Page 369 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

ASPEN

“I don’t know why Ariel likes salt and vinegar chips. They taste disgusting. And she ate them with grape juice. Gross,” Sierra said with a shudder from the back seat.

That was gross.

“Did everyone like the kale chips?” I asked, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. I’d picked her up from the sleepover and went, as promised, to the hockey shop to pick out new shin guards. She was nine and growing like crazy, the old ones no longer fitting right.

We were on our way home in time for lunch.

Since I spent the night with Luke, sneaking out around five to make it home long enough to change out of my walk-of-shame outfit and into yoga clothes and ready for the early morning class, I hadn’t been able to make my green smoothie.

Or dance. I did it before and after hours alone in the studio, tucking my pointe shoes away in my office when done.

Ballet was my first love, but I’d given it up professionally for Sierra.

That didn’t mean I didn’t keep at it as best I could.

I didn’t miss Sierra’s eye roll. “I can’t believe you made me bring kale chips to a sleepover. I left them in my bag. If I pulled them out, it would’ve been like going to practice in a figure skating leotard. I am not taking them to camp.”

She started ice hockey when she was six when the family down the street turned their backyard into a mini-ice rink in the winter so their three boys could play.

They’d had hand-me-down skates for her these past few years, but the gear they grew out of smelled too bad to be passed on.

The germs on those things were insane. When I gave them rides home from practice, I often had to drive with the windows down, the odor was so bad, even in the winter. And they weren’t even teenagers yet.

Now she was headed to hockey camp. Overnight. For a week. Without me. Gasp!

I peeked at her in the back seat, and I swallowed hard to keep from crying. My baby!

Sierra looked just like me with her blonde hair and blue eyes, but where I’d grown up in dresses with matching hair ribbons and knowing which fork to use at dinner, she was every bit a tomboy.

She didn’t own a dress. Or anything pink.

Or sparkly. She wouldn’t be caught dead in a–gasp!

–figure skater’s leotard, or eating kale chips.

She had posters of her favorite hockey players on her bedroom walls, and her idol was now Dex James, the Silvermines forward who’d married Lindy Beckett and often coached Sierra’s peewee team now that it was the off season.

To say she was obsessed with the sport was taking it far too lightly.

She had practice three times a week and games usually once a week, all year long.

It wasn’t a seasonal sport. Not only that, even the Under Ten group–her age bracket–traveled for games, so she spent some weekends on the road with her team. And tomorrow, hockey camp!

Other than a friend’s house sleepover, she hasn’t been away from me for this long before. Sob.

“No problem on the kale chips,” I said, clearing my throat. “You’ve got your snacks all picked out to take already. Did you finally decide on your outfit for the last night party?”

It wasn’t a dance because no respectable hockey event would have a dance. But it was an end-of-camp party, and it was a boy/girl thing.

“Just my jeans and the blue top.”

Mental fist pump. When I was a kid, all I did was ballet. So going to a dance wasn’t that big of a deal. Having a senator mother, I always dressed up. In a dress. Hair styled. When old enough, makeup. Heels.

Sierra wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress or skirt or tights. Or a barrette. Or ballet shoes. I was thrilled she was a tomboy and didn’t care about any of the stuff that had been force-fed to me. It was kind of like karma for my mother, if she acknowledged us.

While Sierra loved hockey, I didn’t push her to play. I rooted for her and told her I loved watching her skate, but if she wanted to give it up and play softball next, I’d buy her a mitt.

“If you’re pretty much packed, should we go on a hike later?” I asked.

“A hike?” Her face lit up. “We’re still making cookies with Granny Waddle and watching her TV?”

Granny Waddle was the woman whose house we lived in.

When I first moved to Hunter Valley, pregnant and alone, I’d been directed to Mrs. Waddle by the senior center director.

The older woman had been looking for someone to rent her upstairs apartment.

She’d converted the house into two units after her husband died, wanting the extra income but also so she could remain in her home on the lower level where there weren’t any stairs.

After all this time, I was still above her.

She hadn’t raised the rent and there was no question she undercharged me, but I made up for the difference in helping out by getting her groceries, snow shoveling, and anything else she might need.

When I had my early morning yoga classes, she stayed with Sierra and made her breakfast. Sierra went downstairs and joined the woman in her kitchen.

Sierra loved her because she was the grandmother she didn’t have otherwise.

