Heart On Ice: A Figure Skating Romance (The Seattle Omegas Book 3)

1. PROLOGUE

Dublin — Ireland

14 years ago…

“Nothin’. You’re not afraid of anything,” I whispered the lines of my favorite movie as the scene played out in front of me on the little box television.

Truth be told, the DVD playing Ice Castles had seen better days. It skipped and stuttered through the almost two-hour movie and some of the lines that I knew by heart were now off by just a bit, but I still said them religiously as I lay on my stomach on my bed.

It was ice cold in the flat my Da and I shared and the pouring rain outside did little to help. It permeated the air, making it feel cool and damp like the inside of a cave and it shot right through my layers of long sleeves and the thick jumper that used to belong to Mam.

Rubbing my feet together I rolled over to stare at the dark mildew stain on my ceiling. That was new in the past six months because no one had been around to battle back the moisture in the flat ever since Mam left.

She had left in the middle of the night, a thunderstorm covering her escape as she whispered she loved me one last time. I’d all but given up hope of her coming back at this point—now it was just me and Da. For better or for worse, except it was usually worse.

As if my thoughts materialized him, my da burst through my shut bedroom door, his pale face already ruddy from alcohol even though it was still early afternoon.

“You’re makin’ too much damn noise,” he complained, his words severely slurred as he stepped inside and glared at the television which was on as low as I could get it while still being able to hear it.

But I didn’t argue and shut it off anyway before he could come any closer. Arguing never worked out in my favor and I had a fading bruise on my cheek to prove it.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, my shoulders hunching as I sat up. I was getting taller by the day, a fact which he seemed to abhor as I was nearly eye level with him at only twelve years old.

It was hard to see what my mam ever saw in Finneas Callaghan. As far as I could remember there were no redeeming qualities about him except for the haziest memories that I wasn’t even sure were true. I was sure he used to be nice—Mam used to tell me all about how he swept her off her feet when they were teens. Now, though, he spent most of his days riding a desk at the Garda station and most of his nights at the pub around the corner.

My da had grown fat from all of the beer, and he was meaner than a feral cat when he was in the thick of a bender. I know he’d been handsome once—the pictures of him and Mam from when they were younger could attest to that—but years of drinking had snatched his looks from him and he seemed to blame everyone else but himself for that fact.

“Look at the state of you,” he hissed as he looked me up and down with a woozy shake of his head. “Can’t even keep your hair neat and clean. Would it kill you to run a brush through it? Useless wain.”

With a huff, Da turned and stomped back down the hallway, not even bothering to shut the door behind him.

A sigh of relief slipped out of me, the stiffness in my spine easing as I slumped against the wall. At least he’d only just yelled at me, much better than the alternative that had become all too commonplace once my mam left.

Glancing over at the mirror I pressed down on my fluffy curls. They didn’t look that bad right now. I was doing my best to keep up with my hair, but I couldn’t do the styles that my mam would spend hours doing for me on Sunday before the school week started.

I knew why he was complaining so much about it today. Even as drunk as he was. Mrs. McCallum, my teacher, had sent a note home in my backpack earlier this week about personal hygiene. She never much liked my hair when I left it out of the braids or simple buns in the back of my head and she was using my mam’s leaving as an excuse to rag on me.

It infuriated Da to read it because there was nothing that he liked less than to be embarrassed in public.

Sure, his mates from the Garda could bring him home and throw him in the front garden to sleep off the drink, but me humiliating him? Not allowed.

My hair was clean and soft, the natural corkscrews usually taking on a life of their own. I just couldn’t do all of the things my mam could with it and it showed.

A pang of sheer longing filled me as I worked to slick my hair into something resembling order, tying it back with a bobbin.

I wanted her to come back home, to me, but on the same token I didn’t want her to come back to Da. He didn’t deserve to have her here for even a minute.

My mam was my favorite human being in the whole world and she’d done her time in this place and I couldn’t fault her for wanting out.

Once I’d finished my hair, I turned the television back on and put the volume all the way down. I didn’t need any sound to finish the movie. I knew it by heart and could probably quote the lines in my sleep.

As I watched Lexie skate after her injury, I could almost hear Mam’s voice telling me about how figure skating was in my blood just like it had been in hers. Her mam had skated her entire life and Mam ran all of the classes at the local ice rink, training the daughters of the richest people in our little area of Dublin.

If I’d been born into a different life, maybe I would be like those girls. But even though Mam was able to teach them, we could never afford the lessons ourselves nor would Da allow it.

When Lexie trips over the flowers that she can’t see, I close my eyes and whisper Nick’s last line: “We forgot about the flowers.”

If I tried hard enough, I could imagine myself in Lexie’s place, standing in front of the cheering crowd after overcoming my childhood. They chant my name, and in the stands I can make out my mam’s face as she gives me her usual double thumbs up.

The only thing I would change would be the boy coming to pick her up. I’d seen firsthand what a shoddy marriage looked like and I wanted nothing to do with it.

