“I know, but I didn’t think you were serious.”
Niki smiled. She wouldn’t change her mind, well, unless it was to coach Rory’s hockey team. It was time to enjoy the important things in her life, the things that mattered most to her now: Rory, Eva, her teaching job at the university. Hockey would always be one of her favorite things, but from now on it would be much, much farther down the list.
“What about you, Eva?” Rory said. “Are you really not gonna play anymore?”
Doesn’t this kid believe anything anybody says? Well, Niki thought, she couldn’t blame her if she didn’t. When Shannon was dying, Niki had vowed she was finished coaching at the highest levels, and yet she’d broken her word. Rory had forgiven her, had actually encouraged her to do it, but now it was time to give her daughter a stable home life.
“Nope,” Eva said. “My playing days are done. My knees have sealed that deal.”
Eva would need another surgery in the summer. Her final one, they both hoped, until it was time for a full knee replacement a few years down the road. Playing high-level hockey again was definitely not an option.
“Will you coach my team next year? Please? I want both of you to coach me.”
Rory had been playing this little game of trying to pin down commitments and plans from Eva in the weeks following the Olympics. It couldn’t be more obvious that she wanted Eva’s presence in their lives to be permanent, and she’d continued to bait them both.
“Actually,” Eva said, stopping their progress and turning to face Niki and Rory. “There’s something I want to ask both of you. Well, your mom mainly, but it’s something you both have to answer.”
Oh shit, Niki thought, her throat suddenly as dry as the sand beneath her feet. She’d suspected in the deepest part of her soul that this moment would come eventually, but she hadn’t expected to feel so nervous, hadn’t expected it to happen now. She wanted this, of course she did, but the idea scared the living hell out of her too.
Eva dropped slowly to one knee and reached for Niki’s left hand. Her eyes were moist, resolute with determination, but there was a tiny amount of fear there too.
“Niki Hartling, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She heard Rory’s intake of breath, but she couldn’t peel her eyes from Eva’s. “I, I…” Her mouth was full of cotton, sucking back her words, leaving them there. Eva waited. She was patient, but her eyes widened in disbelief with each passing second.
“Mom!” Rory squealed.
“Honey, this is between Eva and me. Well, you too, but—”
“Niki, it’s okay,” Eva said, her voice quavering, her tone flattening out. Carefully, she pulled herself to her feet, and Niki wanted to cry, wanted to tell her to give her a minute, but she couldn’t speak.
“It’s…I’m sorry,” Eva said, her voice sounding like it was under water. It pierced Niki’s heart. “It was a bad idea. I understand if you think it’s way too soon.” Eva was in the midst of closing down her Traverse City business and would be moving in with Niki and Rory in the next month. It was a big step, one they’d talked about and were comfortable with. But it was the only step they’d talked about until now.
“No,” Niki said, holding up her other hand. “It’s not. Just…Everybody just wait.” The flow of heat from Eva’s hand in hers calmed her, reduced the shock of her proposal, which shouldn’t have been a shock at all, but it was; the actual words absolutely were. She never expected to marry again, even though Shannon had tried to get her to promise she would if she met someone deserving.
That day, in the hospital, came rushing back to her. Shannon was hours from death, in and out of consciousness. She was so pale, so thin, lying against those stark white sheets, bones jutting out like little tent poles. The room was quiet but for the beeping of the heart monitor machine—the only thing at times that told her Shannon was still alive. And then Shannon opened her eyes, looked straight at her and told her she had to promise she wouldn’t spend her life alone. That she would find love again.
Niki hadn’t been able to promise it, hadn’t wanted to promise it, and so she’d left Shannon hanging. Now she looked at Eva and Rory, both of them expectantly gazing back at her. She swallowed, told her pounding heart to settle the hell down enough to let her get the words out.
“Eva, I love you. And I do want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“But?” Eva said quietly.
She didn’t want to say certain things in front of Rory. But Rory was a smart kid; she’d been through more pain and heartache than any kid her age should have to bear. “Marriage doesn’t…It…Bad things can happen. Things beyond our control.”
“I don’t want to lose another wife” is what she wanted to say but couldn’t. Not in front of Rory.
Eva smiled through her tears. She squeezed Niki’s hand. “Good things happen too, Nik, whether we’re married or not. And I’m willing to gamble everything on more good things happening than bad. And you know what?”
“What?”
“Whatever happens in the future, it’s a hell of a lot easier if we face it together. As a married couple.” Eva stepped closer, brought her hand to Niki’s chin and raised it. “I’m an all-or-nothing kind of gal, you know. I won’t live in sin with you forever. I want you as my wife. And I want Rory as my daughter. My legally, adopted daughter. Anything less than all of that…What can I say. It’s a deal breaker.”
It had never felt so good giving in. This was Eva asking her to marry her. Her first love. The woman she was meant to be with. The woman who would make a fantastic stepmother to her daughter. “You drive a hard bargain, lady.”
Eva laughed, relief in her voice. “It can be a long engagement, you know. Or is that showing my hand too much?”
Rory stepped between them. “Are you two getting married or what?”
Eva’s eyebrows rose playfully. “Well?”
“Yes! Yes we’re getting married.” Above Rory’s head, she kissed Eva on the lips.
“Now that,” Eva said, “is better than any medal. Gold or silver or even bronze.”
Rory threw her arms around them both, and the three of them huddled in a long group hug. After a moment, Niki caught Eva’s eye again. She wanted to freeze-frame this moment forever. But since she couldn’t, the next best thing was to continue having moments like this. For as long as she could.
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