EIGHTEEN
Semifinals, Game One
Chicago Rebels at LA Quake
Violet added the last tortilla to the warmer on the kitchen counter and called out, “Come and get it!” A herd of footsteps, some clacking, others softer, echoed and grew louder.
Somehow, Addison Williams-Callaghan, wife of right-winger Ford, beat everyone to the punch. Normally this wouldn’t have been surprising, because as a former lingerie runway model, she clearly knew how to strut her way to success. But she also happened to be eight and a half months pregnant. Glowing with it, too.
“Vi, this spread looks amazing!”
Violet grinned, pleased at the praise. She’d made her favorite Puerto Rican dish, mofongo—fried plantains with pork cracklings and chicken broth. Also offered were rellenos de papa, stuffed potato dumplings fried to golden perfection. No harm in bringing a little PR flavor to suburban Chicago, even if there was a certain weirdness to playing host at Bren’s house without the man himself present. But it had the best TV room setup, and this way, the girls would be more comfortable in their own place while they watched the game.
Violet might not be a hockey fan, but there was no denying how much the sport meant to Harper and Isobel. For them, it was the family business, and getting this far in the season meant everything. A win tonight would be one step further than the team had gone in years.
A win tonight would keep Violet in a job and in Bren’s life.
So tonight she was a Rebels fan.
Isobel started spooning steak and onions onto a tortilla. Usually she would have traveled with the team, but she’d stayed behind to hang with Harper, for whom the rougher-than-average initial weeks of pregnancy had prevented the trip to LA for the first game of the semifinals. “How come you never cook like this for our awkward sister bonding nights?”
“Because those nights are for cookies, ice cream, and wine,” Harper said. “Except now, no wine.”
“Uh, get over it,” Addison said, rubbing her very swollen stomach.
“You’re at the end of it!” Harper exclaimed. “I have six months of wine-free hell to go.”
Violet called out to the living room. “Cat! Franks! Food’s up.”
Addison looked over her shoulder, and seeing that the girls had yet to arrive, she asked, “So how’s it going?”
“Good. They’re amazingly well behaved, which makes this job easy-peasy.”
“I meant with the hot Sco—”
“Hey, guys!” Violet cut Addison off on the arrival of Franky and Caitriona.
“Mexican food!” Franky said, and Violet didn’t correct her, but Caitriona spoke up.
“It’s Puerto Rican. It’s different.” Cat shot a glance at Violet, then averted her eyes quickly. “Like Lin-Manuel Miranda. He wrote Hamilton.”
“Yes, it is different,” Violet said, surprised at Cat’s interest. She was still pretty reserved around Violet. “Very different.”
Everyone loaded up their plates, and Addison and the girls headed back to the TV room to get settled in.
Violet couldn’t help noticing that her sisters had remained behind. Isobel took a bite of her fajita, then around her chewing said, “So, you and the hot Scot.”
“Excuse me?”
Middle Child wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Addy seems to think there’s something going on.”
“Well, Addy can think all she wants.”
Isobel shrugged. “I think you’d be good for him. Bren could do with a bit of sunshine in his life. He’s always so serious.”
“Nah-ah,” Harper said. “That’s a terrible idea.”
The oh really stares of Violet and Isobel affirmed that this was particularly rich, coming from the woman who was now carrying the child of the man she’d once declared to be off-limits.
Harper waved at them in annoyance. “Yeah, yeah, I know. But there’s a lot of baggage there, Violet. A guy with a tricky ex situation, two kids, and a drinking problem.”
“Good thing nothing’s going on,” Violet lied.
Annoyingly, Harper refused to let go. “As hard as I know he’s trying for those girls, he’s still got issues. In fact, he cut practice early a couple of days ago with no explanation. There was a lot of that unreliable behavior back in his boozing days, so I’m hoping it’s not going to be a problem.”
Damn. He’d cut practice for her. No way could she live with herself if Bren was taking the fall for her crap. She recalled his advice, how she needed to be up front with her sisters. Change the course of how things were done in the Chase family.
You’re the catalyst, Violet.
“Bren did that for me. He cut practice to come see me.” The enormity of it washed over her again.
Harper’s mouth pursed. “For you?”
“I need you both to promise you won’t freak out.”
Isobel frowned. “That’s so not a good way to start whatever it is you’re about to tell us.”
“First of all, understand that I’m fine. I went to the doctor and it was a false alarm, but a few days ago, I found a lump under my arm and I thought the worst. Bren witnessed my freak-out, and then a couple of days ago, he found out that I’d gone to the doctor alone. That’s why he left practice early. To ream me out.”
