Page 80 of Dirty Fighter

Dread spools through my center at the cryptic but painfully familiar message. No good ever came from those words.

I’m trying to scroll back when I hear my name, muffled.

Is he under the bed? “Can’t find your phone?”

I turn in a circle to see if it’s on any of the shelves or end tables. Nope. Windowsill… also no. I glance out at the sunlight and cotton-ball cloud day and⁠—

“No.” The word leaks out like a wheeze as I brace myself against the top of the couch, then start toward the door.

“Jason,” I try again.

My voice feels funny, my breath too thin for sound. But his carries cleanly from the other room. “Got it. Just need the charger.”

He says something else, but I can’t hear it over the pounding of my heart as I stare at the figure coming up the path then past the clearing.

This can’t be happening. It can’t.

My stomach hollows as a man who has no business being on this continent, let alone this island, jogs up the steps.

“Thank God, Ro,” he heaves.

“Ron?” I croak as my ex-fiancé pulls the screen door open and lets himself in.

He sweeps me into an awkward embrace that pins one arm to my side while the other remains poised somewhere between stop and what-is-happening. “I’ve got you. Everything’s okay now. I’m here.”

Nothing is okay.

“You’re supposed to be in Madagascar,” I choke out, pulling free. “I don’t understand. What are you doing here?”

I drove him to the airport myself while he double-checked the backpack he’s now dropping on the floor for his passport and papers. Watched him walk through the automatic doors where he only distractedly looked back at the last second with something I thought with a pang might be regret.

“I came for you.” His hands find mine, and his eyes, placid and earnest, follow. “I gave it up. All of it. For you. For us. And Ro, I’m never leaving you again.”

And that’s when I see Jason, standing stock-still in the hallway.

28

Jason

I can’t breathe, can barely think past the roaring No in my head.

The man with his hands on Rowan… the one who walked through my front door while I was trying to find a fucking charger for my phone, gives up a weary laugh. Like What a day, huh?

I hate him. I know who he is. I recognize him from the funeral. If I didn’t, well, he wouldn’t be anywhere near Rowan, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be laughing.

I’m a threat who has built his career on knowing where I’m needed and what to do. I protect my team, my puck, my game from the assholes who think it’s all theirs.

Off the ice, I take care of my friends. The people who rely on me.

Once, I was even able to protect Rowan.

But right now, with the man whose ring she was wearing three months ago standing ten feet away… staring at the woman I want to be mine like she’s still his… I don’t fucking know what to do.

This is the guy she planned to marry.

And I want his fucking hands off of her.

I want her to push him away and tell him to get off our island. That he had his chance, and he blew it.