EVERYTHING HAPPENED FASTER than I could process it.
One moment, I was trying to drag Lola home and the next she was snarling and biting the creepy man from the dog park.
Biting like she meant to rip his throat out.
Biting like she meant to kill.
Blood was gushing from the human-and-canine pile, but I couldn’t tell if it was hers or his, or maybe even some of both. I couldn’t decide what to do, but already several of our neighbors were rushing from their houses to help. One of them hauled me back away from the scene while a few others tried to yank Lola off the man while still holding him down.
“You all right?” the woman who’d pulled me away asked.
“Lola saved me. She saved me,” I stuttered. And then I stumbled on a stray rock in the street, almost passing out. But now was not the time to faint because this was far from finished.
“Come on over here,” she said, gently tugging me farther away from the pile at first and then giving me a solid heave when I didn’t budge, finally getting my feet to move beneath me. “Come here and sit down on the curb.”
She pressed a bottle of water into my hands, but I couldn’t drink. I couldn’t do anything but stare. And shake. And wonder.
Lola was still snarling and snapping, not caring who she hurt in the bargain because she still wasn’t done with the man who’d tried to seize me from behind. Another man ran down the street and joined the others, finally hauling Lola off my would-be attacker. Once she was out of the pile, he dragged her away by her leash and held her back—which was no easy task since she was still all fired up—while the other two kept the man who’d started it all down on the ground.
“Yeah, we need an officer,” the woman next to me said into her cell phone. “A man tried to grab my neighbor while she was out walking her dog. No idea what he intended to do once he had her, but he’s no good. The dog saved her for long enough that some of us from the neighborhood could intervene. They’ve got him down on the ground now, and the dog’s off him, but this son of a bitch needs to be behind bars. You should maybe send a paramedic, too,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “That dog got him pretty good. Serves the son of a bitch right, trying to grab a woman like he did.”
There was still such a ruckus coming from the pile of humans, and Lola was barking so loudly, that we attracted more of a crowd in no time. Several other dogs and owners from the dog park came over, and a couple of them bent down beside Lola and started petting her, praising her, trying to calm her down while still more joined the group surrounding my attacker.
“She’s my sister-in-law,” the guy shouted from the bottom of the pile. “I was just saying hello.”
Oh, God. Riley’s brother. Could that really be him?
I didn’t even know his brother’s name. I’d certainly never seen him before. Riley didn’t talk about his family much. Neither of us liked to talk about our families, our childhoods. We mainly focused on the here and now.
But if it was him…why? Why would he do this?
“If you want to say hello, you say hello, you don’t try to sneak up behind a woman and grab her,” one of the men holding him down said.
My heart hammered nonstop, so hard and fast it might puncture the wall of my ribs soon. I felt dizzy. So dizzy. Thank goodness they’d made me sit, because even now I thought I might fall over and faint.
The woman next to me ended her call and turned to me. “Cops’ll be here in a minute. That piece of shit really your brother-in-law?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never met my husband’s brother. They aren’t exactly on speaking terms since he and my husband’s former fiancée had an affair.”
“Piece of shit’s too good a name for him, then.”
Lola still wouldn’t calm down, no matter how many people tried to soothe her. I caught one man’s eye and waved my hand for them to bring her to me. He nodded and spoke to the group trying to subdue her for a moment, and then they brought her to my side.
She whimpered and nudged her nose against my hand until I started petting her.
“It’s all right, Lola. You did good. Such a good girl.” I scratched her behind the ears, but she was still anxious, pacing, wanting to get back over to the man she’d attacked. So she could finish him off? Or did she just want to make sure he couldn’t get to me?
Either way, I needed her here by my side, not over there with him. There were plenty of men surrounding him now, holding him down and making sure he couldn’t get to me or my dog. She had blood on her muzzle from where she’d bitten him, and I saw more blood on the fur of her belly.
I stroked my hand down her back, trying to soothe her. “Sit down, Lola. I think you ripped your stitches. You’ve got to be still now, okay?”
“She’s a pretty awesome dog for protecting you that way,” the woman said next to me. “I saw it from my living room. Couldn’t believe my eyes. I was already about to call the cops because I didn’t like the looks of that guy and how he was skulking around the neighborhood, but your dog was on the ball. She didn’t mess around.”
Pretty awesome didn’t even begin to cover it.
Lola was amazing.
I nodded, too choked up to speak as reality set in and the adrenaline wore off. A flood of tears started pouring down my cheeks.
