Unadulterated something, p.1
Unadulterated Something, page 1
Contents
Other Books by MJ Duncan
Copyright
Title Page
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Other Books by MJ Duncan
Second Chances
Veritas
Spectrum
Atramentum
Symphony in Blue
Heist
Pas de Deux
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by MJ Duncan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior written permission from the author.
Cover art © 2020 by MJ Duncan
Emma Beauchamp didn’t bother to try to hide the small smile that tugged at her lips as she watched two of the team’s youngest players taking selfies with their gold medals before slipping through the locker room doors. They had put in the work and more than earned this moment, but part of her wondered if they truly appreciated the prize they held. It was their first Games, after all, coming off a gold medal at Worlds the year before, so they had yet to experience anything but winning. Victory was sweet, there was no denying that, but this one was all the sweeter for her because she knew what it was like to put in just as much blood, sweat, and tears as they had coming into this tournament only to come up heartbreakingly short time and time and time again.
She had decided at the beginning of this Olympic cycle that this would be her last go-round, her last attempt to attain the one championship that had eluded her over the course of her career, and now that she finally, finally had the Olympic gold she’d been chasing, she was more secure than ever in her decision. She had spent close to half her life as the face of the program and the last nine years as its captain—had suited up for four Olympic Games, ten World Championships, and more friendlies than she could remember—and she was ready to move on.
She glanced toward the glow from the reporters’ cameras that filtered around the curve of the corridor that lead to the exit as they waited to try and steal one last post-game reaction interview from players from both teams, and ran her thumb over the medal clasped tightly in her hand as she turned away from the light and toward the ice that had seen her greatest dream finally realized.
Later, she would have to face the press and their questions, but, for now, she wanted just a few moments to reflect and enjoy this moment that was a lifetime in the making.
She took a deep breath as she stepped into the bench area the team had abandoned in a rush of flying gloves and cheers and more than a few tears after the game, and closed her eyes as she savored the chill that tickled her nose.
“You okay?” a quiet voice asked from behind her.
Emma smiled at Valerie Dunn’s question as she blinked her eyes open. “Yeah.” She stepped over the bench and leaned her forearms on the top of the boards, knowing that her best friend would follow. “Just wanted a moment to myself. You know?”
“Yeah. I know.” Val mirrored Emma’s posture as they looked out over the ice. The evidence of their celebration and the medal ceremony had been cleared away while they showered, and the Zamboni was finishing its last circuit en route to the open boards on the far end of the rink that led to its storage garage. She huffed a laugh and bumped her shoulder against Emma’s. “We finally beat the freaking Canadians at the Olympics. I guess the third time really is the charm, huh?”
“Fourth,” Emma corrected. “But who’s counting?”
“You, clearly,” Val teased. She sighed and wrapped an arm around Emma’s waist. “I’m glad we were able to get this one for you, Cap. God knows you deserve to go out on top after everything you’ve done for this sport.”
Emma smiled at the gentle affection in Val’s voice and leaned into her side. “We deserved this.”
“Well, yeah, but you…” Val sighed. She knew better than most how the pressure of being the face of the program affected Emma, had been the one to prop her up when the press and the federation heaped the blame for the team consistently coming up short in this tournament onto her shoulders. “You deserved it the most.”
“It was all worth it.”
“I’m glad.” Val cleared her throat. “So, are you sure you still want to hang ‘em up?”
Emma nodded. There was a part of her that mourned the end of this chapter of her life, but it was only a small part. Mostly, she felt…content. Calm.
At peace.
She had climbed the mountain and achieved the dream. And with nothing left to accomplish in the sport, it was time to walk away.
Besides, while she could out-skate almost anyone on the ice, she couldn’t out-skate time, and these last few years had taken a toll on her body that she wasn’t entirely sure she would ever recover from.
“You know you’re gonna miss this, right?”
Emma lifted her right shoulder in a small shrug. She wasn’t going to miss the grind that went with making sure she was ready to compete at the highest level. Wasn’t going to miss working two jobs to make ends meet, travel trips that seemed to never end, ice baths, or the training sessions that left her feeling like she was going to die. But she was going to miss everything else. Was going to miss the raucous team dinners and messing around between practices, the card games that went late into the night, and the soul-baring conversations that floated across the dark between her and her roommate’s beds after lights out.
She was ready to walk away from the game.
Walking away from everything else, however…
“Yeah. I’m gonna miss this.” Emma wiped at her eyes. “But we all gotta become grown-ups eventually. Right?”
Val groaned. “God, don’t remind me.”
