Annette Blair (34 page)

“Hey!” Jason said. “Congratulations. You totally deserve each other.”

Kira’s younger brother barked a laugh and her mother cuffed his ear. Her father smirked down at his plate of eggs. When Regan brought Charlie home, her father must have figured out what really happened.

Charlie snorted in disgust. “She got herself knocked up.”

“Not without your help,” Regan snapped, starting an argument and drawing her family in.

Jason turned his back to the table and leaned into Kira. “Looks like your spell didn’t work,” he whispered.

“The spell was for him to get what he deserved and take responsibility for his actions. He’s marrying her. It worked.”

“What?” Jason said. “You mean I read the spell wrong?”

“You did.”

“So I’ve been afraid for nothing.”

Kira winked. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

Jason kissed her, and she kissed him back, which pretty much silenced her family and stopped the fight.

She and Jason squeezed in at the table, and everyone started talking at once. Her brothers asked questions about hockey, and her sisters asked about the kissing show, as if they expected Kira to answer. She felt like a star.

Jason asked about Kira as a child, charming her parents into sharing the kind of tales Gram shared about him, which warmed Kira, and ticked the hell out of Regan.

Kira had never enjoyed a family breakfast more.

When the talk turned to hockey, Jason said he was returning to the Wizards in a few days. “But I’ll be back for every foundation event,” he told Kira, “until my six months are up. I promise.”

“Great,” she said, not sure why his announcement surprised her. She guessed she’d assumed, when he showed up here, that he’d changed his plans.

What a time to realize she’d fallen for him, despite the indigo candles to raise her defenses, and her recent solitary pep talks, and the many promises she’d made herself, and him.

She was such a loser.

Jason stayed the weekend, laughing and playing with her brothers and sisters, with board games indoors, and football and baseball in the park, excluding Regan and Charlie whenever he could.

“You’re lucky to have such a big family,” Jason said after a cataclysmic bout of lovemaking on Sunday night.

Yeah, right,
she thought. Lucky. She’d just slept with the man she loved for the last time. How lucky could she get?

After dropping Jason at the airport on Monday morning, she went back to work without him.

The minute it hit the news that he was back on the ice, people began to cancel their reservations for the Christmas sleigh-ride tour of the mansions.

Jason showed for that event, surprising her, but he didn’t notice that attendance was down, and she didn’t mention it. He didn’t stay around long enough to talk anyway, never mind make love.

“I’ll be back next weekend for the Christmas Ball,” he said, leaving at ten to catch his plane. No good-bye. No kiss.

It was official. Jason Goddard had ice water running through his veins.

Bessie came into Kira’s office on Friday morning, the day before the Christmas Ball. “Jason called,” she said. “He’s sorry, but he can’t make the ball. He asked us to forgive him. He has a game the next day. He said he’d be home for Christmas, though.”

“Yeah, right,” Kira said turning to look out her window. She’d just been stood-up by the man she loved, through his grandmother.

Gram squeezed her shoulder and left.

Billy came sailing into her office ten minutes later. “Bessie said
somebody
needs a date for the Christmas Ball.”

God bless Bessie.

“I’m available,” he said. “Want to hit the ball with
me
?”

Kira dredged up a smile. “I’d love to. Thank you.”

DURING
the ball, Kira turned off her cell phone, because it kept ringing and showing Jason’s name on the display. She got home at two in the morning, watched her clock instead of sleeping, and didn’t turn on her cell until four.

It rang immediately.

“Are you out of your mind?” Jason said before she had a chance to say hello.

“How did you find out?” she asked, knowing full well they were talking about Billy taking her to the ball.

“Gram called and told me. She said you had a blast.”

“This bothers you? I should go into mourning maybe, start wearing black again, just because you went back to hockey? I don’t think so.”

“You’re insane; you know that. Billy’s nothing but a lazy, candy-ass out for one thing.”

Kira scoffed. “And again I ask, how does that make Billy different from you?”

Jason went silent.

“Life is
not
a rabbit hole,” Kira said. “You have no claim on me. I can date, or fuck, anyone I please!” Kira hung up, hating herself, and she wept.

A minute later Jason called again, and while she tried not to answer, the phone stopped ringing. A second later the display indicated that she had a message.

She punched in the code and listened to what the jerk had to say. “Watch my goddamn game tomorrow!”

“Like hell I will.”

HALF
an hour after Jason’s game was supposed to have started, Kira got tired of pacing in front of her television and turned it on. “Might as well watch the stupid thing,” she said, a spoon and a jar of chocolate sauce handy.

Two seconds into watching, Kira was conflicted. Did she want Jason to win or lose?

She flinched every time a puck flew his way. She lost count, but she thought maybe hundreds did. Nevertheless, Jason blocked every one, and shortly before the Wizards won the game, the announcer started calling Jason the Ice Wolf again.

Evidently a shutout was a big deal.

The score was one to nothing. The crowd went ballistic.

The press swamped Jason outside the arena after the game.

“The Ice Wolf is back!” the interviewer said, shoving the mike into Jason’s face, and Kira felt his excitement as he grinned into the cameras.

“How does it feel?” the interviewer asked.

“Like magic,” Jason said, looking straight at her, Kira thought, as if he were speaking only to her. Then the bimbo from the auction threw herself into his arms, and Kira turned off the set.

That was it. She’d not only lost him to hockey, she’d lost him to the bimbo as well.

Funny how you never realized how much you loved someone until it was too late.

It was time for a change of job. No way could she bear having Jason run in and out of her life every time he visited Bessie.

The following day, however, Kira got a panicked call from Travis that forced her to call Jason, but the
bimbo who answered his cell phone didn’t know where he was.

