15. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
In hockey news, Rinkside reports the team had a big meeting and welcomed a new member to the coaching staff. But in important news, Shep Landon was nowhere to be found. ~Penni’s Puckleberry Tea
Shep
My app-delivered sitter yanked open my front door the instant I exited the elevator.
Her previously neat blonde ponytail stuck out in wild tufts, like she’d been running her hands through it for hours.
Coffee stains spotted her untucked blouse.
She white-knuckled a cell phone in one hand and a bright pink travel mug in the other.
“I’ve searched the nearest streets. I don’t have her cell number, but she walked out with her phone.
I wasn’t sure if I should call the police?
” She gulped down a swallow of her drink with the desperation of a fourth-line player after a long double shift.
“I’ve never had anyone run away on my watch before. ”
The words “run away” punched through my chest. My vision narrowed to a tunnel as memories of my own childhood—of packing a bag the day my parents announced another hockey camp—crashed over me.
Of home never feeling like home, just another stop on a trip that never seemed to end.
Every muscle in my body pulled taut. “Let me take a look around.”
Hannah’s new room smelled of the vanilla candle Shy had insisted I buy.
The neon frog glowed against the wall, casting green shadows over the lily pad bedding Hannah’d picked out yesterday.
She’d made the bed military-neat, every pillow aligned just so.
Her green suitcase sat tucked between the dresser and chair.
My throat closed up. The suitcase she hadn’t unpacked yet.
The one holding her whole world. I dragged it out, unzipped the top.
Jeans and sandals covered a jumble of clothes.
A frog plushie wearing a crown tucked into the net pocket.
An ancient tablet with a cracked screen.
A kid’s whole life, packed up and moved at the whim of adults who should’ve known better.
How was a kid supposed to act? The only family she’d ever known was out of reach and dealing with a health crisis. No friends. Nothing familiar.
Of course she headed for the hills. Escape.
A notebook peeked from the mesh pocket, its spiral binding catching the light. My hand hovered over it before dropping away. Reading her private thoughts wouldn’t help find her. And hadn’t enough people damaged her trust already? At least, that’s how Hannah must see it.
I shoved the suitcase back in place. My hands shook as I pressed them against my thighs, forcing steady breaths like Coach taught us for between periods. Center. Focus. Find the goal.
The sitter met me at the bottom of the stairs. “Has she done this before?”
I had no idea, but I suspected being left in a stranger’s care was enough to send anyone into a tailspin. How’d I turn into such a fuckwit? “I’m going to talk to the security staff downstairs. See if they can find her on one of the surveillance cameras.”
The doorman in the lobby directed me down a quiet hall. The security office hummed with electronics, screens covering every wall. A woman in uniform waved me over to her station.
“What time are we talking about?” She hit a couple buttons on her keyboard and pointed to a center screen. “What’s your apartment number?”
“Ten Sixteen.” I scrubbed my neck, heart hammering against my ribs. “Around eight, maybe?” Fuck, I should’ve dragged the sitter down here.
“Let’s back up to a half hour earlier.” She spoke low, as though thinking out loud.
I swallowed down the foul taste in my mouth, fisting my sweaty palm in the fabric of my t-shirt.
She split the screen into four views—elevator, lobby, my floor’s hallway, main entrance. “What was she wearing?”
Shame burned hot under my collar. “I left before she was up.”
Stupid. Insensitive. Irresponsible.
I should have demanded a personal day from the organization.
The enormity of my failure crashed down. Thirteen years missed, and now I couldn’t last two days without screwing up. Yesterday she’d smiled, picked out frog-themed everything, started to trust. And how had I repaid that trust? By abandoning her with a stranger first thing this morning.
A flash of green on the lobby elevator feed caught my attention. I leaned closer. My pulse kicked up as I leaned closer. Hannah crossed the frame, her chestnut hair swinging. “There! There she is getting off the elevator.”
The woman smacked some more buttons and pulled up a single view of Hannah crossing the lobby into a corridor. “Where does that go?”