Emma smiled. “You know, you can always come be my assistant coach at Stonebridge…”
Val huffed a quiet laugh. “I wish I could. But the commute from New Haven to middle-of-nowhere Massachusetts would be a bitch, especially in the winter, and Jon would probably call off the wedding we haven’t even had time to start planning yet if I left him in Connecticut to live with you.”
“No he wouldn’t. He loves me.”
“You’re his second favorite girl in the entire world,” Val agreed with a smile. “But even if the commute wasn’t a pain in the ass, I don’t think I’m quite cut out for coaching high school girls. College, sure. Been doing that for years. But teenagers…” She shuddered dramatically.
“Aren’t all bad,” Emma pointed out with a smile. She had fond memories of her time at Stonebridge and, though Val liked to make jokes about teenagers, she personally thought she had been easier to manage as a player in high school than she’d been in college. Being a female athlete, she had always known she would need a “real” career to fall back on when she was done playing, and she had always wanted to teach and coach. And since teaching positions at her old prep school didn’t come available often, it seemed a brilliant twist of fate that the end of her professional career and an opening in the math department aligned in a way to allow her to jump directly from one to the other. “Besides, if they really piss me off, I’ll just bag skate ‘em until the attitude goes away.”
“Oooh, you’re mean.”
“You know it,” Emma chuckled. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
Val hummed noncommittally. “Not yet. I don’t know if I’m really up for another four years, especially with all the kids they got in the pipeline gunning for my spot, but I’ll probably lace ‘em up for another year with the Whale while I decide.” She leaned her head on Emma’s shoulder. “I’m still on the lookout for a good woman for you, by the way. Don’t think that just because we’re not going to be skating together anymore that that’s gonna change.”
Emma leaned her cheek against the top of Val’s head. She had been trying for years to set her up, but there had never been anyone that could come close to competing with her love for the game. “Good luck with that.”
“She’s out there somewhere.”
“If you say so,” Emma murmured. She took a deep breath as she let her gaze drift over the arena, and let it go slowly as she straightened. She rapped her knuckles on the top of the boards, and a small smile curled her lips as she looked down at the gold medal in her hand. She had done everything there was to do
“You sure?”
Emma took in the empty arena one last time and, after a long moment, nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
“Are you good and tired now, Mr. Dash?” Lars Olsson asked, his pale gray eyes sparkling with laughter as he set his cup of coffee onto the small table beside him.
Emma nodded as she handed him the rambunctious husky’s leash. “He should be.”
Though, judging by the way Dash was standing at Lars’ side, his blue eyes that were only a shade lighter than her own sparkling with mischievousness, whatever energy he had expended on their run wasn’t enough to completely knock him out for the morning.
“He better be,” Beca Olsson grumbled as she collapsed onto the grass outside the couple’s modest, single-story colonial-style home on the southern edge of the boarding school’s campus.
“We went up around Guilder Pond today,” Emma explained as she smiled at her friend’s antics. The run wasn’t much longer than any of the ones they’d done all summer, but the late-season humidity was already beginning to make the air uncomfortable, and the path up Mount Everett to the pond was significantly more challenging than the circuitous route they had been taking through the campus’ rolling hills.
Lars popped his wheelchair into a rocking wheelie. “Good job, honey.”
Beca groaned and lifted her right arm to flash him a stiff middle finger.
Lars rolled his eyes at her. “You see how she treats me?” he asked, shooting Emma a playfully exasperated look.
“Just leave her on the grass, then.” Emma shook her head at the way Beca cursed at her as she rolled onto her stomach and folded her arms so she could rest her cheek on her hands, looking every bit like she was preparing to take a nap right there in the front yard. “How was CrossFit?”
“Good.” Lars dropped back to four wheels and raked a hand through his short, sandy-gray hair that was still wet from his shower. “There was a new girl there today. Just moved to town, apparently. Cute. No ring. Wasn’t weirded out by this thing at all”—he smacked the wheel on his left side—“so she’s a keeper in my book.”
Emma laughed. She’d known Lars for what seemed like her whole life. He’d competed in sled hockey and para track and field with her brother growing up, and he took great pride in filling the big brother role in her life whenever Brody wasn’t around. When Beca had been looking for a teaching position not long after their wedding, Emma had been the one to suggest Stonebridge to her, knowing that Lars could freelance from anywhere. Coming back to teach at her alma mater had always been her dream, and getting to do it all with her quasi-brother and his wife, whom she counted among her best friends, made the whole experience so much better than she could have ever hoped for. “God, you’re as bad as Val.”
“When is she coming back up, by the way?” Beca asked as she rolled to a sitting position. She sighed and tugged at her long, wavy black hair to tighten her ponytail. “I have more ideas for the wedding reception.”
