It Had to Be You (Christiansen Family) (26 page)

A hat trick. Three goals in one game. Jace could feel the wind in his teeth on that last one too, the way he took the puck down the ice, faked, and bulleted the shot between the pads of the Chicago goalie.

Not a hint of a migraine, either, which told him that winning was the cure. Winning and the sound of the crowd. He’d let himself take another lap around the ice as the Blue Ox fans in attendance threw their hats in celebration.

He’d gone back to the hotel with the team, but then Graham picked him up and they’d gone out with Haylee and a number of other sports reporters, delivering interviews into the wee hours.

No wonder he slept hard once he got back to the room, right through three phone calls
 
—one from Eden, the others from Sam.

Sam wasn’t picking up, and that had Jace’s gut in a knot as he showered and caught up with his team at brunch.

“Dude!” Max slapped him a high five over the table, nearly upsetting his eggs Benedict. At another table, Graham sat with Adam and gestured Jace over.

Jace pulled out the chair opposite Graham. The dining room had cleared out, mostly just players at tables around the room. A few sported licks from last night’s game
 
—tomorrow’s would be a rematch with some heat.

Bring it. Jace couldn’t wait to get back on the ice, a new taste of competition sluicing through him after last night. He just might end this season with a fat new contract.

The kind of contract that could foot Maddy’s hospital bills. That could help Sam afford a nanny. He’d texted him on his way down in the elevator, but it looked as if it hadn’t sent. Jace pocketed the phone, still sick at their last conversation; watching Sam’s faith unravel had shaken him more than he wanted to admit.

He depended on Sam to remind him that God was on his team, even when life took a cheap shot. He felt almost guilty that lately it seemed God had begun to smile on him.

After all, Eden hadn’t made a run for the door when he told her about his past, his father. Sure, she hadn’t exactly declared her undying devotion, but she’d kissed him like she meant it when he dropped her off at work.

And today she’d called. He’d find a quiet place at the airport and see if he could talk her into coming to tomorrow’s game. Not that she wouldn’t, but with Owen sidelined . . .

Maybe she’d be there for Jace. The thought strummed a warmth deep inside, an anticipation he could taste.

Graham slapped a folded sheet of paper onto his empty plate. “Someone is onto you, Jace, and if this gets out, all your recent games could be for nothing.”

“What are you talking about?” Jace unfolded the paper, stared at it, the blood draining from his chest.

“The last thing the franchise needs is news of you being hospitalized for your migraines.”

Adam leaned forward. “We’ll be in big trouble with the NHL if they find out we let you play so soon after a migraine. You trying to get me and Doc fired?”

Jace set the paper down, his breaths shallow. “How did this get out?”

Graham shook his head. “You tell us, Jace. Who else was there? Who else knew about your episode besides Adam and Doc?”

Eden.
Jace’s throat burned with the name. But . . . how . . . ?

It’s a great
 
—even front-page
 
—story. The kind of story I’ve waited for.

Her words stung him, and he studied the paper
 
—a printout of an online article
 
—again. He felt a silly relief when he saw it had come from the Yahoo! sports page.

Still. Eden had been the only one in the room with him. A darkness pooled deep inside, started to gurgle, worked up to his chest.

She couldn’t have done this. Please.

“Well, you’d better figure out who leaked it and make sure it doesn’t happen again, because . . .” Graham glanced at Adam, and a smile emerged. “I got a new contract offer for you. Came in last night.”

Jace tried to change gears, but his mind still circled around the article. Maybe that’s why Eden tried to call, to give him a heads-up.

Or maybe . . . to get more dirt on him.

“What are the deal points?”

“Three year, one-way, $4.5 million. Sign before the season ends.”

He swallowed. Reached for his water.

“I think I can get you more, but we’ll have to wait for the season to end, and
 
—”

“I’ll take it.” The words rushed out too quick. He took a breath, finding a smile. “I mean, I’ll think about it, but it sounds like a good idea.”

Adam raised an eyebrow, but Graham grinned. Nodded. “I agree. It’s a good contract.” He raised his glass to Jace. “I should have trusted you. You’re right. You can outskate Owen Christiansen.”

