No, they really weren’t hurting that badly. Yes, it was a chickenshit move on my part.
I just didn’t know if I could handle an interrogation from the lot of them when it came to Cam, and Laura had always been able to see right through me. She would surely see everything on my face and try to wheedle it all out of me, and then I would be crying and blubbering all over the place. Which would hurt my ribs, damn it. And it would upset Daddy. And I didn’t want to go there.
I hadn’t even told Dana about what Cam had said to me last night. I didn’t know how to talk about it since I was still in shock and hadn’t settled on how I felt about it. He’d said he loved me, for God’s sake. How does a reasonable person react to something like that when it had been taking all of my spare energy to avoid falling in love with him?
So I stayed in the living room watching the game as a means of avoidance.
Sure enough, the backup goaltender Hunter Fielding was the guy in the net tonight, and they’d brought Sean Roberts in from the Seattle team to back him up. No sign of Nicky. Hunter had done a completely respectable job for the team throughout the season, but this was his first real test in a high-pressure situation as a pro. I was on edge to see how he would handle it.
I wasn’t nearly as on edge as Daddy was, though. He’d been cursing a blue streak all day, after I’d told him what had happened with Nicky, and he’d only forced himself to stop when Rachel and Laura showed up with their kids.
Whether he’d manage to keep himself from cursing in front of them if things went sour was anyone’s guess. He’d never even attempted it when I was a little girl, which was probably why I had a mouth like a sailor. I was even worse than half the guys sometimes, but it was what I’d always known. Still, I usually kept a lid on it around kids—a lesson I’d learned as a kid, myself, when Daddy had coached the Bruins years ago. The players’ wives weren’t exactly thrilled with me and my potty mouth being around their children.
Daddy, though? I supposed we would have to wait and see…and we might not have to wait very long, either. That would all depend on whether the guys came out and played like they had in Game Four, or if they decided to go back to playing the way that had gotten them into the playoffs in the first place. Hunter would be a determining factor, too. If he rose to the occasion, Daddy’s blood pressure would likely be kept at a much more reasonable level than if he let the big stage intimidate him.
Only a few minutes into the game, it was easy to see what Daddy and Cam had been talking about as far as Babs was concerned. He was a man on a mission, running over anyone standing in his way. In his first three shifts, it was impossible to take my eyes away from him to watch anyone else out there. He was stealing pucks, creating turnovers, laying out big hits. Pretty much the only thing he didn’t do was score, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. He’d gotten a couple of nice shots off, and he nearly scored on a deflection from a big, booming slap shot Burnzie sent in from the point.
But eventually, all of Babs’s hard work paid off. The Canucks were paying so much attention to him, often double-teaming him in their coverage, that both Zee and Soupy were often left uncovered. Neither of those guys is someone a team should ever forget about, and Soupy made them pay. He’d been hanging out behind the goal while Babs fought to get the puck free along the boards with two of the Canucks’ defenders going against him. Jens pinched in to help him out, and somehow Babs squirted the puck out from the mess and straight to Jens’s stick. He one-timed it but angled his shot so it was more of a pass to Soupy. Soupy didn’t mess around; he backhanded it so it would hit the back of the goaltender’s pads. It rebounded into the net before he had a chance to get his glove on it. Soupy was the one who got the goal, but no one would doubt it was Babs that made it happen.
At the first intermission, the Storm were up one to nothing. Hunter hadn’t been tested too much so far in the game. The guys had done a great job of maintaining possession and keeping the play in the Canucks’ zone for the most part, and Daddy hadn’t let any curses fly.
The girls had stopped talking and looked up at a few points, keeping themselves up to speed on the game, but for the most part they were so absorbed in their wedding plans that they were oblivious to everything going on in the living room, which suited me just fine.
Right around the first intermission, I’d started having some mild cramps in my abdomen. Probably just gas, but I didn’t want Laura to see anything weird in my face and flip out.