When I finally opened my eyes again, the credits were rolling and my fantasy faded as reality settled back in. I was still all alone in my chilly, mildewy bedroom while Da stomped around drunkenly downstairs. No amount of wishing was going to change that.

Then the doorbell rang and I heard Da yank the door open and let out a rasping laugh.

“Well would you look at what the wind blew in,” I heard Da say loudly. “Too scared to come on your own then?”

There was a muffled response, just loud enough for my ears to recognize the familiarity in the voice but not enough for me to hear what they were saying exactly.

My heart stuttered in my chest and I sat up straight, leaning over the foot of the bed to peer out into the hallway in hopes that I could hear the conversation better.

“Finneas, don’t make this harder than it has to be,” my mam’s voice floated up to me.

My heart thudded in my chest with the realization that she had come back for me. I jumped to my feet and flew down the dingy carpeted stairs, my eyes searching her out only to find her engaged in a standoff of sorts with Da at the bottom of the steps.

There was my mam, looking vibrant and healthy as she stood with two women who I only vaguely recognized standing at her back. All of them were engaging in a glaring contest with Da as he shouted at them with a pointed finger and a beet-red face.

“You don’t deserve to be a mother,” he spat at her, his voice full of vitriol.

Mam flinched back for just a breath, her mouth slack with fright before she squared her shoulders and drew herself up to her full height.

“The courts have sided with me, Finneas, therefore I’m taking Ciara with me,” Mam said as she finally noticed me standing midway down the stairs. Dark brown eyes melted with relief as we stared at one another.

“Ciara,” her words were said on a heavy exhalation and she held her arms open to me. Despite the intimidating blockade that was my da, I hurried down the steps and leapt for her.

The smell of her unique jasmine scent filled my nose and I burrowed my way into her shirt, sucking in deep drags of it. She was wet from the rain outside and it seeped through my thin clothing quickly, but I didn’t care much. My mam was back and I’d rather be drenched forever than to lose her again.

“Oh, leanbh, I’ve missed you,” she murmured into my hair and I was suddenly glad I’d taken the time to take care of it before she arrived. “Come, let’s go upstairs.”

Taking my hand, she led me past my still fuming Da and back up the stairs.

“Be quick, Mona,” one of the women who’d come with her said. She had a severe looking face, all sharp cheekbones and dark eyes that made me feel a bit uncomfortable under her gaze.

“I know, Bela,” Mam called back over her shoulder and I could hear my da start to protest as she tugged me down the upstairs hall.

“Can it, Finneas, you lost your right to say anything when you put your hands on your wife,” the other woman snapped.

Up in my room, Mam immediately went to the wardrobe and pulled out the ratty duffel that I used to keep for when we traveled.

“What are you doing?” I asked as she began to shove what meager clothing I had inside.

“We’re going to go on a trip,” was all she replied as she dug through my underwear drawer. “Gods, did he not buy you anything to wear in the last six months? You’ve shot up half a foot and yet these are all things I bought you.”

I knew she was talking to herself at this point, a habit that I’d gained watching her for most of my life, but, like always when she did this, I answered her rhetorical question outright.

“He said that I didn’t need it,” I told her, watching as she paused and turned as if she’d forgotten I was there.

Now that the excitement over her arrival had worn off, I got my first good look at her. In the six months since she’d left she’d gained weight. Her bones no longer stuck out against her skin as if they were trying to escape and there were no telltale bruises to be covered with makeup.

In fact, it looked as if she had no makeup on at all, and yet her brown skin still had a healthy glow to it.

Not only that, Mam, who had always been vain about her own corkscrew curls, had cropped her hair close to her head.

It was like I was looking at a stranger wearing my mam’s face, and an anger that I didn’t even know I possessed started to fill me.

“I would have clothing that fits if you hadn’t left me,” I managed to say quietly and Mam’s hand froze mid reach for one of my shirts that was hanging up.

She turned, pain obvious in her brown eyes. “I had to get out to get both of us help, Ciara,” she said, her voice soft.

I opened my mouth—to say what, I didn’t know—but before I could really lay into her about how I felt, I heard my da shout something downstairs.

The noise seemed to remind both of us that there wasn’t enough time to have it out, not here and not when a ticking time bomb was just a breath away.

Mam’s lips pressed into a thin line and she turned away from me to continue to shove clothing into the bag.

“Argue with me later, leanbh, but for now we must go,” my mam said as she reached out to grab my hand, pulling me from the room.

“Wait!” I practically squawked as I pulled out of her grasp.

Crossing my tiny little bedroom, I pulled my copy of Ice Castles out of the television and put it into its scratched up case with shaking hands.

My mam’s face softened and she held a hand out to add it to my bag, but I shook my head.

“No, I want to hang on to it,” I insisted and snagged the little drawstring backpack I used for school off of the hook on the wall, slipping it inside.

Once I’d slung the bag on my back I reached for my mam again, relishing in the way her warm hand felt in mine.

Da was busy arguing with the stern looking woman with brown hair when we came back down the stairs again. My mam had called her Bela earlier.

