The Man She Knew

by Loree Lough

  Eliot threw his arms in the air. “Are you guys just gonna stand here and let that—”

  “Stow it, son,” Frank said. “This is starting to get interesting.”

  Maleah, on her knees now, drew Cash closer.

  Ian heard her gasp when she found it, tied to the dog’s ID tag and license. Hands trembling, she couldn’t undo the knot. On his knees beside her, he gave the white ribbon a good tug, and it fell into his upturned palm.

  “Do you think you can spend the rest of your life with a long-haired, tattooed, scarred ex-con?”

  She glanced back at her family huddled together, smiling, shaking their heads in disbelief.

  There were tears in her mother’s eyes. In her grandmother’s, too.

  Frank gave the thumbs-up sign, and Joe mirrored it.

  Her dad strode purposefully across the yard and held out his right hand. When Ian grasped it, Pat said, “You know what’ll happen if you hurt her, right?”

  “You have my word on this, sir... I’m never going to find out.”

  The Turners gathered around them, shaking Ian’s hand, hugging Maleah, laughing and chattering, wishing them luck and a happy future.

  Eliot’s youngest son stuck both pinky fingers between his lips and cut loose with a high-pitched blast. And when they quieted down, he said, “You guys! You guys! She hasn’t said yes yet!”

  “Thanks, Joey,” Ian said.

  Taking Maleah’s hand, he picked up where he’d left off.

  “So what do you think?”

  The pause was long.

  She held out her arms, and when he stepped into them, Maleah traced the length of the once-hidden scar. “This, this is the man I knew.”

  Little Joe whispered, “Is that a yes?”

  Maleah drew him into the hug. “You bet it is, kiddo.” Then she looked up at Ian and whispered, “It’s a yes.”

  “Is he cryin’, Dad?”

  “I dunno, son.”

  “But why’s he sad?”

  Teresa sighed. “Those are happy tears, li’l Joey.”

  Cash wedged himself between Ian and Maleah.

  “We did it, buddy,” Ian said.

  The dog, tail wagging, responded with a quiet woof.

  And Ian kissed her.

  * * * * *

  Be sure to check out the books in Loree Lough’s recent miniseries, THOSE MARSHALL BOYS

  ONCE A MARINE

  SWEET MOUNTAIN RANCHER

  THE FIREFIGHTER’S REFRAIN

  All available now from Harlequin Heartwarming.

  And look for the next book in BY WAY OF THE LIGHTHOUSE, coming soon!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from GIRL IN THE SPOTLIGHT by Virginia McCullough.

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  Girl in the Spotlight

  by Virginia McCullough

  CHAPTER ONE

  WITH HIS PHONE next to him on the couch and out of his little girl’s sight, Miles Jenkins scrolled through the three new texts. The first was from the meeting planner organizing a management conference in Denver, where Miles was booked to present a seminar in late January. That fell into the category of important, but not urgent. Exactly like the second and third, both sent by a speakers bureau he regularly worked with. Nothing he needed to interrupt his Sunday afternoon to handle.

  Brooke tugged on his sleeve. “Daddy, did you see that girl fall down? She won’t get a medal now.”

  “Sure, honey, I saw it.” Sort of. Out of the corner of his eye he’d caught a glimpse of the skater on the TV screen. “So, one spill on the ice means she won’t get a medal?”

  Brooke answered with a solemn nod. “Well, that’s not always true, but this time it knocked her right out of the competition.”

  Miles smiled to himself. From the moment they’d begun watching, his eight-year-old had taken on the role of a professional commentator. Without skipping a beat Brooke predicted who among this group of young women would emerge as medal winners and who’d likely go home empty-handed.

  “You know so much about the sport you could be one of those experts on TV.”

  Brooke responded with an exaggerated roll of her brown eyes. When had she learned to do that?

  “I mean it,” he said, feigning a defensive tone. “You’ve taught me more about skating in the last couple of hours than I’ve learned in my entire life, all thirty-nine years of it.” Or ever cared to know, but that was beside the point.

  Andi had mentioned their daughter’s interest in skating had quickly moved from casual to intense, leaving Brooke completely enamored with these real-life princesses performing impossible feats in their glittery costumes. Andi encouraged the interest, too. These self-disciplined girls trained every day and worked hard to compete, she pointed out. They weren’t like the out-of-control young celebrities who ended up as headlines on too many glossy magazine covers for all the wrong reasons.

  His former wife had also advised against making plans to see a movie with Brooke on Sunday afternoon. “It’s the Grand Circuit final,” she’d said. “The last event of this year’s figure-skating competitive season. Brooke’s been looking forward to it all week. It’s a big deal, a step on the way to determining who gets on the International Figure Skating Championship team.” She’d paused and then laughed. “Listen to me. You’d think I know what I’m talking about. But I don’t need to explain the ins and outs. Our skating enthusiast will fill you in. Every last detail.”

