Because the Denver Diamonds would rather protect their asset than worry about the woman who tried to help him. But she couldn’t tell her father the real story, not without betraying Kent’s trust.
“It’s complicated. Like all relationships.” She was speaking to a man who was recently divorced. Surely he got it.
“What’s next, Pepper?”
“I’m figuring out some things.”
“Such as finishing your degree? Better that than child-minding.”
She blinked. “I’m working on it. I needed to take the time away after what happened and rethink the future. I’ll be out of your hair soon, I promise.”
The look he gave her was a mix of pity and love. She hated that look, how easy it was to recognize, and that dark pit in her stomach whenever he brought it to the table.
“Breakfast’s ready,” she said.
“I’ll get something at the arena.” With a heavy sigh, he headed for the door.
“Peppa!”
Hatch ran into her arms, and Pepper let herself absorb his soft breathing and little boy smell, possibly for a little too long because soon he was squirming, trying to escape the clutches of the needy lady.
He touched her face with sticky hands.
“Hey, buddy. Whatcha been working on?” She unfurled his chubby fist. “Peanut butter and glitter? Wow, that’s quite the combination.”
Elle had let her in three minutes ago, pointed at her artistic child, and hurried upstairs. Now she was back, donning a super-cute burgundy leather jacket. “I’m sorry, I turned my back for a second! He got into the play bucket under the stairs after eating his PB on toast.”
“Mama!” Hatch held up his hand and giggled, then moved toward the harried woman who had borne him.
“Oh, no, baby. I just put on a clean shirt.”
Pepper scooped him up. “I’ll take care of it. I know you have an appointment, so don’t worry about a thing.”
Elle eyed her critically. “I kind of expected you to take a mental health day. I would’ve understood completely.”
When this was her only source of income? Not likely. Besides, she hated to let anyone down, even though it seemed that lately, that was her brand.
“I know you had something important to do.” She turned to Hatch. “We’re going to be just fine, the two of us. Right, buddy?”
“Peppa!” Another grab at her hair, mixing the butter and glitter in good. Wonderful.
Elle picked up her purse and looked around. Pepper handed her a set of keys that were hiding under a SpongeBob toy on the hallway entry table.
“Thanks. Now, when I come home, we should talk about what happened at the arena. I’m hanging with Mia and Jordan later, so maybe you could join us? Theo’s on daddy duty tonight.”
As much as Pepper recognized how sweet Elle was, she wasn’t quite ready to confide in the Rebel WAGs, or even hang with them. Mia was lovely, though, a super talented player who had married Cal Foreman over the summer. Pepper had yet to meet Jordan, a well-known hockey reporter, hitched to another Rebels player, Levi Hunt. The idea of chatting with all these high-flyers, including a member of the press, brought her out in hives.
“Sorry, but I have something going on.”
Elle looked a little hurt at what sounded like an obvious excuse.
“Okay, just throwing it out there.” Elle popped a kiss on Hatch’s head. “See you later, Dino-baby!” Then to Pepper, “Text me if you need anything.”
“Will do.”
First thing was to wash this little monster’s hands, then see if she could get peanut butter and glitter out of her hair. She felt awful about turning Elle’s offer to talk down, but she’d been there before. Confiding in a clique of women only to have them turn on her. Not that she thought Elle would ever do that—she was such a nice person, and not the usual type for a WAG. In fact, none of the Rebels WAGs would be considered typical of the genus, except for Tara. And technically she wasn’t one because she was dating Fitz, the general manager.
Tara had gone out of her way to be kind to Pepper, though Heavens knew why. She guessed that maybe Tara, with her somewhat outsider status, saw something similar in Pepper.
She lifted Hatch off the stool he used to reach the bathroom sink and stowed it away. “Okay, hands all clean.”
“All kee!” Hatch yelled then devolved into giggles while pointing at Pepper.
She caught sight of herself in the mirror. Yep, a clump of blue glitter mashed into her hair with a gob of peanut butter. Lovely.
“I bet you’re pretty proud, H-Man.”
More giggles and pointing. The story of her life.
“Stay there while I work on this.”
Of course, expecting a very active fourteen-month-old toddler to stay still was a little like expecting people to refrain from making jokes about being pounded Pepper-style! The meme game was strong on Twitter this morning. She had tried to ignore it, but her brother had already sent her several gifs showcasing her failure on the ice.
Connor
Nice job, Pepperoni! Eliminating the competition. Very kool!
Sure, that’s exactly why she did it. To help her brother’s career.
But Connor didn’t really think it was cool (or kool!). He thought this was just one more example of Pepper’s ability to court disaster at every turn.
Like the time she lost her pet hamster in the backyard (Beauregard, I hope you’re enjoying your retirement.)
Or the time her hair turned carrot-orange after a spectacularly unfortunate home-dying accident.
Or the time she got food poisoning the night before her first-year college exams—and then again the night before she was supposed to repeat them.
Pepper wasn’t a particularly lucky person, but until now, her hexed life had never impacted someone else, even if people thought she was the reason for Kent’s career failings. This time, she was undoubtedly the reason for someone else’s career stall. Poor Bast. He must be so miserable.
But she had no time to dwell on that because Hatch was trying his best to reach the bathroom doorknob so he could get into something else sticky. She gave a quick swipe of water through her matted hair, lamented the glitter that remained, and grasped her charge by the collar.
“Hold up there, champ. Where ya going?”
“Puddle!”
That meant “puzzle” or at least, Pepper hoped it did because she didn’t relish the thought of taking him out to play in the rain, which had a distinctly frozen look to it. The forecast was for snow, an unusually late Fall storm to brighten everyone’s day.
“Okay, let’s get out the dino-puzzles.” The wooden dinosaur puzzle blocks were one of Hatch’s favorites, so they spent the next ten minutes playing with them on the living room floor. Pepper loved watching how his little cheeks puffed up while he tried to figure out the placement of the puzzle piece, then his jubilant smile when he got there.
“You are so good at those, H-man. How about this one?” She gave him the pieces for the T-rex. Someone had written “HEO” after with a silver Sharpie, so it spelled “Theo-Rex.” Weird. As smart as Hatch was, that was a little beyond him right now.
While she puzzled that out, her phone rang with a call from Bridget. She put her on speaker, so she could keep her hands free for potential toddler-wrangling.