I stayed. Pushed harder. Faster. Let the burn in my thighs drown out everything except the sound of blades on ice and the cold air tearing through my lungs.
She'd rejected me. She'd thought the story ended there. Thought she could dismiss me like every other man who'd wanted her and move on with her quiet life in her failing bookstore, untouched and untouchable.
She was wrong.
My blade carved a hard stop at center ice, spraying snow across the red line.
No one ever walked away from me forever.
Chapter 3
Belle
Morning light slanted through the front windows, catching dust motes that danced above the poetry section. I unlocked the door at eight instead of nine because Dad had insisted on helping today, and I'd learned not to argue when he used that particular tone—the one that meant he needed to feel useful more than I needed him to rest.
Coffee brewed in the back room. The machine gurgled and hissed, mixing with the familiar scent of old paper and the lavender sachet I kept near the register to mask the mildew I still couldn't afford to fix properly.
Dad sat behind the counter, a stack of invoices spread before him like he'd actually organize them this time. He wouldn't. We both knew it. But his hands moved across the papers anyway, sorting nothing into careful piles, and I let him pretend.
"You're staring," he said without looking up.
"I'm making sure you're not filing receivables with the tax receipts again."
"Once. That happened once." His smile flickered, warm and familiar and gone too quickly. "And you fixed it in ten minutes."
"Twenty." I poured two mugs, added sugar to his without asking. "You're impossible to clean up after."
"Builds character."
I set the coffee beside him. Steam curled between us.
He'd lost weight. Not dramatically—nothing I could point to and say there, that's wrong. But his sweater hung looser across his shoulders. The hollows beneath his cheekbones had deepened. When he reached for the mug, his hand trembled just enough that I noticed. Just enough that I told myself I was imagining it.
"You didn't have to come in." I straightened the stack of bookmarks beside the register, needing something to do with my hands. "I've got it covered."
"I know." He took a sip, winced slightly. Too hot. "But it's nice. Being here."
Some people aged. Others faded.
Dad was doing both.
"The bank called yesterday," he said, too casual. "Just checking in. Nothing urgent."
My fingers stilled on the bookmarks. "What did they want?"
"Paperwork. You know how they are." He waved it away, attention already drifting back to the invoices. "I'll handle it."
He wouldn't.
We both knew that too.
Dad's gaze drifted toward the fiction wall, the mismatched shelves I'd always meant to replace but never would. His expression softened into something distant.
"Your mother picked those, you know." He gestured with his mug. "The oak ones. Said pine was for amateurs."
"She called them an investment in permanence."
"She was right." His smile turned wistful. "Course, she didn't know her daughter would stock them with romance novels instead of law textbooks."