  Andi was right. Brooke had talked about almost nothing else but her favorite figure skaters from the moment he’d picked her up on Saturday morning. It seemed that Mamie, his little girl’s babysitter, had created a fan.

  “You could take skating lessons yourself,” he said. “Would you like that?”

  Brooke shook her head. “I already told Mom I want to keep playing soccer. And basketball is fun, too.”

  “Okay, honey. You let us know if you change your mind.”

  Photographs on the wall on either side of the TV showed Brooke in her soccer uniform, her auburn hair in two pigtails. He agreed with Andi, who reminded him—often—about research showing that little girls who were involved in sports developed healthy self-esteem. They were less likely to fall in with a bad crowd and do all the risky things that left parents so terrified they could barely breathe.

  “I will
.” Brooke scooped up a handful of popcorn from the bowl on the coffee table. Before putting it in her mouth, she added, “But don’t forget about the horse, Daddy. I’ve already picked out her name.”

  “Magic,” he said, nodding. “I remember.”

  “Won’t be long now.”

  “I know, less than four years.”

  “Three years and five months...to be exact.”

  He suppressed a laugh, not wanting her to think he’d ever make light of her longing for a horse. Not long ago, Andi had brought up the horse once again, as if warning him to be prepared. Andi also believed girls who loved horses would be less likely to spend time with boys who’d divert them from their goals. When she’d put it like that, was she subtly reminding him that he’d been a boy—or rather, a young man—who’d once been responsible for interrupting a girl’s goals?

  As much as he agreed with his ex-wife on almost all their joint parenting issues, Miles thought she was overly concerned about Brooke being a child of divorce. Andi regularly mentioned the emotional risks of divorce and the frightening specter of teenage girls wandering aimlessly through adolescence.

  Brooke bounced on the cushion next to him. “Only one more skater to go before Perrie Lynn, Daddy.”

  “Perrie who? One of your favorites?” He squeezed Brooke’s hand to show he was only teasing. Whatever Andi feared might happen in the future, their little girl was 100 percent safe and happy in this moment.

  “Her whole name is Perrie Lynn Olson.”

  He knew that, of course. Brooke had started his education about skating by extolling Perrie Lynn. Still, although he enjoyed these exchanges with his little girl, sometimes he found himself listening with only one ear and much of what she said didn’t settle into his memory bank. “And what makes her a special skater?”

  Brooke gestured toward the TV with both hands for emphasis. “She’s sort of new. She got to go to the Grand Circuit final because she won two big competitions. Mamie said she surprised everyone in the skating world.”

  Miles grinned at the lingo she’d picked up from Mamie and the commentators. The next skater was a young Canadian woman named Misty, who made a quick trip around the rink in her blue sequined costume. Even her short blond hair sparkled.

  No wonder little girls thought these athletes were spinning, jumping princesses. For the next four minutes, the commentators, Katie and Allen, former champions themselves, counted triple jumps and what looked like impossible spins, explaining each move. Allen groaned over two jumps that went awry and caused Misty to, as he put it, lose the landing. Down she went. Misty recovered, though, and flashed a big smile for the audience when she thrust one arm high in the air for her dramatic finish. The smile disappeared almost immediately, replaced with a glum expression as she skated off the ice and into the open arms of her coach.

  Miles picked up the remote and muted the sound when the commercials started.

  “She was okay,” Brooke said, “but not as good as Perrie Lynn’s going to be.”

  Miles hoped Perrie Lynn didn’t take a spill and break the spell Brooke had created around the young skater.

  The ads over, he got the sound back on in time to listen to Katie and the other commentators discuss Misty’s scores, which they all agreed left plenty of room for Perrie Lynn to jump ahead.

  “Pay attention, Daddy. Here she comes.” Brooke clapped her hands in anticipation.

  The dark-haired girl skated onto the ice to rising applause and encouraging cheers. She took her time taking a turn around the periphery of the rink.

  “Every detail is attended to,” Katie pointed out, “and wow, doesn’t she look elegant in her deep red costume?”

  “Such a big moment for her,” Charlie, the network announcer, added. “It was unexpected, but so welcome.”

  Katie, Allen and Charlie kept up their patter about the recent changes in Perrie Lynn’s life, and why she and her mother had moved from Minnesota to Michigan to train with a new coach.

  Brooke lifted her shoulders in a happy shrug. “Look at how pretty she looks, Daddy. Her dress sparkles all over.”

  “It sure does.” Even from the long camera angle, Miles could see the girl was lovely, with olive skin and black hair, much like his own, features he’d inherited from his Italian mother and grandmother.

  Miles was impressed as the skater slowed down and glided on one skate to the center of the ice, then stopped abruptly. In one flowing move, she positioned her legs and arms, and finally lifted her chin to signal her readiness to begin. The girl knows how to work a crowd.

