Home Ice (Portland Storm Book 11)

by Catherine Gayle

  Zoe answered the door and let us in, giving Mattias a wide-eyed look. “Just so you know, that was all my phone’s fault.”

  She’d barely gotten that out before Sophie came running, arms wide for a hug. But instead of jumping into my arms, she made a flying leap for Mattias. She hugged him hard, nearly strangling him with her grip around his neck.

  It was too much for me. I stepped back, blinking down the tears stinging behind my eyes. My baby girl had decided he should be part of her life, so who was I to say otherwise? Even if I hadn’t already been leaning toward making this relationship with Mattias more official, I would have given in upon seeing this.

  Once Mattias extricated himself from Sophie’s exuberant display of affection, he shook Dan’s hand and exchanged a few pleasantries while I helped the older girls pack up the last of their things so we could head home.

  We were in the SUV heading back to my place when Sophie piped up with, “Bergy?”

  “Yes, Sophie?” He glanced at her in his rearview mirror.

  “Good job on kissing Mom. Zoe showed me the picture.”

  Everyone burst out laughing, including Mattias. Everyone but me. I bit down on my lower lip, unable to decide between snort-laughing along with the rest of them or burying my head in the sand like Zoe kept threatening to do.

  “Well, we had a deal, right?” he said after the laughter died down.

  “Right. So when can I skate?”

  He turned onto my street, smiling like he’d just won the lottery. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but he answered her before I got the chance to overanalyze it. “Soon,” he said. “But first, we need to start doing some exercise so we can build up your muscles.”

  “Like what kind of exercise?”

  “Do you know what crunches are?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Well, we’ll do things like that. You’ll need strong core muscles to be able to skate.”

  “We can all do it together,” Izzy said. “So we can all skate.”

  “Sure,” he replied, and his grin just kept getting bigger. “We can call it Workouts with Bergy or something like that.”

  “Can we work out with Levi?” Evie asked.

  Mattias chuckled. “Not sure I can make that one happen, but maybe we can get some of the guys involved when we’re ready to skate.”

  That was apparently enough to get the girls chattering and giggling. Hormones.

  Sophie wasn’t taking part in it, for once. She sat quietly for a moment, but I had no doubt she wasn’t finished with her questions. Her mind was working a hundred miles an hour. When he parked in my driveway, she said, “Can we start now?”

  More than half the team had come to the practice facility today, including a few of the guys who didn’t have families.

  Like 501.

  He was here as a favor to me—there wasn’t any point in trying to think he’d come for any other reason—but the fact was, he was here.

  It was a Saturday afternoon in early March. With the playoffs only a little over a month away, the other coaches and I had decided the guys needed a break. A day with their families would do a lot more for how they played each night than another tedious practice going over the same systems and strategies we’d been pounding into their heads all season.

  Soupy was still recovering from ACL surgery much earlier in the season, so he couldn’t get out on the ice, but he and Rachel had brought all their kids. Rachel was busy suiting their twin toddlers up to go out on a sled that one of the young, single guys would pull around. Soupy had his bad leg propped up on a bench and was helping tie the skate laces for one of Dominic “Bear” Medved’s kids. Tuck and Maddie Campbell were already out on the ice, as were Nicky Ericsson and his adopted niece and nephews, Marc “Danger” d’Aragon’s teenagers, Grant “Wheels” Wheelan and his teens, and Mitch and Mia Quincey with their two little ones.

  Babs and 501 were over on the other side of the ice, along with Webs and Drywall. All four of them were huddled up and bent over, no doubt putting finishing touches on Sophie’s rig.

  I’d carried in a bag of skates for Paige and the girls, and I dropped it on the bench next to Cam and Sara Johnson. Sara was bouncing their newborn in her arms while Jonny sat on the floor tying three-year-old Connor’s skates. Connor, meanwhile, was bopping a Minion toy on his father’s head. It kept saying unintelligible things with every hit, but then it said something that sounded distinctly like, “What the fuck?”

  Connor giggled maniacally and repeated it. “What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?”

  “What did I tell you about not using Mommy’s bad words?” Jonny said.

  His son laughed even more fiendishly than before.

  I did my best not to laugh out loud while I bent over to unload skates and other gear for my crew, but I saw Jonny calmly take the toy out of his son’s hand, put it in their diaper bag, and give his wife a look that had her rolling her eyes.

  “Don’t blame that one on me,” she said. “It’s a toy.”

  When I handed Zoe the skates in her size, she was fighting the urge to bust up. I shook my head slightly, and she put a lid on it and took her skates.

  Once Paige started helping the older girls get ready, I turned to Sophie.

  She was bouncing on the balls of her feet and staring out at the ice. “Do I really get to skate, Bergy?”

  “You really get to skate,” I said. “So that means we need to put your gear on.” I picked up her skates, kneepads, and helmet and took a seat. When she turned to look at me, grin a mile wide, I patted the spot on the bench next to me. She raced over and sat down.

  By the time I had her properly outfitted, Babs and 501 were on their way around to join us with her rig.

  Her older sisters giggled and made their nervous sounds, but not Sophie. She looked up and beamed at him. “Hi, Levi.”

