Cade: Fire And Ice: A Second Chance Hockey Romance (18 page)

The boys laughed and I glanced at Cade, wondering if he was going where I thought he was going.

"Anyway. You've grown up in North Falls. I don't know how attached you are to it. But if Ellie was OK with it and you boys were OK with it I thought we could all live together in Los Angeles until my contract is up and then go from there."

As soon as he was finished, the room erupted with enthusiastic 'yeses' and shouts and pleading looks aimed in my direction. Cade turned to me.

"And what do you think, beautiful? Do you think you could get used to the California sunshine?"

I didn't know what to say at first. North Falls didn't hold any particular sway over me. I'd been an outcast for as long as I could remember, it wasn't a place filled with many warm memories. The boys, too, all went to school with other kids who knew them as the 'poor' Heskeths and treated them as lesser-than every chance they got. Just two months ago Jacob had almost been suspended for punching one of his classmates after he'd said something rude - something Jacob refused to repeat to me.

"Maybe we should let the boys sleep on it," I said, picking my words carefully, "but if we're all together, I honestly don't care very much where we live. And leaving this town behind wouldn't be any great trauma, believe me."

"We don't need to sleep on it! Let's go, Ellie!" David yelled, followed by Baby Ben beginning to chant 'L.A. L.A. L.A.' and Jacob flashing me a wide grin. Christopher was just sitting there laughing with happiness, not entirely sure what was going on but just pleased everyone around him was happy.

"What about school?" I asked Cade, who swallowed a mouthful of steak and nodded at me.

"Already looked into it, Ellie. No problem transferring. Absolutely none."

And that was it. We were moving to Los Angeles. I was marrying Cade. It still felt like a dream and that small, paranoid part of myself was filled with dread at the extent of my happiness, certain it couldn't last, certain that Ellie Hesketh just didn't get this kind of happy ending.

I flew back to Los Angeles two days later, leaving Ellie and the boys to start the process of packing their belongings - and their lives in North Falls - up and list her trailer for sale. My physical therapy continued in earnest and I secured places for Christopher and the boys at a private school located close to my house. A couple of weeks before they were all due in L.A., I told my parents about my son. The next day, we met for lunch and I told them the rest of the news concerning my engagement to Ellie. Their reaction was predictable. My mother looked completely horrified and started to cry at the table.  My father refused, for a few days anyway, to even believe me, treating it like some big, cruel prank I was playing on them.

"Why are you so upset, mom?" I asked as she sat in front of her half-eaten Waldorf salad wiping tears off her rouged cheeks.

"Caden, I don't understand. I don't understand the hold this girl has on you. How can you do this to our family?"

I was determined not to get angry. My acceptance of my parents' fallibility had been a long time coming but with it came a kind of zen acceptance. I wasn't going to be able to change them. But I was going to be able to impress upon them that Ellie, Christopher and the boys were to be treated with kindness and respect, and to emphasize my own willingness to stay away from them if they didn't feel they could do that.

"What have I done, mom?"

My father sat puce-faced as my mother and I talked but I was under no illusions as to his feelings - if anything he was probably more upset than she was.

"What have you done? You've fathered a child with the uneducated daughter of an alcoholic and now you're compounding the mistake by marrying her. You know she has nothing, don't you? That she could take everything you've worked so hard for."

"Mom, you don't know anything about Ellie Hesketh. She may be uneducated, but she's one of the smartest people I know. Also one of the kindest. You should see her brothers and Christopher. All four of them are good, solid, happy boys. And her mother's circumstances have nothing to do with her."

My mother sighed and shook her head sadly, as if this was the biggest mistake that had ever been made by anyone, ever.

"Well I'll schedule an appointment for you with Rosenberg, you're going to need an ironclad pre-nup."

Rosenberg was our family lawyer. I did not intend to meet with him.

"No thanks, mom. We're not getting a pre-nup."

My father shook his head and my mom started to cry harder.

"Cade, you are making a big mistake. You're a grown man now. How can you risk everything we've worked for?"

"We, mom?"

My mother looked momentarily shocked. "Yes,
we
, Caden Parker. Who do you think paid for those private schools you went to as a child? Who drove you to all those five in the morning practices? Who spent months negotiating with agents and scouts to get you the best contract?"

"It's true, you did a lot for me. I'm grateful for it, believe me. But my success is my own. It was my talent and my hard work that got me here. I've been independent for ten years, I've bought you and dad a beautiful house and I'm sorry to be blunt, but the time when you had a say in my major life decisions is long past. I already told you all this, just before the accident. I can see that you're upset and I'm sorry, but you're going to have to accept it."

Before they left, I made it clear that I expected Ellie and the boys to be treated well. I told them I wanted them at the wedding, but only if they could behave themselves. They walked out together, my mother clutching my dad's arm and muttering like she'd just been told her life savings had been stolen. I walked out a few minutes later, relaxed and smiling into the bright sunshine.

Ellie was worried about the boys settling into school, especially David and Baby Ben, who were old enough to comprehend the drastic changes in their circumstances but not old enough, like Jacob - who was months away from graduating - to have an out if things went badly. The day before their first day of classes, Ellie sat up with me late into the night, stressing herself out.

