“Always so personable.” Silas grinned. “Relax, I’m not trading you just because you’re skating like a kindergartener at learn-to-skate lessons. I figured you’d want an update.”
“You heard back from the guy?” I leaned forward. When Silas heard I was hiring a private investigator to find Skye’s mother, he’d hopped in and not only paid for the whole thing, but put his own guys on the case, saying she was a liability for Reaper PR. Personally, I thought he just liked to help where he could when it came to his players.
“Kind of.” He leaned back in his chair. “There’s no record of Skye Grant being born in Florida, which means either she wasn’t born there, or her last name isn’t Grant on her birth certificate. My team is going county by county, but so far there’s no birth certificates showing up with you as the father.”
“So we’re nowhere.” Fucking awesome.
“It’s a needle in a haystack, Grant, and we’re sorting a shit ton of fucking hay.” He loosened his tie. “You sure she was from Miami?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not sure of anything.”
Silas nodded. “Then it’s going to take us some time. Skye is a pretty common name, and all we have to work off is that letter saying she’s three months old.”
“She’ll turn up,” Coach McPherson said softly. “She’ll either regret what she did and show up to get Skye back, or…”
“Or she’ll want money,” I guessed.
“For the sake of your daughter, let’s go with the more hopeful regretting reason,” Silas suggested. “In the meantime, do you have all the support you need?”
“I have Fiona.”
“That’s all?” Silas asked.
My brow puckered. “That’s all I need.”
“You don’t want me to fly your family in or something?” He tilted his head.
“I would rather lose my contract than involve anyone whose genetics happen to match with mine.” I thought about it for a second. “Well, except Skye. She stays.”
“If you change your mind, let me know,” Silas ordered. “And do your teammates a solid favor and get some fucking sleep. You look like a zombie.”
I felt like one.
“You have to sleep, little demon,” I whispered against Skye’s hair as I paced the length of the hallway. Moonlight poured in through the window at the end of the hall. We’d been at it for hours, and my eyes had long-since adjusted to the dark. Pretty sure I was going to be full-on bat by morning at this rate.
I patted her back and flipped my wrist, checking the time.
It was two a.m., and I was due on the ice at seven for morning skate. Our first game was days away, and though my body was adjusting to living without rest, my mind was still foggy half the time.
She let another piercing cry before shoving her fist into her mouth.
“You’re going to chew yourself to death,” I muttered, offering her the icy teething ring again, which she rejected, again. My right ear was going to be permanently deaf by morning.
I concentrated on slowing down my own breathing and heart rate. The girl was like a barometer for moods. The slightest hint of frustration or anxiety and she blew the roof off with those little lungs of hers.
“Still won’t sleep?” Fiona asked, coming out of her room and leaning against the doorframe.
Moonlight outlined every curve on her body, from the form-fitting tank-top she wore to sleep, to the scrap of cotton she called shorts. How fucking long could a woman’s legs possibly be?
Long enough to wrap around your hips.
Fuck, those thoughts were going to send me straight to hell.
“We didn’t mean to wake you,” I said softly between Skye’s outbursts.
“You didn’t,” Fiona promised, tying her hair up into a bun. “I had my earplugs in.”
“Then why are you awake?”
“Thirsty.” She shrugged. “I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared down the hallway, toward the back steps that led to the kitchen, and I continued pacing with my very angry little girl.
“You know, I’ve never been considered the most patient of people,” I told her as I turned back to start another lap. “If you knew my reputation, you’d probably keep silent as a church mouse.” I brushed a kiss over her temple. “But you never have to worry about my temper. You’re probably the only person in the world who can say that.”
“Here we go,” Fiona said, coming back up the stairs with a bottle of water. She unscrewed the lid and kept pace with me, holding the bottle to my lips. “Hydrate. Isn’t that the first rule of athletics?”
“Thought that was yours.”
“Already downed one of your electrolyte drinks,” she said with a shameless grin. “Now open up.”
“Thanks.” I snorted a laugh, but did as she asked, gulping down water as she held it for me. It was strangely...intimate, but things with Fiona just...were. It was hard to live with someone day after day and not become intimate—in the non-physical sense of the term. And she was almost always here. Even on her days off, she found reasons to stop by and check on us. I drained the water, and Fiona chucked the bottle into the hall wastebasket.
“Now give her to me.” She held out her arms and wiggled her fingers.
“Go back to bed,” I countered.
Fiona rolled those beautiful blue eyes, though they looked much paler in the moonlight. “You need to sleep.”
“So do you.”
She sighed and leaned back against the wall, watching us pass by once, then twice. “Did you try the wrap?”
“Yep.” I nodded, patting Skye’s back in a heartbeat rhythm. “I took her for a drive around ten, but that didn’t help, either. We’ve rocked, swung, swayed, and paced.”
Fiona sighed. “Her teeth hurt.”
“That’s my guess, but she doesn’t want this thing, either.” I waved the teething toy at her as we walked by.
“Give her up and get some sleep,” she said to my back.
“Why don’t you get some sleep so at least one of us is conscious with her tomorrow?” Walk. Pat. Walk. Pat. Walk. Pat. The motions had become so routine that I almost wondered if I could develop the ability to sleepwalk and get the best of both worlds.
“Because I’m not the one with the million-dollar contract.” She hefted an eyebrow up.
“Multi-million,” I corrected her with a smirk before kissing Skye’s head again. “And you can have every little cent if you’ll just let addy sleep, Skye. Imagine all the ponies you could buy.”
That didn’t work either. Her cries had dwindled from full-lunged yells to pitiful, heart-rending whimpers.
“You haven’t slept in weeks,” Fiona argued. “And honestly...you kind of smell.” She wrinkled her nose.
I stopped right in front of her. “I do not.”
“You went for a run earlier.” She shrugged.
“And I showered after.” I drew up short. I did not smell.
“Fine, maybe you already showered, but I bet another one would feel great,” she urged, wiggling her fingers in between Skye’s body and my chest.