Hot Puck, A Rough Riders Hockey Novel

Eden and Tori were pulling out of the hospital parking lot when their pagers sounded again.

Eden, filling out reports in the passenger’s seat, closed her eyes on a groan. Tori swore.

“You’ve become a total jinx,” Tori said. “We all agree. Every shift from hell has one common denominator: you.”

“Wow, you’re giving me a lot of credit.” Eden covered the iPad and pulled out her phone for directions to the call. “And while I deeply appreciate the confidence, if I had that kind of power, I’d use it to have the universe orchestrate my life in a whole different way.”

She picked up the radio to tell the dispatcher they were en route to the call of yet another woman down. Then told Tori, “Nothing like going straight from the hood to the Ritz.” With a few quick clicks on her phone, Eden pulled up photos of the house. And in between Siri’s directions, Eden said, “It’s a huge brick colonial surrounded by a white picket fence. Middle of the block on the right.”

Tori wove through the streets of downtown DC, picking up their earlier topic of discussion: Beckett. “So when are you two going out again?”

“Tomorrow night,” she said, smiling at the thought. She’d woken and showered with Beckett early that morning, leaving for work before Lily had stirred. “He’s got a game tonight, then home to Lily. He’s off tomorrow. We’re meeting a few other guys on the team and their girlfriends and wives for dinner.”

“I’m so happy for you,” Tori said, entering the affluent Spring Valley neighborhood of Washington, DC.

“I’m…cautiously optimistic. I’m having to force myself not to jump in with both feet. It’s hard. He’s tempting in so many different ways. But this whole thing still scares me.”

“I think that’s normal. And smart too.”

Eden gave her a smile before they pulled into the home’s driveway and bailed from the rig to grab equipment from the back. But she knew she was all talk. She was already head over heels for Beckett, which scared the living shit out of her. Yet holding her feelings back was like trying to get an IV in a guy on PCP.

They loaded equipment on a gurney and approached the sidewalk. The house’s interior lights glowed golden in the night, and the lights from the ambulance shot strobes of red and blue across the brick. Eden slowed as they reached the gate. “Hold on.”

After a quick glance around the neighborhood, she scanned the home’s lush front yard encompassed by the fence again. Huge rhododendrons and hydrangea plants were scattered among various trees and shrubs. In the dark, she couldn’t tell if the backyard was also open to the front, but she didn’t see a fence separating the two.

Shifting the oxygen tank into one hand, she used the other to shake the fence gate, rattling the hardware as she watched the shadows for movement.

“What are you doing?” Tori asked.

“Checking the dog’s friendly meter.”

“What dog?”

“Look at the other houses. Only one other fence I can see. If there’s a fence, there’s usually a reason.” Eden did it again, adding a whistle. No dog appeared. But no one stepped out of the house either. And Eden’s trouble meter flared orange.

She unlatched the gate and pushed it open. “Stay here a minute,” she told Tori. “And keep this exit clear.”

Eden was at the stairs, about to take the first step toward the front door, when she heard a low growl from her right. Her trouble meter jumped to full-blown red. Fear skittered down her neck and flooded her chest. She turned toward the sound and caught sight of the dog jumping from around the corner of the house.

Eden stumbled back a step, holding the oxygen tank out in front of her. The dog was big and dark. But it was his ferocious bark that pounded down her spine and lifted the hair on her arms.

He lunged, teeth bared in a snarl. Eden shoved the tank at him, hitting the dog and knocking him back. But he was on his feet in seconds, meaner than ever.

“Shit.” She sidestepped back toward Tori with the metal tank keeping the dog at bay until she’d slipped through the gate again. Tori slammed it behind her, and Eden stumbled into the street, panting, shaking, her heart pounding in her ears.

The dog jumped at the fence, barking and snarling. It was a Rottweiler, and his teeth glowed white in the night. Eden’s adrenaline felt like octane in her bloodstream when a man stepped out of the house and yelled, “What are you doing out here? My wife needs medical attention.”

He was middle-aged and arrogant. Eden could hear the you-work-for-me attitude in his voice. And after almost getting mauled by his dog, yeah, that irritated her.

“Get your dog out of the front yard so we can pass, sir.”

“Don’t be stupid. There isn’t anything wrong with the dog. Just come in.”

Stupid? Eden’s ire mounted. “Secure your dog. We’re not entering the property while he’s loose.”

Before she could instruct Tori, her partner got on the radio to dispatch and requested law enforcement backup.

“What’s your name, sir?” Eden asked.

“What difference does that make?”

Great, a rich arrogant prick. More concerned with being in control than the state of his wife. All too familiar to Eden.