I scratched Lola’s ears again, and then I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her as well as I could with that stupid cone in the way.
Lola licked my cheek, a big, wet, slobbery kiss that was the best thing ever.
“She’s a hero,” I got out on a sob.
“Damn right, she is,” one of the men nearby said, and most of the others in the growing crowd murmured assent.
A minute or two later, a few cop cars pulled up, followed by the requested ambulance. The officers got out. Two of them started taking statements from all the parties involved and the witnesses while the others went with the paramedics to deal with Riley’s brother, who was still bleeding freely but didn’t seem in any danger of dying if the blue streak he was cursing was any indication.
Good. I didn’t want him to die, and I definitely didn’t want Lola to be responsible for it if he did. He was still Riley’s brother, and the thought of something like that being on his conscience didn’t sit well with me.
The officer who sat down to speak with me eyed Lola for a moment. “That dog looks familiar. She on Instagram or something? Twitter? YouTube? I could swear I’ve seen video of her before.”
“This is Lola,” the neighbor lady said. “Riley Jezek’s dog. You know, the player from the Storm? Max and Lola? They’ve got that behind-the-scenes show on the Internet. She’s been on it a few times.”
He grinned. “Oh, I know that show. Eye of the Storm, right? The swimming dogs?”
“That’s her!”
“Yeah, I know who Lola is. You’re famous already, aren’t you, sugar?” He scratched her ears, and her tail thumped wildly. “You’re about to get a whole lot more famous now. Because you’re not just cute. You’re a hero.”
“YOUR DOGS WERE already well known before this, due to being featured on Eye of the Storm so frequently, but now Lola’s being lauded as a hero,” one unfamiliar reporter said, while what felt like hundreds of cameras and mics were shoved in my face, the bright glare of lights blinding me so I couldn’t make him out. “How does it feel to have so much attention surrounding her?”
We’d just won a game against the Sharks, guaranteeing ourselves home ice throughout the playoffs, but no one seemed to want to talk about the game or the playoffs or anything to do with hockey.
They wanted to talk about my dog coming to Mackenzie’s rescue when my crackpot brother had tried to attack her.
This was the biggest crowd of cameras we’d been subjected to all season long, but I supposed it would be good practice for us heading into the playoffs.
At least the focus was no longer on my injury, though. I’d gladly talk about my wife and my dog over myself any day. I couldn’t wait to get home again to see Mackenzie, my dogs, and our kitten.
My family.
Fuck, I missed them, and I hated that I hadn’t been there to protect Mackenzie from my whack-a-doodle brother.
But Lola had been there. Lola had saved the day.
“Lola is a hero,” I said. “And I’m not saying that just because she protected my wife and our unborn baby, either. She’s adopted an orphaned kitten, too. Apparently she thinks she needs to be a mommy and isn’t too happy I had her spayed when she was a puppy. No one tell her the kitten’s going to grow up to be a cat. Maybe Lola won’t notice that her baby’s the wrong species.”
The sea of reporters laughed, but even though I’d cracked a joke at the end, I was dead serious. My dog was a fucking rock star.
As soon as I got home, I intended to give her the best belly rub of her life and all the treats she could ever dream of. I was going to spoil that dog so fucking rotten she wouldn’t know what hit her.
“In all seriousness, though,” I said, “I’m just glad Lola was there. And I’m glad some of my neighbors were out in their yards and can act as witnesses for the legal side of things so there shouldn’t be any problems. Dog attacks often lead to the dogs being put down or at least being forced into a muzzle when they’re out in public, so I’m so grateful that my neighbors quickly came forward with the truth of what happened, and it isn’t just my wife’s word against my brother’s. Lola was protecting her mama. She’s fiercely loyal, a truth my brother learned the hard way. Maybe he thought that since she was the smaller of my two dogs and had just had surgery, she wouldn’t be any threat to him. I don’t know what he was thinking. I don’t know why he would do something like that to begin with. I have no idea what goes on in Colby’s head, to be honest.”
And when you added in the fact that he’d been high as a kite that day, there was even less likelihood of understanding my nut-job of a brother’s thought process. I doubted he would have done anything of the sort if he’d been clean, but how could I know? I hadn’t ever understood much about him, not even when we’d been kids.
Apparently Amanda had ditched him and was shacking up with some other NHL player now.
