Chapter 43
Chapter 43
In the Midwest, we call the first warm spell of the year “Fool’s Spring,” because we know from bitter experience the lovely weather can’t last. Another cold snap lurks right around the corner, ready to lunge as soon as we shed our winter coats.
That doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy every minute of it, though.
In late March, it hit 60 degrees, and I made it to the ten-week mark in my recovery—which meant I was finally allowed to do a real workout again. Heath and I jogged through the woods to the stable, then sprinted back to the house.
We still had the place all to ourselves. The flood of invoices from a Lake County law firm helped us figure out where my brother had disappeared to. He was in prison, serving a sentence for drug possession with intent to sell—his second time behind bars, apparently, following a misdemeanor DUI a few years prior. Lee being in prison wasn’t a shock, but the fact that he’d attempted a business venture, however illegal and ill-advised, did surprise me.
Heath kept pace with me as we ran, weaving between maple trees spotted with spiky crimson buds. Red-winged blackbirds, just returned from their southern migration, trilled overhead as if they were cheering us on. I lengthened my stride, overtaking him.
It felt so good to push my body, to feel my muscles responding, the satisfying burn spreading through my legs. As an athlete, you come to appreciate all the different flavors of pain. Some are unbearable, others a kind of delicious, aching pleasure.
The house came into view, specks of mica in the gray stone facade glittering in the sun. Heath had caught up, running right at my shoulder again. But I had something to prove.
I stretched forward with all the strength I had left, seizing a photo finish victory across the tree line. We both flopped down on the winter-browned lawn, breathing hard.
“You better not have let me win,” I said.
Heath grinned. “Never.”
I felt charged, vital, adrenaline arcing through me. My injuries were a distant nightmare—though I had shiny pink scars across my palm and shin to spark my memory. The first few weeks after Nationals had been the worst: headaches, brain fog, the slow torture of my skin knitting itself back together.
But since then, I’d gotten better, progressing from limping around the house to gentle walks along the lakeshore to today’s flat-out run. Heath and I had progressed too, from cautious lovemaking to the sort of athletic, passionate sex we’d always had to hold ourselves back from during our forbidden liaisons in the Academy dorms, or our rushed, exhausted hotel room encounters between flights and full days of competition.
Heath didn’t touch me carefully anymore. He knew what I could take.
Every time I brought up returning to the ice, though, he hesitated. The next season doesn’t start for months, he’d say. We don’t need to decide right away. If I made any reference to our time apart, he’d change the subject entirely.
Or he would distract me, and I would let him.
He pushed me back onto the ground and leaned in for a kiss, hair tumbling across his forehead. His curls had grown out now, even wilder than they used to be. Just before our lips met, I stopped, staring toward the house.
Two people stood on the porch. At that distance, all I could make out was their stature—one tall, one short.
Heath stood, brushing grass off his clothes. “This is private property,” he called out.
Our uninvited guests turned around—in such perfect, graceful sync, I recognized them before getting a glimpse of their faces.
Bella and Garrett Lin.