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The tones dropped.

The kitchen went still. Then chairs scraped and boots hit the floor and the crew was moving for the bay. I looked at Janine one more time.

She squeezed my hand and let go. "We'll be here when you get back."

I ran for the bay, pulling on my gear as I went. The engine was already turning over. I climbed on and the doors opened, and the last thing I thought before we hit the street was that I had someone to come back to.

CHAPTER 23

Ask Him

JANINE

Hazel was flying across the ice, her crossovers clean and fast, the hesitation from the fall completely gone.

"That's it, Hazel! Lead with the shoulders, just like that!"

The new coach stood at center ice calling corrections that made sense. Hazel liked her teammates, liked the drills, came home from practice talking fast and happy. She never made the tournament this year, but she'd stopped talking about it. The new team was hers now, and she was already counting the months until next season's tryouts. Alex had chosen well.

I watched her take the turn at the far boards without breaking stride. She would turn seven the following summer. Somewhere between the crossover drills and the early morning skate bags, she'd started growing up on me, and the girl on the ice had more focus than half the adults in my life. I wasn't sure yet whether that was something to celebrate or something to worry about.

But I knew one thing. Every choice I'd made since I ran had led me here. To this bleacher, watching this kid fly. Hazel was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I still didn't know what I'd gotten right to deserve her.

"She's good." The sound of his voice sent ice through me before I turned around. "She's got your stubbornness."

Declan was standing ten feet away, his hands in the pockets of his coat, watching the ice like he'd been standing there all morning.

My pulse spiked. Hazel was on the ice. Fifty yards away with her back to us, and Declan was watching her.

"How did you find us here?"

"Coach Hale is an associate of mine. I wasn't happy when I heard he'd made a move on you."

The coach. I'd always read Hale as nothing more than a guy who stood too close and smiled too long. The walls closed in. Every door I'd walked through, every rink, every school pickup line, every grocery store parking lot. How many of them had someone like Hale standing in them? Because if I'd missed that, if Declan had been that close for that long and I hadn't seen it, what else had I missed?

"You need to leave. The restraining order says a hundred yards."

"I know what it says." He took a step closer. "I just wanted to talk, Janine. You left without saying goodbye. I spent six years wondering where you were. And then I find out we have a daughter." His voice caught. "Don't I at least have the right to know that?"

I looked at him. I searched for the performance, the angle, the calculation behind his eyes. I didn't find it. His shoulders were dropped, his jaw was loose, and the pain on his face wasn't something you could fake.

"You know why I left, Declan."

"No, baby. I don't."

"I saw you. I saw you hurting someone."

"That someone deserved what he got." He said it without flinching. "I could never hurt you, Janine. Would never hurt you."

And I remembered. I hated that I remembered, but I did. Declan driving two hours in a snowstorm to bring me soup when I had the flu. Declan filling our apartment with roses on my birthday. Declan leaving his jacket on my chair at every restaurant because he knew I ran cold before I told him. He held me like I was the only still thing in his life.

"I loved you, Janine. I still do. And if you let me prove it to you, I'll⁠—"

"No." I almost let him finish. The word "yes" was right there, sitting in my mouth like muscle memory, and I had to bite down on it before it got out. "I know what kind of man you are, Declan. And that's not the world I want my daughter growing up in."

I watched it go through him. He nodded once, slowly, and something behind his eyes closed.

"I understand. I'll leave you two alone. Just tell me. Is he good to you?"