The Broken Marriage (New Hampshire Bears Book 14) Read online

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  New Hampshire Bears’ Roster

  Coach: Hamilton Baer

  Forwards:

  56 – Alden Brockman

  11 – Ladd Hanes

  28 – Edgar Hopp

  81 – Zerrick Justice

  88 – Finlay Mackey

  67 – Gage McLoyd

  94 – Blake Naylor

  16 – Vance Pemberton

  53 – Jarvis Richter

  62 – Jackson Plumley

  65 – Kyson Wick

  86 – Bas Zorn

  Defensemen:

  8 – Conner Caddell

  32 – Walker Lange

  2 – Dag Limon

  5 – Ivan Rodin

  7 – O’Dell Tillman

  57 – Shade Wooten*

  Goalies:

  47 – Liam Green

  77 – Jacob Wallace

  * - means Captain

  Dedication:

  Angie

  Thank you for helping me break the writer’s block!

  You’re my hero.

  Chapter One

  Shade

  Shade sat on the side of the queen-size bed with his elbows on his knees. His heart hurt badly and was unsure if he could handle anymore. However, here he sat, in miserable pain.

  The ticks of his wife’s nails clacked on the laptop. Jenessa sat less than three feet from him but might as well be on another continent. They hadn’t even acknowledged each other. Then again it was their normal encounter these days. They never talked, short of small greetings or one-word responses to short questions. The last time they tried to have a conversation it ended in a fight.

  “You eat?” Jenessa asked. He knew she hadn’t looked up from the keyboard.

  “No,” he simply stated.

  “Stuff is in the oven.” The click-clack seemed to grow louder as she typed.

  He took the hint and left her alone. Sending him away seemed to be her specialty now. As he reached the kitchen, Jenessa’s younger sister, Mikayla, sat at the breakfast bar.

  “What up, bro?” She grinned.

  Shade gave her a small smile. As an only child, he had always wished for a sibling. He wished for a family even more.

  “Nes made some chicken thing. It’s in the oven.” She pointed as if he didn’t know where it was located.

  “Any good?” He opened the door. Jenessa wasn’t the greatest cook. However, she did try her best.

  “I didn’t try it.” She turned up her nose. “I made some mac and cheese.”

  Shade grinned. “You’re going to turn into mac and cheese.” The girl ate it all the time.

  “I don’t see a problem with that transformation.”

  “What are you doing here?” He didn’t attempt the chicken and went to the cupboard and grabbed a can of beef stew.

  “Eating mac and cheese.” She took a large bite from her spoon.

  Shade loved his sister-in-law as if they were blood. She had been living with them for a long time, for Jenessa’s sake, but recently moved out.

  “How was your day?” Shade dumped the contents of the can into a saucepan.

  “Work, good. Homelife, fine. Sex life, well...” She gave him a dramatic wink. Mikayla currently had been dating a teammate of his, Jarvis Richter.

  Shaking his head, he had a small grin. Mikayla always kept him on his toes. He remembered Jenessa being the same way. Laughing, joking, full of life. Now, he couldn’t think of the last time she laughed, told a joke, or even wanted to do anything other than work.

  The partners at the firm begged her to take the full six weeks of her leave after their baby died, but she only took a two week leave. Shade did the same thing, even though he knew it to be unhealthy.

  He missed his wife.

  “How was your day?” Mikayla questioned as he mindlessly stirred the stew.

  “Uneventful.” He shrugged.

  “Any word on the contract?”

  Shaking his head again, he said nothing. In truth, he wondered the same thing. He hadn’t heard from his agent or Bears’ management, but Twitter was alive with his trade rumors. He tried to talk to Jenessa numerous times regarding his possible trade from the New Hampshire Bears, but she’d just leave the room or give a nonchalant shrug.

  “Are you still thinking about leaving?”

  Shade diverted his eyes, not answering her question. Mikayla overheard his conversation with the Bears’ general manager, Cabel Dirks. He told him leaving New Hampshire might be best for everyone.

  “Personally, I would have left her ass three years ago. You’re a bigger man than me.” Mikayla never kept quiet about the marriage problems going on between her sister and brother-in-law.

  Shade had been the one to suggest to Mikayla to move to Manchester to live with them and return to college. He thought it would help Jenessa as well. Maybe it would bring her out of the fog she currently dwelled in. He knew the sisters were close, but even Mikayla’s tough girl attitude couldn’t help Jenessa.

  He transferred the stew to a bowl and sat down at the bar with her. He noticed she was watching a YouTube video of a person knitting. Shade glanced over at her and her dyed black hair which hung halfway down her back and thought how no one would ever think with Mikayla’s hard rocker style that she would be a person who loved to knit. Her perfect cat eyes always made him wonder how long it took her to get ready in the morning. She loved black and her torn up jeans with bright tanks and was always loaded with an array of custom jewelry, which she made herself. Although, he noticed she’d been wearing more colors. He figured Jarvis had something to do with it. Shade moved back to his food. They sat quietly and just listened to the soft instructions of the knitting video.

