by Freya Barker
I shoot a quick glance in her direction before answering.
“I don’t think that was on purpose. I startled him and he swung around. I wasn’t hurt.” Much. I might have a bruise on my ass. LeBlanc’s dark eyes squint a little as he studies me.
“You sure? My colleague has sent Mr. Quarles home, with a stern warning, but I’ve offered to take Ms. Kesla to file a restraining order tomorrow. I’ll be able to help her get one on an emergency basis, but it would help if you came along as well. Give your statement directly to the judge.”
Immediately I feel the irrational panic overwhelm me: tingling in my hands and feet, itchy skin, lightheaded, shallow breathing. I grab onto the edge of the counter for stability as I start swaying on my legs, the full impact of events suddenly robbing me of air.
“Are you okay?” I hear concern in his voice, but still shrink back when he tries to touch me.
“She’s fine,” Jordy’s voice pipes up as she walks up. “Hold him,” she says to the man, before shoving Ole in his hands. If I weren’t gasping for air, I’d laugh at the startled look on his face as he holds the baby like it could attack any minute. I feel Jordy’s hands grab me firmly by the upper arms.
“Look at me,” she snaps. “Eyes up here. In through the nose, out the mouth. Just like me.”
I struggle but manage to follow her lead. It doesn’t stop the urge to come out of my skin, or puke up my guts, but at least it stops me from passing out. When she sees I’m regaining control, she lets go with one hand and turns to the officer.
“You can take Mia’s statement here,” she announces as if I’m not even in the room. “There’s no need for her to come in.”
I’m about to open my mouth to object when the front door slams open and a very angry Jared comes in.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Jared
I’m exhausted.
I spent last night strategizing with Brian until close to midnight, slept until the blasted alarm woke me up a scant three and a half hours later, and walked into a meeting in Miami at ten o’clock this morning. I passed on the Panthers’ offer of box seats at a Heat game and the penthouse suite at the Four Seasons. Instead, with Brian complaining all the way, I opted to head straight back home.
The meeting had been good, the offer on the table nothing to sneeze at, but understandably management had wanted an answer right away, and I wasn’t ready to give one. They grudgingly gave me a week.
“You’re going to turn them down, aren’t you?” Brian said, as the first class flight attendant slid dinner in front of us.
“Probably,” I admitted, feeling like I was letting him down. Brian just nodded and proceeded to eat his meal.
“Tell me,” he asked, putting his fork down when his plate was empty. “Before your career took off, what did you use to dream of doing down the road?”
“Other than make the NHL? Coaching kids,” I recall easily. I’d been fortunate with parents who supported every step I made in my career, but I’d also had some pretty awesome coaches growing up. Coaches that spent a good amount of time not only honing my hockey skills, but my personal development as well. Kept me on the straight and narrow, forcibly at times. I’d been nineteen the last time a coach plucked me off the streets of Sault St. Marie one night, after I snuck out of my billet’s house, and benched my ass for five games. In the eyes of the law, I might’ve been an adult, but as my coach reminded me, the law didn’t make the rules, the team did. I smiled at the memory. “If not for all of this,” I waved my hand around the first class cabin, “I’d be coaching kids.”
“Okay.” Brian slipped the tray back into his armrest, when the flight attendant cleared our plates and turned in his seat to face me. “Let’s talk OHL.”
Turns out Brian had maintained some pretty decent connections in the Ontario Hockey League. Despite the fact none of those salaries would come close to the earning potential in the NHL—which meant Brian’s percentage would take a hit as well—he didn’t flinch when discussing amounts less than half of what my income might have been. The years have made him into a good friend.
I’d thanked him when I dropped him home and waved off his offer to crash there and drive home in the morning. I just wanted to get home tonight. Check how Jordy’s doing, get a snuggle in with Ole—fine, and see Mia. If I had any doubts left about my decision to turn down the Panthers, I expect my need to see all three of them would’ve taken care of that.
What I didn’t expect is OPP cars in my driveway.
