Puck the Halls (Chicago Racketeers #5)

Chapter 1

Nathan

“Fine, I’ll do it. But I need to hear one thing from you first.”

“What?”

“That this is all your fault. Five little words. ‘This is all my fault.’”

“I’m not saying that.”

“Then you have to call Dani.”

I feel my heart rate speed up. I can’t tell Danielle what I did. She’s going to be so upset. At me. I hate when she’s upset in general, but when it’s because of me? You might as well stab me in the heart.

“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars to call her,” I say.

Crew hoots out a laugh. “No way, Boss. You can’t pay me off. Say the words and I’ll make the call.”

I blow out a breath. I can almost always pay people off.

But Crew makes millions of dollars—on a paycheck signed by me, incidentally.

And, even more, he fucking loves when I’ve screwed up.

Crew makes me crazy on a regular basis, but never more so than when he is gloating.

He is definitely not above saying I told you so.

And he did tell me so. He absolutely said that this was a bad idea. He even pleaded with me, a little, not to do this.

But I did. And here we are. And now we have to tell our wife.

“Crew, please call Danielle.” There. I almost never say please to him.

Crew tucks his hands into the front pocket of his jeans. “I just need to hear the five words.”

I blow out a breath. I really need him to make the call. Danielle is not going to be just disappointed, but quite possibly angry. At me.

Danielle never gets angry.

Well, almost never.

Truly how that woman manages to live with the three of us men and our two children and not lose her shit daily is a miracle. Because many days it’s like she has five children.

Okay, four. Michael is usually easy to live with.

I wish he was here right now.

“This is all my fault,” I finally say through gritted teeth.

Crew chuckles. “For your Christmas present, I’m not going to make you repeat that more clearly,” he says.

“McNeill,” I say my voice low with warning.

He holds up a hand grinning. “Fine, fine. And you’re right that I should be the one to tell Dani. She’s gonna be upset.”

He didn’t need to add that. I know she’s going to be upset. Of course, she is.

“Be sure you tell her why we’re in Decatur,” I say.

“Jesus, Nate, she’s gonna know why the fuck we’re in Decatur,” Crew says pulling his phone out.

It’s true. There are probably only three reasons that Crew and I would be in Michael’s hometown without Michael or Danielle. One of them is if something happened to Michael while he was here.

But no, he’s safe and sound, warm and, no doubt, cuddled up with our wife in front of a roaring fire, in the luxury cabin in Aspen, Colorado that Crew rented for us for the next three days.

The other two reasons are exactly why we are here.

Isabel and Oliver.

Our daughter and son.

The most perfect creations to ever grace this planet. The pieces of my heart that I didn’t even know were missing.

Oh, I knew I had holes in my heart and that I was a grumpy, sad, boring asshole before Danielle came along. She filled so many of those gaps with her sweet, loving, acceptance of who I am and in wanting me anyway.

Then she helped heal even more of those wounds by making me willing to bring Crew and Michael into my personal life.

But it wasn’t until those babies were born that I felt truly, fully whole.

Thank God Danielle finds my absolute weakness over our children incredibly sexy. Once she knows that we stopped by Decatur on our way to Aspen to see the kids one last time before we leave them for three days, she’ll be more forgiving of the fact that we are going to be late.

I look out the window of the airport. The snow is swirling so fast, so thick and heavy, that I can barely see the airplanes parked outside at the gates.

No planes are taking off for the rest of the night.

We’re going to be very late.

“Hey, Cookie,” I hear Crew say.

I turn and take in the way his expression softens with love even just hearing our wife’s voice across the phone line.

“No, I’m calling with some news. We’re both fine, but we’re going to be late getting there.”

He pauses.

“Well, we’re in…Decatur.”

His eyes meet mine as his eyebrows lift.

I think I’m glad I can’t hear Danielle’s response.

“No, we’re still at the airport.”

Yes, we flew from Chicago to Decatur just so I could kiss our kids and tell them goodnight before we took off for Aspen for three days. Yes, it's a little ridiculous. Yes, I know that without a private plane and gobs of money I wouldn’t be able to do things like this.

But I do have a private plane and gobs of money. So why shouldn’t I see my kids one more time?

We haven’t left the kids for this long, all four of us, since Oliver was born.

Which is the whole point of the trip.

The four of us need to get away. We need some time just the four of us. Alone.

I agree. We do need this time together.

It’s still killing me a little bit.

“Yes, of course it was Nathan’s idea.”

My eyes slide shut as I groan.

“Sure, I can put the call on speaker,” Crew's tone is filled with amusement.

I brace myself as he hits the button to turn the call into a conference call with our wife.

“Nathan?” Danielle’s sweet voice comes over the line.

“Hi, sweetheart,” I say.

“You took the plane from Chicago after the hockey game to Decatur to kiss the kids goodnight instead of just heading here?” she asks.

A perfect guess about what happened.

“Yes.”

“Even though they are obviously already in bed and wouldn’t have seen you or even known you were there.”

“Yes.”

Crew is grinning and simply holding the phone toward me as I get a scolding.

He is usually the one who has done something spontaneous and ridiculous so I imagine he is enjoying this a lot.

What can I say? Fatherhood has made me soft.

“You could be almost halfway here by now,” she says.

