Chapter 1 - The Second Swing
The hockey stick cracked against my shoulder before I could pull Lily out of its path.
I dropped to my knees on the kitchen tile and folded myself over my daughter. Lily's little hands grabbed my shirt. Above us, Victoria Hale lifted the stick again.
"Please," I said. "She's only four. Don't hurt her."
"Then you should have stayed gone." Victoria's diamond engagement ring flashed against the black tape on the handle. "Five years, Grace. You had one job."
I knew the sound a stick made when it hit a wall. This had been worse. Pain rushed down my arm, but I held Lily tighter.
"Nathan doesn't know," I whispered.
"And he never will."
The kitchen door opened.
"Know what?" Nathan Cole stood in the doorway with his car keys in one hand. His eyes moved from Victoria's raised stick to Lily crying against my chest. "Put that down."
Victoria lowered it just enough to look innocent. "Grace attacked me. Her daughter was throwing things. I was protecting myself."
"With a hockey stick?"
"Nathan," I said, shaking, "please call the police."
He stepped around Victoria. "Are you hurt?"
Before I could answer, Lily looked up. She had seen Nathan's face only in photographs tucked inside my dresser, photographs I never had the courage to throw away.
"Daddy?" she whispered.
Nathan stopped moving.
Victoria laughed too loudly. "Children say things. She calls every man that."
"No, I don't," Lily said.
Nathan looked at me, his expression stripped of everything except disbelief. Then he noticed the papers spread across the counter: an unsigned statement accusing me of instability, a travel itinerary I had never booked, and a request for emergency custody review.
On the top sheet, under CHILD'S FATHER, someone had typed NATHAN COLE.
He picked it up. "Grace. Why is my name on this?"
May you like
Victoria reached for the paper.
But Nathan had already seen the date beside my signature - a date from five years ago, before Lily was even born.
