I hadn’t planned on coming to New York for this series, but I have news, and I want to tell Tate in person. Besides, I have shopping to do.

Tonight, I watch the Lumberjacks play the Rangers in the wives and girlfriends section with Zack Moore’s wife, Alyson. The Moores split their time between Vancouver and a suburb outside of Philadelphia, so when the team plays on the east coast, she often travels out here, too. Tonight, their little one, Liam, is spending time with Zack’s parents.

She’s been a good friend, helping me navigate the realities of a long distance relationship and an empathetic ear when my frustrations get the better of me. It’s nice to have someone to talk to who’s been there. Ellie gets some of it, and she certainly has her privacy invaded way more than I do, but there are aspects to being a hockey wife that only another hockey wife understands.

When Tate comes out on the ice, he searches the stands, and the grin that stretches wide across his face when he finds me makes my belly flutter. I love that quick easy grin, reserved just for me.

The Lumberjacks rack up a big win for their first game in New York, Tate scoring two of their five goals. No hat trick for him tonight, but not for lack of trying. They got the win, and that’s all that really counts when you’re looking to make the play-offs again.

After the game, Alyson and I head back to the hotel together. “Feel like stopping at the bar for a drink before Zack and Tate get back?” she asks as we enter the lobby.

I consider, then decide against it. “Maybe another time?”

“Absolutely. I’m better off going to my room and getting comfy, anyway.”

When we get to our floor, we say our goodnights.

I change into yoga pants and a soft t-shirt. Normally, I’d be naked, or sporting something sexually provocative, but I need at least the illusion of armour when I give Tate my news. Although the fact I’m dressed might give me away. Will he remember that he made me get dressed before he proposed?

As soon as I hear the sound of hockey players in the hallway, I turn off the television.

He walks through the door, shedding layers as he approaches me on the bed. Déjà vu wafts over me. How many times have we done this now? My life is not what I thought it would be. It’s so much better.

“There’s my babe. I’m so glad you’re here. I missed you.”

Wrapping me in his arms, he kisses me hungrily. I work at the buttons of his shirt and slide my hands along the hard, muscled planes of his chest. I love this man so much, I ache.

We come up for air, and he studies my face. His eyebrows knit slightly. “Is everything okay?”

“Of course.” My heart beats fast, and my stomach is all jittery. I need to do this now before I pass out from nerves. “But I have news.”

He shifts position so he’s leaning back against the headboard, and pulls me into his lap. “Must be important for you to fly here last minute.”

It’s been a busy year for my company, and I haven’t travelled with Tate as much as I did the year before that.

“It is.” I climb off his lap and grab the small present I’d hidden under my pillow and hand it to him. I watch his face as he peels off the paper.

He pulls out the tiny knitted beaver hat. His face does the most amazing transformation as he holds it up and studies it.

“Pretty small,” he says, his voice thick. “Holy shit, Sasha. Are you—”

“Yep. Took seven tests. I didn’t believe the first six, but that last one convinced me.” We weren’t trying. We’d talked about it, though. After two years of just being the two of us, we talked about starting a family at the end of the season.

Now it looks like this baby might be born in the thick of it. Given his or her genetic material, I’d bet even money on Baby Nilsson being born on a Saturday night to a soundtrack of hockey anthems on the TV.

He grins. “Definitely important news. Hang on, you don’t knit.”

“No, but Ellie does. I told her three days ago and she knitted her little fingers off. But I swore her to secrecy, even from Gavin.”

Tate laughs. “Since when do you think Ellie could keep a secret from her husband?”

“It could happen. There’s a first time for everything.” Ellie totally told Gavin. I knew she would, and we both know it was really okay.

“Ever the optimist.” Slipping his hand behind my neck, he pulls us together and kisses me gently.“One of the many things I love about you. Another is you’re growing us a baby.”

“You’re happy?”

“Completely.” He kisses me again, then pulls back a little. “It takes five to make a hockey team, you know.”

“Hold on, Mr. My-Boys-Can-Swim, let’s see how we do with this one before we start thinking about our own expansion team.”

“Can we at least make it a hat trick?”

“You are incorrigible.”

“Yes, and it’s one of my more endearing qualities.” Pushing me back onto the bed, he lifts my shirt and peppers my belly with tiny kisses. “It’s hard to believe our baby is in here.”

“Definitely there.”

His head pops up. “How are you feeling? Are you sick?”

“Mostly tired.”

“You can rest later. Right now, you are wearing too many clothes,” he says, sliding his fingers under the waistband of my yoga pants and underwear. He peels them off, then kisses and nips his way up my legs, spreading them as he goes. I melt for him, my body going languid and warm as I watch his dark head dip between my thighs.

His warm breath teases my clit. “Tate,” I gasp, lifting my hips in encouragement.

“Patience, tiger.”

“Didn’t anyone tell you, it’s really mean to make a pregnant woman wait for her orgasm? In fact, it might be a rule. Yes, definitely a rule.”

He chuckles against my inner thigh. “Rules were made to be bent. But the mother of my child can demand anything her gorgeous heart desires.”