Crossing Center Ice: A Christian Romance (The Callaghans & McFaddens Book 5)

by Kimberly Rae Jordan

  He wasn’t sure what was more difficult. Seeing them win without him or lose without him. He didn’t want his team to suffer because he wasn’t there, but there was no doubt it rankled a bit that they had pulled off such a resounding win the night before. Even the commentator had observed that in spite of the injured players, the team had played exceptionally well.

  After he’d managed to make himself a cup of coffee, he moved carefully to the stool at the counter, not interested in trying to make it to the breakfast nook. The first sip of the hot coffee had him moaning in appreciation. He was hungry too, but coffee was more important first thing.

  It was crazy how late he’d slept. Totally out of the ordinary for him. It was a rare thing that he was still in bed at nine, even on the days he had no practice or games. He told himself that technically, his body might still think it was seven since LA was two hours behind Winnipeg in time zones.

  “Well, if it isn’t Sleeping Beauty.”

  Kenton didn’t even spare Gabe a look as he made his way to the coffee pot. “Make me some breakfast.”

  Gabe laughed. “And still as much of a morning person as ever.”

  “I have no problems functioning early in the morning. It’s not having food that makes me cranky.”

  “Well, how about I nuke you a breakfast biscuit?”

  “Nuke me a what?”

  Gabe shrugged as he opened the freezer of the large stainless-steel fridge. “We’ve had to make some changes with Mom not able to cook like she used to. We tend to buy easily microwaved food in bulk these days. At least breakfast and lunch food. We try to cook a decent meal for supper, but it can be challenging.”

  Though Kenton wasn’t thrilled at the idea of eating a microwaved breakfast sandwich, he wasn’t about to be picky at that point. It was just another reminder of how things had changed with his mom’s brain hemorrhage.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  By the time he made his way to the therapy room, Kenton was feeling significantly more human with a couple of cups of coffee and food in his stomach. Somehow, over the next few days, he needed to establish some sort of routine.

  In LA, he had specific schedules for certain days. It wasn’t that he wasn’t flexible, but his routines helped to keep him focused. He wasn’t sure what he was going to schedule himself for in Winnipeg though. Aside from getting out of bed and working with Avery, there wasn’t much else that required his attention. He needed to change that somehow.

  “Good morning, Rowena,” he said as he walked into the room. His mom still sat in one of the armchairs in the corner of the room and watched him without any expression on her face. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hey, Kenton,” Rowena replied with a wide smile. “How’s the knee? Any pain today?”

  “Not really. More just a sense of discomfort. You know, like something isn’t quite the same.” He glanced between Rowena and his mom. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  “We were already done for the day. I was just chatting with her.”

  “I think Dad said he’d have lunch ready in about fifteen minutes or so.” He smiled at his mom. “I think he said he was making mac and cheese. The white cheddar kind from the box since he knows you like that even though you do make the best from scratch stuff around.”

  “Seriously?” Rowena asked, glancing at his mom.

  “Yep. She makes the best mac and cheese from scratch, but one of her comfort foods is the white cheddar boxed stuff.” Kenton lifted himself up onto the exam table. “And she would never share either. If one of us happened upon her eating some, she’d tell us to go make our own.”

  Rowena laughed. “That’s great. I knew your dad made it for her, but I just thought it was because it was easiest for him.”

  “There is that too, but it’s a bonus that she loves it as well.”

  Before they could delve further into the wonders of boxed mac and cheese, the daytime nurse appeared in the doorway with Emily’s wheelchair. Kenton frowned as he saw it, wondering how much longer his mom was going to need it. He still hadn’t figured out why she wasn't more cooperative with the therapists to help herself get better.

  They’d barely gotten her into the chair when the door to the outside opened, and Avery stepped in, her cheeks flushed from the cold. She wore a light blue knit cap that matched the scarf around her neck. With a smile at his mom, she removed her gloves and shoved them into her coat pocket before unwinding the scarf from around her neck.

  “Good morning, Emily.” She tugged the knit cap off and smoothed a hand over her light brown hair. “It’s surprisingly chilly out today.”

  Kenton realized he hadn’t been outside since he’d gone to the doctor’s two days earlier. It wasn’t surprising that he was starting to feel a bit restless.

  “I’m going to take her for lunch,” the nurse said. “I’ll have her back at one.”

  Once she was gone, Rowena moved over to sit at the laptop and began to type on it.

  Avery hung up her coat then went to the sink. With her back to Kenton, she shoved the sleeves of her cream-colored sweater up, and began to wash her hands. Watching her, Kenton couldn’t help but notice how delicate she appeared, and he wondered if she was strong enough to help him.

  She dried her hands then pulled her sleeves back down before turning around, her hair loose, framing her heart-shaped face. “Ready to do some work today?”

  “More than ready,” Kenton told her. “I need to get this recovery show on the road.”

  After having him lay on his back on the exam table, she kept his knee bent as she removed the brace, her actions confident yet gentle, clearly making sure she didn’t cause him any pain. She touched his knee, slowly getting him to lower it.

