Love on Ice (Cannon City Series Book 2) (3 page)

She looked at him and didn’t know what to say that didn’t make her sound like an idiot. “I know you don’t like lying and I don’t want to lie to you, but...I’d rather not talk about it.”

She watched him sit back in his chair and take a sip of his beer. The litany about her being nuts for accepting his lunch invite, started in her head again. Jay seemed really nice and, of course, he wanted her information, but there was so much she wouldn’t ever talk about. It became difficult to tell him anything.

“Where do I know you from? It’s going to drive me crazy, but I’ve seen you before,” he said.

“I don’t think we’ve ever met. I’ve never been to a hockey game and this is my first time in Canon City. Maybe it was in another life or something.”

He laughed. “Okay, why do you hang out at skating rinks? You’re not watching the kids for some evil reason?” He grinned at her.

She knew he was teasing, but felt her eyebrows pull down. “No, no perverted reason, I promise. It’s just fun to watch them learn new moves. There are times I want to strangle the coaches and parents, but it’s none of my business, so I just watch.”

“I hear you on that parent thing. They can be a pain. Have you ever taught skating?”

She looked at him. “No. You’re a good coach with your hockey team.”

“You think so?” He smiled.

“Yeah, you’re very patient with the kids and don’t make them feel like they’re stupid. There are two boys that seem to always be fighting, though.”

“Sam and Tommy. They’re brothers and haven’t accepted each other yet. It’s high competition time around those two. Next year Sam, he’s the older boy, may move up to the squirt division and I think it will help.”

They ate lunch and when they were finished went out to the Jeep. Jay pulled the vehicle onto the highway heading into the mountains.

“I should get back soon. I have to get ready for work,” Kate said and felt a little uneasy about the direction they were headed.

“We’re not going far. I want to show you something incredible, since you’re new to the area and all. I’d like to give you a little tour,” he said.

They drove for about ten minutes and came to a large public parking lot. When they got out of the Jeep, Jay held his hand out with a smile.

“I’d ask you to close your eyes, but it might be a little soon for that.”

They walked side by side on a dirt path. Kate felt uneasy to hold his hand and couldn’t think about or see anything around her. Jay’s fingers were very warm and for some crazy reason she couldn’t define, it made her feel safe, but she knew it was wrong. She didn’t want to give him any ideas about any involvement. It couldn’t happen with them and she hoped he could understand that.

They walked around a corner and Kate’s jaw dropped open. “Oh my God...”

“This is a tourist trap, but I love the view of the gorge. During the week when people are at work it can be really quiet out here. Do you want to walk out on the bridge?” He pointed to his right.

Kate followed his finger. She made a funny squeak sound and found she couldn’t form words. She looked up at him and nodded.

They followed another path and walked out onto a pedestrian-only bridge. The sign said they were over a thousand feet up and it was the highest bridge in the United States. She looked over both sides and when they were about a third of the way out, she stopped. She moved to the rail and looked over the side. Other people moved across the bridge and kids charged around making a lot of noise.

“Is that the Arkansas River?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“I’ve seen the ads for river rafting,” she said and looked straight down at the river.

“Have you ever been rafting?”

“No, but it looks fun.”

“It can be. They have zip-lines, too. That can be a kick.”

Kate straightened up and looked up at the sky. She realized that Jay had put his arm around her waist and she stepped away from him. It would have been nice to feel his arms around her, but her head kept telling her it was all wrong. She glanced up and saw he looked down at her with a bit of a frown on his lips. Their eyes locked and Kate became tongue-tied again.

“Kate, you have no reason to be afraid of me,” he said and touched her cheek.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Why did you just start to shake like a leaf?” He ran his thumb over her lips and moved a step closer to her.

“Fear of heights?” She closed her eyes as his lips came down and gently touched hers. He moved his tongue along her lip line and she felt him adjust his body around so they were face to face. He put his other arm around her and his lips pressed down harder. His tongue slowly traced around the inside of her mouth. She felt a warm passion flow into her and it slid down to her pelvis and legs. For a moment, all the voices in her head went quiet and she liked the way his kiss made her feel.

Kate moved her hand up his side and put her palm on his chest. She’d every intention of stepping back, but found her hand gripped his jacket. She did finally pull back and kept her head down for a moment and when she looked up at him, she smiled.

“Thank you, that was nice.”

Jay ran his hand through her hair. “Don’t be afraid of me. I promise not to hurt you.”

Kate pulled out of his arms and started back the way they’d come. She crossed her arms and looked back at him. “I do have to get ready for work. We need to go back.”

