His smile was breathtaking. “Hell yes.”

“Then you’d better give me a kiss good night worth it.”

In a millisecond he pulled me into him. My heart jumped, and my lips tingled in anticipation of what I knew had to come next. I was going to go mad if I couldn’t get his mouth on mine.

He leisurely took my face in his hands, brushing back the stray strands of auburn hair. He examined every curve and line of my face, his eyes skimming over my cheekbones, pausing at my eyes, lingering on my mouth.

Then he took my mouth the way I needed him to.

His lips moved in delicious ways that had me instantly ready for him. He slanted my head to gain better access, and all I could do was concentrate on not collapsing. He kept his hands on my face, but I craved them on every inch of my skin.

Once my knees wavered, he retreated. If I hadn’t seen the desire raging in his darkened eyes, I would have thought he was completely unaffected. “May I call you for a second date, Ms. Howard?”

“Yes, please, Mr. Walker.” My breath sounded like he’d just led me out of the bedroom. I wished he had.

“This evening was my pleasure.” He kissed my hand and backed away, closing the door behind him and leaving me braced against the wall.

Shit. Crap. Shit. Crap. Yeah, that. Every fiber in my body was calling out for him, and now I had to go to sleep knowing he was only a wall away? I wanted to scream in frustration. Instead, I picked up my purse and the application from where I must have dropped them and headed down the hall into the living room.

April sat huddled on my couch, her eyes red and puffy.

“She got here about half an hour ago,” Sam explained, dressed for the club. “She wouldn’t explain what was wrong, and I didn’t want to leave her alone.”

“I got it, Sam. You head out.”

She gave me a quick hug and after throwing a sympathetic look in April’s direction was out the door. Friday night was calling.

I tossed everything on the end table and sat next to my sister, pulling her into my arms. “April?”

“He left me. Brett found out about the other guys and said he was done.” Her sobs racked her tiny frame.

I held her to me and rocked her back and forth. I promised her everything would be okay and sent up a prayer to God that He would not make me a liar.

“What am I going to do?” Her warm tears soaked my neck. “I love him, Ember.”

I cupped her face in my hands and pulled her away so I could get a good look at her. The tears she cried were real and ugly. “You really want him?”

She nodded her head and bit her lip through the tears that tracked down her red cheeks.

“Then you apologize. No reasoning, no excuses. You were wrong, no matter what you’ve told yourself, and you’re going to have to own up to that.” She didn’t need my judgment, but she needed the truth.

Something had to give.

“Okay, I can tell him I’m sorry. I was wrong. I just—”

“No. No excuses, April. Not even to yourself. And apologizing doesn’t just mean you’re sorry, it means you won’t do it again, and unless you’re ready for that, you leave him alone.”

Her shoulders straightened, and I watched my sister grow up a little.

Chapter Nineteen

Crap. It was six thirty at night. The puck dropped in forty-two minutes, and I was easily a twenty-minute drive away. I hopped on one foot, trying to pull off the black boots so I could put on the brown ones that matched better with my cream-colored sweater. With an enthusiastic tug, the left one flew off my foot, and I landed on my butt, banging my head against the bookshelf.

“Ow!” I shouted. The bookcase shook from the impact, and I flung my arms over my head to catch what was sure to be an avalanche. A moment later, an envelope hit. Overreact much?

Dad’s letter stared up at me from my lap. I traced my name in his familiar handwriting with my finger, like that could somehow bring him closer.

For the hundredth time or so, my fingers flirted with the seal, tempted to rip it open and hear from him one last time. But what would he say if he knew everything that had happened? If he knew I’d transferred? If he knew all my carefully laid plans were nothing but a pile of ashes waiting to be swept away?

What could he have left to say to me that he hadn’t already told me in person? What had he held back? I turned it over in my hands again, determined not to leave anything unsaid in my life. There would never be a reason for me to write a letter.

Josh needed to know I loved him. Tonight. No waiting. No regrets. No worrying about consequences or debating if I’d grieved enough to move on.

I stood and put the envelope back on the top shelf.

I slipped on my brown boots. “Sam! We’ve got to go now!”

“Hold on!” she shouted back from the bathroom. “You can’t rush perfection, and I’m about to go man hunting.”

“Where the hell are my keys? Can’t you put anything back where it goes?” I threw my arms into my coat and started tossing Sam’s coffee-table mess around.

“Don’t get your panties in a wad, Ember. We can’t all have super-organizational OCD around here.”

“Not helping, Sam!”

She laughed and kept applying her makeup.

Four minutes, three curse words, and a set of keys later, we were on our way.

Traffic wasn’t bad until we hit the World Arena. Add in the five minutes to park, and we flirted with missing the puck drop.