It Had to Be You (Christiansen Family) (7 page)

No, she’d never want to be with a guy like him
 
—in fact, if he read her right, she couldn’t stand him.

This night couldn’t get any better.

They were nearing the bridge to Minneapolis, the cityscape rising to meet them, the IDS tower shimmering against the wet night.

“You’re going to have to tell me where to go.”

“Get off at Eleventh Street, then go south on Portland. I live on Franklin, west of Portland.”

His gaze drifted to the University of Minnesota buildings as they crossed the bridge. He’d never attended college, but then again, his test scores would have made any admissions counselor laugh him all the way to tech school.

If it weren’t for hockey, he might be working the iron ore mines or maybe selling insurance door-to-door, just like dear old deadbeat Dad. Not that a guy couldn’t make a decent life out of working the iron range
 
—plenty of his high school buddies turned it into a livelihood and figured out how to live without hockey.

He just couldn’t see it for himself.

“I attended there. Lived in those multicolored buildings,” Eden said casually.

“Cedar Square West?”

“Yep. Walked to school every day. Worked at the
Minnesota Daily
.”

He stilled. “The newspaper?”

“I went to the school of journalism.”

Jace tried to keep his voice even. “Eden, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m . . . a reporter.”

Of course she was. Probably a sports reporter, trying to get the latest on his contract deal. Or his health. No wonder she’d gone digging about his performance
 
—or lack thereof
 
—tonight.

He turned onto Portland, the slush kicking up onto his car. He turned his wipers on higher.

“Take a right here.”

“On Franklin. I remember.” He didn’t mean the chip in his
voice. But her declaration had him wondering how much of this night would appear online or in the paper or . . . well, how much would come back to haunt him.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

“I live just ahead, in the brownstone on the right.”

Jace pulled up under a streetlight.

She paused, her hand on the door. “Thanks, Jace. I appreciate the ride home. But this doesn’t change the fact that I think you need to step in and help Owen find his way.” Then she looked at him fully, and shoot, she did have pretty eyes
 
—green, with gold-flecked irises, the kind that could mesmerize a guy, make him drop his guard, let her discover more than he wanted.

Reporter eyes.

She softened her voice, going in for the sucker punch. “Couldn’t we be on the same team? Maybe work together to keep him out of trouble?”

He wasn’t that stupid. The last thing he needed was to be netted into some “save Owen” quest with this woman.

This overprotective, judgy newspaperwoman.

“You might be his babysitter, honey. But I’m not,” he said, his voice curt.

“Fine.” She opened the door.

“Try to stay away from creeps like your date,” he said, wanting to make it a little better, despite himself.

“Yeah. Good idea.” Then she slammed the door.

Jace watched her storm through the building’s arched entryway and disappear inside.

He drove by Sammy’s on his way home and noticed the lights were still on. Maybe Sam had a minute, just to help him shake
away the lingering frustration. The door was locked, so he went around and used his key to open the back entrance. “Sam?”

The bar kitchen still smelled of barbecue wings, french fries, and the tangy residue of beer on tap. He flicked on a light as he walked through, then stood in the door of the empty bar. The chairs were still down, evidence that Sam hadn’t closed too long ago. And three glasses puddled water on the bar.

Jace walked down the hall, past the bathrooms, then opened the door to the upstairs apartment. Okay, it was late, and Sam was probably sleeping, but Jace spotted light trickling from under the door, and Sam understood the need to blow off steam after a game.

At the top of the stairs, he knocked. “Sam?”

“In here!”

The voice that responded sounded tight, almost panicked. Jace stopped long enough to find the source and headed to the bathroom.

Sam sat on the floor, Maddy cuddled in his lap, dressed in her nightgown, her body trembling and sweaty, her hair clipped back, as if hastily. Her breathing emerged labored.

Jace’s heart lodged like a fist in his chest as he looked at Sam.

