Comeback (38 page)

SPRING WAS IN
full bloom, and the Storm had just finished knocking the Sharks out of the playoffs in the first round. We’d gotten the job done in five games, but now we had to wait for the other teams to finish their series so we could find out who we’d be facing in the second round. I’d been the goaltender in net through the entire first round. Hunter wasn’t happy about being a backup again, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. We’d both pushed each other to be the best we could possibly be this season, but the coaching staff had told us that until I fucked up, it was my job to lose.

Bergy had given us the day off as a reward. This time of year, we didn’t really need practice. Definitely not as much as we needed rest.

The kids were still in school, and once I found out that I didn’t have to report to the practice facility for anything, I knew it was the best opportunity I would have. I made two phone calls. The first was to Kally, calling in the favor I’d begged him for a month or so ago. He had agreed to give Jessica the day off whenever the time came in exchange for us babysitting young Oscar a couple of times. The second phone call I made was to a contact with the Portland Japanese Gardens. My contact couldn’t promise me that there wouldn’t be anyone else around when we got there, but he was more than willing to grant my request in exchange for a generous donation.

Jessica had balked when I’d told her she was taking the day off today. “But I have to—”

“There’s nothing you have to do that Diane can’t handle while you’re off today,” I interrupted.

Diane was Jessica’s new assistant. She’d started a little over a month ago and had proven to be entirely competent, but Jessica had a hard time letting go of things. She was getting better about it, but it wasn’t something that came naturally to her.

Jessica pouted at me over her cup of coffee.

“I went behind your back and cleared it with Kally. Isn’t this why you hired Diane, anyway?”

“I hired Diane so she could cover for me when I need to deal with the kids because you’re on the road or at some team function,” she argued.

“And so you could stop taking your work home with you so much. And so you could take a little time off here and there.” I moved in behind her and nuzzled the spot between her neck and her shoulder. “I have plans. There’s something I want to do with you today.”

“What kind of plans?” There was definitely still a sulky tone in her voice, but she was softening up some, leaning back against me and letting me draw her closer.

“The kind that would get us out on a date.”

“A date?”

“Mmm-hmm. I thought we could go back to the Japanese Gardens. I want to see them in spring, and today’s a perfect day for it. There’s not a cloud in the sky. The temperature’s mild. The cherry blossoms should be blooming…”

“Too bad it’s not raining,” she quipped.

“A little rain has never stopped us before. That wouldn’t get you out of this date.”

“Not trying to get out of it.” She spun around on the barstool, hugging me to her and drawing me between her legs. “Just reminiscing.”

“We could run through the sprinklers in the backyard after we come home, if you want. For old time’s sake.”

She laughed, and she kissed me, but then she went to get ready to go out.

When we got to the gardens, I led her in the opposite direction from how we’d gone last time. There were quite a few people here today, which didn’t surprise me. The cherry blossoms would only bloom for so long. I knew I wouldn’t want to miss them. We took our time taking it all in, strolling along and pointing out various plants and trees to each other, occasionally playing our This or That game. The cherry blossoms were all blooming, bright pink buds coloring the landscape and reminding me of something Jessica had said once before. She loved spring because it represented life and fresh starts. I hoped to make today one of those, and the cherry blossoms would provide the perfect background for it.

We’d probably been there for an hour by the time we reached the stone garden. A text message from my contact about twenty minutes ago had let me know that everything was in place exactly as I’d asked. All I had to do was take her down the stone steps.

That was when my nerves hit me. I’d been fine up until this moment, but now that it was upon me, I wondered if I should have gone about it some other way. I put my hands in my jacket pockets, making sure the two boxes were still there. They were exactly where I’d put them before we left the house.

We were coming up to the steps, and I knew I had to make a decision—keep walking by or take her down. In the end, there was only one thing to do, only one choice that could possibly be right.

“Do you remember the day we sat down there before the season started?” I asked.

She looked up at me and smiled. “Like it was yesterday. I think about it often.”

“Do you?” I thought about it all the time. It was the day that I realized just how comfortable I was with Jessica, how I wanted to escape from everyone else, but she was different. It was easy to escape
with
her, instead of
from
her.

“I do. Even then, I had a hard time thinking of you the way I thought of all the other addicts I work with. Did you know that? I think I knew you were trouble for me even all those months ago.” She laughed when she said it.

“The good kind of trouble, though.”

“Of course.”

“Want to go down there for a little while?” I asked. “We could sit on that bench again and take it all in.”

She nodded.

I went down the steps in front of her. They weren’t wide enough for us to take them side by side, and since I was so much taller than she was, I hoped I might hide the surprise until we were all the way down, not that seeing it would reveal everything.

The words were raked into the stones, just as I’d asked.

Right or left?
they read.

“Do you see that?” Jessica asked when we were about halfway down the steps. A few other people were down there, milling around. They looked up when she spoke.

“See what?” I asked, feigning innocence.

“Instead of the usual designs, it says, ‘Right or left.’ In the stones.”

“Hmm.” I got to the bottom of the stairs and turned to pick her up and lift her down the last few. I set her on her feet. “So, what do you think? Left or right?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Did you have something to do with this?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you answer and find out?”

“Right,” she said.

“Excellent choice,” I murmured, dropping down to one knee in front of her. I pulled the box out of my right pocket and opened it, looking up into her eyes. “Jessica Lynch, would you be my wife?”

She gasped, and the people surrounding us murmured, clearly watching what was happening between us.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“As serious as I’ve ever been. You’ve been part of my family for a while now, but I think we should make it official. I want you to be my wife. I want you to be the kids’ aunt. I want to spend my life with you.”

She dropped down to both knees so we were eye to eye. “Yes.”

I took the ring out of the box and slid it on her finger. Then I kissed her to the applause of the few people surrounding us. She put her arms around my neck and threw herself against me so hard that we both toppled to the ground.

When we came up for air a moment later, both laughing so hard it hurt, she put a hand on her stomach and said, “Wait a minute. What if I’d said left?”

“Oh.” I reached into my left pocket and pulled out the long box I’d placed in there. I opened it up to show her the necklace inside. “Well, I would have given you this. It’s a mother’s necklace. It’s got Elin’s, Hugo’s, and Nils’s birthstones. And after you gushed over it, I would have asked you to marry me.”

Jessica fingered the necklace and burst into tears. These were good tears, though. These tears meant love. They meant belonging. They meant family.

These were the best kind of tears.

In that moment, I knew that every time I thought of spring, this was what would come to mind. There wasn’t anything else I would rather be doing, and there was no one else I would rather be with, than rolling around in the grass and dirt with Jessica.

My life had changed more than I had been ready for over the last year, but right then I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Catherine Gayle is a USA Today bestselling author of Regency-set historical romance and contemporary hockey romance with a New Adult feel. She’s a transplanted Texan living in North Carolina with two extremely spoiled felines. In her spare time, she watches way too much hockey and reality TV, plans fun things to do for the Nephew Monster’s next visit, and performs experiments in the kitchen which are rarely toxic.

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COMEBACK is book 6 novel in the
Portland Storm
series. If you enjoyed it, please look for the other books in the series: BREAKAWAY, ON THE FLY, TAKING A SHOT (a novella), LIGHT THE LAMP, DELAY OF GAME, DOUBLE MAJOR (a novella), IN THE ZONE, and HOLIDAY HAT TRICK (a novella). The seventh novel, DROPPING GLOVES, will release in April, 2015. Another novella, HOME ICE, will be available in August, 2015.