Empty Net (53 page)

Audrey’s eyes watered as she gave him as much of a smile as she could. “Hi.”

“I have missed the feel of those lips on mine for twelve days now.”

“I was out for twelve days?” she asked hoarsely.

“No, four, but I was gone eight before that. So it’s been a long time.”

Audrey’s mouth quirked up on the side as she nodded. “Way too long. I love you, I’m so sorry.”

“No, don’t be. It’s not your fault,” he said, shaking his head. “I love you too,” he whispered before kissing her again.

“Ms. Parker, are you in any pain?” a nurse asked. Audrey looked up to see her messing with her IV.

“Yes, ma’am, a lot.”

“Okay, this should help, but it will probably make you drowsy.”

“Thank you,” Audrey said quietly as the nurse smiled and moved away. Tate moved his chair to her side, sitting down and holding her hand as she looked around the room. Everyone was watching her like she was going to disappear at any second. “So, I guess I should have had a magic show planned for when I woke up, huh?”

Everyone chuckled, and Audrey was glad to break the tension in the room. “So what happened?” she asked. “I blacked out in the middle of it. Did they find Levi?”

“Are you sure you want to hear this?” Fallon asked. “You just woke up, sis.”

“I want to know, I hate not knowing stuff.”

“True,” Fallon agreed with a nod.

William moved to the foot of the bed and gave her a small grin before saying, “He’s in jail, and no one has posted his bail. They think he stopped because he heard Lucas’s truck in the yard, thank God.”

“Tate found you,” Lucas said from beside Fallon. “He started CPR, and then the
ambulance came.”

Audrey smiled weakly at Tate. “My hero.”

He chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Hardly. I was crying and screaming through the whole thing.”

“He was awesome,” Lucas said proudly. “And he even managed to get some great shots on Levi’s face.”

“My hero,” Audrey whispered again, causing Tate’s face to redden.

“It’s so great to hear you joke around, Audrey,” Fallon said. “We were beside ourselves with worry when they put you in that coma, and then you didn’t wake up for so long. I’m just so glad you’re back and are going to get better.” Audrey nodded as she squeezed Tate’s hand.

“Me too,” she said, “but I gotta joke. Life is too short to be serious all the time.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Tate said as everyone nodded.

Unexpectedly, Audrey’s eyes drifted shut. She fought them back open, not wanting to lose sight of the people she loved. “Where’s Aiden?”

Fallon smiled. “With Susie. I haven’t told him what’s going on yet.”

“Don’t. It will scare him,” Audrey said quickly. “Wait till we go home, I’ll make something up.” She started to cough then, because her throat was so dry from the tube. “So, Audrey Jane,” William said as her coughing subsided. Tate handed her a glass of water and she sipped it slowly as William went on. “You’re pregnant?”

The room went quiet as Audrey looked over at Tate and smiled. “Yes. I am, Dad.”

“Are you going to get married?” William asked sternly.

“Dad, why does that matter? Let her be, she’s been awake an hour,” Fallon snapped, receiving a dirty look from their father. “What she and Tate do is their business. We are just
blessed she is safe and on her way to getting healthy.”

Leaning over, Fallon pressed her lips to Audrey’s head. “You’re tired and I’m tired. I am going to go home, shower, and sleep for the night.” She looked at Tate and said, “Call me if you need me or if anything changes.” He nodded, and then she turned back to Audrey. “I love you, sis.”

Audrey nodded, kissing her cheek, and said, “I love you more.”

Lucas shot her a grin, and then without warning Audrey passed out.

She woke up to the sound of a guitar being played. Blinking her eyes, she focused on Tate sitting in the corner with his guitar. He was softly singing, and she wanted to run to him and cuddle close while listening to him play. He looked so carefree, so peaceful, singing about being all right. She didn’t recognize the song, but his voice was velvet smooth and perfect. He looked gorgeous too. Most of his hair was falling in his eyes, while the rest was in a beanie cap. She noticed that he hadn’t shaved either. He wore a thin green tee and fitted jeans and held the guitar over his lap. He pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth, his eyes closed as he played.

