Chapter 2
two
Dani
Maya found me in the kitchen at seven, hair still damp from a shower. I had a Bulletproof coffee in one hand, my phone's alarm log in the other, and probably looked every bit as wrecked as I felt.
She took one look at me and winced. "Okay, you look like you got hit by the fireplace too."
"I feel like it." I hadn't seen a mirror yet, but the bags under my eyes were doing a lot of the talking for me.
"Dani." She caught my wrist before I could wave it off. "Thank you. Actually. You didn't have to do any of that last night, and you didn't even hesitate."
"You'd have done the same."
"I'd have screamed and called 911. Which, in fairness, was also somebody's plan for about four seconds." She squeezed once and let go, reaching past me for the Bulletproof coffee. "How is he?"
"Stable. Pupils evened out around four. Speech is clear." I set the phone down, the alarm log still open. "Textbook mild concussion at this point. But no practice, no gym, nothing strenuous for the next few days. If anything changes, he sees an actual doctor."
Eli came in behind her, hair flattened on one side, already reaching for a mug.
"He's not going to like that," Eli said.
"I don't care if he likes it. He doesn't go near the ice until he's clear."
"Dani, I know it's a lot," Maya said, "but he can't afford to fall behind either. If he's not sharp for the first game, he could ride the bench the rest of the playoffs."
"If he doesn't rest, he could end up doing a lot worse than riding a bench."
Eli held up both hands before Maya could fire back. "Okay. What if he takes today off completely, and if nothing looks wrong by tomorrow, he eases back in?"
"It's not ideal. But it works, if today and tomorrow stay clean."
"Great. We'll tell him."
"And somebody needs eyes on him even once he's back on the ice. Someone who'll actually notice if he's pushing too hard."
"You could?—"
"No." I set my mug down. "I told you I'd watch him for the night. Maybe a couple of days. I start my hospital contract this week. I don’t have time to devote to this."
Maya didn't say anything. She just looked at me, and I recognized the look, because Lily made the same face right before she asked for a second cookie.
"After Monday you can check in whenever he's home," she said instead. "He’s staying here until you clear him. It’ll be easier since you’re already here."
I thought about that.
"And during practice? He still needs someone who'll catch it if he's in trouble."
"Roz could?—"
"Not Roz," I said, at the same time Maya said, "Roz thinks a concussion and a hangover are the same injury."
Eli exhaled through his nose, something almost like a laugh. “Fine. Here's what we do. We get through this weekend, see how he's tracking, and figure out the rest as we go."
"And what happens when someone notices he's not at practice?" I asked. "Reporters. Coaches. Anyone who isn't already in on this."
Eli waved a hand, already moving past it.
"That part's easy. Coach gives vets maintenance days all the time this deep in the playoffs—optional skates, load management, whatever you want to call it.
Nobody blinks if Luke's name isn't on the ice for a day or two.
We just tell PR he's dealing with some soreness.
Lower-body, upper-body, doesn't matter—nobody asks follow-up questions in the Finals. "
"That's convenient."
"It's the only convenient thing about any of this," Eli said. "But it buys you the weekend. Saturday, Sunday, he's officially resting. Nobody outside this house needs to know why."
"That I can agree to." I picked my Bulletproof coffee back up. "After that, he's someone else's problem."
By mid-morning, I’d already threatened twice to hand Luke over to an actual hospital. He had finally, grudgingly, agreed to avoid all activity for at least a couple of days—or until he was fully cleared.
"I could just watch tape," he said, phone already in hand, for the fourth time that hour.
"No screens."
"It's film study. It's homework."
"Luke."
He let out a long breath and surrendered the phone, dropping it onto the coffee table with all the drama of a man giving up his firstborn.
"There. Happy?"
"Ecstatic."
He shot me a look that probably worked on women who enjoyed charming disasters. Then he settled back against the couch, one arm hooked behind his head.
For the first time all morning, he was quiet.
Sunlight spilled through the living room windows, catching in the blonde strands of his hair. Without the constant grin, he looked younger. Softer around the edges. The swelling near his eyebrow made him seem strangely human.
Less like the reckless backup goalie everyone had warned me about and more like a man who'd pushed himself too hard one too many times.
His gaze drifted toward mine. It lasted maybe a second. Long enough for something low in my stomach to tighten.
I looked away first.
Idiot.
The word came quickly.
Whatever had happened last night when our eyes met had been a fluke. A combination of adrenaline, exhaustion, and a very attractive man with a concussion.
