WILD ZONE, A Rough Riders Hockey Novel

by Skye Jordan

  She passed stainless steel shelving units and turned into a portable kitchen setup. A crew dressed in black pants and white dress shirts created a half circle around the source of the moan.

  After a decade working in kitchens of every kind, from third world huts to billionaire’s mansions, Olivia’s head filled with a hundred different scenarios for the injury causing the sounds of pain. Scanning the crowd for her sister and mother, she moved forward, pushing shoulders and to make a path to the center.

  “Quinn? Mom?”

  They shouldn’t be in here. They should be out among the guests, making sure everything was where it should be. That everyone had what they wanted or needed. Acting as liaisons to the kitchen to keep food stocked, but not working in the kitchen.

  When Olivia finally reached the source of the moans, she stopped dead and stared, mouth dropped open in shock. On the floor, a very pregnant woman in a white chef’s uniform lay on her back. Quinn knelt on one side of the woman and their mother knelt on the other. The pregnant woman pressed her hand to her belly, scrunched her glistening face in pain, clenched her teeth and groaned loud and long.

  “Breath, Charlotte.” Olivia’s mother’s smooth voice attempted to focus the woman whose hand was cradled between Teresa’s. “Come on Charlotte, focus and breathe. One, two, three…”

  “Quinn,” Olivia said, alarm ringing in her normally controlled voice. “What the hell’s going on?”

  She hadn’t seen her family in over a year, but when her sister looked up at her, it was still like looking in a mirror. “Oh, Livvy. Thank God.”

  Her mother stopped counting and glanced up too. Unlike Quinn, their mother smiled. “Olivia, baby.”

  Olivia dropped into a crouch beside her mother and wrapped her in a quick hug. “Hi.” She pulled away and looked down at the woman on the floor. “I’m Olivia,” she told her. “Are you hurt?”

  The woman huffed a little laugh, but fear clouded her eyes. “Depends on how you look at it.”

  Olivia shot a look at her twin across the woman’s pregnant belly.

  “Olivia, this is Charlotte, our caterer.” Then she told Olivia, “Charlotte’s water broke. We called an ambulance and her husband’s on the way.”

  “And ambulance?” That seemed like overkill. “Maybe I’m used to the European way of doing things, but water breaking isn’t generally an emergency when you have top notch hospitals on every corner.”

  Her mother smiled. “She’s only seven months pregnant.”

  “Oh.” Olivia’s eyes rounded along with her mouth. “Oh…my…”

  Quinn pushed to her feet and waved Olivia to a corner while telling the workers, “You all have jobs. Do them.”

  The staff drifted to different areas of the kitchen. While their mother stayed with the pregnant chef, Quinn paced in a small strip, one hand on her hip and one rubbing her forehead.

  “This is a really important job,” she said in a hushed tone. “It’s an engagement party for the Rough Rider’s captain and his fiancé. All the players and their wives and family will be here. The team owner, the coaches, the trainers…” She ran out of air, paused to take a shaky breath and tears glistened in her eyes. “This is huge. If we blow this—”

  “Okay, slow down.” Olivia tried to get a big picture view of the situation. “First of all, the place looks absolutely amazing, Quinn. It’s a fucking fairytale out there.”

  That made her sister laugh a little.

  “The bar is flowing, so everyone is going to be half drunk in about thirty minutes, which means anything that does go wrong will only seem half as wrong as if they were sober.”

  Quinn grinned, but gave her a get-serious, “Liv.”

  “Our prego is the caterer right? Didn’t she have everything prepared?” Olivia looked around the space, her gaze halting on the giant refrigerators. “There. Isn’t everything nearly ready to serve?”

  Quinn was so caught up in her panic, she didn’t seem to hear the question. “The company hasn’t been doing well. We really need this event to—”

  “What?” Olivia’s attention focused. “Mom said—”

  A bubble of nearly-hysterical laughter popped out of Quinn. Olivia’s words died on her lips and anger sliced a path through her body. Anger a decade old that still flared hot in seconds.

  Olivia took a step back and crossed her arms.

