Page 150 of Never In My Wildest Dreams

Peace filled him, the kind of fulfillment he hadn’t experienced since he was a kid. His mom, his friends, Hellcat, Stevie…the only thing left to work out was his career.

His thumb hit the call button.

The father gave a clipped, “Hello?”

“Mr. Marchaud, Booker here.” He sounded positive. Confident.I’m here to win.

The silence, though, was not a good sign.

“I’d like to come out there and skate with your son. Now’s the time to think about what he needs to work on so when he gets to training camp, he’ll be ready. You’d be surprised how many of the free agents outskate the tenders and drafted kids. How does next Monday sound?”

“Booker.” The man sounded like he was hanging onto his temper. “You need to stop calling us. We’ve made our decision.

“Liam’s signed with an agency?”

“Not yet, but it won’t be yours. Frankly, we’re disappointed that after all the time we’ve given you?—”

Givenme? I’m the one who provided your son with the best skates, hooked him up with the top coach in Canada, paid for private lessons, paid for his billeting, and gave you the advice he needed to get where he is today.

“—you haven’t had our son’s best interests in mind.”

He’d done enough sucking up. This man had crossed a line. “What the hell are you talking about? Everything I’ve done was designed to get your son exactly where he is today. He’s a top draft pick because of my guidance and help.”

“Marcus told us you left under an ethics cloud. That you withheld offers from your clients based on your own self-interests. We don’t want our boy’s clean slate polluted by that kind of behavior.”

“My behavior—” But the connection dropped.Dammit.

Booker tipped his head back and filled his lungs with fresh mountain air.

He’d gotten so caught up in Lorelei and Stevie and this wedding that he’d lost sight of his business. While he was distracted, Marcus had gained the advantage.

That fucker was not going to get away with this.

He needed to think. He needed to figure out a plan.

But it had to be later.

Right now, he had a wedding to co-host.

ChapterTwenty-Nine

The next daywas packed with activities for the joint bachelor and bachelorette parties. For early risers, they’d arranged fly fishing on the river. They’d grill the cutthroat, rainbow, and brook trout for dinner.

Not many had turned up, but the ones who mattered to him had. They stood near each other, him, Jaime, Cole, and Declan, and it sent Booker flying back to the best times when it wasn’t about rafting on a raging river or riding a dirt bike down a mountainside but about shooting the shit.

He liked this kind of camaraderie. The quiet of the mountains, the rush of the cold river, the rhythm of casting their flies. Every now and then, they’d take water breaks and talk about their families and jobs.

They didn’t get all caught up because they had the rest of their lives to do that.

And that night, as he lay in bed, Hellcat snuggled up against him, he knew deep in his heart they’d sewn the rift closed, and the absolute rightness formed a knot in his throat.

On the day of the rehearsal dinner, they had a champagne brunch followed by a trail ride up to a glacier. Booker stayed back because he’d wanted to spend time with Stevie, but he heard they’d had perfect weather and a great time.

When they returned the horses to the stable, everyone went back to their rooms to rest and shower before reconvening at the pool. That was his cue to leave his daughter with her grandparents for a bit so he could catch up with his Hellcat.

He stood behind her in the bathroom, watching the water droplets land in the white towel that covered her, and he couldn’t keep from smiling.

“What?” she asked, fresh from a shower and catching his gaze in the mirror.

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