To hell with him,
Kira thought, hanging up to go to St. Anthony’s, herself, conflicted now about the twins getting adopted. They needed to be adopted, together, as much as they needed
two
loving parents. It was simply that losing them was not what
she
needed.

Then again, losing Jason had not been what she needed, either, but she’d tried to help him get what he wanted. As she would try to help the twins find parents, whatever the cost to her.

Maybe she wouldn’t quit the foundation just yet.

Her cell phone rang, identifying a number she didn’t recognize, but after Travis’s call, she answered anyway.

“Kira,” Jason said, “I’m on my—”

“You got my message already?”

“What message? I forgot my cell. I’m on a pay phone.”

“Call Travis at St. Anthony’s,” Kira said. “He needs you. And Jason, don’t let him down. You’re his idol. He thinks you can fix anything.”

“Sounds like he believes that more than you do.”

“Whatever.”

“You didn’t watch the game,” Jason said.

“Screw the game,” Kira said. “Travis needs you.”

Jason sighed. “What does he want me to fix?”

“He says somebody named Cruella wants to adopt him, but she doesn’t want Zane.”

“That can’t be right. I’m on it, and halfway home,” Jason said. “Meet me at the Providence airport in two hours.”

Jason hung up before Kira could ask him what the hell he was talking about. He had a game on the West Coast tomorrow. How could he be on his way to Rhode Island?

Two hours? Kira’s heart raced.

She knew exactly what to wear.

WHEN
Jason cleared the airport gate, it was like seeing him in her parents’ living room all over again.

Kira ran.

Jason dropped his bags and lifted her into his arms to kiss her, melt her, and make her want him so much, she could barely breathe. The kiss was so hot, Jason lifted her high against him, and Kira had no choice but to kiss him back, ignore the news crews, and hold on.

“You’re not kissing me for the cameras,” Kira said, breathless, and needy. “I can tell.”

“I don’t see any cameras,” Jason said. “I see only you.”

Outside, in the parking lot, the snow coming down around them, Kira apologized for what she’d said on the phone, and Jason said it was his fault, and apologized for hurting her.

Before she could question that, a porter brought his bags, then they saw the news crews coming.

Kira gave Jason the keys to his Hummer, and he got them out of there.

“I called St. Anthony’s,” he said, turning south on the highway, “and everything is fine with the boys for the moment, so you can stop worrying. I spoke to them both. That Cruella dame, or whatever her name was, talked to Travis in the schoolyard, and scared him, but Sister Margaret said they sent her packing.”

“I can’t tell you how relieved I am,” Kira said. “Thank you, Jason.”

He regarded her for too long. “I brought you a tape of the game,” he said.

“Oh, goody.”

He smiled and grabbed her hand to squeeze it, squeezing her heart at the same time. Something was off. Kira was confused.

At Cloud Kiss, Jason steered her toward Gram’s greenhouse where a candlelight dinner was set.

Jason removed her coat and whistled.

“Vickie sent it,” Kira said, looking down at the sequined dress, its bright butterfly wings wrapped around her, its wingtips covering, almost caressing, her breasts.

Kira modeled it, front and back, so Jason could see the entire butterfly. “I planned to wear it to the Christmas Ball . . .” She looked into his eyes. “But I couldn’t.”

Jason took her into his arms, waltzed her around the room, and sang an off-key rendition of “That Old ‘White’ Magic,” as if he really were in her spell. She knew she was in his.

But he stopped, and pulled out her chair, and sat opposite. “Eat,” he said, “before Rosy’s feast is ruined.”

He tasted the lobster and sighed. “You can’t get seafood like this in Minnesota.”

Kira tasted it, too, agreed it was good, and raised a brow. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have a game halfway across the country tomorrow?”

“I like the quilt you gave me for Christmas.”

“It’s not Christmas for another few days. You opened it too soon.”

Jason shook his head. “Why did you make the hockey side black-and-white?”

“Because it suited you and the game.”

“The opposite side is alive with color—Travis’s and Zane’s handprints, mansions, ghosts, magic, a staircase, a birdcage, bees, a rabbit in a rabbit hole . . .” Jason wiggled his brows. “A hot-air balloon, things we’ve experienced, or almost experienced, together.”

Kira nodded. “It’s a memory quilt, for when you’re far from home playing hockey.”

“I don’t get the toad-on-the-lily-pad reference, though.”

Kira smiled. “Remind me to tell you about that sometime.”

“Do you realize how well you defined my life?” he asked. “I thought you were hiding in black, because I had been hiding in a black void, where no hurt could touch me, no emotional rejection, but no love or joy, either.”

Kira put down her fork as her heart sped. “Really?”

“Being away from you gave me time to think, mostly about you, but the most important thing I discovered was that if I’m not in a rabbit hole with you, I’m in a black hole missing you.”

He took her hand. “I’m letting go of the past, Kira. I found something that I want more than hockey.”

Kira had to blink against hope, and fear, and all the possibilities in between.

Jason kissed her. “I played a game in a rink far from home, the crowds cheering, but it was an empty victory, because the one I wanted most was not in the stands. I knew then that my dreams, my magic, existed elsewhere. That was when I understood, and accepted, my destiny.”

Kira took a ragged breath. He’d said so much, but not enough, and she was afraid to want more.

“Can you let go of the past?” Jason asked. “Can you forgive me for running, and make room for new dreams? Will you help get Zane’s leg fixed, help save the foundation and St. Anthony’s?”

Kira didn’t understand what he was asking. “But you’re back on the team,” she said. “You have games to play, a contract to fulfill.”

“Too bad you missed my postgame interview,” he said.

Kira understood that she’d missed something important.

“I quit,” Jason said. “I broke my contract. I knew going into the game today that it was my last, so I played my best . . . for you.”