Wyoming Legend

by Diana Palmer

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  PAUL AND KARINA, oblivious to the angry man walking down the aisle, skated together, but apart, doing mirror moves. The last was dual sit spins, perfectly executed, as if they were held together by a string.

  They paused by Janey, who was clapping, and both of them laughed at her enthusiasm.

  “Gosh, you two are good!” she exclaimed. “I wish...uh-oh.” She grimaced, looking past them.

  Karina and Paul turned. Micah was standing by the barrier, both hands on his hips, glaring in their direction.

  Karina flushed, which didn’t help matters. She skated over to the boss, with a worried Janey by her side.

  “You found someone to skate with, I gather?” Micah said with an icy glance at Paul.

  The tall blond man chuckled. “Oui, a friend from grammar school. Karina and I have known each other for many years. I’m Paul. I heard that Hilde Meyer had bought an ice rink here and I came to talk to her about coaching me.”

  The boss seemed to relax. “I see.” He didn’t, but it was a mental placeholder, to keep from trying to skewer the man, whom he didn’t know. Yet.

  “Paul lived with his parents in Jackson when I went to school there,” Karina said with a warm smile at her partner. “We were both only children.”

  “You compete?” Micah asked Paul.

  He made a face. “I try to,” he said heavily. “My new prospective partner just tossed me over and walked off with a younger and more sophisticated man.” He shrugged. “It was no great loss. I fail to see how many body piercings and tattoos and green hair would have helped in any real competition. Most of the judges are rather conservative.”

  Micah’s dark eyes twinkled in spite of himself. “How old was she?”

  “At a guess, fifteen,” Paul said in a disgusted tone.

  “How did you end up with her?”

  “The skating coach, and I use the term facetiously, thought she would make up for my conservative approach to the ice.”

  Micah seemed to relax even more. “Who did she find to partner with?”

  “Another American with many more body piercings than she had, blue hair and an attitude. I wish them joy of each other.”

  Micah burst out laughing.

  “I’m Micah Torrance,” he said, holding out a hand for the younger man to shake. “Karina works for me, babysitting Janey, my daughter.”

  “Dad, will you stop using that word?” Janey asked, cringing. “Honestly. Babysitter? She’s my companion!”

  Micah rolled his eyes. “Kids.”

  “Hey, at least she doesn’t have green hair and body piercings,” Paul pointed out.

  “Green hair. Yuck,” Janey said. Her eyes twinkled. “I’d like pink!”

  “Over my dead body,” her father promised, glowering at her.

  “How’s Dietrich?” Janey asked suddenly. “Is he worse? Is that why you came down to the rink?”

  “No. I came to tell you that the vet thinks he’ll recover completely,” he said, smiling. “It was news too good not to share.”

  Janey hugged her father, with tears of joy streaming down her cheeks. “Oh, thank goodness! I was so scared!”

  “So was I,” he confessed.

  “Who is Dietrich, if you don’t mind my asking?” Paul wondered.

  “Our German shepherd,” Janey said. “He got bloat!”

  “Le pauvre!” Paul exclaimed. “I had an Alsatian who developed it. We were not so fortunate. We waited too late to take him to the vet and we lost him.”

  “He wouldn’t eat for two days,” Karina said, indicating Paul. “His mother cried for a solid week.”

  “As you did, when you lost that vicious Siamese cat you loved so much,” he chuckled. “I still have the scars where he bit me!”

  “You should never have tried to move him off his favorite chair,” she chided.

  He rolled his eyes. “Pets! How would we live without them?” he laughed.

  “Dietrich had bloat, but he was facing down a bear in the woods and he was helpless to defend himself. She—” Micah indicated Karina “—went after the bear with a stick and scared it off. A grizzly bear, no less,” he added with a look of such pride that Karina flushed.

  Paul chuckled. It was odd to see his friend unsettled by a man. She was nervous around most men. Well, except for him, but Paul was like family.

  Micah’s phone rang. He checked the number, glared at it and put the phone back in its compartment on his belt. He looked very angry.

  He was angry. It was Lindy again, and he was mad enough already. Her attitude toward Dietrich had sent him through the roof. The dog wasn’t disposable, and he couldn’t “just get another dog” if Dietrich died. He loved the dog. So did Janey. He was thinking more and more that he’d made a serious error in judgment, letting an experienced woman lead him around by his libido. Lindy was wearing thin.

  “I’ll get back to the house. I’m waiting for a conference call,” Micah said. “You be careful driving home,” he told Karina. “There are still some slick spots on the road.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  “Nice to meet you,” Paul said.

  Micah nodded. “Same. I’ll see you later, honey,” he told Janey with a smile.

  “Okay, Dad.”

  * * *

  “I’M SO GLAD Dietrich’s going to be all right,” Janey said as they skated. “I was really worried.”

  “So was I,” Karina replied.

  “You really fought a bear off with a stick?” Paul exclaimed, recalling what Janey’s father had said.

  She laughed. “I really did.”

  “Brave and foolhardy, my friend,” Paul chided. “But exactly what I would expect of you. Always, you were braver than I.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” she told Janey. “He’s the brave one.”

