TWENTY-FOUR
Bren couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so happy. Playing the best stretch of his career was helping, though having his girls here was the prime reason.
Then there was Violet. The woman made him feel like a god. Her concern at keeping him on the straight and narrow touched him beyond belief. He liked to think he was strong enough to resist the taste of wine on her lips—and while it had tasted good, she tasted better. She always would. He needed her to know where he stood. Had he come on too strong? Perhaps, but this was too important for indecisiveness. Violet should know his intentions toward her were serious.
He looked around at his men, his daughters, his family, both blood and ice. He was in a good place.
Someone nudged him, and he peered down to find Harper peering up, her hand shading her eyes. “You seem to get taller every year.”
“And you seem to get shorter.”
“Watch it, St. James.”
“Yes, boss.”
A few notes on the guitar filled the air. Remy liked to play, and no doubt he was getting ready to serenade his woman. “He’s going to go nuts when your kid is born.”
“I know,” she said, her voice heavy with emotion. “He’ll be a great dad.”
Bren had no doubt. Sure, Remy would make mistakes, but nothing like the shitstorm Bren had caused to rain down on his own head. Married too young, trying to please the wrong woman, show the world he was a big shot. The intervening years had taught him many lessons, not least of which was that all his problems amounted to a big pile of nothing if he couldn’t do right by his daughters.
“Don’t hurt her.”
Bren blinked at Harper’s words. Pretending ignorance wasn’t his style, so he didn’t even bother.
“I’m in love with her, Harper.”
“Well, we all are.” He turned to find her sniffing and wiping her eyes. “I mean, how could anyone not be crazy about her? She’s a breath of fresh air, the life force this stultified family needed. She seems to think that because she doesn’t have an official job with the Rebels that she isn’t valuable to us but . . . I don’t think Isobel and I would be where we are without her putting us straight. She’s like Clifford in that respect, which she’d hate to hear. Crashing in and blowing things sky high, only unlike with Dad, we’re left reminded of how truly blessed we are.”
That was Violet: party crasher, bringer of blessings, before poof! she was gone.
But not if Bren could help it.
Harper shook her head. “Look what Remy’s demon spawn has done to me. Changed my personality so now I’m just a vomitorium of emotion.”
Bren pulled her close to his side. “The baby’s revealing your true personality. Softhearted to the core.”
“Oh, shut up. And you’d better not say a word about this to Violet. I have a reputation to maintain.”
He kissed her forehead. “Your secret’s safe with me, boss.”
On the trail of those first few guitar chords, a small, quiet voice started up—a small, quiet, female voice.
“I took my love, I took it down; climbed a mountain and I turned around . . .”
Bren’s head whipped around in surprise. That was his Caitriona, singing and playing Stevie Nicks’s “Landslide” on the guitar.
Holding his phone screen in front of her, Remy murmured instructions about which notes came next. They must have been looking at sheet music. She stumbled a little, shook her head in frustration, but she didn’t give up.
Everyone had stopped to look at Bren’s beautiful daughter lighting up the world with her talent. Cade and Erik were bobbing their heads. Violet stood over at the kitchen entrance with Franky, gamely holding a slug jar. She caught his eye and winked. Was this another miracle she’d performed?
After a couple of stops and starts, and two verses later, Caitriona halted and blushed to everyone’s cheers. Bren walked over to his daughter and scooped her up.
“Dad! Put me down!”
So maybe she was too old to be held, but she would never be too old to be loved or hugged to death.
“You’ve been holding out on me, Cat. Had no idea you had that in you.”
“I’m not very good. I need to practice more.” She squirmed in his grip.
“Aye, we all do.” Finally, he put her down.
She smiled up at him, and he rejoiced in the knowledge that his daughter was back instead of the scowl monster who’d shown up six weeks ago.
His youngest appeared at his side. “Whatcha think about your sister?”
Franky held up a slug in response. “Clifford liked it.”
He almost choked. “Clifford?” He lowered his voice. “Probably don’t want to call him that. Clifford was the name of Violet’s dad. Harper’s and Isobel’s, too.”
“Oh, I know,” Franky said, mischief in her voice. “Violet said he had slug tendencies.”
“She’s not wrong,” Harper said, walking by.
“The slug can’t be all bad,” Bren said, still not quite at ease with the name selection. “Sounds like he has good taste in music.”
Caitriona rolled her eyes. “Great. A slug for my number one fan.”
“Got to start somewhere, sprite. And he’s your number two fan. I’m top dog.”
“Thanks, Dad.” She smiled shyly, then her face crumpled as her gaze slipped to some point behind him. Both his daughters beelined for a tall, willowy figure standing at the side entrance to the backyard.
Kendra.
“My babies!”
Bren watched as his ex-wife gathered into her arms the daughters she’d abandoned and hugged them tight. As if she hadn’t seen them for weeks.
Oh, right. She hadn’t. Who the hell did she think she was showing up unannounced like this?
“You’ve grown so much!” Kendra gushed, her smile only cracking slightly when Franky held up Clifford the Slug for inspection. Kendra had never been a fan of Franky’s outdoor pursuits.
Shock had cemented his feet; now his blood flow reactivated him and sent him flying into the fray. He placed a hand on each of his daughters’ shoulders and made his claim.
“Kendra, you never call. You never write.”
She knew him well enough to understand his tone of quiet, restrained, white-hot fury.
“Bren, you’re looking good. I always thought a play-off beard would suit you.”
