Somehow the house was a wreck despite the three of us having spent all of the last week experiencing the most magical place on earth—or so Lettie kept telling me. I couldn’t help but smile every time she darted through the place, still wearing her Minnie Mouse ears and singing the Hot Dog Dance song at the top of her lungs. It had been an amazing trip, and even though Gage had had to sit out in order to heal, he’d been able to make me sigh his name more than once. The red-hot memory of what he’d done to me in the oversized bathtub in the hotel, and then afterward in the bed, had my thighs clenching and begging for a repeat.

That man. He was unstoppable. And making love to him without anything between us? That was a kind of nirvana I hadn’t known existed. I’d let him—without hesitation or second thoughts. Even now, I didn’t regret it. It only reaffirmed the love I had for him, and seeing him with those twin babies had only made my heart swell more.

“Bailey is laundry so fun?” Lettie asked, bolting into the room, her long brown hair frizzing out around the mouse ears.

Gage was back on the ice again today, and I wanted the place to be spotless by the time he made it out of practice, which I knew would be grueling. I’d even picked up his favorite cut of meat for a steak dinner tonight.

I tilted my head, shifting the hamper under my arm as I went from room to room collecting dirty clothes. Some of the Sharks had slept over after Lettie’s birthday party that had turned into an adult one after she’d went to sleep—and good God, which Shark liked to wear bikini briefs?

“Why do you ask, pumpkin?” I asked her, timidly picking up the silky red men’s underwear, trying to picture Gage in them.

They would be like a second skin, showing off his ass and those gloriously huge thighs of his…not to mention the other deliciously large piece of him---

“You’re smiling so big,” Lettie said, pointing at the grin I donned as I tossed the briefs into the hamper.

Was I? I bent down to kiss her forehead. “I’m happy.”

“Doing laundry.” She looked at me like I was an alien, and not the super-cool-fun kind she liked to draw in her sketchbook.

I tickled her belly, getting the round of squeals I wanted. “Yes. And I’d be even happier if you showed me where you’re hiding all your matching socks.”

“I don’t hide them. They run away!” She laughed again and then took off toward her room.

I glanced around the guestroom one more time for any other mysterious pairs of undergarments and then shook my head. I was pretty sure Rory had slept in this room that night, but I couldn’t be certain. The thought made me blush and I quickly shut the door behind me, reminding myself to give Paige a call later and tease her about what her crush liked to sport underneath the tailored suits he wore off the ice.

“All right, Lettie. Let’s see what the damage is,” I said, pushing the door open to her room.

She dropped a handful of clothes in the middle of her bed. “These are from our trip.”

“Thanks. You’re such a great helper!” I patted her on the back and hefted the pile into the hamper, making my way around her room that was way too big for a four-year-old, and double checked her closet for good measure.

Clothes I’d never seen Lettie wear hung neatly on matching pink hangers, and I shifted them to get a good look at the toy-crowded floor beneath it. The tip of a pink sock stuck out from underneath a Little People Princess Castle and I bent down to grab it.

“Oh, I want to play Castle!” Lettie said, bounding over and dropping to her knees as she dragged the toy out.

“Okay. I’m going to throw these into the wash,” I said, closing her door behind me.

I stopped in the hallway, staring at the tiny pink sock that hadn’t fit Lettie in over three years. The small piece of soft, fuzzy fabric had to have been from when she was a newborn, its match no doubt lost to sock-purgatory long ago. The image of another little girl popped in my mind, one with my hazel eyes and Gage’s smile. Another princess for him to spoil. The final piece of my heart.

I held the sock between my fingers as gentle as I would my baby. Gage’s and my baby.

A wrench stung in the center of my chest and paired simultaneously with butterflies in my stomach. Fear and hope mixed until I felt nauseous. It was too soon to think about another type of life with Gage—or maybe, if I was honest, I’d been thinking about it long before he’d ever looked at me that way. And with what we’d did in the hotel room, without pause or thought on what we’d do if it ended up with me pregnant, made me think that perhaps one day we’d be ready.

