Chapter 33
Danika felt dazed as she made her way downstairs. She was glad the boys weren’t around to see her. Bill had packed them up
and was taking them to the cabin.
“We need some quality time,” he’d explained, “and I need to get out of here. To clear my head and think.” Danika hadn’t protested.
She was emotionally and physically drained—and possibly, in the moment, still drunk. Bill also told her that Chat had left
early that morning but said he’d be back. Danika hoped this was true.
She had to see Chat. She had to talk to him.
The kitchen was eerily quiet as Danika poured coffee. Yet even in solitude, she couldn’t bring herself to relive the night.
She felt ashamed for all she could and could not remember, memories pulsing in and out like a strobe light. She did remember
the heavy blows: Her words to Augie. Augie’s accusations. Exposing Bill and Wyatt. Bill punching Joshua Mike.
Danika steadied herself against the counter. The sun fell through the skylight in glittering ribbons, and as she sipped her
coffee, she again focused on her main takeaway:
Chat knew who she was. He had known all summer.
It surprised her that while she felt another bite of betrayal, she also felt—on some level—impressed.
There was more to Chat than she’d thought.
It didn’t outweigh her confusion, though.
There was so much she wanted to know about Trey, about why Chat had sought her out this summer, and what that had to do with Lyle Greene.
Danika remembered that summer clearly. She and Trey had been fighting daily. His schedule had been intense, and while she
knew it was an important training camp, she felt cast aside.
That had been the catalyst for their late August blowout. They’d been having the same fight over and over, but when they kept
missing each other’s calls throughout the day, when she knew training had finished and he was out drinking with the guys,
she felt overwhelmed. So that evening, she got in her mom’s car and drove the two hours to get him. She picked him up at The
Manor.
She remembered how drunk he’d been when she arrived. As she pulled the car into the dark, mostly empty parking lot, Trey had
stumbled forward alone, laughing and calling over his shoulder. But as soon as he got inside and slammed the door, he focused
only on her. He leaned over the center console and caressed her cheek, kissed her.
“You’re always the person I’m most happy to see. I’m no idiot,” he said, pulling away and reaching for his seat belt. “I’d
never leave you behind.”
Danika felt giddy with relief. She’d backed out of the lot, grateful.
Of course, Danika didn’t know that was the last time she’d see Trey as Trey—the carefree, charming, joyous person she’d fallen in love with. Everything changed after he heard about the accident.
Danika had never understood why the tragedy affected him so deeply.
He and Lyle had been good friends, but they didn’t see each other often, and it was a freak accident.
She had hoped that once they got to Latvia and Trey’s hockey dreams came true, everything would be better.
But even after their courthouse wedding and moving to Riga, Trey couldn’t escape his demons—an all-encompassing guilt.
This was part of the reason she’d hated interacting with the Greenes. Part of her would think, If I had just driven them all home, if I had insisted, where would we be now?
Now, Danika pulled her bathrobe tighter. She looked around the kitchen and opened the freezer, leaning into the cool air,
the shock cutting through her headache. She leaned in farther, resting her cheek against the icy inside of the door.
What if Chat never comes back? she thought. What if I’ve lost them both?
Then she heard the garage door rising. She looked to the foyer.
When Chat turned the corner and hung the key to the Range Rover on the hook beside the door as usual, Danika loosened.
“Chat,” she said. Slowly, she closed the freezer door.
He stepped into the kitchen.
“Danika,” he said, his voice lined with something like acceptance or defeat.