I smiled up at him. “Yeah, honey. I’m a lot better.”
He didn’t look like he believed me. “You sure? You’re still a little pale.”
God, this man. “That’s normal. It usually takes a couple days to get back to rights fully.”
His frown deepened. “Does this happen a lot?”
I lifted my shoulder in a shrug. “Not a lot, but regularly enough that I have a prescription for it. Yesterday was a bad one. Usually I can read the signs and I know when to take a pill, but yesterday got away from me and I wasn’t able to take it in time.”
“You don’t keep your meds on you?” That frown morphed into a glower, and it almost looked like he was mad at me, and I had to clamp my lips between my teeth to keep my smile at bay.
“No. Because like I said, it doesn’t happen a lot.” I reached up and rubbed at the pinched skin between his brows. “You can go ahead and wipe that grumpy look off your face. It’ll give you premature wrinkles.”
“I don’t care about wrinkles,” he grumped. “I really hated seeing you hurting like that. I don’t think I could handle seeing it again.”
My heart squeezed, and I felt another piece of it break off and fly to him. If he kept going like this, he was going to have all of it. “Well, pain is a part of life. I’m pretty sure you know that, Mr. Hockey Star.” I cupped his cheek. “But this, right here, it means a lot to me.”
“Sunshine, if you haven’t noticed already,youmean a lot to me.”
Oh yeah. I was sunk for this man for sure. And I wasn’t sure there was any way I could protect what was left of my heart from being crushed when he finally left.
Chapter Twenty-One
Tanner
Classic rock blared through my earbuds as my feet pounded against the forest floor. Dead leaves and twigs crunched beneath my sneakers as I pushed myself harder than I had since I got to Hope Valley a month and a half earlier. The cold sweat on my skin felt good, proof of the work I was putting in. I’d learned a long time ago to read my body, and I knew what it could handle. I was almost back to one hundred percent, anddamn, did that feel good.
My breath came out in puffy clouds thanks to the low temperature, but seeing as my job required I work on ice, the cold wasn’t a problem. It felt damn good to run again. To push my body in a way I hadn’t been able to in months. And it helped that the scenery all around me was beautiful enough to take my breath away.
When I mentioned to Raylan I was looking for a few trails near the cabin I was renting, he had several suggestions, paths that cut through the dense forest and led up into the foothills. DC had absolutely nothing on the beauty of Hope Valley. It wasdamn near everywhere you turned. The longer I stayed in this town, the more it was starting to feel like where I was supposed to be.
Coming down the incline from the foothills, I picked up the pace, running at a full-out sprint once the cabin came into view. As I rounded the side of the house toward the front, I saw an unfamiliar car.
I barely had a moment to wonder who it could be when a familiar voice called out. “Looks like all that cold mountain air’s been agreeing with you, brother.”
A huge smile broke out across my face as Luke rose from where he’d been sitting on the front porch steps. A laugh burst free, echoing through the trees. “What the hell are you doing here, man?” I asked as I pulled him in for a back-slapping hug. He returned it, giving my back a good few smacks before we broke apart. I grabbed his shoulders, giving him a little jostle to make sure he was real.
“What do you think I’m doing here? Someone needed to check on your ass, make sure you haven’t turned into some kind of crazy, reclusive mountain man up here.”
I chuckled and gave his shoulder a light punch. “Didn’t we just talk on the phone a few days ago? If I’d gone mountain man, you’d have known it.”
He grinned and lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “Okay, fine. Maybe I missed your geriatric ass.”
I let out another bark of laughter. “Geriatric, huh? I could still beat your ass any day of the week.”
Luke’s grin widened as he clapped me on the shoulder. “No doubt about it. Man, it’s really good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too. Really fucking good. How long are you here?”
“Just the weekend. We head to Tampa Monday.” I would have been lying if I said I wasn’t a little bummed it wouldn’tbe longer, but that was part of the job. Until the regular season ended, you were on the go more often than not. There wasn’t much time off.
“Well, either way, I’m glad as hell you’re here now.”
“Glad to hear it. So how about you let me inside so my balls can defrost, huh?”
I let us both into the house and headed right for the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge and sucking down half in a few gulps.
Luke was slower to come in behind me, his head on a swivel as he took everything in. Dropping his duffle bag on the ground by the island, he let out a low whistle. “This is some place, man.” He turned in a slow circle, his gaze pointed at the windows as he moved. “Views everywhere you look.”
