“It happened at the rink when she was giving Sophie a skating lesson.”
Without listening for more, Bergy pulled out his phone and started dialing, and Jonny punched the wall, sending a whiteboard and markers clattering to the ground.
“Hold on,” Jim said, holding up his hands. “Everyone’s going to be fine.”
“Going to be?” I croaked out. “Meaning they’re not fine now.”
“Sophie is completely unharmed. Scared, but that’s all. Cadence got her out of the rink and had her call nine-one-one while she took on the bastard on her own.”
“By herself?” Jonny repeated. “Where the fuck was the guy who works at the rink?”
“Guy hit him over the head with something and knocked him out. They said he was an older man, and likely couldn’t have put up much of a fight, anyway. He’s got a hell of a headache and might have a concussion, but he’s fine, otherwise.”
“Where was Paige?” Bergy demanded. “She’s supposed to be there during the lessons if I can’t be.”
“She’d forgotten something for one of the other girls and left to go deal with that. Guy waited until it was just the old man, the little girl, and Cadence.”
So Cadence truly had been all on her own against the son of a bitch.
“And Cadence?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“She’s in the hospital,” Jim said. “But she’s going to be fine.”
That wasn’t good enough for me. Not even close to good enough.
I felt like I was going to be sick, but I needed to know everything. “Tell me what he did. Tell me what he did to her.”
“I will,” Jim said. “But first, I need you to tell me if you think you can play tonight.”
Play? A stupid fucking game? My girlfriend had just been attacked by a psychotic ex, so the last thing in the world I wanted to think about was hockey.
Before I answered, Jonny said, “No. We need to go home. Both of us.”
I raised a brow at him, but he glowered in return. I supposed that was a good thing, and there wasn’t much positive to take from this this other than the news that Cadence would be all right.
Jim nodded. “I thought as much. Rachel’s already working on it. We’ll get you out of here as soon as possible.”
“But you can’t play tonight with only five D,” I argued.
“Just got word from the doctors,” Bergy said. “Colesy’s cleared to play. Get your ass out of here before I change my mind.”
LAURA WEBER’S FACE and the glare of fluorescent lights met my eyes when I came to again.
I squinted and held an arm over my face to block out some of the brightness, groaning.
“Too much?” she asked. Then she turned to someone else in the room. “Can we turn the lights down?”
“Got it,” said someone who sounded an awful lot like Katie.
The blinding quality of the lights faded, until it didn’t hurt too much to keep my eyes open.
“Katie?” I said. My voice croaked over the word, and I realized how dry and scratchy my mouth and throat were. I tried to swallow, hoping it would aid the flow of my saliva so at least that part of me would stop hurting.
“Yeah. I’m here. Mom and Dani are here, too.” She came over and took my hand, and I blinked a few times to bring her into focus. She and her mother looked almost like twins with the fuzziness clouding my vision, except for the fact that one had long hair and the other had short.
“What…?” I couldn’t even finish the question.
“Guy is in prison. He’s most likely facing deportation, following the stalking and physical assault charges. You’re in the hospital. You cracked open your skull and have a concussion. Got a few staples in your head, but it’s not too bad. They had to cut away a bit of hair to clean you up, but there’s plenty to hide it while it grows out again. There’s some bruising on your throat from where he tried to strangle you, but the concussion is what the doctors are worried about more than anything. The bruises will heal.”
“So it’s nothing horrible that’ll keep me down for too long?” I asked.
Katie gave me a look. “Concussions are a pretty big deal. You might not be able to skate for a while.”
I brushed that off. Compared to what could have happened, that was nothing. “And Sophie? What about Gord?”
“Sophie finally agreed to go home with her mother once the three of us got here to stay with you,” Laura said. “She didn’t want to leave your side. Gord, too, but he’s in excellent condition. More a precaution than anything. It seems Guy hit him over the head with something off the desk. He’s got a mild concussion, too, but he should be back on his feet in no time.”
