I wrapped my arms around my girl, waiting for the show to continue.
I was floating on a cloud of happiness and content. I felt like I had skated the best performance of my life. I couldn’t remember ever doing that well when I’d been competing.
“How’s your ankle?” Maiken’s hot breath on my ear made me quiver.
“Throbbing a little, but good.” A twinge of pain registered now that I was standing idle.
Maiken pressed his head against mine so our cheeks were touching. I snuggled into him. My head was light, and my heart was swelling.
Tessa skated a few laps around the immediate area, constantly looking down at the ice as though she wasn’t sure what to do.
“What’s she doing?” Maiken’s voice vibrated against me.
“I’m not sure. She looks timid.”
“Is she okay?” a girl on the deck asked.
“I should go check.” I left the warmth and gooeyness of Maiken and skated out.
Tessa lifted her dark gaze and stopped when she saw me, removing her earbuds. “I’m fine. It’s eerie to be out here on this big lake.”
I guessed the dread she’d had written all over her face when I finished my routine had had nothing to do with my good performance.
I agreed. I’d been apprehensive my first time skating on the lake. Even Maiken had found it weird to be standing in the middle of the lake.
I scanned the ice and the area around us. All the people on shore were watching in earnest. A gust of wind whipped by us, howling as it continued its path to the trees in the distance.
“Just imagine you’re on the ice in the rink.” That was what I’d done.
Her chest lifted. “What if the ice breaks?”
As long as I’d known Tessa, I had never seen her frightened, although when she’d fallen in the pool with me, she’d had a look of horror on her face.
“We’ve had consistently freezing temperatures.” It had to be nineteen or lower.
In spite of the temps, sunny days would heat the water under the ice and, in turn, melt the ice from the bottom up. And we had had a couple of sunny days in the last week with temperatures maybe climbing above thirty-two. But I didn’t think a day or two of thirty-five-or-so degrees would cause the ice to melt. The area from the boathouse out to the middle certainly appeared solid.
“I just skated on it and have been since early December. If you’re worried, stay in this area.” I waved my hand between the boathouse and us.
Steam floated out of her mouth as she blew out a breath. “I need more ice to do my triple axel.”
Wow! She can do a triple axel. That was one of the hardest jumps in ice-skating. If she nailed it, I might have to vote for her. “Then skate out more and survey the ice.” I didn’t know what to tell her except… “If you’re afraid, we can end this competition.”
“Like hell.” In a split second, her cocky attitude came back with a vengeance.
I clenched my jaw. “Then skate, or else I win.” The girl made me want to drill a hole in the ice underneath her.
She fisted her hands at her side.
I wasn’t waiting around for her to spit venom at me. So I stomped off then glided back to my boyfriend, who was flanked by Chase and my brother.
“Is she okay?” Chase asked.
“Peachy.” I snuggled back into Maiken’s arms. The high I’d had earlier had vanished.
“You were great,” Liam said to me. “I think that was your best performance.”
His compliment did nothing to erase my crankiness over Tessa. Nevertheless, I smiled at my brother. “Thank you.”
Chase complimented me too as well as Miller and Woods.
“Here she goes,” someone said from the deck above.
I guess she wasn’t going to survey the ice farther out.
Tessa shook her wrists a couple of times and began her routine.
Déjà vu hit me. I’d watched Tessa many times, and each time, I bit my nails, my lip, and wrung my hands together, waiting for her to mess up a jump or a spin or anything. But each time, her performance had been spectacular.
Yet this time, she was tense. She skated in a circle—a small circle. The lake was getting to her. As much as I wanted to win, I also wanted to win against a good competitor.
I left Maiken once again and walked out onto the ice when Tessa skated out into a wider arc. Then she went in for her first jump—a Salchow followed by a spin then another.
The guys behind me chatted.
“She’s been trying to perfect the triple axel,” Chase said. “I think she might try it today.”
