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By: Sophia Henry
Releasing
June 7, 2016
Flirt
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REVIEW POSTED AT HARLEQUIN JUNKIE
In Interference (Pilots Hockey #3) by Sophia Henry, Jason Taylor has never met a more intriguing woman than Linden ‘Indie’ Meadows. Especially since she’s not afraid to express her opinion, whether it’s when she disagrees with his coaching decisions for her brother’s hockey team, or when he’s performing in his duties as a police officer. Unfortunately, Indie’s not eager to get to know him and unless he can convince her to take a chance on him, their chance at happy ever after might slip them both by. READ MORE
BLURB:
“Sophia
Henry tackles real issues that tug at your heartstrings,” raves bestselling author
Rachel Harris. Now, in this sweet, sensual Pilots Hockey novel, a young single mom
falls for a damaged coach pulling double-duty as a cop.
Linden Meadows doesn’t back down
from anyone, especially if her family’s involved. So when her little brother’s
new hockey coach benches him in the middle of a game, Linden lets him have it.
She also notices that the coach is way hotter than she expects, but Linden
won’t let herself get burned by another athlete. Been there, done that—and had
a kid at seventeen to show for it.
When Jason Taylor isn’t taking abuse
from hockey moms, he’s patrolling the streets as a member of the Bridgeland PD.
After Jason pulls Linden over for speeding, he begins to see that there’s more
to her than a big mouth . . . or a lead foot. Their chemistry leads to good
company, intense conversation, and an intimacy that pushes beyond the
boundaries of friendship. And yet Linden’s decision to keep her now
three-year-old son, Holden, is a painful reminder to Jason that his own mother
gave him up for adoption.
Linden’s sure she’s found the man to
round out their family. But when Holden’s deadbeat dad forces his way back into
the picture, Jason starts to back off. He needs time—to heal, to grow, and to
love with all his heart.
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“What do you recommend, Indie?” The
woman asked, glancing at me before dropping her eyes back to the menu.
“Um, well,” I said, faltering. How
did the cop’s mom know my name? Had he told his mom about me?
“She read your name tag. Don’t get
your hopes up.” Officer Taylor nodded at my chest.
Warmth rushed into my cheeks as I
skimmed my fingers across the badge pinned on the right side of my shirt. Name
tag, duh. Stupid overactive imagination. Of course he hadn’t told his mom about
me. He probably hated me.
The silly disappointment I felt was
short-lived, lasting only until his snarky comment hit home.
“Well, the beef brisket is a
customer favorite, but I’d recommend the ribs. I mean, everyone loves a pig,
right?” I cocked my head to the side, pleased with my joke.
The cop’s lady friend choked on the
swig of beer she had taken. She raised her hand and patted her chest.
“You okay, Mom?” He asked, clapping
her on the back.
Aha! She was his mom. I knew it.
Taylor’s mom nodded. “Went down the
wrong pipe,” she squeaked out before coughing again.
“Should I give you another minute?”
I asked. I wanted to slink away. I shouldn’t have said that in front of his
mother. I wasn’t a confrontational person. What was it about him that brought
out that side of me?
“No, no. We’re ready,” she said and
coughed one last time to clear her throat. “I’ll take the ribs.” She winked at
me, then bit her lip to keep a smile away.
The cop’s mom was pure awesome.
“And for you?” I coughed my own
smile away as I lifted my chin and focused my attention on the officer.
“I’ll have the same thing. I love
pigs.” He held out his menu, a smug smile spreading across his face. “With
fries, please.”
“Oh, good lord, Jason,” his mom
hissed, emphasizing her annoyance with an eye roll.
Jason. Officer Jackweed had a first
name.
“Touché.” I nodded as I plucked the
menu from his hands, spinning away toward the safety of my computer. If I
didn’t know better, I’d think the cop was flirting with me.
It took every ounce of willpower I had
not to look over at Jason. Thanks to his mom, I now knew the name of the
infuriating, hot, jerky, muscular, arrogant, sexy man I hadn’t been able to get
out of my head since I saw him at my brother’s game.
“Indie!”
My head snapped up, breaking me out
of the fog of thoughts I’d disguised while inputting the dinner order. How long
had Kristen, a server who went by her initials, KK, been calling me?