  They looked around the rink. It was getting near closing time. Skaters headed out to remove their skates and return rental ones to the counter. Hilde came out of her office as the last couple called goodnight.

  “We should go, too,” Karina began.

  “Not yet,” Hilde said. “Wait.”

  She lifted her head. And the music began again. This time, with Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

  Paul looked at Karina. “Shall we?” he asked.

  She smiled and turned toward Janey. “Do you mind waiting just a little longer?”

  “Heck, no,” Janey said at once. “I’ll go be your audience!”

  Hilde just laughed. “I’ll help her.”

  * * *

  IT WAS AS if the last few months had never happened. Paul and Karina skated seamlessly into the routine that had almost placed them in the top three at the last Olympics. They skated as if joined by a thread.

  The lifts were perfect. The jumps were perfect. Once or twice Karina landed a little prematurely, but she only fell once, and onto her padded hip. She laughed as she pulled herself up and went right back into her series of jumps.

  Her leg wasn’t bothering her. Well, not much. There was some residual soreness and she had to do a lot of exercises to limber up before she went on the ice. But the exhilaration of skating again, of performing again, lifted her heart as if it were floating on a cloud. She almost burst with joy. Paul’s face held the same rapture of feeling, the joy of skating, the exquisite pleasure of perfect coordination.

  They finished with a death spiral that was poetic in its beauty. Paul pulled her up effortlessly to his side and they ended with outstretched arms.

  “Wow,” was all Janey could manage. She wasn’t stupid. She’d only ever seen people skate like that in high-level competition on YouTube videos. No beginners could have skated such a program, and she knew it.

  Beside her, Hilde was almost in tears as she clapped along with Janey. “Magnificent,�
� she said huskily. “Poetry!”

  They skated up to the barrier, winded but still flushed and elated.

  “Imagine, so good even after the terrible events of the past months,” Paul remarked, catching his breath.

  “You are unbeatable,” Hilde said. “A few tweaks to the program here and there, much practice...”

  Paul and Karina stared at her.

  “Do you think...?” Karina asked.

  She nodded. “I know.”

  Janey looked from one adult to the other. “What do we tell Dad?” she asked worriedly.

  They all looked down at her.

  “Oh, get real,” she said with a wry smile. “I’m not that dumb that I can’t see how good you two are. There were worse skaters at the Nationals this year! I watched them on YouTube! You two aren’t amateurs like me,” she concluded.

  “We’re...hopefuls,” Paul said, finding a word that wouldn’t incriminate them too much.

  “Hopefuls,” Karina agreed with a smile.

  Janey sighed. “Well, I won’t tell,” she said. She grinned. “And if you win the Nationals, I’ll never let Lindy forget it,” she chuckled.

  “Nobody can know. Not yet,” Karina said.

  “I won’t tell,” she repeated. She grimaced. “I slipped, about the triple. But I won’t do it again. Honest.”

  Karina glanced at Paul and Hilde. “We try?”

  They nodded and smiled.

  She grinned. “Okay. We try!” She didn’t add that it wasn’t Nationals they would be trying for this time, but the Olympics. The less Janey knew, the better.

  * * *

  DIETRICH CAME HOME several days later, so exuberant that nobody would have noticed that he’d just come through major surgery. They kept him inside, spoiling him with new toys and organic treats while he mended. He slept beside Janey’s bed every night in his own bed, as he always did, and was even more spoiled than before.

  Billy Joe came up to see him often, although Burt teased Karina that he actually came to see her, instead of the dog. There had been another invitation to the movies, but now that Karina was practicing with Paul again there was no time for a social life. She let the dog trainer down easy, remarking that she was having some trouble with her ankle and had to rest it in between Janey’s skating lessons.

  She wondered if Billy Joe believed her. He seemed okay with it, but there were rumors that Karina was skating with an outsider down at the ice rink. Gossip said he was her boyfriend, so Billy Joe gave in gracefully and without bad feelings.

  “He’s sweet on you,” Burt teased. “But people are talking about you and that blond feller down at the rink.”

  “Oh, dear,” she said, worriedly. She and Burt were sharing lunch, in between her routine practice with Paul.

  “Don’t worry, it’s harmless. Micah knows you and Paul are hoping to compete. He doesn’t mind.” That wasn’t the whole truth. Micah didn’t like Karina spending so much time with the other man and was making snarky remarks about it to Burt. He, too, had heard the gossip.

  “Paul’s married, you know.”

  “What?” Burt exclaimed.

  “He doesn’t advertise it, but he and Gerda have two little boys. I’m the children’s godmother.” She grinned. “They’ve been married for over six years. Paul’s very mum about his private life. He’s afraid for the boys if they realize how famous their father is. He wants them to fit in with other kids at school.”

  “An unusual attitude.”

  “Yes, it is. They’re very private people, he and Gerda. Well, we all are. It’s why I skated under another name. It was my mother’s idea. She had two Olympic gold medals in women’s figure skating. She used her own maiden name. She said she’d seen so many good skaters driven mad by the publicity, that she didn’t want to give up her privacy for it. I didn’t like the idea at first, but I came to see the sense of it as I grew in skating.”