“Well, I suppose that’s a relief.” I’d imagined all sorts of awful things about what might have happened to Gord. And Sophie. The knowledge that they’d come away relatively unscathed was a blessing.
Katie nodded. “Your brother and Levi are on a flight back to Portland as we speak. In fact, they might already have landed. Could be here at any time.”
“Don’t they have a game tonight?” My brother had never missed a game unless it was for a reason out of his control, like an injury or a suspension. He just didn’t do that.
“Game’s on as we speak,” Dani said. “They’re still coming home. Bergy would be with them, too, if not for Paige convincing him that Sophie was completely unharmed.”
Laura pulled up the chair next to my bed and sat. “I got off the phone with your mother a little bit ago. She and your sisters are looking into flights.”
“They shouldn’t bother,” I said, swallowing some more. Everything to do with using my voice hurt. Maybe there wasn’t any permanent damage from when he’d strangled me, but it definitely didn’t feel good at the moment. “I’ll text Mom and tell her I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Laura replied, raising a brow. “And even if you are, it’s a mother’s right and responsibility to overreact when one of her babies is hurt—and you’re always going to be her baby, no matter how old you grow up to be. Overreacting is part of what we do.”
“I just left Sara in the waiting room,” Dani added, easily changing the subject to something equally painful for me. “She was in here with you for a while, but she had to go sort out some trouble that Connor was getting into. I can go take over for her, though.”
I shook my head, then wished I hadn’t moved that much. “Don’t. Trying to watch that little boy will put you off ever having kids of your own.” And I wasn’t sure I was ready to face Sara after being as stupid as I’d been today. And it wasn’t just today, either. It had started from the moment I’d first arrived in Portland at New Year’s Eve. What if I’d been alone with the kids, instead of with Sophie? What if Guy had attacked when I’d been at the house with all of them instead of at the rink? Any of those things could have happened. I’d put them all in terrible danger, and if Sara didn’t light into me, then no doubt Cam would.
“So now what?” I asked.
Laura poured some water into a cup for me and passed it over.
“It is water, not wine,” Dani said with a grin and a wink. “Already checked.”
Laura rolled her eyes. “What you do now is you stay here until the doctors decide you can leave. At some point, you’ll have to give a statement to the police about what happened. There’s video, though. The rink had security cameras rolling, so it’s all been captured. That should mean you won’t need to be involved too heavily in whatever legal proceedings take place.”
“Or at least that’s the hope,” Katie said.
I nodded and took a sip from the water because Laura was giving me a mom sort of look. Everything I did and everything they said made my head hurt worse, though, so I rubbed my forehead.
“Do you want us to leave you alone?” Dani asked. “We should. Come on, Mom.” She took her mother by the arm and dragged her toward the door. “Katie, you coming?” she said, stopping to look over her shoulder.
“I’ll be out in a minut
e,” Katie said.
The door closed behind them, and then Katie looked down at me with kind eyes. “Jamie told me he’d never seen his brother such a mess before. Levi’s pretty torn up over you.”
“I’m a mess over him, too. I mean— Not that there’s anything—”
“Good,” she cut in, saving me from trying to explain. “We’re both behind you, Jamie and I. We want to see Levi happy. I think you can help with that. You are helping with it.”
The door to my room banged open, and I winced up at Levi and my brother. Sara and the kids were right behind the two of them, with Sara trying to grab on to Cam and calm him down even as she wrangled the kids.
“Shh!” Katie hissed in their direction. “She’s got a concussion.”
I couldn’t do anything but stare at Levi as he rushed in and took the seat Laura had left vacant, taking my hand in both of his. He lifted it and kissed my knuckles.
A smile crept to my lips. “Amazing. I think I feel a bit better.” The words croaked out, and I forced myself to take another sip from my water.
“You should kiss her on her booboo,” Connor demanded. “Kiss it and make it better. That’s what Mommy always does.”
