Hot Puck (Rough Riders Hockey 2)

He relaxed into the bed with a smile. Outside, the morning sun was cresting, and he felt happy and hopeful for the first time in a long time. He couldn’t wait to make love to Eden again. Then go to his parents’ and cajole Lily away from her cousins and grandparents to grab some one-on-one time with his baby girl before he jumped a plane with his teammates for five intense games in a row.

Life was fucking awesome.

So awesome, he wanted to share it. Thoughts of introducing Eden to Lily brought a mix of unease and excitement. Eden was a natural. She’d be amazing with kids, no doubt. And Lily was a bubble of love. His daughter spun webs of infatuation with everyone she met. Beckett didn’t worry about them getting along. He worried about them getting along too well. Because if things didn’t gel between him and Eden, he didn’t want to think about another woman disappearing from Lily’s life.

And wow, he was getting way ahead of himself. But, hell, it had taken him freaking forever to find a woman who even tempted him to think beyond one night. There had been a time when he thought he and Viviana might be able to make a go of it. Back when the thought of kids hadn’t ever entered his mind. Back when having the biggest contract and the most gorgeous woman were his top priorities. Back when he’d believed being a badass was more important than strategy.

He’d been another stupid jock, perpetuating the negative view of hockey players everywhere. But everyone had to grow up sometime. And Eden made that idea extremely appealing.

He sighed and rolled toward the bathroom. “Eden, what the hell are you doing in—”

The bathroom was dark. He darted a look at the bedroom door, which stood open. A streak of panic burned through his gut. If she’d wandered the apartment, she’d seen Lily’s room. She’d seen Lily’s things. Damn, he wasn’t ready to go there. His housekeeper did an excellent job of picking up after Lily every day. Beckett always knew he could come home with the confidence that no one who didn’t already know Lily lived here, would ever guess. Which was how he wanted to keep things. For now.

“Eden?” He sat up and threw the sheet off. Panic morphed to fear. The fewer people who knew about Lily now, the better. He halted in the doorway and found the living area and the kitchen empty. His gaze fell on the door to Lily’s suite. A knot wound tight in his gut, and he whispered, “Fuck.”

Beckett turned back into the bedroom and reached for his boxer briefs on the floor. Probably not a conversation he wanted to have naked. But as he pulled them on, he noticed all the clothes on the floor were his. Nothing of Eden’s remained. No dress, no lingerie, no boots.

“What the hell?” He turned out of his room and cut through the living room toward Lily’s suite, calling Eden’s name with more than confusion in his voice. He wa

s using the tone he used when he was getting ready to set one of the guys straight. Felt the same tightness in his gut that swamped him when a ref made a bad call against his team. But he didn’t understand it.

He didn’t understand it until he turned into Lily’s room and found the suite as pristine as Mimi always left it. Pristine and empty.

Holding on to disbelief, he lifted his voice and made one last attempt. “Eden.”

The apartment remained silent. Eerily silent. And realization settled in. She’d left.

He stood in Lily’s room, hands on hips, staring at the carpet with a maddening whirl of panic and anger and an odd sense of hurt kicking up all kinds of dust inside him. He mentally scoured their conversations between sex. She didn’t have to work today. Didn’t have school today. She’d said she planned on studying all day. Said something about meeting a study partner in the afternoon.

Dammit, she’d agreed to have breakfast with him at his favorite Irish pub. Had salivated over his description of their Bailey’s Irish Cream French toast.

A sickening feeling settled in his gut. He moved back into the living room, looking around as if he’d find some reason for her early disappearance. But nothing about the pristine way Mimi always left the apartment had been disturbed.

Beckett’s mood had gone from white to black in the span of two minutes. He scraped a hand through his hair and let out a tight breath on his way to the fridge. Now his mind searched their night for something that had gone wrong. Something that would have made her leave without telling him. Without giving him any idea of where she lived or when he could see her again.

But as he opened the fridge and stared blankly inside, he couldn’t pull up any rough spots. Everything between them had been amazing. While they’d both stayed well away from deeply personal subjects, they’d never run out of conversation when their mouths weren’t busy in some other highly pleasurable way.

Beckett’s eyes fell closed with longing, and an image of her as he’d last seen her filled his mind. He’d rolled to his stomach, and she’d crawled on top of him to massage a few of his sore spots. Then she’d stretched out, pressed her ear to his back, and closed her eyes. Beckett had watched her in the dim reflection of the room’s glass wall as she’d fallen asleep there. Then continued to stare until he fell asleep too.

“Goddammit.” He opened his eyes and swiped the orange juice from the shelf. He smacked the cardboard carton on the quartz counter, ripped open the top, and tipped it toward his mouth. He downed several long swallows, but the cool, fresh liquid didn’t improve his disposition.

Beckett slammed the carton on the counter again, and this time, the juice sprayed out the top. He swore, grabbed a kitchen towel, and dropped it to wipe up the spill. That was when he saw a note on the bar.

His heart skipped, and he grabbed the paper.

In pretty, neat, swirly handwriting, she’d written, Thanks for an amazing night. And signed it E.

He stared at it, half expecting some additional message to appear out of thin air. When that didn’t happen, he flipped it over. But found the back blank.

“What the fuck?” No explanation. No call me. No let’s do this again. No can’t wait to see you when you get back to town.

Nothing.

He slapped the note down. “She fuckin’ walked out on me?”

Just like that? He didn’t believe it. Women didn’t walk out on him. Even Viviana, who’d bailed at the sight of Lily, had come crawling back within a week with all kinds of excuses, trying to negotiate. When women left his bed, his room, his life, it was because Beckett led them to the door.

He started to crumple the note, but the paper caught his attention, and he stopped. She’d written it on one of Lily’s My Little Pony notepads. And the pen lying on the bar was filled with crystals floating in liquid. Neon pink and purple crystals. It had come with the notepad, courtesy of his sister, Sarah.