His friend had aged a year since he’d seen him three days ago, his eyes red, bagged by circles of sleeplessness. He still wore his waist apron and a black T-shirt with the words
Sammy’s Bar and Grill
across the chest.

“What’s going on?” Jace said as he came into the room. It did look better than he’d imagined earlier
 
—the bathroom having received the scrubbing of a lifetime, a new blue shower curtain, some fresh bath linens. But it still resembled a widower’s bachelor pad, desperate and pitiful.

“I’m sick.” Maddy raised her head. “And my back hurts. And I can’t breathe very well.”

Sam gave him a grim look. Swallowed.

Oh no.

Then Maddy fixed Jace with those sweet brown eyes. “Did you win?”

Jace crouched in front of them. “Yes, sweetie, we won.”

She smiled, just a little. “I knew it.”

Jace reached out for her. “You get her bag and her medicines. I’ll put her in the car.”

Sam nodded and released her into Jace’s arms.

Then, just for a second, his best friend lowered his head into his hands. Jace turned them both away before Maddy could see her daddy cry.

H
OW COULD HE
be here again? Sam leaned forward in a bright-orange chair of the transplant center at the University of Minnesota children’s hospital and scrubbed his hands down his face. “I don’t think I can do this . . .”

The hospital resembled a children’s day care, with pictures of cartoon characters painted on the walls, friendly orange stripes directing traffic, colorful furniture, and large flat-screen TVs affixed to the walls.

But all the decorations couldn’t hide the truth. Children came here to die, and no amount of SpongeBob SquarePants or Dora the Explorer could distract from the families girded in masks and protective gear, living on the edge of tragedy.

Sam had walked by rooms with parents sleeping on the long padded couches along the windows as tubes and wires and oxygen
kept their tykes alive in the beds. He couldn’t bear it and escaped to the end of the hall.

“This is my fault.”

“This is not your fault.” Jace turned from where he stood at the window overlooking the parking lot. The sunrise bled across the University of Minnesota campus. It had taken five hours to get Maddy admitted, evaluated, stabilized, tested, and into a restless slumber. The doctor had scheduled her for a biopsy first thing in the morning.

And now the waiting began.

What would he have done without Jace keeping him calm, driving them to the ER, then staying with Sam to help him stutter out Maddy’s history?

Yes, she had a transplant three years ago.

No, she’d had no signs of rejection, but yes, okay, he’d missed her appointment three months ago and hadn’t yet rescheduled. But he could be termed a near fanatic about her medicine. How could she have missed her antirejection meds?

Still, with the move and her being sick, maybe he’d messed up.

“I just thought that her stomachaches had to do with losing the house and moving in over the bar. Maddy was always a finicky eater and
 
—” Sam shook his head. “I should have figured it out. She’s retaining fluid, and she’s been so tired. She falls asleep during her schoolwork and often at dinner.”

“She doesn’t sleep
 
—she’s up waiting for you to get off work.” Jace leaned against the opposite wall.

“No, see, that’s what I told myself. But anyone with a brain would have added it up. And if I hadn’t missed her appointment . . .” He looked at Jace. “This is my fault. If she’s in full rejection . . . well, it’s not like they’re going to give her another heart.”

Jace pushed himself off the wall. “Why not? She’s nine years old
 
—”

“You know that it’s not about age. It’s about viability. And . . . the brutal truth is I don’t have the financial resources to care for another heart. They look at that too
 
—your ability to manage the aftercare. They could even send a social worker around and decide that her home life isn’t compatible with proper post-transplant care.” He looked down the hall, listening in case Maddy had woken and needed him. He should get back in there, but he just couldn’t stand by her bed, count her breaths, watch the IV drip methylprednisolone into her veins in some desperate attempt to stop her frail body from rejecting her heart. He couldn’t see her sink into the cotton blankets without hating someone.

Like himself.

Or God.