  “As per your doctor’s orders, I’m going to take a measurement for extension.” She used a plastic ruler thing that bent in the middle, lining it up to his extended leg. After making a note of the measurement, she slowly moved his leg to bend his knee. “Tell me when it’s not comfortable.”

  He hated to admit to experiencing any pain, but he did as she asked, and she took another measurement. She made notes in a file on a nearby table.

  “The swelling doesn’t look too bad.” She used her fingertips to move his kneecap side to side. “This is something you can do yourself. Place your fingertips in the same place I had mine.”

  Kenton did as he was told, and she covered his hands with hers, showing him the movement again. He listened closely as she instructed him on the different motions he needed to make with his kneecap.

  “Next I’m going to hook you up with a muscle stimulator.” She touched his thigh. “Can you move your shorts up so that I can put the leads on your quad?”

  Kenton was used to people—both male and female—touching him, so it didn’t faze him, but he found that Avery’s touch was gentler, as if she worried about hurting him. He moved both pairs of his shorts up to reveal his quad and watched as she stuck the leads in place. Before turning on the machine, she placed a rolled-up towel beneath his leg to support it at an angle, then gave him instructions on what to do during the pulses.

  When she turned on the machine, Kenton focused on the pulses, doing as Avery had told him, all the while staring up at the ceiling. Music drifted softly in the room, and there was some sort of scent lingering in the air that was nice but not overpowering. It was all soothing in a way that the treatment rooms he was usually in hadn’t been—those usually smelled of sweat and body odor. He found that he liked the aroma of this room better.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and shifted his gaze to see Avery looking down at him. “I’m going to take the leads off now, and we’re going to do some exercises.”

  Kenton nodded, waiting as she removed the leads, once again careful about pulling at the hairs on his thigh. She lifted his heel and set it on a towel.

  “I want you to slide your heel down and then back up again.” She kept her hand lightly under his knee as he slid his heel down, the towel allowing it to glide easily. After the first
couple of times, she moved her hand away. “Keep doing that for about five minutes, if you can manage it.”

  “Is that a challenge?” Kenton asked with a grin. “I’m pretty sure that I can do this for more than five minutes.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’re used to more challenging exercises, but I don’t want you to overdo it. Also, you might think it’s easy, but your knee will likely have other ideas.”

  “I think it’s time my knee got with the program.”

  Avery just shook her head, an exasperated look on her face, and kept her gaze on his leg. “Keep going.”

  “Is my knee that fascinating?” Kenton asked.

  “Actually, it is. Well, not just your knee. The body and how it works is fascinating for me. It’s why I ended up working as a physical therapist.”

  Kenton continued to move his heel, not going past the point of pain, but realizing that it was loosening it up a bit as he worked. Considering the usual level of intensity of his workouts, he was a bit surprised at how tiring that particular exercise was for his thigh muscles.

  “Okay. Final exercise. Quad sets.” Once he’d done those to her satisfaction, she measured again and made notes in the file. “I want you to try and do the heel slides and quad sets once more today as well as working the kneecap. Ice it if it’s sore, and we’ll do it all again tomorrow. Possibly adding in some stationary bike work.”

  “Thanks,” Kenton said as he sat up and swung his legs slowly off the edge of the exam table. She handed him his crutches. “I hope you know that I really appreciate you agreeing to work with me.”

  She crossed her arms, staring at him for a moment before saying, “You’re welcome, though I’m still not entirely sure why you aren’t hiring someone with sports injury experience.”

  Kenton wasn’t sure if he could even clarify it for her, but he knew part of it was that he trusted her. If she was good enough to work with his mom, he trusted that she would also be good enough to work with him through this initial part of the program.

  “I believe you’ll do just fine,” Kenton said as he slid his crutches into place and got off the exam table. “So I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  She gave a quick nod. “Same time. Same place. Unless something changes with your mom.”

  “Yep.” With a final glance at Avery, he made his way out the door. He found he was already looking forward to their next meeting. It wasn’t as if he was interested in her, but he was a bit intrigued.

  Once Kenton had left the therapy room, Avery sat down at the laptop with his file. She opened up a document and typed out the information from the session she’d just had with him, making notes of the measurements she’d taken and how his level of pain had seemed. After she was satisfied, she uploaded it to the cloud program that had been set up for her to report to his team and his doctors. That was also where she’d find any updates to his program as they continued to work together in the weeks ahead.

  So far there was nothing else there, but perhaps once whoever else had access to her report read it, there would be. She tried not to think of Kenton as hockey’s golden boy, or that he was counting on her to help him get back to where he was before the injury. It was less pressure for her to think of him as Emily’s son.

  There was a worry in the back of her mind that something she did or didn’t do might impact the results of the rehabilitation. At the same time, however, she was confident in her knowledge. She’d studied hard, gotten only great reports from the people she’d worked with while doing her placements. She understood what Kenton needed to have done to get him back to pre-injury strength.

  What concerned her, what lingered in the back of her mind, was what Kenton might do to get himself back to that point. It was no secret what was on the line for him. Benjie had made it perfectly clear, backed up by Elliot’s more mature interpretation of the situation. If Kenton was feeling desperate at all…well, desperate men took desperate measures.