“She can’t just take her, that’s not how this works,” he yelled at her, his face ruddy with rage and probably a couple of pints.

“And I told you that the courts have already told her she can, maybe show up to a custody hearing every once in a while and you’d have better luck,” Bela snapped back, the hint of some kind of accent in her voice. She sounded like one of the Slavic grocers that worked at the local Tesco up the road and always snuck me pieces of hard candy when Da bought his beer.

Da seemed to have nothing to say to that, so he wheeled around to glare at us instead. “So that’s it then, Ciara, you’re just gonna leave me here to rot?”

Guilt and the desire to escape warred in my chest.

If I left, who would take care of him? He wasn’t a very good parent, but he was still mine.

All of the fights I would get into with girls at school because they made fun of him for being a drunk came to mind. Those had been a mixture of pride and rage, because the only person who could hate him was me.

And I did hate him. So very much.

But I also felt a sense of responsibility over him.

Thankfully, I would never have to answer his question because Mam stepped in front of me, blocking my view of him as she straightened her spine. “You need to get help, Finneas, and until then I don’t want Ciara anywhere near you or me. When we got married you promised me you wouldn’t be like your da and yet here we stand.”

The words seemed to hit Da like a train because he flinched away from her, his expression going flat and far away as a thick silence hung between them. Then Mam finally broke it by pulling me the rest of the way down the stairs and the two women who came with her flanked in behind us like a protective shield.

I tossed one final look over my shoulder, expecting to find my da at least looking sad over my leaving.

But what I saw took my breath away.

Instead of grief or sadness, Da looked furious. I heard the stomp of his feet on the rotten tile foyer as he reached for me, only for his wrist to be grabbed by the shorter, redheaded woman.

“That’s quite enough,” she said and moved in a blur until my da was flat on his back, wheezing for air. “You asked for that, Finneas,” she snapped before joining us once more as we hurried down the rainy walkway.

“I see you’re finally putting that black belt to good use, Bridge,” my mam said to her dryly and I watched as the two women exchanged toothy grins. We finally made it to the black car at the end of the path and I was ushered into the back seat, my mam sliding in next to me as the other two women took the front.

“Alexei will be pleased to hear it,” Bela joked as she got into the driver’s seat and turned the car on.

The redheaded woman snorted. “More like he’ll be happy that I stop using it on him.”

I listened to the women talk quietly as the car pulled away from the curb, surprised at how comfortable I felt despite them being relative strangers.

“Bridget, can you call the boys and let them know we’re on the way?” Bela asked as she squinted to see past the deluge that was starting to come down on the windscreen. “Gods, this storm is awful.”

“I’ll call once we get closer,” Bridget said, turning in the seat until she could look at me fully. She looked like one of the faeries from the stories my mam used to read to me. All high, freckled cheekbones and hair the color of fire. “Do you remember me, Ciara?”

I shook my head, feeling a little guilty about it. I had vague memories of seeing pictures of them, and I knew that they were my mam’s childhood friends that she spoke of often, but I didn’t know who they were.

But Bridget didn’t seem to mind, instead her lips tilted up into a bigger smile. “That’s all right, my name is Bridget and this is Bela, we’re your mam’s oldest friends, love. We also have little girls of our own—though Aurelia isn’t quite so little anymore.”

Bela snorted, her eyes never leaving the road. “I’ll say, a full-blown teenager we have now.”

“Oh, hush, you can’t blame her for wanting to go to her dance,” my mam scolded the other woman. “I also still think you should have left her in Minnesota to look after herself.”

“And let her be distracted from the upcoming dance tests? Over my dead body,” Bela muttered. “Aurelia should focus on her ballet rather than some boy with shifty eyes.”

Bridget scrunched her freckled nose at the other woman. “You’re too strict on her. Don’t you believe in young love?”

“No,” Bela said, her tone blunt as she turned onto the bridge to cross the Liffey, joining the other cars clogging their way to the city center.

As the women in the car continued to chatter, I couldn’t help but feel left out. It was as if my mam had lived an entire lifetime while she was away. There were inside jokes I didn’t understand, other daughters she sounded affectionate toward, and a light in her brown eyes that I’d never seen when she was with me.

I wanted to continue our fight from my bedroom, but instead I stared down at the DVD case that was gripped tight in my hands. The colors of it had faded, but I could still see the happy smiles of the couple on it as they pressed their heads together.

“Leanbh?” my mam’s voice brought me from my morose thoughts and when I looked up at her I found a hopeful expression on her face. “I can’t wait to get you back to Minnesota, you’ll love it there—”

She never got to finish those words.

The tires of the car began to spin, no longer catching on the road and the car jerked toward the left, smashing into another car with a loud crunch before careening toward the edge of the bridge.

There was a great bump and then we were flying, my ears ringing as the women in the car screamed.

The impact of the car on the river below may as well have been concrete, a hole opening in the front windscreen.

My mam said something to me as water whooshed inside, and then there was blackness.