Page 98 of The Promises We Were Never Meant To Keep

Everything I do, everything I am, revolves around the game. If I don’t have the game, I’m not sure what I have. I don’t know who I am outside of a player.

What I do know is that I’ll never be content to sit idle. I figured I’d probably do something like coach the game. Maybe open a hockey skills camp for aspiring youth. Ice is what I know. It’s what I love.

I glance around at the swamp of papers threatening to drown anyone that dares sit in this chair. A sigh heaves from my lungs and a curse rides the tail of it.

I always assumed Tate would take over Wilder Builds and Renos.

Now that Tate’s gone, I’m not sure anymore. I just don’t know what the future holds.

Regardless of what the future holds, I’m confident Dad isn’t ready to retire. And neither am I.

Grabbing a stack of papers, I toss them to the side. Then I push to stand, collecting the mess on the desk to move it to the drop table along the far wall. I can’t work like this for the next five months.

First order of business is to clean this mess. Or at least organize it.

I start by making piles on the floor. I’m organizing projects with the help of Dad’s day planner—which is again a physical, leatherbound book. I’ve got a stack of completed projects, current projects, and future projects. Then, off to the side, I’ve got the ‘I don’t know what the hell these are’ pile.

That’s how Faye finds me when eight in the morning finally rolls around. I’m cursing my father when I catch sight of her in the door looking like—not like a small mountain town woman looks when she goes to work.

Those heels have got to be at least four inches high, and her legs look great…

She’s your brother’s wife.

My eyes flick to the clock next to the door. It’s ten after eight. “You’re late.”

She doesn’t reply, just folds her arms under her breasts and leans into the door. I curse internally because the position calls my eyes to her silk covered breasts, and I have to work harder than any man should have to work at ten after eight in the goddamned morning not to look.

I grunt something even I can’t understand as I start tossing the stack of papers into their respective piles. I can feel her honey-colored eyes on me. They roam over me, needling my flesh.

I’ve always been able to feel her eyes on me.

Why is she standing here like this?

I toss a few more papers. My skin grows hotter under her gaze.

I clap a hand around the back of my neck and bite out. “What?”

When I look at her again, it’s in time to see her full lips curling into a bright smile. It hits me like a gut punch, and for a moment, I’m breathless.

Then words come out of her mouth, and I’m pissed off all over again. “Oh, I’m just waiting for you to decide to be the bigger person and, you know, start our five months of working together professionally and respectfully, but since you seem incapable, I’ll make the first move.” She pushes off the door to take a step into the room, careful to dodge my paper mountains. “Good morning, Holt. I hope you had a lovely holiday.”

For a long moment, I just stare down at her. No, I glare down at her.

She’s itty-bitty in comparison to me. Where I just kept on growing into my early twenties, she clearly stopped in high school. But she’s not the girl she was thirteen years ago. She’s a woman now. With womanly curves and a womanly scent still touched with the sweet peach and vanilla cream she’d used all those years ago. Only now, that scent mingles with something darker. Muskier.

I like it. A lot.

And I really hate that I like it—like anything about her.

My fingers curl into fists at my side. It’s not a reaction begging to abstain from violence. It’s plainly an effort not to reach for her. To hold myself steady.

“I like my coffee black.”

I hold strong as an electric jolt rockets through my body at the sight of her pink tongue sliding out to wet her bottom lip. She nods once, thoughtfully. “I see you don’t want to play nice.”

“What I want is a coffee, and for you to do the job I’m paying you to do.”

Her brow hitches on her face, and I think she might introduce me to the lash of her tongue, but she surprises me when she nods again. Once.