Crossing Center Ice

by Kimberly Rae Jordan

  “Who knows. It certainly can’t make things any worse.”

  “I feel for Dad. It must be hard to see the woman he loves like this.” Kenton hesitated. “It makes you wonder if it’s worth loving someone, especially if you end up facing something like what they are.”

  “You know, not too long ago, I would have agreed with you, but loving Levi and having him love me? I wouldn’t trade it for the world. If something happened to Levi tomorrow, it would be devastating, but the memory of how he loves me would be worth the pain.” She gave him a gentle smile, her eyes soft with affection. “One day, maybe you’ll know. You’ll understand when your heart connects with someone that having them in your heart for the rest of your life, whether they’re still with you physically or not, is worth it.”

  Kenton figured it was just her being in the throes of a new love that made her feel that way. However, memories of his dad and mom together came to mind. They’d been around his age when they’d gotten together and had had the added challenge of trying to blend two families with a total of eight children. It couldn’t have been easy to build a marriage and a family at the same time, and yet at no time had Kenton felt the insecurity in their family the way he had when his dad had been married to his biological mom.

  So maybe there was some truth to Sammi’s words, but he didn’t see how they would apply to him. It was hard to judge a woman’s true motives when he had fame and fortune. He supposed that was why some hockey players married women who had money and/or fame equal to theirs. Then it wasn’t a question that the woman might be with them just to get their hands on the money.

  Kenton knew that a prenuptial agreement could go a long ways to determining a person’s motives, but he didn’t want that. It felt a lot like you were starting off the marriage saying you thought it was going to end at some point. It was realistic, but hardly the foundation on which he would want to build a marriage.

  Sammi reached out and patted his hand. “I look forward to seeing you fall.”

  “Hey, just watch any of my games, and you’re bound to see me fall at least once. Usually courtesy of some enforcer.”

  “Haha. Very funny.” She grinned at him. “I just have a feeling that love is gonna smack you in the face and send you reeling. I really, really hope I’m around to see it.”

  “Well, you’re going to be waiting for awhile. I’m not interested in a serious relationship while I’m still playing hockey. Maybe once I retire, I can focus on a relationship, but not right now. It wouldn’t be fair to the woman or to my career if I had to divide my time and energies.”

  “It’s not like you haven’t had girlfriends, though,” Sammi reminded him.

  “True, but they knew the score. It wasn’t serious, and most of them had been in the hockey world long enough to know how it worked with the training, traveling, and games.” He thought of Celine. “In fact, my last girlfriend ended things just before I came here. She said she knew that I needed to be able to focus on my recovery and not her. And that was all before I’d made the decision to come back to Winnipeg.”

  “Uh…” Sammi’s brow furrowed. “That makes no sense. If anything, you’d have more time for a girlfriend now. Right?”

  “Well, I’m definitely not as tied up time-wise as I am during the regular season.”

  “So she just wasn’t interested in sticking by you through the rough times.”

  Kenton nodded. “You would be correct. Now imagine how much harder it would be if I’d actually felt something for her, and she’d walked away right when I needed her the most.”

  “Well, I would imagine that if you actually had feelings for someone, it would be because they wouldn’t walk away from you in times like these.”

  He wasn’t as convinced as Sammi was that love would prevail when money and fame were involved. “I guess only time will tell.”

  In the meantime, Kenton had no plan to let his heart become vulnerable when he needed to be focused on his recovery. Maybe once he was back on his feet, back to playing at peak condition, he could consider a more serious relationship than what he had so far. But not right then. It wasn’t the time nor the place to even consider such a thing.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Have you been managing to get some upper body workouts in?” Avery asked on the Monday of the next week. They would be starting with some modified weight-bearing exercises, and she knew Kenton was going to be happy to hear that.

  He lifted himself up on the exam table wearing his usual outfit of long, loose athletic shorts and a T-shirt. As she watched him lay back on the table, she could sense some agitation in his movements and a hard set of his jaw. She wondered if something had happened, but wasn’t quite sure how to ask. It wasn’t her job to help with his mental state, just his physical one.

  “The first time I went downstairs, I counted that effort as a workout. Thankfully, Gabe helped me figure out how to do the stairs better with my crutches, so yeah, I was able to get a couple of workouts in.”

  “And how’s the pain and swelling been over the weekend?” She touched his knee, massaging the scar as she observed it. When he didn’t respond right away, she glanced up at his face. He was staring straight up at the ceiling with his hands folded behind his head.

  Realizing that he wasn’t going to be answering her questions for whatever reason, Avery went through the motions of measuring his knee extension and how much he could bend. It was getting better and better each day. She was pleased with his progress in the short time she’d been working with him, and from the responses she was getting from her written reports, it seemed that those following his treatment were pleased as well.

  Ignoring his mood, she had him do the heel extensions and quad sets on the table before moving him over to the bike. Once there, she had him do full rotations of the pedals with the uninjured leg still doing most of the work. It didn’t take him long to start pressing harder than he should. She immediately moved to his uninjured leg and rested her hand on his knee, stopping his quick movements.

