Page 45 of The Reading

The problem with her prediction was that all the men in my life were either married, felt like brothers to me, or were jerkoffs. So, since I didn’t do married men, I wasn’t into incest, and I’d had my fill of jerkoffs in my dating history to want to add any extra, I had no idea who Madam Brousseau could have been talking about. There was literallyno onewho fit the bill.

Then Wyatt Valinsky, my childhood crush, announced his retirement from the NHL, moved back home, then started working with his brother as aconstruction worker or contractor or something like that. While it was incredibly ridiculous to even consider him as a possibility, Madam Brousseau’s predictions were coming true, and I was panicking and acting like a crazed lunatic whenever I came across a guy that I knew.

In short, I was losing my mind.

Now, while getting a police officer, a firefighter, a doctor, and a veterinarian for career day had been a fairly easy thing to accomplish, Wyatt Valinsky hadn’t been my idea. His brother’s daughter, Carly, was in my class, and she had been gracious enough to volunteer Wyatt’s time. It was rumored that Wyatt adored his nephews and niece because he had always mentioned them in his interviews, so it probably hadn’t been all the difficult to convince him to show up today.

The issue was that I didn’t know how to act around him, what with Madam Brousseau’s predictions taking up all my brain power. The other four men in my classroom were wearing their wedding rings proudly, so the only threat to my sanity was Wyatt Valinsky.

I glanced up at the clock, and we only had about ten minutes left before I could kick all the men out of my classroom. Normally, career day was the cutest thing on earth. I taught second graders, so the questions were always surprising and fun. This year, not so much.

Thanks, Madam Brousseau.

Glancing back up at the clock, I couldn’t take it anymore. Stepping away from behind my desk, I smiled at the classroom, and as soon as Wyatt finished answering the latest question, I jumped in. “Okay, I think that’s enough for Mr. Valinsky. I think it’s time that we all say thank you to our visitors today.”

“I have one more question,” Donnie Patterson said, raising his little hand high up in the air.

“Okay, just one more,” I allowed, trying to disguise my anxiousness.

“Are you married?” he asked, and I thought that question would come from a little girl, but it was clear why he was asking when he added, “Do you have any kids? Boys that play hockey and want to be our friends?”

I looked over at Wyatt, and he had a sweet smile on that ridiculously gorgeous face of his. “No, I’m not married, and I don’t have any kids.”

“Why?”

“Now, Donnie, that’s private-”

“Because I’m not sure if the lady that I like is interested in marrying me,” Wyatt answered, interrupting me, and also confirming that he wasn’t the man in Madam Brousseau’s prediction.

“Why wouldn’t she want to marry you?” Donnie asked. “You play hockey.”

Ah, to be young again.

Chapter 1

Chanel~

It was cute how things were so simple for children. It was adults that made life more complicated than it needed to be.

“That’s a good question, Donnie,” Wyatt said, trying not to laugh at his innocence.

“You know, Ms. Ainsley doesn’t have a husband,” Roger Hartman said, and that caused me to choke a bit. “And she’s really pretty, don’t you think?”

Now, while I was a five-foot-three brunette with amber-colored eyes, Wyatt Valinsky was six-foot-three of pure athletic muscle. The man had black hair, royal blue eyes, and a face that reminded me of Mike Vogel a bit. When he smiled and those dimples of his popped out, that really had the power to make a woman’s panties wet, and I had no doubt that being a professional hockey player had made him very familiar with women’s panties.

No, I wasn’t unattractive, but I was not in Wyatt Valinsky’s league. The man could have any woman that he wanted, and he’d probably had. Now, I wasn’t judging or anything, because that wasn’t my style, and being a single man, Wyatt had every right to live his life the way that he’d wanted. I was just realistic. I was a six on the average, a seven if I dolled myself up, and I was okay with that. I was perfectly happy with my petite frame. I was so petite that it was easy to see that my brother was legally my stepbrother, but we didn’t pay any attention to that crap.

Jansen Ainsley had come into my life when I’d been only two-years-old, and Jansen had been three. Dad had adopted Jansen when he had turned five, after a very violent, heated, telling argument between Dad and Jansen’s biological father. In the end, it had all worked out, and Jansen was my brother, though we looked nothing alike and didn’t share the same DNA. However, in my opinion, loyalty was a greater bond than DNA. Away in the military, Jansen was a marine that was changing the world, and we were all so very proud of him.

Now, back to my current humiliating reality…

“Roger, I don’t think that-”

“Yes, she’s very pretty,” Wyatt agreed. “Did you guys know that me and Ms. Ainsley went to school together when we were kids?” His question got a whole bunch of oohs and aahs. “Yep, we’ve known each other since we were young.”

“Then why isn’t she your wife?” Lilly March asked, and I just wanted the ground to swallow me whole.

“Well, she had to go to college to become a teacher, and I had to go to college to become a hockey player,” he explained kindly. “We kind of…had our own dreams to chase.”

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