  There were lines she absolutely wouldn’t cross, and if she got even a hint that he was considering any of them himself, she would have nothing more to do with him.

  “Are you ready for Emily?”

  Avery swung the chair around and got to her feet. Emily was in the wheelchair, her face impassive, which gave Avery little hope that she might cooperate with her attempts to help her.

  “Yep. Just let me wash up,” Avery said as she walked to the sink, saying a little prayer that Emily would finally see the benefit of doing the exercises.

  She lowered the exam table, and the nurse helped her get Emily up onto it. Alone, with just the music playing softly in the background, Avery focused her attention on the woman seated in front of her.

  “How are you feeling today, Emily?” she asked as she pumped some lotion onto her palm. She rubbed her hands together then reached for Emily’s hand. Though this wasn’t really part of her physical therapy routine, she found that it helped to relax the woman, and it also allowed Avery to gauge her mindset.

  The woman stared down at their hands as Avery gently massaged her fingers and palms. When she looked up again, there was something in Emily’s eyes. A spark of interest.

  “You have kiss…” She frowned. “Kids. You have kids?”

  Though Avery would have preferred to keep things professional between them, if the woman was reaching for a connection, she wasn’t going to swat her away. “Yes. I have one son.”

  “Name?” Emily asked, her head tilting a bit to the side.

  “Benjamin, but we call him Benjie.”

  The woman fell silent, but she allowed Avery to guide her through some gentle exercises. Avery had no idea what had prompted the change for their session that day, but she wasn’t going to question it. And she knew better than to expect the behavior to continue. When everyone working with Emily had initially met to go over her case, the emotional aspect of the trauma to Emily’s brain had been discussed. It was important that they always keep that in mind when dealing with her.

  “Married?”

  Avery looked up from where she’d been working with Emily’s leg, uncertain why the woman would only now be starting to ask personal questions when they’d been working together for several weeks. “No.”

  Rather than give her more information, she turned her attention back to Emily’s legs. Avery felt the woman’s gaze on her, but Emily didn’t say anything more. Thankfully, they were able to get through several different exercises together. It was probably the most they’d ever accomplished. Avery wished she’d had a chance to talk to Rowena before she’d left. She’d have to read her notes to see if the other therapist had noticed anything different about Emily that day.

  “Done,” Emily said a short time later.

  Avery nodded. “You’ve done great today. Let me massage your muscles a bit, okay?”

  She slowly worked over the muscles they’d focused on. If she was still in a good frame of mind the next day, perhaps they could spend some more time walking. It was sporadic at best if Emily would agree to try walking more. Avery would know that they’d truly turned a corner if Emily worked on walking two or three days in a row.

  After the nurse had come to take Emily for a soak in her hot tub, Avery cleaned up the space and herself then went to sit at the laptop. Before typing up her own report, she reviewed the other reports from the morning. Rowena had made mention that Emily seemed a little more receptive to instruction and had cooperated better than she normally did. Maybe things really were improving.

  She quickly typed up her own report, making mention of Emily’s cooperation but leaving out the personal questions she’d asked. Rowena hadn’t mentioned anything like that, so Avery didn’t either. If Emily continued to make conversation of that nature, then she would make a note of it.

  Looking over the report one last time, Avery made a couple small corrections then saved it for others to review. Once that was done, she made sure that the therapy room was ready for the next day then pulled on her coat. She had to stop by the post office to mail
a couple of packages for her mom, and then she’d be able to go home. The boys would probably arrive home from school about the same time as she did.

  As she sat in her car a few minutes later, letting it warm up, she sent a quick text to her mom to let her know that she was leaving and reminding her she had to make the stop at the post office. The tension from her day finally began to ease as she drove down the driveway, away from the Callaghan home. The tension was worse than usual, and she knew that was because of having to work with Kenton, plus Emily’s questions had also been unsettling.

  She wanted the security of her home. When Max had asked her to consider taking the job, Avery had never considered how it might trigger some issues for her. The biggest trigger being having to deal with an injured professional athlete. She should have said no. She should have told Max to have Kenton go somewhere else. But how could she have done that without explaining why she didn’t want to work with him. Especially when there was good money on the line. She wasn’t so rich that she could just ignore that.

  Once her errand was over, Avery headed for home, letting out a big sigh of relief when she finally pulled into the garage. The aromatic warmth of the house embraced her as she walked in, and Benjie’s hug when he saw her chased away the last of her anxiety once again.

  She was home. The boys were home. They were all together. Safe.

  For the next couple of days, Kenton had to fight back frustration as Avery kept him on a pretty slow pace with his exercises. For the most part, they stuck with the ones that she’d had him do on the first day. He’d hoped to be making more progress with walking by this point, but apparently, she was going to keep him reined in for the time being. The only thing that kept him from taking his frustration out on her was that he was certain she was only following the orders given to her by his team’s trainers and doctor. And he could hardly fault her for that.

  “How’s it going?” he asked as he maneuvered his way into the therapy room. He’d seen his mom in the breakfast nook with his dad and the nurse, so he figured it was safe to come.