by Diana Palmer
Mrs. Meyer came to the barrier. Karina skated over to her with Janey.
“Sorry,” Hilde said, but she didn’t really mean it. She was grinning. “I just wanted to see if I could inspire you.”
Karina laughed. “You and Janey certainly have,” she told the older woman. “Thanks,” she added huskily. “That music is...well, I feel as if it belongs to me, in a way.”
“I knew that. It’s why I put it on,” Hilde said. “You skate beautifully. I wish I’d been your coach.”
“I wish it, too,” Karina replied. She grimaced. “We had a coach who cowed us,” she added, remembering Paul. “We put up with it for two years, until we had no egos left and we could barely skate at all. It took a lot of guts to tell him we were firing him.”
“Who’s we?” Janey asked.
Karina thought fast. “Some other skaters and I,” she replied. “It was a long time ago, in Upstate New York.”
“New York?” Janey exclaimed. “But I thought you lived near Jackson Hole.”
“I did. You see, when you’re moving up in skating competition, it means going where you’re invited to skate. I had to live with other families in a lot of places when I competed. Skating people are kind, and very generous. I’ve lived all over the country, even in other countries...” She trailed off. This was more information than she wanted Janey to have.
Janey pursed her lips. “You’re scared that I’ll tell somebody. But I won’t,” she added solemnly. “I promise. You were in competition, weren’t you?”
Karina drew in a breath. “Yes. I had a partner. When this happened,” she indicated the injured foot, “he had to find someone else to skate with. It was a blow. We’d been together since we were children.”
“Gosh, that’s sad,” Janey said.
“His partner just left him, too,” Hilde remarked.
“What?” Karina exclaimed. “But Regionals and sectionals are this month! With a new partner, he’ll have to do those!”
Hilde nodded. “He won’t get to compete this year. Plus, his new coach just moved to Norway, where he has several new younger students to train. The coach says they’ll be world champions very soon.”
“Poor Paul,” Karina said, grimacing.
“He isn’t very sad about it,” Hilde laughed. “He said his new partner was more concerned with her costume and her makeup and her nails than she was in landing triples. She wasn’t much of a skater, apparently.”
“I haven’t talked to him lately,” Karina said. “I should have kept in touch.”
“He knows you’re struggling.” Hilde smiled. “I told him you were back on the ice again. He was proud of you.”
Karina beamed. “Did he say how Gerda and the boys were?”
“Doing fine. They’re all in Jackson Hole now.”
“I’ve been out of touch. I’ll have to do something about that.”
While they were talking, a boy several years older than Janey skated over. “That was great, what you did,” he said to Karina, flushing a little. “Your triple Salchow was perfect! I can’t do one. I’d love to be able to skate like that.”
“It’s just practice,” Karina said modestly. “You have to put in several hours a day to get really good at it.”
“I wish we had somebody to train us,” he replied sadly.
Hilde brightened. “Actually, I have a young man who’s willing to do that. He’s coming for an interview next week.”
“A real coach?” the boy asked.
“Yes. He’ll be here at the rink.”
“I have to tell my dad!” the boy exclaimed. “I want lessons really bad!”
Hilde grinned. “I’ll make sure we have somebody to do that.”
“Thanks!”
She nodded.
He gave them a shy smile and skated back to his friends.
“A coach is a really good idea,” Karina said.
“I wish I could do it, but I’m sort of out of the game,” Hilde said sadly. “They said I had no idea how to coach modern skaters, that I was living in the dark ages.” She laughed. “Then my friend talked bad about me to the skaters I was coaching and they went over to him. So here I am.”
“You were a great coach,” Karina argued. “Your routines were as graceful as ballet, and just as beautiful. I loved watching your skaters.”
“I miss it.”
Karina smiled. “I miss competition.” She looked down. “I can skate again. But it’s so much hard work, to get back to where I was.”
“Nothing worthwhile is ever easy,” Hilde said.
