After The Fire (One Pass Away Book 3) (8 page)

Not certain she wanted to know, Violet couldn’t help
herself. “What happens?”

“I don’t think anyone has ever had the nerve to find out,”
Riley informed her.

“Unless Gaige hid the body.”

There was no question that Claire was joking. But her
comment was the reason Violet didn’t laugh. She had information she could share
with her new friends. But it was apparent that Gaige had kept that chapter of
his life private. She wasn’t going to be the one who violated his wishes.

“I don’t know a lot about his home life,” Violet chose her
words carefully. “We met just after he graduated college.” When she thought he
was an out of work economics major instead of the Knights’ first round draft
pick. “Things moved fast. Decisions were made without our knowledge.
Ultimately, we weren’t allowed to make our own choices.”

“I’ll bet there’s quite a story behind those cryptic words.”

Violet nodded at Riley.

“Gaige doesn’t know most of it. Until he does…”

“You can’t tell us,” Claire finished for her.

“Thank you for understanding.”

“We do,” Claire said. Riley nodded. “But as soon as you can,
promise you’ll tell us everything.”

“It depends on Gaige.”

Riley groaned. “That means we’ll never find out.”

Violet hoped Riley was wrong. She wanted friends with whom
she could share things like this. To share confidences and hear them in return.
Perhaps she could have that with Claire and Riley. Like she said, it was up to
Gaige. And tonight, she would put something in motion that, hopefully, would
give her the answers she needed.

GAIGE BUTTONED HIS jacket, glad that the post-game circus was
finally over. There were times it wore him out more than the game. The endless
repetitive questions. Hell, comparatively, tonight’s game had been a walk in
the park. The victory came easily—not that he would ever share his thoughts.
Every game was a battle waged against a worthy opponent. Suggesting otherwise
wasn’t done. Not publicly. Or in the locker room.

“If every win were that easy, we could put our feet up and
drink Pina Coladas all season.”

Hearing his thoughts verbalized, Gaige groaned. He couldn’t
see the culprit, but he recognized the voice.

“That’s rookie speak, Fielder.” Gaige raised his voice so
everyone could hear—not just the offensive tackle who had been in the league
long enough to know better. “If I were closer, I would slap you upside the
head.”

The sound of a slap reverberated through the room.

“What the hell?” Jock Fielder yelled.

“Was that you, Gibbons?” Gaige knew who occupied the locker
next to Fielder’s.

“I took care of it,” his longtime teammate called out. He
and Phil Gibbons came into the league in the same draft class. Rivals in
college, they had been solid friends since signing with the Knights.

“Remind me. I owe you a beer.”

“Make it two, and I’ll hit him again.”

That made everyone laugh, including Jock Fielder.

“We’re a loose bunch.” Sean sat next to Gaige, his arms
resting on his bent knees. “It feels good.”

“It does.” Gaige checked his image. Satisfied that
everything was neat and presentable, he clapped Sean on the back. “We’ve lived
through some lean years with this team.”

“From the mediocre to the underwhelming.”

Sean had a way with words. Amusing and accurate.

“Don’t look so serious, old man. We deserve to bask a
little.”

“As long as we don’t get ahead of ourselves,” Gaige said. “Next
week’s game is the only thing that counts.”

“Of course.” Sean kept a straight face—barely. “One game at
a time.”

Gaige raised an eyebrow. “Stop me if you’ve heard this before,
asshole.”

“Only a hundred times or so. But it never gets old,
Uncle
Gaige.”

“Remind me why I put up with you?”

“My sure hands and my pretty face. You aren’t the first to
find the combination irresistible.”

Gaige rolled his eyes then burst out laughing. He loved Sean
like a brother. He had watched him grow up from an anything goes wild child to
the man he was today. Mature but never losing that twinkle in his eyes.

“Riley is a saint to take you on.”

“The woman has good taste.”

“The woman has been head over heels in love with you since
she was seventeen years old.” As they headed out of the locker room, Gaige
draped an arm over Sean’s shoulders. “It’s a good thing you finally grew up and
saw the light. Letting her slip away would have been the biggest mistake of
your life.”

“Don’t I know it.” Sean’s grin widened when his saw his
fiancée waiting for him. “She didn’t give up on me. That makes me the luckiest
son of a bitch in the world.”

“Make that the second luckiest.” Logan Price joined them,
his gaze on Claire. “You did good, Gaige. Without you, Sean and I would have
probably spent our lives alone. Me a bitter old man, and Sean fucking
everything in sight until his dick, or his heart gave out.”

“That’s a lovely thought,” Sean grumbled. But he didn’t
argue the point.

“All I did was push you in the right direction.” Gaige hadn’t
set out to be a matchmaker. He tried to be a good friend. The rest had fallen
nicely into place without any extra help from him. “You saw what you wanted and
didn’t fuck it up.”

