Tomboy (The Hartigans #3)(73)

So will it work?

I have my doubts, but Kavanagh is known to be a real ballbuster in her own right. She was the one who helped guide Blackburn through his recent troubles with his parents. Bobby and Donna Blackburn are currently serving time for embezzlement and taking out fraudulent loans in a scheme where their son was the victim. If she can help Blackburn deal with all of that, then she should be able to fairy godmother her way through the latest Ice Knights trouble. Personally, hockey fans? I’m rooting for an HEA for all four of these guys. What can I say? I’m a fan.





Epilogue


Three Years Later…

The little black box in Zach’s jacket pocket weighed a million pounds. Okay, the ring inside the box weighed about three carats and sparkled, but it felt like more. He’d been carrying it around ever since the Ice Knights had won it all for the second time.

Fallon might not be his Lady Luck, but being with her had made him the luckiest man in Harbor City, and he didn’t want that to end. Ever. So when she’d invited him to meet at the bakery near the clinic after her shift, he figured it was the perfect time to ask.

Fallon was waiting for him at a small table in the corner with two huge blueberry muffins sitting on it. His stomach did the Pavlovian jolt and twist at the sight of the muffins. Even if that gut-roiling case of food poisoning was the beginning of him and Fallon being together, he still couldn’t stand the things.

“Hey there,” she said, standing up, her hand going to her rounding belly, which was only now starting to be noticeable.

He stopped dead in his tracks, his lungs squeezed tight with a kind of unexplainable joy that superseded everything else he’d accomplished—or ever would. The endorsement deals that put him back on the right side of the financial ledger, and his happiness at how Fallon had flourished in her new position as a full-time nurse at the Beacon Clinic, were good, but this was better. Even after four months, he still couldn’t get over the mind-blowing awesomeness of the whole thing. He’d found the woman who’d changed his world, they were happily together, and they were having a baby.

“Are you going to stop doing that every time you see me?” she asked, raising herself up on her tiptoes, pressing her palm to the spot where he’d added an LL tattoo over his heart, and giving him a teasing smile. “We do have five more months to go.”

“No.” He dipped his head and gave her a quick kiss. “I’m in awe every time I see you.”

“Well, you better feed me while you stare because this baby is hungry.”

She sat back down, and he followed her lead—right up until she picked up one of the crumb-topped blueberry muffins. Yeah. He was not going to do that. She may be over her morning sickness, but he wasn’t over his muffin sickness.

“You aren’t going to try yours?” she asked.

“I’m kinda full.” And he was never having another muffin again in his life. “We can take it home and you can have it after I get you naked so we can play doctor.”

Even though he’d said it quietly, Fallon’s cheeks turned a vivid shade of pink with embarrassment. He looked around. The bakery was full, but no one was looking at them. In fact, everyone was turned completely away. Since #TeamZuck had turned every Harbor City hockey fan into a matchmaker and the Ice Knights had won two cups, he’d gotten used to people staring, so this was nice but a little weird.

She pushed the plate with the remaining blueberry muffin closer to him. “Just try it, you’ll like it.”

His stomach gurgled. The one thing he’d learned in the past few months was not to argue with a pregnant woman about food, but eating a muffin wasn’t gonna happen.

“Fallon, I love you, but I’m not gonna eat that.”

Someone behind him let out a groan. He turned his head so he could glare at the jerk so obviously eavesdropping, but the guy in a dark hoodie quickly turned away before Zach could get a good look. The hairs on the back of his neck spiked as he took a closer look around at the bakery. The clerk was behind the counter, grinning at them as if watching Fallon scowl at him while she ate her muffin and he refused to eat his was the best entertainment there was. However, no one else was giving them even a glance. They were all glancing away, even if the location of their tables made it a game of human twister to look in the other direction.

“Fallon, what’s going on?” He zeroed in on one guy wearing a baseball cap low and sunglasses—inside—who had the same been-in-one-too-many-fights-on-the-ice nose as his defensive partner. “Is that Stuckey?”

“Eat the muffin, Zach,” she said in that cut-the-bullshit tone that reminded him of that first night when he was sick.

When everyone in the bakery except the clerk continued to keep their back to them, he turned to Fallon. “What are you up to?”

Instead of answering, she tilted her chin toward the ceiling and let out a long-suffering sigh. “Would you just try the muffin?”

“Fal—”

A loud clattering from behind the counter yanked his attention away from the woman he loved, who was most definitely involved in shenanigans.

Lucy poked her head out of the kitchen. “Oh my God, Blackburn, pick up the stupid muffin.”

He turned and looked at Fallon. Her cheeks were red, she was twisting the end of her braid around her finger, and her mouth was uncharacteristically shut.