  Bemused, Miles saw in the young skater the qualities of some of his best colleagues in the professional speaking business. They captured the audience before uttering the first word. Perrie Lynn would start her routine with the entire arena and TV audience already focused on her.

  Miles glanced at Brooke, who was sitting cross-legged but had leaned forward, as she rested her arms on her knees, her gaze fixed on the screen. When Perrie Lynn began skating backward and picked up speed, Katie described the move and built anticipation for the first jump. The confident young skater’s lift off the ice appeared effortless.

  “Wow,” Allen said, “she opened with a perfect triple flip.”

  “She got so high in the air, Daddy.”

  “She sure did,” he said, patting Brooke’s hand.

  Another jump followed, and then another and another.

  “A triple-triple combination, Daddy,” Brooke said sagely. “Those are hard.”

  “I bet they are.”

  More jumps and spins, and a long, graceful glide across the ice followed. To Miles’s unschooled eyes it was like watching ballet dancing.

  “She has the whole package, all right, athleticism and artistry,” Katie remarked. “And now she’s finishing with her final set of spins. Fantastic!”

  Brooke clapped her hands over her head. “Yay! I think she won a medal, Daddy. She was that good.”

  Miles hoped Brooke wouldn’t be disappointed, although he’d heard one of the announcers predict at least a bronze and possibly a silver medal for the girl, who was so new on the international skating scene. In the grand scheme of expectations, a medal for Perrie Lynn would mean an upset and a huge surprise. Others had come to the competition with far more experience.

  Perrie Lynn completed what looked like a spectacular spin and came to a sudden stop, then dramatically bent backward, and swept her arms to the side before slowly lowering them and clasping her hands behind her. She held the pose, looking like a statue. Extending her moment, and exploiting the mood, Miles thought. He stared at the screen as the camera zoomed in for a close-up shot of her face.

  A brilliant, triumphant smile. His stomach rolled over. A familiar prominent widow’s peak. A heart-shaped face.

  “See, Daddy,” Brooke said, bouncing on the couch, “people are clapping and clapping because her skating makes everyone feel happy.”

  Brooke was right. Perrie Lynn skated off the ice to thunderous applause and was immediately enveloped in her coach’s arms. Suddenly, the image disappeared, replaced by a commercial for potato chips. His mouth dry, Miles ran his tongue over his lips and cleared his throat. “So, what happens now, honey?” he asked, his voice barely a croak.

  “She has to wait for the scores.” Brooke waved her crossed fingers high in the air. “But she was the next-to-the-last skater. Goody, goody, goody. I bet she gets a medal!”

  “And I bet you’re right.” He curled his fingers into a tight fist, then used his knuckle to wipe away beads of sweat above his upper lip. His reaction was ridiculous. Olive skin, a widow’s peak. Countless young women would fit that description.

  Miles exhaled, forcing himself to focus on Brooke’s happy chatter about Perrie Lynn and medals. The commercials over, the commentators picked up their conversation about the surpris
ing turn in the competition.

  “So much excitement for such a young woman,” Charlie observed, “and on her birthday, no less. She turns eighteen today.”

  Adrenaline shot through him, putting every cell on alert. Today. The minute he’d opened his eyes that morning, he’d remembered this day. The December date sat more or less dormant in his mind the rest of the year, but memories came alive on what was usually a cold, often snowy day. He’d been glad this was his weekend with Brooke, relieved to have something to serve as the distraction he always needed when this day rolled around.

  The camera focused on Perrie Lynn’s parents seated in the audience. More energy zipped through his body and sent his heart thumping hard. Who were those fair-haired people? They didn’t look much like Perrie Lynn.

  He swallowed hard as he struggled to focus on Allen’s comments about the significance of Perrie Lynn’s coaching change. “She also chose a new choreographer,” Allen said. “These shifts can make a big difference, but they meant Perrie Lynn and her mother had to leave her dad in Minnesota so she could train with her new coach in Michigan.”

  “But the decision appears to have paid off,” Charlie added.

  “Mamie said the coach is really famous,” Brooke said.

  Miles nodded. “So it seems.”

  “She’s adopted,” Brooke said. “Mamie told me.”

  “Who’s adopted, honey?” His voice cracked. “Perrie Lynn?”

  Brooke nodded. “Mamie said her parents got her when she was really tiny. Maybe only a couple of days old.”

  He swiped his knuckle across his upper lip again. “Really?”

  “And it’s not like a secret or anything. Maybe ’cuz she doesn’t look like her mom and dad.”

  “I see.” He rubbed his chest, as if sending a signal to his heart to slow down.

  The camera zoomed closer to Perrie Lynn sitting on the bench next to her coach. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. The wide smile that took over her face, her olive skin and the large dark eyes. And the one-of-a-kind widow’s peak. Like Lark. The birthday. Minnesota. It all added up.