  Just as he was about to finish the stew, Jenessa walked into the kitchen. No one said anything to each other, but everyone gave each other a glance.

  “No one wanted my food.” Jenessa’s tone bit into the tension-filled air.

  “It looked gross,” Mikayla said honestly. “And smelled worse.”

  Putting his spoon down, Shade rubbed his temples. This was about to be another yelling match between them, and he’d surely gain a headache in the process.

  “Whatever.” Jenessa grabbed a towel, pulled the glass dish from the oven, and dumped all the contents—including the dish—into the trash. “There. Now no one has to eat it.” She threw the dish towel across the room.

  “You didn’t have to throw it awa
y.” Shade almost growled at his wife. He hated wasting one ounce of food.

  “Why? Is the poor orphan kid still having food issues because he ate out of dumpsters?”

  Mikayla gasped. “Jenessa, what the fuck?”

  Shade said nothing as her hurtful words penetrated him. They stared at each other for several seconds before he wiped his mouth with the napkin, slowly stood up and said, “You win.” He walked away from the kitchen and went down to the den.

  He fell with a thud onto the couch and hated the fact that tears were burning behind his eyes. Her words burnt his soul. She knew how much he detested his past and how embarrassing it had been to him. He never knew his father. Shade always wondered, but the few times he brought it up to his mother she always shrugged. She probably never knew his name or which man it truly was. At the age of eight, his mother had up and left him. He spent days all alone. When the small jar of peanut butter he’d had was gone, he left the rundown apartment and went down the street. There was a pizza parlor on the corner, so he climbed into one of the dumpsters. Shade didn’t know how long he had been in the dumpster, but it seemed like it was only a few minutes when the police showed up.

  For the next ten years, he bounced from foster home to foster home. By some miracle, because he never knew how, he made it onto the hockey team at a state college in New York as a walk-on. He began to make a name for himself in the college hockey circuit. No one was more shocked than him when he was drafted into the PHL to a team in Maine. His entire life changed in an instant and only got better when Shade met Jenessa.

  “Hey.” Mikayla’s soft voice made him turn, and she slowly approached him. “I want to apologize for her.”

  He turned away. His jaw fixed as his teeth were grinding. He couldn’t fault Mikayla for sticking up for her big sister.

  “I told her she was a royal bitch, and she ran off to the bedroom.”

  He nodded, still not talking.

  “I’ll leave you be, but if you need anything, please let me know.”

  Waiting until she had completely left the room a single tear escaped his eye. He sniffed hard and roughly wiped his cheek then he got up and headed to their bedroom. Standing outside their closed door, he wanted to go in. He had the urge to tell her everything weighing heavily on him but decided to go further down the hall to another closed door—the nursery.

  Opening the door, it seemed like he was stepping into a tomb. He had come in here a lot the first year after losing baby Clay. The gray walls reminded him of how long it took them to pick out the color. They stood in front of paint samples at Lowe’s for almost an hour before Jenessa finally agreed on a color. Shade just stood there, letting her take all the time she needed while rubbing her back. He still remembered how she continually rubbed her swollen belly.

  A few of his friends who played on the Bears with him sent Jenessa to the spa with their wives as the guys painted the entire room. He touched the paint, trying to keep the tears away as he remembered how happy he was that day.

  He lightly touched the white crib. A small layer of dust built up on the rail reminding him he hadn’t cleaned in here for a while. Jenessa wouldn’t come in here, but she refused to let him clean it out.

  Leaning his elbows on the rails, he saw the silver urn laying inside.

  Baby Clay Wooten.

  Shade picked it up in his hands, knowing his son’s ashes were inside. He remembered holding his son in his arms wanting to die with him or take his place but tried his best to be strong for Jenessa. Her sobbing was something he could never forget.

  After the funeral, Jenessa laid in bed for a week. Shade fed her, bathed her, and talked to her. Then one day she just seemed to wake up and went to work and cut him out of her life.

  Over three years later, he couldn’t remember the last time they kissed, hugged, or even touched. They had sex about a week before she went into labor and nothing since. He tried about a year ago when he made plans for a romantic getaway, but Jenessa pretty much told him to get lost, and he never tried to make plans again.

  Setting the small urn back into the crib, he took a deep breath, shut the door, and went back downstairs, never glancing at their bedroom door. He kept an extra pillow and blankets in the den. Grabbing them, he stretched out on the sectional and closed his tired eyes.

  After a shower and a fresh change of clothes, he tied his shoes and strolled into the kitchen. Jenessa’s light brown hair sat high in a ponytail on her head. She wore a pair of black pants and a pink blouse. She was leaning against the counter sipping her coffee. Jenessa stared at him as he picked up an apple from the fruit bowl.

