WHEN THE OTHER WAGs dropped Mackenzie off at my place that night, she was glowing with the sort of happiness I’d rarely seen on her face in the short time we’d known each other. But she’d hardly come through the front door, loaded down with her bags, when she gave me a guilty, sheepish look and passed over the credit card I’d sent with Katie along with a sizeable fistful of receipts.
“I told them it was too much, but they insisted I’d need it all for some reason. Don’t ask me where I’m supposed to wear all of these things. They even made me get a cocktail dress! I’ve never owned a cocktail dress before. I can’t imagine where I’d wear it.”
“You’ll probably need more than one,” I mused aloud, trying not to laugh because Mackenzie was so serious about it all.
But there were a few big fundraising events I ended up going to every year, and there was never a dearth of cameras snapping pictures of what everyone was wearing. The other WAGs never wore the same dress twice to these events, at least not if they could help it. For all I knew, they each kept a spreadsheet, notating which dress was worn at which event, so as to avoid repeats.
Mackenzie would probably need at least three different dresses this spring alone, going off of our usual lineup of events.
She waved that off, as if it was inconsequential. “I can take most of it back tomorrow. I made sure all of the stores will let me return my purchases as long as I haven’t worn them and the tags are still on them. I can take the bus or something. One of the store clerks told me how good the public transportation system is here, and I’m sure I can figure it out.”
Retrieving most of the bags from her, I passed a cursory glance over the receipts she’d shoved my way. It looked like everything she’d bought at the first store had been steeply discounted—probably due to her shopping the clearance racks, possibly in combination with a seasonal sale—and besides, the overall total wasn’t anything to make me bat my eyes. I typically spent far more than that on a single custom-tailored suit, and I had more than a dozen suits in my closet at the moment because I needed them on a regular basis.
I didn’t even bother looking at the other receipts. Something told me Mackenzie was used to pinching pennies and scouring ads for mega-sales, much like we’d often had to do when I was a kid.
Only my parents could have had the money to afford things if they’d wanted to. They’d just preferred to blow their load on all sorts of things that weren’t necessary, and then when I’d needed money for hockey expenses, I’d had to come up with it myself.
Ghost had always helped me with that, doing various fundraisers and shoving most of his share of our earnings in my direction, even though his working-class parents shouldn’t have been able to afford it and mine should have.
Considering all of that, it honestly didn’t matter one whit to me how much Mackenzie had spent today, even if she didn’t realize it yet. I made more than enough money to spoil myself, my dogs, and her, too. We didn’t have to scrimp and save for every tiny purchase.
One of these days, I’d get her to understand.
I shook my head and held her gaze so that she’d know I meant what I said. “You don’t need to take anything back to the store unless there’s something wrong with it or you just don’t like it, okay?”
“But I’ll never wear all of this. What do I need cocktail dresses for, anyway?”
“You might be surprised.” I winked when she gave me a cute, disbelieving arch of her brow. “There’ll be plenty of occasions for you to wear everything those girls insisted you get, I promise. There are fundraisers and other black-tie events the team has us attend every year. Some of the guys have charities that we try to support. Maybe some community organization will invite me to be a guest speaker at their ball. You never know until it pops up. If anyone would know what kinds of outfits you’ll need living here and being my wife, it would be those girls. I don’t want you to return any of it, okay? I want you to keep the clothes.”
“You’re sure?” She still looked so fucking nervous, so damned cute on top of it all.
“Positive.” I lowered my head to kiss her anxious scowl away. She let the bags slip to the floor, and she melted into my arms, her lips soft and warm and so fucking inviting.
Yeah, I was sure. Not only that but I was glad all of those women and children were finally out of my house and Mackenzie was in it, which meant I was free to take her upstairs and do things we couldn’t do if they were still here.
But first, she could give me a private fashion show. With any luck, the girls had made certain she got some sexy underthings, maybe a negligee or two that she could show me.
Which I could then take off her.
Using nothing but my teeth.
And then I could replace the fabric with my tongue.
Besides, Doc would be all right with my plan, because I could stay in bed and prop up my ankle on a stack of pillows and just let Mackenzie do all the work while I rested up for round two.
Reluctantly, I let go of her long enough that I could pick up all the bags she’d just dropped. Then I took her by the hand and headed for the stairs. “Come on,” I said. “I want you to show me everything you bought.”
“Now?” Her squeak of surprise didn’t slow her feet any, as she scurried behind me.
“Yes, now. I want to see you in everything you bought.” And out of everything, too. And on top of me. And underneath me. And every other way we could dream up.
Since I had an active imagination, we might be busy for a long time.
But I didn’t care how long it took. I wanted to see all of her. Every inch of her soft skin. Every curve of her hips, her breasts. Everything. Even if I had to see her with clothes covering her beautiful body before I could get her naked. Besides, it wasn’t like either of us had anything pressing on the agenda for the day.
She’d barely made it through the doorway before I kicked the door closed, shutting out Max and Lola. We sure as fuck didn’t need their help for this, and I didn’t give a damn how much they whined about it.