I slam the car in park and ignore the officer trying to block my way into my own damn house.
“What the hell is going on here?” I roar, pushing through and seeing a very pale Mia, a perfectly fine Jordy, and my nephew in the arms of another good-sized OPP officer.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the cop pipes up, having come in behind me. The one holding Ole is clearly his superior.
“Jared!” Jordy calls out, a smile on her face.
The big guy looks from my sister back to me and his face visibly relaxes.
“It’s fine, Jenkins. Why don’t you head back? On your way out, make sure Mr. Quarles hasn’t decided to linger around somewhere after all. I’ll finish up here.”
I hear the door click shut behind me, but I don’t take my eyes off the man, who is smiling at my sister as he hands her the baby. I don’t like him.
“I’m OPP sergeant John LeBlanc, Mr. Kesla, ” he says, coming at me with his hand outstretched, which I choose to ignore until Jordy walks up and stabs me with a pointy elbow.
“Jared,” she hisses.
Grudgingly I reach out and take the man’s hand, letting him know he may be big, but I’m still bigger, as I force a grin on my face and put some extra force in the handshake.
“Let me explain what’s going on,” John offers, pissing me off when he doesn’t even flex his fingers when I let him go.
“One minute,” I snap, turning my attention to Mia, who hasn’t said a word. I walk straight up and cup her face in my hands. “You okay?” I ask, searching her eyes, that looked wild when I first walked in. They’re a lot calmer now as she gives me a wavering smile.
“I’m fine now,” she softly says, lifting a hand to cover one of mine.
“Okay. We’ll talk after.”
After a quick kiss on her forehead, I take her hand and lead her into the living room, where LeBlanc is observing us with interest, and Jordy wears a grin from ear to ear.
FIFTEEN
Jared
“I’m thirty-six years old, Jared,” my sister whines. “I have a child, it’s not like I need you to protect my virtue.”
The argument I thought I’d settled last night, when I told Jordy there was no need for OPP sergeant LeBlanc to pick her up, since I would be taking her into Bracebridge myself, is apparently not over.
“You’re my little sister, Jordy,” I echo her tone. “And I don’t care if you’re seventy-six years old, I’ll always look out for your virtue.” I try to keep a straight face when I hear Mia’s soft giggle.
I’d been ready to go charging out the door after LeBlanc filled me in on that son of a bitch showing up here yesterday, scaring my sister, and knocking down Mia. LeBlanc calmly informed me that although he didn’t want to, he wouldn’t hesitate to arrest me before I made it out the door, regardless of my reputation as ‘enforcer.’ So he knew who I was. I didn’t like the guy, but couldn’t help respect his quiet confidence and calm control of the situation. I held Mia’s hand as he finished taking her statement, only letting go when he was ready to leave, and I showed him to the door.
But when he casually addressed Jordy, telling her he’d be by first thing in the morning to pick her up, my bristles went up. I pulled open the door, told him thanks but no thanks, I’d drive my sister myself, and practically slammed it in his face. Jordy did not like that. Thus started the argument. One I thought was over when she stomped down the hall to her bedroom.
I insisted Mia stay here, although she seemed to need little co
nvincing. Even though I really wanted to crawl into bed with her, I just gave her a chaste kiss outside her bedroom door and opened my own. I looked inside, turned right back around and knocked on her door, which she opened immediately. This time, when I took her mouth, I did so thoroughly, thanking Christ for years of developing iron control. When I finally pulled back I was happy to see the slightly haunted look that had remained in her eyes all night, replaced with dazed heat.
“You did my laundry,” I pointed out, and a little smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
“It was piling up,” she said with a shrug. “Besides, you have a kick-ass washer.” I grinned at that; I bought top of the line appliances, and I love my industrial-sized washer.
“Can’t remember the last time someone did my laundry,” I confessed, before giving her mouth a brush with my thumb. “Thanks.”
I’d slept like the dead after that.
I don’t particularly want to leave Mia alone, but as she calmly pointed out, she lived alone and off the beaten track for more years than I have.
