by Skye Jordan
“What?” he asked, frustrated.
“The way you’re looking at it doesn’t make sense. Life, by its very nature, is unstable. Your job, for example, is terribly unstable. You could be traded and moved to the West Coast next week. Our whole family could lose Lily in an instant, which you know would tear us up. But that doesn’t keep us from loving her.”
She gestured absently. “And then there’s Kim. Until you’ve got her signatures on those custody papers, she could flip on a dime and demand Lily back. And considering it took her over two years to get around to telling you Lily even existed, then forced you to make all the effort in visitation for the next two years, I doubt Kim would be interested in fostering a relationship between Lily and her extended family. But that doesn’t keep us from forging a bond with her now.”
Beckett rubbed his eyes and nodded, but he was so focused on the potential guilt of hurting his family if he lost the Rough Riders or Kim took custody of Lily that he couldn’t figure out what Sarah was trying to tell him.
“And how does that relate to Eden?” he asked, already wincing in anticipation of Sarah’s frustration with his denseness.
His sister didn’t disappoint. She threw her hands wide. “How in the hell does your brain think so fast on the ice? I don’t get it.”
“Sarah.”
She heaved a sigh. “By not taking the chance, you may not have to deal with the downside of the situation, but you’re also missing out on the potential beauty of a relationship. For you and Lily. Besides, not having relationships because you’re afraid of hurting Lily in itself is hurting Lily. What kind of role model is that? Would you want Lily putting her life on hold the same way?”
He thought about it. “No.”
“No. And honestly, as long as you stay in Lily’s life, that’s all the stability she needs. Look at me and Griff and the girls. Griff goes away for long periods of time. We all live with the fear that one day we’ll be told he’s never coming home. You come and go from the girls’ lives weekly. And they’re fine. They’re happy and well-adjusted and thriving because I am their constant.”
“You think so?”
She smiled and gestured toward the girls, who were running to the top of the slope to roll down into the leaves again. “There is your proof.”
Beckett imagined introducing Eden and Lily and smiled. Nodded. Excitement sparked at the center of his body.
Lily splashed into the leaves, rolled, and sat up. Grinning ear to ear, autumn leaves stuck in her blonde curls, she looked at him. “Did you see that, Daddy?”
Beckett laughed, then told Sarah, “Maybe you’re right.”
“Go for it, Beck.” She clasped her hands around one knee and leaned back with a sly grin. “If for no other reason than so I can meet the woman who finally got you to walk away from a puck-bunny-threesome offer so you could make out with one anti-hockey chick in the corner. She’s got to be something else.”
Beckett was going to have to have a talk with the new Russian about keeping what happened with the team in the bars, with the team in the bars. “Fucking Andre.”
16
Eden walked into the Verizon arena feeling a lot like she had the first time she’d stepped on an ambulance—filled with a mix of anticipation, excitement, and hope, all wrapped up in a straitjacket of fear.
She’d overcome those fears and thrived. Eden hoped she could do the same with Beckett.
“Let’s walk around,” Gabe said beside her, his excitement palpable. “Pre-skate won’t start for another ten minutes.”
Whatever pre-skate was. Eden wasn’t asking too many questions. She was already overwhelmed. Today, she wanted to get an overall feel for this huge chunk of Beckett’s life. Simply making that purposeful decision to take him home, show him who she really was, and love him openly had been a major breakthrough in her life. Now, she was recovering with baby steps.
The halls were filled with a sea of fans in royal-blue Rough Riders jerseys. Excitement crackled in the air. Concession stands lined one side of the row, retail outlets the other side. She followed Gabe into a storefront where he picked up a Rough Riders scarf. While she waited, Eden found jerseys exactly like the one she wore and ran her hand over Beckett’s last name emblazoned across the shoulders.
“Aren’t you glad I made you wear it now?” Gabe asked, coming up to her.