I got up carefully, easing myself off the couch as well as I could, and went upstairs to my bathroom. It was only when I was in there, all alone, that I had a small freak-out moment. There was a tiny pink spot on my panties. My OB-GYN had told me that a small amount of spotting was normal and not anything to worry about in most cases, so I tried not to let it bother me. But I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that I wasn’t just spotting—I had that discomfort in my abdomen. What if it wasn’t gas?
My paranoia made me wish Cam were here. He was always able to calm me down. Usually the fact that he could do that pissed me off, but at the moment it seemed necessary.
I spent several minutes upstairs trying to slow my pulse and refocus my thoughts before returning to the living room. Once I thought I’d finally reined in my panic, I headed down the stairs.
“You almost missed the start of the second,” Daddy said when he saw me walking gingerly back to my spot on the sofa. “I was getting worried.”
He looked worried, too. His brows were drawn together, his lips pinched.
I smiled and shook my head, trying to brush him off. “Just a bit of nausea. Morning sickness at night. No big deal.”
He grunted, but then he turned his attention back to the television since the commercial break had ended and the official was about to drop the puck at center ice.
Maddie set her book down and climbed down from the couch. A minute later, she came back with a bottle of ginger ale that she handed to me. “It always helps me when I have an upset tummy,” she said. She got back into her spot and picked up her book just as one of the Sedins scored off the rush up ice for Vancouver.
“Well, that’s just f—” Daddy cut himself off just in time.
Tuck looked up at him with big eyes. “Mommy says I can’t say that word, Mr. Coach.”
“That’s right,” Rachel called out from the dining room. “You can’t. But he didn’t actually say it. Even if he does, though, you still can’t.”
“This time he didn’t,” I mumbled, and Daddy shot a look in my direction.
After that, we all went back to doing what we’d been doing. The action in this period was back and forth, up-tempo hockey. This sort of game was definitely better suited to the Storm than the Canucks, but it didn’t matter. Neither team managed to get another goal in the rest of the second, but it wasn’t for lack of opportunities. Hunter held up really well under a barrage that lasted nearly two full minutes near the end of the period, where our guys weren’t able to get off for a change but the Canucks kept the shots coming. He made a highlight-reel-worthy save with only two seconds left before the buzzer, sending the boys into the locker room with the game tied and one more period remaining in regulation.
By that point, the cramping sensation in my abdomen had stopped, so I was able to convince myself that I’d been right in the beginning: it was only gas. Nothing to worry about. Before the end of the second intermission, the girls finished up all of their planning in the dining room, and they came out to join us in the living room for the third period. Katie, Dana, and Noelle all joined the teenagers on the floor. Rachel picked Maddie up and settled her on her lap, and Mrs. Campbell sat between us on the sofa. Laura took the other recliner.
When the action on the ice resumed, I don’t think any of us could take regular breaths. The whole series—hell, the Storm’s playoff lives—were really hinging on the outcome of this game. Yeah, it was still best of seven, and tied at two games each. But they couldn’t afford to go down a game at this point in the serie
s. We could all feel that, I suppose.
The fast-paced, north-south game from the second period carried over into the third. You could see it was starting to wear down the Canucks, especially because their coach had shortened their bench and was really only playing three forward lines and two defensive pairings. I supposed he didn’t trust his bottom-end players enough in a track meet like this, but the rest of his team was gasping for air like it was going out of style every time they climbed over the boards and sat on the bench.
Halfway through the period, the Canucks’ fourth line finally got a chance to play—the first time since about eight minutes into the second period—and they took advantage of it. Zack Kassian, of all people—a guy who might score one goal a year if he was lucky—somehow knocked the puck off Monty’s stick and turned up ice with it. Monty tried to get back, and he made a diving play for the puck but missed and tripped Kassian up just as the Canucks’ forward got off his shot. He scored what had to have been the flukiest goal of his career, putting them up by one.
