The Secret Wedding Wish

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Thad was close enough to smell the deliciously sweet fragrance of vanilla and confectioner’s sugar clinging to her hair and skin. “To play in the junior league up in Canada.”

  “Right. Mom wanted him to go to college and play there, if he wanted, on a university team. But Joe couldn’t wait, so he did terrible in all his high-school classes and he begged and pleaded until Mom finally gave in.”

  “Not unlike most pro hockey players, I imagine. It’s in their blood. And in their hearts.”

  “Which is fine, if they make it to the big time,” she said, desperation in her eyes. “But if they don’t. If they spend years chasing a certain vision and their dream never comes true, they become disillusioned and bitter.”

  “Not always,” Thad disagreed. “Sometimes they become coaches.”

  Her lips parted as she looked up at him. “You—?”

  “Tried to go pro. Didn’t have the speed. So I took another path.”

  She leaned back against the display counter, her elbows propped high on either side of her. “You’re the exception, not the rule.”

  Thad shrugged and tried not to notice how nice she looked in profile. “Chris seems pretty exceptional, too.”

  Janey turned her head to face him. “I’m not going to let him play hockey this summer.”

  “Your son has already lost a father,” he reminded her calmly.

  Janey stiffened, and swung all the way around to face him. “So?” She squared off with him deliberately.

  “So you don’t think it’d do him good to be around a lot of positive male role models?”

  She shrugged and assumed a look of extreme boredom. “Who also happen to play hockey for a living.”

  She was making a dig at his profession, too, but he refused to take the bait. “They’re good guys. They share a common interest with Chris. And at his age, he needs to go out and mix it up a little bit, burn off some of that excess physical energy in a healthy, positive way.”

  Janey glared at Thad. “He does plenty of guy stuff as it is,” she protested hotly.

  “Such as?” Thad taunted softly, knowing if the subject weren’t so serious he would really be tempted to seize upon the fireworks building between them and kiss her.

  “Camping.” As soon as the word was out of her mouth, Janey looked like she regretted it.

  Which perversely made Thad want to take her in his arms all the more.

  “You take him camping?” Thad ascertained, knowing bluster when he saw it, even if she didn’t realize it.

  “I’m going to this very weekend, as it happens,” Janey boasted, looking determined to prove Thad and all five of her brothers wrong.

  In for a penny, in for a pound, Thad thought.

  “You’ll see,” she promised smugly, determination sparking in her pretty eyes. “This trip alone will provide Chris with all the summer adventure and physical challenge a boy his age needs.”

  “AH, PLEASE. She’s not going to take him camping,” Joe Hart snorted, as the waitress set down a pitcher of beer and a bucket of peanuts in the center of their table. Thad filled Janey’s brothers in on the rest of his conversation with their headstrong sister. “The Great Outdoors isn’t Janey’s thing, never has been,” Joe concluded.

  Thad sipped his beer. “Well, she says they’re going.”

  Looking as at home in the bar as he did commentating sports events on TV, Dylan Hart tipped lazily back in his chair. “Did she say where?”

  Thad nodded. “Lake Pine.” It was a state recreation area, an hour or so away.

  Mac Hart frowned and rubbed a hand across his chest. “The trail around the lake is easy enough, but it can be pretty miserable physically this time of year. Hot, muggy, uncomfortable.”

  Fletcher Hart agreed. “Not to mention all the mosquitoes and chiggers.” He shook his head. “Hope she remembers the insect repellent or they’ll both be eaten alive.”

  Cal took a sip of beer. “Isn’t it supposed to rain tomorrow?” he asked as he broke open another roasted shell and dug out the peanuts inside. “Sunday, too?”

  Joe scowled, obviously still as peeved as Thad at the way Janey refused to support her son’s athletic ambition. “Maybe that’s what she needs, a little bad experience at Lake Pine to make her feel that a few turns around a hockey rink aren’t such a bad deal after all.” It certainly hadn’t been for Joe, who was in the midst of a successful pro hockey career.

