It Had to Be You (Christiansen Family) (28 page)

Accept it.

“Maybe I could sit here and let go with you for a little while,” Jace said quietly.

O
NCE UPON A TIME,
Jace had loved game day. Had woken with a stir inside, a coiled anxiety in his gut that he couldn’t wait to unwind on the ice. But somehow that had vanished years ago.

Now, mostly he dreaded it. He still loved the taste of adrenaline, the crisp smell of the ice, the sound of skates and sticks echoing off the girders. He loved fighting for the puck, the wind in his ears, the sound of a shot on goal, slapped in from the blue line.

But he hated the coal in his chest, burning at the fact that to win the crowd, he’d have to drop his gloves, land his fists on someone’s face.

A woman’s greatest honor is to look at her son with pride and know that she’s helped him become a man.

Olivia’s words had dogged Jace all night. Mostly because of the
dark, jagged fear that no, he hadn’t grown into the kind of man who deserved his mother’s pride.

His mother had sacrificed everything she had for his dream. And he deserved none of it.

Worse, he kept seeing Eden’s stricken expression as he’d wrapped his arm around Haylee. Someone who betrayed him shouldn’t be that surprised . . . unless . . .

Unless she hadn’t been the one to write the article. The thought had made him twist his sheets into a tight knot, made him wake early and turn on his computer. Then type in Haylee’s blog address to check out his exclusive.

In the recent posts, however, he found the article about his injury, word for word. It looked as if Yahoo! had picked it up from Haylee’s site and reposted it. But how could she know about his hospital visit? On the side, she had a number of pictures from recent events. He recognized one of the brunette and redhead from his birthday party.

Jace stared at the redhead. He’d seen her somewhere else, just couldn’t place her.

And then, he did. At the hospital. The ER. After they’d filled him with morphine, she’d gone to bring in Eden.

Or maybe his mind was playing games with him and his wish for some other truth.

He somehow had to get out of this funk and prepare for tonight’s game, so he headed to the arena to work out, then got a massage and took a long shower. But when he came home for lunch, he stood at his window, staring out at the skyline, Eden’s face still lingering in the back of his head.

He wanted to see her. Tonight. Before the game. Or maybe just hear her voice.

Jace leaned his head against the cold window. Whether or not she’d written the article, he’d proven to her that he was exactly the guy she’d once believed him to be.

After making himself a protein shake, he sat down in his austere living room. The carpet still reeked of cleanser.

On the dining room table, his phone buzzed, and he went to get it, catching the face as he answered. “Max.”

“Dude. You gotta get down here. Owen’s here and he’s planning on suiting up tonight.”

“What?”

“He came in about an hour ago with Adam, who’s duking it out with Coach. But Owen’s on the ice, warming up. I think he’s going to play.”

And Jace’s surly press conference yesterday, almost egging him on, hadn’t helped.

“I thought he was still on injured reserve.”

“They took him off this morning.”

Jace hung up the phone, grabbed his gear, headed for the door.

Having Owen sidelined had given him a chance to truly play again. To be the guy who slapped it in, saved the day.

But he didn’t want that at Owen’s expense. Jace had pushed himself back on the ice while injured too many times, and he knew exactly what propelled Owen to sharpen his blades and strap on his helmet.

Because like Jace, Owen couldn’t imagine being anything else. But what if . . . what if there was more? What if there was a life outside hockey, with Eden, or
 
—?

Or whatever God decided. He might even use Jace for His glory if Jace actually let Him be in charge.

Jace pulled into the parking area, then jogged down the cement
corridor into the building, through the tunnels to the basement locker room area. The place swam with the odors of athletes
 
—sweat, Bengay, cotton towels
 
—the steam from the showers turning the room humid and soggy. Teammates, half-dressed in their breezers, pads, and socks, walked around the room. Others sat on the benches, wrapping fingers, stretching.

Jace dumped his bag on the bench near his locker and headed back to Adam’s office.

He found it empty, so he headed out to the ice in his street clothes.

In the sounds of blades slicing ice, the rocket shot of a puck against the boards, Jace recognized Owen trying to prove something. He climbed up next to Adam on the bench, watching Owen’s smooth strokes, the way he handled the puck.

“One hit and he could destroy that eye,” Jace said. “I can’t believe he’s off injured reserve.”

Graham stood on the other side of Adam. “We want him in for a minute, maybe two. Not long enough to get hurt, just enough to remind the fans, stir up some excitement. Keep his name in the headlines.”

He’d make headlines, all right, if he got checked and all that fancy stitching opened up. A bloody rink would embed in the minds of the fans forever.

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Graham stepped down from the bench, walked by Jace. “Maybe it’s time you got back to playing the position you were hired for.”

