Page 6 of Our Pucking Secret (2-Hour Quickies #4)

Amanda

It's been a week since I dropped the bomb on Logan LaRue. A week of silence. Of expensive New York hotel charges and rental car fees I can't afford. I should go home—that's what Otto keeps saying. But I've come too far to give up now.

Which is why I'm parked outside the Bronx Howlers' practice facility, waiting. Again.

When Logan's sleek Audi finally emerges from the players' lot, I let two cars get between us before pulling out. He heads north, away from the city center. I follow at a distance, my rental Corolla blending with traffic as we wind through increasingly upscale neighborhoods.

The houses get bigger, the walls higher.

Private security patrols cruise past. After twenty minutes, he turns onto a tree-lined drive that ends at imposing iron gates.

I slow down, heart pounding as I read the elaborate metalwork—the LaRue family crest, complete with fleur-de-lis and some French motto I can't translate.

Beyond the gates, a fairy tale unfolds. Manicured hedges line a winding cobblestone drive. Gas lamps cast warm light even in daylight. Fountains spray elegant arcs of water. And there, rising from perfectly landscaped grounds, stands what can only be described as a castle.

Jealousy hits like a physical blow. While I was working night shifts at the campus vet clinic, scraping together tuition... this was waiting. While I was living on ramen and scholarship applications, this existed. A whole other life. My possible life.

Logan's Audi idles at the gate. I drive past slowly, stomach twisted with emotions I can't name.

I head back to my hotel, the image of those gates burning in my mind. The modest room at the Holiday Inn feels even more depressing now—just another reminder of the life I didn't get to live.

My phone rings. Otto.

"Still stalking ze boy? Zat’s too creepy."

"I wasn't stalking. I was..." I drop onto the bed. "Investigating."

"Zat’s too useless. Ze boy already answered. Come home."

"I know, I just—"

"Just what? What do you expect? That he'll welcome you into his life with open arms?"

I close my eyes. "You don't understand."

"I understand you've blown your emergency fund on zis trip. Chasing ghosts instead of helping animals."

He's right. Of course he's right. But before I can respond, someone knocks.

Through the peephole, Logan LaRue stares back—jaw set, hair damp from a shower, shirt open at the collar like he got halfway through calming down and gave up. Furious. And still disgustingly hot.

I open the door. "How—"

"Next time you tail someone," he says, stepping inside like he owns the place, "maybe don’t brake every time I signal."

I blink. "You— "

"You were two cars behind me for twenty minutes. In a Corolla. In Westchester." He looks me over. "You might as well have had a flashing sign."

My heart pounds. "You followed me?"

"Noticed you tailing me after practice. Waited until you passed the gate." His jaw tightens. "Figured we should talk about why you're still stalking me."

"I told you why."

"Right. The switched at birth story." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You show up at my practice, drop this bomb on my life, then what? Expect me to just accept it?"

"I thought you deserved to know."

"Know what? That my parents are yours? That you've convinced yourself your life would have been better if—"

"I never said that."

"You didn’t have to," he snaps. "I’m not stupid. I know what that neighborhood looks like to someone from Bellwood." He steps closer. "Gated estates. Old money. A literal castle at the end of a cobblestone drive. How many streets like that are there back home?"

His voice drops. "You didn’t have to say a word. I know exactly what you were thinking."

Heat floods my cheeks. "You don't know anything about me."

"Just like you don't know anything about me. But here you are, following me, disrupting my life because what? You're unhappy with yours?"

"I'm not unhappy with my life," I snap, then soften. "I love my parents. And I love being a vet. Saving something small that can’t save itself? That’s not just a job. It’s... everything."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because everything I thought I knew about myself is suddenly in question!" The words burst out before I can stop them. "Do you have any idea what that's like? To wonder if your whole identity is just... circumstance?"

He stills. "What do you mean?"

"I'm a vet because the Collins bred dogs. Because I grew up surrounded by animals. Because that was my world." I start pacing. "But the LaRues? Do they even have pets?"

"No," he says quietly. "Never."

"You see? So who would I have been? What would I have become if—" I stop, running a hand through my hair. "Every choice I've made, every passion I have... was it really me? Or just the environment I was raised in?"

Something flickers in his expression. "You think I haven't wondered the same thing since you told me? About hockey?"

We stare at each other, the weight of what we're saying hanging between us.

"I worked so hard," I say finally. "Three jobs through college. Student loans I'll be paying forever. While you—"

"Had it easy?" His voice turns sharp. "What do you know about my life, stranger?"

