Decker, p.1
Decker, page 1
DECKER
SIDEWINDERS: GENERATIONS
BOOK FIVE
KAT MIZERA
Copyright © 2023 by Kat Mizera
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Editing: Tera Cuskaden, Anja Pfister
Cover Design: Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs
Cover Photography: Wander Aguilar
Cover Model: Zach A.
Created with Vellum
CONTENTS
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
Epilogue
Also by Kat Mizera
About the Author
1
Eden
The trip from Manchester, England, to Las Vegas, Nevada, had been long and tiring, but I was finally here. I hadn’t seen my two best friends since August. Today was the day after Christmas—the longest we’d been apart since meeting the summer before we started college more than four years ago.
“Eden!” I heard Daisy DeSantos’s voice the moment I came through the security area, and I waved, picking up speed as I rushed to hug her.
“You’re here.” She hugged me tightly.
“I’ve missed you,” I gushed as we continued to hug.
“Zoe’s flight’s changed or something, so she’s going to be delayed. You ready to go?”
“Have to get my luggage, but yes.” I linked my arm through Daisy’s elbow as we headed for baggage claim.
“I’m so excited to have you here,” she said. “And I have so much to tell you.”
“Jean-Michel spoiled you even more than you already are?” I teased, referring to her boyfriend.
“Maybe.” She grinned, her green eyes sparkling with mischief. “He bought me a BMW for Christmas!”
I rolled my eyes, though I was laughing. “Of course he did.”
“The team left this morning for a quick road trip, but they’ll be back on the thirtieth. There’s a New Year’s Eve party planned the next night that should be epic.”
“Sounds good.” Mostly I was happy to have her—and hopefully Zoe too—all to myself for a few days.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Jean-Michel, or Zoe’s boyfriend Slava, but being the perpetually single third wheel was hard. Especially since I’d decided on a self-appointed moratorium on dating. Men were more trouble than they were worth, and I had two regrettable relationships in the not-so-distant past.
Never again, I’d promised myself.
Not that I wouldn’t ever date again, but I was going to be a hell of a lot pickier going forward.
“Are you hungry?” Daisy asked as we waited for my luggage. I was going to be in the U.S. for three weeks, so I’d brought two suitcases, along with a carryon and an oversized purse. I wasn’t flying home until mid-January, which was a nice break for me. My life had been hectic the last few months, and I was glad to be here with one of my besties.
“Starving,” I admitted.
“Would you like to go somewhere? I didn’t plan anything because I wasn’t sure how long it would take you to get through customs and such.”
I stifled a yawn. “I’m exhausted. Maybe we can grab takeaway? Or order a pizza?”
“Sure.” Daisy nodded.
I spotted the first of my bags easily, since my luggage was bright pink and covered in lavender flowers. I moved in that direction, reaching for the handle just as a hand snaked out and pulled it from the conveyor belt.
“Hello, Eden. Fancy meeting you here.”
I stared into the face of my ex-boyfriend in shock.
What in bloody hell was he doing here?
“Lawrence.” I lifted my chin a notch.
“Good to see you.” He smiled warmly, leaning forward as if he might hug me.
I took a step back, scowling at him.
“Can’t say the same,” I murmured. “Thanks for grabbing my bag.” I closed my hand around the handle and started to turn.
“Still mad, eh?” His eyes twinkled, as if my finding out he’d been married the entire time we’d been dating had been some minor infraction.
“To be honest, I don’t give you enough thought to be angry.” I shrugged.
“Is that your other bag?” Daisy appeared at my side, narrowing her eyes as she recognized Lawrence.
“Yes.” I turned, practically yanking my second bag off the belt. “Let’s go, Daisy.”
“How long will you be in Vegas?” Lawrence asked, following me as I began to walk.
“None of your business.” I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Since you don’t seem to be taking the hint, let me be clear: I’m not interested. Not now, not ever again. Go away.”
“Let’s go.” Daisy took one of my suitcases and my carryon. “My car isn’t far.” She gave Lawrence a dirty look.
“Don’t be that way, Eden,” Lawrence called to me even as we walked to the exit. “I’m divorced now!”
“Too fucking late,” Daisy muttered.
“You can say that again.”
“What are the chances?” I groaned as we got to her shiny new SUV.
“You do have some funky luck when it comes to men,” she said. It took both of us to lift one of my suitcases into the back, but the other was lighter since I’d left room for shopping.
“Tell me about it.” I sank into the plush leather seat and sighed.
Fucking Lawrence.
Hopefully, this would be the last I saw of him.