Enforcer? Jace narrowed his eyes, but he kept his hands in his pockets. His gaze turned to Owen, and for a second, he was back in the bar, watching Owen grapple on the floor the night of Jace’s birthday, Eden marching up to him.

You’re the team captain. Who else is supposed to watch Owen’s back?

Yes. It was time to start playing the position he’d been given.

Eden could no more stay away from the game than she could stop breathing.

But she went late. Not enough that she might miss the puck drop, but late enough that she didn’t have to watch Jace
 
—or Owen
 
—warm up. Make eye contact, wave.

Worry.

Still, the taste of dread crawled up her throat and settled in the back of it as she watched the team skate out.

Owen had dressed. She noticed he wore a full grid face mask. It might protect him from injury, but it wouldn’t repair his vision.

How they’d gotten him off injured reserve, she didn’t know. But it wasn’t her business. Not anymore.

She blew out a breath, clapping as the players lined up for the national anthem.

When it was over, Cora greeted her with a side hug. “It was fun to meet Amelia. And Casper. He’s quite the clown.”

“He keeps us guessing,” Eden said, sitting down, her eyes on Owen. Maybe he was just there for show. Indeed, he didn’t take the ice with the first line.

Jace, however, took his position at left wing, looking big and fierce and indestructible.

He played his part well, if not honestly.

The puck dropped, the Blue Ox came up with it, and the game took off, fast and hard, a Chicago forward hot for the net as he
stole the puck from Max and brought it down to face Kalen. The goalie blocked a number of shots, then fell on the puck as a couple Chicago players crashed the net, piling up in a mess.

Jace skated away, unscathed, and went to the bench as the second line came out. No Owen still, and for three long minutes, Eden could breathe.

Until one of the opposing defensemen took a shot, clipping one of the Blue Ox forwards with his stick and landing in the box for a two-minute penalty.

Owen Christiansen skated onto the ice to the thunderous roar of eighteen thousand fans.

Eden wanted to cover her eyes. Owen skated fast, picking up the puck, charging down the ice. He took a wrist shot at the goal, through traffic, but the goalie mitted it, dropped it back out, and the period ended scoreless.

“Want a hot dog or cocoa?” Cora asked as she scooted past Eden.

“Nope.” Mostly because her stomach couldn’t bear it.

After the break, the team emerged from the tunnel, and Owen took the bench. Max lined up and received an easy pass from center ice, shooting it to Jace as they brought the puck into Chicago territory. He played with it, firing off a quick wrist shot. The goalie snapped up the puck, dropped it to his defender, who shot it back out to the neutral zone.

Max intercepted it and brought it around
 
—another shot. It bounced off the goalie’s pads, and Max and an opposing forward scrabbled for it near the crease. The puck popped out and a Chicago player streaked down the ice with it, one-on-one with Jace, who fought him into the boards.

The puck bounced out, but not the player, who slammed Jace into the corner before catching up to the puck.

Jace seemed unfazed.

But the ref called boarding, giving Chicago another two-minute penalty.

Owen came off the bench, back on the ice, and Eden figured it out. If he could only go out on the power play, when the Blue Ox were up a man, maybe he wouldn’t get hurt.

Jace stayed on the ice and shot the puck to Owen.

And then everything happened in slow motion. Owen took the puck, racing down the ice toward the goal. Fast and hard and unaware of the big Chicago enforcer barreling toward him.

On his left side. His blind side.

He didn’t see it coming, couldn’t brace himself. In her mind’s eye, Eden watched Owen crash into the boards, his helmet screwing off, his face hitting the ice. Saw his injury explode, his eye destroyed.

She rose to her feet. “Owen!”

And then, even as his name sputtered out of her mouth, Jace appeared. As if he, too, saw the future. He had streaked down the ice and lunged at the Chicago player, intercepting him.

Putting his body between Owen and the hit.

Jace slammed into the wall with the force of a locomotive.

Eden watched, a scream in her lungs as his head hit the boards.

Watched as he crumpled.

She missed, completely, Owen’s spectacular wrist shot for a goal. The siren sounded, the stands erupting.

And Jace lay sprawled on the ice, unmoving.

T
HE IMMENSITY OF THE BLACKNESS
poured through Jace, so dark that he couldn’t see his hands before his face and so complete that it could choke him like smoke in his lungs. Still, the scent of the ice rose up around him, seeping into his sweater, his skin. And in the distance he heard a thunderous roar, until it faded out.

Then he was alone. With just a singular voice in his head.

Jace.

He tried to see where it was coming from, but the darkness refused to relent. So he stopped clawing at it and settled back to listen.

Jace.

Mom?
He turned his head, tried to find her seated in the stands, to hear her more clearly.

But even her voice faded away, and then he had nothing.

