Epilogue
Ky, A Few Months Later, Right at the Trade Deadline
I stare at my brother. “You’re kidding me.”
He sighs, reclining back on the couch. “It was a trade I had to make. You know it.”
Dread curls in my stomach and I stare down at my hands.
“I guess you’re right. I just…”
“Storm’s been spiraling, kid. He needs a fresh start, a place he can move on from Joey and grow into his potential.
I was hoping that was going to be here, that we’d keep building out our core of guys around him, that he’d be the center of the next stage after Lake and Riggs and Knox and Colt retire. ”
Because he’s younger than the veterans.
Because he’s going to be in the league for years yet.
“But if he continues as he’s going, he won’t have potential to grow into. He’s going to flame out and—” My brother pushes to his feet, shoves his hand through his hair, and sighs heavily. “I can’t help him here.”
“I know.”
I was right.
I haven’t seen Storm since that night at the hospital—or not at any of the Game Nights or dinners or even at Riggs and Ella’s baby shower. He’s skipped out on team events, on charity functions. Hell, I’ve barely even seen him at the arena.
He plays and he practices and he works out. That’s it.
And now he’s leaving the team for good.
“The Harrisburg Hawks were the best choice,” Damon says. “They want to build the roster around him, and in a few seasons they’re going to give us a run for our money.”
Moving closer, I nudge at his arm until he lifts it and wraps it around me. “I know you care about him, that you and Joey both do. So I know you’ve done what you think is best.”
He sighs, kisses the top of my head. “Glad to have your approval, kid.”
Light words, but I don’t miss the relief in his voice.
Relief I’ve given him.
Yeah, I’m pretty damned cool…and pretty damned sure I’m not broken.
That I wasn’t ever broken. Not really.
And the man standing across the kitchen, where he and Blake are whipping up some delicious confection for dessert, helped showed me that.
Same as I showed him right back.
“Damn right you are,” I tell Damon. “Otherwise I’d make you come back and help with the class party next week.”
“Party?” he mutters. “They’re in seventh grade. Aren’t they a little old for that?”
“Too old for a donut party for acing their tests? Never.”
His lips twitch. “Donuts don’t sound too bad.”
“We’re also doing Minute to Win It games. They say you’re going down.”
“I won’t be going down,” he mutters. “Because I won’t be going in.”
“You forget that I know your schedule.”
“You forget that I’m your big brother and can still give you wedgies.”
“Joey!” I call from where she’s holding Lake and Nova’s adorable little girl, bouncing her lightly on one knee.
“Yeah?” she calls back.
“Your husband is being mean to me!”
She grins. “Tell your brother that since he knocked me up, he’d better behave himself.”
Gasping, I turn to Damon. “You said you guys were going to wait until the timing was right.”
A shrug as he hugs me tight. “Turns out I have a kid sister who’s damned good at giving advice.” He pulls back. “And swimmers that work on the first try.”
“Ew.” I gag. “No mention of swimmers in my presence please.”
“Would you like more specific terminology?”
“God no.” But I’m laughing and hugging him again and then the news is spilling through the kitchen, congratulations being shared all around.
And I understand why Joey is four months along but they’re only just now sharing the news.
They were waiting until Storm wasn’t here to be hurt by it.
“I love you guys,” I tell her as I hug her tight. “And I’m so happy for you.”
“I’m terrified,” Joey admits. “And so damned excited.” Her expression sobers. “You heard the other news?”
My eyes drift toward Colt. “About Ambrose getting a slap on the wrist?”
A suspension—albeit a long one.
And a fine—yup. A fine.
But no criminal charges.
She scowls. “Yup. It’s bullshit but it’s also not surprising, I suppose.”
“I think we both know that wheels of justice don’t always work like they should.”
Joey went through her own nightmare…and the difficulties that came from securing a fair resolution afterward.
“Unfortunately, that’s the truth.” A sigh.
“My only consolation is that I don’t think he’s going to last long in the league—and that more than one player wants to make his remaining games a misery. ”
That makes me feel better. Slightly.
“There is that.”
She nods toward Colt. “He okay with it?”
I shrug. “He’s had bigger fish to fry.”
Supporting Blake in his move, getting new doctors set up and caregivers and insurance and prescriptions and modifying the house so his brother can be as independent and comfortable as possible.
And doing all that while Donna—not his mother, because she was never truly that—fought him and Blake every step of the way.
But we’re here now.
Blake—and I (and Blake’s foster kittens)—moved in.
Sara with a new job at the local hospital and taking over my lease.
Donna pouting and licking her self-inflicted wounds, both of her sons having gone no contact.
And best of all…tonight we’re celebrating the likelihood that Holly is soon to be on her way out.
Because Blake has a new job—
As a student advocate.
Adrian is killing it in his classes.
But his parents haven’t forgotten what the district pulled.
And they have money…money that’s now been earmarked for a non-profit to help kids in Blake’s and Adrian’s situations.
Kids who’ve been through too much, who have to carry too much on their young shoulders, and who just want to go to school.
Yeah, Holly’s quaking in her boots.
It’s great.
That pink slip still may be coming my way.
But there are more jobs, more ways to be there for my kids, including via that non-profit.
I’ll be okay.
“When are we getting married?” Colt murmurs, his mouth at my ear as he loops an arm around my middle and draws me back against his chest.
“You have to ask me first, buckaroo,” I accuse lightly, spinning in the circle of his hold and poking him in the chest.
A chuckle. A sexy smile that has me melting from the inside out.
“What’s that look for?” I ask.
A jerk of his chin. “Turn around, starfire.”
Spinning, I see the kitchen’s emptied out…
“Where’d—?”