  “Slow it down. This isn’t a workout. This is rehab,” she reminded him. “Slow and steady.”

  Kenton let out a puff of air and started moving his legs again, more slowly this time. She let her gaze travel over his body, taking in the obvious signs of tension. His set jaw. His tense shoulders. The white-knuckled grip he had on the handlebars of the bike. Something had clearly happened over the weekend, but she had to remind herself that she was there for his body, not his mind.

  She had planned to have him try to put more weight on his leg while using the crutches, but between his mindset and the way he kept trying to push his leg, she didn’t think it was a good day for that step. Hopefully the next day she’d be able to work with him a bit more. Not that he was fighting her on what she was asking him to do, but she needed him to be fully present and aware of what they were doing.

  “I think that’s about it for today,” she said after he’d spent several minutes on the bike.

  He looked at her and frowned. “What? Why?”

  “Your mind is somewhere else,” Avery told him, crossing her arms as she prepared for battle. Given his mindset, she could see him easily crossing over to anger. “When anger or tension becomes part of what we’re trying to do, there’s a danger you’ll push too hard and do damage. You might be used to working out your frustrations through exercise, but that doesn’t work with me.”

  Kenton stared at her for a moment, his eyes narrowed. “So what am I supposed to use then?”

  “Upper body workouts. Talking to someone. Read a book. Play a competitive video game with one of your brothers.” She listed off a few things she had the boys do when they were getting antsy with each other. “Just find something that doesn’t do further injury to your body. That will just add to your frustration down the road.”

  For a moment, she thought he was just going to brush it all aside, but then he let out a long sigh. He rolled his shoulders then tilted his head one way and then the other before shaki
ng his hands as if to shake loose the tension. He still didn’t look completely relaxed. In fact, without the tension there, she saw worry.

  “Why don’t you lay back down on the table,” she suggested. Though massage wasn’t something she did a lot of, she’d taken some training in it, and she was offering it as a professional. “I’ll see if I can work on the tension in your shoulders.”

  “A massage?” Kenton asked as he maneuvered up onto the table and dragged off his shirt.

  “Yes. Right now, the tension you have is distracting from what we need to accomplish. This will at least be beneficial in one way today.”

  As he shifted onto his stomach, she walked over to open the door between the therapy room and the hallway. Given that this was different from working through his rehab exercises, she didn’t feel comfortable being shut off from the rest of the house.

  “Have you been experiencing any tenderness in your shoulders from your workout?” Avery asked as she found the lotion that they used with Emily. She suspected that he might have been overdoing it a bit with the upper body exercises since he couldn’t do full body workouts.

  “Yeah. My left one is a bit sore.”

  Avery moved around the table and positioned his arm the way she wanted then began to knead into his shoulder. Right away she could feel the tension there.

  “You’re not supposed to be causing yourself further injury,” she said, well aware that there was reproach in her voice, but she figured that was part of her job. “I don’t want to have to tell your doctor and your team that you have another injured body part.”

  “You don’t have to tell them anything that’s not related to my knee,” he said, his voice muffled by his face down position.

  “Yeah. Except that if they find out about an additional injury, and I didn’t tell them, then I’d be in trouble.” She leaned more heavily as she pressed her hands into the muscles between his neck and shoulder. “So how about you follow the rules and save us both a lot of trouble.”

  Kenton groaned as she hit a knot and began to work on it. “Okay. Fine. But to be fair, I don’t set out to overdo things.”

  “Do you need to bring in a trainer to help monitor it for you?”

  “Once I’m a bit more mobile, I’m going to work out with a friend of Gabe’s. He co-owns a climbing gym with Gabe.”

  “And he’ll keep you from overdoing things?” Avery asked as she moved to his other side and began to work on that shoulder.

  “Yeah. Hunter is a personal trainer, and he’s been helping Gabe out too.” Kenton let out a puff of air as she pressed on another knot. “For having such small hands, you can really work a muscle.”

  Avery didn’t respond to that as she continued to work out the tension in his shoulders. While she worked, she wondered if she needed to include Kenton’s mindset and the massage to deal with the tension and soreness in his shoulders in her report. For a moment, she wasn’t sure where her loyalties should lie. With the team or with Kenton. Perhaps this one time, she’d let it slide.

  Kenton didn’t say anything more, and when she looked down at him, his eyes were closed, making her wonder if he’d fallen asleep. When she finally felt like the tension and knots had been worked out of his shoulders, Avery moved to the sink to wash the lotion from her hands. If he was asleep, she supposed it was okay to leave him on the table for a little while longer. Perhaps part of the tension had either come from lost sleep.

  Leaving him on the table, she went to the laptop and made a note of the measurements and the new exercises she’d had him do. She hoped that they would have better luck the next day. That he would be in a better frame of mind and be ready to tackle the next steps in the rehab.

  “Did I fall asleep?”

  She got up and walked back to the table where he was sitting up, pulling on his T-shirt.

  “You weren’t out for long, but clearly you needed some rest.”

  “Well, my shoulders feel a lot better. Thank you for that. I know that’s going a bit above and beyond what your job description says.”