She grinned. When he’d picked her up, she’d been in a regular sweater. They’d argued for ten minutes over her wearing Beckett’s jersey until Gabe had refused to take her to the game in anything else.
“Do you like the guy or not?” Gabe had asked.
“Yes, I like him,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I want to have his name tagged on my back like property.”
“It’s not about ownership,” Gabe argued, passionate. “It’s about support and pride and team spirit. It’s about wearing the name of the guy who impresses the hell out of you with his dedication and talent.”
That was the argument that made Eden cave. Because when she stripped away her fears, Beckett Croft did impress the hell out of her—in more ways than she could name.
Now, she relented. “Yes, I’m glad you made me wear it.”
Gabe grinned and laid his new scarf around his neck. “Let’s go find our killer seats.” He crossed the aisle and started down the stairs between sections. “Not that you’re going to appreciate them,” he shot over his shoulder, “since you didn’t appreciate standing rinkside.”
“Maybe I should have brought one of the other guys,” she teased.
“Don’t even.” He finally stopped and pointed to a row. “Right here.” Then he looked at the rink, ten rows and maybe thirty feet away. “Amazing.” And cut a serious look at Eden. “I want you to marry this guy. Do you hear me?”
Eden burst out laughing.
“I’m serious,” Gabe said.
“I know. That’s what’s so funny. That and the fact that I’m not marrying anyone.”
Their seats were on the end of the row, and as they sat, the lights dimmed. Colored spotlights roamed the ice, and the announcer introduced the Rough Riders. The crowd went wild, buzzers sounded, smoke shot from the ceiling, and the team filed out of a hallway beneath the stands directly across the ice from Eden’s and Gabe’s seats. The opposing team also came out onto the ice, each warming up at opposite ends of the rink.
The lights came up, the crowd quieted down, and music played over the speakers as the players took shots, passed, and generally loosened up.
Eden searched for Beckett, but the players all looked the same, so she scanned for his number—twenty-two. She found him slapping the puck into the net. He swung behind the goal, then turned and skated backward in a big loop.
His ease and grace and fluidity took Eden’s breath. His movements looked effortless and elegant, unlike anything she’d expected. Unlike anything she’d seen in those clips she’d watched. There, his skills had been sharp and choppy and brutal.
Eden felt like they’d only been on the ice moments before they returned to the locker room and the announcer distracted fans with promotional presentations and Rough Riders player statistics on the Jumbotron. Gabe picked up on one of the announcer’s threads about the roster and went off on a tangent about players and starters and strings that Eden wasn’t interested in following. She was still in awe of how quickly the seats had filled with blue.
So many fans.
Gabe had explained that this stadium was also used by another local NHL team, the Capitals. In the off-season, this was the home court for Washington’s local professional basketball team and often hosted major musical headliners.
Gabe said something about Beckett, and Eden cued in to her coworker’s dialogue. Turning to him, she said, “What?”
Gabe let out a breath, his lids lowered with a frustrated look. “You said you wanted to learn. If you don’t, that’s fine. I’ll shut up and enjoy the game.”
“I do. I’m sorry. This is a little overwhelming.”
“I was telling you that this is an important year for Beckett. His contract with the Rough Riders is up at the end of the season. He’ll become an unrestricted free agent—”
Eden shook her head and held her hands palms up.
“That means,” Gabe went on, “that if he kills it this season, he’ll be prime meat, up for grabs come July first. He’s getting pretty good money now, but that would set him up for big money. I’ve seen teams get in bidding wars over defensemen like him. He’ll be able to name his terms for the next four to eight years of his life, which is important at his age. And everyone agrees this has been his best season yet. They’re talking about him getting chosen for the men’s Olympic team.”
“Wow.” Eden tried to sound adequately impressed, but she’d already reached awestruck saturation. She also didn’t want to admit she hadn’t even realized there was a US Olympic ice hockey team. “What do you mean his age? He’s still so young.”