“Maintenance and engineering.”
“Cameras there?”
“Yep.”
The woman’s fingers flew as she followed Hannah’s progress down the hall and finally into a small room.
“No camera in there. That’s one of the supply closets, I think. One of the small ones.”
We waited to see if she emerged, but scanning forward on the recording showed no movement as recently as just a few minutes ago. “How do I get there?”
“Jack will show you.” She motioned to a guy leaning into the door jam behind me. He nodded and stepped back into the hall.
“Thanks, man.”
The service corridor stretched endlessly, my footsteps echoing off concrete walls. When we reached the closet, I eased the door open, wincing at the buzz of fluorescent lights inside.
At the end of the room, atop a bright orange, upside down bucket, sat Hannah.
She’d wedged herself between shelves of cleaning supplies.
Her arms wrapped tight around her knees, chin tucked down.
My sister’s eyes stared back at me from my daughter’s face—wary, assessing. Prepared for disappointment.
My heart wrenched, relief and grief vying for dominance. I’d messed up. Her eyes, a pretty reflection of my sister’s hazel, looked back at me. But where they should have been shining with the fun and adventurous spirit of a kid, they were dull and suspicious.
“I messed up, Hannah.” I took a few more steps into the room, shuffling sideways to get around some sort of vacuum contraption taking up half the space. “I messed up and I think I’m going to need your help to get this right.”
Silence.
I reached her end of the room and sank into a squat. “Not feelin’ the sitter?”
“I’m too old for a sitter.”
I nodded. “Maybe. But you’re in a new place, new town. I figured she could help us figure things out.”
“That’s what the internet is for.”
I nodded again. Kid wasn’t wrong. “Okay, she made me feel better about leaving you alone this morning.”
“Did you have a game?”
“No, practice. I don’t have games every day, but pretty nearly. Some here in town, lots out of town. We’re gonna have to figure something out. I’m not willing to leave you alone when I go out of town.”
“Not a babysitter. I’m not a baby.”
“Okay, not a babysitter. Got it.” I scrubbed my hand over my chin. “What else is there?”
“School.”
“I’m working on that. Your Grams sent all the paperwork, got your old school to transfer everything here.” My fingers found the back of my neck as I watched her face. “She’s pretty thorough.”
Hannah nodded, her eyes going glassy. My chest squeezed tight. She wore the same look Shy had every time our parents chose everything else over us.
“Tell you what.” I rocked forward onto my toes. “I’m taking the rest of today off. We’ll get your room set up right.” I held out my hand, willing it steady. No more strangers watching my kid. “Get you unpacked proper.”
“I was kinda hoping Grams would call.”
The air rushed from my lungs. “We can call her. We should check in.”
When her small hand slipped into mine, something shifted in my chest. Something fierce and warm and terrifying. Something that made me want to be worthy of this trust.
Back at the loft, we tackled her suitcase and built a wishlist on her phone. She even pulled up some wallpaper patterns that didn’t look like abstract potato art. Progress. The decorator could work with that.
Then came the hard part. I stepped into the hall to call Theo. “Captain, I’ve got a situation.”
He listened as I explained. I needed more time with Hannah.
I’d rushed things, and now I needed time to figure out how we were going to make our living situation work.
“I’ll handle the conversation with Coach, but we’re going to need you tonight.
If you miss the pre-game meeting, then you’re out for the game.
Not a good look after the kind of start you had for the season. ”
My slump, he meant. Not spoken unkindly, but his warning had me swallowing hard. “I’ll be there.”
A while later, Hannah and I climbed into my truck. I glanced at her as I started the engine. “You’re sure you’re good with this? Staying with Shy?”
My sister, being the angel she was and letting me change her mind, had agreed to be Hannah’s childcare for the rest of the season. The instant I mentioned that I thought we’d asked too much of Hannah, asked her to tolerate too many changes too quickly, she caved.
