Captive (9 page)

Kate got up from the bed and approached me. “I don’t even know why you’re mad.”

“Because you don’t care if we have sex! Because you just got out of the depression from the miscarriage and now you’ve thrown yourself into adopting a baby, and I’m realizing the days of me being important to you are over!”

“Ryke!” Her face crumpled with hurt. “How can you say that?”

“How can I not? You don’t come to my games, but you’ll take any other excuse to keep yourself busy. And without sex, aren’t we just … friends who live together and have a joint bank account?”

She stomped to the bedside table and picked up the box of condoms, whipping it at my chest. “Put one on and I’ll spread my legs right now! I thought I was married to you, but apparently I’m married to your dick!”

I could’ve. Her bad mood wasn’t the turnoff it should have been. Even with her eyes narrowed and her cheeks pink with anger, I couldn’t help staring at her bare tits and the way a big curl of her blonde hair was brushing the bottom of one. She was beautiful all the time.

I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to process her disdain for me. Angry as I was, I’d learned in my first marriage that words could never be unsaid. Maggie and I had both said things in the heat of the moment we’d regretted later.

“I’m going for a run,” I said levelly. “And when I get back, I’m gonna play some video games in the hockey room and sleep in there tonight. I think we both need some space before we talk again.”

She retreated to the bed, looking for her shirt. I picked up the rest of my clothes and grabbed my running shoes from the closet. I wished I could go back to the rink and beat Mayweather’s ass again. This, I hadn’t seen coming. It was the first time I’d ever wanted to get away from Kate.

My streak couldn’t last forever, but for now, I couldn’t pay for a beer at the downtown bar the team hung out at after home games.

“Hat trick!” A burly fan clapped me on the back and howled his approval. “Dude, that was awesome!”

“Thanks man,” I said, tipping my bottle against his.

“You’re on fire lately! Seventeen goals in your last nine games. What’s going on with you, man?”

I didn’t want to discuss my sexual frustration with a guy wearing a t-shirt that said, ‘Puck You’, or with anyone else for that matter, so I just shrugged and threw back some more beer.

“Dude, don’t shave a hair on your body, don’t change your underwear, and don’t switch sticks!” he bellowed, clapping me on the back again. “Don’t ruin it!”

He wandered away and I finally had a few seconds to myself. When I’d woken up this morning after a restless night on the couch in the hockey room, only Mimi had been in the kitchen. She’d told me Kate was gone to work and pretended not to notice we slept apart.

I’d done my pregame skate, lifted light weights, and played my game. The whole day had fucking sucked, even the celebration I pretended to enjoy after the game.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and glanced at it. Still, not one word from Kate. Not even a congratulatory text about the game. She probably hadn’t even watched it on TV.

Lauren Monroe approached, holding out a fresh bottle of beer. I looked down at the empty one in front of me.

“Uh … thanks,” I said, taking the bottle and tipping it for a long drink. She took my acceptance as an invitation to sit down and slid onto the stool next to me.

“What’s up, Center of my world?” she asked. She’d been calling me that since I started playing for my team almost nine years ago. I found it funny at first, a play on the fact that I was the team Center, but now it just annoyed me.

“Not much.” The new beer was almost halfway gone already. I wanted to drink alone, but didn’t want to be rude.

Lauren was the kind of woman I couldn’t let my guard down around. She was tall and gorgeous, with long brown wavy hair and bright blue eyes. Her family had money, and she didn’t work. Her dad was a good friend of our team owners, and she spent a lot of time with the team. It was common knowledge she had her heart set on landing a hockey player husband.

She befriended me after Maggie’s death, bringing food by my apartment and trying to get me out of the house. I told her that it was nice, but I needed space. A few months later, she was out with the team and I kissed her at a bar in a weak moment when I was drunk as shit.

I managed to avoid her after that, and things had never been comfortable between us again. She was plenty hot, but I wasn’t interested in anything serious after Maggie until I laid eyes on Kate and fell in love hard and fast.

“You’ve been down lately,” she said. “If you ever want to talk, I’m a good listener.”

“I’m okay. I’m sure you know what’s going on.” My anger at everyone knowing the intimate details of my life flared again.

She flipped her hair over her shoulder and I caught the scent of her perfume. “Yeah. I heard your wife can’t have children. That must be hard for you.”

“It’s not—”

She cut me off. “Can I tell you something?”

“Uh, sure.”

“I’ve always had a huge crush on you.” Her cheeks reddened. “I never had the nerve to say anything, and then you started dating Maggie, and … you know. I was sorry when she died, but after a few months went by … I guess I started selfishly thinking that maybe I might still have a chance with you. When you kissed me that time … Anyway, I was crushed when I saw you with … um, Kate for the first time, because I knew. I could tell.”

I sighed. An emotional woman was last on the list of shit I felt like dealing with right now.

“I’m married, Lauren. Happily married.”

“Why doesn’t Kate come to the games anymore?”

“I’m not inclined to discuss that with you.”

