Cade: Fire And Ice: A Second Chance Hockey Romance by Jessica Lake, Alana Hart Page A

parking lot to read it so none of my nosy co-workers would see if I got upset.
    "You're gonna have to cancel work tomorrow, Ellie. I'm going out. Also, I'm done with this shitty relationship. We're roommates from now on. Nothing more. I mean it this time, we're finished. Don't bother waiting up for me tonight, I'm going to the bar and I might meet someone."
    Ah, there it was. The every-two-months break-up text, complete with threats to see other people. The first couple of times he'd done it, it had bothered me. Now it just annoyed me. If he wanted to be roommates, fine. I went without Cade Parker. I could definitely go without Bill Stanford. Still, the flat refusal to look after the kids, forcing me to take a day off work, pissed me off. Who did he think paid for his daughter's meals? Who did he think paid for his meals? I was sorely tempted to send a text back to him pointing this out but I held off, knowing it would just egg him on even further and possibly jeopardize another workday.
    I looked up at the sky, sighing to myself and then walked back into the salon. One of my co-workers, Ashley, was eyeballing me.
    "What?"
    She smiled, one of those smiles people give you when they know something you don't.
    "Guess who's back in town, Ellie?"
    I grabbed a broom and started sweeping up hair clippings, uninterested in Ashley's love life.
    "Ellie, seriously, guess who's back?"
    "I have no idea," I replied flatly.
    "That hockey player, from the Kings? The one you dated in high school. Cade Parker?"
    Ashley's words rang in my ears. The name she'd mentioned. Cade Parker. Had I heard her correctly? I kept my eyes on the floor but I could feel heat rising in my face and the sudden pounding in my chest. Cade was back?
    "What? How do you know?"
    "My cousin's wife works at the hotel - she said he checked in this morning. "
    I could feel my co-workers watching me, waiting for a reaction. They knew all about me and Cade Parker back in high school - everyone in North Falls did. I'd almost ruined his career. His parents had to pull him out of school to get him away from me. I got pregnant with his baby and had an abortion against his wishes, breaking his heart. That last part was a complete lie, but it didn't stop anyone from believing it.
    "Oh," I said, still refusing to look up because I didn't want to give the busybodies at the salon the satisfaction of seeing me rattled.
    Cade was back in North Falls? Why? Mary, the fifty-something woman who owned the salon, had the same question.
    "I wonder why he's back in North Falls? Come back to rescue his one true love?"
    There were a few mean titters of laughter at that comment, laughter that no one even bothered to try and stifle. That's how unlikely it was deemed that anyone - let alone Cade Parker - would want to come to North Falls to rescue me.
    Things were different. Different than they had been in high school. But they were still, in their own deflating way, exactly the same. I didn't get beat-up any more, but I still didn't get any respect. I was still the lowest person on anyone's totem pole. That's why my co-workers didn't try to hide their laughter. The idea of Cade Parker being interested in me was literally laughable.
    Still. Why was he back? Was he even back? Was Ashley messing with me? I couldn't ask. To ask would have been to reveal that I cared, and I refused to do that. When my shift was over I gathered my things and left almost immediately, knowing the boys and Kaylee, Bill's daughter, were all home waiting for me.
    The whole drive home I kept expecting to just see him - walking along the side of the road or in another car beside me at a red light.  When I walked into my trailer, located in the same park as my mom's but crucially separate from my hers, my heart still hadn't resumed its normal rhythm. But by nine o'clock, when the kids were finally in bed and I was tidying the mess they'd created, I'd pretty much decided that Ashley's cousin had been mistaken. Cade couldn't be