Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Adam and I were close and losing him sliced deep. He was the rock-solid, steady shoulder I could always rest a weary head on. He was kind, loving, generous to a fault, and the kind of man who was going to make some woman incredibly happy one day. He wanted nothing more than to find the future Mrs. Adam Norcross and have lots of kids.
It makes me sad he never found that before he died.
While Adam was a hard worker and put his heart and soul into the Titans, he was always able to disconnect at day’s end. It’s why I know he would have made an amazing father and devoted husband, because kids and a wife would have been his priority.
Not me.
It’s virtually impossible for me to settle, and I have way too many responsibilities to take on anything else. I’m away from home by five a.m. every morning to hit the gym, and I’m in the office by seven. From there, it’s nonstop work, which often blows right through lunch and ends up in a business dinner of some sort. When I get home, it’s more work while I lie in bed with my laptop propped on a pillow, and if I’m lucky, I can squeak in fifteen minutes of pleasure reading. Usually, I fall asleep with my glasses perched on my nose and my digital reader sliding to the floor.
I repeat this seven days a week, and I haven’t had a vacation in years. While I’ll indulge in the occasional massage to alleviate knots in my shoulders and neck from stress and long workdays, the only other respite I have is Clay Bessel. He’s a brilliant neurosurgeon who is as busy and driven as I am. We are friends with benefits. Sometimes that means he’ll be my date to a charity gala, and sometimes it means he’ll fuck my brains out if our schedules align.
I’d like to say we’re good together, but we’re not really together. Just two people who serve a particular purpose and happen to like each other’s company when we can fit it in.
My phone dings, nabbing my attention from a large dairy farm we pass. It’s Callum. Just got off the phone with Coen Highsmith. He’s coming back. He’d like to talk to you, though.
I exhale harshly, relief slumping my shoulders. Coen is an original member of the Titans and wasn’t on the plane when it went down—he was sidelined with the flu and therefore didn’t travel with the team.
One of the Lucky Three.
While I was successful in putting together a team to get right back on the ice, Coen wasn’t part of that success. He was mired in darkness—my guess is survivor’s guilt—and repetitively sabotaged his career with horrible mistakes.
It cost him the season after he was suspended for attacking a ref, and when I last saw him in April, he’d told me he was quitting hockey. It’s been heavy on my mind how we could get him turned around. Whatever did it, I’m eternally grateful.
I shoot Callum a quick reply. Best news I’ve heard in a while. Fingers crossed I’ll have more by day’s end. I’ll call him later.
Callum gives me a thumbs-up emoji, and I drop my phone on the leather seat.
The car slows and the driver hangs a left into the entrance of a neighborhood called Shadow Creek Estates.
Estate might be a bit of a stretch for the homes in here—they can’t be more than two to three thousand square feet and don’t appear to be more than a few years old, if the young trees dotting the yards and bordering the sidewalks are any indication. It’s a beautiful community, though. The landscaping is neatly manicured with pretty flower beds and ornate light posts on every corner.
I wonder if coming here was a mistake. This could end up being a colossal waste of my time, but I’m not one who easily gives up.
This is an absolute last-ditch effort.
The driver hangs another left and proceeds down a street with a dead-end sign. He follows it until the roadway stops and a cornfield starts. On the right is a lovely craftsman home in dark gray with white trim and rough-cut wooden beams along the veranda porch. Both doors on the double-car garage are closed, but a large motorcycle sits in the driveway.
“No need to get out,” I tell the driver. “If you can just wait here for me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replies as I open the door.
Stepping out, I smooth down the jacket of the pantsuit I’d chosen to travel in today. It’s ice-blue with a mandarin collar and slim pants of the same shade that come just above my ankle. My cream-colored Stuart Weitzmans are four inches, and some would consider them hazardous to work in all day. But I can run in these things, plus I like that the heel gives my five-seven height a boost. It provides a benefit when working in a male-dominated environment to be seen as strong, and sometimes that’s merely the illusion of being tall.