Owen. The sick feeling continued to climb up from his gut to his throat.

He shouldn’t care that Owen’s career was tanking. Owen didn’t deserve for him to care, not with the way he’d treated Jace and especially Eden.

And maybe not with the way Eden had treated Jace. He picked up the article again. Read it through.

Details, like Adam’s suggestion that they needed him, and his and Eden’s fight about him playing again, the summary something only Eden would know. And then a detail about him leaving the hospital without checking out.

Who else would know that?

He folded the article and slipped it into his athletic bag. Yeah, it made the franchise look bad. What was Eden trying to do, get him canned?

A waitress came over. “Something to eat?”

“Coffee, please.”

She smiled at him, something of invitation in it. He smiled back, the J-Hammer grin.

He texted Sam again as the bus drove the team to the airport. His call went to voice mail in the moments before their plane took off. “Sam, we gotta talk. I have good news.”

As the clouds parted for them, Jace stared out the window, the article’s words burning a hole inside him.

The kind of story I’ve waited for.
He closed his eyes, leaned his head against the cool pane of the window.

“Hey there, Jace. You okay?”

He opened his eyes. Haylee had slid into the seat next to him. She wore team gear today, looking more like a fan than a reporter. He remembered interviewing with her last night, but their conversation blurred into every other.

Now she smiled, a little mischief in her eyes. “Great game last night.”

“Thanks.”

“I was thinking, maybe after we land, we could sneak away. You’ve been promising me an exclusive all year
 
—and I’m calling in my chip.”

He frowned. “Haylee, I don’t think
 
—”

“Aw, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.” She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek before she returned to her seat.

Maybe his migraines weren’t quite over.

He pulled out the article and read it one more time, searching for clues, denial.

But it all came back to Eden.

They landed and a cadre of reporters lined up for a quick press conference. Jace filed out with his team and waited with Graham as Coach took the podium. He checked his phone, but Sam hadn’t called back.

He did, however, see one missed call from Eden.

And then, as he looked into the crowd, the reporters firing questions at the team, he spotted her. Lingering in the back, yes, but wearing a press badge as if she belonged there, her blonde hair tied up, messenger bag over her shoulder.

She even carried a digital recorder.

And he realized that he’d been played. Not the entire time, maybe, but definitely the last few days as he’d opened up his soul and let her inside. He couldn’t imagine the copious notes she might’ve been taking, dissecting his life, tracking down the facts.

Did she think he was a fool? That he wouldn’t figure it out? A girl like Eden wasn’t interested in a guy
 
—a goon
 
—like him.

He wanted to hit something, hard, for being so stupid.

“J-Hammer! Your hat trick last night puts you in the footsteps of Gretzky and Lemieux. Are we looking at a future Hall of Famer?”

He stepped up to the mic and pasted on his smile, the public one. He kept his eyes off Eden, found a cute blonde in the audience. “Don’t you know I’ve always been a Hall of Famer?”

If she wanted to see the true J-Hammer in action, he’d give it to her.

He should have listened to his instincts and stayed far away from her. “I’ve just upped my game. Everyone thinks I’m all power, but I have talent, too. That hole that Owen left
 
—yeah, we’re sad to let him go, but we’ll be okay. I can promise that.”

He smiled again, this time through the tightening of his throat. He glanced at Eden, then away.

She had turned a little white, her mouth open.

“So you’re saying Owen Christiansen is out of the game?”

Coach stepped to the mic again. “We’re not sure what Owen’s future will hold, but we’re thankful that Jace
 
—and the rest of the team
 
—have stepped in to fill the gap.”

The rest of the team. Right. Jace let a sardonic expression fill his face.

“What about your migraines, Jace? Any comment about today’s article?”

He looked right at Eden then, his eyes cold. “Rumors. Vicious rumors. I’m in perfect shape.” And then, just in case Eden might think his actions were a game, think he wasn’t onto her, he stepped out of the lineup and gestured to Haylee. She came up to him, working her way through the crowd.

