Home Ice (7 page)

My two assistant coaches nodded and grunted their assent, but it was clear from the look that passed between them that they weren’t buying my denial. Which was probably for the best. Let them think it was all about Paige if that was what they wanted. Maybe that way no one would realize the truth, and I could go on being the hard-ass they’d all come to expect.

We all fell quiet then. They were probably watching film from the Flames’ last game, since we were scheduled to play them this afternoon, or otherwise preparing to do their jobs. Unlike me. I never shirked my responsibilities, but I supposed everyone got a free pass for that every now and then. I’d be ready for the game whether I watched more film or not.

After a few minutes, Webs shot his head up. “What if we could fashion something ourselves?”

“Like a walker on skis that we could strap her into so she wouldn’t have to hold on to it,” Handy said. He was squinting at his screen, reading something. Not watching film.

Neither of them were watching footage. They were both doing the same damn thing I was, and now Jim Sutter and Drywall Tierney—our GM and the head equipment manager—were coming into my office as well.

Webs nodded, eyes narrowed in thought. “If we set it up to be behind her, she’d have full use of her arms and legs. We could make some sort of harness like you’d use for zip-lining or parachuting.”

“Would a walker be sturdy enough if her legs couldn’t support her on skates?” Jim asked, crossing his arms and legs and leaning back against the wall.

“It would if I built it,” Drywall said.

Before I knew what was happening, half the team executives were gathered in my office, and we were brainstorming ways to help Sophie Calhoun skate.

I still didn’t know how we were going to make it happen, but that didn’t matter.

Because we were going to make it happen.

NOT WANTING TO
keep Paige and her girls waiting any longer than necessary, I headed up to the owner’s box at the Moda Center as soon as I’d released the team after the game. We’d won, but it hadn’t been easy. The Flames were a young, exciting, well-coached team. There’d been a lot of back-and-forth action and way too many turnovers on both ends of the ice, but my boys had pulled through in the end.

I’d decided to give them a light, optional practice tomorrow. We were already through the first half of the season or so, and things were running along well. There wasn’t any need to reinforce systems or anything like that, and we had several guys who had been playing through injuries for a while—Cam “Jonny” Johnson and Grant Wheelan, in particular. A couple more had come off the ice with minor issues in the course of the game, too. It would be better for all of them to get some rest, take maintenance days, so they’d be ready for the grueling push toward the playoffs.

But now, I was gathering up Paige and her daughters for our
date
, if you could call it that. I wasn’t positive that I would, but I hadn’t been on a real date in years. Did it count if you had four giggling teenaged girls with you? Probably not, but I wasn’t going to argue with it.

Sophie was the first to see me when I came through the door. She lit up like a Christmas tree, her smile as wide as I’d ever seen it when 501 wasn’t in the room. “Bergy, we
won
!”

“We sure did,” I said, holding up my hand for the high five she ran over to give me.

She and her sisters had been sitting with some of the older kids among the players’ families. It didn’t surprise me at all to find Maddie Campbell, Rachel’s oldest daughter, right in the center of them. Rachel was Jim’s assistant and the wife of one of my players, Brenden “Soupy” Campbell, who had been out with an injury nearly all season long. Maddie tended to be quiet but perceptive and incredibly thoughtful. She gravitated toward the damaged and the broken, or anyone who needed an extra dose of compassion. Not that Sophie was broken, but it warmed my heart to know that Soupy’s shy, sweet girl would have taken Sophie under her wing with all the strangers around.

Paige gathered up the other three and brought them our way in time to hear Sophie ask, “Can Levi come on our date, too?”

“I think Levi has other things he needs to do,” Paige answered before I had the chance.

Izzy deflated like a balloon, and Evie’s disappointment was tangible. Zoe looked so relieved I almost laughed.

“You don’t want him to come?” I asked the oldest girl.

“Nope.” Zoe shook her head vigorously. “I turn stupid the second I get near him. I don’t think I said more than three words all day yesterday.”

“Oh, you said
plenty
once we got home,” Paige said, laughing.

“Well, I had to make up for all the time I couldn’t speak at all!”

“I don’t think you need to have any fear you’ll forget how your tongue works,” Evie said, giggling. Then she took off out the door, and the rest of us followed behind her, all three of the older girls taking jabs at each other and laughing at such a high pitch that I thought I might lose my hearing if I spent too much time around them. Sophie rushed to keep up with them, once more leaving Paige and me trailing in their wake.

“You’ve given them quite a weekend,” she said after a reasonable distance fell between us and the girls. “I don’t think they’ll stop talking about it for quite some time.”

“I’m glad.” More than glad. I might not know these girls very well, let alone their mother, but there was something about being with them that felt
right
, in a way that few things in my life ever had.

“Are you sure you know what you’re getting into with this?” Paige waved a hand in front of us, indicating the girls who seemed to be skipping across the air rather than walking. “You can still back out of taking us all to dinner, you know. I’ll find a good excuse.”

I glanced over at her, taking in the long stretch of her neck. She had her hair all piled on top of her head today, in a sort of bun that looked at once haphazard and elegant.

“Are you trying to get out of that kiss? Because I’m doing everything in my power to follow through with my end of the bargain.”

