Loved Twice by the Hockey Star novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: Daddy
At a hockey team's hospital visit, Britta's sick six-year-old runs into the captain's arms calling him Daddy; she lies about her name and the girl's age, his father recognizes her and threatens her with an old warrant, and she follows Erik to the garage to tell him the truth.
My daughter saw him before I did.
"Daddy!"
She ripped the tape off her hand and ran, dragging her IV pole behind her.
The whole hallway turned.
Six men in blue Voyageurs jerseys had just stepped off the elevator with a cart of stuffed bears.
Five cameras followed them.
Ingrid ran straight past the bears and threw herself at the biggest one.
He caught her with one arm before the pole tipped over.
He laughed, because what else do you do when a bald six-year-old calls you Daddy on live TV?
"Hey, hey. Careful, kid. You've got a line in."
"I knew you'd come," she told him. "Mommy said you were busy on TV."
The nurses were laughing.
The camera guys were thrilled.
I was standing in the door of room 614 holding a cup of apple juice, and I couldn't move my feet.
Seven years.
His hair was shorter.
There was a new scar on his chin.
He still had the crooked front tooth he refused to get fixed.
Ingrid had the same one.
He shifted her onto his hip and looked up to find whoever she belonged to.
He found me.
I watched it hit him.
The smile stayed on his mouth and died everywhere else.
"Britta?"
I made my face blank.
I'd practiced in the mirror in Fargo for six years, in case.
"Sorry," I said. "It's Kate. Kate Lind."
The charge nurse, who liked me, came over and touched his arm.
"Kate's our Ingrid's mom, Mr. Haugland. Ingrid's your biggest fan."
He didn't look at her.
He looked at me.
"How old is she?"
"Five," I said.
The lie came out smooth.
"She calls every man in a jersey Daddy. You're not special."
Ingrid's mouth fell open.
"I'm six and a half."
"Five and a half," I said. "Come here, bug. You pulled your tape."
Erik Haugland handed my daughter back to me very carefully.
His hands were shaking.
"You look like someone I knew," he said.
"I get that a lot."
Somebody from the team said they were behind schedule.
He let them steer him down the hall.
He turned back twice.
The third time, I shut the door.
Ingrid glared at me from the bed while the nurse taped her line.
"That was Daddy. From the picture."
"I know, bug."
"You said I was five."
"I know."
"That's lying."
"I know," I said. "Eat your pudding."
I stepped into the hall to breathe and walked right into a sheepskin coat.
Dag Haugland had been at the back, behind the cameras.
I hadn't seen him.
He'd seen me.
He was fifty-nine now, with white hair and the same enormous hands that used to fill the doorway of our snack bar in Duluth.
"Family lounge," he said. "Now."
I followed him because the alternative was making a scene in front of my daughter's door.
The lounge was empty except for a fish tank and a Christmas tree with paper ornaments the kids had made.
He shut the door.
"Kate Lind," he said. "Cute."
"What do you want?"
"I want to know what you're doing in my son's city."
"My daughter has leukemia."
"I'm sorry to hear it."
He didn't sound sorry.
He sounded like a man reading a weather report.
"There's still a warrant in Lake County with your name on it, Britta. Criminal vehicular operation. Leaving before charges. It never expired."
I put my hands in my back pockets so he wouldn't see them.
"I know."
"Then you know what happens to a fugitive's little girl when her mother goes to jail. The county takes her."
He picked a paper snowflake off the tree and turned it over in his fingers.
"Go back to wherever you've been. Take her with you. Do it this week, and I never saw you."
Seven years ago I'd done exactly what this man told me.
I'd done it in a hospital, too.
I'd walked out into the snow with his coat on my back and four hundred dollars in my pocket.
I looked through the lounge window at the door of 614.
Ingrid was sitting up on her bed, holding the photo of Erik in the lake to the glass so a nurse could see it.
The doctor had said it two days ago in plain words.
Her best chance was a parent.
My half wouldn't take.
"No," I said.
Dag's eyebrows went up.
"Excuse me?"
"Call the sheriff. Call whoever you want."
I opened the door.
"But first I'm telling your son he has a daughter."
I took the stairs because the elevator was too slow.
Six floors down.
The players' bus was parked in the garage under the hospital, engine running, the team loading bears back on.
Erik was standing at his truck with his phone in his hand, not dialing.
Two of his teammates were talking at him.
He wasn't listening.
He saw me coming across the concrete and dropped the phone.
The teammates went quiet.
I stopped in front of him, out of breath, in socks, because I'd forgotten my shoes.
"Britta," he said.
This time I didn't argue.
"She's not five," I said. "She's six. And she's yours."
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