“Look,” Lily said, pointing at a bobbing pink cap moving across the rink. Mrs. Whitmore held onto one side of the plastic chair, and Chloe held onto the other. Chloe was smiling, and then she laughed, high and bright.
“She’s started talking again,” Lily murmured, watching along with him. “Just a few words but more each time I see her.”
He couldn’t answer. His throat was closing. The lights, the shrieks, the scrape of skates—they all pressed in until he wasn’t sure where he was anymore. He knew logically, but his heart hammered in that wild, punishing way that told him he was losing the fight.
Breathe. Goddammit, breathe.
“Rush,” Lily said, but he could barely hear her over the whooshing in his ears. “Let’s sit down. Come on.”
He grabbed her wrist and let her pull him into the empty gazebo, sitting where she guided him until they were side by side.
“Hey,” she was saying. “You’re okay. Breathe with me. In…” She did it with him, long steady breaths. “… and out.”
He concentrated on her voice and her touch, the way she rubbed his hand, bringing it to her lips to kiss the back. He clung to that and breathed through the chaos until the noise dulled and air finally eased into his lungs again.
He yanked his hat off and shoved his hand through his hair as shame crawled hot under his skin.Fuck. He was supposed to be protecting her. Not falling apart like a train wreck.
Her green eyes, wide and worried now, searched his face. “How long have you had panic attacks?”
He jerked his hand back from hers and shoved it into his coat pocket to hide the shaking. “I’m fine.”
“What just happened is normal after what you’ve been through, Rush,” she said, too gentle. “It’s your body remembering. Have you ever thought about therapy?—”
“Don’t,” he said brusquely. “I’ve been. Sat in the chair, said the words, checked the boxes. It didn’t fix a damn thing.” Then, because he wanted to change the pity in her eyes to something—anything else—he lashed out. “No amount ofchanting or mantras will bring back Caroline Whitmore, Lily.”
Her lips parted, and hurt flashed across her face, but she didn’t lash back. That gutted him worse than the panic had. He fucking loved Lily’s approach to the world. What was wrong with him?
She blinked at him, still calm, which only made the shame burn hotter. Christ. He was the sheriff. People were supposed to look to him in a crisis, not watch him fall apart on a damn park bench while the whole town skated circles around him.
“I know it won’t, but—” she started.
He pushed to his feet and grabbed his hat. “Come on. I’ll walk you back to the studio.”
She didn’t say anything on the walk back up Main Street. When they reached her door, the studio windows glowed, full of parents and kids laughing and dancing to music. It was her world—warm, bright, alive. Everything he wasn’t.
“Want to come inside?” she asked quietly, still looking at him with those soft green eyes that saw too much.
He looked away. “Not tonight. Good night, Lily,” he said instead, stepping back off the curb.
She hesitated at the bottom of the steps while he waited, in pure agony, for the words he deserved.
You’re a mess.
A failure.
Not enough.
But she said nothing. She slipped inside, and he was left in the cold with the burn of self-disgust tightening his throat.
Lily closedthe studio door behind her and sagged against it, surveying the carnage of open house. The studio looked like a glitter bomb had gone off—streamers tangled in the barre, sequins ground into the floor, and half the pageant costumes stuffed haphazardly into their plastic tubs.
“Looks like the open house was a hit,” she said brightly, though her voice wobbled on the last word.
“We came to help clean up,” Allie called from the cider-and-donuts corner, where she was stuffing a line of empty cups into a trash bag. Her honey-blond hair was twisted up in its usual, no-fuss knot, and her green sweater was flecked with glitter, probably from wrangling the twins. Practical as ever, her older sister already had the chaos mostly under control. She shot Lily a quick smile. “Evie said reinforcements were necessary.”
“I can’t bend over, or I’ll tip, so I’m here for moral support only,” Amber announced from one of the folding chairs against the wall. Savvie had curled up in what little lap space her aunt had left, thumb tucked firmly in her mouth as she slept.
“Baby Jesus has been recovered,” Davis added dryly. He had Tessa draped, half asleep over one arm and a raggedy baby doll clutched in the other. “Found him in the costume bin with a tutu over his head.”