“Yeah. Sorry. What?” I couldn’t get
the right word out.
Get it together, girl. Stop thinking
of Jason’s buff forearms.
“Did you make that Bloody Mary for
table thirty-three?” KK asked.
“Table thirty-three?” I glanced at
Jason, whose eyes caught mine, then shook my head and looked at the tiny
printer on the end of the bar, buzzing as it spewed orders the servers had
punched in from the dining room computer.
Damn. Bloody Mary for table
thirty-three. Four ales, two reds, and a Weizen for various other tables.
Time to get my head back in the
game, especially since the printer wouldn’t stop. No looking at Jason until I
had to check on how his meal tasted. Usually, I wasn’t easily thrown,
especially by a guy.
It’s because he’s new in town.
That’s his intrigue. His mystery.
The drink orders never slowed, and I
turned my focus back to my customers at the bar and in the dining room. On busy
nights, I usually had a second bartender helping with the madness, but Stacy
had called in sick at last minute and I hadn’t found a replacement. I couldn’t
even be angry with her, since she was three months pregnant. I knew how fast morning
sickness came on, and how there was no working around it some days.
I’d been so busy filling drink
orders and waiting on my customers at the bar that I hadn’t even had a chance
to check on Jason and his mom. Thankfully, a porter had brought out their meals.
At my first free moment, I wandered over to Jason.
“You scared off your own mom?” I
asked, nodding to the empty chair next to him.
“She’s using the restroom.” Jason
took a sip of his beer. “Are you gonna throw sarcastic comments at me all
night, or talk to me?”
“What do you want to talk about?” I
asked, filling a pint glass with red ale.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
Not a question I’d expected.
“How is that your business?”
“You smell like a dude,” he blurted
out.
I curled my fingers around the
glass, which had almost slipped out of my hand. “Excuse me?”
“Shit. I meant you smell like men’s
cologne,” Jason said, backtracking. “It wasn’t an insult.”
“I like the smell of men’s cologne
better than perfume.” I set the first pint aside and began filling a second.
“Why’d you skip the boyfriend
question?”
“Because it’s not your business.”
Jason leaned in, his voice low. “It
is if I want to ask you out.”
“You what?” I readjusted my grip on
the glass and pushed the handle of the tap back to stop the flow of beer.
“I think we should hang out.” Jason
wiped his mouth with his napkin and tossed it onto his empty plate.
“That’s the best you can do, copper?
I thought you were smoother than that.” I winked and walked away, carrying the
beers I’d filled to the end of the bar for a server to pick up. Then I made a
Moscow Mule and checked on a few other customers sitting at the bar before
printing Jason’s check and placing it in front of him.
“Will you please go on a date with
me?” Jason asked, not missing a beat.
My heart pounded against my chest. I
was both flattered and frustrated by his persistence. “You expect me to say
yes, don’t you?”
“It’s obvious that you like me.”
Jason’s blue eyes twinkled, catching light from the pendulum fixture hanging
over the bar.
“I like looking at you,” I
countered, “but your personality leaves a bit to be desired.”
“Really?” The skin around his eyes
crinkled when he smiled.
“Let’s pretend I’d ever say yes.
Where would a cocky cop take someone on a first date?” I couldn’t wait to hear
what he thought was fun.
“It’s a surprise.”
“You ask me on a date and you don’t
even know where you’re going to take me?” I lifted his plate and wiped crumbs
and condensation off the bar with a towel. “That’s sad, copper.”
“Why would you assume that?” he
asked, his tone indignant.
“Can I be honest?” I asked. Time to
strike the final blow. Though Jason had my insides flipping like no one ever
had before, now wasn’t the right time to start dating. I had a million things
to worry about before opening up my heart again.
“Please.” He nodded.
“You moved to a small town to be a
cop and coach hockey.” I paused. “You sound like a total bore.”
Sophia Henry, a proud Detroit native,
fell in love with reading, writing, and hockey all before she became a
teenager. She did not, however, fall in love with snow. So after graduating
with an English degree from Central Michigan University, she moved to North
Carolina, where she spends her time writing books featuring hockey-playing
heroes, chasing her two high-energy sons, watching her beloved Detroit Red
Wings, and rocking out at concerts with her husband.
