Hot Damn (Hot as Puck #3)

22. Beckett

Beckett

I don’t know why I told Cami about Whit’s mother. I’ve never told anyone other than Mama Dot, the policeman that interviewed me, and the judge.

People know of course. Most of the police force in the town I went to high school in. And then there were the kids I went to school with. They had to speculate I was the one involved when Catrina Hooper was arrested and marched out of the school, because I disappeared the same day.

“I’m not a victim.”

Cami’s eyes widen further and indignation floods her face. “You most certainly are!”

“No, I’m not. I get that she took advantage of a kid, but I was mature beyond my years due to living with a crack-whore most of my life. I was in love with her.”

“Bullshit!” Cami pushes to her feet. The fire in her eyes blazing at me. “At that age you don’t know what love is. I can imagine exactly how it happened. She showed you attention and you soaked it up because you didn’t have it.”

“I’m not a victim.” The phrase is stuck on a loop in my head.

“Not…” Her head cocks to the side and she studies me. “No. Yo u’re right. You’re not a victim. You’re a survivor. You’re a miracle. And your daughter is tribute to that.”

“I...” She rounds the counter and walks right up to me until her slippers are brushing the tips of my toes.

She’s a good bit shorter than me, maybe five inches or so, which means our height difference isn’t that bad. I still have to tip my head down and she has to tip hers up to make eye contact. “I want to hug you.”

“O-kay.”

Her arms are around me, squeezing tight as she turns her head and presses her cheek against my shoulder. “I want to say sorry. Sorry that that happened to you, and I wish it hadn’t but then there would be no Whitney and that would be more of a tragedy than how she was conceived.”

“She’s the silver lining in the biggest mistake of my life. Which is why it wasn’t really a mistake.”

I slip my arms around her back and pull her a little closer. I don’t want to hold her too tight, don’t want to press on any of the fifty million bruises dotting her side and back.

With my chin resting on her head I say, “I’ve never told anyone. Not since the trial, and I only ever told the story three times.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Nothing to say. It is what it is.”

“Will you ever tell Whitney?”

“Yes. When she’s older. I thought maybe after she finishes college but recently I’ve been contemplating telling her on her eighteenth birthday.”

“When she’s legally an adult.”

“Yes.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Didn’t think you would.”

“But I think maybe you should tell Nat.”

My head jerks up and my arms loosen. “What? Why? ”

She holds on tight but tips her face up to look at me. “Don’t get angry. First let me ask you a question.”

I can’t work out what she’s thinking and while my gut is screaming “shut this shit down and end the conversation” I have to give her the benefit of the doubt because she’s proven to be on our side time and time again.

With a hard swallow, I say, “Go ahead.”

“Is this the reason you kept yourself and Whitney out of the public eye?”

“Yes. And no. It was hard raising a kid on my own. I had Mama Dot but I wanted to take care of my daughter, so I did the bulk of the work. I went to school, then straight home to Whit. Once I hit the NHL I did the same. Went to work, came straight home to her.”

“Is it possible for someone to find out about her mother?”

“No. My name was suppressed, and the case files sealed. The names on Whit’s birth certificate aren’t real.”

“What do you mean they aren’t real?”

“I changed my name the day Whit was born. And the name in the mother’s section is a fake one the court made up to help keep our identities a secret.”

“Your name isn’t Beckett Higgison?”

“Not my birth name, no. It’s the name I took so we could have a future without the cloud of our past hanging over us.”

“I won’t ask where you got your name from or what your birth name is, but I will ask again. Is it possible someone could find out who you both are? If they dig far enough?”

“I hope not, but I suppose if they knew where to look or someone gave them something to go on.”

“All right. Well, for now I think we can table the telling Nat thing but you should think about it. I can, with your permission, hire someone to bury the info about your real identity where no one will ever find it, but I’ll have to use the same people we use for KAW and Nat isn’t the only one who will hear about it if I do. Oakley and Blake will as well. And I can’t imagine either of them keeping the information from the men they’re married to.”

I can see the gears in her head spinning. It’s remarkable the way I’m getting to know her tells. “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t think we should do anything until after Whitney’s birthday and you tell her, if that’s still your plan.”

“At this point it is.”

“Okay, we wait until you’ve told her then we can ask her what she wants to do. If she wants me to see about burying any connection between you and your past that might still be there.”

“I’m scared to tell her. Scared of what she’ll think of me. Of the mother she’s never known, who never wanted her.”

“How did you manage to get custody of her?”

“I found out Catrina was pregnant when I overheard her making an appointment for an abortion. We argued, she told me it had nothing to do with me and I should forget I heard anything.”

“Except you couldn’t.”

“No. I tried to talk her out of it for a few days and when I realized it wasn’t possible, when I realized I was the latest in a long line of teenagers she’d slept with, I told Mama Dot and she took me straight to the police station. Catrina was arrested the next morning and the courts stopped her from aborting Whit.”

“She went through with the pregnancy because she had no choice.”

“Yes. Whit was born in the local hospital under police guard and handed straight to me seven months after I overheard that phone call.”

“God, Beckett.” Her arms tighten around my waist. “I can’t begin to imagine what you went through, how you didn’t just cope but thrived.”

“I don’t remember a lot of it. I knew I needed to set us both up and I was good at hockey. Really good. I was already getting noticed and Mama Dot talked to me about the best way to make sure the two of us would be safe. ”

“Money.”

