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Chapter Three

Lars

I was still in shock.

I hadn’t touched the baby since I chased Vicki out of the bar. When I came back Adeline was holding her and my first thought was: she’s got this .

The second? I’m fucked.

Typically, I wasn’t the kind of guy who let things happen to him. I made the plays and tackled the problems head on, but this situation had me frozen, barely able to think of the next move. That’s why I said what I did.

I won’t be keeping her.

It sounded harsh, but common sense dictated I figure out what was best for the baby, which in this instance happened to coincide with what was best for me. We were all selfish fuckers at heart, right? There was no way I could look after a kid. I was not father material.

But you’d swear that with that declarative statement, I had ripped Adeline’s heart out and skated through it on a rusty blade.

She refused to look at me when Theo came back into the office with the happy-happy news that Elle was getting the crib out of storage and that everything would work out.

As soon as Adeline saw him, she stood and headed to the door without a glance in my direction.

Not only was I fucked but I had fucked up.

I would have offered to take the baby, but Adeline was already gone, so I picked up the bag and nudged Theo with my shoulder.

“You sure Elle’s okay with this?” Still not sure what this was.

“She’s fine. You can make some calls tomorrow and we can figure out a plan. It’s wild but hey, wild is our brand!”

His brand, maybe, with his boisterous brood around the table. Right now, I didn’t need wild. I needed assurance.

Out in the corridor, Adeline had turned left toward the back exit, so we let her lead the way. We arrived at Theo’s car first because his seniority meant he got dibs on one of the two precious parking spots behind the bar.

“We don’t have a car seat, so I’ll drive slowly while Addy holds her,” Theo said. “I’ll strap you in, Twinkle. Lars, you can follow us.”

“Sure.”

Ten minutes later, I parked outside the Kershaws’ house in Winnetka, one suburb over from Riverbrook, home of the Rebels and about twenty miles north of downtown Chicago.

Most of the older players lived on Chicago’s North Shore, prioritizing closeness to work over the need to be within walking distance of the hottest clubs and Michelin-starred restaurants.

Elle was already out the door, moving toward her husband and daughter and … my child.

I have a child.

If this was real, I needed it to make sense. That meant not issuing knee-jerk statements about this little girl’s future without sorting through the facts. The panic was still there, a low-level hum through my body, but the shrieking of my heart had subsided.

Elle took the baby from Adeline just as I met her at the door.

“Oh, she is gorgeous! And those eyes? Lars, she looks just like you.”

“Don’t say that, Mom.” Adeline avoided looking at me. “He’s hoping the exact opposite.”

“No, I’m not.” Yes, I was.

Adeline snorted. “Whatever, Nyquist.”

Whatever, Nyquist? Before I had a chance to respond, she was inside the house.

Elle’s eyes went wide. “What’s going on there?”

“Apparently, I’m not living up to her lofty expectations for surprise fatherhood.”

“Well, this is a shock, and everyone should be giving you grace while you adjust. Let’s get her fed and settled.” She smiled, all sympathy. “You’re not alone, Lars.”

Elle had worked miracles in the ten minutes it took us to drive from the Empty Net to the Kershaws’ house.

In the warm and homey kitchen, where I’d attended once-weekly meals for the last year, she had laid out a shit-ton of baby supplies from bottles to clothes to one of those baby beds that probably had a fancy name I’d be forced to learn.

I was in for a real education, no doubt.

“You had all this stuff close to hand?”

“Just a few things. And we have plenty more in the basement to get you started.”

Someone came in behind me. I turned hoping for Adeline—I needed to apologize—but it was Theo. Eggsbee followed and settled into the dog bed in the corner. Someone give that pup a bucket of popcorn.

“Sit down, NyQuil. Looks like you need off your feet.”

Suddenly tired as hell, I sank into a seat at the kitchen table. All I could see was baby detritus and long years of never getting laid again.

Elle cocked her head, a hopefulness in her expression that made me itchy. “I need to get her something to eat. Would you like to hold her?”

No, but I needed to be a team player.

“Sure, hand her over.” Did I sound terrified? A grown-ass man worried about a tiny little doll that supposedly had his eyes?

“Here you go. Just like that, support her head … perfect!” Quick glance of—was that amusement?—at her husband.

“I suppose you think this is hilarious.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” Theo chirped. “I mean, that chick sure showed you in the middle of the Empty Net.”

