Ghost Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 3) (43 page)

Erin broke out into song, channeling her inner Elsa and breaking through the tension. Mom laughed, and Kennedy joined in with Erin. Sierra stomped off down the hall, carrying Finn with her. The door to her bedroom slammed a few moments later.

“Sorry,” Gray said. “She’s just getting worse with it. I don’t know…” He shook his head, at a loss.

“Why she thinks London wants attention?” Dima asked, clearly flabbergasted.

“Because she
gets
attention,” Dad explained. “She always has. When she was younger, she got noticed because she was at the top of her sport. Then she got attention because of her accident, and we all had to make adjustments because she was in a wheelchair.”

Dima gave a disgusted look. “She’s paralyzed. Not trying to get attention. Doesn’t want the attention she gets just because of wheelchair.”

“Which any reasonable person understands,” Dad agreed.

“Still,” I said. “You might want to take her advice and get out while you can.” I winked to let him know I was teasing.

“No chance.”

“No?”

“No more running away,” he said.

“Good,” Dad said. “Because if you don’t marry my little girl, I’m going to come after you with a shotgun.”

“Daddy,” I argued in a bit of a whine at the same time as Dima said, “Want to marry her. Don’t know if she’ll marry me.”

I blinked a couple of times, trying to get my brain to catch up with everything that had just happened.

“Why wouldn’t she marry you?” Gray asked.

“Ask London.”

Everyone turned expectant eyes on me.

“I…” needed a minute to breathe. “Are you seriously asking me right now?” I demanded.

“You want to argue instead?” he asked in a teasing tone.

“Well, you haven’t even told me you loved me!” I pointed out.

He let out a string of Russian curse words. At least he’d said them in Russian and not English, because I had no doubt my nieces and nephews would memorize and repeat everything he said. They could be ornery like that. “Maybe
you’re
woo-woo bonkers,” he said. “Been in love with you a long time. What you need me to say?”

I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. “That’s good enough. I just needed to hear the words.”

“I love you. Okay? So will you marry me?”

“You sure you want to marry into this family?” I asked, half-teasing, half-serious. “You’ll be stuck with Sierra.”

“What about Miller?” he asked.

“If he ever gets his act together, you might end up stuck with him, too.” But I honestly didn’t know if Wade would straighten himself out. I’d told him the ball was in his court when I’d gone to see him, finally. Either he could accept the help that was available to him and be my friend—and only my friend—or he could move on with his life without me in it. But no matter what he felt about Dima, I made sure he understood he didn’t have any say in that matter. I hadn’t heard from Wade since I’d left his house, and I honestly wasn’t sure if I would ever hear from him again. I wanted to be there for him, but he was putting more than just his own life at risk, so even though it broke my heart, I had to make a break in order to protect myself.

Dima scowled at my response.

“I wasn’t kidding about the shotgun,” Dad warned.

“Be nice to
have
a family,” Dima conceded.

In the end, that was all the answer I needed. I blinked again, this time to hold back my tears. “Yeah, I guess I will then.”

“Good.” Dima winked. “Now let me fix your car.”

I rolled my eyes, but eventually I relented. Compromise, I reminded myself, required both of us to make concessions. It couldn’t be all on his end. I didn’t
want
it to be all on his end, even, because making changes to give Dima what he needed actually gave me what I needed.

Love. Passion. Companionship. A healthy argument every now and then.

He made me want to be a better version of myself. And together, we were definitely better than we were apart.

“You can upgrade the hand controls on my car on one condition,” I said, thinking fast.

He raised a skeptical brow. “What condition?”

“Move in with me.” It was something I’d been thinking about more and more often over the last few weeks. Most nights, he came to stay with me anyway. It was easier to be at my house than at his since mine had been designed with wheelchairs in mind. He’d started leaving a few things there. First a toothbrush and some body soap and shampoo that didn’t smell
girly
, as he put it. Then I’d shifted things around in my closets and drawers, giving him some space in both.

Dima grinned—something that was starting to look more natural and less forced on him. “Thought you’d never ask.”

“I STILL CAN’T
get over you not leaving with a different girl on your arm every night,” Drew said, tossing a roll of stick tape in my direction from across the locker room. “Don’t know what to make of you anymore.”

“Dima’s a fucking beardless, monogamous wonder these days,” Razor added. “Tori can’t contain herself with calling the son of a bitch a
good man
.”

“Yeah, but she thinks you’re a good man, too, so clearly she has impaired judgment,” Zee pointed out as he walked past us, and half the guys in the room snickered.

I had no intention of getting into an argument with any of them right now. Arguing with London was a hell of a lot more fun, especially because we typically ended our arguments with a feisty bout of makeup sex. I just put my head down and taped up my stick, getting it ready for tonight’s game.

