“Yes,” she breathed out and then gave me a huge smile. “Thank you.”

  The barbecue flared up and the smell of charcoal floated through the air.

  “If you’re cold, we can sit inside,” I said.

  “Out of this gorgeous sunshine?” She looked up to the sky, still wearing my Ray-Bans. “Never.”

  Andy disappeared into the shack and returned with three light beers. “Drink?” he asked.

  “Sure.” Amber reached out to take one of the three bottles that Andy had loosely gripped between the fingers of his gloves.

  He pulled his hand away. “They’re in the shack.” He gestured with his head.

  “Oh,” Amber glanced at me and then started to walk to the door. I grabbed her hand.

  “He’s joking.” I took two bottles from Andy and twisted the caps off and put them in my pocket. Then I punched Andy in the arm. “You’ll get to know his sense of humor after a while. And by a sense of humor, I mean, not funny.”

  “Ah, come on.” Andy pretended to rub his arm. “Well, you know what they say, if you can’t be funny, you’d better be handsome. And Coach here, he’s the funniest guy in town.”

  I thought that Amber was going to spit out her beer. “I think we’re going to get along just fine Andy.” She flashed him a smile.

  “Do you want to try your hand at fishing?”

  I was expecting Amber to decline and maybe ask for a blanket, so when she nodded with enthusiasm, I was shocked. Andy set up a line with a flag, baited the hook for her, and sunk it into the water below the fresh hole in the ice.

  “What now?” she asked.

  Andy twirled his hand and bowed like a jester. “You have a seat and wait for the flag to go up.”

  “That’s it?” she looked at the tiny orange flag.

  “That’s it.” Andy flopped into his chair and took a sip of his beer. Amber sat down next to me but didn’t take her eyes off her flag.

  “You don’t have to stare at it,” I laughed.

  She kept her gaze trained on the flag. “But what if I miss it?”

  The beer was cold and the company was amazing. I rarely got out to the lake to enjoy any time fishing and the fact that Amber seemed to be enjoying it was a complete turn-on. Andy had put the tinfoil packets of fish on the grill and as a snowmobile droned by in the distance the fish crackled and popped as it cooked.

  “Trust me, you’ll see it,” I laughed.

  Amber eased into her chair and took a sip of her beer.

  Andy leaned his head back, taking in the rays of the sun. “What brings you to Laketown?”

  “A job.” Amber glanced back to her flag and then turned to give me a sweet smile. “Dean’s been showing me around town.”

  “Have you been to one of the games yet?” Andy hopped out of his chair and flipped over the tinfoil packets with his bare fingers, swearing and shaking his fingertips. “Dammit, those are hot,” he said and then did it again.

  Amber smiled at me. I hadn’t known her long, and I couldn’t tell if she liked Andy, or was amused by him, either way, it looked like she was having a good time.

  “I think I’ll throw on some peppers too. Be back in a sec.” The wooden door slammed as Andy disappeared into his hut.

  “What do you thi--?” I turned to Amber, but she was already out of her chair and I couldn’t finish my question because her lips were on mine. She straddled my legs and put her hands on the arms of my chair, bracing herself, her face barely an inch from mine. “I love this.”

  Loved ice fishing, or loved being here with me? I knew that for me, it was the latter. “I could watch paint dry with you and love every second of it.”

  We had both thrown the word love into a sentence, and I don’t know about her, but I wished that I could’ve used it another way, but it was way too soon. I couldn’t be in love with her already, could I?

  “You’re something else, Coach,” she smiled and kissed me. I hooked my thumbs into the back pocket of her jeans and she waggled her ass like a puppy as I kissed her again.

  The slam of the hut door almost sounded like a gunshot and echoed across the lake. Andy was giving us very obvious advance notice that he was coming back. Amber dismounted from me, but before she could go back to her chair, I grabbed her hand and locked eyes with her. “So are you,” I whispered.

  “Guys,” Andy shouted.

  Amber giggled and we both looked at Andy who was sprinting across the ice like Usain Bolt. “Fish on,” he shouted.