But when I look back to Colt, he’s not where I left him.
Instead, he’s on one knee, holding—
“Oh, my God!” I gasp.
“What do you say, Teach?”
“Why are you holding Hamish?” I blurt.
His mouth quirks. “Because he’s holding something for you.”
He is. Kind of.
Still, the tiny ribbon Colt has secured around Hamish’s neck has my heart pounding, my hands going to my mouth.
Because hanging from it is a shining diamond ring.
“Marry me, baby?” he asks.
I’m frozen, tears pouring down my cheeks, completely unable to form words.
He comes to his feet and draws me into his arms, kissing them away. It’s…coming home. It’s the beauty of a future together. It’s the—
“Did she say yes?!”
Laughter bubbles up in me as I turn around and smile at our family. “You haven’t given me a chance to.”
Blake grins at me, draws the newest member of our family (hopefully) to his side and my heart squeezes when Sara swipes her finger beneath each eye.
She’s sweet and lovely and I understand exactly what Blake sees in her.
Now it’ll just be a matter of them going the distance…and I think they will.
“That means yes,” he calls.
“Does it?” Colt murmurs in my ear.
I look up at my man, see he’s freed Hamish from the heavy weight of that diamond around his neck.
Grinning, I touch his cheek. “Yeah, honey, it means yes.”
God, the happiness in his eyes undoes me, even though I only get it for a heartbeat before his mouth is on mine and my lids are sliding closed and he’s kissing me…
While he slides on the ring.
It’s a perfect fit.
And I know it’s not by chance.
Because just like the story of Colt and me…
It’s fate.
Storm
I tug at the black tie around my neck, hating the many pairs of eyes on me as I walk down the aisle and sit in the front row of the church.
It’s a bright day, sunshine pouring in through the stained glass windows to send rainbows of color scattering this way and that.
Reminding me that Fate has a fucked-up sense of humor.
Norm Harrison was about as far from sunny as a person could get.
He was the brutal violence of lightning storm, the lashing wind of a hurricane, the destruction of an earthquake…
And now he’s gone.
Dead.
Right there on his front porch, beer bottle clutched tight even in death, his face screwed up, prepared to yell at anyone who dared tread too close to his lawn.
Well, the last I don’t know for certain, since I wasn’t here, but I’d bet my life on it.
Because that was my dad.
“About time you showed up.”
I go stiff and look at my brother. He’s similarly clothed in a dark suit and tie, his face and muscled body almost a mirror of mine—though where my eyes are gray, his are green, and where my hair falls into my eyes with that trademark hockey flow, his is contained, neatly corralled into an appropriate style for church.
“I’m here.” I jerk my chin toward the closed casket. “He doesn’t deserve even that much.”
“Pot meet kettle,” Rain mutters. “Since you’re doing your best to be exactly like him.”
Rage flashes through me in a hot wave, so intense, so all-consuming that I jerk toward him, that I barely remember I’m in a fucking church, that I’m not on the ice where I’ll just get five minutes in the box for beating up this asshole.
My brother.
But still an asshole.
Clenching my teeth together, I look forward again, watching as the priest moves to the lectern and begins talking about my father like he wasn’t the asshole everyone in this town knew he was.
Cedar Hollow is the quintessential small town located in the foothills of the nearby mountain range.
A destination for tourists with its quaint streets and riverfront location—snow in the winter, apples in the fall, tulips in the spring, rafting in the summer—on its surface, it’s a great place to grow up.
Except when one’s father is Norm Harrison.
“…and now I’d like to welcome anyone who would like to share a few words about Norm to come up.”
The silence that follows…well, yup, Fate has great fucking sense of humor.
Rain sighs from next to me and I don’t bother to look at him.
There’s no way I’m going up to that mic and saying anything that’s remotely close to good.
Something he clearly gets, having grown up in that house.
But my brother is the responsible one, the good one—
So, it’s no surprise that he pushes to his feet and finds the one story that doesn’t make our dad look like the complete and total bastard he was.
“…and that’s when we decided a possum didn’t make a very good pet,” he says, eliciting soft laughter through the room…and leaving out the part where it wasn’t we—as in, Rain and I—that decided a possum wasn’t a good pet.
Nope. That was Norm.
And our father didn’t give one fuck that we’d raised Millie from the time she was a baby, that she relied on us, that she trusted us…
We had to set her free.
And when she came crying to the back porch, my dad took out his gun and—
Rain drops back into the pew, hands clenched into fists.
I find that I’m doing the same.
Suddenly, my tie is too tight—or maybe it’s my throat.
I need to get the fuck out of here.
“…and give you peace, this day and forever more. Amen.”
A sudden rush of noise and movement snaps me out of the past and I burst up to my feet, push through the throng of people leaving, rounding the corner of the old building and not stopping until I’m alone, until I can breathe past the lump in the back of my throat.
Movement out of the corner of my eye.
My head shoots up and…
Time stops.
Six years vanish.
I’m that kid on Cedar Hollow beach again, lusting after a girl in a skimpy pink bikini.
“You okay?” Poppy Baker asks softly.
“Great.” It’s dry, and sharp enough to wound.
And she winces as though I’ve done exactly that.
Nodding, she turns away, and though I open my mouth to apologize, I find the words don’t come.
Can’t come.
Because a little girl with dark brown hair plaited into neat pigtails skips up to Poppy and takes her hand. She’s wearing a simple black dress, tights, and shining black shoes, but I barely register that because her gray eyes—my eyes—flick toward me as she asks,
“Mom, can we go get ice cream now?”
I hope you enjoyed Colt and Kylie’s journey to forever (and Hamish, the coo’s, small role in their HEA) :)