Centuria Books · Man Advantage 4
Man Advantage 4 — Read the First Chapter
Two married hockey stars pull two drowning kittens from a flooded arena trench. Then they put both animals in Marin Rowe’s arms and decide the stubborn college senior is theirs to manage.
Chapter 1
The first kitten screamed through the arena speakers, and Marin Rowe pulled off one side of her headset.
Rain hammered the control-room glass; below her, Northbank Arena sat empty and blue after the charity skate. The last children had gone home with signed pucks; the last donors had gone somewhere warmer to congratulate themselves. Two strips of work light burned over the ice while the Zamboni finished its slow final lap.
The scream came again.
Small. Raw. Wrong.
It bled through channel nine, the old service microphone under the south stands.
Marin killed the music feed and leaned over the board; channel nine should have been dead. The cable ran beside the Zamboni trench, through a concrete throat that flooded every time Boston got more than an inch of rain. She knew because she had written three repair tickets and received three cheerful notices that the matter had been assigned.
Assigned meant ignored with a tracking number.
She pushed the talk switch. “Facilities, hold the machine.”
Static answered.
The Zamboni kept moving.
Marin checked the camera grid; the south service hall was black. Camera nineteen had lost power at 9:14. Camera twenty showed a sliver of wet concrete and one orange work cone drifting past on its side.
That was new, and she was already out of her chair when the control-room door opened.
Cold air arrived first. Then Colin Bissett.
He filled the doorway in a black wool coat that probably cost more than Marin’s first car. His hair was still wet from a shower. A pale scar cut into the edge of his lower lip, and his crooked nose kept the rest of his face from becoming too handsome to trust.
Behind him stood his husband.
Gabe Leduc wore the same Boston Bastions suit he had worn on the ice before the charity game, minus the tie. His sandy-brown hair curled damp over his forehead. He had dark eyes, heavy shoulders, and the kind of mouth sports reporters mistook for friendly.
Marin had watched him grin before drawing three penalties in one period, and she knew better.
“Tours ended forty minutes ago,” she said.
Colin looked past her to the dead soundboard. “What was that?”
The kitten cried again, and Gabe’s smile vanished.
“South trench.” Marin grabbed the emergency keys from the wall. “And the hall camera just drowned.”
Colin stepped aside.
Not polite. Efficient.
Marin ran.
The metal stairs rang under three sets of feet. She took them two at a time, one hand on the rail, her radio banging against her hip. The men stayed close enough that their footfalls merged with hers.
At the bottom, a red rope blocked the service tunnel.
FACILITIES STAFF ONLY.
FLOOD HAZARD.
Gabe lifted it over Marin’s head.
“I work here,” she snapped.
“Then lead, technician.”
He made the word sound like a dare, and she ducked under before she gave him the satisfaction of looking back.
The south hall smelled of wet concrete, machine oil, and the clean mineral bite of fresh ice. Water ran around Marin’s boots, and it deepened at the corner.
Six inches.
Then eight.
The emergency lights stained everything red.
“Power?” Colin asked.
“Isolated from this hall.”
“You certain?”
Marin stopped so fast Gabe nearly walked into her.
“No,” she said. “I enjoy wading through live current for the scholarship stories.”
Gabe laughed once behind her.
Colin did not; his gray eyes went to the cable trays, the water, and her face.
“Show me the isolation switch.”
“Show yourself out.”
The kitten screamed again, and Marin turned and pushed through the fire door.
The trench lay beyond the Zamboni bay. It was a narrow service channel sunk below the floor, meant to carry meltwater and hold the old blade-wash pipes. A steel grate covered most of it.
Most.
One panel had been lifted for the week’s demolition survey and left propped against the wall. Brown water churned through the open space; a broken pallet had lodged sideways below the lip.
Something orange clung to it; two bright eyes flashed beneath the pallet.
“There are two,” Marin said.
The orange kitten cried. A smaller charcoal shape tried to climb over its back and slid into the water.
Gabe moved before Marin reached the edge, and he caught her around the waist and pulled her back against his chest.
“Let go.”
“You first.”
“They’re drowning.”
“And you weigh enough to break the pallet.”
His arm was hard across her middle; heat pushed through her work shirt. He smelled like clean skin, rain, and the sharp glue of hockey tape.
Her body noticed all of it at the worst possible time, and Marin drove her elbow back.
Gabe shifted. She hit muscle and earned a low breath near her ear.
“Mean,” he said.
“Move.”
Colin stripped off his coat.
“Leduc.”
Gabe released her at once.
The change was small. A turn of his head. One word from his husband.
It landed harder than shouting, and Colin folded the coat and put it in Marin’s arms.
“Hold that.”
She dropped it on a dry equipment case; his gaze touched the heap of black wool, then returned to her.