Top 3 Scenes with excerpts
Scene
1 - When Jason Met Indie
Scene Set Up:
The very first scene of the novel where Jason and Indie meet.
According
to popular adult opinion, children make stupid choices. But sometimes those
choices, which stem from the most primal (usually erratic and naive) logic,
turn out to be the wisest.
Except
in hockey.
“Meadows!
Meadows! Get your ass back to the bench!” I yelled to the teenager who had just
given up the puck for the third time this period. This period! “I’ve had enough
of your hotdogging out there.”
Puck
hog will sit until he understands that he has teammates to pass to.
I
gave the kid my best coach’s evil eye as he swung his leg over the boards. Then
I tapped his head with the tiny spiral notebook I clutched during games. “Stop
fucking around out there. You’re pissing me off.”
“Don’t
talk to him like that,” a woman’s voice squawked at me from behind the boards.
“He’s just a kid.”
“Parents
are welcome to speak with me after the game.” I turned my head, enough to act
like I cared, but not enough to glance back. The last thing I needed was to
make eye contact with a crazy hockey mom.
“I’m
his sister, asshole.”
First
mistake: engaging the squawker.
Second: turning
to face her.
I hadn’t
expected the chastising voice of one of my player’s sisters to be attached to a
woman with the face of an off-duty model. Her dark hair was pulled into a high
ponytail, which gave me an unobstructed view of olive-toned skin, high
cheekbones, and full, pink lips. I shifted my weight as my jeans got a little
tighter in the front.
“Watch your
language, ma’am.” I smirked. “There are kids here.”
“Ass,” she
muttered loud enough to be heard over her heavy footsteps as she stalked up the
aluminum benches to her seat.
Folding my arms
across my chest, I focused my attention back on the ice. Time to regain my
composure before I climbed over the glass to chase her. The middle of a game
wasn’t the time to think about hooking up with a player’s sister. The best time
to think about things like that was never.
Never get
involved with a kid’s family member. Remember that part of The Mighty Ducks
trilogy where Gordon Bombay went from banging Charlie’s mom in the first movie
to hooking up with the Iceland chick (and the kid’s tutor) in D2? They
must’ve cut the part where Charlie kicks Bombay’s old ass. Because that’s what
my kids would do if I screwed a new mom every season.
I’d only been
coaching this hockey team for two weeks, and already I had parents and, add to
that list, hot sisters yelling at me. At this rate, it was going to be a long
season.
Scene
2 - Police on My Back
Scene
Set Up: Indie
gets pulled over on her way home from work.
I slammed my
hand on the steering wheel before pulling my car over to the shoulder. I knew
the blue lights on top of the car spun and flashed for me, since I was the only
one on the road. I waited impatiently as the cop took his time getting out of
the squad car. Two frickin’ blocks from home. Two.
From my side
mirror, I watched as the officer finally got out. I took in the way his broad
shoulders filled out his dark-blue, department-issued leather coat. There were
only a few young, fit cops in this town. I thought I knew them all, either from
high school or from their routine stops at Peak City, the restaurant where I
worked.
But when my gaze
trailed back up his muscular body to his face, I almost lost my dinner.
“Do you know why
I pulled you over, miss?”
Damien’s hockey
coach leaned over, peering into my car. He didn’t look me in the eyes at first.
Instead, he scanned the interior of my vehicle, as if I had something to hide.
No drugs or
weapons in here, jackweed.
“No, sir.” I
knew he pulled me over for speeding, but I refused to admit guilt.
“I clocked you
at fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit.”
“Just trying to
get home, sir.” I fought the sarcasm trying to weasel its way into my voice. Be
civil. He’s an officer of the law, after all. The cop paused, eyebrows drawing
together as he observed me.
“Have you been
drinking, miss?”
Observed might
not be the right word. More like bored into my soul. I sat, mesmerized by the
cute wrinkle that formed between his eyebrows when he squinted to get a better
read. Arctic-blue eyes peeked through the slits beneath his lowered lids.
“No, Officer—” I
tore my eyes from his to read the shiny, silver name tag on his chest.
“Taylor.”
“You smell like
a brewery.”
“That’s probably
because I work at one,” I said through my teeth. I’d never been disrespectful
to a police officer in my life. But this wasn’t any old cop, it was Coach
Jackweed, so he didn’t count.