Sam shook his head before he let the thought take root. No. If he didn’t have God, he’d have no one. Still, sometimes he wanted to ask, whose side was God on, anyway?

“You don’t need to worry about money, Sam
 
—”

“Stop, Jace. I know you mean well, but we both know that you can’t keep funding her medical expenses. I am an idiot for not getting enough insurance
 
—we can agree on that
 
—but she’s not your responsibility.”

Jace’s eyes narrowed, just for a second, as if he’d been punched, but he took a breath, nodded. “Right. Sure.”

“Don’t take it that way, dude. I’m sorry. It’s just . . . I’m so angry, you know? I just want to hit something.”

“You have every reason to be angry. If it makes you feel better, you can hit me.”

Sam managed a short grin. “Thanks, but you’re already sporting
a bit of a shiner there, J. I’m sorry I missed the game. Please tell me you got a few licks in.”

“Sorry to disappoint you
 
—and the rest of the St. Paul Blue Ox fans, apparently
 
—but I managed to have a fight-free night. The shiner is from a teammate.”

“Really?”

When Jace lifted a shoulder, Sam suspected more behind his answer, but Jace said nothing, and Sam didn’t chase it.

“I could go for some coffee.”

“On it.” Jace settled a hand on Sam’s shoulder, squeezed. “I’m going to stop by the chapel, too.”

Sam nodded. Yes, please.

He listened to Jace’s steps and closed his eyes.

He couldn’t pray. Not yet. Because if he went into the little hospital chapel and lay prostrate before the altar, cried and begged and hoped like last time, it meant that he believed Maddy might really die. He couldn’t let his brain
 
—his heart
 
—go there.

He clasped his hands in his lap.
I’m sorry, Mia. I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of our daughter.

Sam tightened his jaw, looked toward Maddy’s dark room, and wished, not for the first time, that God had taken him instead of Mia and left his daughter the mother she so desperately needed.

Eden didn’t care what Jace Jacobsen thought of her. She really didn’t care. Certainly not enough to let his annoying voice chase her through the night, tie her sheets into knots.

You’re pretty enough.

Fine, Jace’s words had hurt, just a little. But that was crazy, right? Because she couldn’t stand the guy.

And clearly the feeling was mutual.

She rolled over in her bed toward the window. The sun had already turned her room to gray, an orange glow just tipping above the horizon. Not that she could see past the building behind her to catch any hint of a glorious sunrise, but at least she could justify peeling herself out of bed. Sucking down four cups of coffee while she read the obits.

Most importantly, at least she’d be on time for work.

A chill lingered in her flat, the thin panes rattling against a nasty wind; January must have turned frigid again, which meant today would be littered with black ice and car accidents.

She’d have to brace herself for a call from Russell.

Eden grabbed her parka, still flung over her kitchen chair, and wrapped herself in it as she heated water for coffee.

Listen, you and I run in different circles. And I’m happy with that.

And she was. Gloriously happy. Over the moon with joy.

She pulled out a box of granola, shook some into a bowl.

Hopefully she’d never have to be in the same room with J-Hammer Jacobsen again.

Or the same car.

Or the same airspace.

Oh, the man took up way too much room in her head. And she kept smelling his cologne, like it had embedded in her pores . . . or her jacket.

She shucked it off and hung it up near the door, going into her bedroom to retrieve a sweater.

On the way, she picked up her phone from the bedside table. Owen had dialed her three times before she’d finally shut it off
somewhere around 5 a.m. She turned it on now, noticed the missed calls, ignored them, and set her phone on the counter while she added milk to her granola, then poured coffee grounds into the French press. A gift from Owen for her birthday.

Owen is going to be a great hockey player. He doesn’t need quite so much mothering.

