by B. T. Lord
Urged on by Doc, Cammie decided to keep her father’s cabin. She’d barely moved in before Twin Ponds’ mayor tracked her down and asked that she run for county sheriff. The old sheriff, who at best guess was at least a hundred and twenty years old, (or so Cammie believed), was finally retiring. Mayor Barnes knew Cammie’s past law enforcement experience in Seattle would be a coup for the small town. It was certainly more experience than any of their previous sheriffs ever had. And after dealing with the worst a big city could offer, Cammie was tempted to take a job where the most unpleasant offences had to do with drunk and disorderly conduct or getting lost in the dense forests that surrounded Twin Ponds.
Now here she was, trying her best to recover from both the physical and emotional wounds of the shooting. As usual, Doc was there for her. After repairing the damage to her shoulder, he’d offered to put her up until she was able to function on her own. For Cammie, accepting his offer was a complete no brainer. Not only did he live in a custom made, luxuriously comfortable log cabin on the shores of Waban Pond, but he was an excellent cook. Cammie was not. Compared with her diet of corn flakes, saltines and cheese whiz, and the slightly lumpy mattress in her cabin, she would have been certifiable to turn him down. The additional appeal of the bed from paradise and the shower from heaven cinched the deal.
Throughout the weeks of her recovery, she was kept apprised of what was going on around town through the daily phone calls and visits of her deputy, Rick Belleveau. Half Native American and half French Canadian, Rick was doing an excellent job of running the police department in her absence. Already depressed over the aftermath of the shooting, and the struggle to gain back her strength, the fact that her presence at HQ seemed superfluous wasn’t helping her any in the emotional department.
During one of his visits, while regaling her with the gossip that was the lifeblood of Twin Ponds, he inadvertently let some information slip that only added to her depression. Too proud to show how much it affected her, she managed to fool him into thinking she was fine. However, as soon as she closed the door behind him, she fell into a dark, morose mood. Attuned to her mental state, Doc thought whacking a puck around would help ease her growing malaise and save his priceless artwork if she ever decided to go postal.
Once upon a time, in a lifetime that seemed as remote as the moon, Cammie had been a phenom on the ice. In an area where most kids were born holding a hockey stick, she’d played right wing with the local team, the Night Hawks. She was so fast, no one could touch her. But that was fifteen years ago.
She’d been great, no doubt about that. If she didn’t pick up a hockey stick, she could still pretend she was great. She could still hold on to the glory of her past. With everything she’d been through lately, why add a further dose of reality into the mix?
But Doc had inherited a healthy portion of the New England Yankee stubbornness that ran through his lineage. Once he set his mind on something, he didn’t give up.
Ever.
Astutely understanding the roots of her growing misery and listlessness, he tried everything from promising to cook Cammie her favorite meals, to buying top of the line hockey equipment for her. When these enticements failed to rouse her, he had no choice but to play dirty.
He threatened to throw her out of his home.
As expected, the thought of returning to her small rustic cabin on the other side of town and face what she was not yet ready to face finally got her out onto the ice.
Now here she was, two weeks into trying to get her rhythm back, and she still hadn’t scored a goal. Not one crummy, stinking goal. Not even close. At this point, she stood the same chance of scoring a goal as winning the Miss America Pageant. If there was any consolation to the nightly frustration fest, it was that she at least remembered how to skate.
She took a deep lungful of cold night air and slowly let it out through her nose, watching it vaporize and swirl away in wispy furls in the glare of the halogen lights Doc had set up on shore that lit up enough of the pond to actually hold a game. If she was so inclined. Which she was not.
