hate hockey. I was ambivalent.” She shrugged, a secret grin growing. “Now I have a reason to be interested.”
Tory laughed, the sound melting into the round of laughter from the guys. They’d been talking hockey for most of the night and for once, she didn’t mind. Henrik seemed comfortable with it and her brothers were enthralled but not gushing, thank God. Mom would’ve smacked each of them on the back of the head if anyone had dared to ask for an autograph.
Now game tickets, Mom would be all over those—if offered.
“Come on,” Tory urged. “Give me the gossip. I have to live vicariously through you now that I’m an old married woman.”
“You’re not old.”
“Well, I’m definitely not out snagging hot hockey studs.”
Jacqui sent her a taunting smile. “He is hot, isn’t he?” She waggled her brows. “And all that power in bed.” Her moan was throaty and suggestive before she burst into laughter.
Tory shoved her, grinning. “Oh, you are nasty. Now I have to have the dirty details.”
Jacqui shook her head, still chuckling. “Not a chance.”
“I’d share with you,” Tory huffed.
“Ew, no.” Jacqui shuddered. “That’s my brother. I don’t want to know anything about him that involved zero clothes.”
Tory tilted her head, contemplating. “There are some incidents where most of our clothes were on.”
“Stop!” She squeezed her eyes closed, mentally scrubbing the images from her mind. “That’s just wrong.”
“What?” Tory leaned in, smirk increasing. “You do know how babies are made, right?” She stared pointedly at the dining room where Lanie sat on Aiden’s lap and Nigel slept on Henrik. “I can assure you Immaculate Conception had no part in creating those two.”
“Oh my God.” Jacqui dropped her head into her hand, but her laughter took away the dramatic impact she was going for. “You are evil.”
“I have to be to fit in with your family.”
“Too true.”
Jacqui lifted her head, gaze going right back to Henrik. She couldn’t keep her eyes off him. His hunter-green sweater was soft yet masculine, the white edge of his T-shirt beneath crisp and sharp. His sweater matched his eyes and flattered him in a way her brothers had never managed—or worried about. But he still looked casual. His jeans were probably designer or custom made to fit his thick thighs and muscular bottom, but they didn’t look it.
“Did you really meet him at the music store?”
The story had come out during dinner. “Yeah. I did.”
“Huh. I didn’t know he played the guitar,” Tory mused.
Jacqui didn’t think it was a secret, but he definitely didn’t brag about how good he was. And it wasn’t her knowledge to share either. “And how much do you know about him outside of what the media reports and shows?”
“Point taken.”
“He’s nothing like his hockey image once you get to know him,” she confided, needing someone else to see what she did in him. “I think the media trumps up what they want to present, and he’s kind of gone with it.” Her stomach clenched at the oversharing. He probably wouldn’t like her talking about him like this, but she wanted her family to know the guy he was with her. The real Henrik who went out of his way to be nice to her. Who was intelligent, giving and...kind.
The man who gave up the gruff facade to give her whatever she wanted, in the bedroom and out. The man who was aching to be loved for who he was, not what he did.
Her heart beat a tender drum of longing for the dream she was slowly letting herself accept. She could have him, all of him right now, if she trusted her life enough. Trusted that this Christmas wouldn’t be the year the Grim Reaper returned.
On cue, her stomach roiled, dinner sitting heavy and weighted as her muscles clenched around it, the burn right below her rib cage blooming into a sharp pain.
“Are you two done talking about us?” Dan called out, drawing attention to their little tete-a-tete.
“Girls have a right to discuss something besides hockey,” Tory said, nudging Jacqui as she headed back to the table. “Are you guys ready to talk about something else?”
“What?” Finn gasped, clutching his heart. “Never. There can never be too much hockey talk.”
“Maybe Henrik would like to talk about something besides work.” Tory arched a brow in challenge as she took a seat next to Dan. “What if we spent two hours breaking down the inner workings at the plant?”
“God, please no,” Aiden pleaded. As the only one of the guys who