I hadn’t skated long enough to add that difficult jump to my routine. A triple axel required three and half rotations before landing.
Tessa faded from my view. The people on the deck could see her, but I couldn’t.
“Where did she go?” Maiken asked.
I skated up to the edge of the deck on the boathouse when someone on the deck above me screamed, “She fell in!”
I blinked several times, rushing farther out onto the ice.
Tessa’s arms flailed as she screamed.
I skated as fast as I could to get to her.
“Quinn,” Liam shouted. “No. You’ll fall in too.”
Maybe, but I had to help Tessa no matter how much dissension lay between us.
“I’m slipping,” Tessa wailed. “Help me.”
I came to an abrupt stop with the edge of my blades, examining the situation.
She braced her elbows on the ice in front of me, which didn’t seem weak. I didn’t have time to scratch my head as to why the ice had broken.
She sneered up at me. “This is all your fault.”
Really? The girl was losing her grip fast, and she had the audacity to blame me. “Shut up, Tessa, and give me your hand.” I wasn’t strong enough to pull her out, but I had to try.
I checked behind me and found Chase running as best he could on the ice toward us. I wanted to tell him to go back. If we put too much weight on the immediate area around Tessa, we could all go under.
She clutched my gloved hand but slipped away, taking my glove with her.
Damn it.
I tried again. “Come on.”
She reached out to me, crying, “Please get me out of here.”
Chase finally slid to a stop. “Christ.” He held out his hand. “How did this happen?”
We would figure that out later.
Tessa clutched her brother’s hand, but his efforts died when his foot slipped out from under him and he fell on his butt.
Then Maiken and Liam came to the rescue.
“Oh shit,” Maiken said.
Shit was right. We had to act fast.
I sat down and extended my legs. “I have an idea. Tessa, grab on to my blades. Liam and Chase, try to lift Tessa up by her shoulders. Maiken, I need you to pull me backward. Whatever you do, Tessa, don’t let go of my blades.” I didn’t know if it would work, but we had to try.
Maiken grasped me so that his arms and hands were underneath my armpits. Tessa took hold of my blades with the help of Chase and Liam. Then they grabbed her arms.
“We have to be in sync,” Liam said. “Or else this won’t work.” My brother was in his element, taking charge like he normally did when one of our farm animals needed help. “We do this on three. Maiken, give it all you got, bro. You ready, Chase?”
When Liam shouted “three,” we moved, but not by much.
My teeth chattered, as did Tessa’s.
“Again,” Liam said.
“I don’t care if you pull my arms out of the sockets, just get her out of the water,” I said.
“Now,” Liam shouted.
Maiken yanked me as hard as he could. If my arms were coming out of their sockets, I couldn’t tell. In fact, the only thing I could register was my teeth knocking together.
All of a sudden, I was moving, and so was Tessa. We were like hockey pucks as we slid along the ice.
A few feet before we
reached the shore, Chase and Liam helped Tessa to stand, but she became a rag doll.
“I got you,” Liam said, lifting Tessa into his arms.
She buried her head into the crook of his neck and sobbed.
“Get her up to the house,” Kade ordered in a tone that would scare a bear. “Maiken, help Quinn as well. Lacey is filling the bathroom with steam and warm towels.”
Maiken came around me, his blue eyes filled with panic. “Give me your hands.”
I would have if the blood was flowing through my arms. I inhaled deeply.
Celia rushed up. “Quinn, I don’t know whether to be mad at you or not. You could’ve fallen in too.”
I knew that. But someone had needed to help Tessa, and I’d been the best option since I could get to her faster on skates.
Celia and Maiken helped me stand. When I took a step, my knees buckled.
Maiken caught me. “I got you, babe.” He wrapped one arm around my waist and the other around my legs. “I’m taking her into the boathouse,” he said to Kade.
Kade nodded.
I didn’t need special attention like Tessa. Sure, I was cold, but I wasn’t soaking wet.