  Quinn panicked and grabbed Olivia’s forearm. “No, no, no, no, no. It’s not like that, Liv. That’s not—”

  Quinn exhaled and collected herself, but the cut inside Olivia already throbbed painfully. And the way it could break open like this made her wonder if it would ever heal.

  “You know mom,” Quinn said, flustered. “She’s a lot like you. You both want to do everything yourselves. She’s not going to trouble you with her problems, especially not when she doesn’t get to talk to you very often.”

  Olivia dropped her arms and glared at her twin. “You’re really making me want to pitch in here, Quinn.”

  Quinn pushed her hands into her hair and squeezed her eyes closed. “God, Liv, just stop. You’re so damned sensitive I can’t say anything right.”

  “C’est le foutu bordel.” Regret, hurt, anger swirled in her gut. She pressed her fingers to closed lids and rubbed tired eyes. She wanted to go find the sexy Tate, bury this fresh hurt, and get on the next plane back to Paris.

  “I hate it when you do that,” Quinn bit out. “It’s so rude.”

  She dropped her hand and looked at her sister. It was 2 a.m. for Olivia. She’d worked a full shift at the restaurant before catching her seven-hour flight to DC. And in the face of this old, tired conflict with her family, exhaustion kicked in. This wasn’t how she wanted to spend their short time together. “I said this is a fucking mess. Just tell me what you need.”

  Her sister huffed, pressed her hands to the sides of her face and looked at the floor. Her hands were shaking and tears glistened in her eyes. And, dammit, just like that, love grudgingly pushed Olivia’s anger aside.

  She stepped in and wrapped Quinn—older by two minutes—in a bear hug, the kind her sister couldn’t easily escape. Olivia instantly felt the bond they’d formed in the womb. They may have fought over the years, they may not be able to live together, but they would always be part of each other. “Shh, stop, Quinny. It’s going to be okay.”

  Quinn pried her arms from between their bodies, wound them around Olivia’s neck and started crying.

  Merde. Olivia’s own eyes burned with tears. She squeezed them tight and held Quinn close. Merde, merde, merde. She hated this. Hated this irreparable tear in her family.

  “Shh, shh,” she tried to calm her sister even while her own emotions were spiraling out of control. “I’m sorry, Quinn. I’m tired.”

  Quinn exhaled hard, sniffled, nodded against Olivia’s shoulder. “I know. I’m sorry too. It’s been a rough year.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes to the ceiling, stuffed the anger and said, “Talk to me. What do you need right here, right now?”

  Quinn pulled away and Olivia let her. Olivia felt the staff’s eyes on them, felt the nervous tension in the room, but she ignored it. That she was used to; that she could handle. Her relationship with her sister and her mother had never been anywhere near as easy.

  “This crowd is a huge foodie pack,” Quinn said, wiping at her cheeks.

  Olivia caught the eye of a young man leaning against a wall, lifted her chin and padded her cheek. The kid was quick on the uptake. He grabbed a box of tissues and brought them over. Olivia gave him a smile and mouthed “Thank you” and he retreated.

  Quinn grabbed a few tissues and dabbed at her face. “Charlotte was preparing all sorts of specialty foods designed to impress.”

  Olivia thought back to the Château Rayas. And Tate.

  “This isn’t the kind of food I can just put on a plate and call it good.” Quinn’s panic rose as she described the complexity of the menu. “I can’t even pronounce some of this stuff. Some has to be heate
d. Some is half cooked and has to be finished in the oven or on the stovetop. Some need sauces, all of them need garnishes and decorations.” Her blue eyes lifted to Olivia’s brimming with panic. “Olivia, you know I burn water.”

  And Quinn covered her face with both hands again.

  “Oh, honey…” She pulled her sister close again. “I can handle anything she had planned.” Thoughts of catching up with Tate vanished and Olivia sighed with regret, then opened her eyes and told Quinn, “I’ve got you covered.”

  “You do?” she asked, searching Olivia’s eyes. “Are you sure?”

  And on a dime, Olivia wanted to scream. She hated this familial roller coaster. Instead of being “sensitive” Olivia pretended her sister’s question didn’t insult her and said, “Of course. That’s why you called, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah.” Now that she’d calmed down, Quinn didn’t seem so sure. “I mean, I know you cook and everything, I just…you’re so good at fixing things.”

