“Will she want to stay with you?” he adds.
I wince. “It’s a risk.”
He nods knowingly. “The biggest plays usually are.”
After adjusting a loose knob on a closet door, I say, “Hockey won’t last forever. I need something—someone—who I can give my all to.”
“Look at you, all grown up and prioritizing a future,” Jack teases, but his expression is sincere.
“Being off the ice gave me plenty of time to think.” Which makes me wonder if Badaszek extended my leave on purpose. It’s not that I was headed in the wrong direction, but he likes his men to be focused—on the game and on what truly matters in life: people, connections, true love.
“For what it’s worth, she looks at you the way Ella looks at me. Like you … deck the halls of her heart.”
I groan. “Oh, no, that’s the worst.”
He chuckles. “Trust me, that’s worth more than any trophy.”
We continue to work amidst the sounds of hammering and good-natured jesting from the guys filling the house. By late afternoon, the place is transformed—warm, inviting, and ready for a new beginning.
As we leave, Leah helps me tie a pair of enormous red bows around the front porch columns.
“Perfect. Now all you need is the girl,” she declares.
After I thank everyone profusely, we say goodbye and I drive home, I go from feeling confident to worried andback again. Parts one and two of my three-part plan to woo Bree for Christmas are in place. The last part is more in her wheelhouse, writing, but maybe tapping into her passions is just what I need to prove that I’m not the jokester from college who teased the pretty journalist.
Back home, the fire crackles in the hearth as I stretch out on the couch, and the dog—as-yet-unnamed—snores softly at my feet. I’ve propped my reading glasses on my nose and am halfway through Bree’s second book,Love Forged on the Range.
I didn’t intend to get so absorbed in the story, but Landon Anssen—the stoic rancher with a secret past—reminds me a bit of my teammate Liam. And Joy, the headstrong schoolteacher who challenges him at every turn, definitely features shades of Bree herself.
The front door opens, and the dog lifts his head sleepily.
“Hey, I grabbed some—” Bree freezes mid-sentence, staring at me.
I lower the book, suddenly self-conscious. “Um, hope you don’t mind. I was curious.”
She doesn’t respond, just keeps looking at me with an expression I can’t quite decipher. Is she upset that I’m reading her work? Embarrassed?
“I can put it away if?—”
“No!” She steps forward, cheeks flushed from the cold and possibly something else. Could Bree like what she sees? Like me?
I sit up as the dog trots over to her, tail like a windshield wiper in a monsoon.
She greets him with lots of happy pets and scratches.
I mark my place with a receipt and set the book on the coffee table.
Noting my motion, Bree says, “I just didn’t expect ... You’re reading one of my books. Wow.”
“I’m on chapter fifteen. Landon just rescued Joy from the river, and they’re at his cabin. She noticed the wound on his leg from his encounter with a discourteous gang of rustlers and is tending to it while he regales her with tales of his heroism.”
Her eyes widen and her lips quirk. “That’s pretty far along.”
“It’s good, Bree. Great, actually. I like how you include little details—how Landon notices that Joy uses big words when she’s nervous, or how he feels protective but also respects that she can handle herself out there in the Wild West.”
The smile that spreads across her face makes my heart skip. She looks beautiful with her rosy cheeks and bright eyes, snow melting in her hair.
“You’re wearing glasses,” she says, as if just noticing.