“No idea. Maybe next week before the kids come back?”
“Speaking of the wedding,” Lars drawled, winking at Beca, “you still need a date. Right? And there was a cute new girl at CrossFit today…”
“All right,” Emma replied, knowing that it would be easier for her in the long run just to play along. “Does cute CrossFit girl have a name?”
Lars grinned. “Tracy.”
“Is she into women?”
“See, now that I don’t know,” Lars admitted with a dramatic sigh. “She was crazy strong, though.”
“Ooh, get Em a girl that can shove her up against the wall and just—” Beca broke off laughing when Emma rounded on her with a textbook Are you fucking serious right now? look. “God, your face!”
Emma shook her head. “Who’s to say I wouldn’t be the one doing the shoving?” She rolled her eyes when Beca just started laughing harder because, yeah, she might be six-feet of former hockey star, but she was probably the last person on the planet that would be shoving anyone else up against a wall. She rounded on Lars, who was laughing along with his wife. “And just so you know, strong doesn’t equal gay.”
“Well, duh.” Lars flexed his arms and tilted his head at biceps. He might not have the type of build that would put on massive amounts of bulk, but he was definitely ripped. Doing a shitton of pull-up reps with the added weight of a chair strapped to your body would do that. “I mean, look at me.” He lifted up his shirt and smacked his abs as if to prove his point. “I’m jacked.”
“Yeah, like an old librarian,” Emma shot back. It was a running joke with them, given Lars’ wiry build, already graying hair, and wireframe glasses, and she chuckled at the glare it earned her.
“Funny, Beauchamp.” Lars flipped her off. “Real funny.”
“What?” Emma smirked at him as she lifted the hem of her tank to wipe at the sweat on her forehead, and purposefully flexed her abs to show that he wasn’t the only one rocking a six-pack. Of course, hers was a bit less defined than it had been when she’d been playing, but the gym habits she’d developed over her career had carried over into her retirement. Mostly because they were too ingrained to break, but also because she had yet to find a more effective way to burn off stress.
“My god! Just put your shirt down already.”
Emma laughed as she dropped her shirt. “Was that for me, or your husband?”
“Both of you. I’m surrounded by fucking fitness models,” Beca grumbled.
“But you’re still the prettiest,” Lars replied sweetly.
Emma nodded. “He’s right. You’re definitely the prettiest.” Dark where Lars was light, with pale brown eyes that seemed to glow no matter the time of day or the lighting, and standing only a few inches shorter than herself, calling Beca the prettiest was honestly selling her short. Beca Olsson was positively striking. “He’s a lucky man.” The chunky Garmin on her right wrist buzzed with an alert, and she sighed when she saw the calendar notification. “Right, well, I better go. Woodworth wants me to meet the new guidance and wellness counselor he hired over the summer that’s interested in helping with the hockey program. So I’ve got less than an hour to shower, change, find some food, and get over there.”
“Isabella was in on her vetting,” Beca shared as she climbed to her feet. “I remember she was really impressed with her.”
Emma nodded. She had heard that, too. She held up her right hand with her index and middle fingers twisted. “Fingers crossed.” Hal Giovanni, the school’s Latin teacher, had stepped up to serve as her assistant the year before, but with no hockey experience, he was good for little more than managing the teams’ equipment and schedules. It had been nice not to have to worry about that kind of stuff, and she didn’t mind handling the bulk of the coaching, but she had been more than a little overwhelmed trying to balance running the entire girls’ hockey program on top of her regular teaching requirements. She didn’t have particularly high hopes that the new counselor would be able to take over the junior varsity team, but it would be nice to have a little help at practice. “Save me a seat?”
“Back row?”
“Perfect.” Not that there were many places to hide with a faculty of roughly seventy-five people, but every little bit helped. Emma leaned down to give Dash’s ears a scratch. “Thanks for the run, buddy. Be good for your dad when your mom and I are trying to not fall asleep during our meetings later.”
“Oh, he won’t be,” Lars replied, smiling fondly at Dash. “But it’s cool. I’ll take him bikejoring later or something.”
Emma gave Dash’s head a pat. Even having been around wheelchairs all her life, she had still been thrown the first time she’d seen the husky gleefully pulling Lars’ handcycle through campus, but it turned out that bikejoring—having a dog pull you on a bike—was a popular activity with husky owners when snow was in short supply. The breed had been bred to run and pull, after all, and she’d learned after a week of running with Beca and Dash that he lived for the exercise. “Don’t pull your dad into a ditch, then, my dude.”
