Love is, without a doubt, the most certain emotion I’ve ever felt. It’s steady and sure, constant, like the gentle ripple of the creek winding through the mountains, the quiet song from the birds in the treetops. I opened my eyes one morning and there it was, carved into the deepest parts of me, like it was always there.
Like Adam had always been a piece of me.
There’s a happiness radiating throughout me, a slight quiver in my hands as I stare at him, like my body is begging me to reach out, to take him into my arms, and God, I want to.
He sweeps his thumb across my lower lip. “Quit looking at me like that. It’s dangerous.”
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like you’d marry me right now if I promised to bring you flowers and ice cream sundaes every day for the rest of our lives.”
I completely fail at biting back my smile when I tell him, “I’d settle for weekly.”
His brows quirk, a playful challenge. “Don’t tempt me, trouble. I didn’t come prepared with a ring.”
“Wow. You two are adorable.” Marco gestures at us with circles of hands. “I almost feel like I’m interrupting a beautiful moment.”
Adam casts him an amused glance. “Almost, huh?”
“Oh, don’t mind me. Get your freak on. Ro’s already wrecked. Been limping around here all—”
“Marco !”
Adam laughs, winding an arm around my waist and tugging me into his chest when I try to decapitate my friend. “I gotta go. Don’t kill Marco before we can have dinner. But for the record, Rosie…” His lips dip to the shell of my ear, sending a shiver down my spine. “I like you a little bit wrecked.” With my chin between his fingers, he presses a lingering kiss to my lips. “See ya later, gorgeous.”
I stay rooted in place, watching Adam head to his truck, hitting me with a wink before he climbs in and drives away.
“If you’re not gonna eat that sundae—”
“Back off.” I tear my ice cream bouquet away from Marco, setting it on the reception desk while I dig out my sundae. There’s an obscene amount of hot fudge on this thing, layered on the bottom, top, and halfway. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.
“You have some explaining to do, Miss Rosie.”
My gaze lifts to Marco, my spoon pausing just before my mouth. “What?”
His smile is particularly huge as he watches me with his chin propped in his hands, elbows on the desk. “Don’t ‘what’ me. You know exactly what.”
“I do not.”
“Mhmm.” He drops his forearms to the desk, tapping his fingers. “So all this time you’ve just conveniently forgotten to mention that you’re dating Adam Lockwood?”
“What do you mean? I told you we were dating.”
“You told me you were dating a man named Adam. You did not tell me you were dating Adam. Motherfucking. Lockwood. ”
“I don’t get it,” I say slowly, lowering my spoon. “Do you know him?”
Marco frowns. “Do you not know what Adam does for a living?”
“He works…he works with professional athletes.” I don’t know why it’s a murmur, or why it sounds more like a question. I don’t know why my stomach knots either.
“Rosie, Adam Lockwood is a professional athlete. He’s the starter goalie for the Vancouver Vipers.”
“H…hockey?”
“One of the best and highest paid in the league.”
My head shakes, and the tremor in my hands returns. Adam wouldn’t lie to me about something so important. He just wouldn’t.
“He just re-signed with the Vipers for ten-point-five million a year. And that doesn’t include any sponsorship deals.” Marco pulls out his phone, typing. “Google says at the end of the last season, your man had a net worth of thirty-four million.”
“Thirty-four million?” I place my hand over my stomach. It’s lurching like my lunch might make a reappearance.
“I swear, Ro. Do you even know him? Here, look.” He flashes me a picture. “Here he is in one of his game-day suits. Look how well he wears a three-piece. Imagine him in that at your wedding?”
I can’t; all I can focus on is the pictures. So many of them, all Adam. I click on one, and the screen fills with a photo of Adam on the ice, looking utterly massive in a pair of skates and huge, clunky equipment, a mask that matches his green and blue jersey.
My stomach turns itself over as I pull up another photo. Adam with his lips pressed to the temple of the gorgeous redhead tucked into his side. There’s a caption included, one that makes me stop breathing.
Are they really done? Hockey’s golden boy Adam Lockwood and longtime girlfriend, Courtney McLean, end their seven-year relationship amid cheating rumors.
I swallow down the bile climbing my throat and, against my better judgment, pick a new photo. In this one, Adam doesn’t even appear to know his picture is being taken. He’s sitting in a restaurant, drinking wine with a pretty brunette. This caption?
Adam Lockwood, hockey’s most eligible bachelor and serial dater, not settling down any time soon!
My racing heart slows to a crawl before I swear it stops beating altogether, and my ice cream sundae slips from my grip, splattering at my feet.
I can’t be sure, but I think that’s where my heart winds up, too, after it shatters.
CHAPTER 23
I’LL SEE YOU
ADAM
I’ve circled Wildheart five times. Five goddamn times.
I’ve repeated my speech over and over, the same one I recited to Bear eight hundred times before I left the house, after making sure my hair looked nice and I was wearing my lucky T-shirt. My hands won’t stop shaking, and I tell myself my sweaty palms sliding against the steering wheel are the reason I miss the entrance to Wildheart a sixth time.
“Fuck.” I grip the steering wheel, softly banging my forehead against it. I should’ve done it a long time ago; maybe it would’ve knocked some sense into me.
But I can’t fuck around about this anymore, so when the light in front of me turns green, I turn into the parking lot at Wildheart Sanctuary and park myself in the same spot I always do, where I have a front row seat to Rosie puttering around in there, finishing the last of her paperwork, doing her final rounds in the cat den, showering them with love one last time before she says good-bye.
Unbuckling my seat belt, I stare down at my trembling hands before wiping them on my jeans, scrubbing one over my mouth, running the other through my hair before fixing my hat back on my head and, finally, getting out of the truck.
The two girls standing behind the desk lift their heads when I walk in, and a cat ambles up to me, dropping itself at my feet and showing me its belly. Silence falls over the room, and my shoulders pull taut as I stoop down, rubbing the cat’s belly.
“Is Rosie around? Can you tell her Adam’s here?”
The girls exchange a look, eyes bulging and heads tipping in my direction. The blonde clears her throat, turning to me. “Uh, Rosie’s not here.”