“A little advice? I’ve never seen you as happy as you have
been these past few days.” Sean gave
him
a push—toward Violet. “Don’t
fuck it up.”

Gaige didn’t need Sean to tell him. Violet had always held a
place in his heart. Bigger than he had wanted to admit. Love—if he had the
courage to call it that—didn’t come along every day. He knew that better than
most. Affection was easy. There were no risks involved when his emotions were
safely locked behind a thick, impenetrable wall.

Violet was the only woman he had met who made him want to
take a chance. She made him feel that way when he was twenty-two, and nothing
had changed.

Gaige stopped in front of Violet. Like her name, she was a
breath of spring. No, the last thing he wanted to do was fuck it up.

“Did you enjoy the game?”

“It was… is sublime too strong a word?” Violet laughed. “I
sound like a gushy teenager.”

“Gushy is good.” At the moment, Gaige was crazy about gushy.
“Why don’t we go to my place? We can order a pizza, and you can tell me all
about it.”

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can.” Gaige didn’t like the sadness in Violet’s
eyes. It made him nervous. “Put one foot in front of the other. Easy as pie.”

“Gaige—”

“Are you saying goodbye?”

“No!” Violet reached out for his hand. He gave it to her
without hesitation. “It’s time to clear the air, Gaige.”

“I know, but it makes me nervous. Twitchy.”

“Me too.” Violet reached into her purse and pulled out an
envelope.

“Sixteen years ago, you wrote me a letter.”

Eyes glued to hers, Gaige swallowed hard. “I remember.”

“My response is long past due.” She placed the envelope in
his hand.

“Violet—”

“Don’t say anything. Read this. Think hard about everything
in there. Some of it is ugly, Gaige. Some of it is…” She shrugged. “It’s for
you to decide. Your decision.”

“Is it that bad?” The letter, so light when she placed it in
his hand, grew heavier by the second.

“Riley is going to give me a ride to my hotel.”

“I can do that.”

“Please?” Violet put her arms around his waist, resting her
head on his chest. She wasn’t wearing heels so he had to bend, just a bit, to
breathe in the scent of her hair.

“It won’t matter, Violet. Whatever is in the letter? It won’t
matter.”

He had spoken those exact words to her words all those years
ago. The poignancy of that realization pierced his heart. The tears in Violet’s
eyes told him that she was reliving the same memory.

IT WAS ONLY a piece of paper.

Gaige stared at the unopened envelope. The second he walked
in his front door, he set it on the living room table. He took a beer from the
refrigerator, sat on the sofa. And spent the next twenty minutes staring at
something that could determine how he spent the rest of his life. Loving
Violet. Or bitter and alone.

His thoughts were a touch dramatic—but what was the saying?
Words are more powerful than weapons. Or something like that. At the moment,
Gaige believed it.

Shit. Stop acting like a pussy. Gaige tilted the bottle of
beer, draining the last drop. He set the empty on the table. Picking up the
envelope, he took a deep breath and ripped it open.

My Darling Gaige
,

Gaige closed his eyes, relaxing just a bit. Nothing that
started out like that could be all bad. He read it again.

My Darling Gaige,

Is that odd? My calling you darling? I haven’t said it to
your face, and I doubt that I ever would. It’s a little
old-fashioned—awkward—in this day and age. But I’ve thought of you that way for
so long—even when I tried to convince myself that I hated you. So bear with me.

Gaige lowered the letter.
Hated him
?
What the hell
?
He rolled his neck, trying to dispel some of the tension. Taking a deep breath,
he resumed reading.

Where to start? The day of my surgery is a good place. I
should have been scared. I was nervous. A little anxious. But I wasn’t afraid.
I had you with me. If the hospital staff had let me, I would have kept your
letter with me during the operation. Apparently, silly sentimentality has no
place during surgery—or so my mother informed me. She would keep my precious
letter safe.

You already know that the operation was a complete
success. Perfect twenty-twenty vision. Modern medicine. I had to wait a few
days to find out. But I knew I would see. I clutched your letter—determined
that I would be the one to read it.

The day the bandages came off, and my doctor gave me the
thumb’s up, the first thing I looked for was your letter. My heart broke when I
discovered it wasn’t there. The envelope was empty.

Gaige frowned at Violet’s letter.
What the fuck
?

It wasn’t the envelope you had given me. My mother—with
tears in her eyes—informed me that you had come back while I was in surgery.
You had second thoughts. Then third and fourth thoughts. Mom told me that you
couldn’t face the idea of being with a blind person—which meant your feelings
weren’t as strong as you thought. It was as simple as that. You wished me well.
You wanted your letter back, and she gave it to you. Rather than tell me when I
had just gotten out of surgery, she gave me an empty envelope.