Celia and Maiken guided me up the stairs to the boathouse.
When I reached the top, a redheaded girl who I’d seen in the halls at school said, “You saved Tessa.” Her tone was laden with shock and awe.
I suspected her surprise was due to the fact that Tessa and I were enemies. After all, the redhead was there to judge the competition, which had gone viral at school. After what had just happened, I didn’t see how people could vote, and that was fine in my book. I didn’t need their validation to know that I had skated my best performance. But a deal was a deal, and I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be between Tessa and me. At the moment, it didn’t matter. Tessa was safe.
Once I was inside and seated on the couch, Maiken turned up the heat while Celia darted back out.
“Are we still voting?” a boy asked outside the window.
I glanced behind me to find Celia shaking her head. “Thank you for coming. We’ll be in touch.”
“Quinn should win,” the boy said. “She rescued Tessa.”
I appreciated his comments, although my efforts to save Tessa weren’t a reason to win.
The kids on the deck scattered, their footsteps clamoring as they left.
Maiken leaned against the pool table, his expression pensive. “Where did you come up with the idea for Tessa to grab your blades?”
“I don’t know. I knew we needed something to anchor her so we could get her out. I can’t believe the ice cracked.”
“Well, no more skating on it now,” Maiken said.
I was cool with that. Besides, I had more important things to do, like resume the conversation we’d started earlier in the bathroom. But before I had the chance, the basketball team converged on the boathouse and I lost Maiken’s attention.
The family room was dark, cozy, and warm—a welcome relief to the day before when my body felt like someone had locked me in a freezer for hours on end.
I twirled a strand of Quinn’s hair around my finger as we watched the movie Divergent. I wasn’t really watching, though. I was sifting through the events of the previous day, which had been scary as hell. As much as Tessa wasn’t on my list of nice people, no one deserved to fall through the ice. Then when Quinn had taken off after her, my pulse had all but died. Before I’d realized it, I was running out onto the lake like a madman.
Quinn snuggled her head against my chest. “Why are you tense?”
Oh, let’s see. You could’ve died yesterday. Yeah, I’d thought about that all night to the point where sleep had escaped me. Sure, I knew I was being dramatic. But people close to me seemed to be dying, or bad things were happening to them.
Not only that, Kade and I had walked around the lake after everyone had gone home, and we’d found a small stream of water on the east side, flowing into the lake. The warmer water from the stream was probably the culprit that was causing the ice to slowly melt. Thankfully, Quinn hadn’t ventured out to the part where Tessa had fallen in.
I kissed her head. “I was thinking about yesterday.”
She traced circles on my abs. “It’s over with. I’m fine, and so is Tessa.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“No,” she said. “When I came up to the house to check on her, she was gone. I did see her mom at church this morning, and she said Tessa was fine.”
“What about the deal you two made?”
“Do we have to talk about her?”
The subject of Tessa was kind of ruining the mood because now Quinn seemed tense too.
“Let’s just watch the movie,” I said.
Quinn’s finger continued circling around and around on my abs. “You know, I’ve seen this movie about four times. Maybe we could do something else.” She sat up.
I had a feeling I knew what she wanted to do, but I asked just the same. “What do you have in mind?”
Her gaze dropped to my lips.
I grinned, sizing her up. Man, she was so pretty. Her butterscotch hair flowed down around her, framing her delicate face. Her heart-shaped lips were so kissable, and if that didn’t ignite all my senses, then the way she looked at me as though no one else existed sure did. I seriously could’ve stared at her forever.
She pressed her hands to my chest as she straddled me. “No one is home, right?”
Marcus, Jasper, and Ethan were down in the boathouse. Kade was out in the garage, tinkering with an old car the last I knew, and Lacey had taken Emma and the younger kids to the movies.
My grin got bigger, but then the stairs creaked.
Shit. So much for being alone.
