Annette Blair (13 page)

Only one problem: He had quite the range of players—Mites, Squirts, Pee Wees, Bantams, and Midgets. Talk about an informal mix. How he would eventually separate them into teams, he had no idea.

“Right now I want you to test the feel of the stick in your hand,” he told the boys. “No, no swinging the stick. That’s right, blade to the ice. Now see if you can skate with the blade. Whoops!”

Jason helped a couple of the boys get back up. “Travis,” he said, “you’ve got Gordon’s hat at the end of your stick. That’s why raising the stick is dangerous. Give Gordon his hat back and put the blade to the ice now. That’s it. We wouldn’t want to see Gordon’s head hanging there, now would we?”

The boys’ mirth gave Jason a chance to regroup and reorganize. “Now,” Jason said, “a man’s hockey stick is one of his most prized possessions.” He couldn’t stop himself from glancing over the boys’ heads at Kira when he said it.

In true Kira fashion, she stroked the hockey stick she
was holding suggestively, just enough to make him a little bit uncomfortable, then she raised it in challenge, as if it were a sword.

Jason rolled his eyes and turned back to his “team,” watching the boys find their levels as they skated, blades down, mostly. He’d let them get the feel of the stick for a while.

If he found them tripping over it, he’d choose something else. He needed to be certain each stick was the right size for the height and weight of the boy.

When he looked back at the bench, Kira and Zane were, literally, sword fighting with their hockey sticks. “Kira, no!” Jason shouted. “That’s not a good example—”

Sure enough, a couple of the monkeys on the ice had turned to swordplay. Others tried jousting, charging each other, sticks straight, body parts in dire peril.

Jason blew his whistle. “Cut that out! This isn’t a medieval tournament, it’s a hockey lesson.”

Too late. A jousting skater took a stick to the gut, went flying backward, and took out three others in the process.

Jason took it slow crossing to center ice, helping everyone up, making certain no one was hurt. Steady on his feet, he got them all standing, and made it to the red line without a fall, glad he’d purchased the climbing boots for their grip alone.

In the neutral zone he broke up the sword fights. “Sticks to the ice,” he ordered, and the boys complied. “Now find a puck,” he said, “and do what I do.”

Jason showed them how to control the puck with the stick, walking it, working it, then the hard part, doing that while skating.

Travis saw his brother sitting with Kira, playing cards, and finally let himself skate, stick and puck under full control. Wow. He was more than a natural; he was a winner. Funny how he’d held himself back, as if he couldn’t have fun unless Zane did. What a great kid.

Twelve-year-old Brad, the oldest and professed leader,
jumped the gun and tried a shot to goal. He scored and the boys cheered, a dangerous precedent to set. Jason tried to say so, but the boys were too noisy to hear him because they were smacking pucks in all directions.

Shit!

A puck bounced off the wall near Kira’s head, and she pulled off a smothering save. Rather than throwing her body on a puck, she threw herself on Zane to protect him.

Jason grabbed the rising blade of a stick before it made hard contact with Travis’s head, and yelled, “Freeze!”

As a puck hit Jason in the temple, and a runaway skater hooked his ankles with his stick, and pulled his feet smack out from under him, the boys froze . . . and Jason hit the ice.

WHEN
Jason’s focus returned, he found himself flat on his back on the ice, with at least two dozen pairs of eyes looking down at him.

A screech and a curse from Kira made him turn his head. Running in his direction, she slipped, tried to regain her balance, fell forward, and bellied his way, breaking the land-speed record for beached witches on ice.

On her way, she took out half the team.

It rained freaking hockey sticks. “Oomph.” Jason took one in the shoulder, and one in the gut, before he stopped Kira’s forward surge with his prone body.

She landed across him, which felt pretty good, until she elbowed herself up by crushing his nuts.

“Geeeezzzzzuhhhh.” Jason cupped himself.

The boys stopped laughing and winced.

“Cups,” Jason groaned. “Cups . . . next time.”

Kira turned so red, holly berries would be lost in her blush. After a two-second moratorium, honoring the loss of his
manhood, a distant giggling echo in the huge arena became infectious.

Zane was literally rolling on the floor, laughing so hard, he was holding his belly. Jason chuckled at the sight, and the boys did, too, except Travis, who looked as if he’d been hit by a puck.

Zane’s laughter was the happiest sound Jason had ever heard, but Travis had tears in his eyes.

On her knees Kira hugged Travis and kept an arm around his waist. “You okay, buddy?”

“I never seen him do that before.”

Kira turned to Jason, and she didn’t even have to say a word; he knew what she was thinking. “I know,” he said.

“Some things are just worth doing,” she said, before she focused on his throbbing temple and reached toward the bruise.

“Don’t touch,” he snapped.

She retrieved her hand. “Bet you say that to all the girls.” She laughed at her own joke. “Does it hurt?”

“Is it blue?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then it hurts.”

“How’s your back?”

“Wait, geez,” he said, softening his words with a hand on her arm, and sitting up. “Boys, I said freeze. Move one more muscle and this is your last day at the rink.”

They stood like statues, one or two poised to whack pucks, or each other.