Isobel’s frown had vanished, now replaced with a hard, angry glitter in the green eyes they all shared. “You went to the doctor by yourself? You had this for days—”
“Four days. I felt it four days ago.”
“And you didn’t tell us.”
“Iz, I’m sorry. I’m not used to this. The last time this happened, I had my mom and aunts.” She gestured between them. “We’re all still in this weird getting-to-know-you space.”
“It’s been months,” Isobel shot back. “And I seem to recall you being pissed as all get out at me holding on to secrets a few weeks ago.”
True. Violet had gone batshit crazy on Isobel when she heard Middle Child was prepared to risk her life trying out for the Olympics after she’d been told by doctors that playing hockey again might kill her. “So I don’t know how to practice what I preach. I’m a failure at life.”
“None of us have the sharing gene,” Harper said. “And God knows I haven’t exactly been the most open person. But it’s probably something we need to nourish.” She threw an arm around Violet’s shoulder. “So it was a false alarm?”
Relieved that the reaction drama was over, Violet described her lumpy armpit, which they both found amusing now that the life-threatening element had been removed.
“I’m going to schedule the outpatient surgery when Bren’s back in town so the girls’ care won’t be interrupted.”
Isobel held her gaze intently. “We’ll be there.”
It was on the tip of Violet’s tongue to say they didn’t have to be, but she merely nodded instead. Apparently, they needed this more than her.
“Remy’s giving a pregame interview,” Addy called out from the living room.
Harper shrieked. “Pause it! I miss that face.”
Once she was out of earshot, Isobel leaned her elbows on the counter, cupped her face coquettishly, and delivered an all-knowing grin.
“You’ve already paid a visit to the Scottish lowlands, haven’t you?”
Fobbing off Isobel had always been harder—they were just two years apart and had connected more easily when Violet first moved to Chicago. She was also dying to share it with someone.
“Yes!” She grabbed her sister’s shoulders dramatically. “And it was so fucking good.”
Isobel chuckled, then said in a singsong, “The single dad and the nanny. Sounds like a nineties sitcom.”
“I know, I know. Clichés abound. But it’s been building for a while and now the balloon has been—”
“Pricked?”
“Yeah. Pricked big time.”
“And what comes next?”
The billion-dollar question, but only if she assigned it more importance than she should. “Neither of us is looking for anything. He was just there at the right time.”
“Aw, hell no,” Isobel said. “You mean, you heard you weren’t dying and you banged him first thing? Do I need to kick some hot Scot ass? Because it sounds to me like he took advantage of your frazzled state.”
“No one took advantage. Jeez, it was”—crazy emotional, hot as fuck, the best sex I’ve ever had—“just a roll in the sheets. A relief bang. A ‘yay, I’m still here, let’s finally do this’ screw. That’s it.”
Isobel didn’t look as gleeful as when she’d first guessed the big news. “And now you guys go back to before like nothing happened?”
“Why not?”
Iz shook her head. “Not how it works, Vi. The relief bang has a habit of becoming a ‘one more won’t hurt’ bang followed by a ‘let’s get a quick one in while the kids are at violin practice’ bang.”
“The kids don’t play violin. Stop overcomplicating it.”
“You work for him. He works for you. There’s nothing uncomplicated about this.”
“I’m fully capable of keeping my job separate from my sex life,” Violet insisted.
Isobel smirked. “If there’s one thing I know from the experience of these past nine months, it’s that no one in this family is capable of making that distinction.”
Vadim Petrov opened the door to his hotel suite, shirtless. Bloody typical. The richer-than-God Russian never made do with a regular hotel room, either; it was always a hot-shit upgrade, and for away games, this was usually where the party was at.
“Captain, you are late.”
“I had to check in with my girls.”
The Russian widened the door and gestured for Bren to enter. “How are your angels? Have they driven Violet over the edge yet?”
“If they have, she’s not saying.”
The usual suspects had gathered on the off-night between the LA games. Other team members had gone out to a trendy hotspot, but the guys Bren was closest to preferred to hang in Petrov’s suite, play video games, and shoot the shit.
Bren had an inkling they did it for him. He was fine with hanging in bars—saw it as a test, to be honest—but he had to admit, the older he got, the more he preferred a quiet night in with his girls or his boys.
Or with Violet.
Since that afternoon in her cottage three days ago, he’d been entertaining strange thoughts. Notions, if you will. He’d texted her more than usual to check in, needing to read her sharp wit, relive that look on her face when he shot all over her golden body.
He’d set boundaries. She’d accepted them without argument, making it clear that Chicago was just a way station on her journey. That he was just one of the stops.