A few eyes turned his direction.

“Ready for that exclusive, honey?”

Haylee raised an eyebrow. Then grinned, nodded.

So he levered his arm over her shoulders and pulled her against him, sauntering out of the press conference, a hundred flashbulbs lighting his way.

Leaving in his wake a whole new Twitter stream of headlines about J-Hammer, the team bad boy.

E
DEN CREPT BACK
into the newspaper office without Charlotte popping her head out, taking her to task for her overlong lunch break. What a fool she’d been to sneak in with the press corps, thinking Jace would be glad to see her, that his eyes might light up.

If anything, he’d looked downright furious that she’d invaded his world. Like she didn’t belong there.

Which she didn’t. Clearly.

And clearly she’d been fooling herself about Jace and everything she’d supposedly seen under that playboy exterior.

Give him a taste of success and he turned into exactly the man she’d originally thought he was.

She felt soiled, the redolence of bus exhaust on her clothing, and scoured by pitying eyes that had watched her misery as
she climbed aboard public transportation and tried to hide her chapped face.

She’d taken a taxi to the airport, thinking maybe Jace would drive her home. See, that’s what happened when a girl assumed.

When a girl stepped off the sidelines.

She should have known that, somehow, Jace would make her a spectacle for ridicule.

“Hey, where’d you take off to?” Kendra moved over to her cubicle as Eden hung her coat over her chair, tried to focus on the screen. “Charlotte was looking for you. Said to tell you to come into her office when you returned.”

Eden blinked, wishing she could shake Jace’s smug smile, the way he’d tucked Haylee close to him as if she belonged there, from her brain. “I had to . . . run an errand. The bus was late coming back.”

“Are you okay?”

Eden pressed her hands to her face. Her skin still felt hot, and maybe she should have composed herself more. But she couldn’t stand there as the rest of the team took the microphone, players who would recognize her. Who would know that, with Owen off the traveling roster, she’d shown up for one purpose.

“What happened?” Kendra, beside her now, frowning. “You’ve been crying. Did you get bad news? Is Owen okay?”

“Owen is just fine without me.” In fact, they all were, weren’t they? Without her butting into their lives. “You were right when you said Owen was taking up all the available space in my life. That I was obsessed. I need to get my own life.”

“Huh?”

She drew in another long breath. “I never should have involved Jace Jacobsen in my search for John Doe
 
—a search that is probably a bust anyway. I can’t get ahold of anyone at that number, and
it’s probably not even his family. My imagination is my downfall. I thought maybe I could help him . . . help myself . . .”

Kendra gave her a sad, tired look.

She might have given herself the same weary expression. This was what happened when a person tried too hard to find significance. To change her life. She should probably admit that obits was where she belonged.

But Kendra was shaking her head. “Your imagination is what makes you good at this job, Eden. You’re the one who taught me to look beyond the facts to find the real story. You see the potential inside everyone
 
—that’s your gift.”

Kendra’s phone rang, and she disappeared behind her cubicle wall.

Her words, however, curled around Eden, soaked in.

She stared at the story blinking on her screen. She’d interviewed the funeral director, discovered that the deceased had the same mail route for thirty years. A small detail, but it deserved notice. She could wrap an entire world around the idea of a mailman showing up, rain or shine, every day for thirty years.

Yeah. Maybe she did see the potential . . . or duped herself into believing it.

“Eden!”

She turned to see Charlotte headed her way and got up. “I’m sorry I was late
 
—”

“I need you on a story.”

Oh?

Charlotte handed her a pink telephone slip. “Russell Hays asked for you by name. It’s some retired state senator, and his family wants a full story on the remembrance page. But I think there’s more here, and Hal says you’re always looking for a great
story. So head over there and interview them. I’m holding a slot open for Saturday’s edition if you can get it in tonight.”

Eden took the note.

The editor paused. “The truth is, I’m not sure what to make of you, Eden. Despite the fact that you don’t seem to want this job, you’re rather good at it.”

She looked at Charlotte.

“Eden, there’s a call on line two for you,” Kendra said.