Whatever. Clearly she couldn’t count on Jace to help her keep Owen out of trouble. And to think, for about two miles there, he’d seemed a real . . . Well,
gentleman
might be going too far, but friendly. A womanizer, maybe, but not the guy who’d lured a girl to his room and attacked her during a party. Eden still remembered the headlines and the press conference when he revealed his alibi
 
—sitting at his dying mother’s bedside. The reporters hadn’t exactly let the poor woman die in obscurity after that. They’d dug into her past, and even Eden felt sorry for Jace then.

It seemed that shortly thereafter, Jace had driven his car into an icy lake.

He might not have deserved the public examination of his life
 
—or the wild accusations
 
—but he’d certainly sealed his reputation in the years before that. And even Jace agreed that Owen reminded him of himself.

Still . . .
You might be his babysitter, honey. But I’m not.

Jerk.

She poured the hot water into the French press, stirred it, then set the top on to let it steep.

Her phone rang, and she nearly ignored it until she saw her mother’s face on the screen. “Mom. Hi.”

“Oh, good, you’re up.”

Eden could imagine her mother, Ingrid Christiansen, sitting in her leather chair in the lodge living room, overlooking Evergreen
Lake. In this chill, it would be frozen over, with snowmobile tracks crisscrossing the snow-laden surface and fishing houses clumped in the center. Her father might have cleared a patch of ice for Darek and his son, Tiger, to slap a few shots around. The six-year-old was another hockey star in the making, for another generation. Maybe Darek would teach Ivy, his girlfriend, how to skate. Eden held out hope that the two would get engaged soon.

“I know it’s early, honey, but I haven’t talked to you all week, and I thought I might catch you before work.”

Eden went to her front door to retrieve the paper. “I’m sorry. It’s been a busy week. Did you see Owen’s game last night?”

“Yes, of course. So how’s work?”

“It was terrible, Mom. He was out of control, playing angry. It reminded me of the section finals against Duluth East when he was a junior. Slashing, charging.”

“Did you go with anyone?”

“I . . . uh . . . Sort of.” She grabbed her cereal and went to the kitchen table. “A guy I know through work. It was awful. He turned out to be a crazy fan
 
—even dyed his hair blue.”

“Oh, my.”

“I know. And then, after the game, I went to wait for Owen, but he took off right away
 
—didn’t even wait for me.”

“Your date left you at the game?”

“No, Mom,
Owen
. He left after the game. With some friends or something. Didn’t even stick around to talk to me.”

“It’s beautiful up here. We just got a fresh snowfall. We’d love to see you
 
—why don’t you escape this weekend and come up?”

“Aw, I’d love to, but Owen has a game Friday night, and I think he’ll be too tired.”

“Eden, I’m not talking about Owen
 
—I want
you
to come up and visit. Without Owen.”

Without Owen? “He needs me to be at his game
 
—”

“Owen is a big boy. He’ll be just fine.”

Uh, no, he wouldn’t. Wasn’t. It tipped her lips to tell her mother exactly how not fine Owen was, but then what? She couldn’t bear to add Owen to her list of failures. Job, romance . . . No, Owen and his stellar career were all she had left.

She refused to let him fail.

“I don’t know
 
—”

“Eden. We appreciate you keeping an eye on your brother, but you’re not responsible for him. You have your own amazing life. Now, tell me, how can I pray for you this week?”

Her own amazing life? Right. She set the paper on the table, pulling out the sports section. Of course, Owen’s picture had made the front page, above the fold. He wore a grimace as he slapped in his second goal.

“I don’t know, Mom. For my car to start?”

“Oh, honey, just buy a new battery. Or better, a new car.”

“I gotta go.”

She heard a sigh on the other end of the line. “I believe in you, Eden. Even if you don’t believe in yourself.”

What was that supposed to mean? “Thanks, Mom. I’ll tell Owen you said hi.”

She hung up and stared out her sliding-glass window to where the sunrise now burned over the top of the buildings. Snow covered her rusty terrace furniture. Inside, her spider plant had long surrendered to winter, dormant and sad, and an old floral sheet covered a hole in her garage sale sofa.