“Maiken.” Tessa’s voice filled the room. “Kade said you were down here.”
Quinn flew off me and sat on the cushion beside me as though her father had caught her. Granted, it probably wasn’t good for Tessa to see us making out. She might spread a rumor that Quinn and I were naked or something.
Tessa ambled over with her hands tucked into her coat. Her dark gaze regarded me then Quinn. “Just the person I was looking for.” Her tone was nice. In fact, she sounded so nice, I could feel my eyebrows rising.
She dropped down in a recliner that was adjacent to the sectional Quinn and I were on. “Oh, I love this movie. Divergent, right?”
I snatched the remote and paused the movie.
Silence ticked for a beat as Quinn stared at Tessa with a vacant expression.
Tessa cleared her throat. “I wanted to talk to you about our deal.”
Quinn angled her head one way then another, like a puppy trying to figure out what a human was saying.
If Tessa brought up another skating competition, I was nixing the idea. No way was anyone skating on the lake.
Tessa licked her lips. “I want to be head cheerleader next year and the following year. So I would like to clear the air.”
Quinn rubbed her hands down her thighs, narrowing her eyes at Tessa. “I’m listening.”
I couldn’t wait to hear what Tessa had to say. Hopefully, whatever came out of her mouth next would snap the tension between her and Quinn.
Tessa clasped her hands in her lap. “Saying I’m sorry for all the rumors I’ve spread or stupid things I’ve said to you isn’t going to erase what has already been done. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you’re a good person, Quinn. You have a big heart, and if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I see now how much of a bitch I’ve been to you all these years. We’ll never be best friends or even friends, but my bullying days are over.”
Quinn’s mouth parted in surprise.
Mine did too. Whether Tessa meant what she had just said or not, I believed her. She’d put some heart behind her words.
Tessa rose. “That’s all I came to say.” She started for the stairs.
Quinn hopped up. “Wait.” She strode over to Tessa and threw her arms around her enemy. “I�
�m glad you’re okay.”
It took a second for Tessa to return the hug, but she did.
I needed to take a picture to remember this day just in case Tessa decided to renege. But when I reached for my phone from the coffee table, it was too late.
Quinn edged back. “I really would like to see you do a triple axel.”
Tessa’s eyes widened. “I have a competition coming up next month at the rink if you want to come. It’s the week of our February break.”
“I would like that,” Quinn added.
“You were good out there yesterday,” Tessa said. “You should think of competing again.”
Quinn shook her head. “Nope. The only time I’ll skate is for fun. Don’t get me wrong. I love skating, but I would rather do other things.” She looked at me.
Tessa laughed. “Boys are definitely fun too.”
I hoped I wasn’t the reason for Quinn not skating. The last thing I wanted to do was take away a dream of hers. But as I recalled, Quinn had told me her schoolwork was more important since she wanted to be a doctor.
“I need to go,” Tessa said. “My mom is waiting for me in the car.”
Once Tessa left, Quinn stood motionless.
“Babe, are you okay?”
She pivoted on her heel. “Can you believe what just happened? I’ve longed for the day when she would leave me alone. Who knew it would take her falling through the ice?”
“It wasn’t her falling in, but rather you rescuing her.”
Quinn straddled me once again, beaming from ear to ear. “Maybe the next two years will be great.” Then her smile faded. “Unless you’re moving to Georgia.”
Holy crap! I’d forgotten all about that. My mom hadn’t made a decision yet. She was taking one day at a time with her sister.
I interlaced my fingers with hers. “Not sure yet. Let’s not talk about that.”
“Maiken.” An edge resonated in her tone. “Can I tell you something?”
My gut twisted, and I wasn’t sure if it was in a good way or bad.
“You can tell me anything.” Except if you hate my poem, don’t tell me. She and I hadn’t had a chance to pick up where we’d left off the day before when I’d recited the poem to her.
My Heart to Hold: A Maxwell Family Saga - Book Two Page 13