I had no reason not to believe her. She was my mother.
She loved me. Why would she lie?

God, I hated you. There were so many reasons. I hated you
for making me love you. For saying so many beautiful things, then ending it in
such an ugly way. I hated that, like a fool, I held that empty envelope like
some kind of magic talisman. I became philosophical, deciding the envelope
represented your soul—devoid of substance or compassion. I know—it was a bit
much. But I was hurt—and nineteen. Teenage angst can be pretty intense.

You’ll be glad to know that my tears dried. My hate for
you was replaced by sadness. My memories of you were tainted. I wanted to
remember those days we spent together fondly. But that was impossible. Instead,
I forced myself to stop thinking about it all together. It wasn’t easy. I threw
myself into becoming a doctor and in time, I truly believed I was over you.

I won’t bore you with the next sixteen years. You know I
married. He wasn’t a bad man. On paper, we were the perfect match. In reality,
not so much. The divorce was exactly like our marriage. Brief and passionless.

A little over a year ago, my mother was diagnosed with an
aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. She was given less than six months to
live. I wish I could say that in the face of her own mortality, she confessed
to me what she had done. But this is real life, not a weepy Hollywood movie.
She would have taken her secrets with her if it weren’t for the way she reacted
to her pain medication. Toward the end, her doctors upped the dosage. One
night, she became agitated—weepy. My father couldn’t calm her and was about to
call for help when everything spilled out.

She hadn’t trusted you. Not from the beginning. She
thought I had become too attached too quickly. When my father told her who you
were—who your father was—she wasn’t as understanding as he was. She couldn’t
look at you without seeing the man who almost killed her baby—her words, not
mine.

She saw the letter as her chance to get rid of you. Purge
you from my life—again, her words. Even on her death bed, she had no regrets.
She was certain you would have broken my heart. Or worse. She was convinced
that she had saved me.

Mom died a few days later. A few days after her funeral,
my father told me everything. He was devastated. We both were. Such a big, ugly
lie. It was difficult to reconcile the woman we loved with someone who was
capable of such a deceitful and cruel act. We’re still dealing with the
aftershocks.

I have no idea why she kept your letter. I found it while
putting her things in order. It was in an old purse, shoved into the back of
her closet. Was it possible she simply forgot it was there? I’ll never know.

Reading your letter broke my heart all over again. I wept
for us, Gaige. My mother was convinced that we wouldn’t have lasted. It was a
selfish and arrogant assumption. Would we still be together? I can’t say. But
we deserved the chance to find out. She took that from us, and I don’t think I
will ever be able to forgive her.

In the letter, you wondered if your father was too big a
stumbling block for us? Could I forget? Would I look at you and see him? I know
what I would have said then, and my answer hasn’t changed. I see you, Gaige.
The man you are has nothing to do with him. If anything, I admire you more
because of where you’ve come from.

Has all of this sunk in? I know it’s a lot to process,
and I want to give you all the time you need. If it helps, I’ve known for
several months, and I’m still reeling.

I don’t want there to be any question in your mind about
me. I planned on contacting you after the season ended. Terrance simply speeded
things along a little. (I need to give him a big thank you kiss). I know what I
want, Gaige. I want a chance to find out who we are. The what ifs no longer
matter. Today? Tomorrow? That’s what counts.

I’m all in, Gaige. Whatever it takes.

However, if you don’t feel the same, I promise, there
will be no recriminations or hard feelings. The past few days have been
wonderful. If they are all we have, it will be the perfect bookend to our
story.

And know this. I will always be your friend.

Violet

Stunned. There was no other way to describe his feelings.
Anger simmered under the surface, but he tamped it down. He knew what he had to
do, and the last thing he wanted was for something ugly or resentful to get in
the way.

Gaige carefully folded the letter, returned it to the envelope.
He went to his office and punched in the wall safe code. It was the one place
in his house that he knew would survive anything from burglary to fire. His
passport. A copy of his birth certificate. Some legal papers and a stash of
emergency cash. Nothing precious—until now.

FOR THE THIRD time, Violet read the same page in the medical
journal. It was written by a respected colleague and friend. Something about a
new way to treat post-op infections. It was the kind of thing she usually found
interesting and informative. Not tonight. Giving up, she tossed the magazine
onto the table.

The television remote wasn’t calling her name. Mindless
chatter wouldn’t help settle her thoughts.

Violet was in her solitary hotel room by choice. She could
have accepted Riley’s invitation to dinner. But she declined. As much as she
liked Sean and Riley, she wasn’t in the mood to spend the evening with two
people so blatantly in love.

She looked at her phone, willing it to ring. Two hours had
passed since she gave Gaige the letter. It was true that she told him to take
his time and think things through. But how long should it take? Was he going to
sleep on it and make her wait until tomorrow?