Then I pressed her back against the door and kissed her until she was hot and breathless and squirming to get closer to me. She reached for my waistband and was trying to undo my belt when I backed away and shook my head. “Nope,” I murmured, dipping down for one more kiss and ending it with a soft nip of her lips that left her sucking in a sharp breath.
I shook my head at her pouting, discontented expression, holding onto her hands to still them. “I demand a fashion show first. I want to see everything you bought. On you,” I thought to add.
“But I want your hands on me, not those clothes,” she complained with what would have seemed like a practiced, husky tone on any other woman—especially someone like Amanda. But this wasn’t any other woman; this was my sweet, innocent Mackenzie.
What I was coming to appreciate most about her was that she was anything but practiced, and she didn’t have a coy bone in her body. Everything was new and exciting with her. And real. She didn’t try to hide anything, would never try to deceive me.
She wanted my hands on her, did she? Well, so did I. More than she could possibly imagine, but there were more pressing matters to attend to first.
Namely, I needed her to understand her position in my life. Hell, I needed to understand her position in my life, and mine in hers. Our honeymoon had been a hell of a lot of fun, but we still didn’t know each other much beyond on a physical plane. That wasn’t going to be enough for this to last.
I needed it to last.
I needed this to be real.
“Soon,” I promised. “But I want to see what you bought first.”
Then, before I changed my mind and started ripping her clothes away with my teeth like I’d already imagined, I forced myself to head over to the bed and prop myself up on some pillows. I crossed my ankles, the bad one over the good one so it would be elevated and it wouldn’t put too much pressure on it, and raised a brow. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
If she kept blushing this hard, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from moving on to the next phase of my plan. At least, I doubted I could hold out for very long. Everything about this woman was refreshing to me, like a cool shower on a hot, sticky summer day.
But despite her embarrassment, she reached for the hem of her top and tugged it up and over her head, tossing the fabric to the foot of the bed. I licked my lips at the sight of her slightly sun-bronzed skin, not to mention the pretty, peach-lace bra that I’d never seen before. Bits of her skin peeked out at me through the holes in the lace. I wanted to suck her tits through the fabric and see how she responded.
If purchases like that were a result of the WAGs’ interference, I was fully on board. I couldn’t wait to see if she had matching lacy panties, my anticipation ramping up so high I was practically salivating at the thought.
When she lowered her jeans, it was better than I could have imagined.
Perfectly matching peach-lace bikini bottoms.
My boner was on full alert.
But I somehow managed to keep my hands to myself, staying back against the pillows instead of dragging her into my arms and putting a quick end to this torturous form of bliss.
I didn’t know if this was what love felt like; I’d never really felt love before, as far as I knew. Whatever I’d had with Amanda, it had been nothing like this. But this was sure a hell of a lot of fun, whatever it was.
I could get used to having Mackenzie in my life.
No, I could do better than that. I didn’t want to just get used to having her around.
I wanted her to be a permanent part of my life, every bit as much as Ghost and Max and Lola and hockey, and I supposed I could add the rest of my teammates to that list even if some of them drove me batshit crazy on the regular.
I wanted to make Mackenzie my family.
And that scared the shit out of me. Because I didn’t know how to do family. I didn’t know how to be family.
All I knew was emotional abandonment and backstabbing and jealousy.
All she knew was abandonment and fear and trying to figure it out on her own.
What a fucking pair we made.
But the truth was, Mackenzie deserved better than what she’d known in life so far. Hell, so did I, come to think of it. Which meant I had to think on my feet and figure this shit out on the fly.
I had to do better than my family had done. I had to be better than I had been taught.
I had to learn to be a real man—someone who set down roots and kept promises and didn’t run for cover when the shit hit the fan.
Someone who fucking cared, and not just about myself.
And I had to learn it fast. Starting now. Beginning with yesterday, actually. Or better yet, last week when we’d first met one another.
Because Mackenzie deserved to have something permanent in her life. She deserved to be someone’s everything, and to have someone be her everything in return.
She deserved to be loved.
Well and truly, thoroughly loved, the kind of all-consuming love that didn’t come around all the time. The kind of love that made my teammates desperate to get home when we were on a long road trip because they couldn’t stand being away from their wives for so long, even if I’d never understood that kind of love before.
Hell, I deserved it, too. Neither of us deserved the shit family lives we’d been handed, and if we were ever going to know anything different, we were going to have to make it for ourselves.
So we could do that.
Together.
Somehow.
OUR LIVES TOGETHER somehow settled into a sort of pattern and started to feel normal, or at least my closest approximation of normal, now that we were in Portland.
Every day, Riley went up to the Storm’s practice facility for various treatments and forms of rehab while I tried to learn more about living with his dogs, Max and Lola.
When the team had a home game, we went: Riley dressed in a suit, sitting in the press box with his injured teammates and those who were healthy scratches for the night, and me in the owner’s box with the other wives and girlfriends and their children. They’d gotten me a sweater—what I would call a jersey, but hockey was a different beast than baseball and football, which only proved how much I had yet to learn about hockey—at the team store with his name and number on the back, which I wore with a pair of entirely-too-expensive jeans and some ankle boots that I kind of loved, even if they had cost a small fortune.