She wished she didn’t feel as though she needed to run back, pack up her duffle bag and hit the road. It wasn’t that he scared her. She knew what the main fear in her heart told her. If he figured out who she really was, would he even want to be with her anymore. She’d spent all her life with this fear and she could still hear her mother’s voice,
No one will ever want you. If you think otherwise then you’re still the stupid kid you’ve always been.
Her mother said things like that to her over and over until she was seventeen and Kate couldn’t get it to stop repeating in her head. It was like a recording that ran in circles. She held a lot of baggage in her head and didn’t want to unload it on him.

They drove back to Canon City in silence. She looked out the side window and kept her hands clasped together. She gave Jay the directions to the neighborhood where she lived and he pulled up to the sidewalk outside of the house.

“Thank you for lunch,” she said and started to open the door, but he reached across her and held it closed. He looked into her eyes.

“I’m not sure what happened up on the bridge. For a second there I thought maybe I might have a chance with you. I would like to see you again. What time do you get off work tonight?”

“It’s usually really late, midnight or one o’clock and I’m pretty tired after a shift.” Part of her wanted to meet him and the other part said
no, bad idea, don’t go there
. It made her want to scream at the voices to shut up and leave her alone for once. But that was her problem; she didn’t want to be alone anymore. She felt so confused.

“That’s not too late. Why don’t you come over to the rink? I’ll get some good skates out and we’ll have a skate around. You said you do know how to skate, right?  It will be just us on the ice, so if you fall I’ll be the only one there to see you and I’ll be more than happy to give you a hand to get back up. What size do you wear?”

“Yeah, I do know how and I have my own skates, but it’s not...I’m...” She took in a breath and let it out slowly and tried to calm down. “I just...” She looked at his brown eyes and saw something she didn’t recognize.

She felt his hand on her cheek and warmth spread through her again. She felt safe and couldn’t decide if it was good or not.

“Kate, I have no expectations. I’ll leave the front door open and if you want to skate, let yourself in and bring your skates. No one but you and I will be there. If you aren’t there by two o’clock, I’ll figure I struck out and that will be okay.”

“I’ll think about it,” she whispered.

He brushed his lips over hers and she could feel his warm breath on her face. She turned away and opened the door. She nearly killed herself when she got out and tripped over the sidewalk. She walked with quick steps to the side of the house and didn’t look back.

Chapter Six

Jay worked behind the rental counter during the evening. He tried not to think about Kate, but found it difficult. He felt something haunted her and hoped he could find a way around it. He wanted to spend more time with her. Jay couldn’t say what it was he found attractive about the woman, but knew her eyes killed him. The bluish-purple mesmerized him and whenever she looked at him, he wanted to melt.

He asked his security guard, Zack, who doubled as the Zamboni driver, to clean the ice after Jay closed the rink and then gave him the night off.

If Kate didn’t show up Jay didn’t relish the idea of staying overnight at the rink, but he’d done it in the past and could do it again. He started to think that maybe a bottle of wine and some flowers would be nice and would maybe impress her a little, but scratched the idea in case she didn’t show up or drink wine.

The time crawled slowly by and at eleven o’clock he heard the engine on the Zamboni fire up. He watched Zack steer the machine out onto the rink and begin the circle. Jay cleaned up the locker rooms and carried the garbage out to the dumpsters behind the building. He walked to the front of the rink carrying a newspaper and a cup of coffee. Zack finished and drove the huge machine out the gate at the other end of the ice.

Jay sat down at one of the tables and thought about looking at the paper, but couldn’t concentrate. He wanted to be excited about Kate maybe coming over to the rink, but felt nervous. A couple of times this afternoon when they were at lunch and at the bridge, she’d gotten a frightened look on her face and the last thing he wanted to do was scare her. That kiss out on the bridge rang his bell and he hoped he could convince her to give him a chance.

“Hey boss,” Zack called out. Jay looked across the ice and waved. “I’m out of here. Thanks for the night off. The wife waited up for me. Do you want me to lock the doors?”

“No. Leave it open, I’m expecting someone.” He watched Zack leave the building and thought of some things he could do to improve the atmosphere. He jumped up and ran for the stairs. He went up to the sound booth and picked a couple of CD’s out of the racks that he thought would be good for a skate around. He dimmed some of the lights, but left them on at the front door. He didn’t want her to think the rink was closed.

He once again tried to read the paper, but it didn’t work and he decided to re-string a bunch of the rental skates. He was putting them back on the shelves when he heard a quiet voice.

“Hi, Jay.”

