traditional media in town.

Malin’s job focused on new media. But she often helped with larger projects like the team’s annual fan convention, BlizzardCon, held the last week of August. As she walked to her office, she noticed that Natalie, one of the assistants in the special events department, was hard at work at her desk.

“Hi, Nat,” Malin said.

“Malin! Hey there. Where have you been? Vacation?”

“No, I’ve just been working from home. I hit my head pretty hard, and I wanted to be careful in case I had a concussion,” Malin said. That much was true. “What have you got going?”

“BlizzardCon, what else? Oh, and Ray gave me the hospital benefit. I’m trying to find some players to attend, but most of them have left town. I’ve got two confirmed so far—Jake Weston and Devin McAllen. Not exactly the kind of guys who can make polite chitchat with high profile guests. I can dress them up in a tuxedo and bow tie, but if they show up without their teeth, the photos are going to be horrendous.”

“What about Thom Quinn?” Malin said. “He’s a core player, good-looking, and can carry on a conversation.”

“He’s a total hottie,” Natalie said. “But we got a memo that said we’re not to assign him any appearances. It looks like he’s up to be traded. Too bad, since he’s here in town and actually from the Twin Cities.”

“And he’s done more volunteer work for the hospital than any other player,” Malin murmured.

“He has?”

“Yeah. I heard he’s over there all the time. He just prefers to go when the cameras are gone. He donated the money to redo their third-floor playroom, and he helped build it.”

Natalie smiled. “I didn’t know that,” she said. “I suppose I could give him a call. Or you could do a girl a favor and call him for me? An invite coming from the owner’s daughter might be more persuasive than one from some lowly assistant.”

“All right,” Malin said. “I’ll see if I can convince him.”

“Are you going?”

“I was planning to. What about you?”

“I have a killer dress, but I don’t have a date. And those things can be so weird when you go alone.”

“I’ll be there without a date,” Malin said. “You can sit with me. Call and make sure we’re at the same table. It’ll be fun.”

“All right, I will. Thanks.”

Malin gave her a little wave, then continued down the hall to her father’s office. She knocked on the door as she walked inside.

Davis Pedersen sat at his desk, dressed in a bright blue golf shirt and plaid trousers.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Malin. I’m surprised to see you here on a Sunday.”

“I’ve been working from home this last week. I thought I’d stop by and go through my mail.”

He glanced up at her, then stared at her for a long moment. Malin forced a smile, wondering what it was he found displeasing about her appearance. She smoothed her hands over the loose peasant skirt she wore, then quickly checked to see if she’d spilled coffee on her T-shirt.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “You—you just look...”

“How do I look?”

He narrowed his eyes, then shook his head. “Different.”

Malin swallowed hard. There was no way he could tell that she’d been spending her days and nights being well-pleasured by Thom Quinn. Could he? Well, if he asked, she’d give him the truth.

She crossed the room and sat down in one of the leather chairs in front of his desk. “What’s going on with the Quinn trade? Has there been any interest from other teams?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Did you forget? I’m supposed to make sure he doesn’t get in any trouble. You’re the one who assigned me that job. And he’s been a model player for the last week. He’s even joined Twitter, and he’s amassing quite the loyal following.”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I got your first report.”

“Good. Now, what about the trade?”

Davis Pedersen leaned forward, resting his arms on his desk. “It’s going to happen. New York is interested, and they have a few players we could use. And we’re still talking to Vancouver.”

“You’re never going to get back what he’s really worth to this team,” Malin said.

“What do you know about his value?”

“I know that he overcame a pretty horrible childhood to make a success of himself. The odds were against him making anything of his life, and he managed to learn the game of hockey and become one of the best in the league. I also know he’s a hometown guy with a lot of fans out there who would be heartbroken at a trade.”

“You seem to be very familiar with the guy,” her father said.

“I’ve made a point to find out more about him. And this whole Tommy the Beast image doesn’t represent who he really is. Maybe you should meet with him, Daddy. Talk to him, get to know him. I think you might realize that trading him would be a mistake.”

“Enough,” he said. “You’ve made your feelings very clear and I appreciate your insight, but I’m not going to waste any more time discussing it.”

“Fine,” Malin said. “I guess I’ll see you at the hospital benefit this weekend.”

“You’re going?”

“I am. And I’m bringing a date. He’s a doctor. You’ll love him. We will have a spot at your table, won’t we?”

“I’m sure your mother can arrange it,” he said.

“Good. I’ll call her just to be sure.” Malin stood up and circled the desk, then gave her father a kiss on the cheek. “Bye, Daddy. Love you.”

His expression softened slightly, and he gave her a grudging smile. “Love you, too, Linny.”

