Over the Line, page 1
Over the Line
Sierra Hockey #1
Elise Faber
OVER THE LINE
BY ELISE FABER
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
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OVER THE LINE
Copyright © 2023 Elise Faber
Print ISBN-13: 978-1-63749-119-5
Ebook ISBN-13:978-1-63749-118-8
Contents
Sierra Hockey Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Epilogue
Sierra Hockey Series
Also by Elise Faber
About the Author
Sierra Hockey Series
Over the Line
Caught from Behind
On the Fly
The Big Skate
One
Nova
“Drive to Tahoe, they say,” I mutter, squinting through the snow that is falling so rapidly the entire world has been reduced to flecks of swirling white. “It will be fun, they say.”
A gust of wind pushes my car on the icy road, and I gasp, my fingers tightening on the steering wheel as I continue driving forward.
The conditions are worse than any I’ve ever driven before.
Which isn’t hard.
I’m a California girl, born and bred—I barely survive driving in a light rain.
Snow? Ice? Sleet—
What is sleet, anyway?
I don’t know, and I really don’t want to find out, though I’m fully aware that may be something I experience in the coming minutes.
Anyway, the point is that snow, ice, and the aforementioned sleet are way out of my driving skill set.
And it doesn’t help that I don’t know where I’m going.
I’m used to that—to being free and loose and going off without a lick of concern to what lies on the road behind me. Moving toward the beauty and excitement in front of me without any plan or purpose or direction.
Just forward. Always moving forward.
Only the road is usually absent of snow.
Which is somehow falling even more heavily now.
“You’re fine,” I whisper, even as I squint and clench the steering wheel tighter. I’m practically crawling along the road, inching toward my destination, and hating the feel of my tires slipping on the pavement, the tension creeping into my shoulders, the way my jaw aches from grinding my teeth so forcefully together.
Normally, I love a drive up to Tahoe.
Winding roads.
Huge conifers.
A snaking river that follows me along the side of the highway, its water broken up by fallen logs and chunks of granite in every size, from pebbles to boulders.
I love getting away from the city and into the fresh air in the summer or spring or fall.
Not the winter.
And not today when it feels like I’m running from the hounds of hell (aka the hounds of my lame, pathetic, miserable life).
“Woof!”
I blink those thoughts away—forward, always forward!—and risk a look over to the passenger’s seat, where Steve is buckled into his puppy harness. Safety first for my baby boy.
“You’re okay,” I reassure him before refocusing on the road, and slowing down even further.
No one is behind me.
I can move slowly and carefully for a change, rather than headfirst into disaster.
Plus, the turnoff has to be soon and I don’t want to miss it.
I exited the highway what felt like hours ago, so it has to be soon—
“Woof?” Steve asks in a concerned bark, his doggy eyes so wide they are almost bugging out of his face.
Or, okay, fine, so that’s his normal pug face—smooshed nose, goofy ears, bug eyes, and a penchant for snorting and sneezing and snoring.
So, basically, Steve is the cutest puppy in the history of all puppies.
He just also looks like he ran into a wall.
Small details.
“We’re going to be okay,” I reassure him, knowing we have to be. Because no matter how bad the last twenty-four hours have been, we are going to be okay.
Mostly because I am always okay.
Even if I have to fake it until that’s true.
And anyway, Steve has plenty of food, his entire collection of squeaky toys and fake bones, and his hoard of cozy beds all stuffed into the back seat, so he’ll be well-fed and entertained.
He’ll be better than okay.
He’ll be content and snotty and sneezy and well, fucking perfect.
While I, on the other hand, will be—
Thunk.
I gasp, jerking at the steering wheel and nearly sending us off the road. A quick maneuver has me back inside the lines and I hold my breath as I flick a brief look in the rearview.
A huge branch lies in the middle of the road behind me.
Not a person.
Not an adorable puppy with bug eyes and goofy ears and a tendency to snot in my face when I bend over to kiss him on the head.
Just a branch.