“Sir,” Eden said, searching for patience, “please come get your dog and put him in the backyard so we can take care of your wife.”

“Excuse me.” Another man’s voice at Eden’s right drew her attention from the house. He was in his early fifties with graying hair and a friendly face. “Hi. I live right next door. Butcher knows me. I feed him when they’re on vacation. I can put him in the backyard.”

“That would be great,” Eden said.

“Darrel’s a real asshole,” the man said, voice lowered, “but his wife is a really good person and a dear friend of my wife’s. Please take care of her.”

And with that, he turned to the fence, talked to the dog, and managed to grab his collar before opening the gate, then led the dog toward the side yard.

Eden glanced at Tori. “Let’s go.”

“Do you want me to cancel backup?”

“No.” Eden had a bad feeling about this.

As they approached the stairs again, the man reentered the house with a muttered “About fucking time.”

Eden stepped through the front door, and the opulence of the home’s interior registered instantly. Dark hardwood, light furniture, everything in its place. A showroom. Her tension mounted.

“Where’s your wife, sir?”

“Kitchen.” He jerked a hand somewhere toward the back of the house, then pulled out his phone and dialed. Then paced the living room instead of leading them to his wife.

Eden darted a look at Tori, and they shared thoughts without words.

They found his wife easily enough, laid out on the kitchen floor, twisted to lie half on her side, half on her back.

“Ma’am?” Eden dropped to a crouch and pressed her fingers to the woman’s neck, relieved to find a pulse. “Can you hear me?” She glanced at Tori. “Pulse is weak.”

Tori crouched at the woman’s head and turned her ear to the woman’s mouth. “Breathing.” She grabbed the C-collar and glanced at Eden. “Did you see his hand?”

Eden nodded, flashing back to Darrel’s raw knuckles and the blood spatter on the sleeve of his dress shirt. She pulled the penlight from her pocket as Tori lowered the backboard to the floor.

“Ma’am, can you hear me?” Leaning over the woman, Eden scanned her face where a cut bled over her left cheek, one from the corner of her mouth. Injuries Eden knew too well. She snapped on her penlight, lifted the patient’s eyelids to check her pupils, and found them unequal and nonreactive. Bad, bad news. “Head injury. Let’s move.”

Tori clicked the C-collar into place, and together, they carefully rolled the woman onto the backboard.

Eden collected their jump bag as Tori secured the woman to the board.

“What was law enforcement’s ETA?” Eden asked.

Tori’s head came up, her gaze swinging toward the front door. “I think they’re here.”

“Thank God.” She grabbed one end of the board, Tori took the other, and they lifted the woman to the gurney. “Let’s go.”

On the way out, they found one police officer talking to the husband, who barely glanced at his wife on the stretcher. At the ambulance, another cop approached as they loaded her inside and handed Eden a piece of paper with notes on it.

“What’s this?”

“Her info. Name’s Margaret Baxter. Thirty-two.” His face was grim. “We’ve been here a number of times. Her husband won’t give you any information, and he makes sure she won’t wake up for a while. By the time this hits the DA’s desk, Baxter’ll have it all smoothed over with a handshake and a smile.”

Eden’s stomach plummeted, and her head filled with flashbacks of John and her father.

The cop shook his head. “I’m just waiting for the day I find the medical examiner’s rig in the drive instead of an ambulance.”

“We’re doing our part to make sure that’s not today.” Tori slammed one of the back doors. “You do yours to make sure that’s not tomorrow.” Then she cut off the view of the cop by slamming the other.

Eden’s mind fragmented a little. Tori hopped into the driver’s seat, turned over the engine, and flipped on the sirens.

That cleared Eden’s head. She picked up her radio mic with one hand and kept her fingers on the pulse at Margaret’s neck with the other. Monitoring Margaret’s breaths, Eden contacted the local hospital’s emergency room. “Capital to base.”

“Base. Go ahead, Capital.”

“We’ve got a thirty-two-year-old Caucasian female found unconscious at the scene.” She repositioned her fingers on Margaret’s neck to get a better heartbeat with dread sinking in her gut. “Initial exam showed lacerations and bruising to the face. Pupils uneven and nonreactive. Heart rate fifty-two and weak. Respirations ten and—”

Margaret’s chest stopped moving, and Eden broke off, waiting. After a second that felt like a minute, Eden grasped her arm hard and gave her a shake. “Margaret.”

No breathing. And the heartbeat beneath her fingers faded to nothing.

Eden dropped her radio and told Tori, “She’s coding.”

She pulled her shears from the holster on her waist and cut Margaret’s blouse up the middle, catching her bra on the way. She spread the fabric wide and found a series of bruises marring Margaret’s skin, some old, some new.

