Page 70 of The Puck Stops Here

She would have unearthed it if he had been.

‘No.’

‘Neither was your father.’

Because she’d found nothing on him too.

‘No.’

‘Why didn’t your mother report him?’

‘Because my father was a controlling, manipulative, bastard. He always managed to make her feel like it was her fault…’

‘Yeah,’ she said quietly, ‘I know the kind.’

Her father had been one such man…

‘Let me guess, your dad?’

She nodded, unsurprised that he’d worked it out for himself. ‘I was young when he stopped coming around, but I remember the arguments towards the end. When he gave up promising to leave his wife. When he’d make out Mum was too needy, too demanding, that she didn’t understand that he had responsibilities, a family…’ She gave a soft scoff. ‘He seemed to forget it went both ways, that we existed, thatIexisted.’

‘Asshole.’

‘I’ll drink to that.’

She clinked her bottle to his, let him take a quiet sip before asking, ‘How did you get off? With the police…’

‘Aiden and a guy called Grady Marshall from the Redstone Devils stepped in and saved the day. They swung a deal. Got me the hell out of there and they didn’t stop until Ashbury Falls was firmly in the rearview mirror. That’s why it had to be Aiden who stepped up…’

His eyes shone with gratitude. Gratitude, love and age-old shame.

‘He saved my ass, my brother. He could’ve gone to college without me, taken Mom and gone, but he fought to keep the deal for us both. Told the Devils he wouldn’t come without me and that meant getting me off that charge. A conviction would have ruined any chance at college for the foreseeable future. He risked his hockey career to save mine. And we joke about it, you know. Him being nothing without me and vice versa. But it’s only ever true one way around. Deep down we both know that.’

‘I don’t know, Blake. Everything I’ve read about you both, the way you play on the ice together, part of your magic is that you’re so in tune. Always knowing where the other is, what they’ll do… Yes, your brother helped get you out of a bad situation, a situation thatwasn’tyour fault?—’

‘It was my fault. I should’ve usedthisbefore acting.’ He tapped his temple with his beer bottle. ‘Just like Aiden would have. I should’ve shut it down. Instead, I lost it, and I was no better than him.’

‘No better thanwho? Your father.’

He nodded, his Adam’s apple shifting uncomfortably, and she couldn’t take it any more. She reached out, her palm soft against the taut muscle of his thigh. ‘You fought back, you didn’t instigate it. You weren’t the one beating on your mother because your dinner wasn’t on the table. You arenothinglike your father.’

He eyed her hand, and she pulled back. ‘Sorry I?—’

He stopped her retreat, his fingers folding around hers. ‘Thank you for saying that.’

‘I’m not just saying it, it’s true.’

He gave the smallest shake of his head. ‘I’ve waited a lifetime to hear those words.’

‘Don’t just hear them,believethem, Blake.’ She clung to his gaze while the heat of his palm around hers had her pulse racing, her head spinning, but she was determined to have him hear her. ‘You must?—’

‘You barely know me.’

‘I know enough. I know your team admire you, respect you. I know your brother loves you and would do anything for you. And I know you feel the same about him and your mother. I know that on the ice, it’s the combined skill of you both that makes you the best. I know that you give off this gruff exterior but beneath it all, you’re just as vulnerable as the rest of us.’

She leaned in with every word, her eyes telling him as much as her words, and he reached out. Made her breath hitch as he stroked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

‘And you think you know all this after knowing me for less than a week?’

---