So was Colby just trying to piss me off? Did he feel the need to always hook up with whoever I was with as a means of validating himself? I didn’t have the first clue.
“Any chance Lola’s new kitten will be going to swimming lessons with your dogs on future webisodes of Eye of the Storm?” another reporter asked.
I chuckled, glad for a not-quite-so-loaded question. “Not sure she’ll be swimming any time soon. At this point, we’re just waiting for her to open her eyes. Besides, aren’t cats supposed to hate being in water?”
“They say if you start them early…” someone put in.
“Just toss her in the pool,” one of my teammates called out from the other side of the room. “She’ll figure it out quick enough.”
I strained to see who’d said it. Based on the shit-eating grin on his face, it looked like Koz was the culprit.
“I don’t think Lola would allow anyone to toss her baby anywhere,” I shot back at him. “You want to try it, though, be my guest. We’ll see how Mama Lola reacts to what she sees as a threat to her baby. We’ve already seen how she reacts to threats to her mama.”
That earned me another good laugh from the reporters and the rest of my teammates.
“All right, all right,” Bergy said, pushing through the sea of reporters and forcing his way in next to me. “That’s enough about cats and dogs for today. Anyone want to talk about hockey? I heard something about the playoffs starting soon. Might have just been a rumor though.”
Sure enough, as soon as the laughter died off, one reporter shot out a question about the recent changes to our power play and how Bergy intended to deploy his players heading into our first series against the Kings, letting me off the hook.
I slipped away from the crowd and headed back to my stall so I could strip off my gear and hit the showers. When I returned from cleaning up, the media had all cleared out. None too soon, if you asked me. I wasn’t looking forward to the media circus aspect of the playoffs.
Most of the guys had already made their way out to the charter bus. We were staying in San Jose for the night and flying down to Anaheim tomorrow for our final game before the playoffs started.
But Levi “501” Babcock was waiting for me, even though the rest of the guys were gone. He was Babs’s younger brother and one of our defensemen.
“What’s up?” I asked, because it seemed as though he’d been waiting to talk to me. I took a seat on the bench next to him.
“Jealousy’s a bitch,” he said, which took me aback. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this.
“Especially when it’s your brother you’re jealous of,” he continued. “I know. Been there, done that. It can lead you to do some crazy, stupid things.”
“You’re jealous of Babs? That what you’re saying?” I couldn’t figure out where he was heading with this.
“I was. For a long time, absolutely. So jealous it made me do some really idiotic shit. I was always trying to one-up him. It’s actually why I chased after Cadence in the beginning.”
“What? What does Cadence have to do with Babs?” And what did any of this have to do with me? I wasn’t following. At all.
“He had Katie, and she’s perfect, you know? Hollywood career and all of that. Fairy-tale romance. And he’s always been the best at everything, anyway. Got into the NHL at eighteen. Team captain already. Perfect wife, perfect life. So I was trying to outdo him for once, and Cadence had just won her gold medal. At that moment in time, she was more famous than Katie, so that was why I went after her. Kind of fucked up, I know. And I really do love her, which has nothing to do with fame or gold medals and everything to do with her, but I was an idiot with how I went about it.”
“Yeah, but you never cheated with Katie,” I pointed out.
“Wouldn’t have happened even if I’d wanted it to. Katie’s always loved Jamie. She never had eyes for anyone else. Not really, at least.”
“And you never tried to hurt Katie, or kidnap her, or whatever the fuck Colby intended to do, just because you were fucked up in the head and trying to get back at your brother for supposedly being better than you.”
He chuckled. “I guess you have a point. Just trying to make you feel better.”
There wasn’t anything that would make me feel better when it came to my relationship with my brother. Or my parents. This had just served to pound the final nail into that coffin.
I was done with them. Totally done.
But I was okay with that. I didn’t need a relationship with my blood relatives. Not when I had an amazing wife like Mackenzie, kick-ass dogs like Lola and Max, an adorable kitten like Phoebe, and a baby on the way. Not to mention teammates who’d always been more like brothers to me than Colby ever had been.
Especially Ghost. A friendship that could survive him shoving me out of a plane could withstand anything, the way I saw it.
“I’m good, man,” I said. “But thanks.” And to prove it, I dragged 501 in for a bro hug, slapping him on the back a few times for good measure.
“You know, there are seven of us Babcock brothers. I doubt anyone would notice if we suddenly brought home one more.”
I nearly busted a gut laughing as we headed out to join the rest of the team. “I’ll keep that in mind in case I ever need a better brother.”
