“I don’t know what I’d be sorry for. She doesn’t trust me. She said so.”

“Did you do something to cause her to mistrust you?”

I didn’t think I did, but maybe I had by not discussing my plans with her. Instead I told her what I wanted. Maybe I did owe her an apology.

Ice coughed and inclined his head in the direction of the tunnel from the locker room to the ice. “Looks like someone changed their mind.”

My head snapped in the direction he was looking. Before I’d even spotted her, my body knew she was here.

Caro stepped onto the ice, dressed in black tights and my jersey. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a sassy ponytail. Fuck, but she was stunning. My heart caught in my throat. By wearing my jersey, she was announcing to everyone in this place she was here for me and no one else. I skated toward her with strong, deliberate strokes of my blades, my eyes never straying from her beautiful face. She smiled tentatively, and I grinned like a damn fool. She met me halfway, and we stopped a few feet from each other, unmindful of the skaters skirting around us or the puck whizzing past us.

“You came.” I stated the obvious and looked even more the fool, but I didn’t care.

She nodded and reached for my hand. Together, we skated along the boards, trying to avoid the rambunctious hockey game going on around us. I only dared imagine what had brought her here. She’d dropped into my lap like my own personal angel from heaven.

“We’re taking our lives in our hands,” she said as a group of young boys chased down the puck a few feet from us with Heath in the lead.

“Watch me, Mom!” he yelled as he raced by. Caro beamed at him, ever the proud mother.

“Be careful!” she shouted.

“Yeah, we are. I’ve always liked living life on the edge.” I smiled down at her, and her returning smile lit up my day.

“He’s your son.” She pointed toward Heath fighting for the puck with a bigger kid. Heath emerged victorious, took the puck several feet down the ice, and passed to a teammate.

“He is,” I said proudly, as my chest puffed out a little. “And she’s your daughter.” I indicated Hailey, who was trading off spins with Macy.

“She’s a scrapper like you though.”

“And a neat freak like you.”

“In some things. You saw her unwrap her present.” She laughed, her eyes sparkling with good humor and something else I didn’t dare name for fear I’d be wrong, but that something was there in her eyes. It gave me hope.

“Unwrap? She tore into it like a wild woman.” We grinned at each other, and hope rose inside me. We could make this work.

“I think it’s time we tell them,” she said.

I stopped and spun to face her. I searched her face for any sign of teasing, but she was dead serious. “So do I. I think it’s time for a lot of things.”