He must have felt her looking at him, because he glanced over, their gazes meeting. He smiled as he sang to her. His eyes locked with hers as his fingers moved along the strings. Smiling up at her, she recognized the song as Justin Bieber’s “Alright.” It was one of her favorites, and she found it funny that her big gorgeous boyfriend was singing it to her. Ending the song with an Elvis kind of flair, he shot her a grin.

“I was wondering how long I was going to have to wait for you to wake up. I’ve been lonely without you.”

She giggled softly as she rolled her eyes. “Sorry, it wasn’t like I’ve been in a coma for a couple days. My bad.”

“Dork,” he laughed, getting up and coming over to the bed, then leaning in to kiss her. “I’m probably going to do that a lot.”

“Good,” she said, intertwining her fingers with his. “I’ve missed you.”

“Not as much as I’ve missed you.”

They shared a long, loving look before Audrey glanced down to where their hands lay on her growing belly. “Are you excited about Chicken?”

“Ecstatic. I bet you were shocked, huh?”

“Oh my God, I couldn’t stop crying! It was nuts.”

“Yeah, the doctor came out and was telling us what was wrong, and then he told us the baby was fine. It was the first I heard of it, and I almost passed out.” His grin fell as his eyes met hers. “I was so scared I was going to lose you both.”

She reached up, cupping his face. “I’m never leaving you again.”

“You are damn right on that one, love. Damn right,” he said with a nod. “We have a lot of planning to do. I’m going to have to find another house, and build another closet.”

“Shirtless, right?” He laughed as she smiled. When she went to push her tongue to her teeth and felt her gums, she freaked. “Eek, do I look horrible with no teeth?”

“You look beautiful,” he said confidently as she blushed.

“I’ll match our baby.”

“No, we’ll get it fixed before then,” he said with a smile. “But I promise, you are beautiful now,” he added when she sent him a look.

“Sure,” she joked, before he leaned over and kissed the side of her mouth. Then she
asked, “Was everyone freaking out?”

Tate nodded. “Yup. I think me and Fallon were the worst. We wouldn’t leave your side.”

She smiled. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be, we love you, and like Fallon said, we are blessed to have you back.”

They didn’t say anything for a while, as they held each other’s gaze. Then anger filled Audrey all of a sudden and she wished she could rip Levi Moss’s throat out. “I hate him,” she whispered. “I never thought I could hate someone the way I hate him.”

Tate laughed. “I want to kill him.”

Audrey nodded. “I’m glad you saved my life.”

He reached over, cupping her face. “I’m glad you saved mine, love.”

“How did I save your life?” she asked. “You didn’t get beat up.”

“No,” he said, “but I’ve been walking through darkness since my family died, and baby, you brought light to my darkness. I was empty, Audrey, completely and utterly empty, but now I am so full of love and happiness. All because of you. I owe you my life, so do you really think I’d let you die on me?”

Her eyes filled with tears as her mouth quirked in a painful grin. “I love you more than life itself, Tate. You know that, right?”

He smiled. “I don’t want to sound cocky, but yeah, I kind of knew that.” They laughed before he leaned over and kissed her softly again. She wished that her mouth wasn’t messed up so she could ravish his, but it would heal, she told herself. She would heal.

“Are you hurting?” he asked softly, moving his fingers along hers.

“Not really, a little.”

He nodded. “Good. Let me know if it gets worse and I’ll get the nurse.”

“Okay, I will.”

Tate shot her another grin before reaching over to the table beside her. “Now I know it’s killing you not knowing what everyone on Facebook is doing, that’s why I’ve been charging your phone.”

Audrey’s eyes went wide with excitement. “I love you,” she giggled as she grabbed her phone from him and touched the Facebook app.