Violet groaned. If she didn’t hear from him, sleep would not
be on her agenda. She was considering finding an all-night movie theater when
her phone rang. Violet jumped a foot.
Good Lord. Calm down
. The ringtone
told her it wasn’t Gaige.

“Hi, Dad.” If it had been anyone else, Violet would have let
the call go to voicemail.

“Hi, honey. Are you enjoying Seattle?”

Violet smiled. She loved her father. Because he knew
everything, she had talked to him before she decided to make the trip. He
encouraged her to come. It was time to lay the past to rest.

It was hardly a coincidence that Alden Reed started
following the Knights sixteen years ago. One didn’t suddenly become an avid fan
of a team located across the country unless one had a personal reason. That
reason was Gaige.

“He’s a good man,” Alden had explained. “And though I didn’t
like the way I thought he had treated you, I admire him. As an athlete and a
philanthropist. I hate what your mother did, Violet. But now it makes more
sense. Gaige didn’t abandon you. He deserves to know that you didn’t abandon
him.”

Violet hadn’t needed convincing. She was due for a vacation.
With no surgeries scheduled until after the New Year, it was easy to take a
week—two if necessary. She wouldn’t know how much longer she would be staying
in Seattle until she heard from Gaige.

“I wrote Gaige a letter.” There was a long pause. “Dad?”

“Do you think that was a good idea? The two of you haven’t
had the best of luck with handwritten correspondence.”

“Funny man.” Violet had to smile. “This was different. Gaige
can see. I personally put the letter in his hands. There is no chance that a
third party will interfere.”

“Good,” Alden said. “Did you see the game?”

“In person.”

“What did you think?”

Her father had seen Gaige play. He purchased tickets every
time the Knights played on the East Coast. Considering all the revelations she
had to deal with recently, that one hadn’t measured very high. It was
surprising but not shocking. At this point, it would take something big to rock
her world again.

“It’s a different game when you see it in person, isn’t it?
Faster. More intense.”

“And Gaige?”

“He’s…” Violet didn’t know why, but she felt like crying. “I
feel cheated, Dad.”

“Oh, Violet.”

She could hear the sadness in her father’s voice. “I’m
sorry. It hurt you, too. But every time I think I’m getting over it, something
happens to open the wound.”

“You need to find a way to forgive her.”

“Have you?”

“I think so.” Alden sighed. “Sophia was the love of my life.
It isn’t easy to throw away thirty-seven years, Violet. She forgave me more
than once.”

“What did you do?”

“It doesn’t matter. The point is we made a good life
together. Raised a wonderful daughter. I will always hate what she did, but I
can’t stay angry. It hurts too much.”

“I’ll forgive her, Dad.”

As soon as Violet said the words she knew it was true. She
wasn’t trying to placate her father. No matter what, she loved her mother.
Forgiveness would come. But she wasn’t there yet.

“I’ll let you go.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Suddenly tired, Violet decided to get ready for bed. A hot
shower and an early night sounded good. If she couldn’t sleep, she would turn
on the television and let
I Love Lucy
keep her company.

The shower was a quick one. Violet executed her usual
nightly routine—she had done it so many times she didn’t have to think about
it. Teeth brushed, she added plenty of moisturizer to her freshly washed face,
gave her lips a coating of raspberry-flavored gloss. Her hair, thick and
glossy, was still damp, but she would take care of it in the morning.

Violet gave herself one last look in the bathroom mirror
before turning out the light. She walked to the dresser and opened the middle
drawer. If she stayed in a city more than a day, she liked to unpack. It was
nicer than rummaging through her suitcase. She was reaching for her favorite
nightshirt when there was a knock on the door.

The rap was short, firm, and decisive. Violet’s heart
started pounding. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but she was certain it had
to be Gaige.

“Violet? Are you in there?”

“Just a second.”

Violet took a deep breath. Then another. She had a choice.
Go to the door dressed in nothing but a towel, or grab the robe that was draped
over the chair. With a shrug, she headed toward the door without glancing at
her robe.

“Hi.” It wasn’t the most brilliant greeting, but it would
have to do. Not waiting for an answer, Violet moved aside, silently inviting
him to enter.

Gaige walked in. The room seemed smaller with him in it. He
filled the generous space with his size and presence. His blond hair looked
darker, a fine coat of Seattle mist covering his head and jacket. He smelled
like rain and… Gaige. There was no other way to describe the heady fragrance.
Violet closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

“Do you always open the door dressed like that?”

Her eyes popped open, meeting his. Green. They were so
green. Tonight they were a bright emerald. Intense and sparkling hot. Violet
licked her lips, drawing his gaze. It had been intentional, but she liked his
reaction, so she did it again.