Crossing Center Ice

by Kimberly Rae Jordan

  “Good morning, Avery,” he said as he walked into the therapy room.

  Avery turned to greet him, a smile on her face. A professional smile, if he had to categorize it. It wasn’t a happy to see you type of smile, and for some reason, he kinda wished that it was.

  She wore a pair of fitted jeans and a loose black sweater over a light blue T-shirt. Her hair was pulled back as usual, and though she didn’t appear to wear much makeup, her lashes were long and dark as they framed her blue-green eyes. She had small studs in her ears, and a fine silver chain hung around her neck. She looked comfortable and approachable, but her expression was all business.

  “Ready to do some new stuff today?” she asked as she moved to the exam table.

  “Yep.” He went ahead and laid down, knowing that she would be doing her measurements before they did anything else. “Gonna get me off the crutches this week?”

  She glanced at him and nodded. “Well, at least we’re going to try.”

  After she checked over the scar, she had him get on the bike, and this time she didn’t have to slow him down. He wanted to get off the crutches, so he was going to do as she said. When she had him do squats with his back against the wall, he was surprised that his legs shook a bit. He shouldn’t be falling out of shape so quickly.

  No.

  He wasn’t going to think about that. He wasn’t going to allow himself to focus on the negative. He might not be able to do squats like he normally could, but he was making progress. He had to remember that.

  “What’s the pain like?” Avery asked as she stood in front of him. “Make sure you don’t try and bend the knee past what we’ve done so far. I don’t want you to strain it.”

  Kenton blew out a breath as he lowered himself slightly then tensed his quads to push him back up. To think he used to be able to drop into a deep squat and back up again with no effort whatsoever.

  No.

  “You’re doing great,” Avery said as she moved to the side, no doubt to be better able to keep an eye on how far he bent his knee. “The responses to the reports I’ve sent in have been positive.” She paused then pulled her phone out. “I want to take some video of you doing this, so they can see for themselves how it’s going. Can you do three more?”

  Gritting his teeth and feeling slightly mortified that she was sending a video of him struggling to do squats against the wall, Kenton did as she requested. When she lowered the phone a short time later, he said, “No sending that video off to the news stations.”

  Avery gave him a startled look then gave a shake of her head, exasperation clear on her face. “Of course not. Even though I think you’re joking, you can rest assured that the last thing I’d do would be to give the press or anyone who didn’t need to know, access to any sort of information about you and your recovery.”

  Her passionate response kind of took Kenton aback. He had been joking, trusting that the confidentiality documents she’d signed would keep her from sharing information, but it seemed that even without that, she wouldn’t have revealed anything. It made him wonder about her and what might have led to her feeling so strongly about his right to privacy.

  “Well, I do appreciate that very much.” Kenton situated himself on his crutches. “Too many people are looking for ways to profit off of the private lives of celebrities.”

  “It can’t be fun wondering if the people you’re letting into your life are going to betray you.”

  “You’re right about that.” He made his way back to the table, knowing that Avery would have to take her measurements. “And sadly, sometimes the people you least expect it from turn out to be the ones who turn on you.”

  Avery touched his knee, placing her measuring apparatus next to his leg. “Is that why you came back to Winnipeg for your recovery?”

  Kenton thought about her question for a moment. It hadn’t been a decision consciously made for that reason, but he couldn’t deny that it was definitely a plus. To be able to work with someone in the privacy of the family home. To have someone willing to help with his workout that his brother trusted meant he could trust them too. And being surrounded by family was a bonus.

  “It was part of it. My mom’s condition also played a big role in my decision.” He sat up as she stepped away. “Aside from my brothers ragging on me, I don’t regret my decision. Yet. Ask me again in a week.”

  He waited for her to ask a question about him and his brothers, but instead, she just gave him a quick smile. “Here’s hoping you’re off the crutches.”

  “Yes. That’s my first goal.” He leaned back against the table, his crutches tucked into his armpits. “So what do you do for fun?”

  A frown creased her brow. “I spend most the time I’m not working with my family. Always seems to be something I need to do for them.”

  “I’m sure it’s hard to be a working mom.” The curiosity that had been plaguing him the last few days prodded him to try to learn more about her. “You said you had two kids?”

  “No,” she said after a brief hesitation. “Just one. However, my younger brother is close in age to my son, so they do a lot of things together.”

  “You only have one sibling?”

  Another hesitation. “Yes.”

  “Sometimes I wish I had a few less siblings, but I can never decide on who I’d actually like to get rid of. It changes from day to day.”

  “Ten is a lot of kids. It’s amazing that your parents went on to have two more after already having eight when they got married.”

  “We were all pretty shocked—and grossed out, to be honest—when it happened.” Kenton grinned. “But I can’t imagine our family without them. Have you met Dalton?”

  “Just in passing,” she said. “He seems like a neat kid.”

  “He is. So talented, and he can be super funny. He’s the one who took ice skating lessons because he absolutely, flat-out refused to play hockey.”

  “Does he watch you play?”

  “Yeah. He has no problem watching the sport, he just didn’t want to play it.” He paused then asked the question he’d wanted to know the answer to since they met. “So are you married or otherwise engaged?”