  Amber’s orange flag had shot up in the air and Andy slid to his knees and started pulling up the line. “Come on.” I slapped Amber’s ass and we jogged to the hole.

  Andy handed Amber the line. “Here,” he said.

  “What do I do?” she asked.

  “Pull it up!” Andy mimed the motion and Amber started pulling.

  “Faster, Florida,” I whispered. Amber tossed off her leather gloves and pulled out a huge pickerel.

  “Nice catch.” Andy took the fish gently in his hands and removed the hook. “But it’s too big.”

  “Too big?” Amber asked. “Is there such a thing?” she laughed.

  “Of course,” Andy laughed.

  I knew that he was going to take it somewhere dirty. “But you’re not going to have to worry about that with Dean here.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Just throw the damn fish back.”

  With Amber’s first catch released back into the wild, we all took our seats and Andy plated up the fish.

  “I’ve been deep-sea fishing, but Andy, Dean, thank you for introducing me to ice fishing.” Amber held up her beer bottle.

  We clinked bottles together. “I like being on a boat in my bare feet, but this is a close second.” She finished her fish. “But there’s no one getting seasick and puking off a boat right now, so maybe it’s a tie.”

  “Well, you’re welcome Amber. Anyone who can get Dean here out on the lake must be doing something right.” He gave me a wink and I knew that I had his approval. Not that I needed it, but Andy had been my friend forever, and had seen the hell that Kira had put me through these past few years.

  Amber and I hadn’t had the chance to talk, and now I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to. Plenty of single dads date, why did I have to be celibate? Would Chloe accept a woman in my life? Would Amber want to play step-mom? There were so many questions that needed answering, but right now, all I wanted to do was sit in the sun with my best friend and the most beautiful woman I’d ever known.

  Twelve

  Amber

  Dean pulled into his driveway and shut off the engine. The sun shone brightly through the windshield and created a greenhouse effect inside the car. I had gotten used to gentleman Dean opening the car door for me, so when he stayed in his seat I wondered if I should open the door myself.

  “Amber.” There didn’t seem to be any emotion in his voice. He rubbed his hands on the thighs of his jeans and then turned his upper body to face me, leaning his elbow on the steering wheel.

  “Yes?” I hoped that he couldn’t hear the uncertainty in my voice.

  He reached to grab my hand. “I think we need to talk.”

  I sighed and squeezed his hand. “That’s why I wanted to meet you today.”

  “I had a feeling.” He smiled with his lips together, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He looked like he was trying hard to find words. I knew what that felt like. I had practiced a few different monologues about what we were doing and whether it was a good idea. “I shouldn’t have hijacked our lunch.”

  The smile was involuntary. “Are you kidding?” I said. “That was one of the best lunches I’ve ever had. And, it made me realize a few things.”

  The nod of his head was subtle, but it was there. “Me too.”

  “You go first then.” I was still grappling with what I wanted to say. Maybe he would take some of the pressure off and make it easy for me.

  He released my hand and cupped my jaw with his hand, rubbing my cheek with his thumb. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

  Those sounded like breakup words and the breath caught in my throat. But I felt the same way. I held onto his wrist, not letting him take his hand from my face. It felt good and warm and like it was meant to be there.

  He took a deep breath. “I’ve never felt the way I feel about you with anyone else.”

  Check. So far we were on the same page. My heart rate felt like it had doubled, not knowing what was coming. I guided his hand from my face and held it in mine. His lips narrowed and my heart rate seemed to triple.

  “It’s Chloe,” he whispered.

  I nodded. “I wondered about that.”

  He cleared his throat. “I avoided you for that first week because I didn’t know how to deal with how I was feeling. I didn’t think that I was ready to date again, and I know now that I was wrong.”

  Tears sprang at the corner of my eyes and I willed them to stay put. “I didn’t think I was either.” I squeezed his hand. “Until I met you.”

  “I’m ready.” The hesitant voice was back. “But I don’t know if Chloe is ready.”