As she updated her social sites, they talked about what had been going on while she was unconscious. He told her about all their friends coming to see her, and how they brought flowers for when she woke up. Meanwhile, she was busy thanking everyone for the Get Well wishes she had on her Facebook Timeline. Then her phone vibrated and Tate’s picture came up on the screen. Her face twisted in confusion, but before looking up to ask why he was calling her, she noticed that where it usually said Tate’s name, it said something else.

Will you marry me?

“What the hell?” She looked over at Tate, but all she saw was half of him. He looked up at her from his bended knee with tears in his eyes and the biggest grin imaginable on his face while still holding her hand in his. “Oh my God.”

“I got you this ring while I was in Canada,” he whispered, and when she held out her hand, slid a beautiful silver band that had his name engraved along the top of it onto her ring finger. “But it isn’t your engagement ring. I planned to ask you to marry me when I took you home, but I can’t wait that long. I need you to know that you mean the world to me and I want you to be my wife. I want to raise our child together, and Audrey, I want to make a life with you. I need you, love. All of you. For the rest of my life.”

Tears rushed over her cheeks as she nodded. “So you want to make me Mrs.
Oooooooodder?”

Tate smiled, his eyes welling up. “I do. And I want to make more baby Ooooooders with you.”

Her brows came in as she asked, “This isn’t like a Shea Adler type of thing is it?”

Tate laughed, moving his hand over her cheek. “No, I’ll let you decide how many we have.”

Audrey pulled him into her arms, kissing him hard on the lips, through the pain, past the dizziness, everything. She was going to marry this man, and she was going to love him for the rest of her life. She loved him. All of him.

When they broke that kiss, he kissed her again, softly, then three more times, before he smiled down at her. “So what do you say?”

She shot him a toothless grin as tears rolled down her cheeks, onto their hands and her belly and their child. “I say, ‘I’m in,’ where do I sign up?”

Tate held Audrey’s hand as they made their way up a dirt trail that lead to his family’s burial site. Audrey was completely healed; she even had a new set of pretty white teeth. The only thing different was that she walked with a little bit of a limp, but she blamed that on the pressure from her stomach. At only five and a half months pregnant, she didn’t expect to be as big as she was, and she blamed it all on Tate. He was enormous, and now she was having a giant. Audrey just couldn’t understand how she went from not being able to have a child to growing a massive one.

He was also partially to blame for stuffing cupcakes down her throat. She had been working out all her recipes for the opening of Audrey Jane’s, and instead of enjoying the cupcakes by himself, like she planned, Tate convinced her to try them too. She didn’t mind, though, the cupcakes were fantastic. The only thing that wasn’t fantastic was her growing waistline.

Glancing up at her beautiful husband-to-be, she smiled. He looked tired, but it was to be expected. They had left right after the Assassins lost game six in the third round of the Stanley Cup finals. Those L.A. Kings were going all the way; Audrey had no doubt about that. She thought Tate would be a little more upset about it, but he wasn’t. He said he was ready to start their life together. That they couldn’t win every year and there was always next year.

He was right, and she was beyond ready to start their life together.

But first they would enjoy a minivacation in his beautiful home country.

Gävle, Sweden, was amazing. She had never seen such beautiful green, lush scenery in her life. Tate’s family home was shaped like a large dome barn, and it sat along the river. Every time she glanced out onto the river, she could see big wooden sailboats off in the distance. They were massive and beautiful. The day before, she and Tate sat on the long wooden dock that he and his father had built when he was a kid and watched the boats pass by on the open water. Tate had told her he used to spend his whole summer on that dock. He also informed her that he had lost his virginity on it too. It didn’t take long before she was naked and being loved in the same exact place.

Thank God his closest neighbors were five miles away.

Tate also had acres of land, with hills and beautiful flowers in patches, making it look like the hills were wearing Band-Aids of bright beautiful flowers. Big trees with bright green leaves served as a canopy to most of the land, but Audrey had to admit her favorite place was the dock. It was such a romantic spot. Or maybe it felt romantic because she was so in love?