Page 45 of Hat Trick

She’ll never know, and seeing her name there appeases some level of guilt insideme.

At least this way, we can all pretend Adaline isn’t completelyselfish.

No one turns to greet me as I skirt around groups of people reminiscing about myfather.

“Such a good guy,” one man says, “you’d never know from the way he worked his classroom and the ice rink that he’d been sick for over a yearnow.”

I don’t know what it says about me that I didn’t even know my dad was sick until my Uncle Bob called me with the news of my dad’s passing. Guilt thrives in my soul, relentless and domineering. It takes everything in me not to turn around and hightail it back to mycar.

Don’t everbail.

Strangely enough, it’s my father’s last words to Adaline before their divorce was finalized that propel me forward. Like a shield, I tug on my cardigan again, wrapping my arms around my middle as I step into the backroom.

I spot Bob over by the casket, shaking hands with a broad-shouldered man whose shaggy brown hair is a touch too long to be remotely fashionable. A leather jacket encases his torso, despite the fact that it feels like a million degrees in here. He claps my uncle on the shoulder, issuing a farewell if I’m guessing right, and then turnsaround.

Facesme.

And no matter the fact that we’re surrounded by twenty-plus people in a small, heated room, I feel like I’ve been submerged into the icy waters of Boston Harbor in the middle ofFebruary.

What is Marshall Hunt doinghere?

He approaches with slow, measured steps, as though giving me time to acclimate to his presence in a space that doesn’t belong to him. Not that it belongs to me, either,really.

My gaze latches onto Bob, and I can’t help but wonder if Marshall knew my dad. Buthow?

I don’t have the chance to give it any further thought because in the next breath, he’s standing before me. Tall. Broad. Handsome in that pretty-boy model way of his that I remember soacutely.

“Gwen.”

It’s all he says, and there’s got to be something wrong with me because that’s the moment I choose to loseit.

A sob peels from my soul, and it should be loud and noisy the way it feels clanging around in my chest but it’s not. The sound of my heart breaking for a man I never had the opportunity to know is silent and steady, just like our relationship over the years. Pushed into nonexistence because my mother saw fit to keep us separated, and by the time I’d reached adulthood, Mark James was done playing the games of his ex-wife and a daughter he barelyknew.

“Come with me.” Marshall tangles his hand with mine, leading me from the room and down a hallway. I should put up some sort of protest—I never let a man take control—but perhaps it’s the shock of seeing Marshall, someone I haven’t seen since college, that keeps mequiet.

He pauses outside a doorway, gives a rap of his knuckles against the wood. When there’s no reply, he pushes the door open and pulls me inside. “You need air,” he says, releasing my hand to go to thewindows.

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “You could have brought meoutside.”

I expect to hear his quiet, familiar laugh, but the only sound is the creaking of the window scraping past chipped paint as he hauls it up and into place. “I could have,” he finally says, “but I figured you’d rather have a moment to yourself where you’re not being stared at by everyone your father knew and youdidn’t.”

“You know me toowell.”

The words slip out before I have the chance to stall them, and Marshall gives a slow shake of his head. “Nah, but I wish Idid.”

My fingers twitch at my sides, and I step forward. “Marshall,I—”

He holds up a hand. “Gwen, that’s not why I brought you inhere.”

“Then why didyou?”

“Honestly?”

Inod.

“You looked like you needed a hug from someone who cared.” His voice is like velvet, a soft caress that reminds me of hot summer nights and languid hours spent curled in a lover’s embrace. “Let me be there foryou.”

Let me be there foryou.

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