"I know what I saw today."

"A gate? Some fancy landscaping? That's not a life, that's a facade." He runs a hand through his hair. "God, are you that damn shallow? You think money makes everything perfect?"

I blink. The word shallow stings more than it should.

"I’m not shallow. But I think money makes some things easier."

"Maybe. But you know what it doesn't do? Tell you who you really are." He starts pacing now. "Everything I've achieved, everything I thought made me special—was it just privilege? Just the LaRue name?"

The room feels too small for all this uncertainty.

"And now," he continues, "you want what? To dig into this? To uncover more questions neither of us can answer? "

"I didn't ask for this either," I say. "Finding out about my condition, about my parents' DNA not matching mine—you think I wanted that knowledge?"

"But you had to share it. Had to track me down. Had to—"

"What was I supposed to do? Keep it to myself? Pretend I never discovered the truth?"

"Yes!" He whirls on me. "Some truths don't need to be uncovered. Some questions don't need answers."

"Easy to say from your position."

"My position?" His eyes flash. "You mean the position you've been envying since you saw those gates? The one you think you were cheated out of?"

"I don’t—"

He steps closer, anger radiating off him. "Poor little vet, imagining the life she could have had. Well, guess what? You don't know what that life would have been like. Not only you don’t know anything about me—you don't know anything about anything ."

The heat coming off his body is distracting. I force myself to stand my ground. "And you don't know what it's like to question everything about yourself. To wonder if your whole identity is built on a mistake."

"Don't I?" His voice drops, dangerous. "You think you're the only one whose world got turned upside down by this? The only one wondering which parts of yourself are real?"

We're too close now. I can see the flecks of gold in his eyes, smell his expensive cologne.

"I didn't mean to disrupt your perfect life," I say, but it comes out breathier than I intended.

"My life wasn't perfect." His gaze drops to my mouth for a fraction of a second. "And now it's not even mine."

He doesn’t say anything. Just stares at me like he’s trying to peel back skin and bone to find the truth underneath .

"How do I even know any of this is real?" His voice is rough. "You could be making all of this up."

"I wish I was." I sit on the edge of the bed. "But my condition—it doesn't lie."

"Your condition?" Something shifts in his expression.

"Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome." I touch my wrist where that scratch still hasn't healed. "Joint problems, slow healing, chronic fatigue. It's genetic."

"And your parents don't have it."

"They don't have any markers for it. Not even as carriers." I meet his eyes. "That's how I found out. The doctors wanted to trace the genetic pattern and..." I swallow. "Neither of them matched."

He's quiet for a moment. "So you did research."

"I hired a PI. I have a folder. Hospital records, staff schedules, birth certificates— even weather reports from that Christmas Eve."

"Let me see."

I pull the folder from my bag and hand it to him.

He doesn’t speak. Just takes it and sinks into the armchair like it’s a battlefield position, flipping pages with the precision of a man looking for an exit. A mistake in the records. A misfiled chart. A name that doesn’t belong. Something—anything—that proves this is just a bad dream.

But with every page he turns, his jaw tightens. His hope cracks. And the silence between us grows louder.

When he finally looks up, there’s something raw in his eyes. Like he hates that this might be true. Like he hates that it matters.

His eyes flash. "So you want my parents now? Their money? You want to switch back?"

"No! I love my parents. The Collins are my family."

"Then what do you want? Why the hell are we even talking?"

"I told you! Because I need to know! Don’t you? Be honest with yourself!" The words explode out of me. "But you're right—I'll never know if you really believe me, or if you think I'm just after your family's money."

"If you’re not, prove it," he says, voice low and challenging.

"Gladly! How?"

The question hangs between us. We both know there's no easy answer.

He runs a hand through his hair in frustration, and I catch myself noticing how the movement makes his shirt pull across his shoulders.

How his jaw clenches in a way that's unfairly attractive.

I immediately shut down that train of thought—this man might be my biological parents' son.

The whole situation is weird enough without adding inappropriate attraction to the mix.

"We could walk away," he says finally. "Pretend this never happened."

"Could you? Really?"

He meets my eyes. "Could you?"

We both know the answer. The questions are too big, the mystery too deep. Now that we know, there's no unknowing. No going back to before.

"So what do we do now?" I ask softly.

He looks at the folder spread between us, at the evidence of our switched lives. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. "I don't know."

Neither do I.

But as we sit there in charged silence, both lost in thoughts of what-ifs and might-have-beens, one thing becomes clear: walking away isn't an option.