“Have a few
drinks after work?” he asked.
“No. I didn’t,”
I answered, squeezing my steering wheel. Guess he was a prick all the time, not
just during children’s hockey games. High school kids were still technically
children.
Officer Taylor
continued to stare down at me as if he could tell if I was sober or not by
looking. Maybe he had super cop powers.
I jerked my head
upward to meet his gaze. “Geez, I need to move to a bigger city. One where cops
have better things to do than pull people over for going a few miles per hour
over the speed limit.”
“I just came
from one of those. You don’t want to live there. I’d much rather be pulling you
over for speeding than pulling your dead body out of a car.”
“Well, that’s
morbid.”
“That’s life in
the big city.” He lifted his head and scanned the road in front of my car.
I shook my head,
trying to get the conversation back on track.
“I’m sorry I was
speeding, Officer. I got an emergency call from my family and I’m just trying
to get home. You’re welcome to escort me to make sure I’m telling the truth if
you need to.”
“Good idea.” He
closed his uber-important cop notebook without ripping a ticket out for me.
Scene
3 - Everybody was Mascot Fighting
Scene
Set Up: Jason is
chosen to participate in a contest during intermission of a Pilots game.
Orville is the Pilots mascot, who is previously described as: “a furry, white,
cat-looking thing with an oversized head.”
“Okay.”
She cleared her throat. “Orville’s gonna lead you guys out there. You’ll take
two shots each. Good luck!”
The Pilots
employee standing next to Jessica, a young dude with a shaggy, blond mullet,
(sometimes known as “hockey hair”) handed sticks to Safina and me. I nodded my
thanks, then bent down and gripped it like I would if I were taking a shot. The
shine of my shoes caught my eye while my head was down.
Fuck. My shoes
had absolutely no traction. Which would pose a problem when walking on the ice.
I silently cursed Landon for not giving me the heads-up so I could have worn a
different pair.
It would be
super fucking embarrassing to fall on my ass in front of the crowd that stayed
in the stands during intermission.
Completely
missing the net would be equally embarrassing. I could hear the chirping
already: No wonder Landon Taylor’s brother never made it to the big leagues.
I let Safina go
ahead of me, and made sure to take careful steps as I followed Orville across
the ice. Jessica and the other Pilots employee walked behind us, carrying the
pucks.
Neither of poor
little Safina’s shots even made it to the goal, but she got a huge round of
applause from the crowd anyway. They should’ve let her move up a bit so she had
a chance.
But rules are
rules. Move aside, kid.
Jessica set the
puck down in front of me on the blue line, then backed away. When I looked at
the net to line up my shot, Orville was there, dancing in front of it, hopping
from one foot to the other and waving his grimy arms.
Stupid cat-thing
hadn’t done that to Safina. No worries.
I bent over,
drew my arms back, and sent a sick slap shot at the net.
I should explain
that it’s virtually impossible to make this shot. The entire goal is covered by
a huge plank of wood, with a tiny rectangular cutout in the bottom center, just
an inch or so taller and wider than the size of a puck. I mean, even Pavel
Datsyuk might have a hard time making that shot. Notice I said might. He
is the Magic Man and all.
The puck slid
across the ice straight toward its target. The crowd seemed to take in a
collective breath.
Then it careened
off the wooden barrier just to the left of the tiny opening.
I released a
breath along with the fans. And the cheering began. Hooting and hollering from
every angle.
The shot missed,
but it was a great try.
I had a better
chance of winning the lottery than hitting as close to the opening in my second
attempt as I had in my first, so instead of lining it up, I flicked a wrist
shot toward the goal.
The puck caught
a tiny bit of air and bounced off Orville’s shin. He cocked his fat head at me
and then raised his arms up as if to say “What the fuck?”
The fans roared
as Orville skated toward me with his dukes up, ready to fake a fight.
At least, that’s
what I thought, until he got close enough for me to hear him.
“Why the fuck
would you shoot the puck at me?” Orville yelled, his voice muffled by the mesh
of the costume’s mouth opening. “I’m gonna kick your fucking ass!”
Then he charged
me and I had to bat his nappy paws away.
Oh, it’s on,
mofo.