Nothing more. Absolutely nothing more.
That was when Lily came barreling out of Maya's craft room, one sock on, waving a lopsided paper crown over her head.
"Mommy, look what Aunt Maya let me—" She stopped dead at the sight of a strange man taking up the whole couch, the crown lowering an inch, forgotten mid-declaration.
"Who's that."
"That's Luke. He's staying with us for a little while."
She studied him the way she studied unfamiliar food, deeply suspicious. "Why are you staying with us for a while?"
"I hurt my head," Luke said, tapping the bandage. "Your mom's fixing me."
That got her interest. She abandoned the crown on the coffee table and climbed up beside him, closer now, examining the bandage like she might revoke it if it didn't meet standards. "Does it hurt?"
"A little. Less since your mom looked at it."
"She's a good fixer," Lily said with a smile spreading across her face. "Do you play hockey like Uncle Eli?"
"I do."
"Are you good?"
"Debatable." He glanced at me over her head. "Ask your mom."
I should have jumped in. Instead I stood in the doorway with a dish towel still in my hand, watching a man who'd been flipping off furniture for an audience twelve hours ago hold completely still while a five-year-old decided whether he passed inspection.
She reached up and set her crown, slightly crushed, on his head.
"You can be king guard," she informed him. "But you have to guard properly."
"Yes, ma'am."
Something loosened in my chest that had nothing to do with being her mother, and everything to do with being a woman standing in a kitchen doorway. I made myself catalog it the way I'd catalog anything else that needed watching. He's good with her. That's all this is.
"Lily. Socks," I said. "Both feet."
"In a minute, I have to guard the castle."
"Lily."
She sighed, the theatrical, put-upon sigh of the deeply inconvenienced, and hopped down to retrieve the missing sock, and the moment broke, which was probably for the best, because I didn't entirely trust where it had been headed.
I came back a little before lunch with two grocery bags cutting into my fingers and an apothecary receipt sticking out of my purse.
The morning had disappeared somewhere between picking up herbal remedies for Luke, arguing with my agency about Monday's schedule, and one last stop at the store because apparently somebody in this house had declared war on vegetables.
The front door had barely clicked shut when Lily's laugh came floating down the hall. Not the sleepy giggle she'd had going down for her nap. This one was bright and breathless, the kind she saved for something she considered genuinely hilarious.
Another laugh answered it. Lower. A man's.
My shoulders went tight before my brain caught up.
Luke.
I set the bags on the entry table and followed the noise.
Blankets ran from the couch to two dining chairs, sagging in the middle like the builders had given up halfway through. Every cushion downstairs had been drafted into service. My daughter sat in the wreckage of it wearing the paper crown she'd insisted on sleeping next to the night before.
Luke was flat on the rug outside the fort, one arm slung over his eyes, the other resting on his stomach like a man who'd been struck down mid-battle.
"I've defeated you again," Lily announced.
A dramatic groan came up from the rug. "Yeah. You did, princess."
"And dragons aren't allowed to get up after they lose, Uncle Luke."
"I thought I was the castle guard."
She shook her head with the total certainty of a five-year-old reciting a fact she'd invented thirty seconds earlier. "Nope. Now you're the dragon, 'cause you didn't do your job."
His mouth twitched under his arm. "I'll try harder in my next life."
"There isn't another life."
"Oh."
"You have to stay dead."
He folded both hands over his chest and sighed at the ceiling like a man accepting his fate. "That's fair."
She crawled over and poked his shoulder once, just to be sure. "No getting up."
"Wasn't planning on it."
"Pinkie promise?"
"Pinkie promise, Your Majesty."
Satisfied, she crawled back into the fort to rearrange cushions in a way that apparently only made sense to her.
That was when Luke turned his head and found me in the doorway.
"Hey." Quieter than the voice he'd used on Lily.
"You were supposed to be resting."
"I am resting."
"You call this resting?"
He glanced down the length of himself, still stretched out on the rug. "I'm horizontal."
I pressed my lips together before my mouth could do anything with that. "I told you to stay in bed."
"I did. Slept until your tiny dictator decided the kingdom needed defending." He pushed himself up onto one elbow, and the care in the movement, slow, testing, told me the headache hadn't let up as much as he wanted me to think.
From inside the fort, Lily's head popped up over a couch cushion. "I'm not a dictosaur! I don't even know what that is, but I'm NOT one!"