“No, it doesn’t.” I glanced up at him and caught him staring at me in the way he had that made my heart race, and I quickly looked ahead again. “What about you?” I asked to deflect my own attention away from the overwhelming awareness he brought out in me. “Do you have kids growing up too fast? Or maybe already grown?”
“No kids. Just my sister.” His arm brushed against mine, and I broke out in gooseflesh. He didn’t react to the contact. “Linnea has a boyfriend, my mother tells me. He’s got DS, too. He works in the mail room with her and asked her out for ice cream after work one day. Now they’re talking about how they want to live together.”
“Oh, wow. Have you met him?”
“Many times. They’ve worked together for years. They’ve been friends for a long time.”
“And do you like him?”
“As a man? Sure. As a man my sister is living with?” He laughed and shook his head. “It’s hard to wrap my head around it, is all.”
Since the thought of Sophie dating someone gave me hives, I could understand that. “Has she dated before?”
“There was one,” he said cautiously, making me wonder what had happened with that first boyfriend. “It’s been a while, though. And I want her to be happy and have love in her life, but I can’t help but worry. I mean, it was only a few years ago that she moved out of my parents’ house to live in a group home.”
“But she’s done that,” I said. “And she’s fine. Right? She has a job. He does, too. You don’t think he’s trying to take advantage of her, do you?”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” he rushed to say. “I just never thought she would live on her own, let alone with a man. She keeps surprising me. In good ways.”
The girls were already halfway down the escalator. Mattias put his hand on the small of my back as I stepped onto it in a slightly protective yet somewhat possessive move, and I had to fight the urge not to inch closer to him.
I swallowed hard. “Sophie surprises me every day,” I forced past my thick tongue. “In good ways, too. She’s exactly like her sisters in some ways.”
“Like with having a crush on 501,” he said, chuckling. He was on the step directly behind me, his body heat warming my backside.
“Yes, like that.” I spun so I could see him, but looking up at his face, with him being a step above me, left me dizzy.
He tightened his grip on my waist, steadying me, but that didn’t stop me from reaching out to grab on to him, as well, my hands resting on his torso. My fingers could feel every single muscle underneath them. Six-pack? He probably had eight. He was solid and unmovable, and my knees were weak.
“You all right?” he asked.
I was fine except for the fact that I might have a crush on Mattias Bergstrom even bigger than all the girls’ crushes on Levi Babcock combined. The way he was holding me upright, acting as if I were as light as a feather and it was simply what anyone would do, robbed me of all thought. Including my purpose in turning around to look at him to begin with. All I could do was hold on and hope he didn’t care that I was suddenly sixteen again.
“Fine,” I finally managed to breathe.
“Fine enough to walk? Because we’re almost to the bottom.” He laughed, but not in a way that made me feel as though he were laughing at me.
I turned around and managed to step off the escalator without tripping over my own feet, but that wasn’t saying a whole lot. Mattias kept an arm around my waist, and I was happy for him to leave it there.
We didn’t say anything the rest of the way to the parking garage. The girls were huddled together by my SUV when we got there, still giggling and chattering so much I doubted they’d settle down before midnight at the very earliest. There wasn’t a chance they’d let me get much sleep tonight. Add to that my nerves about this supposed date with Mattias tomorrow…
Sophie spun around and headed our way, arms outstretched. I thought she was coming to hug me, so I opened up to accept it. I wasn’t her target, though. She walked straight into Mattias’s arms and gave him a bear hug. He gave back as good as he got, even lifting her off her feet and swinging her around while she giggled. His smile was as wide as hers.
And that was it. I was a goner. There wasn’t any chance I would be able to stop myself from falling for this man. I didn’t know him very well yet, but in these few hours, he’d shown me everything I needed to know.
My eyes stung, and I put a hand up to cover my mouth, as if that would be enough to stop me from crying. Not that there was any realistic chance of that happening.
