Bury the Hatchet

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Bury the Hatchet

TALLIE

I hadn't intended to tell anyone but Hunter that I was pregnant, especially since I wasn't positive how he would take the news, but since Razor had been there, we decided to go ahead and fill in the rest of the team.

Hunter was planning to tell the guys before a home game against the Rangers, so I'd decided to tell the other wives I was close to after the game—another loss—while we waited for our husbands to join us in the wives' room. Not that there were many women up there who would give me the time of day, since according to most of them I was nothing more than an ignorant Southern belle who didn't know the first thing about the holy grail that was hockey.

But they weren't all like that. Dana Zellinger, Christiane Ackerman, Arianne Duclair, and I had formed a bond. Dana and Christiane were both mothers, too, and Dana was currently pregnant, so I knew they would be a lot of help for me as I navigated the waters of my first pregnancy without the aid of my own mother.

I still hadn't talked to her after everything Daddy had revealed to me. She hadn't made any effort, and neither had I. Why would I want to talk to a woman who had only been using me to get what she wanted my entire life? A woman who'd used me as leverage against my father, who was the only person in my life for years who had loved me just as I was? I couldn't come up with a good reason, so I decided it wasn't worth my time to make contact, not even for pregnancy commiseration or advice.

The four of us settled into our usual corner of the room, well away from the snooty women who only wanted to gossip. Christiane's teenagers were looking after Dana's toddlers—"Practice," she'd informed us, since her oldest had gotten his seventeen-year-old girlfriend pregnant—so we would hopefully have a bit of uninterrupted talking time before our guys were ready to collect us.

I was just about to fill them in when there was a commotion at the door leading into the corridor.

We all turned to look out of curiosity. I'd just barely gotten a glimpse of Lance's face, eyes wild, features contorted with rage, gun raised, when Nathan flew at him. A shot rang out. Dennis rushed at me, knocking me to the ground.

There were screams. Lots of screams. My vision blurred.

"Oh my God! Oh my God! All the blood." It was Dana.

Something crashed. Might have been me. No, wait. I was already down. Must have been something else.

Couldn't breathe. Chest hurt.

Someone took my hand. Big. Warm. Held on tight.

Everything else was cold.

I wanted Hunter.

Then there was nothing.

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