“Well, that’s true,” the younger woman agreed.
“Will I ever be able to skate like you?” Janey asked Karina.
“Yes, you will,” she replied. “When the trainer comes, we’ll talk to your dad about real lessons. I can teach you the moves, but you need a coach, a good one, to run you through the various jumps, to train you to do them correctly. I’m a skater, not a coach,” she added with a smile.
“I think you do fine,” Janey said.
“Thanks. But if you want to go into competition, you need a real coach. It’s a long, tiring progression from beginner even to the next level. There will be required movements and tests you’ll have to pass to progress. It’s a very long way from where you are even to regional competition. There are grades all the way up. You have to go through every one. There are no shortcuts, and it means a lot of practice. Hours a day. You also have to keep up with your school work while you’re doing it,” Karina added. “Because skating will not support you unless you win a gold at the Olympics.”
“The Olympics are next February,” Janey said. “In Pyeongchang. It’s going to be great!”
“I imagine so,” Karina said sadly. She and Paul had wanted so badly to have a shot at those Olympics.
Hilde was frowning. “You know,” she said, “it’s several months until the Olympics. I can still coach.”
Karina’s lips fell open. She could almost see what the woman was thinking. Paul didn’t have a partner or a coach. Hilde was a coach. Karina was able to do jumps again.
“Do you think...?” she began.
“Do you know what time it is?” a deep, angry voice said from behind them.
Karina ground her teeth together. Micah had come up unexpectedly and she hadn’t even seen him. She looked at her watch. “Oh, dear.”
“Yes, oh, dear,” he muttered. “It’s time to go home. You can’t live at the damned rink.”
“But, Dad, I have to practice,” Janey said miserably.
“You’ve been here for five hours,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but...”
“You have homework for Monday,” he added curtly. “If your grades drop, skating is out.”
She sighed. “I know. Karina just told me that.”
“She did?” he asked, glancing at the young woman.
“She said that I couldn’t make a living at skating unless I won the Olympics, so it was important to keep my grades up and have a profession.”
“Well,” he exclaimed, impressed.
“I’ll think about what you said,” Karina told Hilde.
She smiled. “Please do. It might be a second chance for all of us.” She nodded at Micah and went back toward her office.
“Janey, let’s get our skates off.”
A young woman who looked to be in her late teens skated up to Karina. “That was wonderful, what you did,” she said. “Do you teach?”
Karina cringed inwardly at Micah’s curious stare. “No, I’m sorry. But Mrs. Meyer is hiring a coach.”
“That’s great news. But I wish it was you. I’ve never seen anybody skate like that,” she added breathlessly. “You’re great.”
“Thanks. But I’m just an amateur.” And that was the truth. She’d never skated professionally.
> The woman smiled and skated off again.
“What was she talking about?” Micah asked.
“I did some jumps,” Karina said, heading off the questions. “I’d almost forgotten how.”
“She did a triple Salchow!” Janey exclaimed.
Karina ground her teeth together and looked pained, but it seemed to go right over Micah’s head. Janey looked guilty. Karina gave her a reassuring smile.
“Well, we’d better go. I’ll follow you home,” he told her.
She and Janey got off the rink and removed their skates, drying the blades with a chamois cloth that Karina had in her bag.
“Why aren’t you just using paper towels for that?” Micah asked.
“Chamois absorbs water better,” she explained. “If you don’t get the moisture out, your blades will rust. And that reminds me, we need to find someone who can sharpen the blades. They get dull with use and they don’t work as well. We have to have them sharpened every few weeks.”
“Burt knows how to do that,” Micah said.
“He does?”
“He used to skate semiprofessionally. Didn’t he tell you?” he asked Karina sarcastically. “Or did you think he knew all about skating from watching it on television?”
She didn’t understand why he was so antagonistic. It made her nervous. He made her nervous. “He didn’t say,” she replied, and kept her eyes down. He was a very abrasive sort of man. And far too masculine for her taste. She liked gentle men.
