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“Yeah,” I said, drawing the word out. “I knew exactly what I was doing. Good luck repeating it.” Because I sure as hell didn’t think I’d ever be able to.
“Gotta have something to work toward, right?” Then he skated back to center ice to set up for the next face-off.
“Watch it, 501,” Webs said, coming up behind me. “If you’re not careful, he’ll have the whole team trying to learn how to steal your move.”
I ENDED UPscoring the only goal in that game against the Rangers. Sunday night, I had another good game against the Islanders. Didn’t end up in the goal column, but I had two assists and three blocked shots, not to mention what might have been the biggest hit of my career, when I’d lined up Clutterbuck and caught him with his head down. Usually, he was the one on the other end of hits like that, so it felt good.
But now, the only thing on my mind was getting home and making sure—for myself—that Cadence was all right.
We spent Sunday night in New York instead of flying cross-country in the middle of the night and arriving home in the wee hours of the morning. Any way you looked at it, we were going to lose Monday for practice anyway.
By the time we landed at PDX, it was late afternoon. Jonny caught my eye as I was leaving the plane.
“You following me to the house?”
No point in putting things off. I nodded. “As long as you’re okay with that.”
“Sara got her to agree to stay until we returned home, but that’s all she agreed to. I think it’s better for everyone if we sit down and hash it all out. Anthony and Jesse should be back by now. I’m sure we can convince them to come over, too.”
“You mean you think it’s best if we gang up on her.”
He shrugged and grunted.
I did exactly as he suggested and followed him home. It turned out Anthony and Jesse were already there. Connor was jumping on Jesse’s balls when we came through the door, so I decided to do as little as possible to draw the little boy’s notice. The less he jumped on mine, the better my chances of ever being able to father children, if that was in the cards. A quick look around revealed Cadence was nowhere to be found.
Sara kissed Jonny and passed Cassidy into his arms almost as soon as we got there. “We ordered pizza,” she said. “Seemed easiest, with this many people.”
“Good,” he said. “I’m starving. Where’s Cadence?”
“Here,” Cadence said from the stairs. Then she saw me, and her eyes lit up. That was all it took to shake off all the cold from the outside and warm me all the way through. She rushed down and straight to me, wrapping me up in a hug.
I put my arms around her and held her close, breathing the scent of her hair.
“I missed you,” she said, her voice muffled in my coat.
“Not as much as I missed you.”
“All right, you two lovebirds,” Jesse said. “Now that everyone’s present and accounted for, can we get to the business of sorting out what we need to do about Guy?”
“Feed him to the damn agilators!” Connor squealed, jumping on Jesse’s balls so hard the man let out an “oof.”
Not that I had any intention of letting Cadence go any time soon, unless she wanted me to release her. I was perfectly content to stay exactly as we were, and besides, I didn’t want to give Connor any excuse to start jumping on me instead of Jesse. Thanks, but no. I liked my balls exactly how they were.
She didn’t move to pull away, thank goodness. I needed the comfort of being able to touch her. To reassure her I was here.
“Don’t use Mommy’s words,” Jonny admonished his son, carrying Cassidy to his recliner and taking a seat. She fussed for a moment, so he rocked until she settled down again.
Sara gave Connor an eye-rolling sort of look and shook her head, not that it would do any good. “I think the bigger order of business is figuring out where Cadence is going to stay, since she seems to think she’s putting all of us in danger by being around us.”
“Which is absolute bullshit,” Jonny said. He turned to us and waited until Cadence peeked out at him. “You’re in more danger if you’re alone than we are if you’re with us. You should stay here, exactly like you have been. He hasn’t tried anything while you’ve been here. He’s only coming after you in public when you’re alone or might as well be.”
“Just because he hasn’t done anything yet, that’s not a good enough reason to assume he won’t ever.”
“Just because he’s threatening you, that’s not a good enough reason for you to do something stupid and go off all on your own,” her brother countered.
“But you didn’t read that note.” She started shaking against me as soon as she mentioned the stupid message he’d left for her on her car. “You didn’t see. He threatened all of you. Every single person in this room. If anything happened to Connor or Cassidy—”
“He’d have to be an idiot to try anything with one of the kids,” Anthony cut in. “Or any of the rest of us, for that matter. I don’t think that’s his game. He wants you to be scared something will happen to one of us so he can trap you alone. That’s what he’s been doing all along, and I don’t think there’s any reason we shouldn’t assume that’s what he’s going to continue to do until he’s finally arrested or deported.”
