Page 7 of Broken Dream (Steel Legends #3)

Chapter Six

Jason

Kissing Angie was a huge mistake.

An even bigger mistake is stalking her online.

Her socials are pretty straightforward. She has a sister named Sage, brothers named Henry and David. Tons of aunts, uncles, and cousins, and damn…

She’s a member of the Steel family. The Steels pretty much own the Western Slope of Colorado. And here she is living in Boulder, going to medical school.

A rich girl. A trust-fund baby.

Everything I certainly never was.

I paid my own way through medical school and ended up six figures in debt. It’s paid off.

From funds I would gladly give back.

I’m feeling something, though.

Something I haven’t felt since Lindsay.

Whatever it is, I need to flatten it now. She’s a student, and I’m her teacher.

Not only would I risk losing my job if I got involved with her, but my own ethics won’t allow it.

Which doesn’t explain why I’m stalking her on her socials right now.

I don’t like the way she made me feel.

Yet I yearn for the way she made me feel.

It’s been so long.

I close my laptop. Enough of this shit. Besides, I have an appointment.

Thursday afternoons—or evenings, depending on my schedule—I always go to the same place.

It’s a chilly January day, but that doesn’t matter to me.

Nothing will keep me from visiting my wife and daughter.

I put on my down jacket, my muffler, my leather gloves, and I leave the medical school and get into my car.

I drive a Prius. I’ve never been the ostentatious type. Even when I was a sought-after general surgeon, I put most of my money away. We did splurge on a beautiful two-story home, but I sold it after…

It didn’t feel like home anymore.

Now I live in a townhome. And I no longer have a sought-after surgeon salary. I’m a professor. Good job, to be sure, and I have a lot to teach my students.

But it’s nothing compared to cutting.

God, I miss it.

A light dusting of snow covers the ground as I get out of my car and enter the cemetery.

I stopped bringing flowers. They just die.

I’ve seen enough death.

The headstones aren’t ostentatious either. Lindsay would’ve hated that.

They sit side by side, gray markers designating where the ashes of my wife and daughter are buried.

Lindsay Davis Lansing, loving wife and mother.

Julia Lindsay Lansing. Only a babe on earth, but now she flies with the angels.

Three years old.

Three fucking years old, and it’s all my fault.

I kneel on the frosty grass and gently brush away the snow that covers their names. It’s too soon for them to be washed away, even by weather. With my gloved fingers, I trace the letters and numbers etched into the stone.

I sigh, watching my breath float out in a misty cloud.

And I let myself remember.

Innocent laughter ringing through the house, the scent of Lindsay’s perfume drifting through the air wherever she walked, Julia clutching my hand with her tiny fingers.

Guilt tightens its grip on my heart.

I’ve become accustomed to the guilt. It’s kind of like an old friend now because I can’t remember Lindsay and Julia without it. It’s always there, hovering like a houseguest who you wish would leave but in a weird way you know you’d miss if he did.

Icy winds whip around me. I’m used to the chill. It’s been my companion for years.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper into the wind, hoping the words will somehow reach Lindsay and Julia. “I’m so sorry.”

How many times have I said it before? How many more times will I say it in the future? A lifetime’s worth of apologies will never erase my guilt. I sit in the cold, the silence around me heavy with the weight of my regret.

Finally I rise. Snow has started to fall again. Soon it will blanket the two graves. It’s beautiful and tragic at the same time.

As I walk back to my car, I leave behind a part of me with Lindsay and Julia. The part of me that still hopes for redemption. The part that yearns for their forgiveness.

Forgiveness that will never come because they are no longer here to give it.

Dr. Morgan used to tell me I had to forgive myself.

As if I ever could.

Fucking psychiatry…

I scrape the etching of frost off my windshield, get into my car, and begin the drive. I almost wish for traffic, anything to stall my return to the silent townhome that’s now my existence.

I turn into my neighborhood. A family—a dad and two kids—plays in the snow.

A pang hits my chest.

I look away quickly, but the image is already seared into my mind. Such a sight should make me happy, but all I feel is sadness, regret, envy.

That was supposed to be my life.

Julia would be six now. Old enough to help me build a snowman, have a snowball fight.

Six.

At school already. Learning to read. Maybe playing soccer or T-ball.

She’d most likely have a sibling. Lindsay and I talked of filling our house with children.

Tears prick at the corners of my eyes.

Julia used to love the snow. She’d laugh when snowflakes hit her face. She would have loved building a snowman.

Winters were always cozy. I’d sit with Julia and read her favorite book. She loved when I did voices for the characters. That always sent her into fits of giggles.

Lindsay would watch us from the kitchen as she loaded the dishwasher. When she was done, she and I would put Julia to bed together, each of us kissing her good night and always remembering to leave her night-light on.

“So the monsters don’t get me, Daddy,” she’d say.

I’d give her belly a squeeze. “Daddy will never let any monster hurt his little girl.”

And she’d giggle as I closed the door, leaving it open just a crack.

My ghost of a life.

And the promise of something that will never be.

The monsters did get her. Just not in the way she feared.

I drive up to my townhome.

And there it is—the sense of dread. Every moment here is a constant reminder of their absence.

I pull into my garage and then walk around to pull the trash cans in.

And I hold back a breath when I see her.

Angie Simpson, a few homes down.

She’s pulling in her own garbage can.

Does she live here?

She’s a first-year medical student. Has she lived here since the beginning of the school year and I’ve never known?

I watch as she wrestles with the bulky bin, a stray strand of hair escaping from her ponytail. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold.

I lift a hand to wave to her.

She doesn’t see me at first, but then she looks over at me.

Her eyes widen.

“You need some help?” I ask.

She quickens her pace. “No, I’ve got it!”

Yet as she pulls at the handle of the bin with small, gloved hands, it’s clear that she doesn’t. Or maybe she does. If she’s lived here a while, she’s obviously dragged her garbage can into her garage many times before now.

I take a few steps toward her and?—

She stumbles backward, losing her grip on the large trash can. A soft gasp escapes her lips, and in that moment, she reminds me of my Lindsay—that shimmer of stubbornness in her eyes, her unwillingness to give in or give up.

“Are you sure?” I ask again, already moving toward her before she can answer.

She stares daggers into me. “I’m sure.”

She lugs the large bin into her garage and then closes the door.

And that’s that.

Angie Simpson lives three doors away from me.

And I never knew it.

Fuck.