“Thank you, universe,” I whisper, clamping one hand to my chest, gaze returning to the road as I resume squinting through the sideways falling snow for the street sign that will indicate our turnoff.
It has to be close.
It has to be.
“There,” I whisper, finally spotting a green sign that is nearly invisible in the furious swirling whiteness. “Forest Bend.”
Thank. Freaking. God.
I point at it as though Steve knows how to read. “See? It’s right there, buddy. We’ve made it. We’re going to be okay.”
I slow to a snail’s pace, prepare to make the turn—
“Woof!”
Steve’s bark is so loud, so sharp that I jump, jerking the steering wheel hard to the right.
My tires start to skid.
My car starts to slide.
But this time my attempt at getting us back between the lines is the wrong one—too rough, too jarring, too damned quick…and the skid doesn’t slow.
The slide doesn’t halt.
“Shit,” I whisper, pumping the brakes hard.
Note to non-snow-driving self, this is also the wrong move.
I might as well be hitting the gas for all that does to slow me down. In fact, it seems to increase our speed, and though the snow is starting to fall even more rapidly, I can see my future with crystal clear accuracy.
The snowbank.
My car.
Me.
Steve.
“Shit,” I hiss as the side of the road sweeps up toward us.
Slow motion, but not.
Warp speed, but not.
Inevitable, absolutely.
I throw my arm out to the right in true dog mom fashion, as though that action will protect my pup from any and all threats as I wrestle with the steering wheel, still trying to avoid the inevitable even as the inevitable is coming closer.
I pump the brakes to no effect.
I push my arm into Steve, pressing him deeper into his doggy seat, hoping it will keep him safe.
I—
Run out of time.
My car rattles and bumps and lurches forward…
And then it’s sliding off the road.
Two
Lake
Being a professional hockey player has its perks.
Driving through a blizzard because my coach is an asshole is not one of them.
We’ve been hearing about this freakishly early winter snowstorm—hell, it’s November, so it’s not even technically winter yet—for days on end now.
The Snowmageddon that’s supposed to shut down the Sierra Nevadas.
So, cool, cool. Thanks, Coach, for keeping us a couple
Not like we haven’t just returned from a long-ass road trip which means that we haven’t had time to do any of those things before today’s mandatory skate.
That he added to the schedule because not only is he an asshole, but the rest of us are too.
Bickering. Fighting in the locker room. All but throwing away a game that was within our grasp to win.
So…a brutal, exhausting extra practice added to our schedule, just for funsies.
Then racing the storm rolling in as I try to accomplish my stocking up.
Milk to buy.
Generators to buy gas for.
Toilet paper to hoard.
The only good thing about the coming storm is that I won’t have to talk to anyone.
That’s the real perk—not having to interact with any of the assholes who make up the Sierra’s locker room.
I have exactly three teammates I like—Knox, Riggs, and Leo. And I have exactly three teammates I like because I only have three who aren’t total trash humans or emotional vampires or who don’t fuck around on their wives and girlfriends.
Three.
Three perks hidden amongst twenty-three PIAs…and I have to win games with those pains-in-the-asses because that’s my fucking job as a professional hockey player.
As the captain of this team.
It would be a hell of a lot easier if I was playing with the Breakers or the Gold. They have this player-prioritized, family-first mentality that is not my experience, that has never been my experience as a professional athlete.
I’m a commodity. A resource to be consumed until my body gives out.
Always have been. Probably always will be.
Definitely if I stay with the Sierra, that’ll be the case.
My phone rings and I glance at the screen mounted in the dash, see that it’s my mother, and so not in the mood to deal with her bullshit, I reject the call. The wind is picking up and it’s been a long enough couple of weeks without thinking about the shit show that is my family.
That’s my career.
I get paid an obscene amount of money to carry a puck around the ice.
I also get paid indecently to put my name on a vodka brand, to pitch socks, and to model underwear.
My life is so hard.