As she walked out of the office, Malin smiled to herself. If her father refused to meet with Thom, then she’d find a way for Thom to meet him. What better place than the hospital benefit? She’d reserve a place for her “date” and when he had to cancel, she’d invite Thom to sit in his place. Oh, and she’d have to remember to tell Natalie not to arrange for Thom to be sitting with her.

It was a good plan, except for the fact that she still had to convince Thom to attend. If she knew anything about him, a stuffy benefit dinner with lots of cameras was the last place he’d want to be. But Malin knew if she’d managed to convince The Beast to get a mani-pedi, surely she could convince him to put on a bow tie...

* * *

T
HERE
WEREN
’
T
MANY
traditions that had taken hold in Thom’s family. Holidays often passed by without any fanfare. When he was younger, birthdays had been ignored because his parents had never had the money for presents or even a store-bought cake. But one tradition had stuck with Thom, his older brother, Tristan, and his younger brother, James: Sunday dinner with their grandmother.

The state had turned the brothers over to their grandmother as a last resort when they were in their late teens. And though she appeared to be fragile and sickly at the time, the responsibilities of caring for three difficult boys had given Irene Forsberg a new lease on life. She’d turned out to be the only family member they could depend upon, besides each other.

When they were younger, they’d gathered at Nana’s house every Sunday. But now that the trio all had full-time careers, they visited Irene on the first Sunday of every month. They’d spend the morning working through her list of chores and the afternoon at the dinner table, getting stuffed with homemade food.

“What’s this I hear about a trade?” Tristan asked as he and Thom were working on repairing Irene’s front steps.

Thom pulled off the leather gloves he was wearing and sat down on the top step. “They haven’t been too keen on my off-ice behavior. That post-playoff trip to Vegas went over like a turd sandwich. The pictures were posted everywhere.”

“They’re going to trade you because of a few pictures?”

“And something that never happened with a teenage hooker. Remind me never again to do a good deed for a stranger, even if she is a starving kid.”

His younger brother, James, stepped out of the house, three beers carried between his fingers. He handed one to each of his older brothers, then stretched out in a wicker chair on the porch. “Did you ask him about the trade?”

Tris nodded. “He says it’s true.”

“It’s true,” Thom said, nodding.

“You all right with that?” James asked.

“I guess I don’t have much choice,” Thom said. “I want to stay near you guys and Nana, and I promise I’ll never go so far that I can’t come home.”

“Thom, if you have to leave Minneapolis, none of us will feel like you’re abandoning us. We know you’re not Dad, or Mom, for that matter.”

At his brother’s words, a weight lifted from Thom’s shoulders that he hadn’t even realized was there. “Thanks, Tris. I got myself into this mess. And now I have to deal with the consequences.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Tris asked.

“They could trade me to a crappy team. They could banish me to the minors, although they’d have to eat a multimillion-dollar contract. I doubt they’d be keen on that.” He shrugged. “I’ve been getting some help from the social media director for the team. She’s polishing me up a bit, hoping to get rid of the bad boy image.”

“You’re Tommy the bloody Beast,” Tris said. “If you’re not him, who will you be?”

“I don’t know. Someone who behaves like a responsible adult. A role model. Someone they might want to keep on the team.”

Jamie took a swig of his beer. “We could always sue them,” he said. “The guys at my firm are going to be pissed off if you get traded. I could talk to someone in our legal department.”

“Nope. I’m good,” Thom said. “I’ve learned that if I want people to see the real me, I have to be real. And that means accepting whatever happens. And I’ll live with it.”

“Jesus,” Jamie cried. “What has happened to our brother? He’s gone soft inside. Are you concerned, Tristan?”

“I am, James,” Tristan said in mock seriousness. “Maybe if we fill him full of liquor, he’ll tell us what’s really going on.”

“That’s going to take a boatload of beer, brother. Give me your wallet, Thom. I’ll go buy some more beer.”

Thom held up his hands. “I don’t need your help, and I’m taking it easy on the liquor,” he said. “But I could use a bit of advice.”

“I can advise you about the law,” Jamie said.

“And if you’ve got real estate questions, I’m you’re guy.”

“This is about a woman,” Thom ventured.

“I’m out,” Tris said.

“Me, too.”

“You don’t even know what I want to talk about.”

“You’re the one with all the women,” Jamie said. “Man, I should have worked harder at hockey. No one wants to date a lawyer. You should ask Tris. He had a girlfriend a few months back. She stuck around for a while.”

“I could only fool her for so long,” Tris said with a chuckle. “Once she had me figured out, she was gone.”

“This is the problem,” Thom said. “We’ve all had messed up attempts at relationships. But...”

“But?” Jamie asked.

“But maybe it’s all about meeting the right woman. I think all those problems go away when you find the right...fit.”