  “Hi, Sophie. You ready to skate with me?”

  She nodded emphatically and tried to stand up, but she wobbled on the skates.

  I took her by the waist and steadied her, and the two brothers and I got her all strapped in. Drywall came over to be sure we had her situated right and all his measurements had been correct.

  “Told you I could do this,” he said, slapping me on the back after he’d completed his inspection.

  “So I can skate?” Sophie squealed.

  “You can skate,” I said. I took one of her hands and 501 took the other, and we helped her walk cautiously to the door with her backward walker on skis coming behind her. When we got there, I picked her up and set her on the ice.

  Then 501 took over. He took both her hands and skated backward, pulling her along with him. “You’ve gotta bend your knees,” he said to her. “Get down low and push your skates into the ice.”

  In no time, they were too far away for me to hear them anymore. I could hear the other girls coming up behind me thanks to their giggles. Evie and Izzy stepped onto the ice and almost fell. They decided to take the easy path around the boards so they’d have something to hold on to.

  Zoe stopped by my side before joining her sisters, though. “Hey, Bergy?”

  I kept my eyes on 501 and Sophie to be sure that her rig was supporting her the way we intended it to. So far, so good. “Yeah?” I replied.

  “I was just wanted to tell you that I’ve been talking to my sisters.”

  I chuckled. “No surprise there.”

  “Yeah. But we all agree.”

  Now I was curious. To my knowledge, they never agreed on anything but the fact that they needed to kidnap 501 and convince him to stay with them forever. “Agree about what?”

  “Well, you know about the whole brother-husband thing?”

  I nodded, internally cringing.

  “Well, we think you should be Mom’s brother-husband. Only there should just be you.”

  I definitely hadn’t been expecting that one. “Don’t you think that’s moving a little—”

  Before I could finish my question, she wa
s rushing to catch up to the group of teens congregating on the opposite end of the ice.

  I stayed in place for a few minutes, watching 501 and Sophie skate circles. She wasn’t doing much of the work, letting him drag her along with him, but she lit up the entire rink with her smile. Even better, though, the rig was doing its job. It was supporting her weight while she found her legs and gained her balance. She might not ever get to the point that she could skate without it, but I wouldn’t put it past her. Not when she was clearly having the time of her life. That would only make her want to work harder to make it happen.

  Paige came up behind me and put her hand on my arm.

  “She’s doing great,” I said.

  Paige sniffled.

  I spun around to face her and used my thumb to brush away the tears falling down her cheeks. “Hey,” I said. “What’s this about?”

  “I didn’t think this would ever happen,” she said, shaking her head and waving her hand toward Sophie and 501. “She’s doing things even I thought would be impossible, and it’s all because of you.”

  “Not because of me.”

  She laughed through her tears. “Okay, fine. All because of Beefy, then.”

  I wrapped my arms around her and held her close, resting my chin on the top of her head. Not that I agreed with her assessment, but it wasn’t worth arguing over. I was just glad to hold her for a while.

  Over the last several weeks, I’d spent more and more time with Paige and her daughters whenever the team was in town. We weren’t shy about showing physical affection for each other in front of them, but we kept it all on a PG level. The girls had started giving me hugs and acting like I was a normal fixture in their lives instead of an outsider they had to be on their best behavior for, and there had even been a few nights when, after the girls had gone to bed, Paige had snuck me up to her room before sending me on my way. I wasn’t about to spend the night with the girls in the house. That seemed like stepping way over the line. But I couldn’t deny that I liked the thought behind Zoe’s suggestion even if it might be too soon to take that kind of step. It was something to think about.

  Something to talk to Paige about, but preferably not when we were surrounded by half my team and their families.

  She broke away from me and angled her head toward a quiet corner. I took her hand and followed her, trusting that 501 and Sophie’s rig would be enough to take care of her, and that the other girls were fine with the rest of the teens.

  When she came to a stop, she stretched up on her toes and kissed me.

  I laughed out loud. “I didn’t realize it was kissy-kissy time.”

  “I think it’s always kissy-kissy time when I’m around you. I think about you all the time. About how you don’t just care about me but you care about my girls, too. About how you take time out of your life to be with all of us. You’re like a dream, Mattias, except you’re real.”

  “You’re my dream,” I said, looking down into her rich, hazel eyes. She still had tears in them, but there was something else, too. Something deeper. It was as though I could see all the way to her heart just by looking in those eyes, and that heart was smiling back at me.

  She bit down on her lip. “I just… I wasn’t prepared for this.”

  “Prepared for what?”

  “For falling in love with you. But I have.”

  She could have blown me over with that, because I was in love with her, too. And her girls. And her life. The more time I spent in her house, surrounded by her family and the way they loved and supported each other, the more it felt like exactly where I needed to be. I’d thought it would take more to convince her we were meant to be together. I’d expected to have to work harder to find a way to fit within her life, and to convince her to let me in since she had to think about her daughters as well as herself.

  But she loved me.

  “That’s good,” I finally said, unable to wipe the goofy grin off my face.

  “Why is that good?”

  “Because I think I’ve been in love with you since not long after I met you. And I know I love your daughters.”

