Chapter 8
Levi
While waiting for Arizona’s arrival, I called my lawyer, who put me in touch with a firm that specialized in family law, and I left a message on their answering machine. Then there was just enough time to get the details of Maisie’s cross-country trek to find me—none of which were good.
She had lied to her foster parents about staying after school for an activity, then skipped out to hop on a bus from Kansas to California. A quick internet search confirmed that they’d issued an AMBER alert for her.
It couldn’t get much worse than this. Already, I was bracing for the inevitable questioning from law enforcement as to how I’d ended up in the company of a girl they assumed to have been abducted.
Ding-dong.
I bolted off the couch, running to the door, knowing salvation stood on the other side.
Pulling it open revealed Arizona and Austin, and I frantically waved them inside. “Come in, come in.”
Austin cocked his head to the side, surveying me. “Dude, why’s your hair sticking up like that?”
My hands flew to my head, attempting to tame the messy strands. I had a bad habit of tugging on them whenever I felt uneasy. Finding out I had a daughter sent my anxiety through the roof, and it was a wonder I hadn’t pulled all my hair out in the amount of time it’d taken them to drive over here.
Arizona got right down to business. “Where is she?”
“This way.” I led them to the living room, where I’d left Maisie.
She was sitting on the couch, gaze cast downward, her hands clasped together so tightly in her lap that the knuckles had turned white.
I quickly made introductions. “Maisie, these are my friends, Arizona and Austin. Guys, this is Maisie.”
Still avoiding eye contact, Maisie waved shyly. “Hi.”
Taking a seat on the coffee table opposite my daughter, Arizona asked, “Do you feel unsafe, Maisie?”
My back went ramrod straight, and I barked, “What the hell kind of question is that?”
She cut me a glare. “Do you want my help or not?”
A displeased rumble vibrated through my chest, but grudgingly, I zipped my lips.
“Maisie?” Arizona prompted.
The girl’s lashes lifted to reveal brown eyes the exact same shade as mine. “I’m okay.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it. Do you mind hanging out with Austin for a few minutes while I talk to Levi in private?”
Maisie peeked at the teenage boy standing beside me and gave a tiny nod. “Sure.”
Arizona stood, taking off toward the kitchen and expecting me to follow.
“Uh, yeah.” I hitched a thumb over my shoulder. “We’ll be right over there if you two need anything.”
A sense of déjà vu washed over me when Austin rolled his eyes and sassed, “We’re not babies.”
Maisie snorted. “That’s what I told him.”
For the first time since she’d shown up at my door, a laugh escaped me. “I have a feeling you’ll get along just fine.” Then I hightailed it in the direction Arizona had gone.
The second I rounded the corner into the kitchen, she hissed, “What the fuck, Levi?”
I groaned into my hands. “I know. It’s really bad.”
There was a heavy sigh. “So, what? She just showed up here? By herself and was, like, ‘surprise’?”
“Pretty much.”
“Okay.” Arizona drew the word out slowly, and I could almost hear the gears turning inside her head. “First thing we need to do is contact her mother, let her know where her daughter is.”
I cringed. “Yeah, about that . . .”
Blue eyes narrowed into dangerously thin slits. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“She was adopted. Her parents died in an accident last year, and she doesn’t know who her bio mom is.”
Arizona blinked at me for a full minute before she gave a quick shake of her head. “Somehow she managed to find you but not her birth mother?”
“Genetic matching service,” I explained. “My DNA was on file; the mother’s wasn’t.”
She hummed. “Suppose that makes sense. And you don’t have any inkling as to who her mom might be? I mean, you did sleep with the woman at some point.”
I shrugged. “No clue.”
That answer was clearly unacceptable, because Arizona strode to the edge of the room and peeked around the partition separating the kitchen from the living room. “Maisie, honey?”
“Yeah?” the girl called back in reply.
“When’s your birthday?”
“July 16th.”
Arizona turned back to me. “Nine months backward from July is October. Can you remember who you were with thirteen years ago from last October?”
