Hanna's Hat Trick: The Olympic Series - Book One

By Patrizia Murray

What happens when a self-confessed workaholic, Hanna Bowness, owns and manages a professional hockey team and is responsible for keeping the team’s ‘goon’ or ‘enforcer’ under control? Rejean Haultain is big, bad, and beautiful, and up to now, totally untamed. It’s up to Hanna to keep her team in the black, keep Rejean from beating opposition players black and blue, or hurting others to the point that her team is penalized, keep her heart from bleeding red, and to keep Rejean from serious injury or even jail. As the two skate around their desires and their jobs, as well as keeping the media out of their personal lives, and navigating the courts of public opinion in the midst of Olympic playoffs, and the Stanley Cup, is it even possible for the twain to meet? Or will Rejean’s hat tricks be relegated to the ice, and not to Hanna’s bedroom?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrizia Murray
• Release date: Jun 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310834028

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Hanna’s Hat Trick

The Olympic Series: Book One

Patrizia Murray

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Hanna’s Hat Trick

Copyright © 2014 by Patrizia Murray

First E-book Publication: May 2014

Cover design by Bella Media Management

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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Dedicated to Family, who indulge my writing, without understanding it or making judgments on the inner workings of my mind, and the Ladies who Lunch.

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Acknowledgements

Valley of the Sun Romance Writers of America, Glendale Chocolate Affair, and readers of like minds to mine.

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Hanna’s Hat Trick

What happens when a self-confessed workaholic, Hanna Bowness, owns and manages a professional hockey team and is responsible for keeping the team’s ‘goon’ or ‘enforcer’ under control? Rejean Haultain is big, bad, and beautiful, and up to now, totally untamed. It’s up to Hanna to keep her team in the black, keep Rejean from beating opposition players black and blue, or hurting others to the point that her team is penalized, keep her heart from bleeding red, and to keep Rejean from serious injury or even jail. As the two skate around their desires and their jobs, as well as keeping the media out of their personal lives, and navigating the courts of public opinion in the midst of Olympic playoffs, and the Stanley Cup, is it even possible for the twain to meet? Or will Rejean’s hat tricks be relegated to the ice, and not to Hanna’s bedroom?

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Chapter 1

Home Ice Advantage

Rejean Haultain, chief enforcer and penalty killer for the professional Wolverines hockey team in the National Hockey League, was in trouble again. His sheer size, six feet five inches of muscle and blood, plus a playing weight of two hundred and twenty pounds made him a formidable opponent, both on and off the ice. On ice, his size was not only a deterrent to the opposing players trying to get by the big defenseman, but a desired trait when it came to hitting opponents into the boards, and throwing off gloves and helmet to fight, in order to give his own team mates a breather, or to show the fans how tough their team was.

Hockey fans loved to see a little violence. If there was some blood on the ice after an altercation, so much the better. The fact that a fight would get Rejean thrown into the penalty box, or even ejected from the game and fined, was secondary to his defined goal.

Once a fight started, even the referees wouldn’t step between two overgrown players bent on ripping each other’s heads off. They would wait patiently for the fighters to tire, or for one or the other to throw his opponent to the ice, and then when they figured that they wouldn’t get hit with a flying fist or two, they would try and separate the combatants and send them off to the penalty box.

Most fights resulted in little in the way of injury, because of all the padding and equipment the men wore. If there was blood, it was usually from a bloody nose, or the occasional cut lip or eye, or even bloodied knuckles from hitting said nose or chin or eye.

Every team had a goon, as they were called, and the Wolverines’ was Rejean.

However, this time the team owners had decided that Rejean had gone too far. Never mind that his own nose had been broken and bleeding, and that this time, Rejean hadn’t even been the instigator of the fight. The other guy had a concussion, and the league wanted a scapegoat, so Rejean, a known goon, was selected for that little honor.

Today, he was wearing an Armani black pinstriped suit, which showed off his impressive physique. He wore an open-necked golf shirt, which exactly matched his bright blue eyes in color. The broken nose didn’t bother him, because it had been broken several times before. You didn’t grow up on the ponds and outdoor rinks of rural Quebec without some visible signs of being hit in the face by a flying puck, stick, or fist. It was only since he had scored a lucrative contract in the NHL, that he had been able to afford the extensive, corrective and painful dental work that gave him his bright smile.

Nowadays, teeth, faces and heads were covered by protective gear, but back in his childhood, never. However, once they started fighting, helmets flew off and mouth guards were spit out. The protective gear worked fine against flying pucks and forechecking on the ice, but against fists in a fight? Not so much. The local dentist in his small town used to joke that the best thing for dentists was all the hockey players they had as patients!

He had been summoned to the inner sanctum of the owner and manager of the team this morning. Judgement would be passed on him, mandated by the league, but meted out by the owner. He had seen the new owner around, but as yet hadn’t met her in person. It wasn’t unheard of for a team to have a female at the helm, but it was certainly unusual. Rejean wondered just how tough she could be, but he looked forward to taking her measure up close. He had seen her many times at games, practices, & at the various team events and benefits they all had to attend, but had yet to speak to her. He knew little about her other than that she was a widow, and that she was an avid fan of all things hockey.

His footsteps were muffled by the thick carpeting and even the large glass doors made only the slightest hiss as he passed through. A male receptionist who doubled as an administrative assistant to the Manager, had announced him, and preceded him to the big corner office, opening the door and ushering him in.

Come in, Mr. Haultain, and sit down. The voice was soft and lilting, yet possessed of a quiet authority. This was the first time Rejean had met the owner’s widow, who had taken over the management of the team, although everyone knew who she was. She attended every game, home and away, as well as most practices, always sitting right behind the players’ box, instead of up high in the posh owner’s box.

Hanna Bowness was fast showing her colors as an astute businesswoman, and a strict, but fair boss. Even reeling from the unexpected heart attack that claimed her older husband just months ago, she had never blown off a meeting or a task or responsibility.

Rejean hesitated, waiting for her to sit first, which she finally did, all the while looking him over from the top of his spikey black hair, to the black wingtips of his shiny shoes. He sat in the biggest of the chairs, obviously chosen to accommodate the size of player who normally occupied it, a large merlot colored leather high backed chair that was partially facing toward the large floor to ceiling windows that looked over the city, and also partly facing the desk that the owner sat at. The team colors were merlot or maroon, cream with a dash of turquoise, and the offices were all decorated in those colors, in different ultra-modern combinations.

Mrs. Bowness had cream colored carpets, a bright turquoise wall behind her desk, with the three foot high maroon W logo blazoned on it. The furnishings were all maroon leather, with antiqued cream wood accents. In keeping with that, she was always seen with some combination of those colors on her person as well. Rejean thought maybe she took the public relations colors too far, but he had to admit they were stunning on her, with her dark hair brushing her shoulders, and her molasses colored eyes enhanced with a touch of mahogany shadow. Above all, the colors showed up very well on screen or TV.

Mrs. Bowness didn’t speak for a bit. She took in his size, his bandaged forehead, and the tape across his broken nose. There was a vertical scar on his chin, and a half inch triangle shaped one on his left cheekbone. Another white scar decorated his forehead, moving up beyond his hairline. Neither the scars nor the bandages took anything away from how gorgeous he was. I wonder if he has any idea how attractive he is. Of course he does. These players have women falling all over them. Groupies are always looking to hook up with someone famous, so I’m sure he has lots of them chasing after him. She noticed