“Thank you, Bergy,” she said when he set her back on the ground.
He winked and took a knee, dropping down to be on her level. “You’re welcome, Sophie.”
Zoe dug a tissue out of her purse and brought it over to me. I wiped my eyes with it but gave up after a few tears. They weren’t going to stop any time soon if Mattias kept being this sweet with my baby.
“Can I meet your sister someday?”
“Maybe,” he said. “We’ll have to see if we can work that out.”
“How come she can’t just come over to my house?”
“Well, she lives a long way away.”
I heard a sniffle and glanced over to my other girls. They were all three crying, just like I was. I made a mental snapshot of this moment, not wanting to let it slip away too soon.
“How far?” Sophie asked, turning the palms of her hands up and shrugging. “She could come over tomorrow. Mom won’t mind.”
“Halfway around the world.”
Her eyes went wide. “That’s a long way, Bergy. Maybe she can come on Friday.”
He laughed and said, “Maybe. I’ll have to see what I can work out.”
“I need you to help me,” she said, her tone as serious as it ever was. I didn’t know what she was about to ask him for, but I started mentally preparing myself to dig him out of whatever hole she tried to drag him into. I knew this tone of voice, and she wasn’t going to give up on whatever it might be very easily. In fact, I was afraid it had something to do with a certain young man named Levi.
“If it’s something that’s okay with your mother and something I can help you with, I promise you I will.” And he sounded as sincere as she was determined.
“I want to play hockey like Levi. I want to skate fast.”
Instantly, my mind started turning over every reason I’d ever been told she’d never be able to do X, Y, or Z. From the moment my OB-GYN had told us that my unborn baby had Down syndrome, they’d been trying to pound into my brain all the things she couldn’t do. Things she would never be able to do, no matter how much she wanted to and no matter how hard she tried.
I’d never fallen into the trap of letting those impossibilities become reality. I’d always encouraged Sophie to follow her heart, to try to do anything she wanted to do. Dan and I both had spent eleven years telling her she could do whatever she wanted if she just tried hard enough, and we’d held her hand through it all. We’d taught her sisters to treat her exactly the same way we did because letting her believe she couldn’t do something would simply prove it true.
Sophie had participated in the school choir even though they’d told her she couldn’t sing. She’d run in track meets even though they’d told her she was too slow. She’d learned to read—albeit at a level far lower than her actual age—even though they’d told her she would never do more than learn the alphabet, if that. She’d proven them wrong so many times, and I knew she would many more. But this time, as her mother, I was afraid.
I was afraid they were right. And I was afraid that she would try, and fail, and try, and fail, and try, and fail…and maybe, eventually, she would just stop trying altogether. And it broke my heart.
Skating, the act of keeping herself upright on those tiny blades… I didn’t see how it could be possible.
The older girls’ sniffles got louder, and I knew they were thinking along the same lines I was. None of us wanted to see Sophie hurt, but we also didn’t
want to fall into the trap of telling her she couldn’t, because we’d always told her she could.
Mattias didn’t pay our crying any mind. He focused in on Sophie, his expression serious. And he nodded, which made something in my belly flip even as I wanted to stop him from saying whatever was about to come out of his mouth. “You want to skate? To play hockey? That’s what you really want?”
“Yes. Just like Levi.”
“All right,” he said, and my heart sank down lower than my toes, because no matter how much I tried to convince myself that Sophie could do anything she set her mind on, I knew it wasn’t really true. And skating? Playing hockey? That would be as close to impossible a task as she could set for herself. But Mattias didn’t let it deter him, and I didn’t stop him in time to prevent him from making her a promise that he would never be able to keep. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“What deal?”
“You convince your mom to let me kiss her after our date tomorrow, and I’ll find a way to make it happen. I’ll help you learn to skate and play hockey. It might take longer than tomorrow, though.”
“Deal!” Sophie said.