  Thad knew Janey’s brothers had a point. There was no more potent teacher than experience, particularly bad experience. On the other hand, he had been caught out in foul weather, with only camping gear to protect him. It wasn’t an experience he would wish on anyone else. Particularly if there were thunderstorms, a hopelessly headstrong woman, and twelve-year-old boy involved. “You can’t seriously think she would head off with a backpack and tent if bad weather is brewing,” Thad said finally.

  The Hart brothers exchanged glances and shrugged. Finally, Cal spoke for all of them. “She might if she were hell-bent on proving a point. Not that it really matters. Ten to one, if it does rain, they’ll end up in the park lodge before nightfall.”

  It wasn’t his business, Thad told himself as he left. If Janey’s brothers were willing to let her tough it out and make her own mistakes, he surely ought to be able to do the same. Especially if the ultimate result was Janey letting Chris pursue his dreams. But even as Thad pushed the problem from his mind, an image kept coming back of a tall slender woman with thick chestnut hair and amber eyes.

  Chapter Two

  “Are you sure you want to do this, Mom?” Chris asked, as Janey lugged the sleeping bags and backpacks out into the living room.

  For the tenth time that morning, he walked over to the telephone answering machine and checked to make sure there were no new messages. “I mean, camping out was never your thing. It was something Dad and I did.” His face took on that pinched look it got whenever his father’s name came up.

  The guilt she had been feeling ever since he’d begun asking to go to camp intensified. Her son might be only twelve, but he was growing up so fast now. And she wasn’t just talking about the growth spurt he’d been undergoing that had him—at five foot ten—standing an inch above her and left his gangly arms and legs looking too long for his body. His face was undergoing changes, too. Oh, he still had the dusting of light brown freckles across his sturdy Hart nose, and Janey’s stubborn chin and Ty’s deep blue eyes, but his boyishness was fading. In its place was a hint of the strong and gutsy man he would become. “I’m sorry I haven’t taken you,” Janey told him sincerely.

  “That’s okay.” Chris rushed to reassure her, as he straightened the Carolina Storm cap he wore overtop of his close-cropped chestnut hair, with the brim turned to shade the back of his neck. Chris looked at Janey with enough understanding to break her heart. “I know you’ve been real busy. And that money’s tight right now.”

  “Not that tight,” Janey said, trying to shake off a pang of guilt. Maybe that’s what this whole got-to-play-hockey-to-live thing with her son was about. Maybe he just wanted her attention. Wanted to somehow fill the void in his life left by his dad’s death two years before. Janey had assumed that Chris had worked through his grief, just as she had, and accepted the fact that from now on it was going to be just the two of them. But the fact Chris had elevated Thad Lantz to hero status—and then reached out to Thad in such a personal, unexpected way—told her that was not the case.

  Her son wanted a man in his life he could hero-worship the same way he had Ty. For reasons unbeknownst to Janey, Chris had bypassed all five of his uncles and selected Thad Lantz to fit the bill. A fact that put her in a very awkward situation, the physical attraction she felt for Thad notwithstanding.

  “What about our mail?” Chris worried out loud, looking out the window at the black mailbox next to the curb. “What are we going to do about that?”

  “We can get it tomorrow evening, when we come back home,” Janey promised.

  Chris
looked even more pained.

  “I’ll just check, and make sure there isn’t anything out there now,” he said, racing out the door and down the sidewalk.

  Watching him open the metal lid, Janey sighed. She knew what he was looking for—a response from Thad Lantz.

  Which was another reason she had to get her son out of town. She wanted Chris to be in a positive frame of mind when she explained to him why he couldn’t go to summer hockey camp this year. And she didn’t want any of her brothers around when she did so.

  Chris peered at the sky a short while later as they lugged their gear out to the minivan. It was light gray, with darker clouds here and there. “Kind of looks like rain.”

  “I looked at the weather radar when I got up this morning,” Janey reassured him. “The storms are supposed to hit well east of Lake Pine. We should be okay.”