She looked back to the empty goalie net and sighed. Maybe she was expecting too much from herself. Fifteen years was a long time to be away from any sport. It was logical that everything would feel awkward; the style and finesse of old completely gone. Yet just as she’d once braved frigid temperatures to practice night after night, she wasn’t going to allow her rustiness to defeat her. Nor could she deny that if she didn’t get her ass moving in any kind of physical activity, it was soon going to be bigger than the sectional couch in Doc’s living room. Her once athletically lean 5 ft 8 inch body was growing out in directions that were horrifying. Doc’s gourmet cooking was hard to turn down, but it was leaving her looking like the huge, gelatinous creature in the old 1950’s Steve McQueen movie, The Blob.
She glanced at her shadow reflected on the ice, and noted how even her silhouette looked like a huge pimple on the surface of the ice.
“Ugh,” she groused aloud as she began to skate in a tight circle.
You can do this. Just give yourself time. You suffered a gunshot wound, for pity’s sake. You really think it’s all going to come back to you so soon? Honestly, Cammie --
Thwack!
Jerked out of her reverie by the sharp sound, she watched the puck bounce away from her stick. She scanned the darkness where the halogen light didn’t reach. At first, all she saw were shadows. Then a figure detached itself from the gloom and skated towards her. Her heart skidded to a stop when she recognized who it was.
“Hey,” he greeted.
It was Jace Northcott.
Shit.
It had been almost three months since she’d last seen him. Twelve weeks to bury the pain of their break-up. Too many nights swearing she wouldn’t cry, even as she did cry. The murder investigation that had led to her being shot did more than tear a hole in her shoulder. It tore a huge hole in hers and Jace’s relationship. Her shoulder was healing. Their relationship was not.
Seeing him approach, an image immediately rose up in her mind’s eye -- her standing in the middle of her cabin, watching him walk past her with his stuff. Hearing his truck pull away. Feeling so utterly alone, that she’d dug out her late father’s bottle of single malt scotch and contemplated following dear old dad down a well-worn path to complete oblivion. Jace was the first man in a very long time she’d begun to open her heart to. She’d long ago given up trusting in relationships, but she’d slowly begun to realize Jace was different. There were no head games; Jace was honest and loving, and it took her a while to realize that what he said, he meant.
Unfortunately, at the moment she was finally ready to completely let down her guard and engage 110% in the relationship, he’d stomped on her heart and thrown what they had away. The pain of that betrayal had been so great, she’d taken two large gulps of Dad’s scotch.
Then gagged. And immediately put the bottle away.
The scotch soured her stomach, just as the memories of her father sitting in his sullen, drunken silences soured her mind. No one was worth repeating a pattern that had once caused her so much heartache.
The bitterness of their break-up sent her reeling back into that place of darkness in her soul. However, unlike the past, this time she refused to let it get the better of her. She wasn’t the first human being to be emotionally ravaged by a relationship, nor would she be the last. Shit happens and her relationship with Jace was one of those things that unfortunately happened.
She was a big girl. This was just one more experience in a lifetime of experiences. Once her shoulder healed, she’d get back into her routine, which included getting back to work. Even if things weren’t exactly back to normal, she’d carry on. She’d done it before. She’d do it again.
Now here he was, his tall, lean body skating across the ice towards her. Easy, slow, with no hesitation, while she --? She wasn’t sure how she felt. All she knew was that her palms were sweating inside the heavy gloves she wore, and she was holding
onto her hockey stick so tightly, it was a miracle it hadn’t snapped.
He wore his forest green parka with a furry bomber hat over his dark hair. In the pool of light from the halogen lamps, she noticed he was sporting two days growth of bristles on his face.
Damn, he looks good, she thought to herself before realizing it didn’t matter how he looked. They were over. Done with. Kaput. End of story.
“You taking up hockey again?” he asked as he crossed his arms over his upright hockey stick and quietly regarded her with his midnight blue eyes.
She had to answer him. She couldn’t stand there without saying something. Nor could she, in good conscience, beat him over the head with her hockey stick without at least saying hello first.
“It’s good therapy for the arm,” she shrugged.
“How is it?”
She shrugged a second time. “Still a bit stiff, but getting there.” She looked past him into the dark, curiosity getting the better of her. “Did you skate all the way over from the clubhouse?”