  That drew a deeper frown from her than he’d seen so far. “Uh. I’m not sure how that’s relevant to our professional relationship.”

  Kenton shrugged. “It’s not, but I thought maybe we could be friends. Just wondering if I need to also make friends with your husband or boyfriend.”

  “We’re in a professional relationship, not a friendship.”

  “I know, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends too. I could use someone besides family as a friend these days.”

  “I’m not sure that that’s something I’m interested in.”

  “Really? You have so many friends that you don’t need another one?”

  She turned her attention to the notepad where she made her notes for her report. “It’s not that. It’s that I really don’t want to merge my personal and professional lives.”

  Kenton let out a sigh. He supposed he could respect that, but he still wanted to know if she was married. “Well, if you change your mind, I personally could never have too many friends.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “So we’re done here for today?”

  Avery nodded. “Keep doing your heel slides and quad sets. Tomorrow we’ll try some partial weight-bearing exercises and see how it goes.”

  Kenton made his way toward the door then turned back. “I guess inviting you and…whoever…along to the movies with some of my siblings would be out of the question?”

  “Very much so,” Avery said, crossing her arms. “That’s a line I’d prefer not to cross.”

  Unsure why he was so disappointed, Kenton gave a nod of his head before leaving the therapy room. It wasn’t often a woman didn’t respond to him positively. Well, a woman who wasn’t breaking up with him anyway. Avery Walker was definitely an anomaly. A mystery that he wanted to somehow solve. Thankfully, Google a
nd social media offered the opportunity to at least gather a bit more information on her. Even if it did seem a bit stalker-ish.

  Unfortunately, he was bored, so the idea of having something to fill up even a little bit of his time was enticing. But as luck would have it, Avery either wasn’t on social media or, if she was, it wasn’t under the name she’d given, or her information was locked down. He understood that. His personal Facebook page was locked down tight, and he only accepted friend requests from people he personally knew. He’d accept one from Avery if she sent a request, but somehow, he doubted that would be happening anytime soon.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Avery cupped her large disposable cup of hot chocolate from Tims, taking small sips as she watched Benjie skate around the ice, grateful that the team had a decent time for practice on the rink. Sometimes practice times could be super early or late, and those were hard to handle when she was working. Saturday at ten wasn’t so bad.

  Elliot sat beside her, a willing companion at these practice times and at the games as well. Though he had never gotten into playing the sport, he enjoyed watching hockey with her. He knew all the players on Benjie’s team and could point out areas where they excelled and where they needed practice.

  At one time, Avery had offered to sign him up for a team, but he’d declined. Instead, he’d asked for a sophisticated science set. He was a whiz with science and math, and more often than not, he’d saved Avery’s butt when Benjie had needed help with his homework in those two subjects.

  Though Elliot had a couple of close friends who seemed happy to include Benjie in lots of what they did, Avery tried to make sure that Elliot had plenty of Benjie-free time too. She loved that Elliot was so accepting of his nephew, but she knew that he needed time with kids his own age. Benjie might be mature for his age but not quite that mature.

  As she watched the kids practicing on the ice, Avery wondered how they’d react if she took Kenton up on his offer to come visit them. Was she being selfish? Was it right that her desire to keep her personal life separate from her professional one meant that her son and her brother didn’t get to meet their favorite hockey player?

  Avery frowned, holding her cup close to her mouth as she considered her conversation with Kenton. Would he back off now that she’d said what she had about not wanting the two sides of her life to intermingle? Obviously, it wasn’t that she wouldn’t talk about her personal life with clients. She’d told Emily about her family, but somehow, it seemed different with Kenton.

  She knew he didn’t have any interest in her romantically—she’d seen the girlfriends he’d had over the years—but the problem was her own tendency to be attracted to men like him. So it was self-preservation more than anything that had her throwing up walls between them. It was just too bad that it meant throwing up a wall between Kenton and her son as well.

  “He’s doing really good today,” Elliot said. He held a large cup like hers, but unlike Avery, he had gone for the more adult drink—coffee.

  She was sure that people looking at them sitting there—beanies pulled over their similarly colored hair, eyes the same shade of blue-green, and similar slight builds—could see their relationship. Sometimes Benjie groused about looking so different from her and Elliot, and she felt bad that he seemed to miss that connection that would help him understand why he looked so different from the other members of his family. His father was a touchy subject between the two of them.

  She’d just gone through the most traumatic experience of her life when she’d found out that she was pregnant with Benjie. Her first instinct was that she’d wanted no part of being pregnant. Had not wanted to be carrying the baby of the man who’d tried to kill her. To this day, she couldn’t say exactly why she’d made the decision to have Benjie, except that she’d never felt at peace when considering any other option.

  Though early on, she’d struggled to deal with being pregnant and still recovering from her injuries, and later being a new mom while undergoing more surgeries, there wasn’t a day now that she regretted that decision. Benjie had become her pride and joy.