  “Coffee?” Jenessa asked him.

  Shade notice her permeated frown. Obviously, she didn’t know about his new lifestyle change. He had stopped drinking caffeine months ago. “I’m fine. Thanks.” He turned toward the door leading to the garage and said, “Bye,” as he walked out to his truck.

  On the drive to the arena, Shade’s thoughts ran erratically in his head. He fought for every success throughout his life. He hated to fail more than anything. Especially when it came to his marriage, but he truly didn’t know how much longer he could try to keep them together. However, he failed to keep his son alive, and now his wife seemed to be slipping through his fingers. He should have been able to protect them both, but he couldn’t. His son was dead, and his wife was dead on the inside but still walking around the living. Hell, the first year he did as well, yet figured out a way to live with the grief that killed his soul. It never went away, but the dull ache became somewhat bearable for him to get back on the ice.

  Hockey.

  Hockey saved his life more than once. As a child, whenever his mother was high or had a friend over, Shade would go down to the local ice rink. They had free hours and allowed some kids to borrow skates. Those kids were the ones that were too poor to afford their own. After his mother left him, he would still go after school to stay away from the foster homes. Not every foster parent had been horrible, but he had his fair share. He remembered the unnecessary beatings, the hunger pains, sleeping in closets or floors and most of all, not being loved.

  Shade vowed he would work hard and get into college. He never wanted to be a professional hockey player. In truth, he had no clue what he wanted to do professionally. Maybe something in marketing because he always did well in those types of classes. Nonetheless, fate decided he needed to be in the PHL.

  “Hey, Shade.”

  Shade turned to see his good friend, Dag, jogging up to him. “Hey.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Shade usually came in at the last minute. “Meeting with Cabel,” he stated.

  “You okay?”

  “Sure,” he said, almost coldly.

  “Want to grab some lunch?”

  “Not sure. I’ll catch up with you.” He rushed away and went through the players’ entrance and toward the elevator up to the offices.

  As he stepped off, a child’s squeal made him freeze. Running toward him was three-year-old Klara Elgin, Nova and Teo’s daughter. Her light brown hair, styled in pigtails, bounced wildly. Her pale blue eyes full of delight and happiness.

  “Shade.” She rushed to him with open arms.

  He bent down to pick up the child. It took everything in him to smile. Clay and Klara had been born on the same day, less than a few hours apart.

  “Mommy chasing me.” Klara’s giggles grew as she pointed down the hall.

  His heart broke thinking of how he should be chasing his son.

  “Hi, Shade.” Nova came around the corner. She looked nervously between Klara and him.

  He knew they tried to keep Klara away from him because she was a sad reminder for him. Yet somehow, the little girl always seemed to seek him out.

  “Hey, Nova,” he managed to say with a lump in his throat.

  “Shade, you play with me?” Klara asked, fiddling with his collar.

  “Not right now. Next time, promise,” he told her. Surprisingly his voice remai
ned steady.

  “Okay.” She hugged his neck tightly. “Love you.” She released him and began to wiggle in his arms. He set her feet on the floor, and she bolted down the hall letting her laughter echo bounce off the walls.

  “I’m sorry,” Nova quickly apologized. “I didn’t realize you were going to be here today.”

  “It’s fine. I’m going to see Cabel.” Giving her a smile, he rushed away. Today wasn’t the day to see that sweet little girl.

  Cabel’s secretary waved at Shade to let him know Cabel was waiting for him. He pushed open the already ajar door. Cabel Dirks, the Bears’ general manager, sat behind his desk, tapping on the keyboard in front of him.

  “Morning, Shade.” Cabel finally glanced up. “Take a seat over at the table. I’m almost done.”

  He pulled out a chair around the small table and waited for him. Cabel then came over with a piece of paper.

  “Shade.” He softly sighed. “Teams are asking for you, but I’m not ready to send you away.”

  With his hands folded out in front of him, he stared at his fingers and couldn’t remember when they started to look old. He was about to turn thirty in a few short weeks.

  “You had a great season, Shade.” Cabel praised him.

  This past season had been one of his best, which surprised him more than anyone. Considering his home life remained in turmoil.

  “I am going to assume you’ve already talked to Jenessa about everything.”

  He couldn’t say out loud that he and his wife have barely spoken to each other over the past three years. He didn’t even know if Jenessa remembered his contract with the Bears was about to expire.

  “Well, um, Shade…” Cabel stammered since he didn’t answer him. “You need to tell me what to do?”

  He leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. Thoughts swirled around his head. Yes, he loved hockey. Yes, he loved his wife. However, right now he felt all he did was cause her pain. Deep down, he needed to leave her. His constant reminder caused her more discomfort, and he was the source.