  Cook. And. Everything.

  Don’t explode.

  Don’t explode.

  Don’t explode.

  She wanted to scream “I’m good at fixing things because I work in kitchens where everything goes wrong all the time.” And “What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing with my life for the last ten years?” And “Do you listen to anything I say during our Skype calls?”

  Instead, she gritted her teeth and focused on how much she loved her family despite their problems and getting that family out of her kitchen before she lost her shit.

  Before she could banish Quinn a woman rushed into the kitchen—definitely one of the guests. She was in a gorgeous salmon dress with sparkling straps and heels. Her honey hair was up in a pretty clip. Her only jewelry a slim watch on her right wrist and big diamond on her left ring finger. The woman’s gaze searched the staff. “Where is she?”

  “Oh shit,” Quinn said under her breath, nerves shaking her voice. “The fiancé.”

  Olivia reached down and squeezed Quinn’s hand. “Pull yourself together and act like you are totally in control. You’re the only one who knows different. They can’t see inside you.”

  As if the woman had radar, she moved directly to Charlotte and crouched at her side. Curious, Olivia followed.

  “I’m Eden,” she said, her voice warm and compassionate, but direct. She circled the woman’s wrist with her fingers and glanced at her watch, taking a pulse while she said, “I’m a paramedic. An ambulance is on the way. Are you sure this is amniotic fluid and not urine?”

  “Yes,” Charlotte answered, her voice labored with pain. “Contractions…”

  “How far along are you?” Eden released her wrist, assessed her face, then felt around her abdomen.

  “Thirty weeks.”

  “That’s good,” she soothed Charlotte offering a smile before looking up and asking one of the servers standing nearby for a few wet wash cloths. Then to another, she said, “Find me anything we can use to prop her lower body up. We need her feet higher than her head.”

  Both servers scurried off and Eden returned her gaze to Charlotte. The paramedic reminded Olivia a lot of herself and the way she ran a kitchen, which made her smile.

  “Oooooh,” Charlotte complained, “another one…”

  Eden picked up one hand, their mother picked up the other and Eden coached her through the contraction with breathing.

  “Eden?” The deep male voice drew everyone’s gaze around to an attractive, athletic man in a suit. “The ambulance is here.”

  “Great.” She took washcloths from the server and pressed one to Charlotte’s sweaty forehead. Folded another over her neck, then smiled at Charlotte. “Okay, sweetie, you’re going to do just fine.”

  Now out of pain, Charlotte’s emotions went haywire and tears streamed from her eyes. “What about the baby?”

  Eden’s smile remained, warm and authentic. If she was faking it, Olivia couldn’t tell. “Your baby has an excellent chance of being perfectly fine as well. Baby’s are born every day much younger than thirty weeks, and you couldn’t find a better hospital in the country to have yours early.”

  The ambulance personnel entered through a back door with equipment and a gurney and Quinn shooed the kitchen staff out for the time being. While the emergency personnel unpacked, Eden continued to guide Charlotte through contractions.

  On the way out the door, Charlotte called, “I’m so sorry about the party…”

  Then she was whisked away, and Olivia was left standing in stunned silence with her mother, her sister, and two strangers whose engagement party for about three hundred people was on the edge of falling apart.

  Eden had one hand on her hip, the fingers of the other hand against her lips as she stared out at the now-empty driveway. Her fiancé, Beckett, sighed and slid his arm around her shoulders.

  And Olivia prepared for a melt down of epic proportions.

  She pulled in a breath and took a step toward them just as Eden looked up at Beckett and started laughing. That stopped Olivia’s forward momentum.

  “Oh my God,” Eden said between giggles. “This could only happen to us.”

  Beckett was laughing too. He dragged her into his arms and gave her a squeeze. “You know the best part about this whole thing?”

  Eden wrapped her arms around Beckett’s waist, “That it will be something that we look back on in fifty years and still laugh about?”

  “That,” Beckett agreed, “and that we could order a shit-ton of pizzas, and not one person in that other room would complain.”

  That drew a fresh round of joy-filled laughter from Eden and made Olivia break out in a grin so big, her cheeks hurt and her eyes burned with happy tears. Eden looked up at Beckett and sighed. “God, I love you.”