Except for the touch. Soft, caressing his hand, sending ripples of warmth through him. His entire body shivered, but the heat on his hand centered him. The ruckus in his chest began to slow.

Then, peace. It swept over him like a blanket, through him like a fragrance.

And he slept.

“Mr. Jacobsen.” Light flashed across his eyes. Jace recoiled, flinching. Again, the light, and he moaned. He must have reached for something because his hand closed around fabric. He groaned against the thudding of pain in the back of his head, then receded again into the night.

It finally became shadow, and he opened his eyes, blinking into the dim light.

Pain in his hand radiated up his arm, a burning river under his skin. The smells pinched his nose, watered his eyes.

“Welcome back.”

His attention went to the voice, and he blinked, his eyes focusing on a doctor leaning over him. He wore a surgeon’s cap, a stethoscope around his neck. He held up a finger. “Can you follow my finger, Jace?”

He squinted but followed it
 
—left, right, up, down. “What’s going on?” His voice emerged across a washboard, parched. And his throat ached.

“You had a brain bleed from that fall you took on the ice. We had to go in and relieve some of the pressure.”

“You nearly bought it, dude.”

The doctor glanced up, and Jace followed his gaze, words leaving him when he saw Owen standing on the other side of the
bed. He wore a leather jacket, looked as if he’d come right from the game.

The game. “Did we win?”

Owen shook his head. “Two to one, Chicago.”

“We’ll get ’em next time.” But he winced as he said it.

“Let’s take one day at a time,” the doc said. “You need to rest, recover from surgery.”

“Surgery?”

Owen made a face.

“You were lucky.” The doc patted him on the shoulder. “But you had a lot of people pulling for you. Get some rest, and I’ll be back later.”

As he left, Owen pulled up a chair. He looked like a wreck, his eyes bloodshot, his hair tucked under a baseball cap.

“Did you sleep here?” That felt weird, Owen sitting by his bedside.

“Nah. I’m not in love with you, Hammer.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Owen lifted a shoulder. “I’m not my sister. I’m not going to go all gooey over you, cry at your bedside.”

“Eden was here?” The question hung, desperate and weak, in the air, but he didn’t care.

“Yeah. She stayed here and held your hand all night. You woke up about an hour ago
 
—don’t you remember?”

“No.”

“She took off after that. Said you probably didn’t want to see her.”

Oh, Eden. He closed his hand, still feeling the warmth. “I want to see her.”

Owen stood, hands in his pockets. Considered him. “I have to
ask you something. I’ve been trying to sort this out, and there’s this team rumor . . . Was Max the one who hit me?”

Oh no. “Why does it matter?”

“It matters.”

“Let it go, Owen.”

“Would you let it go?”

Owen’s words hung between them, his expression fierce. In that moment, Jace saw himself, the man he’d been. The man he refused to be anymore.

Yes, he would let it go
 
—now.

But Owen cut off his answer. “Listen, I saw the game tape. You took the check for me, Hammer. I guess I owe you. So this is me saying thanks.” He started to move away.

“Owen
 
—wait. Don’t make my mistakes and let anger turn you into a guy you don’t want to be.”

Owen shook his head. “It’s over. Adam is taking heat for clearing me to play. I think he’s going to get fined, maybe suspended. And apparently I’m done in the NHL, at least until I get my eyesight back.” Owen met his gaze, darkness in his eyes, something Jace recognized. “Hockey was all I had.”

Jace watched the way Owen drew in a breath, the hard set of his jaw. He was serious. “I’m sorry, man.”

“Yeah, well, here’s the deal. I know you have a thing for my sister. And I’m pretty sure she has it for you too. And you’re not the total jerk I thought you were. So you’re going to keep an eye on her, promise not to break her heart, or I’m going to come back and find you and break something essential.”

“Dude, Eden and I
 
—”

“If you say you’re just friends, I’m going to have to rip out your IV and strangle you with it.”

Oh, why not. He had nothing else to lose. “Yeah, okay. I’m in love with her. She’s amazing. She can find the good in anyone. I can’t imagine my life without her.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Owen pulled his keys from his pocket, looked at them for a moment. “I’m sorry for what I said at my folks’ place
 
—the things I accused you of. I think I was jealous. She’d spent my whole life taking care of me, and suddenly there you were. Taking my place.”

“I could never take
 
—”

“Dude.”

Jace smiled.

Owen didn’t smile back. “I need you to give these to Eden.” He dropped the keys on Jace’s bedside table.

“What are you doing?”

He started for the door.

“Owen! I know you’re angry and upset, but you can’t just walk away. You gotta tell her
 
—tell your family
 
—where you’re going.”

Turning, Owen tugged something out of his back pocket. A notebook, bent in the center. He slapped it onto the table. “She left this too
 
—I saw her writing in it, and when the doctor came in, she snuck away. I think she forgot it.”