  “My job description is to get you back on your feet and headed back to the ice. If that means I need to help you with things like this, I will, but of course, I’d prefer it if you didn’t overdo it.” She shifted on her feet, tugging down the sleeves of her sweater. “Can I tell you what my goal is for this week?”

  Kenton’s brows drew together. “Sure.”

  “I want you to be walking with just one crutch, if possible. However, we can’t have more days like today.”

  She expected him to ask what she meant, but instead, he just nodded. He knew that they hadn’t been able to accomplish much that day.

  “I know that something is bothering you,” she said. “I’m not asking you to tell me about it, but you might want to find someone to talk to. Keeping stuff like that inside will only distract you from the bigger goal.”

  “Are you my shrink now?” Kenton asked, a small grin taking the sting out of his words.

  “You’d be paying a lot more if I had that role too.” She gave him a gentle look, not wanting him to think she was getting on his case too much. “I just happen to believe that everything plays a role in health. Your mental health is going to affect your physical health. And definitely your physical state can affect your mental health.”

  “You’re right. I do have some stuff on my mind.” Kenton sat there for a moment with his leg propped up on the exam table. “It’s hard to find that balance between wanting my team to still do well without me, and seeing those who have stepped in to cover for me doing such a good job.”

  Avery’s thoughts went to the hockey game from the previous afternoon. Benjie and Elliot had both talked about how the team had won and who had played in Kenton’s position. It made a lot of sense that it would be worrisome for him.

  “I don’t know how you feel exactly, but I can understand how that might be hard to deal with. I know we all want to feel that we’re irreplaceable.”

  “I should know better than to expect that in the hockey world. Stars come, and stars go. It’s the nature of the beast.”

  “You’ve been a star that’s shone longer and brighter than a lot of players.”

  His head tilted to the side as he regarded her. “You know about my career?”

  Not wanting to reveal the boys’ hero-worship of him, she just said, “You’re the hometown hero. The guy from Winnipeg who made it big in the NHL. They mention your name in the same breath as Wayne Gretzky’s.”

  “So, you are a hockey fan?”

  “Well, let’s just say that given a choice between hockey and football, I’d choose hockey.”

  Kenton grinned, the last of his tension seeming to bleed away. “That’s what I like to hear.”

  Trying to ignore the fluttering in her stomach that his smile suddenly brought to life, she cleared her throat. “All of that to say, you are known for your dedication to playing the game well. You’re not a flash in the pan. Coaches use you as an example of how to play the game. Don’t discount the impact you’ve had on the sport. You won’t be forgotten over these next seven months. In fact, you probably have more people rooting for your return than you could ever imagine.”

  Kenton’s teasing smile faded, a more serious expression taking hold of his features. When she stopped talking, there was a brief moment of silence before he said, “Thank you. I think I needed to hear that. To be reminded of why I’ve played the game, and why I’ll play the game again even if the circumstances might be different.”

  “Exactly. Keep that in your mind as we work, and you’ll be stepping back on that ice in seven months like you weren’t even gone.”

  “Here’s hoping,” Kenton said.

  Ready for the serious conversation to be over, Avery said, “Let me do some measurements, and then we can call it a day.”

  He laid back down on the table, and Avery took the necessary measurements, certain they wouldn’t be much different from the ones she had taken at the start, but it was t
oo late now to work through the exercise program. They’d just have to do it the next day, and hopefully, he’d be in a better frame of mind.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Kenton said as he got himself situated on the crutches. “Thanks again for the pep talk.”

  As he left, Avery found herself thinking that maybe Kenton was different. But just as quickly as the thoughts entered her mind, she shut them down. If anything, what he’d been like earlier had shown her that he had those tendencies to let his mind start to defeat him. From her experience, she knew that could end up being the first step on a slippery slope that ended in disaster.

  Avery hoped that wouldn’t be the case for him, but she had to wonder why he’d chosen to be so far from his team during recovery. Why he’d left the watchful eye of his team’s coaches, trainers, and medical staff. Why he was relying on her—a PT who had limited experience in sports rehab—to help him with his recovery.

  Kenton was feeling more in control and ready to work when he made his way into the therapy room the next day. He had decided that life—and his mental state—would improve dramatically if he could just get off the crutches. To that end, he was not going to allow his mind to overshadow his physical therapy with Avery like it had the day before.

  Another step he needed to take was to get off social media. Twitter, in particular. There was nothing like waking up the day after a game to a ton of notifications, ninety percent of which were comments about how the team was playing well without him. Comments like Worried team would suffer without @kentoncallaghan but @travisoneal is really stepping up didn’t help his mindset.

  What he really needed was something to keep him occupied. At the moment, if he wasn’t working with Avery, he was thinking about his therapy. Thinking about hockey and what he was missing. Thinking about what was going to happen six or seven months down the road.

  And if his thoughts weren’t tied up with that, he was thinking about his mom and Gabe and all the changes that his family was facing. He needed to find something productive to do with his time that didn’t focus on his injury and what it might mean for his future. Unfortunately, he had no idea what that might be. It wasn’t as if he had any skills other than hockey.