Page 38 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

Four

Beth

I was staring at my hands, head still spinning, trying not to worry.

The doctor hadn’t seemed all that concerned when I had spoken to her on the phone. Her tone had been calm when she’d advised me to come in and get checked out, just to be on the safe side.

But these weren’t my babies to take risks with.

The moment I had gotten dizzy I should have been here, just to make sure.

Because I was the vessel carrying extremely precious cargo.

And if I’d done something to harm Pru and Marcel’s babies by thinking it wasn’t a big deal?—

Tears threatened.

A-fucking-gain.

So many tears. All the freaking time. Add that to my list of lovely pregnancy side effects that made me an awesome catch (yes, that was sarcasm).

I knew the tears, in particular, were because of the hormones and the high stakes of everything, because I was under stress and trying to play this whole pregnancy off like it was no big deal and yet feeling like I was one wrong move away from fucking everything up at every moment.

And I had twenty weeks left. Twenty weeks of worrying and trying to stay calm so I didn’t do something stupid and hurt them.

And now I’d passed out in a bar.

A bar!

I was pregnant and would have taken a header in a bar if not for Raph.

Who’d spent the entire time after I’d collapsed looking at me like I was worse than a bug squished on the bottom of his shoe. After he’d gone full romance hero and stopped me from hitting my head.

Pathetic.

Lusting after him, trying to make him like me, trying to make him see me.

No one saw me.

Not really.

“Beth Mason?”

I glanced up from my hands, saw the nurse in the open door, and breathed deep. Then I pushed to my feet, concentrating on putting one in front of the other.

Because the fucking room was spinning.

Because black spots were gathering at the edges of my vision.

“Ms. Mason, are you okay?”

I gripped a chair back, wavering on my feet. “No,” I whispered. I wasn’t okay. Something was wrong. I couldn’t make it across the room. I couldn’t. “I’m sorry.” Focusing on the nurse, who was moving toward me, I tried desperately to get the room to steady. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I?—”

An arm behind my knees, another wrapping around my shoulders.

A warm chest against my side as I was hefted into the air. “I’ve got her,” Raph said, his rasping voice gliding over me.

“Can you bring her this way, sir?” the nurse said. “And then I’ll have you step back out into the waiting room.”

“I’m her boyfriend.”

A pause.

Probably, the nurse was studying Raph’s face, trying to decipher that for the lie it was, but he was big and serious, and I knew he could give a brooding look like no other. I’d felt that burn more often than not.

Which was probably why the nurse just murmured, “Follow me.”

Then we were moving.

Me. Him. My brain sloshing around my skull and making it very difficult to focus on anything. My eyes staying closed, hoping that when I opened them again the room would be steady and the worry wouldn’t be gnawing at me and that this would all just be a lesson in being extra vigilant for naught.

He turned sideways and I knew he was shuffling me through one door then another. Then the lights behind my lids grew brighter, the low hum of noise in the background got louder.

A whoosh.

A soft, “In here.”

Then Raph was setting me on a bed.

I took a breath, released it slowly, and opened my eyes.

The nurse was there.

Raph was gone.

Right.

“Oh, my God,” Pru exclaimed, moving into the room, her ponytail swinging behind her. “Beth, honey, are you all right?”

Beth.

Not the babies.

That settled somewhere deep in my heart, soothed an ache that only Hazel and Pru could.

They’d been there.

They knew me more deeply than anyone else on the planet.

Of course, that still meant they didn’t really know me at all.

I had a whole castle’s worth of doors and floors, most of them slammed and locked closed, barred with chains and furniture, and the heavy ones, the ones with the strongest and heaviest chains, the biggest armoires blocking access, were deep in the basement.

No one entered those rooms.

Not me.

Not my friends.

Not any man I’d ever been with.

But Pru’s concern settled on the main floor, leaving the demons and darkness untouched in the basement of my mental castle.

“The babies are okay,” I said.

The obstetrician on call had just left, wheeling the ultrasound machine away with her. Two babies. Two heartbeats. Placentas okay. The amniotic fluid in both sacs was good. The babies’ growth was on target. In fact, they were measuring like singleton babies, rather than on the twin size chart.