I think she felt as guilty as I did. Neither of us were parents. We didn’t have the best of role models to draw from and it simply hadn’t occurred to us earlier.
This way, Hannah was with family. Still new, still unknown people, but family.
And Prince Tiago.
A grin tugged at the corner of my mouth. Yeah, I’d have to see about getting a Prince Tiago shirt done up ASAP. No way I wasn’t using that shit.
Hannah fussed with the in-dash display as we drove toward Prince Tiago’s place, flying through music choices and GPS voices with equal enthusiasm. She jumped when the display flashed with an incoming call.
I shot Hannah a wink before tapping the steering wheel to answer the call. Zacha’s voice filled the cab, his Czech accent pulling a grin from Hannah as she fiddled with the air vent on her side.
“Kámo?,” he said, “you disappeared.”
“Just for the moment. Just a little side trip. I’ll be back for the pre-game.” I hit my blinker and checked the rearview mirror before easing us onto the highway.
“What does ‘kahmush’ mean?”
A long pause from my friend before he spoke again. “It means ‘friend’ in my language. How are you, Hannah?”
“How did you know it was me?”
“How could I not? Your dad told me all about you. He said you like to skateboard. Do you roller skate, as well?”
Before she could answer, I cut in, glancing at her with a grin. “Don’t get him started, Hannah-bean. He’ll talk your ear off about roller derby if you let him.”
“Roller derby?” Hannah turned wide, excited eyes my way.
“It’s when a bunch of women dress up in badass outfits and skate around a track, scoring points and knocking each other over,” I said, turning the wheel as we rounded a bend. “We can go watch sometime if you want.”
Her ponytail bounced with an energetic nod. “When?”
“You know, Hannah,” said Zacha, “my Novy helps coach a little league derby team. They’re always looking for new players.”
I couldn’t help but grin at the way Zacha threw “my Novy” into the conversation, still a little salty over the infamous Golf Cart Incident. “Novy’s awesome,” I said, because it was true—and also because messing with Zacha was one of my favorite pastimes. “You’ll love her, Hannah-bean.”
Zacha grumbled over the speakers and Hannah wiggled in the passenger seat as we made our way to Shy’s place.
Only midafternoon and my gut felt like it’d been put through a wringer, but things were looking up.
Hannah wore a smile as she asked Zacha more about derby and I could breathe for the first time since my frantic rush home.
We made arrangements to meet up with Novy and the derby little league on Saturday. I added it to the list of enticements geared to keep Hannah from taking off on her own again.
Bribery, pure and simple. Whatever worked. I’d fine tune this fatherhood business as time passed, but surely keeping her safe and entertained topped a dad’s list of responsibilities?
Responsibilities.
The word hung heavy in my mind. Always had.
Not because I didn’t care, but because I wasn’t sure I was built for it.
My parents certainly weren’t. As soon as they’d unpacked Shy at college, they’d taken off for Florida.
Just like that. Not cruel. Not openly uncaring.
Just… done. They’d done the minimum—made sure Shy and I had what we needed—and then coasted.
And the worst part? We barely noticed when they were gone.
What if that was in me too?
That instinct to detach, to float above it all? What if I didn’t have it in me to stick with the hard parts?
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, glancing at Hannah in the passenger seat. She was so young, so full of energy and potential, and she didn’t deserve a dad who let her down.
I didn’t want to coast through her life. Didn’t want to screw this up the way my parents had. But the fear was there, whispering that I wasn’t enough. That I’d fail her.
I wanted the father-daughter dances, the late-night talks, and the chance to scare off her first boyfriend with some over-the-top hockey threat. I wanted to know her dreams, cheer her on, and be there for all the big and small moments.
I wanted the Hallmark movie father-daughter experience and if that meant being responsible for the first time in my life, sign me right on up.
Every road had its bumps, right? I just needed to keep my eyes on the goal. Or in this case, on Hannah. Make her my number one priority and let the rest work itself out. Because even if I wasn’t sure I was good enough, she deserved someone who’d give it everything they had.