Chapter 1 – Breaking the Ice Novel (Easton & Caroline) Free Online

Easton point of view

Being a stalker was new to me, but I was a quick learner.

I wasn’t able to find her on social media. Either she didn’t have a profile or she’d locked it down, which wouldn’t be unusual for a cautious single woman who always thought stuff through rather than flying by the seat of her pants like I had the tendency to do.

Once I’d made my decision, I’d tracked Caroline down via an online service and paid forty dollars to get her address.

I hadn’t seen her in years.

I’d never been a huge hookup guy. More of a guy who dated a woman exclusively. I’d been dating the same woman all through my first few years of college, and we’d recently broken up. The split had been mutual. The relationship had run its course. I found myself looking for something I’d lost, something I’d walked away from, and wondering what could have been.

I guess I was feeling melancholy.

Hockey had always been enough for me, but lately it wasn’t. I was searching for that elusive thing called happiness, and eventually I turned to Caroline.

Chalk it all up to loneliness.

Caroline and I had enjoyed each other for a couple months when we were both teens. I’d been in Chicago for a summer hockey program taught by a well-known, highly respected former professional player. She’d just finished high school one year early and was working at the rink where I was skating.

I’d ended it and most likely broken her heart. I hadn’t given her much thought until lately. Oh, there’d been moments when she’d invaded my sleep or crept into my daydreams. We were both older, hopefully wiser, and I was curious what’d happened to her.

So here I was. Prepared to see if the old spark might still be there.

I parked my rental car with the heavily tinted windows across the street from her address and waited, praying her neighbors wouldn’t notice and call the police. She lived in a nice subdivision near Chicago comprised of newer homes. The kind of subdivision families lived in, not normally a place where singles lived. I ignored that red flag. She probably rented a room with a few other women, or maybe she was a nanny. The Caro I knew had ambitions. She was going places. Her life was completely mapped out, while I’d just stumbled through life with only one goal in mind—playing professional hockey.

Hours later, I’d consumed most of my sandwich and soda with no sign of Caro. I was ready to give up when the front door opened. An average-sized guy walked out holding the hand of a little girl with blonde curls. I wasn’t good at judging kids’ ages, but she couldn’t be more than a few years old.

This had to be the wrong address.

I was about to turn the key in the ignition when the door opened again. A beautiful blonde woman hurried out the door, chasing a little boy, who barreled toward the man. The man picked him up and spun him around, while the woman smiled up at them. I heard their laughter through my rolled-up windows.

Pain slammed into me harder than a sucker punch by the best enforcer in the league. Agony burned through my veins to every part of my body until the anguish was so great I went numb. I didn’t know how my lungs continued to breathe in the air around me or how my heart managed to keep pumping. Surely, it’d formed multiple cracks in the last several seconds.

My strong reaction caught me off guard. Yeah, what we’d had had been fucking hot, and I’d like a do-over on ending it, but to have it affect me like this? I shook off the unwelcome emotions and denied their existence. Ours had been a young love, nothing more.

I stared, willing my mind to make sense of what I was seeing, to tell me this wasn’t her but an apparition. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself this woman wasn’t Caroline Jones, I knew the truth. I knew her smile, her laugh, the way the sun glinted off her golden hair, the way she tilted her head when she was listening intently. I knew the way her body moved with the grace of a gazelle. Yeah, I knew it all.

And there was one more thing I knew.

This guy had Caro and his kids, while I had hockey.

I’m not sure which one of us was luckier.

Caroline point of view

He might not have been the love of my life, but I loved him.

And now he was gone.

Mark was buried in a hole, and I was left to raise six-year-old twins on my own.

That fatal night over three months ago seemed like yesterday. The knock on the door, the policeman standing on my porch at one a.m., the panic rising inside me at the grim look on his face. Mark had been late getting home from work. Nothing unusual there. My husband had been a workaholic. He’d apparently fallen asleep at the wheel and perished in a fiery crash. He’d only been a mile from home.

Ours had been a comfortable relationship, not a white-hot passion, not even in the beginning. He’d been a good provider, a great father, and a decent man. He’d treated me well. I had no complaints.

For three months, I’d struggled with my new reality. Now it was September. My six-year-old twins were in first grade, and I was a twenty-four-year-old single mother without a career. I needed to fight past my grief and devise a plan for my future and my children’s. It was time.

I’d struggled my entire life with a niggling doubt I’d never be good enough. I’d depended on Mark and his family to take care of me, while I’d done nothing to take care of myself or have personal security if the worst should happen. And the worst had happened.

I was the daughter of an alcoholic father who couldn’t hold down a job and a mother who went through men as quickly as she changed outfits. I’d been told my entire childhood that I was worthless and screwed up everything I touched. The summer after I’d graduated high school and gotten a full-ride academic scholarship, I’d found out I was pregnant and proven them right again.

For the next six-plus years, I’d concentrated on being the best wife and mother possible, and I’d pulled it off. Without Mark to depend on, those insecurities came flooding back.

Mark had a small life insurance policy, which covered our living expenses for about a year. The clock was ticking, and I’d wasted three months already. I needed a career plan, and I needed it yesterday.

Not knowing what else to do, I drove to my in-laws’ house. They’d become the parents I’d never had. Howard Mills had recently retired with intentions to move to a warmer Arizona. The only things holding them back were the kids and me.

Fran opened the door before I knocked and wrapped me in her arms for a warm hug. I hugged her back and squeezed my eyes shut to stem the tears that were so close to the surface every time I saw Mark’s parents.

Fran stood back and ushered me into her inviting house. Soon I was seated on the patio in the afternoon sun with a glass of wine in my hand.

“Where’s Howard?” I asked.

“Golfing. Where else?” Fran smiled kindly at me. These people had been my rock since Mark had died. They’d been there for me at every turn, and guilt rose inside me with the knowledge they were postponing their retirement plans because I was an emotional mess wandering without direction.

“Of course.” I took a sip, savoring the simple pleasure of a good bottle of wine.

We chatted about nothing for several minutes. She told me about their search for an Arizona house. Throughout our conversation, the underlying current of sadness floated below the surface. Fran, who’d always been proud of her appearance, had aged at least ten years since Mark had died, as had Howard. My heart bled for them, just as it bled for my children. We were all struggling to deal with our grief in the best way possible.

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