  THAD HAD NO PLANS for the weekend, but figured he might as well enjoy his time off while he could. So he booked a room at the lodge at Lake Pine, figuring if the weather held he could rent a boat and take it out on the lake and do some fishing, and if it didn’t, well, the restaurant there was fair, the view scenic. And as long as he was headed out that way, he figured he could do the Sir Galahad routine, if necessary.

  By the time he was halfway there, the skies opened up. It was still raining cats and dogs as he turned his Lincoln Navigator in to the deserted parking lot of the campsite registration center late Saturday afternoon. Thad wasn’t surprised to see the flat-roofed concrete building was empty except for the uniformed park ranger seated behind the desk. If it weren’t for his prickling conscience—the feeling that his actions had somehow goaded Janey Hart Campbell and her son Chris into an ill-scheduled backpacking trip—he wouldn’t be here, either.

  “Hi, I’m Thad Lantz.” He held out his palm.

  “Coach for the Carolina Storm. I recognize you.” The ranger, a clean-cut man in his late forties shook hands with him. “Hell of a run the team made last year. Think you’ll make it to the Stanley Cup this year?”

  Thad smiled, relieved to meet a fan. He rarely played on his own celebrity. Today was the exception and he would use it to the hilt.

  “One can hope. Which in a roundabout way is why I’m here. Family of one of my players are supposed to be backpacking here this weekend. Janey Hart Campbell and her son Christopher. Given the ugly turn in the weather, there’s been some concern.” And all on my part, Thad added to himself. “Since I was on my way out here, I volunteered to check up on them, make sure they were okay.”

  The ranger hesitated. “Normally, this isn’t the kind of information we’d give out, you understand.”

  Thad nodded soberly. Normally it wasn’t the kind of information he would be asking for, either. But something about Janey Hart Campbell’s vulnerability had gotten to him yesterday. And he had seen, firsthand, just how stubborn, fiercely independent, and single-minded she was. Plus, he knew the fact she and her son were here at all today was probably his fault, for letting his conversation with her end without some sort of solution to the sticky situation. And that was unlike him, too. He was a take-charge kind of guy. Used to handling all sorts of people. He should have insisted he be able to talk to her son, even if it was only to tell Chris gently there was nothing he could do for him about hockey camp this year. But he had let the problem linger on because he had wanted a reason to see her again.

  “But under the circumstances I guess I can tell you they were in here about three hours ago and headed out on the trail,” the ranger continued.

  As Thad had driven closer, he’d seen the torrents of rain pounding the area. “Did they have enough time to get to their assigned campsite before the rain hit?” he asked hopefully.

  The ranger shook his head. “It’s a good four-hour hike, without packs. And it started raining about an hour and a half ago.”

  “Is there any way to check, without hiking it myself, to make sure they’re okay?”

  “We don’t take jeeps out on those trails unless it’s an emergency, and right now, without any lightning or thunder—”

  The door opened behind Thad. He and the ranger turned simultaneously. “Well, speak of the devil.” The ranger grinned. He nodded at the drenched Janey and her son Christopher, as they unbuckled their harnesses and set down their packs.

  They couldn’t have been any wetter had they jumped into the lake for a swim. And yet, Thad noted, Janey still looked amazingly beautiful. Even with soppy wet clothes, drenched hair and exertion-red cheeks.

  “Coach Lantz here was looking for you two.”

  Janey briefly caught Thad’s eyes while her son stared at him, agog.

  “I bet I know what you want to talk to me about, too,” Chris said, immediately excited as a pained expression crossed Janey’s pretty face.

  Before her son could say anything else, she turned her back to Thad.

  He had been wondering the other day about her legs. No more. As he got his first look at them, he noted they were as shapely and feminine as the rest of her. The skin was silky smooth and lightly tanned beneath the hem of her knee-length walking shorts. Her ankles were trim, too, in slouchy socks, her dainty feet encased in sturdy albeit quite wet and muddy hiking boots.

  He had a very nice view of her derriere as she quickly asked the ranger, “Is there any way we can get a ride back to my van? It’s at the other end of the hiking trail.”

  The ranger checked his watch. “The shuttle will be by in another forty minutes. Because you got rained out, you can apply your campsite fee to a lodge room rent for the night. I can go ahead and do that for you now, if you want, on this computer.”