"It was different for you, Cade. You were popular. None of the Heskeths have ever been popular, I'm not sure you understand what a nightmare it can be."

"You're right, babe. But I understand it better than I used to, and I researched all the schools in the area. This one is very progressive and they focus on the student's well-being in an active way. They reassured me again and again that everything would be done to make sure the boys settle in well, and they're very eager to meet you and talk about these things."

"Well, good. I'm meeting with the principal on Friday. I just, oh God, Cade, I'm so freaked out."

I leaned over and kissed the top of Ellie's head. "I know you are. But Ellie, think about it. How much worse could it be than it was in North Falls? That school was like a social gladiator academy, the strong preying on the weak and all the adults just looking away. It's going to be better here. I promise you."

It was better. Ellie met with the principal on the Friday, but by then it was already obvious that all four boys were settling in well. They came home every afternoon bursting with stories about friends they were making, activities they had participated in during the day, things they'd learned. Within two weeks, Ellie had made a complete turnaround. Seeing the boys socially thriving at school for the first time was something I don't think Ellie had ever even bothered to wish for, so impossible did such a scenario seem to her. One night after dinner as we cleared the table and the boys did their homework, she gave me a wistful look and told me she wished she could have gone to a school that good.

I frowned at the memory of North Falls, of the way Ellie had been treated like a second class citizen by the very people who were meant to be nurturing and educating her. Even then, a decade later, it still had the power to instantly piss me off. I turned to her.

"No one is ever going to treat the boys like that again."

"No," she agreed, "they're not."

One sunny day seven months later, I married Ellie Hesketh on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. The sound of the ocean played in the background as we looked into each other's eyes and took our vows. She, having characteristically refused to spend a large amount on a dress she was only going to wear once, wore a simple cream gown. All four boys walked her down the aisle. Afterwards, we hosted a party at my house. It was there, standing alone in the kitchen where I had come to get another bottle of wine out of the fridge, that Ellie found me.

"We did it Cade. Didn't we? We really did it."

I looked down at my glowing new wife.

"We did. Who could have known, that day when I walked into history class and just had to sit beside you, that we'd end up here?"

Ellie looked up at me, her expression serious.

"I felt brave today, you know. Standing up there, making those promises. You always made me feel so brave. Like I could do anything."

I brushed a strand of hair off her face tenderly and pressed my lips against her flushed cheek.

"That's funny. I always thought it was the other way around."

The spring after we were married, the Kings - captained by Cade - won the Stanley Cup. I sat in the front row with Christopher, my brothers and Cade's parents who had, a short while after the wedding, taken their son and I out for dinner and apologized for their behavior towards me. Maybe we were never going to be as close as blood family, but their apology was sincere and I wanted Christopher to have a warm relationship with his grandparents.

When Cade scored the fairytale winning goal, flipping it almost nonchalantly past the opposing team's goaltender, all seven of us exploded with joy alongside everyone else at the Staples Center. Cade skated straight over to where we were sitting and, just like he had at an Ice Kings game in a small town in Michigan ten years earlier, threw his entire body against the glass right in front of me.

Most of the time, nostalgia is a thing you feel for a time or a place or a person that has already slipped into the rearview mirror of your life. It isn't always like that, though. There are those rare times when you know, right in the midst of a moment, that it's going to be something you remember for the rest of your life. That was one of those moments. The joyous din of the crowd, the slight chill of the arena, the sight of my husband and my family absolutely out of their minds with happiness. I made eye contact with Cade through the glass, just before he was mobbed by his teammates, and I could see that he felt it, too. Later that night, around three in the morning after the overexcited boys had finally succumbed to the need for sleep, we sat down at the kitchen table.

"Are you sure you don't want to go out?" I asked, knowing most of his teammates were going to be celebrating for many more hours.

Cade smiled at me. In fact he hadn't stopped smiling all night. He shook his head.

"Nope, Ellie. There is literally nowhere else I want to be on earth than right here, right now."

"Me neither."

"Ellie!"

"What?"

He jumped up from the table and did a little impromptu, fist-pumping dance.

"We won the Stanley Cup!"

I grinned and then surprised myself by immediately tearing up. Cade came over and knelt on the floor beside me, laying his head in my lap.

"Don't you start that Ellie. If you start, I'm going to start."

I sniffled and laughed, running my fingers slowly through his hair and across his stubbly cheek.

"Ha! I'm sorry, I know. I can't help it, Cade. I'm so happy. This is the cherry on top for you, isn't it?"

He looked up at me, thinking about it for a minute.

"No, not really."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean this is awesome. But I didn't need it. Not the way I used to think I needed it, you know?"

I looked down at my husband. He looked tired and happy. Everything was right. Everything had fallen into place. The Stanley Cup was a bonus, an extra little piece of sweetness for our family, all of whom knew exactly how lucky we were.

"Yeah," I said, leaning down and kissing him, "I think I do know."

About the Authors

Alana Hart

Alana Hart is an American romance writer who decided that writing with friends is better than writing alone.  Hartfelt Books brings together a huge group of sweet and steamy romance authors, collaborating on a new line of books that will have your heart pounding.

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