Was that what was eating at him—her ready willingness to understand he had nothing to offer her? If it was merely sex, he would have called her after the win last night, but it was late and . . . he wasn’t sure where he stood. Or if he had a right to check in, plainly looking to get his rocks off.
He was living the dream. Why couldn’t he just enjoy the ride?
Petrov’s suite was exactly that: a humongous set of rooms that included a kitchen. That’s where Bren headed now, drawn by the scent of cooking, and it’s where he found Remy, leaning close to a stockpot. The smell of something amazing wafted from it.
They could have ordered room service, but Remy needed cooking to make him feel useful. Now that Harper couldn’t travel because her pregnancy was a little rough on her, keeping his mind occupied was key. It had the added benefit of making them all feel like they were kicking back at Remy’s place in Riverbrook, their usual haunt at least once a week.
“What’s on the menu?”
“Étouffée.”
Bren took a closer look at the fragrant stew with crawfish. Petrov opened the fridge and handed him a bottle of water.
“How’s Violet?” Remy asked.
Two mentions of Violet in less than a minute. “Fine, as far as I know.”
“She told Harper and Iz about her health scare,” Remy added.
The Cajun let that hang, but Vadim wouldn’t know subtlety if it pucked him in the head. “And I hear that you were the first person she shared the news with. That is interesting.”
“Just happened to be on the spot. Purely geography.”
“Is that what you’re callin’ it?”
Bren turned to find Cade, not looking like his usual friendly Texan self.
“I caught her at the right—or wrong—time. Any set of ears would have done.”
“Don’t know about that. She had opportunities to call me or her sisters with her concerns, to ask us to go to that doc appointment with her, and she didn’t. You knew about it, though.” Cade considered himself Violet’s best friend, and it sounded like he was pissed at being left out of the loop.
“After the fact. And like I said, if I hadn’t been there when she initially found out, then she wouldn’t have told me at all.”
Everyone weighed this for a second.
Cade finally spoke. “Let’s call it how we see it, Bren. You and Violet have been dancing around each other like porcupines in heat for months now. I see how you were in a bind with your kids and all, but I’m not really seeing how placing Violet in your home was done with any intention other than to have her close at hand for things unrelated to nannying.”
Bren sucked back a few chugs of water, hoping the delay might douse the flames of fury. “Are you saying I hired her to take advantage of her? Have you met Violet, by the way? The woman is incapable of being bullied or messed with.”
“Yeah, she acts like a man-eater, but it’s all for show, just like she pretends that Clifford not stepping up doesn’t hurt, but I know it does. And now she’s in a particularly vulnerable position, thinking her cancer might have returned, and there you are pulling the knight-in-hockey-pads act. Probably walking around shirtless in your kitchen and being all cute with your kids. She’s only fucking human.”
“You sound jealous, Alamo,” Vadim said. “Only, I can’t decide if you’re jealous of Bren or of Violet.”
Cade eyed the Russian and rubbed his beard. “Hell, Russki, you might be onto somethin’ there. Broody Italian does it more for me than Broody Scot, but I can’t say it hasn’t crossed my mind.”
“Jesus,” Bren said. Far too much information.
Vadim placed his hands on his hips and addressed Cade. “What about me? I’m the one on billboards and in magazines. Surely I have figured in your fantasies.”
Cade raised his beer in the Russian’s direction. “Keep your tats on, Petrov, you’re right up there. A close second to Chrises Hemsworth and Pine.”
Everyone laughed, even Bren, glad that they were on easier terms again. He’d not enjoyed the jealousy that wracked his body when he thought his teammate had something going on with Violet. The guy was a good friend, after all.
“Seriously, though, Bren,” Cade said, his tone less belligerent. “Did you hire Violet so you could seduce her?”
“Seduce her? Are we in the 19-fucking-40s here?”
Both Remy and Vadim were quiet, hanging on every word.
Bren sighed. “I hired her because she’s amazing with my kids and their welfare is number one with me. I’m not denying I’m attracted to her, but these days I’m a dad first. Violet and I are on the same page in this.” So maybe he was a few chapters ahead, creating a story for them in his head, one where he and Violet gave this a shot. Only he suspected that if he fell, he would be falling alone.
“But you’d like something more?” Remy asked, sly with it, too, as if he knew something had already happened and Bren was itching to take it to the next level.
“I can’t let my mind go there. She’s made it clear she’s not here for the long haul. She doesn’t want to stick around, and I can’t get my kids’ hopes up.” He couldn’t get his hopes up.
Only, he was afraid they were already sky high.