Tori picked up the radio from the driver’s seat and continued communications as she drove. “Capital to base, patient is coding. Administering AED.”

Muscle memory had Eden reaching for equipment without thought. She threw open the defibrillator’s case, hit the power button, and slapped leads on Margaret. Placing the paddles diagonally across the heart, Eden hammered the pulse button.

Zzzzap.

Margaret’s chest rose a fraction of an inch. Eden moved one hand to the woman’s carotid. “Come on, Margaret.”

The slightest thump tapped her fingers, and relief sagged Eden’s shoulders. “I’ve got a pulse. Still no respiration. Starting rescue breathing.”

Tori relayed the information while Eden covered Margaret’s mouth and nose with a mask and breathed for the woman. She checked for a pulse in between breaths.

“Almost there.” Tori’s words still hung in the air when too many milliseconds passed between beats in Margaret’s neck.

Frustration sang through Eden’s body. “She fucking coded again.”

“I’m pulling into the parking lot.”

“You’re going to have to take me with her.” No time for the defibrillator. Eden pushed to her feet, bent over Margaret, piled her hands on top of each other, and leaned her weight into the pump.

One, two, three… She counted silently to herself, more to keep focused, to keep her mind compartmentalized so she could function, than to keep track. Now, it was about keeping the blood flowing through Margaret’s heart, body, and brain until the docs could pull out the big guns.

“Come on, Margaret…” she told the woman as Tori came to a stop. Eden climbed onto the gurney, straddling Margaret with her knees while continuing compressions. “Don’t let him win.”

Eighteen, nineteen, twenty.

By the time Tori opened the back doors, Eden’s arms burned, her shoulders ached, and sweat collected on her back.

“Comin’ out,” Tori warned.

Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three.

Eden used her tired thigh muscles to balance as Tori pulled the stretcher from the rig, then jogged toward the ER.

Four nurses and two doctors met them at the doors and swept them into the nearest trauma bay. A nurse lowered one arm of the gurney. Another slapped more leads on Margaret’s chest. One of the doctors prepared the defibrillator paddles.

Sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven.

“Tell me when,” Eden said.

The doctor nodded. “Go.”

She sat back and rolled off the gurney. Tori was there to stop her momentum.

“Clear,” the doctor called before placing the paddles the same way Eden had.

Pu-chunk.

Then silence as everyone watched the monitor.

Nothing.

Eden’s hands fisted. Every muscle in her body was strung wire tight.

Fight, Margaret.

“Again,” the doctor said. “Clear.”

Pu-chunk.

Silence as everyone watched the monitor.

Beep.

Beep…beep…beep.

Eden’s muscles went weak. She bent at the waist and pressed her palms to her knees. Which was when she realized she was shaking from fatigue. Panting from exertion. Nauseous with relief.

“Good job, ladies,” one of the doctors told Eden and Tori.

They nodded and exited the trauma bay, sharing a subdued high five.

“Take a breather, grab some water,” Tori said. “I’ll get things put back together.”

“Thanks.”

In the restroom, Eden splashed water on her face. She pulled out her bun and collected the hair that had fallen out, winding it into a knot on the back of her head again.

When she looked in the mirror, Eden found her own familiar face staring back, cheeks flushed, skin glowing from the workout. Yet she didn’t quite recognize herself. She felt like she was looking at a stranger. Yet not. More like a familiar stranger.

What the hell was a familiar stranger?

She shook her head and let her gaze roam to her uniform while her mind drifted over the last twenty minutes, and emotions bubbled to the surface. Emotions she couldn’t identify. This tangled mess and out-of-body sensation came sometimes after intense situations like the one she’d just experienced. They came when she faced dangerous people or when she’d narrowly escaped a dangerous situation or when someone died and she brought them back. Or when they just died.

Feeling the way she was feeling while dressed the way she was dressed, entrusted with the responsibility she was entrusted with, made her feel like a fraud. Like a sheep in a superwoman’s clothing.

Eden pressed her eyes closed, breathed deep, and forced the insecurities from her mind. She exited the bathroom, and checked on Margaret. When she found that the doctors had her stabilized, Eden wandered toward the exit. But Tori had stopped at one of the last empty ER exam rooms and stood at the open door, staring up at the television in the corner.

“I’m ready,” she said behind Tori. When her partner glanced over her shoulder, the look on Tori’s face tightened Eden’s stomach. “What?”

Tori stepped farther into the room and gestured to the television. “Beckett.”