“I’ll make sure the door stays locked,” she says, patting me on the arm. “Ole and I will be fine. Besides, we have Griffin.”
“If you hadn’t stomped all over the perfectly good plans that were already in place, in your testosterone driven need to...” Jordy interjects and throws in a couple of dramatic ‘air’ quotation marks for effect. “...protect, I’d be on my way into town with a frickin’ OPP escort.”
I grab her arm as she tries to squeeze past me out of the door, swing her around and into my arms. I tuck my head down by her ear.
“I wasn’t there when that cocksucker tossed you and my nephew away like yesterday’s garbage. I wasn’t there when he decided, for whatever fucked up reason, to stake a claim on your son. I didn’t have the satisfaction of kicking his ass or planting my fist in his face, so give me this.”
Jordy’s arms wrap around my waist and give me a squeeze, before she leans back and looks up at me.
“Okay,” she says. “I can give you this.”
“Thank you.” I kiss the top of her head and let her go.
She grabs her bag and scoots out of the door, tossing out in passing, “But you better not throw a fit the next time a hot guy asks me on a date.”
I turn big eyes to a snickering Mia, before following my exasperating sister outside. “First of all, he is an OPP officer, not a hot guy—and since when is taking you to get a restraining order a date?” I call after her.
“Same difference,” she fires right back, before getting in the car.
I open the driver’s side door and am about to continue the argument, when I spot Mia in the doorway, laughing with her arm wrapped around her middle and her head thrown back. I can’t help but smile. When her eyes land on me, she gives her head a little shake, but smiles back broadly. So I do what I do best. I protect.
“Get inside, Mia. And lock that door.”
Mia
“How’s my favourite patient?”
With the house quiet, and Ole still sound asleep, the silence and inactivity gives me time to think. The past weeks seem to have passed in a blur, and the changes to my comfortable routine had been pretty substantial. My boring, safe, predictable life had come off its moorings with the birth of Ole. Or perhaps it had been even earlier, when Jared moved in. Regardless, instead of spending my life securely anchored, these days I seem to be on a rudderless raft getting bounced around by rapids. I’m not going to lie, it makes me feel alive, but also terrified of being washed under.
My world, which had been small and self-contained, has grown exponentially. Before I had two people I’d regularly interacted with, because it was easier, and now there are new faces to deal with all the time. And I don’t know if I’m dealing. To be honest, I’m afraid I may have simply hooked my raft onto someone else’s by way of anchor.
“Confused,” I admit to Rueben, whom I called when the tumbling thoughts unleashed my anxiety.
“I see,” he states calmly. “Is that why you’re calling and not here?”
“Sorry?” My question is met with a long pause before he speaks.
“You are confused,” he says, with humour in his voice. “So much so, you forgot we have an appointment this morning.”
Shit. It’s Tuesday and Rueben was back from holidays.
“I’m so sorry!” I blurt out. This is exactly what I mean, I never forget these appointments, they’re the only thing I have on my calendar. The calendar that is on my fridge at my cottage, my sanctuary, where I’ve barely spent any time in recent days.
“Don’t be,” he chuckles. “I’ve been waiting for a day where you’d be too busy or too preoccupied to remember your standing appointment with me. It means you are living.” My earlier anxiety flies out the window with those words, and instead I feel like I’ve just been given a gold star by the teacher. “Now, why don’t you fill me in?”
The next half-hour I tell him everything. Well, almost everything, I’m purposely vague about the night I watched Jared on the dock, but other than that he gets it all.
“You’ve certainly been busy,” he points out.
“I feel like I could get washed under at any moment,” I confess.
“A change in tide.”
“A what?”
“A change in tide,” he repeats. “When you get caught in an rip current or strong tide, the best way to prevent getting pulled under is to ride it out. You can struggle against it, but you’ll only exhaust yourself, and eventually drown. Just ride it out, Mia, pace yourself, but ride it out. It may get bumpy, but there is always, always calmer water on the other side.”
