The stairway door pushed open and a young girl raced out then skidded to a halt and stared at him.
He recognized immediately that she was a fan. There was a look, and she had it. A little awestruck, a little overwhelmed and a lot of shock. He smiled. He liked kids, and they tended to like him. He’d been told that was because he still hadn’t grown up himself, but that didn’t bother him. He believed it was because he still remembered how to have fun; he hadn’t lost that with whatever else the cancer had taken.
“You’re Troy Green!” she said a little breathlessly.
“I am,” he agreed.
“Do you live here?” she asked.
“I do. What are you doing here?” Running up from another floor, he expected.
“I live over there.” She pointed at Mrs. Epps’s doorway. “We just moved in. Me and my brother and my mom. I’m Angie, and my brother is Tommy and my mom’s Michelle.”
Ah, the new neighbors.
Just then, Michelle moved like a rocket from the condo doorway to stand in front of her daughter. A younger boy followed her and clung to her side. She was standing protectively, eyes focused on Troy. She spoke to the girl, gaze still on Troy.
“Angie, what have I told you about talking to strangers?”
Angie rolled her eyes. “He’s not a stranger, Mom. That’s Troy Green.”
Michelle’s mouth tightened, and she balled her hands into fists.
“How does she know your name? What have you been asking her?”
Troy’s jaw dropped. First she thought he was attacking her, and now she thought he was a danger to her daughter?
Angie pushed past her mother with her arms crossed. “I recognized him because I don’t live under a rock. He plays for the Blaze.” When her mother didn’t respond, Angie continued, gesticulating wildly. “The Toronto Blaze! The hockey team! They won the Cup two years ago—the first time in forever a Canadian team won it! I watched with Dad before—”
She blinked rapidly, then spun and raced into their condo. Michelle watched her go, one hand resting on the boy’s shoulder, her expression troubled. The boy kept his gaze on Troy, but he clearly wasn’t a hockey fan. He appeared to be evaluating Troy on some scale and, considering his mother, Troy knew he wouldn’t be scoring well. Troy was relieved when Michelle turned back and he could look at her instead.
This time there was no anger in her voice. “I’m sorry we’re a bit on edge. We don’t know anyone here, and our family from home warned us about Toronto.”
Troy kept silent. After the conclusions she’d jumped too, he wasn’t in a rush to let her off the hook.
“I’m a little too protective of my kids—do you have any?” she asked.
A voice yelled down the hallway before he could answer.
“No, Mom! He’s single, just like you. He’s thirty-one, so you’re two years older than he is.”
Troy had to hold in a laugh. The mother might suspect he was a budding serial killer, but the daughter thought he was okay.
The woman’s face flushed. She had picked up on her daughter’s matchmaker vibe. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “Come on, Tommy,” she said. She pulled the boy to her doorway with some speed.
Troy was glad that this time he wasn’t the one feeling awkward.
He wasn’t the one feeling awkward the next morning, either, when there was a knock at his door.
* * *
MICHELLE HAD HAD no intention of knocking on her neighbor’s door—ever. But she had also never imagined she’d have any reason to.
Being a single mom wasn’t easy. Michelle had known moving to Toronto was going to make it more difficult, in some ways. In Winnipeg, she and the kids had a support group: grandparents, the military, friends. The problem was that everyone knew their story. They couldn’t escape the pitying glances, the overwhelming sympathy and in some cases, the distance some of their friends had tried to put between her family and theirs, as if they carried a virus that could spread if there was too much contact.
The kids’ paternal grandparents were still grappling with their son’s death and found it easiest to blame Michelle.
Michelle’s family wanted to be supportive, but since they were in the military, they were scattered across the globe. Once Mitch’s funeral was over, they’d had to return to their own commitments. They kept in touch by Skype, and they could do that as well from Toronto as Winnipeg.
So here Michelle and the kids were, in a new city, making a new start.
It was the first day of school for all three of them. Last night Michelle had planned carefully so that the morning would go smoothly. Lunches had been made, clothes had been laid out. She had timed what they’d need to do and left a buffer for accidents.
Except she hadn’t accounted for the stupid Ontario milk bags. What was wrong with the cartons and jugs they had in Manitoba? In Ontario, the cartons only came in small sizes, and her family went through a lot of milk. She’d picked up one of the pitchers they were supposed to put the bags of milk into, but she hadn’t put the bag far enough into the jug, and it had tipped out, pouring milk all over Michelle’s shirt and the counter and floor.
And it had been the last bag of milk, of course. So no cereal for the kids. She’d made sandwiches with the last of the bread last night. No toast, no time to make anything like pancakes and she didn’t have milk or eggs anyway. The seconds had ticked by. She’d wanted to hit something out of sheer frustration.
She was considering picking up something for the kids’ breakfast on the way to school when she heard the faint ping of the elevator and footsteps going down the hallway, followed by the sound of a door opening and closing.
Before she could think it through, she told the kids to mop up the milk and went to ask her new neighbor for some milk.
She knocked at his door and stepped back. Should she apologize again? Grovel?
The door opened. Her neighbor stood there, but she couldn’t form the words.
She understood now that he was a hockey player, and he must have just come in from a run. The weather was still warm and much more humid here than in the Prairies. That would explain why he was wearing only shorts and shoes, and his incredible body was glistening with sweat. She might be a widow with kids, but she could appreciate that.
She stared for a moment, and then suddenly her mind flashed into the past. Back to when she’d first met Mitch, in basic training. They were both young and fit. Mitch had been a runner, and she’d seen him so many times just like this—shirtless, sweaty, looking so good...
But after his last mission, Mitch had come back a changed man. He’d let himself go, along with a lot of other things. So it had been a while since she’d been around a half-naked man looking as good as Troy did right then.
If only it could have been Mitch, still with them in every way. Coming in hot and sweaty from a run and pulling her into his embrace while she squealed, and he pretended not to understand what she was squealing about...
Troy raised his eyebrows. “Hello?”
Michelle forced herself to glance up, and she saw amusement in his eyes. He thought she was tongue-tied from staring at his naked chest. As if. Yes, she was staring at him, but she could handle an attractive body. It was remembering the past that would bring her down.
“Did something happen?” he asked.
Michelle followed his gaze to her shirt and realized the wet milk was making her shirt mostly see-through. Drops were dripping from her hem onto her feet. She