My Stubborn Heart (30 page)

Kate sniffed and wiped away tears as she dialed his cell phone number with shaking fingers.

He picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”

“It's me. I just got the table and I can't believe it. Oh my gosh, thank you! Thank you so much. It's beautiful! I'm just—I'm speechless.”

“Are you crying?” he asked suspiciously.

“Yes.”

“And that's a good thing?”

“Yes.”

“Then I'm glad you like it.”

“I love it. I really do. It's the best present I've ever been given. I can't
believe
you bought it for me.”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“You did!” She breathed unevenly, crying with happiness, overwhelmed.

“Are you heading over to your parents'?” he asked.

“About to. Are you at your brother's?”

“I'm still in the car. Almost there.”

She was ready to blurt out the rest, about moving back—

“I'm glad you called,” he said. “I want to tell you something.”

“Sure.”

He paused, and she could hear his exhale. “I've decided to give hockey another try.”

Oh. Her euphoria circled downward, crashing hard into reality. “That's great!” she said, hoping she sounded like she meant it.

“You think so?” He sounded doubtful.

“Yes, of course I think so. What made you change your mind?”

“You and everything you said before you left. Couldn't get it out of my head.”

Which meant that God had kept it in his head. “What's the first step?”

“Back when I was sixteen up until I started playing for the Barons, I was coached by this guy named Jim Gray. Best coach I ever had. I called him this morning. He's retired now, but he said he'd work with me.”

“Where does he live?”

“New York.”

“Wow, so you're going to close up your house and move there?”

“Yeah. I'll find somewhere temporary to live while I train.”

“That's wonderful, Matt. Really wonderful.” And it was wonderful for him. It was exactly what she'd been hoping for and wanting and expecting, because it would make him happy, give him closure. “I don't have a single doubt that you'll succeed.”

“That makes one of us.”

She gave a soft laugh. “You'll see.”

“I don't know, Kate. Like I told you before, it's going to be tough.”

“
You're
tough. You can do it.”

Quiet answered while he seemed to weigh her words.

“I better go,” she said, needing to get herself together mentally and emotionally. “I'm going to be seriously late and I'm bringing an appetizer.”

“You cooked?”

“I know, scary, isn't it? Did you remember to bring my gift with you?”

“I have it.”

“And you'll open it tomorrow?”

“Yes, but not in front of everybody. When they let me alone for a second I'll open it and call you.”

“Sounds good.” Before leaving Redbud, she'd taken a black-and-white photo of Chapel Bluff. She'd had it mounted and framed in the same way as the photographs he had hanging in his house. Not that she aspired to the level of those. Nor the level of his amazing gift to her. “Thank you for the table. I love it. Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

“And I'm thrilled about the hockey. Merry Christmas until tomorrow.”

“Merry Christmas until then.”

She clicked the phone off and stood staring at the wall. The man she'd met when she arrived in Redbud—the injured, bitter, reclusive Matt—was gone. He was healing, growing stronger, and heading back into the limelight. He was, she was positive to the marrow of her bones, going to make it and make it big. Hockey had always been God's plan for him. She'd known it. She'd left because she'd known it. God had used her to help him find his way out of his grief, back to his hockey…and maybe, in the process, back to Him. That was the sum total of her role. She wasn't going to have a place in Matt's future.

She felt as if she were standing on a shoreline watching him become smaller and smaller as he swept out to sea on a boat she couldn't board.

Oh, she missed him. Wanted him.

With tears stinging her eyes again—all the stupid tears!—she glanced at the Pembroke table. Foolishly, futilely, she wished she could marry Matt, keep him forever, and put the table in a house they shared. Instead, the table would have to live here, in the duplex of a woman who was on her way to celebrate Christmas Eve again this year as the family's odd, only, and much-to-be-pitied single girl.

December slid into January and Kate returned to work. It wasn't awful to go back and it wasn't great, either. She no longer found the pleasure in it that she once had, but at least it got her out of the house and gave her something worthwhile to do with her days. Also, the kids constantly recalibrated her perspective. It was hard to feel sorry for yourself when you worked day in and day out with kids so neglected or abused that they'd been removed from their homes.

In the evenings she watched HGTV and
Antiques Roadshow
and read library book after library book about hockey.

Church? She wasn't going.

January gave way to February and Matt spent his days pushing himself to his physical limits and beyond. He arrived at the gym by six in the morning, where he worked with the team of trainers he'd hired. After two hours at the gym, he drove to the rink and logged four more on the ice with his coach. After lunch, he did physical therapy, consulted with a nutritionist, sometimes talked to his agent, and then headed back to the ice for the scrimmages his coach had arranged to return him to his previous form. At night he drove to the soulless furnished apartment he rented by the month.

Through it all, he thought of Kate.

In the early weeks it had been hard to suck at hockey. He'd been horrible and rusty and he'd wanted to throw in the towel. Kate had stopped him. Not because she encouraged him to continue every night when they talked on the phone, even though she did. What had stopped him wasn't pretty, and he wasn't proud of it. What had stopped him from quitting was a desire to make her sorry for leaving him. To show her how good he could be at something. To make her love him back.

That motivation had kept him going when nothing else could have, when his body screamed at him to give up.

And slowly, the tide turned. He began to improve. He started to regain his old form. His skills and instincts sharpened.

Over time, he got good.

February eased into March. Matt's coach and trainers insisted that he rest and let his body recuperate on the weekends. So on Sundays, he started attending a church down the street from his apartment. He arrived a few minutes after the service started and left right when it ended, which allowed him the luxury of having to talk to almost no one.

He liked church. The singing, praying, offering, and preaching filled him with quiet and stirred him at the same time.

On his own during the week he discovered that prayer came easier with practice. Trusting God also came easier with practice. Every time he took a step forward with his hockey, putting himself out there to face disaster on nothing but blind hope, God calmly met him. And somehow, so far, it had been okay.

He'd told Kate about that day in the chapel when he'd decided to play hockey again, and he'd told her about going to church on Sundays. She was cool with it, excited for him, without making him feel awkward.

In fact, she supported him in everything
except
coming to see her. Matt tried not to bring it up. Honestly, he tried. But in weak moments, when he missed her so much that he couldn't stand it, he'd cave and he'd ask her if he could come.

She kept saying no. The reasons why kept piling up. Twice after she'd turned him down, his confusion and hurt had boiled over and he'd gotten seriously mad at her. He hadn't called for two days after the first time. The second time he hadn't called for a week. But every minute during those times when they weren't talking, his gut had been tight with anxiety. Talking to her, having her in his life at least through their phone calls, meant too much to him to give up.

So he pressed on with his hockey in the idiotic hope that once he'd succeeded, once he was back on a team playing in the NHL, that maybe
then
she'd agree to see him.

In mid-March Matt returned to professional hockey and to the New York Barons as a mid-season signer. His comeback was big news.

Kate started watching ESPN, reading the sports pages of local and national newspapers, and buying
Sports Illustrated
. Like a proud mother cutting clippings for a scrapbook, she didn't want to miss a single mention of him. It proved difficult to hear and read
everything
because the story was so widely covered. Nonetheless, she tried.

Gran was over the moon about Matt's comeback. She'd been telling everyone she knew about it for weeks on end. To celebrate, she'd planned a game-watching party at her house. The rooms would be bursting at the seams with food, people, and black-and-red decorations. She'd assumed, of course, that Kate would attend and had been shocked when Kate turned her down. But Kate didn't want to be surrounded by a crowd while she watched Matt play. She wanted to be alone with her TV so she could focus on every single second of action without distraction and without having to worry the whole time about what her face might be giving away.