Page 106 of Caught from Behind

He flips over the invisible puck in his hand.

“I think Mr. Riggs wants you to turn the puck over,” Evie whispers—or tries to, anyway, because whispering in kids her age always ends up sounding like shouting.

“You may be right, Evie girl,” I tease lightly.

Tap. Tap. TAP.

I widen my eyes at Riggs, but he just mimes flipping the puck over again.

And so, rolling my eyes, I mirror his actions, flipping the real puck over in my hand, greedily devouring the words on the black, vulcanized rubber, pulse picking up, knees almost giving way.

Because Riggs Ashford—my Riggs Ashford, had written that?

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Riggs

“You the reason Ella’s got a smile on her face today?” Knox asks.

I snag my water bottle, take a small sip so my stomach won’t be overloaded and make me feel like shit out on the ice.

Nothing like trying to hockey with a bunch of liquid sloshing around in there.

“Would there be another reason?” I say when I drop it back into the holder, trying to get a glimpse of her across the rink, to make sure my dad isn’t…

Well, that he’s not being my dad.

“I can handle the old man,” she told me when I checked in with her before the game, making sure she didn’t want to bail on coming tonight.

I think that Ella can do anything.

But I don’t want the thing she’s doing to be enduring my dad being an asshole.

And he’s likely to be in an even worse mood considering that I pushed back earlier.

“Riggs—”

I pull my stare away, glance to Knox.

“She can handle your dad,” he says quietly.

And seriously, the fucker has far too high of an emotional IQ for his own good—pushing me to take that first step with Ella, snagging my phone and keeping me distracted when my dad is on a rampage, knowing exactly what was wrong with Ella yesterday and how to go about fixing it.

Knowing that I’m worried today.

She’s here. She’s smiling.

But…she still has pain buried deep inside, pain that’s eating at her more and more by the day.

I need to find a way to help her set that aside.

I flick my brows up in question. “What makes you say that with such confidence?”

“She can handle assholes like the best of them.” He shrugs then slides down the bench when the next line hops on the ice. “She’ll smile and the bullshit they dish out will slide right down her back.” A rueful laugh. “But it’s the silence she can’t stand. The walls she can’t breach. The problems she can’t fix. The failure that eats at her from the inside.” He sighs. “And worst of all is standing in a room unseen by the people you love.”

“You talking about her?” I ask as the whistle goes and we stand up, prepare to take our shift. “Or you?”

Riggs freezes in the open door, one foot poised above the ice.

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