During the games, I latched onto Anne as much as possible because I felt more comfortable with her than I did with any of the other WAGs. She’d seen me at my lowest, and she still seemed to like me, so maybe with her guidance I’d find a way to fit in.
That was my hope, at least.
But before long, several of the others started to gravitate toward me, any number of them sitting with me and starting up conversations I’d never have had the nerve to initiate on my own.
Two-year-old Cassidy Johnson sometimes climbed into my lap with a book and demanded that I read to her. They were almost always Dr. Seuss books, but sometimes they would be Barbie or My Little Pony. Her older brother, Connor, typically stood at the front of the box and shouted things down at the ice I’d never heard come out of the mouth of a five-year-old before, but then again, I’d never been around many kids his age. It might be normal, or at least normal for a hockey player’s child.
Four-year-old redheaded twins Sidney and Peyton Campbell tended to race one another around the box, giggling in high-pitched squeals that threatened to steal my ability to hear, but somehow their mother was oblivious to the noise. I supposed she’d have to become deaf to it if they were like that at home. She ignored them unless they were threatening to injure themselves or someone else with their antics, at which point she became SuperMom and sent them to their separate corners to think about how to behave like little ladies.
The four teenaged Calhoun girls—the head coach’s stepdaughters—had a corner of the box where they held court, along with Maddie Campbell and Elin Larsson. The younger girls fawned over them, wanting to be accepted into the group, while all the boys steered clear. Too much estrogen, I supposed, which rolled off of girls that age in waves.
Elin’s younger brothers had adopted Tuck Campbell—or maybe it was the other way around—and the three boys did their best to watch the game intently and ignore all the females and younger children surrounding them. They were apparently too cool for the rest of us. Or maybe they were just too into hockey. Either way, I quickly learned that they could be good resources for me, as I attempted to understand the game going on down below. At least, they might be good resources if I could ever convince them to talk to me instead of staring at the ice nonstop, which didn’t happen often.
It didn’t take too long before I started to feel accepted. Like I could maybe be friends with these people, or even part of the family. If they could be called a family, and I didn’t see why they couldn’t.
Admittedly, this was a strange sensation.
I’d never felt like I was part of a family. Maybe it was because I’d never allowed myself to feel like part of a family.
I didn’t want to get too close, because as soon as I did, something would happen to tear us apart. I was starting to relax my protective walls with these women and children—not to mention with Riley and his dogs and his friends—and that was a dangerous prospect.
I couldn’t allow myself to forget the danger, and especially not when I so desperately wanted to.
But there were other aspects to my new life, too.
Every day like clockwork, Grady came by to walk Max and Lola with me. Usually, he wouldn’t do that if Riley was at home, but with the ankle injury, it wasn’t something Riley should be doing right now. Having me go out with them gave me more bonding time with the dogs, anyway, or so Riley and Grady said.
A couple of days a week, Riley managed to get me to put on the swimsuit he’d bought me in Mexico so we could take the dogs to their swimming sessions at Doggy Paddles. Sometimes Nate and Anne came along with us, occasionally with Anne’s camera crew; other times, it was just the two of us and the dogs.
For such large animals, and particularly for a breed that wasn’t known for its swimming prowess (or so Riley told me), they were awfully good swimmers. I had fun getting into the pool and tossing toys for them to fetch. They both looked so happy and proud of themselves when they brought the toys back to me.
Through the pool time and the walks, I was learning to be more comfortable with the dogs. Size truly wasn’t everything, it seemed.
Max and Lola, while huge enough to crush me to death, were incredibly sweet and well-trained. They listened when I gave them commands, hurrying to comply.
I thought their acquiescence had far more to do with the fact that they would get treats if they did what I told them than anything involving my authority, but I decided not to argue the point with Riley. Or Grady. Or Nate and Anne.
Arguing wouldn’t endear me to anyone, and especially not to Riley, so it wasn’t in my best interests.
Because no matter how comfortable this fledgling relationship we had started to build might seem on the surface, and no matter how much I enjoyed being here and especially being with Riley, there was no escaping the fact that if this didn’t work out, I was the easiest component of the equation to dispose of.
Riley made me feel comfortable, and that was dangerous for someone like me to feel.
Someone who’d been shuttled around from foster home to foster home.
Someone who’d never known any sort of permanence.
Someone who was easy to toss aside, apparently.
Because as soon as I got comfortable, as soon as I let myself relax and believe that maybe this time, things would last, that was when the rug was bound to be ripped out from under my feet.
It’d happened too many times in my life for me to forget how quickly everything could fall apart. I couldn’t afford to let down my guard like that. I couldn’t afford to get comfortable or attached.
But I feared it might already be too late. I was already attached. And I wasn’t sure I’d ever put my guard up in order to keep from letting it down.
I could hardly imagine moving forward in life without having Riley in it. Or even without having Max and Lola in it.
Somehow, someway, I needed to figure out how to shield myself from the impending hurt. Because it was coming.
It always did.
Which meant I had to be ready to pick up the pieces of my heart when my world shattered once again.
I only hoped I had the strength and the wherewithal to do it this time.