  He had started to ask about his dad when he’d been about four or five, and Avery had struggled to know what to tell him. She didn’t want to lie to him, but the truth was just way more than a child could comprehend. At the time, it had even been more than she could comprehend, and she’d been twenty-one when everything had happened. In the end, she’d just told him that his dad had done some very bad things and was in prison. She’d done her best to assure him that he had inherited the best parts of his dad and the best parts of her. She never wanted him to think that whatever had made his dad bad, would be the same in him.

  It was hard to see him idolizing professional athletes the way he did, but she didn’t want to have to go into details with him about why she didn’t like that. Elliot was slightly more aware of what had gone down, but he never asked questions, and any time Benjie asked them of him, Elliot sent him to Avery.

  “Do you think the coach might start him the next game?” Avery asked.

  She knew that the coach tried to give all the kids a chance to start, especially early in the season. Benjie struggled with the concept, believing that if he worked hard and played well, he should get to start every game. Benjie had a natural athleticism that had come not just from his father, but his paternal grandfather as well. Though both those men had excelled in football, hockey had been the sport Benjie had gravitated toward.

  “I think so. He didn’t start last game, and he’s doing well in practice, so I think Coach Simms will let him start.” Elliot paused to take a sip of his coffee as a whistle blew, echoing loudly in the cold arena. “I’d start him if I were his coach.”

  “You know you could probably volunteer,” Avery said.

  “Eh.” Elliot shrugged. “I know, but I would favor Benjie too much. Help him to the exclusion of all the others.” The two of them laughed together, knowing that Elliot spoke the truth.

  Though Avery preferred to be home when she wasn’t working, these times with her brother, watching Benjie skate, were special. She knew that when they got home, her mom would have soup and sandwiches ready for them. And then they’d spend the afternoon hanging out together.

  If she was in the mood, her mom might let Benjie do some baking. If not, the boys might play some video games, or Elliot would go to a friend’s place to hang out. In which case, Avery would spend time with Benjie playing games or watching a movie. He was fairly good at entertaining himself with his Lego or—if all his homework was done and his room was clean—playing Minecraft on the iPad.

  As the rest of the practice continued, her thoughts kept going back to Kenton. Seeing the young kids playing their hearts out, trying their best to get better, made her want them to have the opportunity to meet someone who had spent time practicing in that very arena. Someone that she knew the coach had held up as an example of how to play hockey.

  In a sport where fighting was common during a game, Kenton Callaghan wasn’t an active participant. He seemed to be a player who avoided fights if at all possible. She liked that about him, and from what she’d heard during practice, so did Benjie’s coach.

  Indecision filling her, Avery let out a long breath. She did not want to see Kenton in any other light than that of patient, but it was getting harder. The man seemed determined to get to know her on a personal level, and between her guilt at not letting Benjie meet his hero and Kenton’s persistence, it seemed only a matter of time before she caved. Maybe she should just admit defeat already and let Kenton into their lives.

  Well, partway into their lives.

  Kenton walked into the therapy room on Monday morning using the crutches to allow him to do a partial weight bearing walk the way Avery had taught him the previous Friday. It had been so much easier during the weekend to walk that way rather than to try to avoid putting any weight on that leg, keeping it bent at an angle.

  “Good morning,” Avery said as she held out a large cup with the T
im Hortons logo on it. “Double, double, right?”

  He came to a stop, letting his weight rest on the crutches, and stared at the woman standing in front of him with a cup of coffee and a smile. “Uh…who are you, and what have you done with Avery Walker?”

  Avery rolled her eyes. “You said you wanted me to bring you a coffee, so here it is.”

  “I told you that like five days ago.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Better late than never?”

  “Well, that might be true,” Kenton agreed as he moved over to lean against the exam table. After propping his crutches against the wall, he took the cup from her. “But seriously, what prompted this? I figured it would be a cold day in you-know-where before you warmed up to me.”

  “Nothing has frozen over. Pigs aren’t flying, or anything like that.” She tilted her head, and her nose scrunched up briefly. “I do sort of have a confession to make, and I wanted to take you up on your offer. If it still stands.”

  Kenton looked at the cup in his hand. “Is this poisoned?”

  “What? No. Of course not.”

  “Sorry. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on.”

  “What’s going on is that I realized over the weekend that I was being rather selfish.”

  “About what? Not going to the movies?”

  She shook her head. “About keeping my son and brother from meeting their absolute all-time favorite hockey player.”

  Kenton stared at her in surprise. “What?”

  “My son and brother are huge fans of yours, but when you offered to meet with Benjie’s team, I brushed you off because…well, like I said, I like to keep my personal and professional lives separate.”

  “What changed your mind?” Kenton asked, more than a little curious about the apparent change of heart. He really hoped it wasn’t going to turn into a bad situation.

  “I have my reasons for wanting to keep things professional, but I love my son, and I just know that he would be over the moon if he had the chance to meet you. It was selfish of me to prevent that from happening just because it would make me uncomfortable.” She didn’t look entirely comfortable revealing that to him, her arms crossed as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “So, if you’re still willing…I mean, if you’ve thought better of your offer, that’s fine too. I haven’t mentioned it to him yet.”