Jace was captain of the current roster of Night Hawks team members. They had their shack, euphemistically called the clubhouse, on the other side of Waban Pond. Practice was every other night, though at this late hour, they should have been done hours ago.
“No.”
“Then how did you get here?”
“I parked in Doc’s driveway.”
“I didn’t hear you.”
“I know. You were so pissed at missing the net, you probably wouldn’t have heard Sasquatch crashing through the forest.”
She inwardly fumed. She’d hoped to keep her lousy playing under wraps. The last thing she wanted was anyone, especially Jace, witness her failure in a sport she’d once been so good at.
“Why are you here?” she asked brusquely.
Instead of taking offense at her curt tone, he smiled at her. “I came to help you improve your game.”
She sucked in her breath. “Have you been watching me?”
“Haven’t had much of a choice. You know how I like to practice a bit longer after the guys have packed up and gone. For the past two weeks, I’ve noticed a lonely figure all the way on the other side of the pond. Now, I wouldn’t have given it much thought. Actually tried to ignore it. Unfortunately, I kept hearing a string of curse words echoing across the ice that could only come from you. That, combined with the thwack of your hockey stick, followed by another long string of cursing finally made me curious. So I came over to check it out.” He leaned forward on his stick, resting his chin on his gloves. His eyes glimmered with a mischievous twinkle. “What do you say to a game of pick-up?”
“Won’t Mary Wallis miss you? It’s late.”
As the poisonous words slipped from her lips, her fingers once again tightly gripped her hockey stick. She knew Rick felt terrible for letting it slip that Jace had taken up with Mary barely a month after their break-up. The town was aflame with the news that the two were thinking of moving in together.
Still, the pain she’d been feeling now found its release. She gave him a defiant stare. As if daring him to deny he’d been sleeping with Mary. He looked at her for a long moment. To her surprise, he chuckled.
“She’ll get over it.” He reached across with his stick and expertly flipped up the puck from the icy surface, catching it in his gloved hand. Gliding across the ice, he skated to the right side of the net and dropped the puck. “I promise to go easy on you.”
Cammie bristled. The bastard was goading her. If she were smart, she’d turn around and leave him to freeze his ass out on the ice. She was about to excoriate him for being so presumptuous when she caught sight once again of her massive bulk reflected on the ice. Jeez, she really did look like Moby Dick.
Bouncing between saving her pride or her vanity, vanity won out. She pivoted on her skate and called out over her shoulder, “You’re on.”
They played for 30 minutes. At the fast pace, she was already pushing the limits of her diminished stamina. Yet, playing against a talented opponent, she found her old rhythm resurfacing. Just before she was ready to collapse in an exhausted heap, she finally managed to hit the puck into the net.
“Yes!” she shrieked, pumping the air with her good arm. Jubilant that she’d finally scored, and drained by her efforts, she skated over to the large, flat topped rock near the shore and gratefully plopped down. Despite her fatigue, she felt exhilarated and more alive than she’d felt in a long time.
Jace skated up and sat down next to her. “Not bad,” he said. “A few more nights like this and you’ll be able to rejoin the team.”
He reached behind her and she involuntarily stiffened, expecting him to put his arm around her. To her chagrin, she saw him pull out his backpack from behind the rock. She turned her face so he wouldn’t see the embarrassment burning her cheeks.
“With the way I’m playing, 80 year old Elmer Fontenau could outskate and outshoot me,” she mumbled as she bent down to untie her skates.
“You’re just rusty, that’s all. It’s been –what – fifteen years since you picked up a hockey stick?”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
Slipping out of her skates and pulling on her boots, she felt Jace’s close proximity, the heat of his thigh pressed against hers, his parka sleeve rubbing along her own sleeve. Out on the ice, she’d been so focused on not looking like an idiot, she’d found respite from her tangled emotions regarding her ex-boyfriend. Despite her resolve to throw Jace into the ‘relationships that blew up’ bin and move on with her life, all those emotions now came tumbling back. Memories of almost dying three months ago. His name on her frozen lips as she bled out onto the snow. Finally shedding years of mistrust to open up to him, only to have him walk past her and out their cabin door. Swearing she’d never, ever leave herself that vulnerable again.
