Page 9 of Ice Around the Edges

She chuckled and walked up beside the bed. “I’m Lucinda Bain, Dixon’s mother.” She smiled down at me. “And you are Evan Kano, are you not?”

I coughed hard, offering her my hand. “Yes, ma’am.”

She bent and kissed my cheek, and when she leaned back, she turned to ask her son to take her coat. Apparently, he needed to be careful with it since it was Dior and mink. She told me that he was so enamored of me that he’d forgotten his manners.

I looked over at him, and he rolled his eyes.

“Evan.”

I turned back to the woman standing there beside my bed in the Donna Karan suit. Everything about her was tasteful elegance, and she had the warmest eyes.

“It’s so good to meet you,” I said, and I heard my voice catch because I had always hoped to meet her and had instead met Dixon’s father, who hated me. He had been in town on business, and Dixon and I had had dinner with both his father and grandfather. It had been the end of us; I just didn’t realize it at the time.

“Oh my darling,” she said, hand on my cheek as she brushed away a stray tear.

I was overwrought from being shot. I had my out.

Dixon came around the bed, leaned over, and wrapped me in his arms. My breath hitched because I wasn’t expecting it.

“Hug me back,” he ordered, “you know you’re dying to hold me.”

And I was, even if he was being an arrogant ass about it.

I turned my face into the side of his neck, and hugged him as hard as I could. He was warm and solid and strong and just him, just Dixon. And I was terrified that somewhere buried not so deep down was a love that had simmered for ten years.

“Okay,” he said after long minutes, letting me go, easing me back before gesturing at his mother. “Go.”

“Oh really? Is it my turn now?”

He growled at her, and her smile was luminous. She didn’t just love him; she adored him.

“Evan,” she said with a smile, “darling, I know I don’t deserve it after the way I’ve treated you, but could you spare me a few moments of your time?”

“I don’t… when exactly did you treat me bad?”

“Sweetheart, I never once picked up the phone to see how you were after you and Dixon broke things off,” she confessed, moving to perch delicately on the edge of my bed. “I wanted to of course, but I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about that since we had never actually met face to face.”

“I––”

“I mean, I heard all about you of course… how smart you are and how beautiful and funny and just every little thing so I felt I knew you, but still, I didn’t think it was my place to just ring you up out of the blue.”

“I would have loved that, Mrs. Bain,” I told her.

“Please call me Lucinda.”

“Lucinda,” I repeated.

“I just felt terrible… after four years and then to just have it end because of….” She took a quick settling breath. “There’s been a terrible mistake made.”

“And what is that?”

Another deeper breath. “It’s a bit of a story.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

She moved a lock of hair that had escaped the French twist from in front of her face. I was betting that when she let the thick blonde mane down that it fell to her shoulders. “Well, a week or so ago we were all having dinner together, the whole family, even my father was there, eighty-eight and still going strong.” She stopped and smiled at me. “He’s a pistol, but that’s… anyway, while we were eating Dixon brought up that fact that you had been involved in a shooting and all of a sudden Mr. Bain asks after you.”

“Oh, that’s kinda funny,” I said because I had no idea what else to say. I didn’t want to say that because her husband was a homophobic asshole and that her son was a coward that four years of my life had been flushed down the drain.