And then he remembered they’d also invited both their families and many friends to have Thanksgiving dinner at their house. How would they pull that off with their assistant, Shelby, out of town visiting her own family, and Sam working like crazy once again? It would all fall to him—a thought that only further exhausted him. Sam liked to joke that he made it look easy to keep multiple balls in the air at all times, but even he got tired of juggling after months of endless obligation.

The campaign had kicked his ass, and he still didn’t feel like he’d completely recovered from that, which was why he’d probably had no business playing hockey last night.

At six in the morning, he gave up on sleeping and got up to take a shower. Moving slowly due to the impressive pain in his side that was reminiscent of the injury last winter, he went downstairs to the kitchen for a pain pill that he chased with coffee.

He was sitting at the kitchen table, attempting to read the morning paper two hours later, when his phone beeped with a text. Hoping against hope that it might be from Sam, he smiled when he saw Scotty’s name on the screen.

Are you up? Can I come home?

Sure, buddy. Come on over. Make sure you tell Skip or Celia you’re leaving and say thanks for the sleepover.

I will.

Nick knew he didn’t need to remind Scotty to be polite. Mrs. Littlefield, his former guardian at the state home in Virginia, had instilled beautiful manners in the boy, which was one of the first things Nick had noticed about him when they met last winter. He went to the front door to watch for his son. So much had changed for all of them since that fortuitous meeting. As he watched Scotty come down the ramp from Skip’s house and walk the short distance on the sidewalk to the ramp that led to their home, Nick’s heart was filled with love.

“How’re you feeling?” Scotty asked as he came up the ramp.

“Sore but okay. Nothing’s broken.”

“Good.”

Nick had come to know the boy so well that he couldn’t help but notice his usual exuberance was dampened this morning. “Everything okay?” he asked as he closed the door and pointed to the closet, expecting Scotty to hang his coat where it belonged, rather than toss it on the sofa the way Sam would have.

Scotty hung up his coat and shut the closet door. He turned to Nick, seeming hesitant.

“Scotty? What’s wrong?”

“You always tell me I can talk to you about anything, right?”

“Of course you can. Come sit.” Nick sat carefully on the sofa and patted the seat next to him. “What’s on your mind?”