“If you want, I’ll meet you out here same time tomorrow.”
Enraged that he could sound so casual after what had happened between them, she whirled around and glared at him. “What is this all about?”
He blinked at her. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t bullshit me, Jace. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Why are you here?”
She watched as he looked out over the frozen pond for a long moment before heaving a heavy sigh, his steamed breath dissipating above their heads.
“I – um – I wanted to see you. Make sure you were okay.”
“You’ve had three months to make sure I was okay.”
“I know, I know. I just wasn’t sure you wanted to see me.”
“What do you expect? It wasn’t me who walked out of our cabin. It wasn’t me who took up with someone else right before Christmas. If you’ve been waiting all this time for me to apologize for what happened, you can get back in your truck and get the hell out of here right now.”
“I don’t want you to apologize. I know you were doing your job.”
When Eli Kelley, the legendary hockey player and Twin Ponds number one son, was found murdered, Jace had unwittingly become caught in the maelstrom of the investigation. Despite Cammie’s efforts to catch the real killer, the mistrust and suspicions had ruptured their relationship. She eyed him now with a wariness that had once been such an integral part of her, and which she thought she’d shed when she took up with the man seated next to her.
“Right. It was ‘doing my job’ that caused you to walk out on us. What’s happened to change your mind? Did you suddenly have an epiphany? Or is Mary so lousy in bed that it made you think you could waltz back here and make me forget what a shit you were?”
The words were ugly. And meant to maim. The darkness that had hovered around her for the last three months burst forth in all its ferocity.
The night air grew chillier as it picked up the frigidness in her soul. Jace opened and closed his mouth several times, but no words came out. Cammie looked away. She was suddenly very tired. And in no mood to continue hacking away at him with cutting remarks and angry words. She wanted no
thing more than to distance herself from all of this, from him.
She slowly got to her feet, grabbed her hockey stick, and swinging her skates over her good shoulder, started up the incline towards Doc’s house.
“I thought I could forget you!” Jace shouted, his words echoing over the frozen pond and surrounding forest. “I thought I could move on from that whole mess with you and me and Eli and start over. I thought Mary could help me with that. But I can’t. And she can’t.”
Cammie heard his boots crunch in the snow as he raced up the hill and planted himself squarely in her path. “You’re right. I was a shit. I was worse than a shit. I was so wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself that I didn’t realize what I was doing to you. I’m sorry for all that and maybe you can’t forgive me. Maybe we won’t ever be the way we were before--” he hesitated, then continued “—before what happened. But I want – you see – what I need to say is -- aw fuck!”
He grabbed her free hand. “Look, I’m completely messing this up. But the bottom line is that I miss you, Cammie. I miss you so much, it hurts. I can’t stop thinking about you. I love you and I want you back in my life. You’re everything to me.”
Cammie felt the warmth of his touch seeping through her glove, the weight of his hands enveloping hers. She forced herself to meet his gaze as she slipped free of his grasp.
“You’re right, Jace. We won’t ever be the way we were before.”
She sidestepped him and continued up the hill. A moment later, he jumped in front of her again.
“I’m sorry for not coming sooner to see you. I wanted to. I really did. Every time I saw Doc, I asked about you. If you don’t believe me, ask him. He’ll tell you. If you’d needed anything, you know I would have been there for you. I’ve been looking after the cabin. Plowing it out and making sure everything is okay. What happened – it was tough on both of us. You worked so hard to find Eli’s killer. I was just too stupid and stubborn to see it at the time.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Even if you can’t forgive me, don’t hate me.”