Hunter visibly deflated after letting that one in, but Monty and the other guys on the ice went over to him, patting him on top of his mask and tapping his pads with their sticks. When they skated away, he shook his head as if he was shaking it off, tapped his goal stick on each of the posts, and got set for play to resume.
The minutes ticked by with the Storm absolutely dominating play again. The Canucks just couldn’t keep up with their speed. Hammer and Bergy were rolling all four lines, all six D, keeping the attack coming in waves—but no one could get anything to go in the net.
With just over a minute left, Bergy signaled for Hunter to get to the bench for an extra attacker, and Kally dove over the boards to join Zee’s line. Somehow in the interchange, the puck got past Jens at the point, and he and Burnzie both had to turn on their jets to get back and keep Vancouver from getting an empty-netter. Burnzie corralled the puck and quickly turned it back up ice. He passed it to Jens, who passed it to Babs, who took it deep into the zone, bulldozing a winded Canuck in his effort to get to the net.
He shot it. The goalie stopped it with a kick save, but he couldn’t control it. The puck was loose. Soupy tried to jab it in, and just about every guy on the ice for both teams converged on the crease. It was utter chaos, with the referee hanging over the back of the goal with his whistle pressed to his lips, ready to blow the play dead.
Tick. Tock. Seconds kept slipping by, but the goalie couldn’t cover the puck. That meant there was hope. The red light started flashing with 4.3 seconds left on the clock, but I still didn’t have a clue what had happened to cause it. The TV switched to a different camera angle, showing the puck just on the other side of the goal line.
The Storm had tied it up. Now for overtime.
Just in time for that cramping to start up again.
WE WON THE game late in the first overtime period on a crazy bounce, so now we had two more games to win one final time in this series. If we could do that, we would move on to the next round. We’d dominated play throughout much of Game Five, so if we could maintain that, it shouldn’t be hard to do what needed to be done.
In the overtime period, Hamhuis had been trying to clear the puck out of the Canucks’ zone after a long shift, but one of our guys, Antoine Gagnon, had fresh legs. Gags had put a ton of pressure on Hamhuis, and he’d just barely gotten the blade of his stick in the way of the pass when the puck had taken a strange hop. Then Hamhuis had tried to help his goaltender out by blocking it. That had proved to be a poor decision on his part. It’d deflected off him, hit a rut in the ice, and somehow it had gone into the net. The officials had credited Gags with the goal, despite the fact that he hadn’t really shot the puck; he’d just been the last Storm player to touch it, and therefore it was his. Now he belonged to that exclusive list of players who’d scored playoff overtime goals. Considering he only had twelve career NHL goals, that was quite a feat.
I was just glad our boys had managed to finish off the job in a single OT period. That meant we didn’t have to hang around in Vancouver until God only knew what time in the morning. As it was, it was after three a.m. by the time we got back to PDX. I left there to go straight to Scotty and Sara’s house. I’d told my mom earlier in the day that I would be going to their place and not to my house, so she and the girls weren’t waiting up and expecting me. I really wasn’t keen on meeting Dylan until I’d had some sleep, anyway, so it was probably for the best. Then I could meet Dylan at the same time they all met Sara.
The team had the whole day off tomorrow. No practice. No meetings. Hammer and Bergy wanted us to just go home and get some rest, recharge for Game Six.
Even though it was insanely late when I got to her place, Sara was still sitting up waiting for me. Dana had stayed with her—she’d let her mom take her car since Zee could come pick her up—and they were sitting together on the sofa, talking about Lord only knew what. Zee had followed me there in his SUV and was waiting for Dana in the driveway.
I left my suitcase in the hall closet. There was nothing in it that I needed tonight, and I was beyond exhausted.
Once I came through the door, Dana got up. “Eric’s here?” she asked.
“Waiting outside with the car still running,” I confirmed.
“Talk to you tomorrow,” Dana said over her shoulder to Sara on her way out.
Sara stretched her arms over her head, yawning. “Tuck somehow managed to stay up all the way through the end of the game. I barely made it that long. I don’t know how that kid did it.”