So that spoke to my stretch marks…and many more to come.

Pru moved in close, squeezed my hand. “I’m glad.” Her free hand smoothed lightly over my cheek. “And I’m glad you are, too.”

This woman was almost unrecognizable to me.

Pru had been so…so self-contained…until the man who walked in behind her had entered Pru’s life.

There was concern in Marcel’s pretty eyes, and his big body dwarfed Pru’s—even though I was no shrinking violet myself—considering that I’d played hockey for years and had the strength and body time to show it.

No wonder the babies were measuring big.

Between Marcel and Pru, I was cooking two future hockey players.

“Beth.”

I glanced over Pru’s shoulder, met Marcel’s gaze. “You good?” he asked.

“The babies are fine,” I whispered, my eyes sliding down to the bed.

“Beth,” he said again.

My gaze slid back.

“You good?” A slight emphasis on you that warmed me in almost the same way that Pru’s concern had, reminding me that Marcel had become dear to me, that he’d been making a home for himself on the ground floor of my life, that he was important.

I nodded. “I’m good.”

Pru squeezed my hand again.

“I’m sorry to scare you.” A breath, trying to speak through the sharp strikes of guilt.

“The doctor says my blood pressure is low, and that’s why I’ve been dizzy.

I just need to take it easy, drink more water, and ditch my tight clothes so the babies are getting enough blood and nothing is cutting off my circulation.

” I forced a smile. “Not that I’d be wearing them much longer anyway.

” A pat to my rounded stomach. “Not with this belly growing more by the day.”

“You love your skirts,” Pru said softly.

I did.

And my heels.

But those were out, too. Unsteady feet and legs didn’t need me to be on four-inch heels.

“The plus is I get to go shopping.” Now my smile wasn’t forced. “Which, as you know, is one of my favorite things.”

Pru grinned. “I’ll hold your purse while you’re in the dressing room.”

I clutched my hands to my chest, fluttered my lashes. “Like a true best friend.”

“Surviving torture?” Pru teased.

“Picking out kickass outfits for her favorite wingwoman.”

Another squeeze. “That, too.”

I covered my hand then peeled it gently away. “It’s late,” I said. “I know Marcel is off tomorrow, but you’ve got to get ready for your trip. You should go to bed.”

“I’m staying.” No argument, no discussion.

Not that I would expect anything different from my friend.

She was a badass, an adventure seeker, but beneath all of that was a big heart who loved deeply.

Pru was also a scout for the Breakers, the same team that Marcel played for, but their schedules didn’t always align.

She was leaving early in the morning and would be gone a week then would return and work with the rest of the Player Development department to keep an eye on the young up-and-coming players they might one day draft and those currently under contract but not yet playing in the big leagues.

Marcel was a forward, one of the best on the Breakers.

He’d be in town, working hard, recovering from the brutalness of the game itself, staying fit and strong for the rest of the long season.

The Breakers were about halfway through, and as I had learned in my year here, the toughest stretch of the season was still ahead of them.

Soon the work would really get going, the team buckling down for play-offs, trying to win every game, to get every point so they would have a good berth going into the post-season.

See?

I might live in tight skirts and high heels, never go anywhere without my lipstick and have worked for charities and not for professional sports teams, but I was smart, I learned, and my most recent job up in New York had been for an organization that connected underprivileged kids with sports opportunities—equipment, coaching, leagues, travel fees for tournaments they wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend.

Plus, I was friends with Pru, had been to more than my fair share of games over the years.

So, despite not being a sports fan, I knew plenty about hockey.

Which was why I knew that my friend needed to go home so that she could be fresh for her job.

“You should go get some sleep”—I glanced at Marcel—“ both of you. Sleepless nights will be coming soon enough. You might as well?—”

Pru scowled. “We’re staying.”

“I’m—”

“ We’re staying .”

This time from Marcel, Pru nodding her agreement.

And I looked at my friend’s face, at Marcel’s, and I was too tired to argue further.

So I just nodded.

Locked away how that made me feel in one of those rooms on the ground floor.

To keep it safe.