Ellen Hartman - Calling the Shots

John cleared his throat. “Actually, Tim’s mom is on her way here. Danny told me you were on the ice so when she said she had time, I figured we might as well lock it down. We can reschedule if we have to, but Allie can’t practice until this is settled.”

Bryan looked out the doors toward the lobby. Of course Clare wasn’t here yet. She couldn’t have gotten here so fast.

He wished he’d had time to plan what to say, but maybe this was better. Clare was brand-new territory for him. He could keep lying to himself or he could admit that he found her attractive. She was different from the other women he knew, self-contained and a little fierce. With the divorce finally sinking in those instincts he’d buried for so long were waking up again. It didn’t matter why he was attracted. He had to ignore it, end of story.

The important point was that Allie could play hockey if Clare went along with mediation. Persuasion was familiar ground at least; he was more than used to sales. Needing her cooperation and wanting her complicated the situation. Next time Allie decided to pick on someone, he certainly hoped the kid’s mom wasn’t cute.

“I’ll go change.” He lifted his hand, nodded at the other two and turned away. He felt their eyes on him as he walked around the edge of the ice to the locker room door. He’d come to the rink to leave his frustrations on the ice and instead everything and everyone had come crowding in with him.

He unbuckled his knee brace and let it slide to the floor while he rested against the cinder-block wall behind him. Digging in his pocket, he pulled out his cell phone. He typed in Allie’s number. She’d been the one who taught him to text, laughing at the typos his big fingers made on the tiny keypad.

“You okay?” he typed and then pressed Send. She wasn’t supposed to text in class, wasn’t even supposed to have her phone on, so there was a good chance she wouldn’t answer even if she wanted to. He set the phone next to his gloves on the bench. He waited but it sat silent.

If Allie texted him back before he got his skates off, he decided, that was the sign that Clare was going to be reasonable. He bent and untied the knot on his right skate. He didn’t dawdle, it wasn’t fair to try to manipulate a sign, but he couldn’t help noticing moisture on the skate blade which meant an extra careful wipe dry before he stowed the skate in his bag. He’d just tugged the lace out of the top set of holes on his left skate when the phone buzzed. He grabbed it, flipping the screen open. She’d texted back, “OK.”

He dropped the phone on the bench and tugged his skate off quickly. OK. He snorted. The two of them didn’t have a single conversational skill to split between them. Still, short and unsatisfying as OK was, she’d replied. He zipped his bag and wished he still believed in luck.

THE HOCKEY LEAGUE BOARD must have been up before dawn, Clare thought, if they’d had time to meet and still call her before Tim left for school. Fanatics were always so…fanatical.

She’d agreed to meet mostly just to get off the phone because she’d wanted to talk to Tim. But before she had a chance, he’d shouted that he was leaving and slammed the front door. She called his cell. When he answered, he said it was too cold to talk while he was walking.

She took a quick shower and then was lucky enough to get Lila Sykes, the mediator, on the phone, but that conversation hadn’t gone well, either. Lila had homed in on the fact that they moved a lot and most of her suggestions were aimed at making Tim feel at home in Twin Falls. Every time she said “settle” or “connect,” Clare felt more sure mediation was the wrong move for them at this time. Sure, she wanted Tim to enjoy himself while he was here, but they weren’t staying and there was no sense getting involved in a program that would make it harder to leave when her contract redesigning the data security for the Twin Falls Savings bank was up.

The hockey league would have to find another solution for Allie.

When Clare got to the rink, Danny Jackson and John Langenforth, the man she’d spoken to on the phone, met her in the same cluttered office off the lobby where she’d waited for Bryan the night before. They told her Bryan would be here soon and then excused themselves because there was an issue with the bylaws they should discuss in private.

She put her leather backpack down next to a chair, but she didn’t sit. She was chilly and nervous, on edge about this discussion and about Tim, and unhappy being in this room again.

The office was cold—probably people who spent their lives inside a hockey rink didn’t feel cold the way normal people did. Or maybe it was growing up in Twin Falls that made them impervious to cold. It was only November and already she’d forgotten that she even had toes, let alone what they felt like.

All signs of the confrontation last night were gone. All that was left, according to John Langenforth, was for her to agree to mediation and the entire incident would be swept away. Except the part where she didn’t trust Allie and didn’t want Tim playing hockey. And the part where she didn’t want any hand in mediation. And the part where she was worried about her family. Tim was pulling away so fast. Wishing for things she had no idea how to provide. She wasn’t even sure she knew what he wanted when he asked to stay in one place. Did he know?

Was it simply this?

A spot on this hockey team? Maybe the chance to belong to a place so the seasons became yours and you wouldn’t notice cold that would shock an outsider?

The walls of Danny’s office were covered with framed photos of kids and teams, and the desk was a clutter of files and magazines with sticky notes. Clare bet it would take her less than five minutes to find his online bank account and voice-mail passwords on those notes. After ten years in the computer security field, she never failed to be amazed at the cavalier attitude people took toward their private information. His password was probably hockey or puck. Men liked their passwords easy to type.

The door to the office opened, startling her away from the desk.

“Sorry,” Bryan said. “I thought Danny and John were in here.”

He had a hockey bag slung over his shoulder and a blue stick gripped in his right hand. He dropped the bag on the floor near the door, the chest and shoulder muscles under his shirt moving with tantalizing strength. His dark hair was damp, swept back from his forehead with little wings curling out around his ears and at the back of his collar. He must have just come from the shower; she caught a faint hint of soap and spicy aftershave.

He was wearing a navy crewneck sweater with a white T-shirt underneath and soft gray corduroys. When he straightened up, she was struck by how tall he was. She’d noticed the difference between him and Danny last night, but even on his own he was tall, and with his broad shoulders and the muscle she’d seen in his chest, he was…oh no. No.

Her body was not going to react to him. He was gorgeous and built, and in this tiny office with her he seemed to be breathing all the available air, but she was here for Tim, not chasing some guy. Bryan James was a parent, not a man.

She swallowed and tried to think about anything besides what it would feel like to tangle her fingers in the hair at the base of his neck.

“They stepped out to look at the bylaws,” she said. “They should be back any minute.”

He nodded, his mouth tight. Was he angry? Nervous? As confused about his kid as she was?

He sat in the same chair he’d been in last night and she stayed where she was near the wall of photos. Snow slid off the roof overhead with a crunching grind and they both glanced up, but neither of them said anything.