“But you’re still up now.” I sat down next to her, and a surge of electricity raced through me when she almost instantaneously fell against me, resting her head on my shoulder. I could really get used to holding her like this.
She waved a hand as though that could wipe the implication away. “There have been way too many overtime games in this series.”
“As long as we win, I’m okay with that. I’m sorry you had to be up so late, though. You didn’t have to wait up for me. You need to rest.”
“Yeah. I just… I felt a little funny after everyone left. And it gave me a chance to talk to Dana.”
“Funny how?”
“Just…” She shrugged, shaking her head. “Just funny. It’s nothing.”
There was definitely more to the story than she was telling me, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to push and prod right now. I’d already been worried that I’d gone too far when I’d told her that I love her. It was too soon to push harder than that. As it was, I was slightly surprised and a whole hell of a lot amazed that she still wanted me to be here with her tonight, that she hadn’t tried to push me out of her life the second I’d been real with her about how I felt.
“Okay,” I said, dropping my head down so I could get a whiff of that minty shampoo she always used.
“How’s Nicky?” she asked.
“Still in the hospital.” Still saying he hadn’t taken anything—that someone must have put something in his drink. The fact that he was denying it was the most worrisome part, as far as I was concerned. That meant he didn’t recognize or want to admit that maybe he had a problem, and that only made his problem bigger. I was scared for him. “They’re keeping him in the hospital for a few days to be safe.” Part of me wished they’d keep him longer. Yeah, the team needed him—but we needed him healthy and with his head on straight, not when he thought he needed to take something to get through the day.
She nodded. “That’s probably for the best.”
“I missed you.” I had missed everything about her—even the way she could be prickly with me. It was amazing how much better I felt the instant she’d curled into my side.
She stayed quiet for so long that I feared she wasn’t going to say anything at all, that maybe I’d pushed her too far, even though I’d been trying to do the opposite. But then she yawned again and tipped her head back so she could look at me with sleepy, dreamy eyes. “I missed you, too. I didn’t sleep very well without you.
Couldn’t get comfortable.”
Maybe she hadn’t reacted as badly to my admission as I’d thought she would. This was about as far from the response I’d expected as was possible. “Well, you don’t have to sleep without me for a while,” I said. I wished I didn’t have to sleep without her ever again. In my line of work, that wasn’t a possibility, though.
Sara gave me a soft smile. There wasn’t anything remotely suggestive about it, but my dick didn’t seem to care about the intention behind the smile. It rose to attention as though she’d just done a striptease in front of me.
Tonight was going to be hell.
“We should go to bed,” she said through a yawn.
Yeah. Bed. Where I could hold her but not be inside her. Where she could give me lazy kisses, but I couldn’t take them any deeper because her father was downstairs. Where her body would be pressed tight against mine, all of her delicious curves hugging me and driving me crazy with want, but I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it for fear of hurting her. She had been hurt enough already.
I nodded and helped her up. “Where’s Buster?” I hadn’t realized he was missing until right at that moment. I only thought about him then because having him in bed with us would possibly help to put a damper on my lust.
“He went to bed with Daddy again,” Sara said as we slowly climbed the stairs.
Well, fuck. My dog was abandoning me in my hour of need. Damned traitor.
I flipped on the light in her room and closed the door behind us, expecting Sara to go over and sit on the edge of the bed until I came to help her change. She didn’t; she moved behind me and put her arms around my waist, resting her head against my back.
Every nerve ending in my body came to life from that simple touch, and I felt like the sun was shining on me on a hot day. I leaned my head against the doorframe, keeping both hands fisted at my sides while I tried to get control of myself. If I gave in to my needs right now, I was bound to hurt her. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to make love to her, to take things slow and steady and have her writhing beneath me because it felt good, not because she was in pain and trying to get away. I wanted her to want me because she loved me as much as I loved her. She didn’t, though. It was still more lust than love on her end.
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