His eyes narrowed as he watched her dry the blades and then put fuzzy pink protectors on the blades before she returned the skates to their bags.
“You’re pretty good with that,” he remarked.
She smiled, still not looking at him. “I’ve been skating for a long time.”
“How long?”
“Since I was three, actually.”
His dark eyes narrowed on her face as she bent over the bag. She had pale blond hair, in a topknot. It was very long when it was loosened. He remembered without wanting to how it had looked the night she got Burt to check on him, the night he’d yelled at her. He grimaced at the memory. He loved long hair. Lindy wore hers short.
Lindy. He was more disenchanted with her by the day. She loved to throw orders around. It irritated him. He snapped at her more these days than he’d ever done before. She wanted to move up the date for their marriage, and he was certain that he wanted to cancel the whole thing. Burt had been right. It was a bad match. He was going to have to talk to Lindy, and it would be very unpleasant. But it wasn’t something he had to do right now. It could wait.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked Karina.
She looked up at him and he became lost in her pale gray eyes. They were like fog on the lake in the early morning, he thought absently. Her mouth was a soft pretty bow and he stared it for far too long, until he saw a blush run over her high cheekbones.
She averted her eyes, dragged them away from his. Her breath came quickly, and stuck in her chest. He was making her heart race with those probing dark eyes. She felt frightened, suddenly, of emotions she’d never felt before.
“Yes, I’m ready...oh!” She got up too fast, tripped over her skating bag, and would have fallen if Micah hadn’t caught her.
His big hands tightened on her upper arms. He moved a step closer. “You okay?” he asked gruffly.
She could barely manage words. He smelled of some spicy, exotic, expensive cologne. He was warm and strong and she wanted to crawl into his arms and be held while she told him the story of her life.
It was unexpected, to feel like that with a man who was almost a stranger. Worse, she loved the feel of his hands on her bare arms.
“Your skin is cold,” he remarked. “It’s cold on the ice. Don’t you wear a jacket when you skate?”
“It gets in the way,” she said. “I’m used to the cold. It doesn’t bother me.”
His big hands smoothed over her arms. “If you say so.”
She looked up as far as his chin. “I’ll just...get my jacket,” she said, her voice breaking. He was really having an effect on her.
He knew it. She caught the faintly arrogant look on his face as she tugged out of his grasp and picked up her down jacket. He moved closer and held it for her while she shrugged into it. His big hands on her shoulders felt warm and gentle. She was amazed at the sensations they caused.
He let her go and turned to his daughter. “Ready?” he asked with a smile.
“Ready. Dad, they’re going to get a real coach here, to teach skating. Do you think...?”
He grimaced. “I thought Miss Carter was teaching you.”
“I’m not a professional trainer,” Karina remarked as they started out the door. “If Janey wants to compete, there are levels and tests and she’ll need someone who’s familiar with the various stages of competition to guide her. I just know how to skate. I can’t teach.”
“Not true,” Janey said. “You’re a great teacher!”
Karina laughed. “Thanks, sweetheart. I’m really not. I’m just sharing with you what my mother taught me.”
“So, how about the coach?” Janey asked her father. “I really want to skate, Dad. It’s the most important thing in my life right now. Please?”
He drew in a long breath. “We’ll talk about it. But you have to keep your grades up.”
“I promise I will!”
He just nodded. Which could mean anything. “I’ll follow behind you,” he told Karina. “Go slow. Snow’s still coming down hard.”
“I will,” she said.
“I’ll ride with you,” Janey told Karina, “so you won’t be nervous driving home.”
“You doll,” Karina said softly, and hugged her. “Okay, let’s go!”