“No!” She looked down at my chest instead of meeting my eyes, though, and I got the distinct sense she was fighting a blush. “No, a deal is a deal.”

There was no denying the boost my ego got over the fact that she wasn’t telling me to go to hell. But still… “I made that deal with Sophie, not with you. And her part of it was simply to
try
to get you to agree.”

“Mattias, she’s never going to be—”

“Don’t tell me that she won’t ever be able to skate. Not you. Not her mother.” Even as the words left my mouth, I had to wonder if I meant them more for Paige in dealing with Sophie or if I was thinking of my own mother and Linnea. Either way, I meant it.

“But the kind of balance that would require? The strength to keep herself up on those blades?” The same worried look Paige had taken on last night when I’d first talked with Sophie came back into her eyes now. “I just don’t want to see her fail so many times that she stops trying. I don’t want to see her give up.”

“What if she doesn’t give up? What if she doesn’t stop trying?” I argued.

“But—”

“I can’t promise that she’ll ever be able to do it on her own, but what’s the harm in trying? Technology has advanced so much in recent years. I think I can find a way to at least get her out on the ice, and then we can see what happens. If we can devise something to help her balance at first, there’s no telling what she’ll be able to do down the line.”

“You’re talking like you’re still going to be involved when it gets to that,” Paige said, frustration punctuating her words.

“And you’re talking like I won’t be.”

She stopped cold, and I had to stop, too, or I’d completely pass her by.

“Look, Mattias,” she said, using the same tone my mother had always used when she was trying to protect Linnea as best she could. “I know you mean well. I do. And I appreciate it more than I could ever say.”

“But?” There was no point trying to hide from it, since we both knew the
but
was coming.

“
But
you and me? We’re adults. We can handle disappointment. We understand that you’re a good man trying to do something nice for my little girl, but you’re probably getting yourself in deeper than you initially intended. You probably didn’t realize all of the implications of what you were suggesting. Maybe you do now. I hope so, at least. But Sophie doesn’t always understand when people back away. She gets attached, and then they leave before they’re able to keep their promises, and then she gets hurt. And my girls and I are the ones left to pick up the pieces. We’re the ones who have to listen to her ask, over and over again, where Dad is and why he isn’t with us, or why her friends stopped coming to play, or why she isn’t able to move on to the next grade in school when all her friends are.”

“So what are you saying?” I asked cautiously. Although I probably didn’t really need to ask. I could tell where she was going with this. She was trying to kick me out before I got too close, before my leaving could hurt too much.

Maybe she was right to do that. Not because I wouldn’t follow through with helping Sophie learn to play hockey but because there wasn’t a ton of job security as a coach in the NHL, and I had responsibilities to take care of in Sweden. I had to go wherever the work took me, and that might mean stepping out of Sophie’s life at some point down the line.

Paige put her arms over her chest in a self-protective gesture. No matter how big a game she talked, I could see through it. She wasn’t just trying to protect Sophie in all this.

“I’m saying,” she said after a protracted silence, “maybe it’s for the best if you step away after tonight. She hasn’t latched on to you too much yet. You’re still just in the
maybe we can find a way to make this work
phase. You haven’t yet made her any official promises that you’ll have to break eventually.”

“Why would I have to break them?” I asked, even though I knew all the answers she would likely come up with, and then some that wouldn’t even cross Paige’s mind. But she didn’t know me very well yet. She didn’t know that I was the most determined son of a bitch she’d ever met. She didn’t know that once I set a goal for myself, there would be no stopping me. Now I needed to make her understand, or at the very least give her a hint.

She was looking at me like trees were sprouting from my ears.

I raised a brow. “Like you said, a deal is a deal. I told Sophie I would do whatever I could to help her out. I meant it.”

The corners of Paige’s lips quirked up, despite her efforts to fight off the smile. “I’d let you kiss me even if you didn’t hold up your end of it,” she said. Then she bit her lower lip, and I couldn’t look anywhere else.

“And why would you do that?”

She shrugged. “Because it’s been too long.”

It’d been too long for both of us, then.

“Mom!” Zoe shouted from well ahead of us, and Paige whipped her head in that direction. “You can kiss him later. We’re hungry.” We were too far away to see it, but an eye roll was overly evident in Zoe’s tone.

Paige pressed her eyes closed for a moment before glancing up to meet my eyes. She pinched her lips together in a thin line, and a gorgeous blush stole over her cheeks. “Sorry. We should— We should go.” Then she took off heading toward her daughters with a determined stride.

I turned to keep up with her. Reaching out to put a hand on the small of her back, I tried not to laugh. At least not too much. “It’s fine. Don’t want to keep them waiting.”

Once we caught up with the girls, Sophie reached for my free hand. I let her take it, my other hand settling into the curve over her mother’s hip while the older girls rolled their eyes and hurried ahead of us…giggling and snickering as they went. They kept peeking over their shoulders at us, though, nearly tripping over their own feet because they weren’t paying attention to where they were going.

And it felt good. I only hoped Paige liked it as much as I did. Because, now that I realized how much I enjoyed spending time with her and her girls, I didn’t simply intend to follow through with my promise to Sophie; I was starting to think of ways I could make other promises, as well.