He turned and smiled. “You came over, great.” He was both relieved and excited at the same time.

She held a box in her arms and walked to the table where his empty coffee cup sat. She put the box down and took her coat off. Jay realized he stared at her from the counter and moved around it. He walked up to her and still smiled.

“Kate, do you want a bottle of water or pop? I have a new pot of coffee, too. We have both hot and cold.”

“Water’s fine, thank you.” She smiled.

He ran over to the concession stand and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator. When he headed back he saw her look out at the ice. He set the bottle down. “What do you think? Are you ready to give it a try?”

She looked up at him. “It’s been a few years. I’ll either split my pants or pull something.” She sat down and took a Scrunchy off her wrist. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail.

Jay watched her and said, “Oh, oh, hair’s going up. This is serious.”

“No, it’s not serious. I just don’t want my hair to fly around my face.” She bent over her feet and took off her sneakers. Sitting back up straight, she looked at him. “You were planning to skate tonight, too?”

“Yes, yes I am.” He sat down and took off his shoes. “I hope you don’t mind hockey skates.”

“They’ll be on your feet, so, no problem.” She opened the box and pulled one of the skates out. The laces were stuffed into the boot and as she took them out, the blade guard fell off.

He glanced over and was surprised. “Wow, those are nice. Where do you get the blades sharpened?”

“I don’t remember. It’s been a while since they’ve been out of the box.” She put the guard back on and leaned over to put it on her foot. She did the same with the other skate and tightened the laces. She stood up and bounced a little on the blades. She looked down at him. “If I fall on my butt a lot you have to promise you won’t laugh your head off.”

“No, ma’am. I’d never laugh at you on your butt.” He smiled and arched an eyebrow.

“Ha, ha.”

Jay watched her walk toward the entrance to the ice. She knelt down and put her hand on the frozen surface, moving it over the ice. He could see her lips move and then she patted the ice. This little ceremony that she did looked familiar and he thought he remembered where he knew her from, but something just didn’t add up.

She stood up, removed the blade guards and slid out. He stood up and walked over to the rail. He watched her flow over the clean surface and couldn’t believe how smooth and graceful her moves were. He remembered where he knew her from and couldn’t believe his luck. The only problem was her name. Kate Beck wasn’t the name he remembered.

She stopped mid-ice and turned. “Are you going to skate or not?” she asked.

“Yeah, sorry.” He took his guards off, set them next to hers and stepped onto the ice. “Where did you learn to skate?”

“In Portland.”

“You’re very smooth.” He approached her and circled around.

“You have good ice. It’s not mushy.” She turned and started to glide the rest of the length of the rink.

“What was the kneeling thing you did?” He moved up along side of her.

“I used to have a friend who said that I should always make friends with the ice before I went out on it. He was Arapaho and I always said the prayer before I’d skate.” She turned and started to move backwards.

“Did it help?”

“Sometimes.”

“You said
he
told you. Was he someone you were close to?”

“Hmm...we were good friends and I think we were nine or ten years old.”

Jay nodded and watched her continue to move backwards. “That’s wise for someone so young. We probably should have warmed up.”

“For just a skate around? No, we’ll be okay.” She stopped and looked up at him. “There is something I should say though.”

Jay leaned against the boards and waited patiently.

“Our kiss this afternoon was very nice, but...”

“No, no, no buts. The only butts out here tonight are the ones God put right here.” He smacked his rear end.

She smiled and then frowned. “I’m not a very good catch, Jay.”

“Now, why do you say that?”

“I’m not experienced with good relationships and I have a lot of baggage. I wouldn’t want to load you down with it. You seem like a great guy, but I don’t want to burden anyone with my history.”

“We all carry around loads of bad memories. I’m still pissed at the guy who helped me mess up my knee.”

“Well, my bad memories are more than I can take sometimes and I ignore it as much as I can. If it feels like it’s getting too close, I pack up my bag and hit the road.”

“So that’s why you’ve moved around so much. Maybe it would help if you shared it with someone. Like me, for instance.”

“No, it wouldn’t help,” she said quietly and turned. “It’s nice of you to offer, but I wouldn’t want to give you the wrong impression and, as I said, you don’t need to be burdened with my crap. I do tend to leave a place pretty quick if things don’t feel right and I wouldn’t want to hurt you in the process.”

Jay watched her skate down the ice away from him. She picked up speed and toward the other end of the rink went into a spread eagle, came around to face forward and stepped into a triple axel. His mouth hung open. “How did you do that? That was a great axel.”