She sure did. But right now, I wasn’t thinking of Vicki. My mind rewound to the disappointment in Adeline’s gaze when I told her I’d be bailing on this baby biz ASAP.

I refocused on the primary problem. “There should be a number for the mother in that bag.”

Theo laid all the bag’s contents on the table with the rest. Diapers, boxes that looked like formula, a couple of those one-piece jumpsuits with built-in socks, and a birth certificate.

I noted my name was listed nowhere, and that the date of birth roughly corresponded to nine months after I’d met Vicki the first time.

I flipped the birth certificate over while Theo searched the side pockets of the bag.

“No number.” He shrugged. “Should be easy enough to find, though. No one can ever truly disappear.”

Too right. The sooner I found her the sooner I could fix this mess.

For the first time since the bar, I looked down into the supposedly Nyquist eyes.

This kid had been crying havoc as Vicki sought me out in the bar but since finding me, she hadn’t made much of a fuss.

Was it possible she had my stoicism baked into her genes or did she recognize me in some way that only evolutionary biology could explain?

She looked up at me, those big blues snagging all my attention and pulling hard at my ice-compacted heart. Don’t even think of relying on me, kid. Go work your blue-eyed mojo on some other sucker.

“Aw, look at that! She likes you.” Exactly what Vicki had said before she unloaded her bombshell news. I read that, and Elle’s observation now, as reassurance for my fragile male ego.

Thank God for the Kershaws.

But I wondered about one Kershaw in particular, and if she still thought I was an asshole.

Adeline

Lars Nyquist is a dick.

Sure, the man had just been blindsided with staggering news but did his first instinct have to be how to get rid of the problem? That was an actual baby in that kitchen, and the man wanted nothing to do with her.

It was late, close to midnight, but I knew the one person I could talk to was probably still up.

Rather than walk through the kitchen, I headed out the front door and circled around back to the coach house.

The light was on, a beacon to weary old me, and the door opened as soon as I toed the threshold.

“So Lars Nyquist is a daddy!”

My great grandmother—Aurora to everyone—stood at the coach house entrance, hip cocked, a martini glass in hand. (Filled with water as she never imbibed alcohol after 10 p.m. She just liked the silhouette of the glass.)

“News travels fast.”

“Your brother texted, though I would’ve thought I’d hear it first from my favorite great-granddaughter.”

“Your favorite? Poor Tilly.”

Aurora waved that off. “She’s too young to understand such nuances. Come in and tell me everything!”

Armed with a cup of cinnamon-apple tea, I sat and filled her in. This kitchen was my favorite room in the Kershaw Compound. Warm cherry wood cabinets formed a semi-circle, like an amphitheater where the French country style table was the stage.

When I finished, she tilted her head and asked, “And why are you here?”

“Sharing the gossip. Why else?”

Aurora hoisted a well-shaped eyebrow and pushed her stylish gray bob behind one ear. She might be eighty-three, but she looked not a day past seventy.

“No, you’re not. You came to express your disapproval—or maybe, disappointment? Though why you’d care whether Lars Nyquist accepts his fate with grace and maturity, I have no idea.”

My shrug was stiff with effort. “I just don’t like seeing men get away with things or not stepping up to accept responsibility. His first instinct is to think of how to bail. That kid needs him.”

“Of course she does. And knowing what I do of Lars, he needs her.”

I startled. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, he’s become quite the fixture at our dinner table over the last year.

Almost one of the family at this point, and I get the impression he needs someone to love.

Other than us Kershaws. Sure there’s plenty of love to go around here, but a man like Lars needs something dramatic to make him see it.

Give him focus other than hockey, especially after how his father left God’s green earth. ”

A once-great Finnish hockey player, Lars’s dad, Sven Nyquist, had trashed his NHL career with a gambling ban, then decided he could probably one-up that on the road to ruin his reputation.

After several years of substance abuse, drunk-driving arrests, and bar brawling, he’d died instantly when his car wrapped around a tree six months ago.

In the past year, my family had brought Lars into the fold, it seemed. I balked at the idea that Aurora, and possibly my whole family, had the inside scoop on Lars Nyquist and his “needs.” The man was supposed to be my secret crush, not everyone else’s!

“Well, if he has his way, the baby will be returned to her mother or the state, he’ll be absolved of all responsibility, and his life will go on without a care.”

Aurora studied me. “Still taking things so seriously.”

“This is serious business. We’re talking about a baby.”