Chapter 23: Where She Wanted to Sit

Ty's POV

At three in the afternoon the NICU family room is the quietest place in Cleveland.

I sat in a vinyl chair with a gown over my shirt.

Lena sat in the chair beside me with her arms out.

The nurse laid our daughter on Lena's bare chest and tucked a blanket over both of them.

She was five pounds now.

She had a thin mat of dark hair and a mouth that moved in her sleep.

Lena looked down at her and didn't say anything for a long time.

"She's warm," she said finally.

"She's yours."

"She's ours." She looked up. "You can touch her. She won't break."

I put one finger against the back of my daughter's hand.

She turned her palm up in her sleep and closed it around my finger.

I'd won the Stanley Cup eleven weeks ago.

I had never felt anything like that grip.

"Lena," I said.

"Mm."

"I need to say something, and you don't have to answer."

She waited.

"For ten years I thought you didn't care about my career."

The words came out rough.

"I never told you. I thought you'd stopped asking."

"Stopped asking what?"

"To come. To games. To the road trips. Every other wife on the plane came.

"You never asked once, so I decided you'd rather be at home."

Lena's face went still.

"Ty," she said. "Your mother told me wives weren't allowed on the road. She said you'd made a rule.

"She said you didn't want me there because I'd embarrass you in front of the guys."

"I never made a rule."

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