When I finally hang up the phone, with a promise to actually come into his office next week, I feel much better. Rueben’s analogy makes sense.
I don’t have much time to mull it over further, when Ole, right on cue, announces himself. I quickly put the emergency bottle of breast milk, I’d shown Jordy how to pump, in hot water. Sitting on the couch, with my feet up on the coffee table and the baby’s warm body snuggled in my arms, I let myself enjoy the moment. The little sounds he makes as he gets used to the bottle, the smell of baby shampoo and fresh laundry, the feel of his downy soft cheek under the pad of my finger. It occurs to me, and not for the first time, that I’ve really missed this.
-
“Can we talk?”
I open the door to Jared and let him in.
Over any objections, I headed to my cottage the moment he and Jordy had gotten home. There was stuff I wanted to do; laundry, a bit of cleaning, tend to my garden, and maybe take my kayak out for a spin. Groceries would’ve been on that list if they hadn’t gone grocery shopping already, bringing home most of the basics already. I protested, but not a lot. I was trying not to fight the current, but I was pacing myself.
I had a nice day. Accomplished a bit, had a good paddle that left my shoulders a little sore, and was not at all surprised when there was a knock at my door as I was clearing away my dinner dishes.
“Do you want to sit outside?” I ask him, pointing in the direction of my porch.
“Sure,” he shrugs, but I notice the teasing glint in his eyes. “Seems like a good spot to get out of the heat.”
“Drink?” I offer, trying to ignore the blush I can feel creeping up my face.
“I’m good,” he says before sitting down.
Strange how easily we move around each other in his house, yet here, things feel a little awkward. Maybe because he’s on my turf now? It doesn’t help that after that kiss in his hallway last night, he hadn’t touched me again today.
“What’s up?” I try for a light-hearted approach.
“First of all,” he says scowling, apparently not appreciating my efforts. “I’d like to know why you’re all the way over there instead of here? How am I supposed to talk with you?” I had chosen to sit down in the chair, after he picked the couch. Rather than argue, I move over to sit beside him.
“This better?” I can’t hold bac
k the hint of sarcasm in my voice.
“Much,” he confirms, looking pleased with himself as he drapes his arm over the couch behind me. We sit like that, watching the last of the boaters disappear off the lake, as the sun disappears behind the trees. The shared silence is nice.
“I’m thinking of turning down Miami,” he says finally, and I shift slightly to watch his profile as he stares out over the water. “They gave me a week to think, even though the official announcement they’re looking for a new assistant coach was made tonight. I just watched the news conference.” His eyes turn to me. “It’s a good offer. Great money. Unbelievable opportunity.”
“But?” I prompt, when he falls silent, searching my face.
“But it’s there, and not here,” he says a little cryptically before explaining, “I went a little nuts after I was injured. Wild. I was drinking too much, partying too much. Not sure what that was all about, but I was in a bad place. Then I found out my sister was pregnant and facing it alone, I smartened up. Bought this place, had them build on a separate wing for Jordy and her baby, and proceeded to work on convincing her to live out here with me.”
I listen, without saying anything, but I’m affected. Instead of speaking, I reach over for the hand he has resting on his knee, flip it over, and press my palm to his, lacing our fingers.
“My life has been chaotic, to say the least. Rewarding, but chaotic. Never knowing where you’ll end up, once your contract runs out. Living a life that is designed so it’s easily picked up and moved elsewhere, whether it’s another hotel in another city, or another apartment and a new team. I’m tired of that. Tired of constantly making sure all is organized and in its place, so I’m always prepared for everything. I just want to kick off my shoes and leave them where they drop.”
“I get it,” I acknowledge, and I do, I totally get it. Different situations but a similar crossroads.
“I think you might,” he softly says, tugging at a curl by my ear with his free hand. “Anyway, now with Jordy’s ex crawling out from the rock he lives under, it’s a good reminder there is more to life than snatching up a lucrative contract. There’s my family to look after. Time for me to step up to the plate.”
