Chapter 2
SLOANE
I’ve gotten used to the drive home from the high school.
Not that it’s particularly hard—left out of the parking lot, straight through town, right at the gas station, wind through the residential streets until I hit the little cabin I'm renting on the edge of the woods.
Since moving to Deepwood Mountain in August I barely notice the route anymore.
But tonight, I don't remember a single second of it.
Because I’m too busy running a highlight reel of Captain Ike Thurman on repeat.
How he stood at the edge of my field with his arms crossed over his broad chest, watching practice like he owned the ground beneath his boots.
That thick hair, a distinguished swirl of charcoal, pewter, and frost that made him every inch the silver fox.
Those steel-gray eyes that went from sharp and assessing to warm and soft the second Riley threw herself at him.
And his voice. God, his voice. Low and rumbly. A voice that makes you want to do whatever he says just to hear him say good girl in response.
I tighten my grip on the steering wheel and force myself to breathe.
Slow down, Sloane. You talked to the man for maybe five minutes.
But five minutes was enough. Five minutes was plenty.
I've met attractive men before. I've met authoritative men before. Hell, I moved halfway across the country partly to get away from a man who I thought was both of those things, but turned out to just be an abuser.
Ike Thurman is different.
I felt it the second he opened his mouth—this soul-deep recognition that made my belly clench and my skin prickle. He held himself with that effortless command, not performed or forced. It just was. Like authority is his native language, and he's so fluent he doesn't even realize he's speaking it.
And when I called him Captain?
I saw it. That tiny spark behind his eyes, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly. And then his gaze dropped to my mouth for a split second before he caught himself and looked away.
He felt it too.
He's just been fighting it a lot longer than I have.
I pull into my driveway and kill the engine, sitting in the dark for a moment while I collect myself.
My cabin glows soft and warm through the windows—I left the lamp on this morning, a habit I picked up after too many nights coming home to pitch blackness in a town where the streetlights are sparse and the woods press in close.
It's cozy inside. I've been here six months and I still haven't unpacked all the boxes, but I've strung up twinkle lights in the living room and filled the windowsills with candles and draped a fuzzy throw blanket over the secondhand couch. It feels like home. At least for now.
I grab my bag from the passenger seat and head inside. I’ll take my evening shower, get some food, maybe watch a match on TV if I'm feeling ambitious.
But the second I kick off my shoes and drop my bag by the door, my knee gives a familiar throb of protest, and I change the plan.
Bath. Definitely a hot bath.
I limp slightly as I head to the bathroom—it's always worse after long practices in the cold, the old injury flaring up like a ghost that refuses to be exorcised. I rub my kneecap absently as I crank the faucet, watching steam rise from the water.
It’s been about four years since the surgery. Since I heard the words career-ending and felt my entire future shatter like glass on concrete.
I don't think about it much anymore. I've rebuilt, moved forward, and found a new dream when the old one died. I'm damn good at coaching, even if it's not the same as playing.
But my knee remembers. My knee always remembers.
I dump an obscene amount of bubble bath under the running water, strip out of my sweaty practice clothes, and lower myself into the tub with an indecent groan.
God. Yes. This is what I needed.
The hot water seeps into my aching muscles, and I let my head fall back against the rim of the tub, closing my eyes. For a full thirty seconds, I think about nothing.
Then Ike Thurman's handsome face swims back into my mind.
Silver fox, my brain supplies helpfully. A sexy silver fox in a fire captain's uniform.
I groan again, but this time it's not from the bathwater.
I am not going to obsess over a man I just met. I have a career and goals and a plan that does not include getting distracted by some way-too-old-for-me authority figure with a ruggedly sharp jawline.
Except he's not that old. He's in his mid-forties. I looked it up on the fire department website right after getting in my car.
Yeah, I had to know.
He’s just over twenty years older than me. Sure, a significant gap…but not insurmountable. Not even that unusual, really, in the grand scheme of human relationships.
And age has never been the issue for me anyway.
I reach for my phone on the bath tray, wiping my wet hand on the towel I hung nearby.
Before I can second-guess myself, I open my text thread with Tess.
Tess teaches junior honors English at Deepwood Mountain High, and she's been my closest friend since I moved here. We bonded over being the new girls—both of us in our mid-twenties, both of us starting over in a town where everyone else seems to have roots that go back generations.
She's got this whole bookish-intellectual-romantic thing going on, quotes poetry without it feeling annoying, and has absolutely no patience for bullshit.
She's also plugged into the town gossip in a way I am not, which makes her invaluable for reconnaissance.
okay random question
what do you know about the fire captain
The three dots appear almost immediately.
Ike Thurman?
Why do you ask?
just curious. met him today. he gave a ride to one of my players
“Just curious,” she says…
…at 7pm on a regular Monday.
I'm allowed to be curious about prominent members of the community
Mmhmm
Okay well.
Ike Thurman: mid-forties, been Captain here forever—like 15 over years, I think.
Total pillar of the community type. Everyone respects him.
Keeps to himself though. Very private.
Private. Yeah, I picked up on that. There's a guardedness to him, a sense that he keeps the world at arm's length. It makes me want to know what he's protecting.
single?
AND THERE IT IS
Yes. Very single. Never married as far as anyone knows.
There are rumors he dated someone seriously years ago, but it didn't work out.
Since then? Nada.
Women have tried, babe. He's polite, but completely uninterested.
The general consensus is he's married to the job.
Polite but completely uninterested.
Interesting.
Because that's not what I saw today. What I saw was a man who was very, very interested—and absolutely determined not to be.
He's like twice your age.
he's 46. I looked it up on the fire department website
that's not twice my age. that's 1.95 times my age. rounding is for cowards.