  Beckett cupped Eden’s face as if no one else existed, as if they weren’t standing in a room with three virtual strangers, and looked at her with so much love it made Olivia’s heart ache. Made something deep inside her tug. Something she barely knew even existed. “Love you too, babe.” He kissed her. “Love you too.”

  Quinn leaned close. “I’m going to touch up my face before they turn around and see a raccoon.”

  When Olivia cut a look at Quinn, she saw the smudged mascara from her tears. “I’ve got this.”

  Quinn nodded and slipped out a side door.

  When Beckett and Eden turned out of their embrace, Olivia finished what she started and offered her hand, first to Eden then Beckett with a big smile. She took the jovial route, one that obviously fit their personalities.

  “Hi, I’m Olivia Essex, and I’m here to tell you no pizza delivery will be necessary. I’ll be taking over for Charlotte. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ve handled parties all over the world of every size. The food will be a smash, I promise.”

  Eden’s hand pressed to her chest. Her eyes were wide with surprise. “Oh my God. Are you serious? Teresa,” Eden glanced at Olivia’s mother, “where have you been hiding this gem?”

  Teresa put an arm around Olivia. “Paris, most recently. In fact she’s just off the plane for a visit. If Olivia says she can handle it, you can absolutely be assured it will be done right.”

  That was an interesting comment coming from someone who’d never taken Olivia’s culinary ambitions seriously. At least as seriously as Olivia did.

  Eden’s gaze returned to Olivia and her breath whooshed out. Then in one step, she enveloped Olivia in a hug. Correction—a bear hug, the strength of which made Olivia laugh. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  Warmth suffused her and Olivia hugged Eden back. “You just did.” She released her, accepted the handshake and gratitude Beckett offered then teasingly shooed them toward their guests. “Get back to your party now. Nothing to see here.”

  Once the couple was gone, Olivia was besieged with hugs by her mother as the kitchen staff started wandering back in. When Quinn returned, Teresa hurried back to the party.

  Olivia turned to Quinn and searched her face—still so ee
rily identical to her own even at twenty eight—for signs of melt down, but her sister had done a good patch job. “You okay?”

  A smile quivered on her lips, but she nodded. “Just threw me, you know? She shook her head. “The stress…its just been…”

  “No more stress tonight. I have everything in here under control. You’ve done a fabulous job out front. All you have to do is hover and relax.”

  “Okay.”

  “Just show me your caterer’s menu,” Olivia said, “introduce me to the staff supervisor, and don’t think about the kitchen again tonight.”

  Quinn released a heavy exhale and spontaneously threw her arms around Olivia’s shoulders, hugging her tight. “Thank you,” she said, breathy through more tears. “It’s so good to have you home.”

  Olivia held her sister tight for a few seconds with a familiar pleasure-pain constricting her chest, then pushed her away and gave her a stern look. “Enough. Big night. Don’t mess up your makeup again. We have to get to work.”

  Quinn found Charlotte’s menu, and showed Olivia the fridges and shelves where all the food supplies and equipment were stored. With one more round of assurances for Quinn, Olivia sent her sister out to handle the party.

  “Finally.” Olivia could breathe. “What a way to start my so-called vacation.”

  Tying an apron around her waist, Olivia skimmed the menu. Now she felt like she was navigating a language she understood. Pregnant women, babies, medical personnel, mushy romance, panic—gah! Olivia didn’t do that. Any of that. The kitchen staff had turned their nervous eyes back on her, but even that felt good. Here, she knew what to expect. Here the rules were, more or less, established. Here, she knew what she had to do to achieve success, and that was well within her means.

  Hosting an NHL team filled with DC foodies might seem like a big deal to Quinn and their mom, but for Olivia, after cooking at embassies, catering to dignitaries, feeding royalty, and satisfying the finicky pallets of billionaires, this was the equivalent of serving hot dogs to kindergarteners.

  The only firsts for Olivia here would be doing it completely on the fly and in four-inch heels. But she loved a challenge and she’d endured pain far worse than sore feet over the last decade. Pain that included bruises, scrapes, stitches, burns, broken bones and a concussion. Not to mention the shattered heart that seemed to follow her everywhere.