“Decatur is a quick flight from Chicago,” I say in my defense. “And we’re not going to see them again until the afternoon of the twenty-third.”

Tonight is the twentieth. Tonight was the last game for the Racketeers before the holiday break. Crew doesn’t have to be back on the ice until the twenty-eighth, but of course we’re returning to Chicago to be with the kids for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Still, we decided we could grab a couple of days away. We all agreed that it had been too long since the four of us have had time alone with no interruptions from a teething baby or a toddler who has every excuse in the book to get back out of bed once she’s put down for the night.

Between all of our crazy schedules, two kids—we honestly don’t know how two parents do it, not to mention single parents—we feel like the four of us have barely had time to sit down to an uninterrupted dinner together. Long stretches of time to truly bond and enjoy one another are a faint memory.

Yes, I mean sexually.

It’s not as if we don’t have sex. We do. A lot of it. In various combinations. But it’s true that it is rare that all four of us are able to just be together for an hour or more and truly enjoy our foursome.

Danielle in particular has been missing that. She loves all three of us and enjoys time one-on-one or two-on-one with us, but her favorite times are when she has all three of us with her.

Crew's Christmas gift to all of us is a getaway to a mountain cabin in Aspen. He came up with the idea after he heard his sister, Luna, say that she and her three guys were going to be getting away.

Yes, we’re going to be at the same resort but they’ll be in another cabin entirely and we’ll likely have limited time with all eight of us together. Those three guys like their time all doting on their woman as much as we do.

“Alexsei and Owen will be here in an hour,” Danielle says. “They would have left Chicago about the time you did.”

True. Alexsei played tonight and Owen was coaching.

“So, what time are you going to get here now?” Danielle asks.

I look out the window again and cringe. “Well, that’s the other thing we needed to tell you.”

Danielle makes a tiny growling noise that we very rarely hear from her. It is not a sexy growl like she sometimes does in bed that means do more of that. This is a I am completely fed up with you growl.

“Tell me,” she demands.

“Well there is—”

“Crew, you tell me,” she interrupts.

My brows rise. “Why do you want him to tell you?”

“Because he said that he tried to talk you out of this trip to Decatur. That means whatever you’re about to tell me is also your fault. I want to hear it from him.”

Oh, I am in so much trouble right now.

Crew's grin confirms that. “There’s a snowstorm,” he says. “Blew through Kansas and is hitting Decatur now. It’s south enough of Chicago that it isn’t affecting flights there.”

There’s a long stretch of silence on Danielle’s end of the call, then she says, “So you’re not coming?”

“We’re coming,” I say firmly.

I rarely fuck up, but when I do, I always fix it.

And when there is something upsetting my wife? I absolutely fix it.

“How?” she asks. Now the anger is gone from her voice and I hear a little wobble.

Fuck. She’s going to cry.

Crew also hears it and his eyes widen. He gives me a look that says I might punch you.

There is nothing that rattles all of us more than Danielle’s tears.

I will also be on Michael’s shit list. Especially since he’s the one there in Aspen with Danielle and having to comfort her.

“We’ll drive,” I say.

“You’re going to drive here?” Danielle says incredulously. “That’s…really far.”

I don’t know how far exactly it is either but I know there are at least two relatively large states between her and me right now. “We can do it. There’s two of us. We’ll just trade off driving and sleeping.”

“How are you going to drive when there’s a snowstorm?” she asks. “If the snow is keeping planes on the ground, it’s not going to be safe to drive either.” She takes a deep, shaky breath. “No. Stay there. Just go to Michael’s mom’s house. You can be with the kids. Michael and I will come home.”

“You’re not going to come home early from this trip just because I fucked up,” I tell her.

There’s another long pause on her end of the phone and then she says, “I didn’t say we would come home early.”

Her meaning takes only a moment to sink in. Then there’s another little growling noise, but this one comes from Crew.

“You and Michael are going to stay there without us?” Crew asks.

“I guess so,” Danielle says. “I know he’ll appreciate the surprises I packed.”

That is a low blow. That is worse than Crew making me say that this is all my fault. That is worse than almost anything.

Knowing that my wife was very excited about two full days of uninterrupted, sexy times with the three of us, knowing she packed extra surprises, and knowing that she’s very willing to stay and let Michael be the sole recipient of all of her gorgeous, delicious horniness, has me growling.

“Danielle,” I say in my best you’re pushing me little girl voice.

But it doesn’t work.

“I love you both. I’ll see you… when I see you,” Danielle says.

“You will see us soon,” I say firmly.

“Make good decisions, Nathan,” she says just as firmly. “Because if you die or kill Crew driving through a storm to get here, I will never forgive you.”

Then she hangs up on me.

I take a deep breath in through my nose and blow it out through my mouth.

Crew shoves his phone into his pocket. “Tell me you have a plan.”

Gone is the amused McNeill. Now I see the number seventeen who gets riled up on the ice when another team pulls slightly ahead in a game or when he’s made a stupid play.

“If we drive a little north and go across Nebraska instead of Kansas, we should miss the storm,” I say.

He nods and turns on his heel.

“Where are you going?”

“To rent a car. And yes,” he calls over his shoulder. “I get to choose what we’re driving. But you’re paying.”