It wasn’t like this was a brand-new relationship. We’d known each other almost our entire lives, and we’d been a “family” for almost a year now since I started taking care of Lettie. I’d always wanted a family of my own, something similar to what I already had with Lettie and Gage, and the second I’d fallen in love with him—full on head over heels in love—I realized I wanted it much sooner than I’d ever planned. That was how strongly I felt about Gage, I wanted him to claim me in every way possible—forever and with a baby of our own to love and for Lettie to be a big sister to.

Regardless of the hope pulsing hard with each beat of my heart, I knew where he stood on more babies—which was that he didn’t.

He couldn’t see past Lettie, or wouldn’t…but that was before me, before us.

Chills danced across my skin as I remembered the look in his eyes as he plunged inside me, bare and free, hard and strong. Did that mean he’d changed his mind? Or was he just in the heat of the moment?

Either way, I couldn’t ignore the hope. Maybe, someday he would want a family with me. The idea sent a giddy, bubbly sensation soaring through my veins, successfully crushing any doubt or fear I had. We had time for him to think about it, and really, it was too soon to broach the subject seriously.

I pocketed the sock and made my way to the laundry room, throwing the clothes in for a quick cycle before heading to the messiest room in the house—which you would think would be the toddler’s, but wasn’t.

Gage’s door was wide open, so I walked in, the scent of him lingering from the night before. His sheets were a rumpled mess, but the sleek fabric was beyond tempting, practically begging me to slide in and breathe in where he’d slept. One of these days I’d wait for him in nothing but those sheets, reward him properly after a hard day’s practice.

Yeah, when Lettie is in high school.

I clenched my eyes shut, stifling a laugh. There was no escaping the beauty now. She was sneaky, wicked smart, and had perfect timing—just like her Daddy—so there was no chance of seducing Gage that way unless she was with her Grammy. Luckily, I loved her so much I could have fun spending quality family time with her, and ravage her father after bedtime.

Family. That’s what this was. This feeling of near-perfection, the ease of our lives, the overwhelming love in my heart.

I could feel the sock in my pocket as I gathered the trash from Gage’s massive bathroom, and I knew in that moment of content, I would love nothing more than to be Gage’s and Lettie’s forever. The one who didn’t leave. The one who completed them with a new addition of our own. The vision of Lettie showing a little sister how to finger-paint damn near brought tears to my eyes.

A drawer underneath Gage’s sink was half open and when I tried to shut it, it got hung on something, which successfully distracted me from the emotional onslaught filling me with life-changing fantasies.

I set the trash bag down and sank to my knees, trying to wrench free whatever had jammed the drawer. After a good amount of pulling and tugging, the thing came free so quickly I flung backward, bringing the drawer and all of its contents with me.

A comb had been the culprit, but the thing had been full of all manner of products—hair gel, fresh sticks of deodorant, travel sized luxuries like toothpaste and floss—all of which now littered the marble floor. I shook my head, picking up the items and rearranging them so that the drawer wouldn’t get stuck again. A pill bottle had rolled underneath the cabinet and I had to lay flat to retrieve it.

It was empty but the bold lettering on the label gave me pause.

Valium?

I read the date on the bottle, which was around the time of his shoulder injury. That didn’t make sense, though, because they’d given him codeine for the pain. I remembered because he’d once told me how incredible they made him feel, which is why he promptly stopped taking them the minute he could manage his pain. He wasn’t afraid of becoming dependent, but with a newborn, he wasn’t going to take any chances.

Had he been mixing these drugs? I thought about tossing the bottle but left it on his counter just in case he had saved it for some reason. More than likely he’d forgot about it, but it didn’t stop the curiosity churning in my mind, even as I grabbed the rest of the trash and took it outside.

When I finished cooking the romantic late night dinner hours later—long after Letti had gone to bed—it still bothered me. Something like a cold dread had settled in my stomach and I couldn’t understand why. Gage wasn’t the type to self-medicate. He wouldn’t take those kinds of risks with Lettie around. Hell, the man didn’t even drink as it was.

“Honey, I’m home,” Gage called as he walked into the kitchen, freshly showered from practice. His tone was light and joking, but I swallowed back the nervous acid that had collected in my throat.

He kissed my cheek, then my neck, before glancing across the hall to the dining room table I had set.

“Is this all for me?” He asked, walking toward it.