Oh my god, you already looked him up.
what
Why do I get the feeling I’m not getting the full story?
Fine. Just promise me you'll tell me when there's something to tell.
I hesitate, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. I tell Tess almost everything.
But there are certain things I haven't told her. Things I'm not sure how to explain without heaps of context that feels too personal to share over beers and takeout.
My sexual history and preferences, and the specific kind of man I'm drawn to and why, seems like something that needs…a lot of finesse. Truthfully, I’m not sure I’m ready to reveal all that. At least not yet. Maybe never.
And whatever I'm thinking about when it comes to Ike Thurman falls squarely into that category.
Okay, I’ll try
goodnight Tess
SLOANE
I set my phone aside with a grin and sink deeper into the bubbles.
Single. Never married. Polite but uninterested for over a decade, despite women apparently making attempts.
Which means either Ike Thurman has zero sex drive—which is unlikely, given the way he eyed me today—or he's been shutting himself down on purpose.
I know something about that.
I close my eyes and let my mind drift backward, the hot water loosening more than just my muscles.
I was fourteen when my mom started dating Oliver. He was the first man in my life who actually stuck around. My biological father left before I could form memories of him, and the string of boyfriends after that were either absent, useless, or both.
But Oliver was different.
He showed up. Not just physically, but in every way that mattered. He set boundaries…for me, for my mom, for our chaotic household…and somehow that structure didn't feel suffocating. It felt safe. Like exhaling for the first time after holding my breath for years.
He used to say things like I've got this, sweetheart, and something inside me would unclench. I could relax. I could stop being the mini-adult holding everything together, because someone else was finally steering the ship.
It wasn't romantic or sexual—god, no—but it was formative.
Oliver taught me what it felt like to trust someone with authority. To lean into structure instead of fighting it.
When he and my mom split up the year I turned seventeen—amicably, mostly due to their jobs pulling them in different directions—I cried for a long time.
Not only because I’d grown to love him as a father, but because I'd finally understood what I wanted in a partner someday, and I was terrified I'd never find it.
I didn't have words for it then.
I do now.
And then Zander came into my life.
I was twenty when I met him…a junior at Arizona State, still reeling from the knee injury that had ended my soccer career the year before. He was twenty-eight, a graduate student in sports psychology, and he saw something in me I was only beginning to understand about myself.
He gave it a name.
Daddy.
The first time he said it—come here, little girl—something clicked into place so hard my heart stopped. Yes. This is what I've been looking for.
For a while, it was everything I wanted. The structure. The authority. The feeling of being held and guided and taken care of. I threw myself into it headfirst, desperate and eager and so fucking grateful to finally have a word for the ache I'd carried my whole life.
But Zander taught me something else, too.
He taught me the difference between dominance and control. Between care and possession.
He pushed my limits—which I had wanted at first—but he didn't respect them.
He dismissed my boundaries as bratty. He got cold and angry when I used our safeword.
He made me feel small in all the wrong ways, and when I tried to talk about it, he told me I was being too sensitive.
That I didn't really understand the dynamic.
That a good girl would trust her Daddy without question.
It took me months to realize that what he was doing wasn't part of the relationship I craved. It was just abuse with a sexy name.
I left. It was hard. I second-guessed myself for a while afterward, wondered if I was broken, if I'd ever find what I actually needed or if I'd just keep getting it wrong.
But I learned.
I learned what real authority looks like…how it protects instead of controls, how it earns submission instead of demanding it, and how a man who actually deserves the title Daddy would never make you feel small for having needs, he'd make you feel safe for voicing them.
I'm not a naive young girl anymore. I know exactly what I want, and I know exactly what I don't.
Ike Thurman, in our brief conversation, hit every single marker on my list.
The quiet command. The protective instinct. The way he talked to Riley—firm but gentle, present without being overbearing. The way he looked at me like there was more than I was letting him see.
And underneath all that composure, I saw it…the hunger…the longing…and the aching loneliness of a man who's been keeping himself caged for years.
I want to get to know every part of him.
He's like me. He just doesn't know anyone else who speaks his language.
I sit up in the tub, water sloshing over the edges, bubbles clinging to my skin.
Valentine’s Day is a week away. I've seen the decorations around town, the red and pink hearts in shop windows, the cheesy cupid cutouts at the grocery store. I've been ignoring it because I didn't have anyone to celebrate with.
But now...
A man like Ike isn't going to respond to obvious flirting.
He's too controlled, too guarded. If I walk up to him and say hey, I'm into you, he'll probably shut it down immediately.
He'll convince himself I'm too young, that I don't know what I'm really asking for, that he's being noble by rejecting me.
No, I need to get under his skin first. Show him I see the real man—the parts he keeps hidden—without putting him on the spot.
I’ll send anonymous valentines.
My heart starts beating faster just thinking about it.
Not the cutesy cards with cartoon hearts and generic compliments, or roses are red, violets are blue crap.
I'm going to write him valentines that speak directly to the thing he's buried.
The desires he thinks no one understands.
The needs he's probably convinced himself are shameful or wrong or too much for anyone to handle.
I'm going to tell him I know what he is. That I want exactly that. That I'm not afraid of it—I'm hungry for it.
I'll start subtly and intrigue him. Something to catch his attention and make him curious. Then I'll escalate, getting more specific with each note. Letting him know this isn't some generic admirer who thinks he's handsome. This is someone who understands.
I'll call him my silver fox. Make him feel desired in a way that celebrates his age instead of apologizing for it. Show him that the gray in his hair and the lines on his face make me more interested, not less.
And when the time is right, when he's already obsessed with figuring out who's been writing these little notes, I’ll bring out the big guns.
To make a Daddy desperate.