By the time we got something to eat, and I’d showered, I’d been up more than twenty-four hours. At some point, I must have fallen asleep because the next time I opened my eyes, sunlight was pouring into the guest room and there was loud pounding on the door.
“Aren’t you awake yet?” There was no mistaking Zoe’s voice, and I smiled as I turned over.
“I am now,” I called in a raspy voice, rubbing my eyes.
“Finally!” Zoe and Daisy came bounding into the room, flopping down on the bed.
“When did you get here?” I asked, sitting up.
“We just walked in from the airport,” Daisy said.
“I thought you were coming last night,” I murmured.
Zoe and Daisy exchanged a look, and even half-asleep I realized something was up. “What’s going on?”
“Well, there’s no easy way to say it,” Zoe said after a slight hesitation, biting her lip. “Slava and I are… on a break.”
“A break?” I stared at her. “What does that even mean?”
“You should get up while I make you a cup of coffee, and then we can talk,” Daisy said, getting up herself.
I was wide awake now and quickly hurried to the bathroom to freshen up, my thoughts swirling with curiosity. Slava was a great guy, and perfect for Zoe. I couldn’t imagine what had happened between them, so I practically skidded down the stairs to join them in the kitchen.
“What perfect timing for Jean-Michel to be out of town,” Daisy said, grinning at me. “We can have a few days with just us girls.”
“Never mind that,” I said, nudging Zoe with my hip. “What’s going on with you and Slava?”
Zoe already had a cup of coffee, and she wrapped both hands around it as she leaned against the counter. “Too much too soon,” she said at last.
“I thought you loved him?”
“I do.”
“But?”
“He proposed,” she whispered. “And I said yes. But then yesterday morning we went down to the courthouse and…” She shook her head. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just marry a guy I’d known less than six months.”
“Why not?” I asked softly.
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice breaking a little.
“Oh, love, I’m sorry.” I reached out to hug her, catching Daisy’s eye over Zoe’s shoulder. Daisy shrugged, looking as helpless as I felt.
“Is it because you didn’t want to elope?” Daisy asked after a moment.
“Maybe. I just… everything about my last engagement came rushing back and suddenly I felt suffocated by him. I don’t understand it either. I need time to think. And of course, he was hurt.”
“He adores you,” I said.
“I know.”
We settled at the massive island in the kitchen, a basket of something that smelled delicious between us. No one seemed hungry, though, all three of us focusing on our coffee cups.
“Mom made these,” Daisy said after a moment, lifting the napkin covering the basket. “Cinnamon apple scones. She baked them around seven this morning and dropped off a dozen about two hours ago.”
“What time is it now?” I asked, twi sting to look at the clock on the oven.
“Almost noon.”
“Wow.”
“I’m sorry, guys,” Zoe said after a moment. “I don’t mean to be a downer.”
“You’re not a downer,” Daisy said, nibbling on a scone. “But if you love him, and he loves you, I’m not sure how to help you figure this out.”
“I don’t know either. That’s why I delayed my flight by a day and came today instead of yesterday. Slava didn’t fly out until late yesterday afternoon, and we had to talk.”
“How did you leave things?” I asked.
“We’ll talk again in a few days.”
Another uncomfortable silence settled over us as we ate.
“Guess who we saw at the airport?” Daisy asked after a moment.
“Who?” Zoe asked curiously.
“Lawrence,” I muttered.
Her mouth fell open. “How did he know where you’d be?”
“Coincidence,” I replied. Then I frowned. “I mean, it was a coincidence, right?” I looked at Daisy.
“We’ve all been posting on social media about seeing each other after Christmas,” she said slowly.
“Ah, shit.” Zoe made a face. “Our posts are public, aren’t they?”
“Bloody fucking hell.” I closed my eyes. “You think he’s here to see me? He can’t possibly know where you live, though, can he?” I opened my eyes and stared at Daisy.
She quickly shook her head. “No, but if he’s been stalking us online, he probably knows who my boyfriend is and, you know, that he’s a pro hockey player here in Vegas.”
I groaned. “This cannot be happening.”
“Look, we’re safe here,” Daisy said quickly. “Not only are we vigilant about keeping our address private; we have a top-notch security system.”
“I’m not actually worried about my safety, but he can’t possibly think he has a chance with me after more than a year?” I asked, wrinkling my nose.
“Men are notoriously self-absorbed and stupid,” Zoe said, shrugging.
“Except Jean-Michel,” Daisy said, smiling.
“And Slava,” I added pointedly, looking at Zoe. I was having a hard time understanding what was going on with her because Slava was such a nice guy. And so crazy about her.
“I know.” Zoe took a sip of coffee and stared off at nothing. “It just felt like so much in such a short period of time. And you know how anything wedding related triggers me.”