  I knew it was coming, but it was still hard to hear. “I’ve never been in a position like this before, and I don’t know what to say.” We had never spoken about his ex or what happened. I had never told him about my ex, or the loss of my baby. Those conversations seemed too big for where we were in our, whatever this was, relationship. But I guess that’s what happens when kids are involved.

  “Amber, I want to try this.” He gave another reassuring hand squeeze. “I want to try with you, but I don’t want to hide anything from my daughter and I don’t know how she would feel.”

  “Have you asked her?” It seemed basic to me, but as a non-parent, what the hell did I know?

  He blinked hard and then laughed under his breath. “I hadn’t even thought about that.”

  “Dean, I’m not going anywhere.” The words that I hadn’t been able to find started to pour out of me. “I don’t know the details of what happened with you and your ex—”

  “She ran away to Europe with a twenty-five-year-old hockey player. She didn’t say goodbye to Chloe, she just left.”

  My head jerked back. I had not expected that. “Dean,” I whispered. “You need to talk to your daughter.”

  His head dropped. “I know.”

  “Is she seeing a therapist?” I didn’t know if I’d crossed the line.

  Dean looked up to the ceiling of the car. “I’m a terrible father.” There was a waver in his voice and his shoulders shook.

  “Dean.” I held his arm. “You’re doing your best. And from what I’ve seen you’re an amazing father.”

  Dean didn’t strike me as the type of guy who cried, and I was right. His body was trembling, but not a tear fell from his eyes. He inhaled heavily, grabbed my hands, and kissed me. “You’re incredible, Amber.” He held his face against mine and whispered. “I want to see where this goes with you.”

  Even though things had gotten a lot more complicated, my heart soared. “I do too Dean, but I want it to feel right and good for you… and your daughter.”

  He rubbed the back of my hands with his thumbs and I shivered. The sunshine had disappeared and with it, the warmth in the car. “Let’s press pause on this. As hard as that’s going to be. I like having you in my life.”

  “Nobody said anything about disappearing from your life. Let’s just, be neighbors, be friends, until the time feels right.” I hated this arrangement, but the alternative, not seeing Dean, wasn’t going to cut it.

  He nodded. “You’re cold.” He drew my fingertips to his lips and kissed them. He jogged around to my side to open the door. I slid out and stomped my feet. I hadn’t realized that my toes had gone numb from the cold.

  The wind gust came out of nowhere and whipped my hair around my face.

  Dean looked up to the sky. “Storm’s coming. You should get home.” He put his hand to my back and when we reached our mutual snowbank, he leaped over it and held out his hand. Would friends do this? I wondered. Then I took his hand. I had to get used to the fact that from what I had seen, these Laketown men were a rare breed – gentlemen.

  At my front door, we stood facing each other. “What you suggested, Amber. The neighbor, friend thing…”

  “Yes?” I looked into his eyes, but instead of looking sad, they had a twinkle.

  “Can that start in an hour?”

  I nodded slowly, not taking my eyes from his. I unlocked the door and as soon as we were inside, he slammed the door, swept me up off my feet, and bounded up the stairs two at a time.

  I held on tightly and giggled. “Whoa,” I laughed as he rounded the corner at the top of the stairs. “Easy, big guy.”

  He tossed me onto the bed. “We’ve got an hour, let’s make the most of it.” He growled and pulled my shirt over my head and then ripped his over his head using only one hand. It was one of the hottest things I had ever seen. He stood in front of me, his chest rising and falling heavily, his perfect abs at eye level.

  I knew that I was in for the best hour of my life.

  Thirteen

  Dean

  The therapist didn’t seem to be helping. Chloe seemed more distant than ever, hiding away in her room every second she wasn’t skating. Our conversations had been reduced to words here and there, and rarely a full sentence.

  Chloe had a major skating competition coming up and she hadn’t told me anything about it. Usually, I got a play-by-play of both her short and long programs. This year the only thing I knew was that one was jazzy and the other was waltzy.

  Four days had gone by and Amber and I had waved to each other from our driveways. It felt like time had stood still, and it took every ounce of willpower I had not to kick down her front door and rip her clothes off. I sent her a few funny texts here and there, but the pause button had been so firmly pushed it felt more like a stop.

