The Penalty Box (A Vancouver Wolves Hockey Romance Book 3)

I TOSSED my vodka back while staring blankly at Sabrina. She was speaking, her lips were moving, but I had no idea what she was talking about. Nor did I care. The only reason I was at this event tonight was because they had told me it was non-optional. I had to get through dinner, sit through some speeches and then I could head back to my hotel room, which, luckily for me, was upstairs. Sabrina looked pissed about something, but tuning into her words took energy I didn’t have.

I cut off Sabrina mid-sentence. “Why are you talking to me?”

Her lips parted. “Excuse me?”

“I asked, why the fuck are you talking to me?”

“Mica.” She sounded shocked.

Like I seemed to do to everyone these days, I took out my anger on her. “You know what you are? You’re not a puck bunny. You’re a bunny boiler. You’re the crazy chick who stalks people.”

She stepped back from me, blinking.

Uncaring, unfeeling, I turned on my heel and walked inside the gala.

THE DINNER WAS INTERMINABLE. I ate because I needed to fuel my body, but I didn’t taste my food. Hell, I didn’t even taste the shots of vodka I was tossing back. Those had stopped burning days ago. During the speeches, I toyed with my phone. My new OCD was to check and recheck my messages from Charlie.

You have no new messages.

She had stopped texting me four days ago. She went from asking how I was doing, to expressing herself, and then to pleading. I had read all of her messages a hundred times over. I went back to the start of time and read every text that she’d ever written me. Most of them I could recite by heart. But I never texted her back. Mostly because I didn’t have words to express how impossible this was for me, or how scared I was.

And then, just like that, she’d stopped texting. Had she given up? If she had, it would be more than I deserved.

You have no new messages.

I had one photo of her on my phone. The one where she was lying in my bed with Sandy. I spent hours studying that photo, missing the curve of her smile, the smooth lines of her neck. The way her brown eyes seemed to sparkle when she was thinking about something that amused her.

Why couldn’t I call her? Why couldn’t I man up and face her? I’d spent a lot of time in a holding pattern thinking about this, but even in this state, we had hope. If we had those tough conversations, we might kill the hope. And I could not handle that. I wasn’t even close to handling that.

The crowd thundered their applause, and I made my way to the stage to receive the check for a children’s charity on behalf of the Wolves. I smiled, unfeeling, for the camera, shook hands and returned to my seat.

You have no new messages.

I finished my drink, and when the band started, that was my cue to bail. I had done my part and now I could go back to my hotel room and drink until I didn’t feel. I had two drugs of choice to numb and forget the pain: working out until I couldn’t breathe, and drinking. Since I could only work out so much, I ended up spending a lot of time alone with the bottle. You’d think this would have impacted my hockey game, but ironically, I’d never played better. Only when I was on the ice did I feel like I could forget.

You have no new messages.

I stood up and started to walk towards the door.

There she was. A vision in floating purple. She looked so fucking beautiful that I thought I was hallucinating. I rubbed one eye. Maybe I was. Maybe I was more drunk than I thought.

She gave me a tremulous little smile and started her journey towards me, weaving in between couples that were now standing up. My eyes tracked her, my head straining every time someone moved in front of her.

Why had I thought I shouldn’t see her? Suddenly my heart was so happy, so light, I felt dizzy. I stood there waiting, not moving, because I needed to savor everything about her.

Someone grabbed her arm and began to pull her to the dance floor. She protested, but they were insistent. She looked over her shoulder at me. I started to move towards her. She disappeared into the swirling group of dancers. I strained my neck, looking for her, finally locating her on the other side of the dance floor. She was looking up at someone and everything in my body stopped when I saw who she was dancing with.

Fucking Andrew.

Being that I was on my fifth vodka in, I wasn’t thinking clearly. Was Andrew her date? Had she come to this gala with him? Was he getting all cozy with her and the dogs, comforting her while her dick of a husband refused to call her back?

The clarity of how stupid I was, hit me. While I had been off not dealing with anything, I’d left her vulnerable and alone for a vulture like Andrew to pick on. My only thought was that I needed to get her away from him and into my arms.

I stalked across the dance floor and put a heavy hand on his shoulder. “You won’t mind if I cut in with my wife, will you?”

Andrew’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You have her all the time. Surely you can share her for one dance.”

I took her hand from his and tugged her towards me. “She’s mine, and I don’t share.”

Never have more caveman words been spoken, but I didn’t give a shit. I felt barbaric. I felt a need to yank her back to my side, to protect her, to take care of her.

Why had I ever let her out of my sight?

With her hand in mine, I turned and began to walk off the dance floor. We weaved through couples and I dragged her out into the hallway before looking for the elevators.

She didn’t say a damn word. She just picked up her skirts in one hand and worked to keep up with me. We rode the elevator in silence, and then I yanked her into my suite and shut the door before finally working up the nerve to face her.

She stood beside the couch. Her brown eyes were wide on my face and her freckles stood out, looking so sweet I wanted to drop to my knees.

“I’m a fucking asshole.”

She shook her head. “I understand what is going on.”

I tried again. “I wanted to call you. I wanted to talk. I didn’t know what to say.”

We stood there staring at each other.

In a voice so soft, so gentle, she said, “Your mom told me everything.”

