Love You Always (Buttercup Hill #5)

Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

A rcher

One Week Later

“Come on.”

I look up from my desk, where I’ve been sitting since I last had to use the bathroom, approximately four hours ago. Other than that, I have no idea what time it is. Darkness fell on the vineyards outside my window hours ago, and once day turned to night, I didn’t much care about the time.

In fact, it felt like a relief from the relentless sunny day, which challenged me to be in a better mood. Fuck that.

For the past week, I’ve spent every day at work for twelve hours at a stretch, and I’ve spent every night alone in my house nursing a glass of whiskey before passing out from sheer exhaustion.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

The ritual has done little to keep my mind off Ella, but it’s the best I can do. Beatrix hasn’t rebooked the venue to host Ella’s wedding but maybe she still will. Every day or so, I log in and check the events schedule. So far, nothing.

Then I let my mind wander to Fiona and how much I love being her uncle. It wanders further to what it would be like to be a father, to take care of Ella and a baby. A part of me wants to do it. That part is my heart.

It wants me to call Ella my wife. Be a father to our kids, adopted or not. Build a life with them. Take care of something so small and give it the kind of love and attention my siblings and I never got. Teaching a kid to play ice hockey. How to grow grapes.

Another, louder part, is still telling me I am no different from my father. I work all the time, and I have a responsibility to my family to keep the legacy of Buttercup Hill alive. I’ve always listened to that part—my head—and so far, it hasn’t steered me wrong.

Has it? Is this really where I want to be?

“Come on where?” I grumble, not bothering to look up at Jax. The rumble of his voice is almost as surly and gruff as mine, so I recognize it without laying eyes on him. He sounds annoyed, and annoyed is the last thing I feel like dealing with right now. “Actually, never mind. I’m not going anywhere.”

To prove that, I start moving piles of papers around on my desk, still refusing to look at my brother.

“Field trip.” This voice is unmistakably Dash’s, and I growl with annoyance.

“Oh great, now you’re ganging up on me?”

But when I look up, I see my brothers standing in the doorway of my office, joined by Ren and a few guys I don’t recognize initially. Jax takes a step inside closer, and I get a better look at who’s behind him—none other than Grimm and Yancy, the starting defenders on the Oakland Otters.

“What the hell is going on?” I ask, trying to recall whether I accidentally agreed to accompany Ren and his teammates on a trip someplace. As though that’s something I’d do. Just proves how out of sorts I am right now.

“Like he said, field trip.” Jax points to Dash, who I then notice is standing next to the Otters’ enforcer, Skinner.

“Fine.” I push the papers to the side and stand up from my desk, lacking the energy to argue with them. Jax can be as stubborn as me if he wants, so the easiest path will be to get this little outing over with so I can go back to brooding at my desk in peace.

Outside, an Otters’ team bus idles in front of the old brown barn. Suddenly, this seems more like a kidnapping than a field trip. I shoot Ren a look. “What’s this about?”

“Team captain called a last-minute training session. You’re coming. Get on the bus.” Given that Ren is the captain, I know he’s up to something, but my brain is too exhausted to conjure up ideas about what it could be.

“Seriously? You’re kidnapping me?”

“Seriously. We’re inviting you to join us.”

Shaking my head, I walk toward the open door of the bus, feeling a gust of cool air from inside blast into the dry Napa heat. “Fine.” If they feel like dragging me to a cold rink to watch the Otters practice, fine. I can think of worse ways to spend an afternoon.

Ren gets on the bus in front of me and points to a seat near the front of the bus. “All yours.”

I start to protest because I can find my own damn seat, but he blocks the aisle until I sit. Shaking my head, I grumble and take the seat nearest the window, half expecting him to drop into the seat next to me like a babysitter, but he drops a brown paper bag on the seat instead and goes to another seat further back.

The rest of the guys file onto the bus, not paying particular attention to me, which puts me in a marginally better mood. Jax sits across from me and gestures to the bag. “You gonna open that?”

Looking at his seat, I notice he has his own bag. As I unroll the top of mine, he does the same. I lift a cold six-pack from my bag and a can of Pringles.

Ren leans over the headrest on my seat and explains. “In case you need some sustenance.”

I’m about to get up and walk off the bus because my lack of sustenance is none of his damn business, but my stomach growls in protest. “Thanks,” I mutter, determined to be a moody son of a bitch in the face of my captors.

An hour later, we reach the practice rink, which hides behind a fenced parking lot in Oakland. Despite my sour mood, I can’t help feeling a small thrill when the gates open to let the bus through, and the ice rink rises up in front of us. My mood lifts at the sight of the complex, its holy gates open to me for the first time in my life.

Ren and I have become friendly since he and Beatrix started dating, but he’s on the road a ton and I’m always busy trying to bail Buttercup Hill out of trouble, so it’s not like we spend much time hanging out. It makes me all the more curious about this outing and what’s behind it. I’m sure my brothers have something to do with it, but I’m too tired to question them.

The door to the bus opens right outside the entrance to the Otters’ locker room and we file off the bus. I follow Ren inside with my head on a swivel, taking in a wall of framed action shots of players from over the years. Once we reach the locker room, I blink in silent reverence for the sacred space.

For the first time in weeks, my mood lifts and I feel something resembling a pathway forward. Maybe this is how my life could look as I move on without Ella—a bunch of guys playing sports, drinking beer, and eating bad chips. The way my life used to be. Maybe it’s enough.

Ren hands me an oversized bag of gear, which I assume I’m supposed to distribute to the team players for this impromptu session. “Just let me know who needs what,” I say, pawing through the jerseys and padding in the bag.

“This is for you.”