“Owen.”

The kid paused once more. “If it weren’t for Eden, I wouldn’t have had any of this. I love her, Hammer. Really, don’t break her heart.”

Then he was gone, and Jace was tied to the stupid bed, his head bandaged, wearing a hospital gown. He couldn’t exactly chase Owen down the hall.

Although he debated it.

Jace picked up the notebook. Eden had been the one holding
his hand, and the thought of her sitting beside his bed while he fought the darkness . . .

He didn’t deserve her. But oh, how he loved her.

She made him feel favored. Blessed.

He opened the notebook, ran his hand over the writing inside. Names and stories, tidbits of information.

What was this?

He kept turning pages, found snippets of stories, short stories, more descriptions of places, a number of strange interviews.

And toward the back, a freshly inked essay. One about a boy named Myron. And when he read it, Jace began to sob.

Eden quick-walked down the hallway, her heart thundering.

Jace would live. She didn’t care if he saw her, if he said her name, if he even noticed that she’d spent the night at his bedside, praying and holding his hand. Yeah, she’d planted herself right there beside him, and not even Adam had the courage to move her. She didn’t care that she might not belong in his world. She would happily stay on the sidelines of his life if he would just . . . live.

She couldn’t bear the fact that once upon a time she’d called him a monster. A troublemaker. A jerk.

He’d nearly gotten himself killed to protect her brother.

And they’d shaved his hair. All of that long, dark, beautiful hair. She wanted to weep, seeing him like Samson, his strength sapped in the hospital bed.

But he would live, and now she’d learn to watch him on television, or read about him in the paper, and be thankful for the two weeks they’d been friends.

Thankful, really, for Hudson Peterson and how he’d brought them together. She took the elevator to his floor, got off, and looked for Becky at the nurses’ station but didn’t see her.

She headed down the hall to his room, trying to brace herself for the somber disappointment of seeing him still in a coma, Olivia by his bed, holding his hand, the same as when she’d left them.

Or maybe he’d woken up. She prayed the sound of his mother’s voice had tugged him free from the grip of unconsciousness, brought him back to the land of the living.

She longed to see his eyes, his smile, the boy she’d found grinning at her in the online photos, the pictures in Olivia’s house.

The door was closed, and Eden knocked before entering. No answer, but the day was early
 
—perhaps she shouldn’t be disrupting . . .

She eased the door open. Sunlight streamed in through the window, rose-gold light that dappled the sheets of the empty bed.

Empty. For a second she stood there, a hand of dread reaching up to strangle her. Then she walked into the room, ran her hand along the bed, remembering Hudson’s frail body under the cotton sheets.

What if they’d moved him? She held on to the thought, turning, intending to go down the hall to ask.

Behind her, an orderly came into the room carrying an armful of sheets. She looked about twenty-five, her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Oh, hello. Can I help you?”

“I was looking for Hudson Peterson
 
—they originally had him listed as John Doe. Where did they move him?”

“Um . . .” She appeared stricken for a moment. “Mr. Peterson passed in the night.”

Passed . . . oh . . . The hand around her neck began to cut off her air.

“We’re making up the room for a new patient.”

“What? No. I mean
 
—wait. You can’t
 
—” Eden closed her mouth, shook her head. They couldn’t just . . . just replace him. Just fill his bed. “This is his room.”

She sank down on the opposite bed, staring at the sunlight folding into the sheets like rivulets of gold. “I thought this would work. I thought if I . . . if I found his family . . .” Her eyes filled. “How could he die? He wasn’t supposed to die. He was supposed to wake up. To live.” She took a shaky breath. “That was the deal. I find his family, and he wakes up.”

“I’m so sorry.” The orderly set down the pile of sheets. “I can leave you alone for a few moments.”

“No. That’s okay. I barely knew him, really. I just . . . thought I could help him. But I guess I was dreaming. As usual.”

“You did help him.”

She turned at the voice and found Becky standing at the door. Once again wearing her printed hockey scrubs, a stethoscope around her neck.

“What?”

“You did help him.” Becky shooed the orderly away, then turned back to Eden. “I think he was holding on until you found his family. You let him die in peace.”

“But . . .” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I know this sounds crazy, but he wasn’t supposed to die. I thought if I found him, if we discovered his story, God would see him
 
—and spare him.”

Becky’s hand touched her arm. “But God did see him. He
sent you, Eden. You were God’s plan to show Hudson that he was loved. Because you cared, Hudson was not forgotten.”

Eden walked over to his bed, rested her hand on the covers. This wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair.

“It doesn’t matter how much I care. It doesn’t change anything. John Doe is still replaced with one change of the sheets, his life forgotten.” She turned and walked out of the room.