Unbidden, tears welled up in Jack’s eyes. He blinked them away. Crying in front of his son was not something he would allow.
He should have known that Kane saw beneath the surface and truly understood. A man of few words, Kane’s heart was the biggest part of him. Maybe that’s why he protected it so fiercely.
“Daddy? Can I watch the game with you and Grandpa?” Kane’s little girl, Aislinn, peeked around the corner of the open door, her big eyes wide. At three years old, the child had the gentle demeanor of her mother, but the intensity of her father. Jack had seen the girl quietly approach her boy cousins in the midst of a particularly heated disagreement, smack them all soundly with her pop-up picture book, then walk away while they stared at her in disbelief.
“Of course you can,” Jack answered for him.
Kane opened his arms and she climbed up onto his lap, but her eyes remained fixed on Jack. “Mommy says I can’t hug you because you’re hurt, there,” Aislinn informed him, tilting her head thoughtfully and pointing at his chest.
“Your Mom is right. But you can give your dad a hug, and I’ll feel it.”
Kane’s gaze snapped to Jack’s over her shoulder. Her eyes went huge. “You can do that?”
“Of course,” he told her. “We’re family, so we’re all connected, in here. Your dad is my son, so when you show him love, I feel it too.”
“Like a chain reaction,” she whispered in childlike awe. She stood on Kane’s lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Can you feel it, Grandpa?”
“Aye, but since it’s not a direct hug, you have to squeeze a little harder and really put your heart into it.”
Aislinn closed her eyes and squeezed her father as hard as she could. Over her shoulder, Jack could see Kane’s eyes. They were still focused on the game, but for a moment, Kane’s icy blue eyes were shimmering. Then he blinked and the moisture was gone, but Jack knew he had remembered.
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March 1977
Pine Ridge
“But I want to hug Mom,” two-year old Kane protested as he peered over the hospital bed railing. Kathleen had just given birth to their second son, Jake, via Caesarean section. Kane pointed a pudgy finger toward the squirming infant in Jack’s arms. “He hurt her,” Kane accused. “Mom always hugs me when I’m hurt and makes me feel better.”
“Jake didn’t hurt me,” Kathleen explained gently. “Having a baby is a painful process, but purely natural. It won’t last long.”
“How long?” he asked.
“Not long,” she smiled. “In the meantime, you can give your father a hug and I’ll feel it.”
He cast a doubtful gaze her way. “How?”
“We’re a family, so we’re all connected. When you show love to one of us, we all feel it.”
Kane considered this. His eyes went to the baby and narrowed. “So... if I hug my new brother really, really hard, you’ll feel that too?”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Kane wasn’t exactly thrilled with his new brother just yet, and it was understandable. For those two years, he’d been an only child, the sole recipient of their time and attention. Jack was just about to warn him against doing anything that might hurt the baby, but Kathleen, as usual, was one step ahead of him.
“Yes, but it won’t feel good because you’re much bigger and stronger than he is.”
“Oh.” Kane looked disappointed that his not-so-subtle plan was not going to work out.
“But you know what you can do?”
“What?”
“After you give your father a hug, you can come up here and sit beside me so we can make a new story together.”
Kathleen loved reading to Kane, but he quickly grew bored by hearing the same stories over and over, so sometimes, they made up their own.
“What kind of story?”
“Hmmm,” she hummed. “What do you think? What do you feel like today?”
“A dragon,” Kane said immediately. “A big, strong, fire-breathing dragon.”
“Excellent! I love dragons. Especially big black dragons with icy blue eyes. You start.”
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September 2015
Pine Ridge
Kathleen had a special gift for reaching into the hearts of those she loved. Kane had been especially devastated by her death. He’d been sixteen at the time, on the cusp of full manhood. Jack’s serious son became even more so, retreating into himself, internalizing everything.
Kane earned the nickname “Iceman” for his seemingly cold, calculating persona, but far beneath that frozen exterior lay the boy he had once been. After Kathleen died, no one had been able to draw him out, and Jack feared a part of him had been broken forever. Thankfully, Rebecca had come along and proven him wrong. The woman had the gentle nature and inner fortitude of a saint. Nothing less could have coaxed Kane’s heart to open.