Done. That was that, even though I knew she was in for a huge disappointment when he couldn’t find a way to make it possible for her. The balance necessary to stay upright on skate blades, the coordination required to stay on skates while attempting to hit a puck with a stick were outside the realm of her skill set, no matter how much she wanted it and no matter how hard she tried. Whether I was ready for it or not, my sweet little girl was going to try to skate.
And apparently, I was getting a kiss tomorrow.
I’d given that little girl a promise I wasn’t at all positive I could deliver on, but I’d be damned if I didn’t exhaust every resource I had before admitting defeat. And not just because I wanted to kiss her mother, either. I was reasonably certain I’d be able to get the kiss from Paige whether I helped Sophie learn to skate or not.
Playing hockey was something that Linnea had wanted, too, and I’d never been able to give it to her. I had always felt like a failure on that score, like I’d let my sister down. But if I could make it happen for Sophie, taking into account all the technological advances that had taken place in the last few decades and with the hockey minds involved with the Storm organization at my disposal, then maybe I could make it up to Linnea in some way.
Yes, it was an illogical thought, but I didn’t care. I was determined to find a way for Sophie Calhoun to learn how to skate and play hockey. And when I made up my mind to do something, there was nothing that would stop me from reaching my goal. I might have some stops and starts. There would likely be failures along the way. But I would only truly fail when I gave up and admitted defeat.
The next morning, well before any of my players were due to arrive, I was already holed up in my office with my laptop open, Googling everything under the moon remotely related to assistive devices for skating to get my ideas flowing. I needed something that would help her stay upright but which would leave her arms free so she could hold a stick, and so far I was coming up empty. I kept coming to devices similar to a walker only with skis on the bottom, but she would have to hold on to something like that with both hands.
David Weber, one of my assistant coaches, poked his head through the door after I’d been working for well over an hour. “Wasn’t expecting you here so early,” he said. He came in carrying two cups of coffee and set one of them in front of me. “This have anything to do with your hot mom from yesterday?”
I shot him a go-to-hell look. “Her daughter, actually. Sophie wants to skate and play hockey.”
“Sophie is the one with Down syndrome?”
I nodded, scrolling through page after page of search results, paying more attention to my computer than I was to him.
Webs gave a grunt of some sort, sounding as sober as I’d ever heard him. That moment of seriousness didn’t last long; in no time, he snorted out a laugh. “You could find a way to strap her to 501’s legs so he would be doing all the work. Wouldn’t hurt him any. Probably be good for him.”
“Not going to happen.” I wouldn’t put 501 through that, and I didn’t think Paige would go for it, anyway. “Besides, Doc hasn’t cleared 501 for anything physical yet.”
“You planning on having him do it today?” Webs demanded. “It’ll take us at least a week or more to set up the rig.”
“Not today, no. Doesn’t matter. That’s not the solution I’m looking for.”
Adam “Handy” Hancock came through the door, tossing his gym bag on the floor along the wall. He raised a brow. “What kind of solution do you think you’ll find that’s better than that?”
I supposed he’d heard quite a bit of our conversation. Either that or it wasn’t too difficult to interpret.
“I’m going to find a way for her to do it on her own,” I said. I needed to find something that would let Sophie do all the work but give her support while she built up her core strength. If she was serious about it and really worked hard, she could probably eventually skate on her own, but I wanted to know she’d be safe while she worked on getting there.
And while she was working on that, I could work on finding a hockey program she could participate in, one for kids with special needs and developmental difficulties. I knew they existed. I just wasn’t sure if there were any of them around Portland. If there were, I would find them and do whatever it took to get her involved.
Webs plopped down in a chair across from me and dug out his iPad, propping it up across from me. “Sounds like you’ve got it bad.”
I glanced up from my screen again. He was giving me a knowing look, the sort that said he knew exactly what was behind my actions, and he assumed it had everything to do with Paige and not her daughter. “I’m not denying that I’m very interested in Paige Calhoun—”
“Good,” Handy said, doing the same thing Webs had just done. “Because we’d see straight through it.”
