Hot Puck (Rough Riders Hockey 2)

Another moment of silence lingered before Sarah asked, “Then what’s bothering you?”

He shook his head and watched Lily somersault down the far embankment and land in a pile of leaves. “Maybe I should start her in gymnastics.”

“She doesn’t have time for gymnastics. You’ve already got her schedule stuffed.”

He frowned at her. “Too stuffed? I don’t want to stress her out.”

Sarah laughed. “Does she look stressed out to you?”

Her cousins had followed Lily down the slight grade, and the three girls were now piled on top of each other, giggling at nothing. A grin broke out over Beckett’s face. “No. She looks giddy.”

“Then I think you have your answer. But she still doesn’t hav

e time for gymnastics. Now what’s bothering you?”

Beckett heaved a sigh and leaned back against one of the porch pillars. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s her, isn’t it? The EMT.”

He smirked. Nodded. Beckett didn’t know how to put everything he was thinking and feeling into words. He hadn’t even straightened it out in his mind yet.

“You really like her.” The surprised realization in Sarah’s voice drew Beckett’s gaze.

“Why do you make that sound as shocking as a fish breathing air?”

“Because this is different. I don’t think I’ve seen you like this since Stacy Dickler bailed on junior prom because of your broken nose. You looked hideous.”

He rolled his eyes.

“But you don’t look hideous now, and you’re making the kind of money women don’t chase, they hunt. So what’s the problem?”

Yeah, that hunting part was a problem. But not with Eden. “She doesn’t care about money.”

“I like her already,” Sarah said. “But that doesn’t explain the problem.”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure what the problem is. We’re good together. Really good. We don’t have a lot in common jobwise—she’s not a hockey fan—but we have the same values, the same sense of humor. She’s smart and sexy, and she doesn’t take any shit. Yeah,” he said on an exhale, thinking of all the intangible nuances about her that drove his affection deep. “I really like her.”

“Wait. She doesn’t care about money, and she doesn’t like hockey? Why is she dating you?”

“Ha. Good one.” But it got Beckett thinking. Maybe she really was only with him for the sex. And didn’t that suck donkey balls?

“What’s her name?” Sarah asked. “I haven’t heard Lily mention anyone.”

“Eden. And she hasn’t met Lily.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know if it’s going to work out, and I don’t want to introduce a woman into Lily’s life just to have her disappear, like Kim.”

Sarah stared, her brow pulled into the confused how-the-hell-does-your-mind-work look.

“What?” he asked, frustrated.

“The way you’re looking at it doesn’t make sense. Life, by its very nature, is unstable. Your job, for example, is terribly unstable. You could be traded and moved to the West Coast next week. Our whole family could lose Lily in an instant, which you know would tear us up. But that doesn’t keep us from loving her.”

She gestured absently. “And then there’s Kim. Until you’ve got her signatures on those custody papers, she could flip on a dime and demand Lily back. And considering it took her over two years to get around to telling you Lily even existed, then forced you to make all the effort in visitation for the next two years, I doubt Kim would be interested in fostering a relationship between Lily and her extended family. But that doesn’t keep us from forging a bond with her now.”

Beckett rubbed his eyes and nodded, but he was so focused on the potential guilt of hurting his family if he lost the Rough Riders or Kim took custody of Lily that he couldn’t figure out what Sarah was trying to tell him.