hung upside down from the back of the chair, balancing on her hands. It was obvious to everyone she inherited her natural athleticism from her father. Embarrassingly I was one of those people who trip over their own feet . . . and everyone else’s.
“You sure that hanging like a monkey in a tree won’t upset your stomach?” I asked her. “Or give you a headache? I’d hate for you to miss an overnight with your dad.”
“I have to practice so being upside down doesn’t make me sick,” she replied with another sigh, as if I should’ve already known that.
“Ah. So what are you practicing for this week?”
“It’s between a trapeze artist or an ice skater. If I decide to have a partner I’ll have to be used to being upside down.”
Last month Mimi wanted to be an astronaut. The month before that a dolphin trainer. While I’ve always told her that she can be whatever she wants to be when she grows up, it’s exhausting finding an activity that holds her attention. After spending money on dance lessons, gymnastics classes, martial arts classes, T-ball, soccer club, fencing, swim team, tennis lessons, golf lessons and horseback riding lessons, I’d put my foot down and said no new organized activities. If none of those worked then she needed to wait until she was older to try others.
Still, I feared she’d play the guilt card and I’d find myself buying tickets to the circus, a Cirque du Soleil show or a Disney on Ice program. Or . . . maybe . . .
“I’m sure your dad would love to take you to a performance.” Not really dirty pool—Mimi’s father, Jaxson Lund, was a member of the billionaire Lund family as well as a highly paid former pro hockey player, so money had never been an issue for him. And there was nothing he loved more than humoring Mimi’s requests, even if it was to alleviate the guilt that he’d missed being a regular presence in her life for most of her life.
The doorbell pealed and Mimi squealed, “I’ll get it!” twisting her lithe little body sideways from the chair to land lightly on her feet, agile as a cat.
I heard her disengage the locks and yell, “Daddy! I thought you’d never get here.”
He laughed. That sweet indulgent laugh he only had for our daughter. “I missed you too, Mimi.”
“I got my stuff all packed. I’m ready to go now.”
Without saying good-bye to me? That stung. But I sucked it up and started toward the entryway.
“Sure. Just let me get the all clear from your mom first.”
Then Jaxson Lund and I nearly collided as we turned the corner simultaneously.
His big hands circled my upper arms to steady me.
I had to tilt my head back to look at him as he towered over me by almost a foot.
It was unfair that my ex actually looked better now than he did when he and I met a decade ago. His dark hair was shorter—no more long locks befitting the bad-boy defenseman of the NHL. No scruffy beard, just the smooth skin of his outlandishly square jaw and muscled neck. His eyes were clear, not bloodshot as I’d usually seen them, making those turquoise-hued eyes the most striking feature on his face . . . Besides that damn smile. Hockey players were supposed to have teeth missing from taking a puck or two hundred to the face. I knew Jax had a partial, but he’d never removed it when we were together. The lips framing that smile were both soft and hard. Druggingly warm and soft when pressed into a kiss, but cold and hard when twisting into a cruel sneer. A sneer I’d been on the receiving end of many times.
That shook me out of my musings about Jax’s amazing physical attributes.
“Hey, Luce.”
Jax had called me Luce from the first—a joke between us because I warned him I wasn’t loose and wouldn’t sleep with him on the first date. An inside joke made me feel special—he made me feel special—until I realized Jaxson Lund used that killer smile and those gorgeous twinkling eyes as a weapon on every woman he wanted to bang the boards with; there wasn’t anything special about me.
I forced a smile. “Jaxson. How are you?”
He retreated at my cool demeanor and dropped his hands. “I’m fine. You’re looking well.”
And people thought we couldn’t be civil to each other. “Thanks. You too.”
“Anything I should know before Meems and I take off?”