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When he wouldn’t have even hesitated before he kissed her mouth and tangled his fingers in her hair. A time when he would have stared into her liquid brown eyes as he had sex with her all night long. A time in his life when women had been within easy reach and he’d never gone without.
    Back then, his life had been fast and furious. Full tilt. Balls to the walls. Everything he’d ever expected and could ever want. Yeah, he’d been blindsided and slammed in the corners more times than he could count. He’d made mistakes. Done things he wasn’t proud of, but he’d loved his life. Every damn minute of it.
    Right up to the second it had been blown all to hell.

Three
    Rob opened the back door to Sutter Sports and pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. He took the stairs up to his office and bit into his apple. The sharp crunch joined the sound of his footsteps, and he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He flipped on the light switch with his elbow and headed toward the open end of the loft, which looked down into the dark store below.
    A tandem canoe and nine-foot kayak were suspended from the ceiling beams and cast shadows across a row of mountain bikes. With Sun Valley sixty miles away, and several gun and tackle stores within the city limits of Gospel, Sutter’s didn’t sell winter sporting goods. Instead he concentrated on summer recreational equipment, and last summer he’d made a nice profit off the rental side of the business.
    The temperature in the building was sixty-five and felt warm in comparison to the biting chill outside. He’d lived in every time zone and climate in North America. From Ottawa to Florida, Detroit to Seattle, and several stops in between, Rob Sutter had been there and done that.
    He’d always preferred the four distinct seasons of the Northwest. Always enjoyed the radical change in temperature and scenery. Always loved the raw, in-your-face wilderness. And there weren’t many places more raw or in-your-face than the Idaho Sawtooths. His mother had lived in Gospel for nine years now. He’d lived here not quite two. It felt like home, more than any other place he’d lived.
    Rob turned away and headed for his desk in the middle of the large room. A carton of Diamondback fly rods and a box of T-shirts with his store’s name and logo on the front leaned against his workbench on the far side of the room. His vise and magnifier competed for space with intricate tools, spools of thread, tinsel, and wire.
    On top of Rob’s desk, Stanley Caldwell had neatly stacked his mail. Rob had liked Stanley the moment he’d met him a year ago. The old guy was hardworking and honest, two qualities Rob respected most in a man. When Stanley had offered to “look after” the sporting goods store while Rob was out of town, Rob hadn’t thought twice before he’d handed over the key.
    Rob took one last bite of his apple and tossed the core into the garbage can. He sat on the corner of his desk and kept one foot planted on the floor. Beside the mail sat the latest issue of The Hockey News. On the cover, Derian Hatcher and Tie Domi duked it out. Rob hadn’t seen the game, but he’d heard that the Dominator had gotten the better of Hatcher.
    He picked up the magazine and thumbed through it, past the ads and articles, to the game stats in the back. His gaze skimmed the columns, then stopped halfway down the page. One month to the play-offs and the Seattle Chinooks were still looking good. The team was healthy. The goalie, Luc Martineau, was in his zone and veteran sniper Pierre Dion was on fire, with fifty-two goals and twenty-seven assists.
    The last year Rob had played for the Chinooks, they’d made it to the third round of the play-offs before the Avalanche had narrowly defeated them by one goal. It was the closest Rob had come to getting his name inscribed on Lord Stanley’s cup. He’d been bummed about