“Listen, my point is just that … if you ever want anything, anything at all … I’ll take what I can get from you. It doesn’t have to be a regular thing—”

My cock stirred to life beneath the bar, at odds with what was going on in my mind and coming out of my mouth.

“Christ, I just told you I’m happily married! I don’t fuck around on my wife.”

“I’m sorry.” She bowed her head. “I just wanted to finally say it. So that if you are having problems with your wife, you know—”

“I’m not. Have enough self-respect to find a man who’s not married, for Christ’s sake.”

I stood and tossed a bill on the bar and left, her hurt expression nagging at me a little. Had I been too hard on her? Plenty of married guys on our team cheated on their wives, so it wasn’t an outrageous thing to suggest. Opportunities were everywhere on the road.

I’d never strayed, but women approached me often and I turned them down nicely. Why had I just been a raging dick to Lauren? Probably because I’d never gotten hard over any woman but Kate since I met her, until just now.

My blue balls were killing me. I was unstoppable on the ice, but the strain on my marriage wasn’t worth the trade.

The further I read into the file of background information on my new client, the heavier my heart became. Her name was Melody Swingle, and she’d been through more in five short years than most people endured in a lifetime.

There was abuse and neglect, but the investigations had always deemed it unfounded. How the hell did a three-year-old get a bruise on her back that was the size of an adult’s hand, then? I read on and shook my head with disgust.
Child fell down the stairs
.

Right. And then she tripped over a broom six months later and broke her arm. Found wandering in the cold a block from home at age four with no shoes on. Ran screaming to a neighbor’s house when her father knocked her mother unconscious.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. Our appointment was in five minutes, and I had to read on. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did.

Called 911 to report murder/suicide of parents. Found by paramedics dehydrated and malnourished alone in home with their corpses.

I blew out a breath and looked up at the ceiling. I wasn’t experienced enough for this client. But Kirk had forwarded her to me, saying she refused to be alone in a room with a man. I was the only woman in this practice, so I had to find a way.

When I pulled open my office door, I peeked into the lobby and saw a small girl with long, wheat-colored hair pulled into a neat ponytail at her neck. She had hazel eyes and a serious expression.

“Melody?” I said, smiling at her as I walked out. She nodded solemnly and I crouched down so we were eye to eye.

“I’m Kate. It’s very nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” she said shyly. The middle-aged woman with short black hair and gray roots next to her rose.

“I’m Diane Allison, Melody’s foster mom. Do you need anything from me? I was planning to go pick up one of the other kids and come back for Melody.”

“I need you to sign a consent form, and it would be good if we could talk alone for just a bit,” I said, gesturing to our receptionist. “Val can keep an eye on Miss Melody for us.”

Diane followed me to my office, where I passed her a clipboard with forms that she signed so quickly I could tell she’d seen them many times.

“Have a seat,” I said, gesturing to a dark purple leather chair. “I usually like to talk to a parent or guardian for the first session with children.”

She nodded. “I’ll help if I can. I know her background from the file, but not much else. She’s been with us for a month and hasn’t said a word about the murder. And the caseworker told us not to bring it up with her.”

“Okay.” I tapped a pencil eraser on my desk, considering. “Just fill me in on what you know, then. Tell me about her disposition.”

“Melody? She’s pretty quiet. She does everything my husband and I ask her to. We have jobs for all of the kids, and hers are making her bed, helping fold laundry and feeding the animals every other day.”

“You have other children?”

“Ours are grown, but we have four foster kids right now.”

“That’s a great thing to do,” I said. “Are you hoping to adopt them?”

“No, we just try to be that stable in-between place for kids who need a forever home. Our home is peaceful and quiet, other than the sounds of the kids playing. And we have a lot of animals, which they always seem to latch on to. Two dogs, two cats, an iguana and a ferret.”

“Sounds nice.”

She smiled. “We’ve been fostering kids for five years now, and we’ve had quite a few. The only problem I’ve seen with Melody is that she has trouble sleeping. She also had trouble eating when she first came to us, but I think we’re past that now. I just figured it was time for grief counseling because of what she witnessed.”

“That’s a good thought,” I said. She rose and I got up to shake her hand.

“I have to go get one of the other kids from a birthday party. I shouldn’t have any trouble getting back here by three, but if for some reason I’m not here …”

“I won’t leave her here alone,” I said. “I’ll stay with her until you get back.”

“Okay. Though I have to say out of all the kids I’ve fostered, that one’s the most self-sufficient. I don’t doubt she could make it back to our place on her own.”

I smiled as we walked back into the lobby.

“See you at three,” Diane said, smiling at Melody when she passed.

I sat down in the lobby chair next to the silent girl. Val was busy on the phone, so I decided to break the ice out here.

“Did Diane tell you why you’re here?”

She shrugged and then nodded.

“We’re just going to spend some time together once a week,” I said. “Have you ever played checkers?”

She shook her head and I grinned.

“It’s kind of an old game, but it’s really fun. I have it in my office and I could teach you if you want to play.”

She nodded silently. I didn’t know if I’d be able to get through to her, but I could tell that if I did, it was going to take a while. Which was fine by me. If anyone deserved patience, it was this understandably guarded little girl.