“Not for hockey. If these guys haven’t been written out of contracts or gone out with an injury by their early thirties, they start retiring. There are very few players in the game in their late thirties. Only a handful in their forties. Beckett’s headed into the last phase of his career, and he’ll want to go out on top.”
She wasn’t sure why that made tension pull across her shoulders. Something about the connection between his success and increased violence on the ice wasn’t sitting right.
Eden purposely pulled in a breath and cleared her mind of the irrational mental connections. She was really annoyed at how they kept popping up. How deeply they’d been ingrained. How hard it was to reprogram her brain.
Glancing at the clock on the Jumbotron, she was glad there was less than a minute until the first period started.
When her gaze returned to the ice, a group passing her on the steps caught her eye. It was hard not to notice a woman herding three young girls five rows closer to the ice—all four of them with Croft emblazoned from shoulder to shoulder.
A smile automatically tipped her lips up, but a pang stirred in her gut and dragged her happiness away. Eden pressed her hands to the discomfort in her belly and pulled her gaze from the group. She let the therapy and practiced responses take her mind from the painful memories.
The stadium filled with buzzers and sirens and lights. The announcer welcomed the Rough Riders into the rink once again, and Eden sought out Beckett’s jersey, then kept her eyes on him as the two teams set up for their face-off.
Even though Eden had played a variety of sports during grade school and high school, she couldn’t keep track of anything that was happening—it all happened so damn fast. Half the time, she couldn’t even find Beckett.
Gabe’s tutoring only confused her more. He spoke a language she didn’t know. The referees called penalties she didn’t understand. The players had an etiquette she couldn’t comprehend. The one that especially puzzled her was the way they all pushed and shoved and elbowed and tripped with what seemed like absolute detachment. The way one would slam the other against the wall, then both men would turn and race after the puck again, emotionless, as if the encounter never happened.
Her mind drifted back to that day at the Y and the way Tate and Andre had jockeyed for berries in a rough but good-natured way. Eden wasn’t sure if she should be encouraged or disturbed.
Beside her, Gabe was absorbed, cheering plays, commenting on strategy, and trying to explain it all to Eden. But the players and the puck all moved so damn fast, Eden found herself constantly lost, wondering what the hell everyone was cheering or booing.
She’d lost track of Beckett again when the stadium exploded in applause and noise and lights. Everyone around her jumped to their feet, and Eden couldn’t see anything. She glanced up at Gabe, who was clapping and saying something to her, but the buzzers and sirens were so loud, she couldn’t hear him.
He finally sat back down and grabbed her arm, his face bright with excitement. “Beckett scored! Man, what a shot.”
People sitting toward the middle of the row came toward the aisle, and she and Gabe stood to allow them to pass. Which made Eden look around. She found everyone squeezing out of the rows and flooding up the stairs. By the time she looked at the ice again, the players were gone. “What’s this?”
“Period break.” Gabe stood. “I’m going to grab a beer. Want something?”
Eden sighed and sat back. “No, thanks.”
She looked around the stadium, feeling frustrated and oddly left out. On the ice, a bunch of kids came out to play hockey. And, Lord, they looked so tiny on the big rink. The thought of Beckett on skates at two years old eased a little irritation.
Then her gaze fell on the girls in the forward rows. Their mom had gotten them cotton candy, and they were pulling off fluffy pieces and stuffing the sugar in their mouths, all while dancing to the music pouring through the stadium speakers.
Eden sighed. They were beautiful. The two older girls had long dark hair. The younger one had a head of sandy blonde curls. And it was the youngest one who tied her heartstrings in knots. Probably because she was so little. Probably because she was blonde. Most of the seats between Eden and the girls had been vacated for the break, and she had nothing to distract her from watching them. Nothing to keep her mind from wondering what her life would be like now if she’d walked out on John one day sooner.