Tugging on the back of my neck, I shifted on my feet. “Honestly? Not really.”
A sound of disgust spilled from her lips. “Not sure why I’m surprised.”
“Judge me all you want, but I was nineteen, living on my own with more money than any kid that age should have access to, and women were literally throwing themselves at me.”
Folding her arms, Arizona arched an eyebrow. “Right, because you’ve matured so much since then?”
“Maybe I have,” I retorted.
There was a loud scoff. “Please. Do you really expect me to believe you haven’t found your way between the legs of half the female population of San Diego since you moved here two months ago?”
“You want the truth?”
Her nose wrinkled. “Not particularly.”
I stalked toward her slowly, getting close enough that I could dip my head and speak directly in her ear. “I haven’t been with anyone since I laid eyes on you.”
Her sharp gasp of surprise was music to my ears.
To drive the point home, I added, “That’s how badly I want you.”
Arizona was literally panting, her ragged breathing fanning my cheek. Yeah, she wanted this too. So why did she keep fighting it?
“We can’t,” she breathed out before correcting herself. “I can’t.”
My fingers trailed a path up the long column of her neck, causing goosebumps to rise to the surface.
“That’s too bad,” I purred. “Because if you’d let me, I could make you feel so good.”
“Levi.” My name came out on a moan when I tugged her earlobe between my teeth.
Lust swirled so thick in the air it was hard to breathe, and I could feel her resolve crumbling as she practically melted in my arms.
Then, like a baseball thrown through a window, the moment was shattered by a shout of “Holy shit! What happened to your leg?”
We broke apart suddenly.
One look at the regret written across Arizona’s face, and I knew I might never get that close to her again.
Damn cockblocking kids.
That’s when Austin’s words finally registered, and I stormed out of the kitchen, shouting, “You don’t get to ask her that!”
Arizona was hot on my heels. “Austin! That was beyond rude!”
The wide-eyed teen held up both hands. “Whoa, chill. I wasn’t pointing out that she’s missing part of it, only that the stump looks angry.”
Stepping around him to get a better view of Maisie, I saw she had removed her prosthesis. Austin’s assessment was spot on. Her residual limb was visibly inflamed, the skin dark red and covered in blisters, some of which had already broken open.
I found myself repeating his earlier question, “What happened?”
Maisie tried and failed to hide a wince as she rubbed the appendage. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I walked a lot today—from the bus stop to here—and my prosthetist was still fine-tuning the adjustments on the fit to eliminate pressure points.”
Arizona stepped forward. “All right, here’s what we’re going to do.
We’re going to head to Children’s to have them take a look at those open wounds.
” To me, she said, “The staff there has a direct line to Child and Youth Services, who will hopefully be able to help us figure out where to go from here. Is everyone good with that plan?”
Everyone agreed, and we were headed out the door, piling into my car.
The pit in my stomach grew heavier with every mile that I drove, my worry for Maisie eclipsing everything else.
When the parade of doctors finally ended, I stepped out of Maisie’s temporary room at the ER, overwhelmed and needing a minute to process.
Why did it feel like her suffering was all my fault? Like, if only I’d been there, I could have protected her from the emotional pain of losing her parents or from the ongoing physical challenges that came with losing her leg in a freak accident?
But I wasn’t there, and those terrible things had happened to her in my absence. There was nothing I could do to change that, and guilt corroded my insides.
I barely knew the girl, but our genetic tie made me responsible for her.
With that weight resting squarely on my shoulders, I pulled out my cell phone, dialing the only other person I knew who might be able to relate to my current situation.
After a few rings, a laugh sounded in my ear.
“Well, shit. Never thought I’d see this name pop up on my Caller ID ever again.
How’s the West Coast treating you? I hear their hockey team is shit.
” When I didn’t clap back as expected, Benji Mason, my former teammate from when I’d played for the Comets said, “Seriously, Levi. Why are you calling me?”