Eden picked it up, hating that her heart fell when a woman’s voice answered.

“Eden, this is Becky Norman, over at the hospital. We met a few times when you were in John Doe’s room?”

“I remember.”

“I know this is unorthodox, but I thought you should know that his brain activity is starting to diminish. I think you may be running out of time to find his family.”

No.

No, they weren’t. God couldn’t do this to her, not today.

“Please go into his room, Becky, and tell Hudson that I’m on my way to find his family.”

Charlotte frowned at her as she hung up. “Eden
 
—”

“No, Charlotte. Don’t you get it? I don’t want to be good at this job
 
—I’m supposed to be a reporter.” She shoved the note back at her editor. “This is not my life!”

No. Her life was more. Bigger. Her life had more significance than chasing the shadows of dead people. Or cheering on people who discarded her at the taste of success. “I quit.”

Charlotte took the slip, her mouth a tight knot of disappointment. “Fine. Go.” She handed the slip to Kendra without a word, then headed back to her office.

And Eden tried to ignore the terrible roaring in her heart.

She
didn’t
want this job, did she?

The sun was just dipping into the western skyline when Eden disembarked from the bus at her stop. The tow truck met her there, and although the old Taurus fought to surrender its repose, it finally shivered to life.

“You need a new battery,” the mechanic suggested. Yeah, well, maybe she needed a lot of new things.

Hobbies. Friends. Goals. Career. Life.

She wiped her cheek as she merged onto 94, heading northwest for St. Cloud.

The GPS on her phone directed her to a small farmhouse outside the city, where the pastureland lay rumpled under a fragile layer of snow. She drove up the dirt driveway and parked in front of a white two-story home that needed some Tom Sawyer attention. Under the glowing outside light, she noticed paint flecking off the clapboards, and an old entryway listed to one side as if hoping to make a run for it. A rusty blue Buick sat in front of a large, empty barn, the scent of livery and hay drifting from the open door, haunting the air.

Eden wrapped her coat around her and stepped up to the front door, stomping through the snow of the unshoveled walk, glad she’d changed into her standard UGGs and parka.

No need to be fancy anymore.

The bell echoed, deep and bold, as if it might have been holding its breath, waiting for release after years of dormancy.

Eden shivered as the wind picked up snow and ghosted it into the darkness.

Footsteps, then a woman appeared. Maybe in her early forties,
her dark hair caught up in a messy ponytail, she wore what looked like a pair of pink scrubs, a gold cross around her neck. She held open the storm door. “Can I help you?”

“Hi. My name is Eden Christiansen, and I’m with the Minneapolis
Star Tribune
. . .” She took a breath. “No, actually, I’m just here as a private citizen, looking for the family of Myron Hudson Peterson.”

She tried to read the woman’s face, not sure.

“That’s my son.”

The words had the power to shake Eden even as she pulled out her phone. “I hate to ask in this manner, but . . . this is all I have for identification.” She brought up a picture she’d snapped at the hospital and showed it to the woman. “Is this him?”

She saw the answer in the woman’s expression, the way she pressed a hand to her mouth. “Is he . . . is he dead?”

“No, he’s still alive. He’s in a coma, though.”

“Where is he?”

“The University of Minnesota hospital.”

A pause, then, “Come in, please.” Her hands were shaking, and Eden could barely suppress the urge to take them in her own.

She held the door for Eden, then walked past her toward the kitchen. Eden stood in the family room, stalled by the cascading sense of time. She’d walked into the seventies
 
—dark paneling encasing the room, with a threadbare blue floral sofa and a couple gold velvet rocking chairs centered around a redbrick fireplace. History lined up on the mantel in a collection of framed photographs. She picked up one, recognized a younger version of the woman in shorts and a T-shirt, her arm over a younger version of John Doe, smiling, holding a medal strung around his neck.

“Sophomore year. Hudson and his four-by-one-hundred team
went to state, got fifth place.” She was holding the phone to her ear, and as she turned away, Eden heard her talking to someone, calling in sick.

Eden felt a little sick for her.

She put the photograph back and picked up another, this one with Hudson and an older man dressed in overalls and a gimme cap.

