Page 31

Chapter Thirty-One

“My darling puckleberries, I’ve spotted a man on a mission, a Renegade man, to boot! In the game of love, sometimes it takes more than roses and pretty apologies to win back the heart of a betrayed lover. Will our boy have what it takes or has he dug himself too deep a hole? #timetogrovel #getthepopcorn” Penni’s Puckleberry Tea

Boh

I pulled into the drive of a well-kept two-story home outside Richland. A small porch covered a slate blue door and a wide window looking out on the front lawn. The front door opened before I’d rounded the hood of the car.

Ms. Edwards met me at the steps leading up onto the porch with a smile as wide as the Henry River. “Bohdan, I’m so happy to see you.”

She pulled me close, pecked my cheek and I gave her shoulders a little squeeze before I let go. “How’s Tom?”

She waved her hand over her shoulder. “He’s on the deck in the back. He just put on those skewers you like so much.”

She looped her arm through mine and guided us inside. “It’s not Easter, but I made those Angel Wings you like so well. You remember, don’t you? The recipe your mother sent your first year in Virginia.”

Gratitude and affection clogged up my throat. I’d spent a lot of time away from home, but it wasn’t until I came to Richland that I really felt the angst of homesickness. Until Richland, every town had been just another stopping place. I’d never put down any roots as I’d known my time there was temporary. In Richland, that changed when I made the starting line-up. While Prague would always have a place in my heart, Richland became my new home, my future. Due in no small way to this woman and her determination to make me feel welcome.

I bussed her cheek with a heartfelt kiss. “You overdid the cooking, didn’t you?”

“You can’t overdo dinner with a friend. No such thing.”

“Bohdan!”

Tom stood in the open sliding glass door between the dining area and the back deck. He hustled forward with a grin and pulled me tight for a slapping hug. When we separated, I looked for signs of the man from the tournament. But his eyes glowed with welcome and affection, clear and friendly.

“Tom, you’re looking good.”

He leaned back and patted his stomach. “I might have got a headstart on dinner, my boy. Designated tester, right?”

An hour later, I’d settled in one of the cushioned deck chairs. The sky was a wash of orange and blue as the sun set on a wonderful dinner.

“Boh, Katie tells me I owe you an apology. Said I really loused things up at the Foundation’s golf tournament.”

I faced him, shocked he’d bring up what happened.

He grimaced. “I don’t remember much beyond arriving, if I’m telling the truth. Katie says it was pretty rough. I owe old JT an apology, too, I guess.”

“He wasn’t around much. I’m not sure I even saw him, Tom.”

“Someone will have told him, though.”

I thought of Novy’s face when she told me to leave. When it hit me that an apology wasn’t going to be enough to get me back in her good graces. “Has this happened before, Tom?”

Tom sighed and slumped back in his chair. His gaze turned far away, and I rifled through my brain for a new topic. I had no business digging into his. Should have known better than to push.

Katie eased back from the table, scooping up my plate and her husband’s. “Why don’t you boys go clean up the grill while I plate up dessert.” She sent me a wink, nodding to the end of the deck. “No use putting it off. That dirty old thing isn’t gonna clean itself.”

Tom laughed, and shoved up from his seat. “I know an order when I hear it. C’mon, Boh. We won’t be seeing a bite of that peach pie until we do what she says.” He dropped a kiss on her cheek as he passed. “Cruel woman, my Katie is.”

Tom shoved my offer of help aside as he worked the wire brush over the grill. “What happened at the tournament, I don’t really remember. Like I said. That’s twice I’ve lost time, but it isn’t the second episode I’ve ever had. We started noticing ‘em coming on a couple years ago. Here and there, no big deal.”

He waved the brush up like a baton. “Katie was sure it was Alzheimer’s. Or dementia. But I never felt confused. Lost. None of that. I just felt angry. The feeling would hit like a freight train and be gone just as fast.”

He turned back to the grill, his head down, moving the brush in a steady rhythm. He wasn’t cleaning so much as thinking. I waited him out.

“Katie took the brunt of it, as you’d expect. Livin’ in the same house and all. She insisted on seeing a doctor but on my good days, I felt just fine. I couldn’t see the point of it if I was feeling fine.”

He shoved the brush harder, scraping the burnt residue off with force. “But it started to take a toll on Katie. She was the one to figure it out first, of course. She’ll be the first to tell you how much smarter she is than me.”

“And don’t you forget it, Tom Edwards. You married up, you did.” Katie swept out onto the deck with a big tray laden with several plates and matching cups and saucers. “I have pie and coffee. And Boh, I have your Angel Wings, too.”

I leapt forward, sweeping the heavy tray from her arms an instant before Tom. “You should have called us, Katie.”

She looked up from where she was setting out the cups and saucers from the tray I held. “Why? You’re holding it now, which is just what I needed.”

“I could have carried it out here, too.”

“Sure. And if I needed you to, I would have called you.”

Her words rippled through me. A pebble breaking the mirror-perfect calm in my head, sending a ripple of new awareness through my system. If she needed help, she would have called.

If she needed help, she would have called.

Of course she would have. Because she could think for herself.

