FROM THE MOMENT he’d left home, Kyle Northrup had fantasized about returning, triumphant, to Wallis Point.
Until that fantasy died two years ago on April 19. The day the Humvee he’d been driving had run over a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. After that, Kyle decided he would never go home again.
He thought nothing more about his discarded fantasy, until a call came in from a Wallis Point, New Hampshire, exchange.
Kyle gripped his phone in sweaty palms. He sat behind the desk at his new civilian job, staring at Navy procurement reports on a computer screen. The order-analyst position depressed him—he was more cut out for physical work, but that seemed off the table now that he was a wounded military veteran.
He listened as a lawyer back in his hometown spoke in hesitating, halting sentences.
“...Kyle, I’m calling about your stepfather,” Natalie Kimball said. “I’m his attorney.”
Kyle couldn’t picture the face behind her name. A former classmate of his, she’d said, but he’d been gone from town too long to remember. “Yes, ma’am.”
Natalie cleared her throat and continued. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but Joe passed away this afternoon. He wasn’t in pain. All his funeral arrangements were completed, so there is nothing you need to do in that respect—”
“Wait, what? Joe is dead?” Kyle asked, struggling to catch up, reflexively gripping the edge of his desk.
How long had it been since he’d talked to his stepfather? Ten months? A year?
It’s February now. I didn’t talk to him at Christmas. It was the Christmas before that. He was irritated with me, as always.
“Joe had elective heart surgery just this morning,” she answered. “He never came out of it. Kyle, I’m sorry.”
Kyle pressed his lips together. He didn’t know how he felt, or even what to say. Maybe he was in shock. He just knew that he wouldn’t show any weakness about it, not to anyone.
“The funeral is on Saturday at ten o’clock at the Rogers Funeral Home,” the lawyer continued. “I’m sure he’d want you to attend. He asked me to call you when the time came.”
Kyle slowly exhaled. “I’ll be there,” he said quietly.
“Joe...had a will, which he named me as executor for. Could you stay in Wallis Point and meet with me about it on Monday?”
His heart feeling as if it was beating through his chest, Kyle sat up straighter. A will meant that Joe had left him something. There was only one thing Kyle had ever wanted, and Joe knew exactly what that was. Kyle was grateful he’d never told Joe he’d been injured because otherwise, knowing Joe, Kyle would have had no chance of getting what he’d hoped for.
What he’d always hoped for.
“I’ll be there,” Kyle said tersely. “I’ll be there on Monday.”
There was a pause. “Kyle, I really am sorry.”
He stayed silent. He wasn’t about to tell the lawyer this, but even before the final fight that had sent Kyle packing from Wallis Point for good, he and Joe had never really gotten along. Not since Kyle’s mother died.
That day had hit them both hard.
“Well,” the lawyer—Natalie—said, a forced cheeriness in her voice, “I’ll look for you at the funeral. If you’d like to come early, my husband is a Navy vet. His name is Bruce Cole. I think that you two could talk—”
“I’m fine,” Kyle interrupted. He knew what she was attempting to do, but Kyle didn’t need to “talk” to anyone about anything. He’d adjusted just fine to civilian life. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”
“Great. I also have a letter that Joe left for you. You were his only relative. He said that you’re in the Marines—”
“I’m a veteran. Honorably discharged.”
“Thank you for your service,” she said.
Kyle felt his lips pressing together again. “You’re welcome.” Then, because he couldn’t stand the awkwardness any longer, he asked, “What’s Joe doing with the hockey rink?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Natalie said in her gentle voice. She seemed excited. “Do you have an interest in it?”
Did he? Hell, yeah. Shakily, he pushed himself out of his chair. Joe barring him from the rink had been the last straw—the big blowup that had led Kyle to leave town. His main hope for returning to Wallis Point had been to reclaim his rightful position and run that hockey rink as he’d been brought up to do. As he’d earned. Of course, the one bad decision Kyle had made, the winter of his senior year, had ended the original promise from Joe.
But now was a fresh chance...
Kyle thought of his prosthetic left foot. Did he dare attempt it?
I have to. I can’t sit in this office and stare at this computer screen every day. This is not what I’m meant to do.
“Yes. Yes, I absolutely have an interest,” he said firmly. He swallowed. “How soon until I can take it over?”
Natalie laughed. “Excellent—I’m relieved to hear you speak so enthusiastically. From a strictly personal perspective, Bruce and I are glad you’re interested in keeping the facility open. But we’ll talk more about it on Monday, of course.”
Real hope filled him, for the first time in a long time. He needed this competency. Needed to be good at something again.
“That’s great,” he said softly. And oh, man, what he would do with the place. First thing, he’d track down some other wounded soldiers he knew. Some of them must have dispersed into Maine and New Hampshire. Maybe they could set up a wounded warrior hockey league. A similar program had been the main thing that had gotten him through the two years of rehab in Maryland after he’d been flown back from Germany—
“Kyle,” Natalie said, interrupting his thoughts. “Jessica Hughes is invited to the will reading as well. Do you know her?”
Kyle couldn’t speak. Slowly he sank back into his chair.
“She didn’t go to high school with us,” Natalie said. “She was home-schooled while she trained in figure skating at Joe’s rink. Jessa Hughes, she was known as then.”
Kyle wiped his hand over his face, trying to regain his composure. “Jessa is back in town?” he asked, as steadily as he could.
“Yes, but she goes by Jessica now.”
Didn’t matter what she called herself, she would always be the famous Jessa that everybody loved. The sweetheart of Wallis Point.
The great ache of his teenage years.
Kyle exhaled and stared at the ceiling. The last time he’d seen her, he’d inadvertently hurt her. Physically, but not emotionally—on the contrary, she’d had no problem breaking off all contact with him. And Joe’s decision to bar Kyle from the rink had been based on that one stupid mistake that he’d always regretted.
In retrospect, Jessa—Jessica—was also a big part of the reason he’d left Wallis Point after high school to impulsively join the Marines.