But there was no denying it felt good to know these guys had my back. Ghost always had, but I hadn’t ever really allowed myself to think of the rest of the team in that way.
The truth was, I didn’t allow myself to think of much of anyone like family. It was safer to keep everyone at arm’s distance. But Mackenzie had busted her way through that wall of defense, and I didn’t ever want to build it up again.
Colby might be my brother according to blood, but my teammates were the brothers I chose. Mackenzie was the wife I chose. Max and Lola and now Phoebe were the pets I chose, and I sure as fuck would choose the baby Mackenzie and I were having together and any more who came our way.
I had the only kind of family that mattered, regardless of how different we all were. I was one lucky son of a bitch.
Maybe I didn’t understand what I’d done to deserve this kind of luck, but you could bet I wouldn’t be forgetting about it any time soon.
LOLA NEEDED TO be stitched up again after ripping open her wound in the incident, but Dr. Morganstern and his crew were able to take care of that in their mobile unit this time since she didn’t need to go under anesthesia. They gave her an injection for pain before getting started, which helped. She was calm and still as long as I stayed right by her side, telling her what a good girl she was.
They checked on baby Phoebe since they were already at the house, gave Max a few belly rubs so he wouldn’t feel left out, and topped it all off with checking my blood pressure and then giving me a big hug to help steady my nerves.
It had been a traumatic few days with Riley gone, but we’d all survived.
Somehow.
The house was constantly buzzing with activity now.
Almost all of the other wives and girlfriends from the team had stopped by at least once or twice to bring food, supervise our growing menagerie so I could grab a nap, share the latest gossip, drop off some romance novels for me to read in my spare time, or otherwise distract me in some way.
Several local news crews had heard through the community grapevine about Lola’s bravery, and since she was already famous due to being featured on Eye of the Storm, they wanted to have segments featuring her on their evening broadcasts. This led to a flurry of activity constantly coming in and out of the house, but it helped build more buzz surrounding the team heading into the playoffs.
Riley and the WAGs all assured me this was a good thing and not a distraction, so I went along with it. Everyone said this was the Storm’s year; they were finally going to win the Stanley Cup. Lola’s heroics were only serving to get the city more excited about the team than ever.
Not to be outdone, Anne brought a few of her guys along and filmed a bit with our small but growing family for the next Eye of the Storm webisode. “It’ll be a great counterpoint to everything the team is doing on the ice here at the end of the season,” she explained. “They’ve got their eyes on the playoffs, but life goes on at home.”
Yeah, she was right about that.
Life went on.
In some ways, it was dragging me along at a pace I was uncertain of. I frantically tried to keep my feet under me and my head above water, but I was such a mess that I’d even started mixing my metaphors. But despite all of that, I wouldn’t change anything about my life as it had become.
Now, with Riley, I had everything I’d always dreamed of: a family of my very own and a man who loved me exactly as I was. And we even had a human baby on the way to round out our growing family.
My worries over motherhood were even starting to ease, a bit at a time. Having Phoebe to care for had helped with that.
So had Lola’s emergency, to be honest.
The two of them and Max were forcing me to see that, even though I hadn’t had a great human example of what a family should be growing up, I had excellent canine and feline examples right at my fingertips as well as the best husband I could have ever imagined and a massive extended family provided by the Storm. Not only that, but I was far more capable of dealing with crises when they popped up than I’d ever given myself credit for.
Because of them, I was starting to believe in myself.
Max and Lola loved each other even when they had minor tiffs. And they adored Riley and me, and both were ready to help with baby Phoebe at a moment’s notice. I had no doubt they’d be the same with our human baby soon, too.
But the way Lola had jumped to my rescue had absolutely sealed the deal for me.
She wasn’t like the dogs in my past.
She would never hurt me. In fact, she’d do anything at all, including hurt herself if needed, in order to protect me.
The way she doted on little Phoebe told me she’d behave in exactly the same manner to protect her baby kitty. And I had no doubts that any child Riley and I brought into our home would become one of Lola’s babies, too.
Although, considering the way Max tended to stick to my side like glue, I had a feeling she might have to wrestle with him to determine which dog got to claim the human baby. With any luck, they’d mutually agree to be a team, much like Riley and I had become.
For the first time ever in my life, though, I felt I truly belonged. I felt comfortable in my home. In my life. In my marriage.
I felt loved.