“O-kay…what do you want me to do with it?”

“I want you to put it on and get your ass on the ice.” Ren points over his shoulder with his thumb and pops the release on his locker, which is full of clean practice gear.

I look around. All the players seem to have plenty of their own gear and jerseys to wear, but I’m still not understanding because it sounds like he just told me to suit up and go practice with a pro hockey team, which is nuts.

“Sorry, what?”

“Bunch of sizes in here, and there’s a lefty stick over there.” He points at a rack of sticks and my eyes land on one that glows like a perfectly polished sword being given to the newest knight before battle. I get dressed in the padding and a white Otters practice jersey, noticing that half the guys out there are wearing black jerseys.

My eyes land on Jax, who holds up a pair of skates I recognize as my own. “I believe these will fit you.”

As I turn toward an empty locker and put away my street clothes, I’m still a little confused about why I’m being invited to practice with the Otters, but I can only conclude that I must be just that pathetic in the eyes of everyone around me. And since a hockey rink is one of the few places where I can forget about everything else in my life, I decide not to question it.

When I’m done putting on my pads and lacing up my skates, I’m surprised to find that both my brothers along with Colin are all dressed for the ice, even though none of them plays the sport.

“Okay, I feel better knowing I’m not the only rookie on the ice,” I tell Dash, stomping past him in my skates and deciding this might actually be fun.

Wrong .

Well, wrong if a person’s idea of fun is getting his ass handed to him. Over and over again.

Instead of my brothers and my nerdy billionaire friend being the rookies, they skate around getting easy passes and assists from the Otters players, who protect them from injury and make them look good on the ice in our scrimmage.

I, on the other hand, seem to be the designated punching bag.

Ren comes at me, skating faster than I’ve ever moved on the ice, dribbling the puck until he nutmegs me for an easy score. But not before another forward on his team shoves his shoulder into me and knocks me onto the ground. Without any referees around to call fouls, I have to take every punch thrown and high stick shoved my way.

By the end of the third period, I limp off the ice for a necessary water break. Heaving up a lung after skating like the wind, just to avoid extra pummeling, I look up at Ren. “What the fuck?” I pant.

He shrugs. “Sometimes we’re a little extra fired up.”

“Bullshit.”

Squirting water in his mouth, he skates back onto the ice, signaling to me. “Get your ass out here. Teams are switching up. You’re with me.”

At first, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the Otters’ team captain won’t have it out for me if we’re on the same team, but I quickly learn I’m wrong.

A minute into play, I narrowly miss getting checked by a defender when someone gives me a shove from behind. I land on the ice, skidding to a stop by the sideboard. Ren skates over to give me a hand up, but I don’t take it, not when I can tell from his cheeky grin that he’s the one who hit me.

“No thanks, asshole.”

“Oh yeah, forgot to tell you that I might headbutt you just for sport.”

Skinner, the Otters’ enforcer, checks me hard and I wince, feeling like my shoulder may have popped out of its socket. The guys give me a second to pull myself together before they start in again.

No one else is taking a beating like I am. All the other guys are having a normal scrimmage, batting the puck around to improve skills, stay fit, and avoid injury. I’m the group punching bag, and at the end of the next period, as I nurse a bleeding lip, I punch Ren in the arm.

“What the hell? Why are you all trying to kill me?”

“It’s called knocking sense into a person.” Ren flashes his team-captain-winning smile, and I almost fall for the persuasiveness of it. Then I remember he’s been pummeling me.

“Do I seem particularly devoid of sense?”

“Yes, if you think walking away from the first woman who makes you happy is the right thing to do,” Colin pipes up as he slides into the spot next to me on the bench. Turning to look at him, I almost laugh. He’s never played hockey before, much less put on a pair of skates. He’s been clinging to the siderails of the rink the whole time we’ve been out there, and now his helmet is askew and he’s blinking sweaty hair from his eyes.

If he came out here willingly, it has to be about something more than dude bonding time. “You’re on Team Ren too?” I grumble, feeling grateful for this bunch despite the pain in my shoulder, my shins, and my jaw. And we still have another period to play.

“I’m on Team Archer. We all are.” The other guys skate over and crowd around us.

“What are we chatting about, ladies?” Jax asks, giving me a jab in the gut with his stick. I jump to my feet and wrap him in a headlock, and he throws a few punches. In typical hockey fashion, the other guys let us go at it for a couple minutes before they pull us apart.

“Jesus,” I huff, gasping for breath. “What the fuck is wrong with all of you? ”

“You,” several guys say at once. “Guy who doesn’t respond to reason needs a more obvious lesson.”

“I’m not some dumb caveman. If you’ve got something to say to me, use your fucking words!” I’m this close to skating back to the locker room and throwing my skates against a wall. “I don’t need another period on the ice with you assholes,” I say, standing up. But the guys crowd around me and don’t let me move.

I’m so goddamn frustrated, I feel the hot sting of tears threaten to spring free. It takes everything I have to push them back, and I swallow hard, unwilling to let these guys see weakness, even if they’ve just spent the past hour turning me into human pulp.

The worst part is they’re telling me something I already know—my life is far worse without Ella in it, and I’m the only one with the power to do anything about my sorry situation now.

I figure that I have a choice. I can start throwing punches, take a beating in the process, and fight my way to the locker room so I can lick my wounds in peace. And sure, I used to be the guy who threw punches first and asked questions later, but that was before I met Ella. Now I want to ask the right questions the first time around. Like why did a pro hockey team take the time to beat the living shit out of me? Because I need to clear my mind, feel the fear, and play the game anyway.

Because I need man up and at least consider what my heart has to say. If I fuck things up after that, it’s my own damn fault.