  “Can we, Mom?” Chris asked eagerly.

  Janey seemed to be torn between wanting to just go home, and wanting to keep her promise of a weekend getaway to her son.

  “When the weather turns bad like this, the lodge fills up fast,” the ranger warned.

  Janey glanced at her son. It was clear that Christopher wanted to stay. She turned back to the ranger. “Sure,” she said, although Thad noted her cheerful smile seemed forced. “We appreciate it.”

  “Happy to help.” The ranger typed in several commands. He tore off a slip and handed it to Janey. “Just give that to the front desk when you check in.”

  “I can give you a ride,” Thad said casually.

  Janey looked stunned by his chivalry. “To my minivan?”

  “Or the lodge first. Wherever you want.” He didn’t know why it mattered to him. He wasn’t the kind of guy to assume anyone else’s personal troubles, especially those involving someone else’s child. But he couldn’t just walk away and leave Janey and her son sitting there, like two drenched rats, when a lodge room with a warm shower and hopefully dry clothes was a mere ten-to-fifteen-minute car ride away.

  “That settles it then,” the ranger said as the phone behind his desk rang.

  Thad opened the door. Janey hesitated for only a moment, then swept through.

  JANEY COULDN’T BELIEVE she had run into him now, of all times, when she was looking like a wet dishrag! Not that it was an accident. Clearly, he had come here looking for her and Chris. At the behest of her brothers again? Probably. She didn’t know why but that rankled more than if he had just come searching her out on his own.

  Not that she was the least bit interested in him. Ruggedly attractive or not, he was the kind of man she needed to steer clear of.

  “Sorry your camping trip was cut short,” Thad remarked as he hit the keyless entry pad and unlocked the door to his big Lincoln Navigator.

  “We don’t mind. Do we, Mom?” Chris gave Thad yet another adoring glance as he headed for the right rear passenger door and jumped in.

  Janey was about to follow him when Thad stepped ahead and opened the front passenger door for her.

  “Let me take that for you.” He relieved her of her heavy backpack and the additional nylon food bag and camp stove.

  Janey slid in, while Thad stowed her gear in the cargo area, behind the s
eats. Leave it to her to get stuck with a man who was so well-liked and respected within the community she would be hard pressed to find fault with him.

  “This is so awesome!” Chris said as Thad slid behind the wheel. Unlike Janey, Thad was barely wet, and looked handsome and pulled together in khaki slacks, dark blue knit sport shirt and lightweight windbreaker. Just like before, he smelled like a mixture of masculine soap and shampoo and fresh-cut Carolina pines. Another shimmer of awareness sifted through her.

  “’Cause I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Coach,” Chris continued exuberantly, leaning forward in his seat. “You probably don’t know this but I wrote you a letter about going to your camp, seeing if I could get some sort of scholarship or work to help me pay for it—”

  Thad looked at Janey, as well aware as she that thanks to her insistence on cutting their meeting short, nothing had been decided yet.

  “Actually,” Thad told her son, as guilt flowed through Janey anew and he turned around to face Chris, “that’s why I was looking for you and your mom today. I did receive your letter. And I knew it was something that should be discussed.”

  Chris’s face lit up like the sky on the Fourth of July. “Did you hear that, Mom? He’s gonna let me go to camp, even if we can’t pay for it all up front. Isn’t that great?”

  Janey knew nothing of the kind had been promised. Just as she knew she hadn’t seen her son looking so excited about anything since…well, since never. He had been through so much. Losing his father. Moving cross-country. If playing hockey helped him get past the last of his grief, and feel real joy again, who was she to deny him? “Actually…” Janey took a deep breath. “You don’t need a scholarship, Chris. I’ve taken care of that.” Or I will soon, she amended silently. “And you can go to summer hockey camp next week on two conditions. First, you get permisson from your summer school teacher and are able to get an excused absence from your math class. And second, that you do all the makeup work!”

  “No problem,” Chris enthused, making the victory sign with his fist. “I’ll talk to her Monday, first thing.”