The littlest girl danced a circle while eating pink cotton candy off her tiny fingers. Her gaze caught Eden’s and held. A big grin brightened her face. The girl looked like a little cherub and glowed like an angel. Eden felt like a fist reached inside and squeezed in a deeply bittersweet way that spread loss through her.
Then the girl extended her hand toward Eden. “Want some?”
Her voice was as sweet as her face. Despite the hurt, the girl’s raw innocence made Eden laugh. “No, but thank you, sweetie.”
The woman with the girls glanced over her shoulder and smiled at Eden.
“They’re beautiful,” she told the other woman.
She beamed. “Thank you.” She looked at the girls. “What do you say?”
“Thank you,” the older girls said in unison, smiling.
Then the little one followed, with an exaggerated and bubbly “Thank you.”
Their mother was pretty, and the two older girls looked just like her. The little one, not so much. The three girls continued to sway and turn circles with their threads of sugar. And Eden continued to watch, trapped in a situation she would never have endured otherwise. When she dealt with children on the job, her mind was already compartmentalized for work, she generally didn’t spend much time with them, and she was too busy to let her mind wander. This…this was torture. Maybe if these beauties had been boys, her heart wouldn’t be breaking and tears wouldn’t be thickening her throat.
Man, Tori was right. Eden needed to get out and live more. School and work weren’t giving her the exposure she needed to get over the past. She certainly couldn’t hide from relationships and children forever.
Gabe returned, offering her some much needed distraction. Fans refilled the seats between Eden and the little girls. And the game restarted shortly after, restoring Eden with a sense of equilibrium, albeit subdued.
For the remainder of the game, she tried really hard to focus on the plays, on Beckett, and on Gabe’s explanations. During the second break, Eden went to the restroom so she didn’t have to stare at those little girls again. And by the time the third period ended and the Rough Riders won, Eden thought she might have a better understanding of the game. She definitely had a better feel for the game.
To avoid running into the girls again, Eden quickly slid into the flow of fans making their way up the steps. She stayed close to Gabe as they navigated the mob until he’d used their passes to get them through the restricted access mazes underneath the stadium, where wives and girlfriends—WAGs, Gabe had called them—gathered to meet their men after the game.
Eden didn’t love the idea of being lumped in with
a group others referred to as WAGs or being seen as someone who waited for “her man.” But she’d have to make other arrangements next time, because she was already here.
When they stood at the mouth of the corridor, Gabe asked, “So where are you two going?”
“Out to dinner. I don’t know where. Somewhere close, I hope. I’m starving.”
“Have fun. Tell Beckett thanks for the tickets and great game.”
“Thanks for coming, Gabe.”
He laughed and offered an enthusiastic “Anytime.”
Stadium staff wandered the halls, and other women and a few children started to gather in the large corridor. Eden wandered toward the end and peered up a staircase that led to a parking lot, which gave her bearings. This hallway wasn’t all that far away from the one they’d used to cart Beckett out to the ambulance.
She was remembering that night, smiling to herself, when little voices echoed off the concrete. Eden looked that direction and found the woman who’d been sitting five rows down from her along with the three precious little girls who had nearly brought Eden to tears.
The four females with Croft on their jerseys.
Eden’s mind pinged backward, and she realized there hadn’t been a man with the group. No husband or father or brother or uncle.
And they were gathered where wives and girlfriends met their men after the game. Wearing Croft jerseys.
Holy shit.
Panic crawled along her shoulders and trickled into the pit of her stomach. The pen and paper in Beckett’s apartment flashed in Eden’s mind. That night, she’d thought they might have been a gag from his teammates. Then she’d learned of his nieces, and she’d assumed the paper and pen had been left behind when they’d been visiting. But now…
Oh God.
No, no, no.
The girls joined a couple of other boys, and they all ran through the corridor, laughing and chasing each other, their gleeful voices bouncing and ricocheting and echoing. The woman with the trio of girls crossed her arms and watched them play with a serene smile on her pretty face. Another woman came around the corner, and the two fell into an easy conversation.
