Chapter 17

17

“I feel like a newborn giraffe,” Matt groused.

He’d kept his promise and stepped onto the ice, but now he was more shuffling than skating. His children, the traitors that they were, had abandoned him to his sloth pace and shot off to race each other around the rink. Jed and Ophelia had elected to scout some more hot chocolate for everyone so helping their stumbling, flailing, unsteady son was left to Tahlia.

Guess I’m his nanny, now , she thought to herself with much amusement.

“You’re doing better than that,” she encouraged aloud as she escorted him around the rink. He was clinging to the rink wall for dear life because every time he let go, he wobbled and a foot slipped. “I take it you don’t skate much.”

“No,” he growled.

Tahlia nodded, unperturbed by his hostility. She was certain if he could melt the ice with his signature scowl, he would.

“It’s been years since I’ve skated,” Tahlia admitted. Matt threw her a look, eyeing her feet, which were gliding smoothly over the roughened ice. “It has!” she insisted.

“Show off,” he grumbled, just as he was forced to hug the wall more tightly because the twins zipped by.

“Give me this, Nelson. You have skiing.” She paused and drifted to his front to help him straighten up. Tahlia put her hands on his shoulders and pushed a little. “Don’t bow your legs like that; stand up normally.”

“If I do that I’m going to fall,” he bit out through gritted teeth. “This isn’t easy for me.”

Tahlia considered him for a moment and decided he had, indeed, had enough.

“Alright,” she announced with a barely concealed laugh. “Let’s get you off the ice, little giraffe.”

“Okay,” he managed to balance himself enough to point his forefinger at her, “not funny.”

It was very funny and very apt but Tahlia didn’t press her luck. Instead she tucked her arm into his and guided him carefully to the rink exit. The kids weren’t paying enough attention to notice their father and Tahlia leaving the rink, not they would have cared in anyway, Tahlia surmised. He’d fulfilled their request. She guided him over to a bench upon which he dropped clumsily.

“Shit,” he muttered as he leaned over to tear at the laces of his skates. “I’m never doing that again.”

Tahlia sighed and sat beside him, her eyes trained on the twins as they continued their races around the rink. “I love skating. Ice skating and roller skating…I once fished an old pair of roller blades out of a garbage bin. They were missing a wheel but were otherwise pristine. I never understood why anyone would throw away anything so nice for something so easily fixable.”

“Why were you going through a garbage bin?”

“Oh, uh,” Tahlia’s cheeks warmed. “I was, um, looking for something.”

“For what?” he prodded, half distracted by a tie of his skate that refused to unknot. Just like his son, Tahlia observed.

“A coat,” she murmured absently, distracted by the thought of Kaiden growing up to be a carbon copy of his father and how much she’d like to watch it happen. Matt paused, slowly straightening to fix a frown on her and Tahlia realized that she’d been too honest.

“Why were you looking for a coat?” he asked carefully, as if he could tell she wanted to run far, far away. Maybe it was the way she tensed and shifted her legs. Yet, for as much as she truly wanted to jump up and declare she was going to join the circus, she was caught by his eyes and couldn’t move.

Nor could she lie to him. No more than she could look him in the eye when she answered, so she found a fascinating piece of lint on her right glove.

“I needed one.”

His response came after a few seconds of a heavy silence.

“Why?” There was a gentleness to his tone she hadn’t expected and she risked lifting her gaze to his. His expression was blank but she noticed a tremor beneath his eye and his jaw was tight. “Why did you need a coat, Tahlia?”

“Why else?” she tried to lighten the tension with a scoff but it sounded more like a cough. “I was cold.”

“Tahlia.”

Why, oh why was she compelled to answer him? She lifted her face to the sky and blew out a deep breath. “My foster dad had neglected to buy me one before winter,” she admitted. “I was ten, it was my first year in Marsden and the first cold winter I experienced. But he didn’t care; he was drunk half the time, anyway. Didn’t care what I did or where I was as long as I brought something back for him to hock.”

Tahlia was scowling when she lowered her head to face Matt again, defensive because she was scared of what he would think of her now. The poor girl who had to scavenge for basic necessities. Instead of finding a pitying look like she expected, he looked angry, which surprised her.

“No kid should have to deal with that,” he said, low, almost in a growl. His gloved hands were fisted on his knees and Tahlia, moving on an instinctual desire to reassure him, placed her hand over his, her pink mitten a stark contrast to the black leather.

“I survived, Matt,” she told him firmly. “I’m good.”

He was staring at their hands and, to her surprise, opened his fist to take hers and squeezed with a gentle pressure.

“Yes, you are.”

There was something in the way he said it, in the way he found her eyes, that made those words more weighty. Something that made her breath hitch and tears prick her eyes. She opened her mouth but before she could figure out how to respond, Jed’s voice carried across the rink.

“Hot cocoa! Come and get it!”

Just as it had the previous night, whatever spell had fallen over she and Matt broke and he stood up, releasing her hand. Tahlia took a deep breath and a second to compose herself, something which was happening too often now after her interactions with Matt. Her boss.

What a damn mess.