“Yup. So hard,” I mutter dryly, squinting out the windshield of my SUV, glad that I’m almost home. I’ll drink some of my “shit-tasting” vodka my friends like to give me a hard time about, put on a hockey game for a team whose schedule isn’t impacted by the incoming Snowmageddon, and forget about Coach, about practice, about the fact that, from the outside, everything in my life seems like it’s going perfectly, but, inside it, things feel…
Off.
“Fuck!” I growl, whipping the steering wheel hard to the left, nearly sending it into a skid, but thankfully the hockey gods have provided me with four-wheel drive and snow tires, and—since I grew up navigating through exactly this type of shitty weather—the ability to keep my vehicle under control.
Keep it under control and manage to not hit the object in the road.
No.
The person in the road.
“What the fuck?” I snap, pulling to a halt and throwing my gearshift into park. I hit the hazards as I get out to prevent an accident on the off chance that someone else drives up—fucking unlikely, considering that we’re supposed to be buckling down and bracing.
Not standing in the middle of the road trying to get mowed down by an SUV.
In a fucking blizzard.
“What the actual fuck?” I say, somehow madder than I was before.
Because the person is still in the road.
Standing there in a hoodie, a pair of jeans, and sneakers wholly unsuited for the weather.
Standing there like it’s the front of a fucking Target and they’re giving themselves a pep talk to spend less than two hundred bucks inside all while—they hang their head—knowing that it’s a pointless endeavor.
That money’s going to get spent regardless.
They aren’t standing there like it’s the middle of the road in a snowstorm, where visibility is limited and it’s highly likely they could get hurt—
Or say, run over by a large SUV.
Or say, acknowledge the fact that they nearly had just been run over by said SUV.
The wind is whipping so loudly that I can’t hear anything else—perhaps why they don’t acknowledge the almost-getting-run-over—as I stare at the person—at the woman—whose jeans are wet and filthy at least six inches deep from the dirty, muddy snow that’s quickly being covered by the fresh flakes falling from the sky. I take a step toward her and feel something inside me still as I see them—see her—throw back her hood, sending a swathe of deep brown hair cascading down her back and shoulders.
The sight is…sinful, beautiful, terrible.
But I can’t focus on the fingers that have just reached into my chest and clenched around my heart.
Because she is launching herself forward and…
Colliding with the side of a car stuck in the snowbank.
A car that’s barely visible.
Because it’s white and almost completely buried.
The car—no surprise—doesn’t move, so she backs up, repeats the action.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, the sound of her second collision audible even over the wind so fiercely blowing in my ears, cutting through my jacket, my jeans, blowing my hair into my eyes. I move closer and hear her.
“Come”—a grunt as she stops shoving at the car and switches to yanking on the handle—“on!”
I move forward. “What the fuck are you—”
There’s a screech and I have to jump back to avoid getting plastered by the car door that’s suddenly swinging toward my face.
I jerk up my hand just in time to slap my palm against the metal panel.
It stings like a motherfucker, pain radiating down my arm.
I ignore it because I’m used to pain.
I ignore it because the woman turns around and—
Those fingers clenched around my heart squeeze tighter.
And…
I lose it.
Three
Nova
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I’m sweaty.
I’m exhausted.
I’m approximately three milliseconds away from crying—and this time in relief for the first time in twenty-four hours.
But I still manage to react to the man shouting at me with impressive speed, bending down and scooping up the Tupperware container I had commandeered to use as a shovel and lifting it threateningly. “Back off!” I shout, looking up.
And then up.
And then up some more.
The man in front of me is huge.
Like head brushing along the bottom branches of the pine trees that cluster around the road, like he won’t fit in the driver’s seat of my car, like he’ll bang his skull on the tops of doorframes, like he is…huge kind of huge.
My Tupperware won’t do shit to stop him, but I still hold it like I’m going to wield it as a sword anyway.
I am fierce. I am a warrior. I am…
Going to die.
I consider launching the scoop of snow at him, straight into his eyes, a la a bad guy throwing dust in the hero’s in every cheesy action movie I love to watch.
Likely, this man would just swipe it away.