****

When Kate landed that jump she wanted to whoop for joy and weep at the same time. She hadn’t done it for a couple of years, and it felt so good to know that the jump that caused her downfall was still in her arsenal of jumps. She skated backwards and then swung around into a death drop, and then a camel spin. She slowly straightened up into a scratch spin and stopped. She looked down the ice at Jay and heard her mother say she just showed off and no one is impressed with her abilities. She suddenly felt embarrassed and slowly made her way down to where he stood.

“I thought we were skating tonight? You keep leaning against the boards and your mouth is hanging open.”

He looked at her and smiled. “That was incredible. How did you do a triple axel? And that death drop. Wow.”

She crossed her arms and circled around him. “How is it, a guy who played hockey knows the names of figure skating moves?”

“Ah that, right.” He started to move around with her. “See when athletes aren’t playing their sport there is a lot of down time with nothing to do. I’m not sure what city we were in, but I started channel surfing on the TV at a hotel where we stayed. Some of the guys watched daytime soap operas. General Hospital was a favorite. I couldn’t stand that stuff and on one of the sports networks I got to watch the National championships and later caught the Worlds. I really liked to watch the women skate. They were hot. I just caught on to the jump lingo and other stuff. Can you do a Biellmann?”

“Not anymore. I haven’t skated enough and lost the dexterity to do that spin.” She couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. It impressed her that he even had a clue what a Biellmann looked like and could name a jump she’d just done.

“Did you ever skate in the Nationals?”

Kate suddenly realized she danced on the edge and was getting too comfortable. She didn’t want to go there. “No.” It felt like only a partial lie and if he found out the truth, hopefully he’d understand, but she wasn’t about to tell him what happened to her at Nationals.

“Why not? You are great, even though you haven’t skated for awhile. I suppose it’s like riding a bicycle. It’s something you never forget. Why didn’t you skate in the Nationals?”

This was not a discussion she wanted to continue. She turned away from him and headed to the entrance. She picked up her blade guards and stared at them. Jay slid up next to her.

Kate looked up at him. “Lost dreams, nothing but lost dreams.” She shrugged and bent over to put the guards on her blades. She straightened up and looked at him.

“I bet it’s a long story. I have the time,” he said and took her hand.

She stared at their hands and then pulled hers away. She backed up a step. “I should go.” She walked around him and off the ice. She tried to figure out why she let him see her skate. She’d never done it before and she knew he might be smart enough to put two and two together. She sat at the table and unlaced her skates.

“Kate, wait a minute.” He came over and started untying his own skates. “Listen, I get that you have a history that bugs you and it would be great if you’d let me help, but I won’t be pushy. Nosey, yes, but you can tell me or not. I like you and hope we can spend some time together.”

She tied the laces on her shoes and put her skates back in the box. This guy made it difficult for her to think and she became so confused. She thought he might be someone who’d listen and not judge her, but she didn’t know if she could trust him. They’d only really known each other since this morning. Jay used the two H words, hope and help. She hadn’t heard those words in a long time.

“Do you know how to play Broom Ball?” he asked.

She looked up at him. “What?” Her brain found it difficult to sort the question from the confusion in her brain.

“Broom Ball. It’s played with sawed-off brooms and a rubber ball about the size of a cantaloupe. It’s sort of like hockey,” he said.

“No, I’ve never played.”

“I know you’re off work on Monday’s and it just so happens there will be a game here tomorrow night...wait, I mean tonight. Now I’m confused. It’s Sunday now, right?” He shook his head. “Anyway, it starts around six in the evening. It’s a bunch of jerks I went to high school with and their girlfriends and wives. Lark and Charlie will be here. You met them at the diner. Sometimes kids come along and play, but this week is adults only. We’re serving beer. What do you say? We could have dinner after.”

“I don’t know.” She felt completely flummoxed. She felt like she’d run in two different directions.

“Think about it. I’ll give you a lift home tonight.” He stood and plucked his jacket from a chair.

“Jay, I only live two blocks from here. I can walk it.”

“Nope, won’t happen tonight. I’d be a terrible date if I let you walk alone and some jerk tried to attack you. It would be wrong of me to let that happen.”

“I understand this is a pretty safe neighborhood and this isn’t really a date.” She watched as he put on his coat.

“Sure it’s a date. We ate food earlier and...well, this isn’t like going to the movies, but it is a date.”

“You’re not going to give in, right?” She laughed.

“Right.” He held out his hand.

She looked at him and continued to laugh. “I have to carry my box.” She picked it up in both hands and stood. He tried to take it away from her, but she said no. She could carry them just fine.