his stomach.
Or what forever felt like to a very tipsy woman, tipping over in her high heels.
He wiped his eyes. “Okay, leave it to me.”
His grin just . . . god. Filled me with joy because this playful, sweet, carefree Nolan was only mine. No one else got to see this side of him.
“Take off your shoes. I’ll take off my jacket and you put it on, it’ll be long enough to cover your girlie bits when you hop up on my back. We’ll go slow and you have to promise me to stay bent forward over me like a turtle, so we don’t get off balance.”
I slipped the jacket on under the cape. My purse and my shoes dangled from my left hand. “Ready?”
“Climb on, hot stuff.”
It only took one try until my body was curved high over his back, with my knees bracketing his hips and his hands cupping my feet.
Nolan made a run for it and I half expected to hear his war cry too. I bit my cheek to keep from laughing about how crazy we must’ve looked. But his plan worked, and we were at the top of the driveway.
I kissed his ear. “My brave man. You’re breathing a little hard. You’ll have to get into better shape if we ever want to compete in that wife-carrying contest.”
“Probably. I’d have to add ax throwing to my workout regimen too.” He carried me to the front door and punched in the alarm. Then he gently set me on the floor, shut the door and reset the alarm.
Then he stalked me.
“What?”
“It freaks you out if you’re not wearing the right clothes, but the thought of being my wife someday doesn’t?”
I shrugged. “You fit me no matter where we go or what we do. Unfortunately that’s not the case with clothes.”
“Well said,” he whispered against my cheek. “Let’s go to bed where clothing doesn’t matter at all.”
Twenty-Eight
GABI
My week had started out great. I spent all day Sunday lazing, laughing and loving with Lund.
On Monday Liddy had returned from her long trip to London, so we spent the evening catching up until jetlag caught up with her.
Since hockey season had ended, I didn’t have many responsibilities at Lakeside, teaching wise. Jax had already started pushing for a new schedule, but I couldn’t discuss his options until I received the all clear from my new boss to share the news about my career switch.
Last night Nolan had business to attend to, and we hadn’t even texted.
This morning I wound up at TRIA—the Minnesota Wild’s brand-new gorgeous training facility in St. Paul—with a few former teammates, my sister and recruits for a pickup game and to hear the final details for the Whitecaps, the new NWHL women’s ice hockey franchise based in the Twin Cities in partnership with the Wild.
Then after the game, my former teammate Carly, newly named head coach of the Whitecaps, had taken me into her office for a private meeting. She’d offered me an assistant coaching position. Full time. Lots of travel promoting the team, especially in the off-season. While the money and the benefits were good, and the contract didn’t exclude me running hockey camps as an extra source of income, I had to deflect on why I turned down their offer without seriously considering it. I wondered why the Whitecaps organization hadn’t offered me the job earlier, because I would’ve taken it.
Lost in thought, I’d just pulled out of the parking lot when my cell phone rang through my speakers. The caller ID read: Wolf Sports North.
Finally. I hadn’t heard from them at all last week.
“This is Gabi Welk.”
“Gabi. Alan. How are you?”
“Good. And you?”
“That’s why I’m calling. You’re on speaker conference call with Minka and CEO of Wolf Sports North, Lance Jacoby.”
Why was the big boss in on this call? “Hello, everyone. What’s going on?”
“I’ll cut right to it. Monday’s Tribune had a picture of you with Nolan Lund, acting CEO of Lund Industries, at some charity event. The text that accompanied the picture indicated that you’re personally involved with Mr. Lund. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir, it is.” I bit back my response to question the relevance, but if they mentioned it, it was likely why they were calling.
“That puts us in an awkward position. As you know, we’ve held off announcing our new programming lineup due to the merger. With today’s announcement of LuTek acquiring Wolf Sports North, you can understand why the whispers of nepotism might cause us to rescind our offer