Sighing, I scrubbed a hand over my jaw. “I know I’m not anyone’s favorite person back in Hartford, but something fell into my lap, and I was hoping you might be able to provide a little insight.”
“Uh, sure?” Apprehension leaked into his voice.
“What can you tell me about health insurance for foster kids?” It wasn’t something he spoke about often, but Benji had spent years in foster care before leaving rural Michigan and landing a professional hockey contract.
“You been doing some community service, working with kids in the system?”
“Not exactly.” I swallowed thickly. “A kid showed up on my doorstep today. She’s mine.”
There was a long pause. So long that I pulled my phone away from my face to make sure that the call hadn’t dropped or, more likely, that he hadn’t hung up on me.
When it appeared that the phone connection was still intact, I huffed, “I know. The universe has a twisted sense of humor.”
Benji was a jokester by nature; he loved to roast his teammates, so it was startling when he replied soberly, “Nothing funny about missing out on years of your child’s life because you didn’t know they existed.”
Though it was awkward as hell reaching out to someone who likely wouldn’t deign to piss on me if I were on fire, at least he knew what I was going through. He didn’t find out about his oldest son, Knox, until the kid was eight, and it was dumb luck that they’d crossed paths at all.
That thought soured in my gut.
What if Maisie’s parents hadn’t passed away? Would she have ever come to find me? Would I have lived my whole life never knowing I had a daughter out there?
My breathing grew shallow, and black spots danced across my vision. I was forced to slide down the wall at my back until my ass met the floor so that I didn’t pass out.
“Levi? You still there?”
I grunted in the affirmative. “Yeah, sorry. It’s a lot to take in.”
“What’s her name?” he asked softly.
My chest constricted. “Maisie.”
“Pretty.”
A ghost of a smile touched my lips. “She is.”
Benji hummed. “It’s funny how it happens.”
I dropped my forehead to my knees. “How what happens?”
“That no matter whether you’re there when they’re born or if you meet them years later, you fall in love and become a father in a single second.”
Scary as hell, but that pretty much summed it up. The minute I knew she was mine, my whole world changed, and Maisie stood firmly at the center of it.
“You said she showed up at your door.” I could tell he was trying to put the pieces together. “Did someone drop her off? Is that why you asked about foster care?”
“It’s so complicated I can barely see straight with how badly my head is swimming, man. Neither of us has any clue who her mom is since she was adopted. The people who were raising her died, and she technically ran away from her foster home to find me.”
Benji let out a low whistle. “Damn.”
“That’s not even the half of it. She, uh, has a prosthetic leg that doesn’t fit well and is causing all kinds of problems for her, and I guess whatever insurance the state provides didn’t cover enough physical therapy, so her gait’s off, which would be an issue even with a proper prosthesis.”
“You’re right. That is a lot,” he breathed. “And unfortunately, the federally funded insurance just isn’t enough to cover the complex medical needs of kids with disabilities.”
“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath.
“I’m really sorry Maisie wasn’t getting the care she deserved.”
A scoff fell from my lips. “You and me both.”
“I wish I could tell you it gets easier, that eventually you’ll stop beating yourself up for not being there, but that would be a lie. The past can’t be changed; all you can control is making sure their future is bright enough that what came before fades into the background.”
I nodded, more to myself than to him. “You’re right. Thanks for not sending me to voicemail.”
An amused chuckle came from Benji. “I was tempted.”
There was certainly no love lost between me and my former linemate. But when I’d needed him most, he was there, and that’s not something I would soon forget.
“Levi?” Arizona’s voice sounded from my right, and I lifted my head. “The rep from CYS is here.”
Holding up a finger to let her know I’d be there in a minute, I spoke to Benji. “I gotta go, but I owe you a drink the next time I’m in Hartford.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” he teased.
We said our goodbyes and hung up.
Though it hadn’t been in my plans, I was someone’s dad. And that meant playtime was over.
From this day forward, Maisie would come first.