“But,” I added with a hell of a lot of emphasis, “that’s not why I’m doing this.” Not that they needed to know about Linnea. I’d played in the NHL for twenty years and had been coaching ever since, and not once had I said a word about my sister to any of my teammates or coworkers. I wasn’t ashamed of her. Far from it. In all honesty, it had a hell of a lot more to do with not wanting anyone to see what I was like with her.
Around the league, I had always been known as a hard-assed son of a bitch. In my playing days, I’d been a big, skilled defenseman with a mean streak. These days, I was a sullen coach with a crusty exterior, more likely to grumble and grouse than to crack a smile. My sister, on the other hand, was all sweetness and light. Simply thinking about her or talking about her was all it took to put a grin on my face and melt away the façade. No one but Linnea needed to see that side of me, or so I had thought until little Sophie had leaped into 501’s arms yesterday. That was all it had taken to chip away at my crunchy exterior in front of people I’d never let see that part of my makeup.
And now, here I was. At the moment, I didn’t care how many of them had seen my smiles. I didn’t give a damn who had noticed the cracks in my armor. All I wanted to do was make one of Sophie’s dreams come true.
My two assistant coaches nodded and grunted their assent, but it was clear from the look that passed between them that they weren’t buying my denial. Which was probably for the best. Let them think it was all about Paige if that was what they wanted. Maybe that way no one would realize the truth, and I could go on being the hard-ass they’d all come to expect.
We all fell quiet then. They were probably watching film from the Flames’ last game, since we were scheduled to play them this afternoon, or otherwise preparing to do their jobs. Unlike me. I never shirked my responsibilities, but I supposed everyone got a free pass for that every now and then. I’d be ready for the game whether I watched more film or not.
After a few minutes, Webs shot his head up. “What if we could fashion something ourselves?”
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“Like a walker on skis that we could strap her into so she wouldn’t have to hold on to it,” Handy said. He was squinting at his screen, reading something. Not watching film.
Neither of them were watching footage. They were both doing the same damn thing I was, and now Jim Sutter and Drywall Tierney—our GM and the head equipment manager—were coming into my office as well.
Webs nodded, eyes narrowed in thought. “If we set it up to be behind her, she’d have full use of her arms and legs. We could make some sort of harness like you’d use for zip-lining or parachuting.”
“Would a walker be sturdy enough if her legs couldn’t support her on skates?” Jim asked, crossing his arms and legs and leaning back against the wall.
“It would if I built it,” Drywall said.
Before I knew what was happening, half the team executives were gathered in my office, and we were brainstorming ways to help Sophie Calhoun skate.
I still didn’t know how we were going to make it happen, but that didn’t matter.
Because we were going to make it happen.
Not wanting to keep Paige and her girls waiting any longer than necessary, I headed up to the owner’s box at the Moda Center as soon as I’d released the team after the game. We’d won, but it hadn’t been easy. The Flames were a young, exciting, well-coached team. There’d been a lot of back-and-forth action and way too many turnovers on both ends of the ice, but my boys had pulled through in the end.
I’d decided to give them a light, optional practice tomorrow. We were already through the first half of the season or so, and things were running along well. There wasn’t any need to reinforce systems or anything like that, and we had several guys who had been playing through injuries for a while—Cam “Jonny” Johnson and Grant Wheelan, in particular. A couple more had come off the ice with minor issues in the course of the game, too. It would be better for all of them to get some rest, take maintenance days, so they’d be ready for the grueling push toward the playoffs.
But now, I was gathering up Paige and her daughters for our date, if you could call it that. I wasn’t positive that I would, but I hadn’t been on a real date in years. Did it count if you had four giggling teenaged girls with you? Probably not, but I wasn’t going to argue with it.
Home Ice (Portland Storm Book 11) Page 4