35. Winter

A woman answered the door.Asher turned around five times on the way up the front path. Finally, I dragged him behind me and rang the bell before he could change his mind.

The woman was older and beautiful, with a waist-length gray braid over one shoulder.

"Good morning. Can I help you?"

"Good morning. We were hoping to have a word with Mr. Hale. Mr. Brett Hale?" I gave her a polite smile.

The woman hesitated for a moment. "Can I ask what this is concerning?"

"It's concerning the woman and children he abandoned twenty years ago," Asher interrupted, his tension snapping between us.

The woman looked at Asher, really looked at him, and touched a hand to her lips in shock. She knew exactly what Asher was talking about.

She pushed the door open. "Come in, please. I'll get Brett."

We went into the house. It was lovely and warm. The couple was clearly very into their horses. We sat in their small sitting room and waited. Asher crossed his arms over his impressive chest, his anger coming off him in waves.

I put my hand on his knee. "Relax. You look like you're about to vibrate off the chair or punch someone."

He shook his head. "Can't."

I thought of that night at my parents' when he'd taken me to the powder room and relaxed me.

"Really? Should we find a bathroom for a quick blow job? Isn't oral your tried-and-true method for relaxing someone?"

He glanced at me, surprised, his spell of tension broken. His mouth quirked up at the corner. "If I ever turn down an offer like that from you, Ice Queen, check me for a pulse. I'm probably already dead."

He held his hand out to me, and I took it, rubbing a circle on the back. "This is enough, for now. Just…stay here with me."

"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

He smiled at me, and it was lighter somehow. My heart fluttered. Damn it. How could I deny this feeling that only seemed to grow when I was around Asher? The warmth, the feeling of acceptance — home. The worst thing about it was that I was pretty sure I was alone in that feeling. I was the one with the barren life. I was the one who never let anyone in. I was the one desperate to find someone I could trust.

A door opening broke me from my reverie, and we both glanced up.

A man came through the door, the woman from earlier trailing behind him. There was no doubting that he was Asher and Eve's father. He was tall and built like his son. He had his children's dark hair, though his skin wasn't as bronzed, and his strong jaw and soulful eyes were unmistakable.

Silence fell. It was excruciating.

"Hello, my name is Winter. Nice to meet you," I said quickly. I shifted my gaze to the woman. "Maybe we should just step out to give them some time?—"

Asher's hand tightened like a vise around mine.

"Or not! I'll just stay here," I said and smiled brightly to smooth over the gaffe.

Brett came in slowly and sat opposite us. His eyes never left Asher.

Neither of them spoke for so long I had to jump back in. I felt like I was drowning in the awkward sea of silence.

"You have a lovely place here. So peaceful! I love to ride. It's wonderful?—"

"Why?" Asher's voice cut across my fake cheerfulness. So, that was his one question.

Brett just stared, sorrow furrowing his brow. Asher was holding my hand so tight my blood had probably stopped flowing "Just tell me why, and I'll go, and you can go back to pretending you don't have kids or a woman you abandoned."

"Asher. Your name is Asher, right?" Brett's voice was deep.

Asher flinched. "How do you know that?"

"Because I watch your games, your hockey career…and your sister's ice dancing. You're both damn impressive."

"Not impressive enough to interact with, though, right? Not impressive enough to make the trip over to Maine?" Asher's tone was hard as nails.

I didn't know how Brett could stand it. It hurt to hear.

"Asher, listen…I lost the right to interact with you guys a long time ago. How could I push myself into your lives when you're doing so great?"

"Don't serve me a compliment shit sandwich. I know what you're doing," Asher growled. "Just tell me why you left her alone to left her alone to raise us. Why you didn't care."

Brett let out a long breath. "Would you believe me if I said that walking away from your mother when she told me she was pregnant is the biggest regret of my life? One that has haunted me every single day?"

Asher's gaze remained fixed on his dad. His grip had loosened on my hand, and now, he let go entirely to wipe at his eyes.

The woman listening now looked at me and gave me a small smile. "Let's go and make some coffee, shall we?"

I lingered beside Asher until he nodded minutely and then got up.

"Sure. Let's go."

Her name was Celia, and she had been married to Brett for ten years. She told me about how she'd met him when he was a stable hand on her father's ranch. He'd been a wild traveler, moving for work, never settling in one place, a nomad at heart.

"Even now, Brett goes on his walkabouts maybe once every few years, and he doesn't come home for months and months."

My heart clenched thinking about that kind of uncertainty. I thought about Asher disappearing on me for months and months and felt even worse. What the fuck, Winter? He's not your real boyfriend. Today, all kinds of lines were blurring.

We made coffee slowly, giving the men plenty of time to talk. I kept an ear out for raised voices or the sound of smashing objects, but it was quiet.

"That has to be hard on you," I remarked as Celia sipped her coffee, standing in a patch of wild sunlight.

She nodded. "It is and it isn't. It's the only way to have a piece of him, and I'd rather have a piece than nothing. I hope Asher believes him. Brett has regretted not knowing those kids every single day, but he honestly felt he'd missed his chance. He felt it was selfish to push in and become their father figure, but not be a consistent person in their lives. He knows himself, for all the bad parts as well as good. Parents should be consistent. They should show up. They need to be there. Time is the greatest gift any parent can give a child, and Brett knew he couldn't do it. That's why he stayed away."

I stared at Celia, sudden tears blurring my vision. Parents should show up. They need to be there. It felt like she was pulling my childhood insecurities out into the light and exposing them, not that she knew that, of course.

Celia sighed. "I hope those kids had that."

I found my voice. "They did. Their mother — she's amazing. She gave them all her time and attention and sheer, unwavering showing up. It's more than some people with two parents had." I cleared my throat after, trying to unclamp the tight ring of unshed tears that was threatening to strangle me.

Celia smiled. "I'm so glad. All children deserve that. Should we go and see what they're doing?"

I nodded, desperate to have a moment to process my oscillating emotions. After years of trying hard not to feel much at all, the last month had been a learning curve of epic proportions, and it had all started with the guy in the next room and a stolen moment under the stars, up on a roof. I felt like a different person to the girl I'd been then.

Knowing Asher had changed something inside me, and I didn't think that when our game was over, I'd be able to go back.

That was the scariest part of all.