  We didn’t make love that last day together, even though both of us wanted to. We had come close. Our naked bodies seemed to know what they wanted, and the willpower it took not to give in could have been classified as fucking heroic. Still, thinking about how it felt to hold Amber in my arms sent my heart pumping and my cock throbbing. The moment I first slid into her was going to be mind-blowing, I knew it, and so did my body. As I jerked off in the shower, I wondered how long it was going to be until Amber and I could be together.

  The kettle whistled downstairs and I heard Chloe rustling in the kitchen. I got into my coach clothes and jogged down the stairs to find my daughter sitting at the kitchen table in her pajamas.

  “Chloe. Come on.” I put a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster and ground some coffee beans. “Get dressed. I can’t be late for practice.” Gunnar Lockwood was arriving today, and to say that the atmosphere in the dressing room over the past week had been tense was the understatement of the year.

  Chloe didn’t look up from her phone. I had given up trying to be the phone police. “School’s canceled dad. Snowstorm.”

  Sunday’s storm had left Laketown under two feet of snow, and Chloe had been pissy that it had happened on a weekend. Which was odd, Chloe had always enjoyed school.

  “You got your wish then.” I dumped the ground beans into the coffee machine and poured in the water.

  She grunted.

  The coffee maker bubbled and perked while I stared at it, willing it to work faster. I poured my travel mug full and Chloe was still hunched over her phone. “Chloe. Get dressed. You might not have school today, but I have work.”

  “I’ll stay home.”

  I set the mug down on the counter and crossed my arms. “You’re eight. You can’t stay home alone.”

  She shrugged. “Why not. It’s not as if I can go anywhere.”

  I thought about it for a second and then shook the thought from my head. “I’ll have to call someone to come and watch you.”

  “Good luck,” she scoffed. The roads are closed, school is canceled, Olive’s parents can’t even get out of their driveway.

  I pulled the string on the blind above the kitchen sink. Another two feet had fallen overnight.

  “You should cancel your practice,” Chloe said. “Oh, right. I forgot. Hockey is the most important thing in the world.”

  I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Was this what was going on? Nothing had changed, I’d always worked this hard. “Chloe. Your choice is to come to the rink with me. Or, I’ll call Mrs. Hunter and see if you can go over there for the day.” Mrs. Hunter was our seventy-five-year-old neighbor who lived across the street. Chloe had loved spending the day there when she was little, Mrs. Hunter was a square-dancing instructor and was happy to play her polka version of the chicken dance all day long for four-year-old Chloe.

  Chloe groaned but didn’t look up from her phone.

  “Em.” I’m waiting.

  “For what?” she looked up.

  “Mrs. Hunter’s or the rink?” This was getting ridiculous.

  “I told you, I’m going to stay home.”

  “You.” Deep breath. “Are.” Another deep breath. “Not.”

  Then, my sweet little girl crossed her arms across her chest, cocked her head to the side. “Yes. I. am,” she mocked.

  I turned around and squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t have time for this. “Chloe, today of all days. Come on.” It was hard to keep the volume down, but I didn’t want to turn into one of those yelling dads that I saw at the rink. “Gunnar Lockwood is showing up today. It’s a big day for the team.”

  Then she shrugged again. “Mrs. Hunter, I guess.”

  Was it bad that I was thankful I didn’t have to spend the day with her? She was miserable and I didn’t know how to fix it. Mrs. Hunter’s phone rang and rang. The woman was seventy-five years old and lived alone. Dammit. I cursed under my breath. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t check on her. Throwing on my coat and boots I ran out the front door and right into two feet of snow. I crossed my fingers that the Jeep would be able to plow through it, I didn’t have time to clear the driveway. The day was not off to a good start. Snow crested over the top of my boots and as I crossed the street I felt my socks getting wet. I knocked on Mrs. Hunter’s door. All the lights were off and there was no movement inside the house. I waded through the snow and peered in the windows of the garage and cursed when I saw that her car was gone.