“You have a better plan?” he asked.
“A ladder. A harness. Facilities staff.”
“How long?”
The orange kitten lost one paw; its claws scraped wood.
Marin swore.
“Exactly.” Colin crouched at the trench.
Gabe took off his suit jacket and dropped it on top of Colin’s coat. “If you go in wearing those pants, Murray will kill you.”
“Coach has tried.”
“His mistake was witnesses.”
Colin looked up. “Anchor me.”
The husbands did not discuss it further.
Gabe lay flat on the wet concrete and locked both hands around Colin’s right ankle. Colin lowered himself into the trench feetfirst; water swallowed his polished shoes, his calves, then his knees.
It reached his thighs before his boots found a pipe.
“Current?” Gabe asked.
“No.”
“Broken bones?”
“Not mine.”
Colin leaned across the rushing water; the kitten tried to climb toward him. The pallet shifted.
Marin saw the old iron bracket give.
“Colin.”
His name came out before she could stop it, and he looked at her.
“Left side,” she said. “The bracket’s pulling loose.”
He changed his weight; the bracket tore from the wall.
The pallet spun.
Gabe’s body snapped tight. Colin plunged one arm into the water and caught the charcoal kitten by the loose skin over its shoulders. The orange one slid the other way, crying once before the current pulled it under the grate.
Marin hit her knees beside Gabe.
“There’s an access slot three feet down,” she said. “It feeds the wash basin.”
“Can it get through?” Gabe asked.
“Not if the valve is closed.”
“Is it?”
“It was at six.”
Gabe turned his face toward hers.
Rainwater and sweat shone at his temple. All the false ease was gone.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Then get him out and go look for yourself.”
His eyes narrowed.
Colin lifted the charcoal kitten above the lip. “Take her.”
Marin reached.
Gabe blocked her with one shoulder and took the kitten against his chest.
“I know how to hold a cat,” Marin said.
“Good. Find the valve.”
The kitten sank its claws through Gabe’s dress shirt.
He did not flinch.
Marin ran around the trench; the basin valve sat behind a cage beside the blade-wash station. Her key stuck once. She jammed it in harder, opened the cage, and found the wheel turned halfway.
Water hammered through the pipe; the demolition survey crew had opened it.
Of course they had.
Marin braced both boots and hauled the wheel clockwise. It resisted. She put her shoulder into it; rust gave with a scream.
The pipe shuddered; the water slowed.
“Closed!” she shouted.
Gabe dragged Colin out of the trench.
Colin rolled onto his side, soaked from the waist down; the charcoal kitten trembled beneath Gabe’s open shirt, pressed to his bare skin.
The orange kitten cried behind the grate, and Colin got to his feet.
“You’re bleeding,” Marin said.
“Later.”
A dark line ran from his palm to his wrist, and he ignored it and followed the pipe toward the basin.
The wash station was a steel sink deep enough to swallow a tire, and Marin opened the cabinet beneath it. Gabe crouched beside her with the charcoal kitten tucked inside his shirt.
The pipe vibrated; something scratched within it.
“We cut here,” Marin said, pointing to the rubber coupling. “The section drops.”
Colin found a wrench on the maintenance cart.
“That pipe is older than all three of us,” she said. “If you torque it wrong, it cracks at the wall.”
He held out the wrench.
“Then you do it.”
Marin took it.
The men crowded behind her while she loosened the first clamp, and Gabe held his phone flashlight over her shoulder. Colin steadied the pipe with both hands; his bleeding palm left a red print on the steel.
“Other light,” she said.
Gabe moved it.
“Not there. I need the seam.”
“Demanding little thing.”
Marin looked back at him. “You want the kitten or my manners?”
His dimple appeared; cruel, just as advertised.
“Both.”
She turned the wrench harder; the coupling came free.
Colin lowered the pipe section; a rush of brown water struck the bucket Marin had shoved beneath it.
Then the orange kitten slid out, and Gabe caught it one-handed.
The sound he made was not a word.
It was soft. Hurt. Almost private.
The kitten lay limp in his palm.
Marin took it from him; its body was cold. Water ran from its nose.
She wrapped one hand around its ribs and rubbed with the other.
“Come on.”
Nothing.
“Come on, you loud little bastard.”
Colin knelt in front of her. Blood dripped from his fingers to the floor.
The kitten coughed.
Once.
Twice.
Then it bit Marin’s thumb.
Pain flashed to her wrist.
She laughed.
Relief made it shaky.
“There you are.”
The orange kitten yelled at her with renewed fury.
Gabe sat back on his heels; water had soaked through both knees of his suit pants. His shirt hung open around the charcoal kitten, which had crawled up his chest and attached itself below his collarbone.
Marin looked from one enormous hockey star to the other.