“I’m not sure it works that way with this kind of booboo,” Levi said, chuckling without taking his eyes from mine.
Connor climbed up onto my bed on the other side and let out a beleaguered sigh, rolling his eyes. “You don’t know nothin’, do you?” Then he inched up higher on my bed and kissed me on the top of my head. “There. Now CayCay will be all better.”
“Just like that?” I asked.
“Yep. Now can we go feed the agilators?”
“Not tonight, buddy,” Sara said. “The bad guy’s in jail.”
He gave me a devious grin. “We could bring the agilators to jail.” Then he cackled.
Suddenly, my head didn’t hurt quite as much as it had before. Maybe the kisses really could make it all better. Just in case, I had every intention of demanding that Levi kiss me all over, as soon as they let me leave this hospital.
LATER THAT NIGHT, they discharged Cadence from the hospital with instructions on how to take care of the staples in her head and when to follow up on the concussion with her doctor. Jonny and I both agreed that we wanted her to see the same head specialist that Jens had been working with since being out of our lineup for the last few months, dealing with the same thing.
What we didn’t agree on was where Cadence should go once they let her leave the hospital. He seemed to think that now that Guy was effectively out of the picture, she should go back to living in the spare room of his house. I wasn’t on board with that—not at all—so I enlisted help from Katie and Dani.
“The last thing Cadence needs right now is to be surrounded by kids and chaos,” I argued within the sisters’ hearing.
“There’s not chaos at my house,” Jonny replied.
At that very moment, Connor cackled as he made an attempt to climb his father.
I gave him an oh-really sort of look.
“Levi has a point,” Katie said.
Dani nodded. “But honestly, shouldn’t it be up to Cadence where she goes? I’d think she should have some say in this.”
“They said she shouldn’t make any big life decisions,” Jonny grumbled.
Both sisters rolled their eyes at the same time.
In the end, we got him to admit it should be up to Cadence. She agreed with me.
Katie and Dani came with us back to my place to help me settle her in and make sure she had everything she needed. They had packed up the duffel bag she’d taken with her to spend the weekend with them, but they didn’t stick around too long. All Cadence wanted to do was snuggle against me on the couch, resting her head on my shoulder with her eyes closed. Needless to say, I was more than all right with that arrangement. It meant she was in my arms, right where she belonged.
The next day, there were more visitors at my apartment than I’d ever had in all the time I’d been living here combined. Cadence put on a robe and a smile, but I knew better than to trust the smile. I made it a point to keep a close eye on her for signs of fatigue, ready to kick everyone out at a moment’s notice.
Midmorning, Paige brought all her girls over because Sophie needed to see for herself that Cadence was going to be fine. Her sisters kept their giggling to a minimum, thank goodness.
“Cadence?” Sophie said, holding tight to her hand.
“Hmm?”
“You can be Levi’s best girlfriend now.”
The other girls got quiet, and their expressions clearly said awwwwww, even if they didn’t voice it aloud, but Cadence sat upright too fast.
She closed her eyes and waited a moment, probably hoping the shooting pains or nausea, or whatever it was this time, would quit. Then she gave Sophie a very serious look. “I can’t be, because you are, Sophie Bug.”
Sophie shrugged. “It’s okay. I’ll let you. And you can kiss him and stuff, too, as long as I can be his other girlfriend.”
Cadence spluttered and looked over to me for help.
I got up and dragged a hand through my hair, studiously avoiding her gaze. “I need to…uh…” I didn’t have the first clue what I needed to do other than get the hell out of Dodge, so I did exactly that, disappearing down the hall to my bedroom.
Because the direction of this conversation was making me think of one thing—marriage. And the more I thought of it, the less it sounded like a bad idea. Whether I wanted to pursue that or not, though, now wasn’t the time to broach the subject.
I waited about ten minutes and then headed back out, hoping they would be on a different topic by now. As soon as I reached the living room again, someone was knocking on my door.