  “Olympic gold?” he asked, impressed. “Who was your mother?”

  She told him.

  He caught his breath. “I remember her,” he said, nodding. “She was poetry on the ice, one of the most graceful skaters I ever watched.” He shook his head. “You remind me of her.”

  She smiled sadly. “Thanks.”

  “How’s it coming? Practice?” he qualified.

  “Hilde says we’re improving by leaps and bounds. She had some beautiful concepts for the choreography, ones we hadn’t even considered. We’ve altered our routines, added some new material and refined some old spins and jumps.” She nodded. “I think we’ve got a shot at the Olympics.”

  “Oh, I imagine you’ll make the team,” he chuckled.

  “We can hope.”

  “Lindy’s coming down for the weekend.”

  She spilled coffee. “Oh, dear.”

  “I’ll help head her off. She and Micah will go down to Vegas to see the shows, I’m sure. She won’t be hanging around the skating rink.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  There was a plaintive whine from Janey’s room.

  “Oops. Forgot to let you back out, didn’t I, old dear?” Burt asked as he opened Janey’s door and Dietrich came out. The big dog licked him.

  “Need me to walk him?” Karina asked.

  “No. I don’t mind. You’d better get back to the rink. Paul will be waiting.”

  She grinned. “Thanks for the sharpening job, by the way. Paul wants to give you a check for it.”

  “You can get me tickets for the pairs figure skating event at next year’s Olympics. That’s my check.”

  “I’ll make sure of it,” she promised. “If we get that far.”

  “Want to bet on that?” he teased. “I’ll get Dietrich’s leash. And maybe a stick. For bears,” he added with a chuckle.

  “I’d never be that brave again, I promise you,” she laughed. “I’ll see you later.”

  * * *

  SHE AND PAUL got into a routine, using every spare minute to perfect their new routine.

  “It was a good thing that I never actually told them we were splitting up, after you were injured,” Paul remarked. “We’re still in the Envelope,” he added, referring to the financial help the United States Figure Skating Association gave to high-rated skaters. It wasn’t a great deal of money, even so, but it helped.

  “It truly is,” she replied. “You never gave up on me, even when I tried to get you to take a new partner. I thought I’d never skate again,” she confessed as they rested briefly. “The doctor really scared me.”

  “I felt guilty,” he said quietly. “You fell because I tossed you too high, that last time we skated.”

  “I missed my landing,” she returned. “It was an accident, Paul. I never blamed you.”

  “I blamed myself enough for both of us.”

  “But that’s in the past,” she replied. “And now we have so much to look forward to!”

  “And plenty of time to get ready for the competitions.”

  “And if we’re very lucky,” she teased, “we’ll make the Olympic team.”

  “I have no doubt about that,” he replied with a warm smile.

  She sighed. “Well, practice makes perfect.”

  “It does. When do you see the sports therapist?”

  “Tomorrow morning in Jackson,” she said. “I’d hitch a ride with you, but I have to come back to get Janey to practice at two,” she added. She grimaced. “Boss’s fiancée is spending the weekend with us.”

  “You don’t like her.”

  “She’s all right,” she replied. “She’s just very bossy. I don’t like the way she treats Janey.”

  “You love the child.”

  Her face softened. “Very much. Janey’s special. She’s very sensitive, though, and Lindy isn’t kind.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand what the boss sees in
her.”

  He chuckled. “I don’t imagine it’s her cuddly personality that attracts him. Nice figure?”

  “Nice figure, gorgeous face,” she returned. “She must have something going for her, if he wants to marry her.”

  He lifted an eyebrow and pursed his lips. His eyes twinkled.

  She laughed, getting the subtle message. “I expect she’s cuddly with him, even if not with Janey,” she conceded.

  He drew in a long breath. “Things work out for the best, usually.”

  “I hope so.”

  * * *

  THEY WENT BACK out onto the ice and ran over the new routine twice before it was time for Karina to pick up Janey at school and bring her back to the rink for her lesson.

  “I’ll get a bite to eat and meet you back here in a bit,” Paul said.

  “I’ll have a sandwich at the house before I come,” she agreed.

  * * *

  JANEY WAS TALKATIVE as they had an early supper before heading out to the rink. “Coach Barnes says that there’s a competition in my beginner class coming up soon, in the Learn to Skate USA program that you had Dad sign me up for,” she told Karina. “We’re going to put in a lot of practice on the required elements, so I have a chance to move up a level. It’s down in Jackson.”

  “You’ll do fine,” Karina assured her. “It’s a forgiving program. One of the best,” she added, smiling. “Competition can be brutal as you level up, though.”

  “I’ll be very tough,” the child promised with a grin. “You’ll see.”

  “You’re amazing on the ice,” Karina told her, laughing as the little girl flushed at the compliment.

  “Lindy said I was clumsy and stupid.”

  “You’re neither. And when you win the Olympics, you can flaunt your medal at her,” she said, chuckling.

  Janey sighed. “Oh, roll on the day!” she replied. She finished her sandwich. “No school tomorrow, thank goodness, so we can stay late at the rink, can’t we?”

  “I’m not sure,” Karina said worriedly. “Isn’t your future mother coming tonight?”