They ran to Karina’s car. Micah, watching them, felt an unfamiliar warmth inside. Anabelle hadn’t wanted a child. Janey was something of a wonderful accident. But Micah had wanted her, loved her, taken care of her. Lindy hated kids. But Karina loved his daughter. It was mutual. He’d never known Janey to laugh as much, or be as happy as she was in Karina’s company.
But what would happen when Karina left? She was a young woman. She wasn’t going to want to spend her life looking after a child, regardless of how fond she was of her. That was what worried him the most. What would come after.
He tumbled it over in his mind all the way home.
CHAPTER SIX
MICAH FOLLOWED THEM into the house. Burt was just putting up the dishes he’d washed.
“Janey’s skates need sharpening,” he told Burt. “Think you can do it?”
“Sure I can,” Burt said, grinning. “I’ll do yours, too, if they need it,” he added to Karina.
“They probably do,” she replied. “They’ve had a workout in the past few days.”
“She landed a triple Salchow!” Janey exclaimed and then bit her lower lip, because she’d promised Karina she wouldn’t talk about it.
Burt’s eyebrows went up. “A triple?”
“I’ve been practicing,” Karina said, bluffing it through. She laughed. “Janey’s inspired me.”
“A triple Salchow.” Burt whistled. “Hard stuff, for a beginner,” he added with a wise look toward Karina that nobody saw except her.
“Really hard,” Karina agreed. “Well, I’m going to turn in.”
“Me, too.” Janey mouthed “I’m sorry!” at Karina.
Karina just smiled and nodded. Janey went into her room with her skate bag and closed the door.
“Burt, how about some coffee?” Micah asked.
“Sure. Coming right up.”
“Want some?” Micah asked her gently.
She should go to bed. She should go right now! “Sure,” she replied, and sat down at the table with him.
Burt poured coffee in thick mugs and placed condiments o
n the table. “Would you like some cheese and crackers?” he asked them.
Micah chuckled. “Yes, I would. Lindy and I had rabbit food for lunch.” He made a face. “If I eat anything that isn’t a vegetable, it starts a fight.”
“That’s sad,” Karina said quietly as she picked up her mug, declining cream or sugar.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Sad?”
She flushed. “Sorry. Not my business.”
“Sad?” he repeated, and stared at her.
She grimaced. “Well, if I go out to eat with anyone, I don’t try to dictate their food choices.”
His dark eyes softened. “We should frame you and hang you on the wall,” he commented. “Not a lot of people keep their opinions to themselves in this day and age.”
“They’re too busy marching in the streets with placards.”
“Shades of the sixties and seventies,” Burt commented as he busied himself in the kitchen with saucers and a block of cheese.
“Were there protests back then, too?” Karina asked, surprised.
He laughed. “More than now. The Vietnam War was raging. The ‘flower power’ generation marched to get us out of it. There were riots on campuses, and a few tragedies with deaths involved,” he said, remembering. “But in the end, they won. President Nixon got us out of Southeast Asia. He brought the troops home.”
“He was impeached,” she said. “I read about it in my history class.”
“Always remember that there are two sides to every story,” Burt added. “Nixon wasn’t perfect, but he saved lives, a lot of lives, by getting us out of the conflict. My father’s was one of them.”
“People are good and bad,” Micah agreed. “We need another Theodore Roosevelt.”
Karina laughed. “He was my favorite President,” she explained when both men looked at her. “He was sickly and weak as a child, an asthmatic as well, but it never got him down. He was tough as nails. They said when he took his volunteer unit to Cuba in the Spanish American War that he had Native Americans, Ivy League athletes, Buffalo Soldiers, Texas Rangers outlaws and French Foreign Legionnaires, Germans and all sorts of extraordinary men in the group. No one could accuse Teddy of being prejudiced against any group.” Micah nodded. “He was a man ahead of his time. He was famous for trust-busting. That’s what we need today, someone to break up those multinational corporations. A handful of them control the media. They decide what news you’ll watch, and a good many of them slant it to a particular political viewpoint. Not news in my opinion. No objectivity.”