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 a 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?”
And if you want to learn more about a special little town called Cedar Hollow, check out SMALL TOWN, BIG TROUBLE. I wasn’t looking for trouble. Then I found her.
Clover Moore is quiet, careful, and far too sweet for a guy like me. She keeps her head down, her voice soft, and her heart safely out of reach.
Our night together was supposed to mean nothing once the sun came up.
For her, it does.
But for me…it’s everything.
In Cedar Hollow, people notice when the town’s grumpiest defenseman starts showing up everywhere the shy flower shop owner goes.
I’ve spent my whole career fighting for my spot on the ice. Turns out fighting for Clover means a lot more.
She calls that night a mistake.
I call it the beginning of forever.