  “I know you love them. I think that’s why I finally stopped fighting it. Because you’re so good to them, and you’re so devoted to Sophie. You work harder to make her life better than even her own father.” Paige’s tears started up again, so I drew her into my arms and held her to me. “He’s a good man, but he just doesn’t take the time to be there for her. But you do. All the time. I’ve spent so many years feeling like her sisters and I were the only ones fighting for her, and now it feels like a huge weight has been lifted.”

  If I wasn’t careful, she was going to bring out some emotion in me that I’d kept locked away for a very long time. The last thing I needed was for my players to see me cry, so I put that under lock and key. It was one thing to laugh and smile in front of them; it was something else to let them see me being so vulnerable.

  Once I thought I had it under control, I said, “I’ve got big shoulders, Paige. I can carry a lot.”

  “Mom!” Sophie screamed. My blood turned to ice, and we both spun around in panic.

  But it was a good scream. A happy scream.

  Because she was skating all by herself. Yes, she still had the rig holding her up. Yes, she was moving slowly and awkwardly, and if she didn’t have the rig, she’d be on the ice in a heartbeat. But she was bending her knees and digging into the ice, and she was propelling herself forward, chasing 501, who was a few strides ahead of her.

  “Oh,” Paige said, and her hand shot up to cover her mouth as a fresh flood of tears streamed down her cheeks. “My baby’s skating.”

  She wasn’t the only one crying, either. As soon as I felt a hot tear blaze a trail down my own cheek, I brushed it away with the back of my hand. So maybe it wasn’t the end of the world if my players saw me cry. Not if it was for the right reason, and this was definitely the right reason.

  “Why isn’t Bergy here yet?” Sophie asked. “He’s late.”

  “He’s not late,” I replied, glancing at the clock on the wall. In the months he’d been in our lives, he had never once been late, and I doubted that would change today. He still had ten minutes before he was due to arrive.

  “But he’s not early, Mom,” my youngest complained, and I laughed.

  “Just because he’s not early, that doesn’t make him late,” Evie pointed out.

  “It does for Beefy,” Izzy said.

  I was inclined to side with Izzy on this one, not that I would say so in front of the girls. If Mattias said he would be somewhere at eight, you could count on him to show up at 7:45. It was just part of his makeup. So, like Sophie and Izzy, I wondered where he was and what had held him up.

  Zoe tossed a throw pillow at her sister’s head, her face bright red from the effort to stop a laugh combined with her continued embarrassment. “Stop calling him that.”

  The girls were on Spring Break, so I had taken the week off. It was the last week of the regular season, and the Storm were finishing things out at home, so Mattias was in Portland for now. He’d promised to pick us up after he got done with practice because he had a surprise for Sophie.

  A surprise he hadn’t even told me about, no less.

  Before an argument broke out, the doorbell rang, and all four girls raced to open it.

  “Bergy!” Sophie squealed as I rounded the corner and saw him for myself.

  He had Sophie wrapped up with one arm and was holding another bouquet of yellow tulips with the other hand, and he winked at me over the top of them. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I just remembered I hadn’t brought your mom flowers since we got back in town.”

  The older girls giggled and took care of getting the tulips in water while Mattias and I gathered up purses and Sophie’s backpack.

  “You don’t have to bring me flowers every time you come back from a trip, you know.”

  “I know,” he said. “I like bringing you flowers, though.”

  “Why’s that?�
��

  “Because you light up with the prettiest smile when you see them. Almost as bright as Sophie’s.”

  I laughed. “Well, that’s saying something.”

  Within a few minutes, we were all in his SUV and he was backing out of my driveway.

  “You still won’t tell us where we’re going, Bergy?” Izzy asked.

  “I guess I could tell you now.” He gave me a look I couldn’t interpret. “I’m taking you to an ice skating rink where a kids’ hockey team practices.”

  “A hockey team?” Sophie repeated, her excitement creeping into her tone.

  “Yeah. For kids your age, Sophie.”

  I caught his eye and shook my head. She’d been skating with her rig every day for weeks, as often as either Mattias or I could get her to the Storm’s practice facility. And she was definitely making improvements, but that didn’t mean she was ready for something more. She still needed the supportive structure to hold her up. Her core wasn’t strong enough for her to balance on skate blades.

  “I’m going to play hockey?” She was bouncing so hard in her seat that I could hear it.

  “We’re going to talk to the coach and find out if you can play next year,” he said.

  “But you’re the coach, Bergy.”

  “Not for this team, I’m not. Coach Carlson is a special coach, and he works with extra special kids.”

  Special kids. Meaning kids with special needs. I caught the hidden meaning even if Sophie might not have, and I decided to reserve judgment until I could see what this program was all about for myself.

  And once I saw what they were all about and heard the coach tell Sophie all the things she would have to do between now and next October if she was going to be able to play with the rest of the special needs kids? I nearly started crying.

  Coach Carlson let Sophie put on all her gear, including strapping into her rig, and get out on the ice with the rest of his team. He gave her a hockey stick, and the rest of us watched from the stands as one of the other kids taught her how to shoot the puck toward the net.