The craziest part was that Lola was the one who’d taught me more about love than anyone else in my life ever could have. She’d risked everything because she loved me.
If she could do that, how could I not do the same for those I loved?
And I loved Riley.
I loved him so much it hurt.
So much it scared me.
Yes, I was still terrified that something would come along and take him away from me or me away from him. That had almost occurred, after all. I still had no idea what Riley’s brother had intended to do once he’d grabbed me—he was so high on some drug or another that even he couldn’t explain himself to the cops and paramedics—but Lola had prevented anything bad from happening to me.
But it turned out that love was hollow if you never let the other person know. It was just an empty shell waiting to be filled up.
Staying silent didn’t protect me from getting hurt, and it wouldn’t prevent Riley from leaving me or kicking me out of his life. My silence couldn’t protect the dogs or our kitten from harm, and it certainly wouldn’t keep our baby safe.
All it did was leave me scared and alone.
I didn’t want to be alone anymore.
I’d spent my entire life alone, regardless of how many people surrounded me.
So the night the team returned from their final road trip of the regular season, I waited up for Riley. Max and Lola heard Nate’s car pull into the driveway before I did, and they both took off down the stairs to greet Riley at the door.
“You, Miss Lola… You’d be in so much trouble if you weren’t such a fucking rock star,” Riley said, his voice traveling up the stairs.
From their happy barks, I could guess that he was giving them both scratches and maybe some belly rubs. And then I just couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to see him myself. I needed my own itch scratched, and only Riley could do it.
I padded down the stairs in my pj’s, my heart melting at the sight of my husband, this strong, gorgeous man, down on the floor, hug-wrestling with his dogs. Both Max and Lola were so excited he was home that they couldn’t contain themselves, their tails working overtime as they licked him all over.
I could totally understand their enthusiasm; I wanted to do exactly the same thing.
Finally, Riley glanced up and saw me standing in the stairwell, and his entire face lit up. He shoved the dogs off him and pushed himself up from the floor, and then he was in my arms, shoving me against the wall and kissing me so hard I couldn’t breathe. But I didn’t care. I didn’t want to breathe unless I was breathing in him.
His hand fisted in my hair and he angled my head to take the kiss deeper, his knee parting my thighs. I was so desperate for more of him that I practically climbed him like a tree, trying to get closer, reveling in the sensation of having him back in my arms.
He didn’t waste any time, using his other hand to delve under the waistband of my bottoms and slip between my thighs. “You’re so fucking wet for me already. God, baby doll, I’ve barely touched you and you’re already about to come. I need you so much.”
I held tight to his shoulders for support as he easily slid his fingers inside me, an indulgent, greedy groan tearing from my lips. He couldn’t possibly crave me as much as I needed him right now. He was right; my orgasm was building to a frightening crescendo, and we were both still fully clothed.
A few more pumps of his fingers, a couple more swirls from the pad of his thumb over my clitoris, and I collapsed back against the wall, thoroughly spent.
“Fuck, you’re hot,” he murmured against my lips.
I couldn’t catch my breath, and he was picking me up and carrying me up the stairs to the bedroom, but I still hadn’t told him what I needed to say.
“Wait,” I said when he laid me back across the mattress and reached for the hem of my top to lift it over my head.
“I don’t think I can wait much longer, baby doll. Been thinking of nothing but getting home to you for days. Nothing but being inside you. Nothing but telling you over and over again how much I love you.”
“That’s just it.” I sat up and put my hands over his, stopping him. Because I had to tell him. I couldn’t wait any longer. If I did, I might burst.
“What’s just it?” he asked.
“I love you, too.”
He grinned down at me, a cocky sort of grin that brought another wave of heat rushing to my core, biting down on his lower lip. “I know you do.”
I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes, because I was being totally serious and baring my soul, and he was acting like a cocky jerk.
“You’re itching to tell me off for that,” he said, laughing. “I can see it all over your face.”
“I’m itching to punch you in the shoulder. But I don’t want to do that because it’ll only feel like an ant bite to you and it might break my fingers.”
He burst out laughing so hard that he fell onto the bed and rolled onto his back. But he dragged me along with him, and then we were both laughing and kissing and in love, and everything was exactly how I wanted it to be.
Maybe, just maybe, my life could have a happy-ever-after ending, just like all those books I’d been reading for years. He might not be a perfect Prince Charming, but Riley was just about perfect for me, dogs and kittens and babies and all.