I nodded, bringing the steak sizzling from the cast iron skillet and sliding it on the plate on the table. After taking the empty pan back to the kitchen, I took the spot to his left, and slowly sipped my ice water as he loaded his plate with roasted red potatoes and the bacon green beans I’d made for sides.

“How was practice?” I asked, hoping to quell the urge to ask him about the pill bottle out right. I swear the thing was on fire in the bathroom, nagging me with its mystery.

“Good,” he said, putting a bite of steak in his mouth. “You are the perfect woman.” He moaned and closed his eyes. “Thank you. So good.”

I smiled softly. “I try.”

He opened his eyes and set down his fork. “What’s wrong?”

I swallowed hard. How could he tell? “What do you mean?”

“Come on, Bailey. I think it’s safe to say I know when something is bugging you. Hell, I’ve known how to read you since before you could actually read.”

I chuckled, sucking in a sharp breath. “Did you ever have to take any other medications when your shoulder got hurt?”

Confusion colored his eyes as he tilted his head, then something darker crossed over them and he stabbed another piece of steak. “No, why?” His voice was quieter than it had been moments before.

I wrung my hands out underneath the table. “I was cleaning, not snooping, and came across an empty bottle of valium. I thought they gave you codeine for the pain.”

“They did,” he said in a clipped tone.

I stared at him, eyebrows raised, waiting for him to elaborate.

He didn’t, instead he kept shoving more food into his mouth like he could prolong the moment.

“Gage?”

He took a long drink of his ice water.

“Why do I feel like you’re about to drop an axe over my head?” I asked, the churning in my stomach stealing my appetite.

He glanced at me, then his plate, then back to me. “I wasn’t crossing meds, Bailey. You know I never would do that.”

Relief pooled out of me, the air leaving my lungs in a long sigh. The tension in my chest loosened and I felt silly for ever thinking such a thing. I knew better. Gage was too good for that. “That’s good,” I said and took another drink, instantly lighter. “I found something else today too.” I reached into my pocket, smiling for the first time in hours.

Gage’s eyes lit up when he took the tiny pink sock I held out to him. “Where did you find this?”

“Buried underneath some of Lettie’s toys. No clue where the other one would be. I have trouble enough keeping up with the socks she has now.”

He chuckled, gripping the fabric between his hands.

“Could you imagine having another one of her running around?” I asked, despite knowing it was too serious a conversation to have now. I couldn’t help it, though, the love in my heart, paired with the way we’d made love in the hotel room, and the sock, combined into one big ball of want and for the first time in my life I knew exactly what I wanted.

“No.” His voice was short, cold.

“Really? I think Lettie would be an amazing big sister.” I tried to keep it light but the dark look in his eyes had my stomach sour again.

“She would. And you’d be an amazing mom. But it’ll never happen.”

“You should never say never, Gage. I know you still think I’m capable of abandoning you and Lettie, but I’m not her. I’m not Helen.”

He pushed his plate away, crossing his arms over his massive chest. “I know you’re not.”

“Okay…” I tilted my head. “Why are you in knots? I wasn’t suggesting you take me on the table and impregnate me right here, Gage. I’m talking about years from now.” I arched an eyebrow at him. We’d never beat around the bush and I wasn’t going to start now.

He stared at the table like he was imagining doing what I suggested. I got up and sank to my knees in front of where he sat, forcing him to look at me. “Hey,” I said, stroking his strong thigh. “I didn’t mean to scare you with the baby talk.” I glanced at the sock still between his fingers. “I found that and I…” I sucked in a deep breath. I’d seen my dreams within reach, felt my heart fill to completeness with just the thought of having his baby. “My imagination ran wild. This isn’t something we have to talk about now. We have time.”

Gage leaned down slowly to kiss me, more gentle than his normal hungry passion, and then he stood up and backed away from me.

“Gage?” I stood too, folding my arms around myself.

“Time doesn’t matter. It’s not going to happen.”

I huffed. “Why are you so stubborn? Why can’t you even entertain that in a few years, after we’ve had time to realize we’re not going to leave each other that you might, someday want a family with me?”

“You want more than what we already have.” It was a statement, not a question.

Seriously? Wasn’t that the natural progression of a relationship? To evolve? I swallowed back my instinctual retort and tried to leash my temper. The thing about loving a damaged man was that I had to repair the wounds she’d left. “Someday. You know how badly I’ve always wanted to be a mom. And I never knew how badly until I fell in love with you.”