The woman walked through the room, rubbing her bare arms. The place collected the chill of the hour. “That’s his grandfather. He was so proud of Hudson. I’m so grateful he didn’t see his dark years.” She opened the closet in the hallway.

“His dark years?”

She pulled out a coat, her hands still shaking. “Oh, he had so much potential, our Hudson. He was a gifted runner, and we just knew he’d get a number of scholarship offers when he graduated. But it all fell apart. And then this
 
—” Her voice trembled. “Just when he put it all back together.” She stood there for a moment as if trying to figure out what to do. “I need to go.”

“Of course.”

Eden fought the urge to press her for more of the story. She followed the woman outside and got in her car, strangely unsettled. She’d done it
 
—found Doe’s family
 
—and yet . . .

The Taurus didn’t even cough. An hour of driving and the battery still couldn’t muster the strength to start?

She got out as the woman climbed into her own car.

“Do you need a ride?”

Eden nodded.

“Get in,” she said, and Eden settled into the plush, aged velvet of the old Buick. The car, like the house, needed work, but the entire place seemed well-loved.

“Olivia,” the woman said as she backed around Eden’s clunker. “I’m Olivia Peterson.”

“Nice to meet you.” Eden would have to call AAA, but for some reason, sitting here beside Olivia felt almost . . .

Complete. As if she were meant to accompany this woman back to her son.

They pulled onto the highway, the moon starting to rise in front of them. A sprinkling of stars winked against the plane of night.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Olivia asked.

“I don’t know exactly. I found him in the hospital almost two weeks ago, and they had him listed as John Doe or you would have been notified earlier. He was found in Frogtown about a week before; I suspect he was mugged.”

“He’s been alone all this time?”

Eden wanted to deny it, but she nodded. “Sorry.”

“No
 
—I’m just so glad someone tried to find out who he was. Did you say you were with the paper?”

She smiled. “No. I’m just a friend.”

Olivia said nothing. Then, “I was trying not to worry. He seemed like he was better, and I didn’t want to hover. I’ve done that enough.”

She looked at Eden as if for absolution, but Eden had nothing. “Tell me about him. Hudson. He ran track?”

“Yeah. He was amazing. I went to all his track meets
 
—embarrassed him terribly by running the length of the bleachers during one of his races, like I would somehow help him win.”

She gave a sad laugh, caught in the memory. But it ended in a trembling sigh. “He’s my only son. His daddy died in the military. We got married straight out of high school. Young, I know, but
we were so much in love. I was still pregnant with Hudson when he died. I named him Myron after his father
 
—something I’m not sure he appreciated.”

“And Hudson? Is that a family name?”

The conversation seemed to bring her out of her panic. “No, that’s after Hudson Taylor, the missionary. His dad and I planned on being missionaries someday, but . . .” She lifted a shoulder. “I went home to live with my parents, and Hud and I never left. He grew up hauling hay and feeding cattle and running a tractor, and he was my entire life. I loved him. Too much, really.”

“How can you love a child too much?”

Olivia glanced at her, her eyes glistening. “When you don’t let go. When you can’t bear for them to make mistakes, so you hang on to their wings, and when they leave the nest, they fall instead of fly.”

She passed a car, stayed in the fast lane. “He just had so much going for him
 
—and I couldn’t bear for him to destroy it.” She set her cruise control. “In the end, that wasn’t my decision.”

“What happened?”

“A stupid mistake.” The silence stretched between them as she seemed to consider how to frame her words. “It was junior year, the state meet qualifier. He and his four-by-one-hundred team had trained for years for that moment. Not just because it was for state, but because the rest of his teammates were seniors. They had all forgone the one-hundred-meter-dash event to save their stamina for this one race. He was the first leg, the fastest sprinter on the team. I remember standing there in the grass, just outside the track, lined up with his block, holding my breath as he took his mark. And then . . . I don’t know what happened, but for the first time in his sprinting career, he flinched. Just a slight movement off
the blocks. It’s called a scratch, and according to state high school rules, he was immediately disqualified.”