A little dig about how he’d never gotten this far—a bone of contention during their marriage. A journeyman NHLer wasn’t what Kendra had in mind when she said I do. Each year he didn’t make it to the postseason had been another chip away at the foundation of their wedded bliss. She’d expected great things: endorsements, championship rings, to be queen of the WAGs. He couldn’t blame her for her disappointment.
But he could blame her for the stunt she had pulled six weeks ago.
She turned her attention back to the girls. “So guess what I have for you both? Hamilton tickets!”
Caitriona clutched her mom’s hand. “Really?” The hope in her voice broke his heart in half.
“Day after tomorrow,” Kendra said.
“We need to talk, Kendra.”
His ex-wife raised her gaze, a poisonous sweetness in her smile. “I know.”
Exhibiting perfect timing, Violet appeared. “Hey, girls, might be time for ice cream.”
Kendra flicked her hair over her shoulder, took one look at Violet, and immediately dismissed her. Bren had seen her do that to women before—only a certain type pinged Kendra’s radar, and Violet wasn’t it.
Still, Bren didn’t appreciate Kendra’s disrespect. “Thanks, Violet. As you’ve probably guessed, this is my daughters’ mother.”
“Right,” Violet said, sort of clipped.
“Oh, so you’re the mystery daughter, Clifford’s secret love child.”
“Kendra,” Bren warned. “Violet’s been looking after your children while you were”—at a fucking spa—“not well.”
Kendra didn’t take it for the criticism it was. “Thank you for doing that. I hope you were paid well. Not that you’d need to be, because one-third ownership of a hockey franchise has to be quite lucrative.”
Violet could have uttered a sassy comeback, but because she was all class, she played it cool for his daughters’ sake.
“Girls, let’s give your mom and dad a few minutes to catch up.”
Franky peered up through her glasses at Kendra, then turned to him. “Are we going back to Atlanta?”
Bren couldn’t tell if her query was out of yearning or dread, but he knew one thing: that would happen over his dead body.
“We’re going to talk about everything, sprite.”
Then he cupped his ex-wife’s arm and drew her around the side of the house.
“Ooh, baby, I love it when you get rough.” Kendra giggled, a sound he had no doubt lingered on the air so everyone at the barbecue could hear.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
He got a better look at her, and he hated to say it: she looked good. But then again, a month and a half of yoga, meditation, and finding-her-fucking-self does that to a woman. Gives her a glow.
She smiled. “Still my bad-tempered brute. And now you’re my winning, bad-tempered brute.” She threw her arms around him.
He unhooked her hands. “Guess you can overlook all my faults when I’m in the finals, huh?”
“Now, don’t be like that. Neither of us is perfect.”
“You can’t just show up like this, Kendra. The girls have been through enough.”
“Yes, Bren, they have.”
He didn’t like that tone. That’s how Kendra sounded when she was planning something. It also reeked of playing the victim, and while he wasn’t buying that, a flurry of dread rippled through him all the same.
“What do you want, Kendra?”
“I want to reconnect with my family.” She lay her fingertips on his chest, then flattened her palm. “All of my family.”
No fucking way. “What about Drew?”
“He’s not the father of my children.”
“Dumped your skinny ass, did he?”
“Baby, you think I’m skinny?” She giggled. He felt ill.
“This isn’t happening, Kendra. I’ve talked to my lawyer and I have a good case for sole custody.”
“You tell him everything? Because you might want to share some of the stunts you pulled. Give him all the facts.”
That hint—hell, full-flavored mouthful—of a threat washed over him.
His hand fumbling with the ignition, the slot impossible to find. Sobs echoing in the car. Dropped keys. Feeling for them on the floor. There!
“Go home, Kendra. Drew’s been good to you. I haven’t.”
Her face turned as hard as glass. “I want to take the girls to see a show on Tuesday. I thought you could join us.”
“No can do.” As if he’d let them go with her unsupervised. “I’ll be in Boston getting ready for the first game on Wednesday. Any further discussion or requests for visitation can go through my lawyer.”
“You haven’t exactly been a model father.”
He moved in close, noting how her eyes flared.
“I screwed up. My drinking was out of control, put a terrible strain on you, maybe destroyed whatever chance we had.” He was being kind. True, his alcoholism made him a terror to live with, but he and Kendra did not fit. He’d happily take all the blame if it got him what he wanted.
“And now things are better. You’re sober, you’re playing better than you’ve ever been. We’re good together.”
His winning turned her on, but where would she be during the bad times?
When he didn’t answer, her expression changed. “Don’t make me fight dirty, Bren.”
“You come at me and I will cut you down, Kendra. We’ve both fucked up, but you did it last, and now the girls need stability.”
“With a nanny? With that inked-up punk girl, hated by her father so much he refused to acknowledge her for years?”
“She’s been a better mother to those girls than you.”
Kendra’s eyes flew wide in recognition. “The nanny, Bren? A little clichéd, don’t you think?”
That was him, a walking cliché. “See yourself out, Kendra.”
Heading back into the gathering, he was aware of every eye on him, but all he could think of right now was his daughters. He found them in the kitchen, their dark heads close together. In times of adversity, they seemed to put aside their differences and find common ground, just like now, comforting each other. As sisters should. Violet and Isobel were arranging tubs of ice cream on the counter along with toppings, those little chocolate sprinkles and . . . chopped nuts.
By the time Bren reached the counter, Violet had already whipped them away.
Isobel’s mouth fell open. “Oh hell, I’m so sorry! It’s just that Vad loves nuts on his ice cream.”
Violet winked. “Bet he does. And it’s okay. No harm done.” She shot a searching look at Bren, one that asked if everything was okay.
He had no answer for her, none at all.