Mrs. Waddle had four grandsons–one of them being Daniel Pearson, Melly’s hot lumberjack boyfriend–so she had lots of visitors and helpful handymen when something broke, but I was right there if something went wrong. She was like family to me and Sierra and I had no plan to move.

“Yes. Mrs. Waddle is going to miss you while you’re gone as much as me.”

“I’m going to miss her, too,” she admitted softly.

Nine was a great age. Not too little that she needed me to do everything for her, but not too old where all she wanted was to be independent. And she loved her people, like Mrs. Waddle who gave her the unconditional love and affection she needed from more than just me.

Plus, she loved everything to do with the outdoors. Getting dirty didn’t faze her. If I’d suggested a day of clothes shopping and mani/pedis, she’d have fake gagged.

“So, the hike. I once found a boulder that looked like a bulldog and thought maybe we could search for it,” I told her. “I can’t remember exactly where it is, but it would be fun if we could find it. Maybe take a picture with it.”

Or dig up a tea tin and an expensive ring. The only thing that was distracting me from the feel of a deliciously sore pussy was the threat of owing fifty thousand dollars to Duncan. I needed to get into the woods and find the ring right away and Sierra could help.

“A bulldog?” she asked, with her new shin guards on her lap. “Cool! Can Johnny and Jackson go?” They were two of the three boys down the street, and she loved hanging out with them. Johnny was two years older, but Jackson was in her class at school. They were going to camp with her as well.

I blinkered, then turned down our street. “You can go ask.” Four were better than one searching for, not a needle in a haystack, but a rock in the woods. Same difference.

We lived about a mile from downtown in a quiet neighborhood. I pulled into the driveway, all the way to the back and off to the side so I didn’t block Granny Waddle’s spot and shut off the car. The entrance to the second floor was on the side of the house, leading directly to an interior stairwell.

“Why is there a guy on our steps?” Sierra asked.

I whipped my head around to look.

“Holy shit,” I whispered.

“Fifty cents!” Sierra said.

We had a jar for whenever we said bad words. Sierra was learning them at school, and I found the best way to get her not to repeat them was to hit hard at her allowance. I was worse than she was and the fund to go to a Silvermines game in Denver was growing by the day.

This time though, holy shit. There wasn’t anything else to say because it wasn’t any man. It was Luke.

Sierra, never knowing a stranger–that was something we had to work on–undid her seatbelt and climbed out of the backseat, hugging her shin guards to her chest.

I hurried after her because I had no idea what to say. Honey, this is the guy who ate me out and slid his thumb into my ass to make me come all over his face last night.

Yeah, no.

Luke stood and waited for us to approach. He looked good. No, better than good. He had on jeans, a plain white t-shirt that seemed to be painted on, and a panty-melting smile.

“Luke,” I said. “What are you–”

“Oh my God!” Sierra stopped and her mouth dropped open and her eyes bugged wide. The last time I remembered her in shock like this was when Dex James showed up at the winter center the first time and filled in as her team’s coach. “Mom. That’s Shep Barnes!”

I frowned. Luke ran a hand through his dark hair, a flush creeping up his cheeks. Why did he look like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar?

Shep Barnes?

Sierra came out of her trance and ran up to him, bouncing up and down. “You are Shep Barnes. I can’t believe you did that triple craniectomy with only a ballpoint pen and a Swiss army knife.”

Um… what was she talking about? Luke was a doctor? Luke was Shep?

“Sierra, go see if Johnny and Jackson want to go on the hike,” I said, my gaze fixed squarely and unwaveringly on the guy who rocked my world last night. And my vagina.

“Can you come with us?” Sierra asked him.

Luke… no, Shep, no… um, he looked to me. Sheepish. Shep was sheepish.

I was an idiot. I had a no-show blind date and then picked up a liar at a bar and slept with him. Could I ever get a break from losers?

Or was it me? The common theme in this, in everything in my life that went wrong, was me.

“That’s up to your mom,” he said. My body remembered that voice. My pussy clenched and my nipples went hard.

“Go on,” I said. “I want to talk with Shep.”

Sierra ran off, not before shoving her shin guards into my arms.

I stared at him.

He stared at me.

“Tiger, I can explain,” he began.

I can explain?

I’d heard that line before. “Don’t tiger me.” I walked up to him. “As for explaining? Explain to the hockey pad.” Then I whacked him right in the triple craniectomy.