Captive by Brenda Rothert Read Free Book Online

hurt and not being able to do anything about it. I know I’ve been an asshole lately.”
    Our teammate Kevin was passing by to chase down a stray puck, and he laughed at my last statement.
    “More of an asshole than usual, you mean,” he said. “You need to get laid.”
    My anger made a resurgence. “My wife’s not exactly up for that right now.”
    Kevin shrugged. “I didn’t say anything about her.”
    “I don’t cheat on my wife, asshole.”
    “Just get a blowjob, then. I know a chick—”
    “Fuck off.” I skated over and body-checked him. He fell to the ice, got up and I forced him down again. He stayed down.
    I skated away with Luke, eager to lose myself in practice.
    “Let’s go get a beer later,” he said. “You need to blow off steam, man.”
    That was an understatement. “Yeah, okay. But I’m not gonna be your fucking wingman.”
    “I didn’t ask you to.”
    “Just in case you get any ideas.”
    “You know I respect your marriage,” Luke said, sounding offended. “I love Kate. If I could find a woman like her I might think about getting married myself.”
    I turned to him, surprised. “You?”
    “Yeah, me, asshole. I miss having someone to just go to a movie with.”
    “I’ll go to a movie with you.”
    He glared at me. “You know what I mean. A woman I can be myself around. That I can do something with besides fucking.”
    “Yeah. I felt that with Kate from the start. I’d marry her a thousand times, I really would, but …”
    The blare of the whistle snapped my train of thought.
    “But what?” Luke asked as we skated to the line.
    “The thing about loving someone this much is … her pain is like a knife to my chest. I can handle my hurting, but hers …” I shook my head. “It shreds me. I can’t even describe it.”
    Luke nodded, at a loss for words for once.
    “Just wait,” I said. “Someday you’ll find out what I mean.”

Chapter 4

     
    I had to pee, but I couldn’t bring myself to miss one second of this game. My eyes had been glued to the flat-screen television on our wall since the puck dropped. Ryke was on fire, playing with an intensity I’d never seen.
    Usually he was a smart player. Always thinking, always a step ahead, always planning. He moved swiftly and hit hard when he needed to, but he still had all his teeth for a reason: he didn’t fight just for the hell of it.
    But tonight he was aggressive. He charged up and down the ice and took more shots than usual. He wasn’t the calculating player I knew him to be. It must’ve caught the other team off guard, because he’d scored two goals and it wasn’t even third period yet.
    “Oh, Ryke, no….” I groaned and looked away when he elbowed a player from the other team and yelled in his face. Ryke was getting a punch to the gut when I looked back, and a short but fierce fight followed.
    When Ryke was relieved by another player so he could rest, I rushed to the bathroom and then jumped back onto the couch. I missed being at the home games in person, but hadn’t been back since finding out everyone from the team knew about my miscarriage. I’d have to go back eventually – wanted to, even, but not yet.
    I’d spent the morning counseling clients and the afternoon in meetings with potential donors to the foundation. Jean Naughton, the owner of Ryke’s team, had introduced me to the owners of a new technology startup company who were raking in money. They’d taken me on a tour of their company and listened to my talk about Hannah and the foundation, promising to send a check.
    I wasn’t feeling like myself yet, but doing things that helped others made it so much easier to cope. It reminded me I had a purpose, even if it wasn’t the one I wanted.
    The opposing team was getting too close to the net, and I hovered on the edge of the couch, kneading my hands.
    “Hit somebody!” I yelled into the empty apartment. Dawn was probably yelling the same thing at the arena right now.
    Ryke’s team was sloppy