“But it’s Slava,” Daisy whispered.
“I’m going back to therapy,” Zoe said. “As soon as I get home.” Zoe lived in Switzerland, so the three of us were spread out across two continents and three countries, which had been a huge adjustment after being inseparable the last four years.
“What about that app?” Daisy asked, her eyes suddenly widening. “The phone finding one?”
“Fuck.” I yanked out my phone and opened it. Sure enough, I’d never taken Lawrence off the list of people who could track my phone. It was stupid, but I’d found out Lawrence was married and that had been the end of everything in my mind. As far as I was concerned, he no longer existed. I was sure he was going to stay married to her and find some other naïve young woman to mess around with.
“Delete,” Zoe said quickly.
“Absolutely.” I deleted his name off the app and blocked him on my phone completely. This was ridiculous since we’d been broken up for over a year.
“If anything, he has an approximate location,” Daisy sighed, typing something on her phone. “I’m making sure the alarm is set even when we’re home. We’ll just have to be vigilant when we’re out and about.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I never gave it a second thought. Once we broke up, I put him out of my mind. It never occurred to me he would still be trying to see me.”
“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” Zoe said, grimacing as if she didn’t believe it.
“Let’s put that out into the universe,” Daisy agreed.
“What if it’s not?” I whispered after a moment.
“You’re only here for a few weeks,” Daisy said. “We can avoid him until then. And if necessary, we can stay at my mom’s while Jean-Michel is out of town. He has no way of knowing her address, and once Jean-Michel is back Lawrence will have a rude awakening if he comes anywhere near us.”
I hoped she was right.
2
Decker
Post-Christmas road trips were the worst. As professional hockey players it happened more often than not, and we learned to make the best of it, but it was hard on the guys with families. I was perpetually single, so it was just another trip for me. There had been a lot of moping going on around me, though, and I’d led a group of us out to a local bar tonight.
We’d lost our game against Colorado, and I’d dragged a good portion of the team out so they wouldn’t dwell on it. This tended to be my role lately. Alternate captain, morale officer, and team party animal. Though I’d left my conservative, small-town roots behind a long time ago, the rebel in me was always brewing just below the surface. As if I still had something to prove.
“Coach is going to have our asses if he finds out about this,” my friend and teammate, Simon LaCroix, muttered.
“Then we just have to make sure he doesn’t find out,” I responded, lifting my bottle of Molson.
“I played like shit last night,” Simon said, shaking his head.
He was our back-up goalie, and he’d taken last night’s loss harder than usual. He was a damn good goalie, but he’d lost his last four starts, and it was starting to wear on him mentally. I understood it but wasn’t sure how to help.
“We were all off our game,” another teammate, Anton Petrov, said. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
Simon shrugged. “I have to be hard on myself. Or I can get sent down.”
We all grimaced since the threat of being sent down to our minor league affiliate was something most of us worried about at one time or another. At this point in my career I didn’t have to think about that too much, but it was different for a goalie like Simon. He was still young and backing up one of the best goalies in the league. There were half a dozen guys around the league vying for his job, so he had to prove himself every chance he could.
“What the fuck.” Jean-Michel Vander, who was just called Van since no one wanted to say Jean-Michel most of the time, typed something into his phone with a scowl on his face.
“Everything okay?” I asked him. He and his girlfriend, Daisy, had moved in together not that long ago so he’d been on a romance high the last few months. Much to my chagrin. My two biggest party buddies had both settled down in the last year, leaving me and Simon as two of the only single guys on the team.
He shook his head. “Daisy’s best friends from college are in town visiting and apparently Eden’s ex followed her to Vegas.”
“What?” I asked. He talked about Daisy and her friends all the time, so in a way I felt like I knew them.
He was still studying his phone. “Apparently Eden forgot to turn off the tracker thing on her phone when they broke up so they’re not sure if it’s a coincidence, or if he actually followed her to Vegas from the UK.”
“That’s not at all creepy,” I said, grimacing.
“Tell me about it. And the girls are alone in the house until we get back.” He scowled.
“They should go to her mom’s.”
“I’m sending them to her mom’s.” We spoke at the same time, and he looked up with a grin. “Great minds.”
“Yup.” I wasn’t into relationships, but I was one of those guys who had a ton of female friends and was protective of them. It started back in Michigan growing up, when our church’s pastor started making moves on my sister. From there, I noticed a pattern of abuse that extended to youth leaders and other people in positions of power, and my thirteen-year-old self had known immediately it shouldn’t happen. Of course, that had blown up in my face, like most things in my childhood, but I considered it a worthwhile sacrifice.