“Yes. Money. It’s why I went straight from high school to the NHL.”

“In Canada.”

“We moved there the day Whit was born. We had everything lined up, ready. Mama Dot’s house packed up and a place in Edmonton where I enrolled in the local high school to finish my schooling, but the goal was, from before Whit was in my arms, to make the NHL.”

“You really are a miracle.”

“No. I’m just a man who did what he had to in order to protect his child.”

“I understand your anger at me that first night now.”

“I couldn’t see past your job. Sometimes still can’t. I’m trusting you to keep this to yourself, Cami.”

She pulls from my arms and steps back; the shock on her face has me wishing I hadn’t voiced my concern. Before I can apologize, she’s poking me in the chest with her finger.

“If you think for one hot second I’d ever breathe a word of this to anyone, never mind put it in an article, you’re a dumbass!”

With that she spins away and stomps from the room, which is a feat considering she could barely walk a few minutes ago.

Behind me the toast pops and I grin. Cami may think this conversation is over, but I promised her toast.

And I should probably deliver it with an apology. Quickly plating the toast, I swipe some butter over each piece and grab jars of strawberry jelly and peanut butter just in case she wants something else on them.

When I get back to my bedroom, I find her sitting up in bed, back to my headboard, arms crossed, an angry scowl on her face.

“I would never tell anyone what you just told me.” Her words are fierce, hard like the headboard behind her.

“I know. I didn’t mean to imply you would.” I sigh. “It’s hard to say why I said what I did. I mean I know why, but again, I can’t rule out there’s a piece of me that meant the words the way you took them.”

“So you think I’m going to what? Just blurt your secret out to someone? Write it up in the paper?”

“No. But I won’t deny the fear I feel now that somebody other than myself knows who I really am. I went to a lot of effort to wipe out the past so that Whit could have the best life she could without the dark cloud of how she was conceived hanging over her head.”

“I understand that. And maybe I over-reacted a little, but, Beckett, you have to know I’d never share what you shared with me in confidence. You don’t know the full story of how I came to live with my dad and if you did, you’d know I’m the last person to put an adult, never mind a child, through the scandal revealing your true identity would be.”

“Okay. I guess we have to accept this isn’t a normal situation and our emotions, mine more than yours, are fully invested and tangled in a way that makes both of us a bit over-reactive.”

“Over-reactive? Is that a word?” The small smile curving her lips has me hoping we can move past this little misunderstanding.

I shrug. “It felt right.”

“Is that my toast?”

“Yes.” I hold out the plate until she takes it, then offer the two jars. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted either of these.”

“I’ll have some of the peanut butter.” The smile curling her lips now is more of a smirk. “Do I use my finger to put it on?”

“Shit. Sorry. I’ll go get?—”

“It’s fine. I can eat it plain but let me get out of bed.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t want me leaving crumbs in here.”

“Cam, I can say with all honesty, crumbs in my bed are not a problem. Whit and I used to do breakfast in bed every chance we had before we moved here.”

“That might be so, but I’m not going to ruin these nice sheets when I’m planning to crawl back under them and sleep for as long as the outside world will let me.”

“How’s the hip?” I ask when I see her grimace as she slips to the floor beside the bed and leans her back against it.

“Okay. I think the meds have kicked in and the march up the stairs loosened things up,” she says sheepishly.

“Do you want more of that cream before you go back to sleep?”

“If you can spare some. There wasn’t much in the jar.”

“I can get more from one of the trainers tomorrow.”

“Are you excited?”

“About the game?” The subject change is unexpected. I thought we’d continue talking about my past. “Um, yeah, I guess. Maybe more anticipating.”

“Think you can keep the stre?—”

“Don’t say it!” I lunge forward and press a hand over her mouth.

“What?” Her eyes are wide and her voice muffled against my palm but I can hear her clearly enough.

“Don’t jinx us by asking that out loud. Actually, don’t even think about it.” I lower my hand and settle in beside her.

“Oooo…kay, sure.” She eyes me sideways as she takes a bite of her toast. “Thanks for this.”

“You always talk with your mouth full?” My question conjures images of Cami’s mouth filled with something else and I have to suck in a breath; the visceral reaction my body has to my imagination has my heart racing and my groin pulsing. I’m glad I’d already taken a seat on the floor so I can lift the leg closest to her to hide the tent rising in my shorts.

I watch her swallow her bite and wonder when my libido decided to come back onboard after years of being dormant.

I’ve gone without sex for years and not once has it been a problem. A few weeks ago, when I first laid eyes on Cami Nelson it never entered my mind that it might become one .

“Sorry. I’m not usually this much of a slob but now that you’ve put this in front of me, I’m starving.”

“I can make you something else. Eggs?” It would be good to get out of the room. Take a breath of air not laced with the scent of Cami. But she’s shaking her head, dashing my hopes of escaping and getting my dick under control in private.

“This is enough.”

She finishes the first piece and starts on the second and I can’t seem to pull my gaze off her. It’s not until she’s almost done with that slice that she speaks again.

“You’re staring.”

“Sorry, sorry.” I force my gaze up to meet hers. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You’re not. Just wondered if you knew you were watching me eat and if maybe that means you’re hungry too.”

“No. I’m not hungry.” My gaze drops to her mouth again.

At least I’m not hungry for food.

And being hungry for Cami Nelson is something I’m not sure I’m ready for.