Eden’s first emotion was fear. Fear he’d been hurt in his game. The channel was tuned to NHL, and Beckett’s team headshot was on the screen. Another photo had been posted opposite Beckett’s, one of a gorgeous brunette. The headline underneath read: Croft’s Former Girlfriend Alleges Abuse.

Eden’s stomach chilled. She crossed her arms. “Can you turn it up?”

Tori picked up the remote off the empty bed and raised the volume.

“…they evidently have a child together,” one newscaster was telling another, “a daughter Croft has had custody of for nearly a year now. Croft has kept that very quiet, and you’ve got to wonder why.”

Eden’s stomach coiled with tension.

“We’ve discovered a custody case filed with the courts,” the other newscaster went on, “that shows Croft is going for full custody of the child. The woman in this case, Kim Dixon, is currently living with Raider running back Henderson Mitchell. She alleges that while seeing Croft six years ago, he was abusive. When she found out she was pregnant, she broke off the relationship because she feared for the child’s safety.”

“No.” Eden shook her head.

“Of course,” the sportscaster continued, “this story just broke, and comment from Beckett Croft will have to wait as he is currently battling the Boston Bruins, and arguably playing one of the best games of his season. This wouldn’t be the first time a sports figure became violent off the field or, in this case, off the ice. That said, Croft has no history of violence, and Dixon herself admits she never reported the abuse, though she does have this photo from a trip to the emergency room after an alleged fight with Croft while they were dating.”

The brunette’s beautiful face was replaced with one taken in a hospital gown. The sight of her injuries made Eden pull in a sharp breath. She had a cut and swollen lip, a bruised and swollen eye, cuts on her cheekbone and her brow. And what looked like fingerprints ringing her neck.

“Shit,” Tori whispered, her hand lifting to her own throat.

“More recently,” the first newscaster said, “Dixon reports that after allowing Croft the chance to get to know his daughter, he is now trying to take her from Dixon by claiming she is an unfit mother. Dixon met with Croft the other day at a café in DC to discuss their custody arrangement. Dixon claims Croft tried to buy her off, offering her five million dollars to sign over full custody of their daughter. She provided this photo as proof of that meeting.”

The headshots vanished, and an image of Beckett sitting across the table from Kim appeared. By the cut, style, and length of Beckett’s hair, Eden thought it looked like a recent photo. He was wearing his jersey, something he did only for events…

Her mind darted backward to the YMCA charity drive. To him wearing his jersey that day. And Eden scanned the photo again. Her gaze slid down his outstretched arm and his hand holding the file folder, and held on the red bracelet around his wrist.

This photo had been taken after he’d left her bed. After he’d dropped her off at Union Station. A stab of betrayal pinched her gut before she could institute rationale to stop it. He’d told her he had something he had to do that afternoon. What he had to do hadn’t been any of her business.

Unless he’d been lying to her this whole time. Unless he was capable of abusing a woman. Neither of which she’d believed possible. But Eden saw things in the street every day she’d never believed possible. She’d never believed John capable of hatred and abuse and ultimately murder. She’d never believed her parents capable of betrayal and abandonment. She’d never believed herself capable of standing strong against the most important people in her life, walking away from it all, and starting over with nothing.

She might not want to believe Beckett was capable of abusing a woman, but he’d said himself that he’d been a very different man when he’d been dating Kim, and that finding out about Lily had changed him. In fact, Eden was pretty sure he’d called himself a selfish prick.

Eden crossed her arms tighter, confusing the hell out of herself.

“Eden?”

Tori’s voice dragged her back. “What?”

“Are you okay?”

She shook her head. “I…don’t know.”

“Did you know about her?”

“Yes.” Eden looked at the screen again, where the image of Beckett and Kim at the café stole her attention. He had an envelope in his hand, and he was offering it to Kim, whose expression and mannerisms clearly demonstrated she didn’t want whatever was in it. “But his version of events is very different from these. He said Kim told him about Lily to get child support. He said he had to fight her for partial custody, and that she abandoned Lily on Beckett’s doorstep a year ago. I didn’t know about this meeting. I don’t know anything about a deal. And he certainly didn’t say anything about her abuse allegation. He said they had a one-night stand, and that was it.”

“What do you believe?”

Him. She believed him. Everything in her gut told Eden that Beckett was the real deal, from the way he cared for his daughter to the way he loved his teammates.

But her gut had been wrong before. She was, admittedly, terrible at seeing through lies and facades, especially when they involved a man she cared about.

“I…” The pain in her chest made her grimace. “I don’t—”

Their pagers went off.

Tori ripped hers off her belt. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Eden released a breath and turned from the room. “Let’s go.” She pushed the gurney toward the exit. “I’m going to have to stay busy tonight.”