Page 56 of Chocolate Cherry Cabin

So suddenly Hannah was flying with him across state lines to his hockey game. He’d made a series of quick calculations, decisions and phone calls, and it was done. The efficiency of his planning and the shifting of their schedule to accommodate his responsibilities shouldn’t have surprised her, but they did. He was calm, in control, and honestly, pretty darn sexy.

And she was going to an NHL game. As the coach’s date. In a plane he was flying.

Life with Louis in it would never be ordinary, that was for certain.

“Are you sure you’ll get there in time?” she asked.

He didn’t reply for a moment, his steady, serious gaze on the instruments, then on the flashes of lightning in the sky behind them. It felt to Hannah as if he was pushing the plane faster.

“Yeah. You bet.” His tone was casual, yet distracted.

She gave him a few minutes to put distance between them and the storm, and soon felt the plane settling as the turbulence waned.

“Do I wait at the airport for you until you’re done?”

He looked at her in surprise. “I ordered a car and asked my assistant to get you a seat in the sky box. There will be players’ wives and girlfriends, snacks, drinks and some VIPs up there.”

Hannah looked down at her jeans and sweatshirt. “Maybe I should sit in the nosebleeds.”

“You’ll be fine. I think Daisy-Mae will be there.”

Hannah cringed. Her friend was a former beauty queen who looked runway-ready even in her pajamas. But it would be nice to be able to sit with someone she knew.

It was a long flight, with Louis relaxing more and more the farther they got from the storm. But a new level of concentration set in as the sky darkened and they got closer to their destination.

“Are you thinking about tonight’s game?”

He nodded.

“It’s been a tough season.”

Another nod.

“Will I be distracting if I’m at the game?” She grinned, well aware of the flirtatious tone she’d adopted.

He grinned back. “Very. That’s why I didn’t get you a seat down by the ice.”

She laughed, then gasped as she looked west, catching sight of the sky, streaked with pinks, oranges and a band of purple as the sunset unfolded. “It’s so beautiful!”

“Our own private show.”

“I can see why you like flying. From now on I’m going to feel ripped off when I have to sit in the back of a plane, instead of the cockpit.” And even more so when she wasn’t with Louis.

* * *

Having Hannah in the sky box was proving just as distracting as having her in a seat near the players’ box. All through the game Louis found himself glancing in that direction, as though he expected to see her watching him, even though it was too far away for him to make anyone out. He also began watching the Jumbotron above the ice, something he’d never done before, in case the cameras spanned to the sky box.

He even found himself winking at the unseen camera one of the times it panned to him.

“You looking to score a deal with a shaving company, Coach?” Landon asked at halftime, as they left the rink. The Zamboni would clean and resurface the marked-up, gouged ice while they held a team meeting in the locker room.

“Why’s that?” he asked his goalie, rubbing his jaw to check for five o’clock shadow.

“You’re playing to the camera. Winking and stuff.”

“He wasn’t on the plane,” the assistant coach said pointedly.

“I flew myself.”

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