Page 30 of Defend Her Heart

“I got some tests done this morning after I fell.”

“You fell? Are you okay?” I take her face in my hands, inspecting her head and face for any cuts or injuries.

She swats me away. “I’mfine.Well, I will be. I just need some more tests in order to finally get some answers.”

“What kind of answers?”

She’s not making any sense. All of this sounds like good news to me. Not the fall, but the getting answers. Avery must see the confusion on my face because she explains.

“I think I have something called POTS, but I don’t have insurance right now to get the tests I need to confirm that. It’s my fault. Things haven’t been great since the divorce.”

My eyebrows raise at the worddivorce. I suspected it, butdidn’t want to get my hopes up. Her confirming it now makes me way happier than I probably should be.

Avery points her finger at me. “Nope. We’re not talking about that.Thatis none of your business.”

I smirk because we are definitely going to talk about that. Maybe not now, but one day.

“Like I was saying,” she continues, “the tests today and the ones I’ll need are really frickin’ expensive. I finally found a doctor who will take me seriously, but now I’m in a place where I can’t afford to get the answers I’ve been so desperate for.”

“I’ll pay for the tests.”

The words fall out of my mouth so casually, Avery takes a step back.

“No. I’m not letting you do that. I am not your problem anymore.”

I move toward her, closing the distance she’s attempting to put between us. “You were never a problem, Aves.” She shakes her head but I push gently. “Let me do this. Your health is more important than our messy past.”

She shakes her head aggressively. “No. I’ll figure something else out.”

I don’t like this. I want her to get the answers she needs. I want her to find the peace she’s so clearly desperate for.

“Why won’t you let me help you?”

“Because!” She throws her arms out as she yells at me. “Because I was with a man who was supposed to support me and he made me feel pathetic for needing his help.Ican do this. I don’t need or want anyone to pay for my shit anymore. Do you understand that?”

Stubborn woman. Beautiful, frustrating, stubborn fucking woman.

It’s been a while but I know Avery well enough to know that I’m not going to change her mind. Rubbing at my jaw, I relent.

“Fine.”

“Thank you.” She crosses her arms and holds my eyes. Her stubbornness might be frustrating as hell, but her strength is something I’ve always admired about her. Which has me thinking about what she just said.

“Now, back to the other thing.”

I can’t ignore what she just told me about her ex. My concern for Avery is high, but the rage I feel toward that pathetic asshole is even higher. And the anger I feel at myself? I don’t even want to think about it. I let her go and then cut her out of my life. Maybe if I would’ve sucked it up and stuck around, I could’ve seen what he was doing to her. Maybe I could’ve prevented all this pain and heartbreak for her.

I watch her inhale a breath and push down the anger, trying like hell to keep my voice calm when I speak again.

“You said Bryan made you feel pathetic.”

Her nose scrunches at his name, and she looks at something next to us, avoiding my eye contact at all costs.

I reach out and gently grip her chin with my thumb and finger, turning so she has nowhere else to look but at me.

“What the fuck did he do to you?”

It’s been a little over a month since Connor found me crying in the parking lot of the hospital. Five agonizing weeks of trying to avoid him at all costs because I don’t want to talk about the tests I need or my divorce. Which, by the way, has been nearly frickin’ impossible. You’d think in a big city like Green Bay, we’d rarely cross paths outside the rink. But for whatever reason, the higher powers above are trying to torture me.