“We should go,” Paige said, giving each of her girls a meaningful look. They blushed when they glanced up at me, so I headed over to answer the door while they busied themselves gathering their coats and purses, not to mention prying Sophie’s grip away from Cadence’s hand.
A few of the other guys’ wives were waiting on my porch. I ushered them in, and Paige herded her daughters out so they could exchange places.
The day continued in that fashion for a long time. Nearly all of the Storm WAGs dropped by, some of them bringing food and others with flowers or books to keep Cadence busy while she recovered. Soupy, Burnzie, and Jens all stopped in, since they were in town recovering from injuries. Jens and Cadence sat together in the dining room, quietly talking about concussions, while the rest of us hung out in the living room.
Early in the afternoon, Anthony and Jesse showed up to fawn over her. They hadn’t even stopped at their place after returning from their honeymoon in Hawaii. Anthony had a nice tan, but Jesse was as red as a lobster.
“Even with SPF 100,” he said. “That sun’s no joke.”
I had to fight not to laugh at him, because the guy winced with every tiny movement.
“So I guess I’m skating on my own for a while,” Anthony said.
“For a while,” Cadence agreed. “I’m hoping it won’t be a long while, though.”
“We’re not messing around with a concussion, though,” he said, ignoring her pout.
They hung around for a while but excused themselves before I was ready to kick them out.
Then Jonny and Sara came over—sans kids, thank goodness—late in the day.
“They’re with Daddy,” Sara said.
“How’d you manage that one?” I asked.
“He’s wrapped around my little finger,” she replied. “Cassidy is quickly learning how to convince her Pops to do anything she wants, too.”
Cadence raised a brow. “How’s that?”
“Kisses and giggles.”
Jonny took a seat in the recliner and stretched out his long legs. “I convinced Mom the last thing you need while you’re recovering is for all of them to come down from Winnipeg.”
Cadence let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. Today has been more than enough, and that’s without
Mom getting in the middle of it.”
“You look tired,” he said.
All she did to respond was nod. She felt tired to me. Once again, she was curled up against my side on the couch, resting her head on my shoulder. Usually, she kept more of her weight off me than this, but right now she’d completely collapsed into me. I didn’t mind in the least, other than recognizing just how worn out she was in order to let go like this.
“I told Jim I could rejoin the team,” he said slowly. “Play in the next game.”
Shit. I wasn’t ready to leave her again. Not yet. Why hadn’t Jim talked to me about this?
“He’s had Rachel book me a flight to join the team in Edmonton tomorrow morning.”
“Just you?” Cadence asked, inching closer to my side. I rubbed my hand up and down her arm. There was no chance I’d be allowed to miss another game now that we knew she was going to be all right. Especially not if Jonny was going back already.
“Just me. We’ll be home again the next day.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
Jonny fixed me with a stare. “I told him that even though she’s going to be fine, my sister is in no condition to be left alone. That she needs you.”
I had to fight off a grin at understanding what that meant.
Jonny wasn’t going to kill me. He’d decided to accept me as part of Cadence’s world.
GRADUALLY, CADENCE WAS starting to get back to everyday life.
For the first couple of weeks after Guy’s attack, she’d spent a lot of time in dark, quiet rooms with her eyes closed. Jens, Jonny, and I had ganged up on her about going to see the concussion specialist, and she’d eventually given in. Now that spring was in the air, she was starting to act more like her normal self.
They still hadn’t cleared her to resume skating again, but some lighter exercise was allowed. On my days off when the team was in town, I tried to spend every possible moment at her side, at least as long as she wasn’t growling at me to back off.
She was a lot like Sophie, in some ways. Cadence wanted to do everything for herself and not be coddled along. I found it difficult to avoid helping her more than I should. It killed me to see her struggling to do everyday things, or becoming exhausted from what she could have handled with ease only a month ago.
Losing an Edge Page 22
