Page 72 of The Playmaker

“Cole—”

“Hey, I always meant it as a compliment.” He skates backward again, and I go after him. “You just took it the wrong way.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” I skate past him, and he comes after me. He slides his arms around my stomach and his mouth is near my ear when he says. “It was a compliment, and I did need you here with me.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re the one who needed to get back on the ice, Nina. Not me.”

I freeze in his arms, and he holds me tighter. “Cole,” I say, my voice a bit broken as I break from his hold and turn. “What are you talking about?”

Green eyes full of tenderness meet mine. “You haven’t stepped foot in a rink since the accident. It kills me to know you’ve hung up your skates.” He spreads his arms wide. “You always loved it out here, there was this freedom on your face and in your eyes when you skated.”

“How—”

“I know you don’t do it professionally anymore, but to give it up altogether, because you’re afraid—”

“I’m not afraid,” I say quickly, defensively, even though he’s right. I just don’t want anyone to see that in me, although Cole has seen more in me than anyone; seems to know more about me than even I ever knew.

“Nina,” he says, and pulls me back in. “It’s okay. You don’t have to hide anything with me. What you went through was hard. I know you’re strong and independent. We all do.”

“What do you mean, ‘we all do’?”

He opens his mouth, closes it again, and then finally says, “I know how devastated you were. I wanted you back on this ice for you, not for me.”

An invisible band squeezes around my heart. Oh, God, I am falling so hard for this man. I fight back the tears pounding behind my eyes. “It…shattered me. My dreams. For a long time, I was…lost, alone.”

He hugs me tight and drops a soft kiss onto my forehead. “I know.”

“How

?”

“I just… Because I…”

I sniff and lift my head, and my heart swells when I meet his concerned eyes. I am in so much trouble here. “Cole?”

“It killed Cason, too, that he couldn’t be here for you.”

I look down, and he puts his finger under my chin to lift it. A smile touches his mouth. “You have no idea, do you?”

“About what?”

“About how much your brother really cares about you.”

I tug my chin away. “Cole…”

A sound catches in his throat. “Over the years, he’d given out dozens of black eyes, Nina. If a guy so much as looked at you, he was done for.” Cole laughs at that, but I go still, partly because I’m touched at what I’m hearing, and partly because I’m angry.

“Why would he do that?”

“Because you’re his little sister, and big brothers are protective of their little sisters. Just ask Tabby.”

Just then, Tabby and Jack skate by, and Cole’s eyes fill with love.

“He shouldn’t have done that. I can take care of myself.”

“I know. We all know. But Cason was better with his fists than his words.” He shrugs. “We all show how we care in different ways, right?”

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