Charming as Puck(2)

Next to the bottle of Jack I finished in the living room after Kami left.

The baby cow stares at me, those eyes bright and friendly and asking for love.

I trip into my jeans and head for the living room. The sun’s telling me I need to get my ass in gear and over to the rink for morning skate before long. I snag my phone off the end table by my leather sofa, and I don’t think twice as I dial a video call.

Kami’s soft brown eyes come into focus, along with that wide smile. Way smaller than the cow’s eyes. Sweeter too. She’s always sweet. “Morning, sunshine. You feeling okay today?”

“How do I get a cow out of my bed?”

She wrinkles her brows at me. She’s walking somewhere—the buildings behind her make me think she’s heading to her clinic—and her brown hair’s tied back in a ponytail that’s whipping in the wind. “A cow out of your bed?” she repeats.

I flip the camera on my phone so she can see forward and march into my bedroom, watching the screen while I center my bed and the cow for her. “Yeah. A fucking baby cow in my fucking bed.”

She nods thoughtfully. “Huh. That does appear to be a calf. Happy birthday to you too.”

“It’s not my fucking birthday. It’s a fucking prank. Can you take care of it?”

Her expression goes still. “Can I…what?”

“Get it out of my condo. It’s an animal. You’re an animal doctor.”

Silence.

Even her expression is silent, which is odd, because Kami’s expressions are always big and loud and…and expressive. Not because she’s loud. She just likes things.

She’s an optimist.

Yeah.

She’s an optimist. Cheery. She makes loud, happy faces.

Fuck, I need to quit drinking.

“I said, happy birthday to you too,” she says.

I squint at the phone. Since when does Kami talk in code? In the months we’ve been banging behind my sister’s back, the only code we’ve ever used is I’m calling it an early night.

Plus, this is hardly the first time she’s gotten a call to take care of an animal at my place. Hell, half the team has her on speed dial.

Which might be my fault.

“I get it,” I say. “I deserve this after the donkey thing, but I have to get to morning skate, and we’re hopping a plane to New York after the game tonight, and I don’t want to come home to a dead baby cow. I’ll pay whatever it takes. But it—”

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll take care of it.”

I freeze.

I know that tone.

That’s pissed off woman tone. And yeah, it’s probably rude of me to call her first thing in the morning like this, but we’re friends. I’d help her get a cow out of her place if I had time, but during the season, it’s hockey first. Always.

“Thanks, Kami. I owe you one.”

“No, Nick. You owe me nothing. In fact, you can consider this a goodbye present. Because this little arrangement we have? It’s over. I’m done.”

She disconnects, and I’m left staring at my official Copper Valley Thrusters photo on the background of my phone.

I don’t know what just happened, but I have a feeling it’s worse than waking up with a baby cow.





Two





Kami Oakley, aka a birthday girl on the edge

Anger and I aren’t friends. I hate anger. It’s ugly and it’s vicious and it makes me do awful things.

Things like stalking into Nick Murphy’s apartment with specially formulated calf grains and hay when I’m supposed to be giving Mrs. Okeson’s new kittens their first exam and checking on Mr. Wilder’s elderly boxer-lab with the failing kidneys.

I know, I know. Anger wouldn’t inspire most people to haul calf grains.

But anger has inspired the stalking. With extra-heavy pounding of my feet against the fancy carpet. And some flaring of my nostrils. And that thick wad of crumpled, frozen dreams clogging my chest.

I like to think I usually stride happily. With a bounce. And a smile.

Today, it’s all foot-slaps and scowls and what the hell have I been thinking?

And as I shove my key into his lock, I’m listening to my phone ring a number that anger has also inspired me to call.

Because I’m done.

Just so damn done.

“Muff Matchers, how can we match your muff today?” my cousin says cheerfully while I push into Nick’s condo.

“Muffy, it’s Kami. I need you to find me a husband.”

There’s silence, both on the phone and in the apartment, where a brown calf is blending in with the leather sofa across from the hockey-man-size television hanging on the wall over the gas fireplace.

And she is utterly, perfectly adorable.

“Kami as in Kami Oakley? My cousin Kami? The Kami who already told everyone to save the date for her wedding to Nick Murphy this Christmas?” Muffy asks.

“Quit holding last year’s drunken Thanksgiving ramblings against me. And yes. That Kami.”

“Wow,” she says at the same time the calf moos at me.

Despite probably not being more than three or four months old, the calf is already working those big cow eyes to her advantage, using them to ask for someone to love her. As if I couldn’t with those twitching brown cow ears that she hasn’t grown into yet and her soft muzzle and that cute little baby moo on top of everything.