If she had reached forward and stuck a shiv into my heart, I wouldn’t have felt more pain.

“Charlie.” That was all I could manage.

“You need to talk to me. You need to tell me what happened so I can understand your fear.”

I shut my eyes, trying to shut out the images of that night. For years I had buried them. And for the last two weeks, I had done everything I could to block them.

She held out her hand to me. Like a lifeline. I looked at her, and then I was walking towards her. She led me to the bed, and she crawled onto it, a vision in flowing purple. She tugged my hand, and I let her pull me onto the bed across from her.

“Tell me about Nadia.” Her voice was so soothing, infused with so much love.

I swallowed hard. This was it. This is where I needed to face everything I had been running away from my entire life. Moments passed before I managed to say, “I loved her.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she nodded.

I looked down at Charlie’s hand, so tiny in my own. “I wanted to go out to the pond that day. My dad had the gardener clear off the snow, and I used to spend hours out there, skating.”

She squeezed my hand.

“Nadia had come out with me. When she fell, she laughed. And I fell beside her and we stared up at the sky. Big dark clouds were rolling in. A storm was coming. She looked at me and asked me if I was ready to come inside.”

I looked up and almost drowned in the love in Charlie’s eyes.

I pressed my lips together, because they were trembling. “I thought I was having a nightmare when I woke up to her screams. I didn’t know that I was waking up into my nightmare.” I took a deep breath. “The lights weren’t working. The phone was dead. She was crying. I was crying, and there was already so much blood.”

I felt wetness on my cheeks, but the floodgates were open. I couldn’t seem to stop the words from coming. “Our nearest neighbor was over a half a mile away. I wanted to go, to run there, but she begged me to stay. She told me the baby was stuck, and she needed my help. She told me to be brave, that we could do this together. She promised that when it was over, I’d have a new baby sister or brother.”

I took a deep breath. “I did everything she told me to. Everything. I got the towel. I disinfected things with boiling water. She needed me to try to turn the baby. So I pressed on her stomach like she asked until she screamed. I was crying. She was screaming, and the blood…”

My voice broke. I took a deep breath and met Charlie’s eyes.

“There was so much blood. When my little brother was born, he wasn’t breathing. Nadia was so weak. She told me to breathe into his mouth. I did everything she asked, but he never took a breath. Not a single one.”

Tears streamed down Charlie’s face.

“When I turned to tell Nadia that her baby had died, she was just lying there. Staring at the ceiling. She wasn’t breathing either.”

“Mica,” Charlie spoke my name with so much pain and understanding, I almost lost it.

I bent over Charlie’s hand, bringing it to my mouth. I held my breath, barely keeping it together. I lifted my eyes to hers. “I was alone with them for hours. I knew I should go find someone, but I didn’t want to leave either of them alone. So, I held my baby brother for hours until the day staff showed up. He was so sweet, so perfect looking, with these tiny little hands and feet.” I swallowed hard. “Nadia would have loved him. She loved me, and she would have loved him too.”

Charlie’s shoulders were shaking with emotion.

I needed to tell her the worst part of the story. “It was my fault. All of that was my fault. I wanted to skate that day. I never did anything when she fell. I never ran for help. I should have gone for help.”

Charlie’s eyes widened. “No, Mica. You don’t believe that.”

I did believe that. I had spent a lifetime thinking of all the things I should have done differently. “I might have been able to save her. When she fell on the ice, that was the moment I could have saved her life.”

She kneeled in front of me and put my face between her two hands. “Mica, you were ten. You were a little kid. How could you have known that? She didn’t even know something was wrong.”

My brain knew that, but my aching heart had never believed it. I took a shuddery breath. “I promised myself that night that I would never do that to a woman. I would never have a child. I would never go through that again. When you told me you were pregnant, I got so scared. Fuck, I’m beyond scared, Charlie. I’m fucking terrified. I did this to you.”

She gave me a watery smile. “We did this together.”

I voiced my darkest fear. “What if something happens to you?”

“I’m safe. Nothing will happen to me.”

I worked to speak through all the emotion, all the fear, all my love. “I never meant to do this to you. That night, I was drunk and so damn cocky. This is my fault.”

She wrapped her arms around my neck. I put my arms around her, yanking her to me. I buried my face into her neck and felt so much relief to feel her fingers stroking my hair, my neck.

Her arms felt so good, if she held me for eternity, it wouldn’t be long enough.

“Thank you for sharing with me,” she whispered against my neck. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

My fear was real, but somehow, she had absorbed some of my pain, relieving some of the pressure around my heart. “I’m scared, Charlie. I’m really scared.”

“I know.”

She pressed her lips to mine.

I spoke against her mouth. “I love you, Charlie.”

“I know.”

“Forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

She leaned back and took my hand to press it to her belly. She looked up at me, looking so vulnerable. “So you’ll do this with me?”

I didn’t have a choice. This woman was my life. She owned my heart. She was my everything. The last two weeks had just proven that life was meaningless without her in it.

“I will be a fucking wreck, but I’m going to be with you every step of the way,” I promised.

She lifted one hand to wipe the tears from my cheeks. “It will be okay. We have the best doctors in the world here. The best medical system. I’m strong and healthy. And nothing will happen.”

You don’t know that. “What if something does?”

“We’ll deal with it. Just like we deal with everything.”