If she needed help, she would have called.

Because that’s what rational, adult people do. They decide. They evaluate a situation and make a decision.

But I’d stolen that choice from Novy. I’d not even given her an option. I’d decided for her and decided I was right, and my way was the only way, and I wanted to knock my head on the wall. The tray in my hands dipped as I nearly swayed with the knowledge of how big my fuck-up really was.

“Steady, boy. Don’t dump the dishes.”

I nodded back to Tom. My thoughts scattered then reassembled in a new and unfamiliar pattern. As though the Earth’s axis suddenly shifted back into place and the world was clear and understandable for the first time in a long while.

But that didn’t change the future I might be looking at. “Katie,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I messed up. Big time. But I see it now and I have questions. Could I ask you something really personal? Something I have no business asking?”

Tom rounded the grill and took the tray from my hands. “Give me the tray. You sit down and have a chat with my Katie.”

She smiled her grandmotherly smile, her expression as warm and welcoming as the first time I’d seen her seven years ago. I’d been a boy determined to take my place with the big boys. I didn’t want to spend any time with the AHL team. I wanted everything right then, right away. She’d pulled a little patience out of me. Taught me with a gentle persuasion to do more, be strong enough to wait my turn, earn my spot. Even as her husband taught me to be strong enough to do the practices, kill the skills, take control and show the organization I was exactly what the big team needed.

I never finished a season in the AHL. And until this year, I’d never let the team regret bringing me up to play for the Renegades.

I’d do anything before I let this woman and her husband down. But I had a feeling, if they knew what I’d done and said to Novy, their eyes would overflow with disappointment.

“What do you want to ask, Boh?”

“Why do you stay?”

She blinked, confusion flashing across her face. She touched the blonde-nearly-gray curl of hair over her ear. “Stay where?”

I looked toward Tom as he returned from the kitchen and settled into one of the cushioned deck chairs. He looked off into the distance, a pensive look on his face.

“Why do you stay with Tom? Now? When any second of any day he could fall into a rage and tear into you?”

She laughed, settled back into the padded wicker swing. She patted the seat at her side and pulled me down with a gentle hand. “That’s a silly question. But looking at your serious expression, I can see you don’t understand just how silly.”

She pushed her foot against the wooden slats of the deck below us and I took the signal to set us to gently swinging. “Have you ever been in love, Boh?”

Novy’s face swam before me, her indigo eyes sparkling, her pink lips parted in a grin.

“Maybe it’s because you are in love that you’re thinking such silly thoughts. Maybe your idea of love is the problem.” She flicked her hand in the direction of her silent husband. “I’ve been in love with that man for thirty-nine years. Thirty-nine! You think every minute of loving him for thirty-nine years has been sunshine and daffodils? You think love is always easy? He’s got himself a temper and, if we’re being honest, so do I.”

Tom snorted.

“For the last nearly forty years, there’s been a million tiny moments of heaven. Moments I think about that make me smile. They might not come as often these days, and maybe the stormy moments are more stormy than at the start of our marriage, but nothing on heaven or Earth would make me give up even a second of the good times. I figure that’s what love is about. Maybe it was a romantic who thought up those marriage vows, because in sickness and in health has new meaning these days, and I promise you, I could curse him some days. But I love him more. I still love him more every day. And that makes me so happy for days like today. With you, the son I never had, and my Tom, the love of my life. I have a wonderful life.”

“Katie, thank you for the Angel Wings, but I have to go.” I shot to my feet, the bench swaying hard with the force of my motions.

Katie smiled up at me. “I had a feeling.”

Tom spoke from his spot on the other side of the table. “You bring that girl by one of these days. I’m gonna need to meet her.”

I grinned at him. The muscles in my cheeks burned with the force of my grin. “I’ve got some ground to make up, Tom, but I sure am gonna try to make that happen.”

Almost two hours later, I sat in one of the street parking spots looking up at Novy’s renovated Victorian. I swiped my sweaty palms over my jeans and pushed out of the car. Now or never.

I scowled at the unlocked, no-security communal door and stomped to her door. Painted pale yellow, a bright pink wreath decorated with flowers and miniature roller skates on the door. I pressed the bell.

Motion sounded behind the door and I straightened to my full height as I pictured her looking through the peephole.

The door opened with a swish of air and then Novy stood before me. Her long hair flowed down over her shoulders, every shade between brown and blonde and so pretty I wanted to wrap my hands up in it. Bind her to me and never let her go.

She wore a pair of white shorts that stopped at the top of her thighs, not as short as her derby gear, but damn near. And a pale pink long sleeved shirt that covered her from her neck to her wrists, but pulled taut over her tits. The outline of her bra showed through the snug material, revealing the delicate lacy pattern over her breasts.

She crossed her arms over her chest and I sucked in a breath. Getting busted staring at Novy’s tits was not the way I wanted to start this conversation.

“Boh. This is unexpected.”

I nodded like a dumbass. “Yeah,” I said then. “I’m sorry. I would have called, but I had a feeling you might say no, which you have every right to do, of course, but I was hoping if I showed up, maybe you’d give me two minutes of your time.”