Colin’s trousers were ruined, and Gabe had blood beading where tiny claws had raked him. Both men watched the kittens as if the rest of the arena had stopped existing.
The sight reached somewhere under her ribs, and she did not invite it.
Colin stood first. “They need a vet.”
“The university shelter has an overnight agreement with Harbor Animal.” Marin tucked the orange kitten under her work jacket. “I’ll drive them.”
Gabe rose beside her. “In what?”
“A car.”
“The blue hatchback by the loading dock?”
She went still.
“Why do you know which car is mine?”
“It has three different wheels.”
“Two.”
“That defense sounded expensive.”
Colin picked up his coat and checked the label with one glance; water had reached it after all.
“You have a carrier?” he asked.
“At Bellwether.”
“Where is that?”
“Not your concern.”
Gabe pulled the charcoal kitten from his shirt, and it protested, then settled in his wide hands.
He placed it in Marin’s arms on top of the orange one; warmth and damp fur filled the space between her chest and chin.
“There,” he said.
Marin adjusted her grip. “There what?”
“Your first mistake.”
Colin took the orange kitten from beneath her jacket; for one sharp second Marin thought he meant to separate them.
Then he set it beside the charcoal kitten in the crook of her other arm.
“And your second,” he said.
Both kittens stared up at her; the orange one sneezed.
The charcoal one climbed her shirt, and Marin caught a tiny back foot before it reached her collar.
“Mine?” she asked.
Gabe leaned close enough that his wet shirt brushed her wrist.
“You were ready to jump into a drain for them.”
“That does not make me their owner.”
“It makes you the easiest target.”
His voice had changed. Lower. Amused again.
The emergency light drew red along one side of his face, and Colin stepped behind Marin.
He did not touch her, and he did something worse. He stood close enough that she felt his body as heat along her back while Gabe occupied the space in front of her.
The kittens made it impossible to shove either man; that was not an accident.
“You live in student housing,” Colin said. “You work nights. You have a car that loses arguments with potholes.”
“And yet I survived all the way to twenty-one without your review.”
Gabe’s gaze dropped to her mouth.
“Barely, by the look of you.”
Marin glanced down at herself. Wet work shirt. Black cargo pants. Boots full of trench water. A kitten clinging to each breast.
She looked back up.
“You are kneeling in a flooded machine room with your husband’s blood on your cuff.”
Gabe checked the red smear.
“Colin’s blood improves most things.”
Behind her, Colin exhaled through his nose, and it might have been a laugh.
“She’ll call by midnight,” Gabe said.
“It is midnight.” Marin shifted the kittens higher.
“Then by one.”
“Why?”
“Because you have no carrier, no food, no litter, and no idea whether charcoal there swallowed half the trench.”
“I have supplies.”
“For two?”
The answer lodged behind her teeth, and Gabe saw it.
His dimple cut deep.
“Soft target.”
Marin stepped on his polished shoe.
Hard.
His eyes darkened, and he did not move back.
“Say that again,” she said.
“You heard me.”
“I heard a man who got checked into the Bastions’ bench by a rookie last Thursday.”
“He needed six stitches.”
“You needed help standing.”
Colin’s hand settled on Gabe’s shoulder.
Not to restrain him.
To claim the moment.
Gabe turned his head and met Colin’s eyes; something passed between them. Heat. Warning. Permission of a kind Marin could not read and did not need explained.
Then both men looked at her; her pulse struck once, low and hard.
Dangerous.
Good.
She was tired of acceptable things, and she hated that her body had chosen now to remember it.
Colin reached into his coat, took out his phone, and held it in front of her face.
“Number.”
“No.”
“The kittens are half drowned.”
“You are not their vet.”
“We pulled them out.”
“That bought you gratitude. You spent it five insults ago.”
Gabe slid Marin’s radio from the clip at her waist; her hands were full, and he knew it.
“Put that back.”
He turned it over, read the white equipment label, then hooked it neatly onto her belt again. His knuckles dragged the bare strip of skin above her waistband.
Too slow.
Very much on purpose.
Marin’s stomach tightened.
“Marin Rowe,” he read.
Colin typed it into his phone.
“Do I get to steal your wallet next?” Marin asked.
“You can try.” Gabe leaned down. “I would enjoy the search afterward.”
She should have backed away; instead she lifted her chin.
The orange kitten sneezed between them, and Gabe looked offended.
Marin smiled.
“He has judgment.”
“He has trench water in his nose.”
“And still enough sense to dislike you.”
Colin held out his phone again. “Your number, Marin.”
The way he said her name made it heavier.
She studied him over the kittens’ wet heads, and he was not smiling. Colin Bissett did not have Gabe’s easy cruelty; his was colder. Built to last.
His bleeding hand hung at his side, and he had gone into black water without hesitation.