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He took a step back and dropped his hands. “I raised myself, Lexie.”
She turned to face him. “You did a fairly good job.”
“Fairly?”
Her lips twisted in a smile. “Well, you’re kind of obnoxious, but you’re an okay hockey player.”
“I’m more than okay,” he corrected her, but he didn’t dispute being obnoxious. “I started playing late, compared to other boys, but I caught up and kicked ass. Now no one puts goals in the net like I do.” He turned and said over his shoulder as he walked into the kitchen, “I won the Art Ross trophy two years in a row.”
“Not to brag or anything.”
He pulled two bottles of Vitamin Water from the refrigerator. “It’s only bragging if you can’t back it up.” He tossed one t
o her. “Otherwise it’s just stating facts.” He unscrewed his cap and tilted the bottle toward her. “I’ve got skills.”
She shrugged a nonchalant shoulder and opened her bottle. “You have a decent wrist shot. I’ll give you that.”
He lowered his water and laughed. “My wrist shot is clocked at a hundred and ten and my slap shot at a hundred and fifteen. Bobby Hull’s slap shot was a hundred and nineteen and big bad John ‘The Wall’ Kowalsky’s was a hundred and five.” He smiled. “But who’s counting.”
“Every NHL player in history.” She took a drink and tried not to make a face. It tasted worse than Gatorade. “My uncle Hugh hated slap shots. He said that no matter how thick the pads or how he stacks ’em, a hundred-mile-an-hour puck hits like cannon fire.”
“The goalie, Hugh Miner?” A wrinkle crossed his brow. “You’re related to him, too?”
“Not by blood. He’s married to my aunt Mae.” She leaned one hip to the granite cooking island and wondered how much to tell Sean. Her life wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t something she talked about with just anyone. “Aunt Mae isn’t my aunt by blood, either, but she and my mom are as close as sisters. She helped raise me.” She was talking about it with Sean; she trusted him. From the moment she’d jumped on the Sea Hopper, she’d trusted him. Even when he’d let her believe he was a government spy. “Mae practically lived with Mom and me until I was seven and met my dad.”
His brows lowered and he slowly set his bottle on the counter. “Say that again.”
It was no big deal. At least not anymore, but there had been a time when it had bothered her. “I never met my dad”—she paused to swallow—“my real dad, John Kowalsky, until I was seven.”
The recessed light in the ceiling shone down on Sean’s head and lashes but he didn’t blink as he stared at her.
“It’s kind of a long story,” she said, and looked down at her hands. “And involved and weird . . .” She looked back up and shrugged one shoulder. “Basically, I’m the product of a wild weekend between my mom and a hockey player she met while running away from her wedding to an old guy.” She picked up her water, decided against a drink, and set it back down. “John discovered me when I was seven. My parents married when I was eight, and that’s it.” Except that wasn’t it. Not really. “It’s not a secret but we don’t really talk about it outside the family.”
He finally blinked then said, “Your mother ran away from a wedding to an old guy?”
“Yeah.” He’d been the owner of the Chinooks at the time, but no need to complicate things. “My mom and dad spent what would have been my mother’s honeymoon weekend with someone else, together. Then he dropped her off at the airport without looking back.”
“Wait . . .” Sean held up one hand. “First things first. John didn’t know about you?”
“Not until I was seven.”
“You all seem so close. Like you have the perfect family and live perfect lives.”
“We’re far from perfect.” Especially her. “We’re close now.” But there had been several teen years when she’d acted out of anger toward her mother. “I used to be really jealous of my younger sister and brother because they always knew my dad from the time they were born and I didn’t. I acted out and got into trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Sneaking out. Driving my parents’ car when they were out of town.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“I didn’t have a driver’s license.” She took a breath and let it out. “Now you know all my secrets.”
“I doubt that.” He laughed and took her hand in his. “Don’t you think it’s ironic as hell that both you and your mother ran away from weddings? Her from an old guy and you from Pete.”
More than he knew. Her mother had jumped in a car with a hockey player, Lexie aboard a seaplane.
“And you both spent your honeymoons with men other than your fiancés?”