She looked me up and down. I still wore the nice button down and trousers I’d worn to visit Tom and Katie. I looked respectable. Her eyes lingered at my shoulders before tracing down my chest and by the way her eyes dilated, maybe I looked a little better than respectable.

“Two minutes.” She backed away, opening the door wide for me.

“I just came from dinner with Tom and Katie. She made me Bo?í milosti . Have you ever had Angel Wings? They’re a Czech pastry, really good. She made my mom’s recipe, actually. Better than I ever remember my mother’s being, but we’ll pretend I didn’t say that out loud.”

“That’s nice.”

“And Tom cooked a Czech recipe with pork and bratwursts and peppers and potatoes on the grill and it was delicious.”

“I’m glad they made you all these lovely Czech recipes, but I’m not sure what it has to do with me.”

“They made these because they love me and they wanted to show me this in little ways. Because that’s what love is, it’s the little things. The skewers and the pastry today. When I was starting out, it was the tough love and teaching me patience.”

“That’s wonderful and I’m really happy for you to understand that, but really, I don’t understand what that has to do with me.”

Confusion colored her cheeks and I nodded. I wasn’t making any sense. I pushed into the room, turned back and said, “I asked her why she stayed.”

Novy didn’t look any closer to understanding and I scraped my hand through my hair. How could I piece this together in a way she would understand? In a way that might convince her to give me another chance?

“At the golf tournament, Tom had an episode. He turned into a stranger, someone I didn’t know. He snarled at everyone, ripping into the staff, to other guests. Tearing into Katie like he hated her. But I’ve known them for years. They are disgustingly in love. Like something out of a holiday movie, this perfect old couple with this perfect understanding of one another, living their perfect little life. I sound like an asshole right now, but for as long as I’ve known them, they’ve never been anything but good to one another. And Tom, I’d never seen him treat anyone as badly as he treated Katie that day.”

“Okay…”

“But that day, this loving, sweet man was telling his beloved wife that she looked like crap and couldn’t do anything right. He was batting away her hand when she tried to help him. It was terrible. It was shocking. And Katie said it was his head. That the doctors had diagnosed him with a brain injury, most likely stemming from his time on the ice. Probably undiagnosed concussion. Or more than one.

“And it hit me. He was me. I was Tom. And in my head, you were Katie.” I reached out my hand toward her. She shifted away, the move a knife to my heart.

“I fucking love you, Novy. So much it terrifies me. And I want you. I want you every minute of every day. But how could I hold on to you if Tom was my future?” I shoved my hand through my hair, eyed her crossed arms. Uncompromising crossed arms. “But then Katie carried in the tray. I scolded her, said she should have called for me to come help. She said if she needed help, she would call.”

Novy watched me like I’d grown two heads. She didn’t understand, so I repeated, “If she needed help, she would call.”

I slashed my hand through the air. “That’s what you meant. I get it. If you wanted help, you would ask for it.

“That’s what you were trying to explain to me the other night. I thought I understood. Of course you can make your own decisions. Of course you can. But you have to have all the information in front of you.”

My heart pounded, my breath turning choppy and sharp. The spot between my shoulder blades burned, my heart pounding. “I love you. I want to be with you. Now and in a hundred years, I want to be with you. But I could have some really dark moments ahead of me. In front of me. Of us.” Something tickled my cheeks and I swiped my hand over my face, frustrated by the distraction, shocked when my hand came away wet. Bo?e, pomoz mi.

I stared hard at Novy, knowing she represented my one and only hope for a happy future. “But I swear to fucking god, Novaline, I will give you so many good moments, too. I will drown you in good moments. Moments of love. I will pack so many good moments in that maybe you could handle the bad when they came? And I swear on all that I hold holy, on the hope of never playing hockey again, on the life in my body, I will never mislead the doctors again. I will do everything in my power to prevent what’s happening with Tom from happening to me.”

Weakness shuddered over me and it suddenly felt too hard to stand. I slid to my knees. What if she said no? What if the risk was too much? I’d done too much damage with my moronic behavior. They’d have to carry me out of here on a stretcher. “I’ll drink every fucking concoction you come up with. Report every injury, every threat to our future. And I’ll love you. I’ll love you every moment of every hour for the rest of our lives.”

The tears trailed down and it didn’t seem to matter how many breaths I took or how many times I wiped them away, they just kept coming. And Novy stood still as a statue, her eyes glued to me but giving me no clue to her thoughts.

“I’m asking you—” I sucked in a painful breath, a band of barbed wire around my chest. “I’m asking you if you’ll choose me. Choose to stay with me despite knowing it might go bad. Really bad.”

I’d left it too long.

I’d fucked up too bad.

“Every concoction?”

My head shot up. “Even if it tastes like Shrek’s bathwater.”

She closed the distance between us, her hair falling forward as she looked down at me. “Even then?”

I wrapped my arms around her waist, pressed my stupid wet face to the softness of her belly. “Even then.”

Her fingers feathered into my hair, her breath at my temple as she bent closer. “I love you, too, Bohdan Zacha, and I’m going to hold you to this promise.”

I tightened my hold, holding her too tight, too close. “That’s good with me.”