Janet Evanovich - Hero at Large

Chris stopped at the front door and read the professionally made sign. The rink was closed for alterations and would reopen under new management in a week. Chris was dumbfounded. There had been no warnings, no rumors. She had a skater en route to Nationals, and she didn’t have a skating rink. She rested her forehead against the glass door. When things started to go sour, they certainly went all the way…

She heard the familiar growl of a Nissan pickup and wheeled around to see Ken park the truck and spring from the cab, a massive set of keys jangling in his hand. With a grim set to his jaw, he opened the front door and pulled Chris inside. Without saying a word, he walked directly to the office and switched on the parking lot lights. He flipped on the rink lights and the lobby heater.

Chris still stood in the office doorway. “Let me guess. You bought the rink.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I needed a tax break, and I thought this would be more fun than Darby Hills.”

Chris felt a bewildering flood of emotions rushing through her: joy at seeing him; anger that her agony would be prolonged indefinitely; fear over her inability to resist him; and, perhaps most immediate, anxiety bordering on terror that her skaters wouldn’t have a home. Chris swallowed and ordered her heart to stop racing. “What do you plan to do with the rink?”

“Operate it at a loss…at least in the beginning.” He moved with efficient determination, his mouth unsmiling, his eyes glacier blue and just as cold. He pulled a contract out of his briefcase. “I’m offering you a job as head coach. I’m prepared to offer you a salary for helping me with scheduling and organizational problems. The rink will own exclusive rights to your services. The rink will take fifteen percent of all earnings from private and group lessons and in exchange will do bookkeeping, provide medical insurance, retirement benefits, and so on. You can read over the terms. The other coaches will get similar contracts, with the exception of salary.”

Chris stared, dazed, at the cool businessman standing in front of her. He looked like Ken Callahan in jeans and a navy hooded sweatshirt, but, without a shadow of a doubt, this man was Knight.

He took a schedule card from the top of the desk. “The other coaches will have the week off with pay. If you accept the job, you can begin now by drawing up a tentative schedule. The hockey teams have been notified and relocated to other rinks. It’s up to you whether we have public skating or not. I know you get a lot of your young skaters through learn-to-skate group lessons. You might want to keep a few public skating sessions so those kids and their parents can hack around together.”

Chris made an effort to subdue the excitement that was gurgling in her chest. If she understood correctly, he was turning the rink into a training facility for competitive skaters. She could finally get her skaters enough ice time to keep them here! The joy was lessened by the suspicion that this was all for her, that he was just being nice, again. She stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets. “You’re doing this for me, aren’t you?”

His reaction was angry and abrupt. “I’m doing this for myself. It’s a tax break. It’s a toy. Sign the contract if you want the job. I’ll be here for the rest of the day to get things started. Tomorrow, I leave for Chicago and my foreman will complete the renovation. If you have any questions, I’ll be out by the ice. We’re installing a new ceiling that eventually should cut down on the electric bill.”

Chris turned away, blinking back tears. She was relieved to hear the office door close and his long strides disappear in the direction of the rink. She clenched her fists and shut her eyes tight. Well, he was following her directions. He had moved out of her house, and he had disengaged himself emotionally from her life. It was what she’d wanted then-and still wanted now-but she couldn’t help feeling a terrible sense of loss. She looked at the closed door and knew that this was her doing. She’d sent him away. But the speed and the extent of his disentanglement was shocking. What really hurt the most was the undeniable fact that she’d been right. Knight had squashed Callahan like a bug-just as she’d known he eventually would. Knight was cold and selfish and ruthlessly strong. Chris looked at the contract she held in her fist. She narrowed her eyes at the jumble of printed words. “Okay,” she breathed, “I can do this. I can deal with Kenneth Knight.” Unclenching her fists, she smoothed the wrinkles from the pieces of paper and threw the office door open, almost knocking a painter off his ladder. “Excuse me.”

The man clung to the doorjamb. “You must be the redhead that breaks people’s bones. I’ve been warned about you.”

Chris gnashed her teeth and growled, “Where is he?”

The painter smiled and pointed to the rink. “I think he’s hanging ceiling.”

Chris marched to the ice surface. Several men were on scaffolding, struggling to place slabs of aluminum-covered styrofoam on a gridwork of metal girders. Chris stomped to the scaffold holding Ken and gave it a kick.

He grabbed a metal handrail and looked down at her in annoyed surprise.

“I’m not paying fifteen percent to the rink,” she told him. “I’ll only pay ten.”

“You’re paying ten now, and you’re not getting any benefits. It’s costing you a fortune to buy your own medical and life insurance. If you sit down and figure it out, you’ll see that you’re better off under my management.”

“Ten percent.”

“Fifteen.”

“Take it and stick it-”

He glared down at her. His voice was lethally calm. “You have some very talented, very nice young people depending on you to be here when this rink opens. And you have an obligation to help Patti through Nationals. It may not have occurred to you, yet, but I’ve got you by the short hairs. This is the only show in town. You train your skaters at this rink or not at all. These kids aren’t going to travel to Baltimore to train every day, and they can’t be accommodated at the other Virginia rinks.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“So I’ve been told…and don’t forget ruthless. Even Newsweek said I was ruthless.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “Is there anything else?”

“Have you been telling people I break bones?” she hissed.

“Most of these men are my friends. I felt they needed to be warned.”

“What else did you tell them about me?”

“To treat you with respect and to stay far away…and never ever to stop and help you on the highway.”

Chris glowered at him for a second, then turned on her heel and swished from the rink. “Hideous, insufferable son of a beet,” she ground out. She slammed the contract down on the office desk and slashed her name across the bottom. Kenneth Knight, she fumed. The man was lower than slime! He was using her sense of responsibility to make her sign a superior contract. What nerve. She paced the office like a caged lioness. She threw the office door open and stormed back to the rink. She approached Ken’s scaffold and gave it another kick.

Ken scrambled to maintain his balance, reaching frantically for the handrail. “What the devil? Now what?” He scowled down at Chris.

“I…you…unk!” She threw her hands into the air in exasperation.

“Could you be more precise?”

“Fiend!”

“Two weeks ago you told me I was adorable.”

“Ken Callahan was adorable. Kenneth Knight is unscrupulous and despicable.”

His black brows drew together. His eyes changed from ice blue to ebony as he swung lithely down from the platform at the top of the scaffolding to the ice. “Ken Callahan and Kenneth Knight are the same person. You’re inventing a double identity and creating a mythical bad guy because you’re scared to commit yourself to a permanent relationship. I might be despicable in your eyes, but I’m not unscrupulous. I presented you with a good contract.”