He flinched. “What about your art? The gallery you want someday.”

“I can’t do both? Don’t you play in the NHL and take care of your daughter?” My blood ran hot in my veins, the turn the conversation had taken was way past ridiculous and right on the anger track. How could he not even think about the idea? How could he hold me like he had, love me like he does, and not even entertain the idea?

“Bailey—”

A cold fist squeezed my heart and tears pooled in my eyes. “It’s me. You can’t see yourself having a baby with me,” I said, my voice cracking. Oh God, this was temporary. I was replaceable. This was just something he wanted to do because it was convenient. Bile rose in my throat and I placed a palm on my chest like I could hold my heart together.

“Don’t, Bailey,” he said, crossing the distance between us. His arms encased me, but I pushed him away.

“No. You said you loved me. Did you mean you love me being here, taking care of your daughter, and you—in all the ways you need? Am I a convenience?”

He broke through my defenses, gently clutching my shoulders and making me look him in the eye. “How could you think that of me? How can you not see the insanely deep way I love you? You think I don’t want to claim you in every way possible? Put my brand on you so every other man in the world knows who you belong to? I’d put a ring on your finger right now if I thought it would make you happy.”

“If that’s true then how can you not even think about---“

“I had a vasectomy!” He dropped his hands and took a step back, the cold from his words filling every inch of me.

Flashes of the baby I’d let grow in my mind—Gage’s baby—coated over with ice before shattering inside my heart. My dreams of being a mother, of carrying a life inside me, and bringing it into the world splintered off until it was sucked into a dark vacuum where dreams went to die. I clutched my stomach, fearing I would lose what little food I’d eaten earlier. My heart raced, but I took a deep steadying breath, the logical side of my brain kicking in.

“It’s not permanent. It can be reversed, hell, I’ve heard they grow back all the time.” It happened, right? It had to. I clung on to the small sliver of hope, because without it, I felt like I’d just lost the love of my life and a baby we hadn’t even made yet. “Would you do that for me? Or just consider it in the future?”

Gage raked his fingers through his hair. He shook his head. “Aren’t Lettie and I enough?”

I jolted like he’d physically pushed me even though he stood a foot away. “You know how much I love Lettie.” My voice came out a whisper like someone was choking my airwaves.

“But it’s not enough. Our family isn’t enough.”

My eyes turned to slits. “How dare you put that one me!”

He locked eyes with me, and I could see the pain in them, but I had a hard time seeing past the sheer amount of hurt crystallizing inside me, hardening me.

“This is something I’ve always wanted, Gage. And it’s not the first time I’ve considered carrying your child…even before you ever touched me. And now…now you want to tell me that you won’t even consider it because of a choice you made after Lettie was born?” I shook my head. “It’d be like me asking you to give up hockey…times twenty.”

“Do you want me to do that? Do you need me to prove myself?”

“I would never ask you do that, Gage. Hockey—and that little girl—are your life.” I swiped at a stray tear that had fallen down my cheek. “I just wanted to really be a part of it.” I turned on my heels, walking through the kitchen toward the door.

“Bailey, don’t go.”

The ache in his voice split another fissure in my chest and I glanced over my shoulder.

“I’ll be back in the morning to do the job you’ve paid me to do.” The words tasted bitter coming out of my mouth but I was just so damned hurt. He’d forced a choice on me I didn’t know existed, and I couldn’t think straight with the anger, loss, and pain swarming my brain. “I just can’t be around you right now. If Lettie wakes up for some reason, and she needs me, I’ll be at Paige’s.” I didn’t give him the chance to say another word but made sure to shut the door as quietly as possible behind me. As mad as I was at him, as hurt as I was, there would be no slamming—I would not wake Lettie up to a fight she wouldn’t understand—not between the two people she counted on for everything in the world.

The notion hit me hard as I drove to Paige’s, knowing the lengths I’d go for her happiness, for Gage’s. My love for them ran deeper than anything I’d ever known, but I didn’t know if it was enough to let go of a dream I’d had for half my life.

The baby I’d pictured, the one made with all the best pieces of Gage and myself, cried in my mind, and my insides crippled knowing I’d never be able to soothe it.