Page 114 of This Wild Heart

I laughed under my breath. “Not sure we should market the book that way.”

Vida set her chin in her hands and sighed. “Maybe not.” She reached forward and tugged my sketchbook in her direction, idly flipping through the pages. Her eyebrows shot up. “Whoa. What are these?”

I glanced over, face heating when I saw what she was looking at. “Oh, just … doodles.”

“Doodles, my ass,” she mused, bringing the page closer to her face. “These are amazing. I love the eagle. He’s a handsome boy.” She gave me a quick look. “And a mourning dove?” I nodded slowly. Her fingers traced the lines of the smallest one. “And what’s the little one tucked between them?”

“A sparrow,” I answered quietly. “A baby. He’d … he’d get bigger if you used them in a story.”

Her eyes fell on mine. “A misfit family of birds, huh?”

My throat was tight as I stared at the three of them. “Yeah.”

Vida’s gaze was heavy, and when her eyes glossed over, I gave her a stern look. “Don’t you dare,” I pleaded. “I can’t … not right now.”

She set down the sketchbook and gripped my hand. “I know.”

Once Isabel was in bed for the night and the kitchen cleaned up after dinner, I was too exhausted to talk to anyone about anything, and I flopped face-first onto the bed in the guest apartment above the garage, sleeping deeply until the sun came up the following morning.

After washing my face and tugging on a sweatshirt, I let myself into the house and heard the low hum ofSportsCenterplaying in the family room. Dad was on the couch with his coffee in hand. Based on the bags under his eyes, he didn’t sleep quite as well as I had.

Clips from the Washington Wolves training camp flashed, and we both listened quietly while they talked about roster changes. It switched to another team, and my dad glanced sideways.

“Want me to turn it off?”

“I don’t mind.”

He took a slow sip of his coffee and sighed.

“How’d Isabel sleep last night?”

“She woke up a lot. Finally caved and took more pain pills around three.”

On the screen, the team coverage changed again, and the sight of Voyagers colors made my stomach swoop. Without being asked, my dad increased the volume by two.

“The mood is fierce this morning as we near the end of Voyagers training camp,” stated a striking reporter in a white dress. “You can sense that they’re on a mission to rectify the mistakes made last year, and no one feels that pressure more than Parker Wilder.”

The camera cut to an interview, and my heart gave an uneven thump at the sight of his face.

He looked good. So good.

And he looked tired. The dark circles were back under his eyes, but I wasn’t sure many people would notice because he gave sharply focused answers with his hands on his hips during the interview. He must’ve gotten his hair cut the day after I left because it wasn’t visible underneath the Voyagers hat turned backward on his head.

“Of course there’s pressure to do better than we did last year.” He gave a rueful grin that yanked goose bumps along my arm. “We were so close, and it feels like the last five or six years, we’ve been building momentum in the postseason, but momentum doesn’t win championships, and we all want the same thing. We want to be the ones left standing at the end. Everything we’re doing, starting now, is in pursuit of that goal.”

The reporter smiled. “You sound ready. Like you know what you want and how to get it.”

There was a brief flicker in his eyes, and it wrenched my stomach in knots, because I had to wonder if anyone else would notice it. “Doing my best,” he told her. “That’s all any of us can do.”

When they returned to the studio, my dad hit the mute button on the TV and leaned back against the couch.

“Did you talk to him yesterday?” he asked, eyeing me over the rim of his coffee mug.

Slowly, I shook my head, keeping my eyes straight ahead on the screen. My thumb absently spun the gold ring on my finger. When would I have to take it off?

There was no reason for me to wear it now, and it was a heavy sort of awareness, a decision that I couldn’t bring myself to make.

Dad didn’t say anything else, and I wasn’t terribly surprised. The man had supernatural patience to wait people out, and for as much as I wanted to let my heart spill out of my mouth, I wasn’t really sure where to start.

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