It was the last home game of the season. As expected, we weren’t moving on to the playoffs, much to the disappointment of our delusional team owners. They seemed to be under the impression that a year or two was long enough for us to suddenly come to prominence within the league, which was as ridiculous a thought as any I’d heard. Chances were high that they’d end up selling the team and getting out of the hockey world long before the Thunderbirds would be truly competitive.

“Leave the man alone,” Hunter said, putting on his pads. “If you ask my little girl, she’d tell you he’s a good man, too.”

“Your little girl wouldn’t tell me anything other than
goo goo ga ga
,” Drew said.

“Whatever. Babies and animals can sense these things, though, and my baby loves the guy.”

“You gonna let Harper run off and marry him?” Drew asked.

“Last I knew, she wasn’t running anywhere,” Huggy Bear put in.

“I think his fiancée might have something to say about that.” Hunter threw a water bottle at Drew’s head.

Drew ducked just in time to avoid being hit with it.

It was going to be a long summer, and I would definitely miss the way the guys always gave each other shit all the time. I’d be plenty busy, though, getting ready for the arrival of my own baby.

London’s due date was in late September, around the time everyone would be coming back to get ready for training camp and the new season, and we were planning to have a small wedding here, with Svetka and Sergei flying in to join us, next month. Even Wade Miller intended to come. I just hoped he didn’t do anything that would force me to throat-punch him at my wedding. I wasn’t convinced he’d be on his best behavior, but London and I were all about compromising these days. I had to agree to let him come in order to get her to agree to marry me before the baby was born. I wanted the baby to have my name, and for there to be no question at all about who the father was.

Spurs came into the locker room with Mr. and Mrs. Jernigan at his side, and the boys all got quiet. Mr. and Mrs. J were the aforementioned delusional team owners, so we all tried to be on our best behavior around them. Mrs. J was constantly trying to get us to clean up our acts by instituting a swear jar and other ridiculous things of that variety. None of her efforts had panned out yet, but that didn’t stop her from trying.

“We just wanted to thank you all for your effort this season and wish you well on your time off,” Mr. Jernigan said. He was a preacher at a massive local church.

His wife caught my eye. She tensed up and inched closer to his side. She wasn’t my biggest fan, to say the least. Mainly because I refused to watch my language around her. I tended to throw a bunch of money in her swear jar at the beginning of each month, to cover my bases. It was easier to pay than to watch my mouth. Most of the other guys followed my example, too, so she always acted like I was a hooligan.

Mr. Jernigan put his hand around her waist and drew her in against his side, protectively, not that I had any intention of doing anything worse than cursing in front of her. “If it’s all right with you boys, we’d like to say a prayer over you while we’ve got you all together.”

A few of the guys groaned and mumbled quietly to themselves. Nate Cochran quickly bowed his head and silently prayed along with the man, but there wasn’t much the guys who’d prefer to keep their prayers to themselves could do but let the man do as he would.

The preacher kept it short and sweet, at least, asking God to watch over and protect us all, and a bunch of other bullshit. Whatever. He finished, and they left the locker room so we could get on with closing out our season.

Spurs took a few minutes to go over our game plan for the day. We were playing the Blues tonight, who needed to win in regulation in order to clinch the top seed in the Central Division and guarantee themselves home ice advantage throughout the playoffs. We wanted to prevent that from happening. That was our goal for the night.

Finally, we headed out to the ice and went through the singing of the national anthem and all of the other pregame rituals.

The Blues came out with a relentless forecheck, which wasn’t a surprise. Their captain, David Backes, was playing like a beast, hitting every guy in our home turquoise-and-terra-cotta uniforms he could and crashing Hunter’s crease at every possible opportunity.

A little over halfway through the first period, Backes lined up Gustav Gunnarsson and boarded him. Zee immediately went over to drop his gloves with Backes, but the refs stopped him before he could. At least they sent Backes off for a boarding minor, though, putting us on the power play.

Goose skated off the ice holding his shoulder funny. The trainers took a quick look at him and hurried him down the tunnel to evaluate his injury.

“Dima, get out there and plant your ass in front of the net,” Spurs told me. “Look for a tip-in.”

I didn’t often get a chance to take the ice on the power play these days, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to pass it up. I skated out with Zee and Drew, filling in for Goose on the top power play unit.

Zee won the face-off, and we all skated into position. I did what my coach told me to do—I parked myself in front of the crease, not budging no matter how many times the Blues’ goaltender whacked me in the backs of the knees and their defensemen cross-checked me in the kidneys to get me to move. They weren’t as stubborn as I was.

The rest of our guys passed the puck around, trying to draw the Blues’ penalty killers out of position so we could get a good shot off. Finally, it all came together.

Razor shot the puck from the point. I got my stick on it just enough to tip it.