“Good,” Jason said. “Stay that way. Just give me a sec and we’ll do a controlled warm-up. From this moment on, you will not make a move on this ice until I tell you.”

He sat up and realized that Kira had an arm around his shoulders as if she were helping him. He tapped her cold nose with a finger. “You can go back and sit with Zane. I’m fine.”

She rose with difficulty, so he held her ankles to help steady her, which turned out to be an extra treat.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked.

“This is nothing, believe me. Be careful walking back. Don’t try to run this time.” He quirked a brow to remind her of their first time in the rink. “Ice is . . . dangerous.”

“Yeah,” she said, “I remember.”

“Try wearing skates next time,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She waved his words away, as she walked gingerly back across the rink.

Jason didn’t look at the boys until Kira was safe on the bench. Zane covered her with the stadium blanket she’d used on him earlier. Then he brought her a hot chocolate.

“At ease,” Jason said to the boys, and when they relaxed, he told them to freeze again. Then he took Brad, the boy who’d made the unauthorized goal, by the shoulders, and walked him to the edge of the ice, away from the others.

He needed Brad Davis, oldest, professed leader, and troublemaker par excellence, on
his
side.

“Whasup?” Brad said, defensive stance in gear, excuse at the ready.

“The boys look up to you,” Jason said. “I can see that, and you seem to know your way around a rink, so I’m thinking you might be the team captain. But . . . that means you’re their leader; it means that you have to lead by example. Do what I say. Show them the meaning of rule-following and teamwork.”

Struck speechless, Brad’s expression could only be interpreted as amazed, and up for the challenge, maybe. He finally nodded, likely after deciding he wasn’t getting screwed.

“Good,” Jason said, clapping him on the back. “Let’s say I make it official in a week or so, after I see how good a leader you really are.”

Another nod and Brad turned away.

“Hey,” Jason said, “is that red paint on your sleeve?”

Brad covered the spot with his hand, his expression saying he’d known this was too good to be true. He raised his chin.

Jason raised his. “I’ll have no more of that. You’re almost a team captain now. I’m gonna trust you to lead by example . . . in
everything
you do. Got it?”

Almost a smile, almost a nod, definite relief. “Got it.”

Jason had Brad help him put the rink rats in line for warm-ups, little guys first, so they wouldn’t be intimidated by what the big guys could accomplish.

“When you get to the front of the line,” Jason told the boys, “you’re gonna tell me your name so I can learn it. When I tell you to move,” he said, “and not a minute before, that’s when I want you to skate from the red line, sticks to the ice, while you walk the puck toward that goal. When I yell ‘shoot,’ I want you to try to get the puck into the net.

“Whether you succeed or fail, after you shoot once, and only once, I want you to skate back here and get at the end of the line. No punching, shoving, spitting, or cussing. Just wait for your next turn in an orderly fashion. Got that?”

Brad nodded, so the rest did, but Jason shook his head. “I want more enthusiasm than that. Say, ‘Yes, Coach’ nice and loud.”

Jason grinned when they did, so did Brad, and so did Kira and Zane. “Louder,” Jason said, twice more before he was satisfied and all eyes were bright, all hands eager.

He’d tried to make them feel like real hockey players, but damned if he hadn’t made himself feel like a real coach, instead.

He had Brad collect the scattered pucks, put them in the bucket, and bring them over.

Warm-ups took the rest of practice.

Jason was so tired that night that he passed on supper with Gram, grabbed a muffin, and headed upstairs. Kira grabbed an apple. Neither said a word in the elevator.

Bone tired and sore, in both cases, Jason was sure, they parted to go to their respective doors in silence.

Jason took a couple of aspirin and went right to bed, but
the pain in his knee, and his empty stomach, woke him around ten. He hurt like a bastard, and his knee was roughly the size of a soccer ball. He’d overworked it, and there was only one thing that would help. He needed to ice it.

“Fuck,” he said when he stood and tried to straighten. Not only his knee, but his ass, his shoulders, the back of his head, his temple, and the ankle where he’d been stick-hooked hurt like a son of a bitch.

Unable to bend enough to reach his robe, he gave up. “Screw that,” he said. “Hurts too much.”

Who would see him anyway? Kira had surely been asleep for hours.

Stooped like a ninety-year-old, Jason made his plodding way toward the kitchen, flipped the switch, and found Kira standing before the open fridge.

She turned her startled gaze his way, a jar of chocolate sauce in one hand, the spoon she was licking in the other.

Wearing turquoise silk lady-boxers and a matching half top, her midriff as bare as her breasts beneath, her naked torso was outlined by the fridge light behind her, in tantalizing relief, down to the pebbled nubbins on her beautifully lush breasts.

Jason memorized every line, as finely sculpted as a French bronze, every crest and hollow so well put together, she rivaled a work of art. He wished he dared kneel before her to trace the curves with his fingers.

He ached to palm the globes of her breasts and taste her darkly shaded center until she came, just there where she stood, just for him, the cool air blessing them, nothing and no one to come between them.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“No,” he said, moving her way, having trouble walking now for a whole new reason.

“I’m sorry,” he added. “I didn’t know you were in here.”

“Are you limping? Oooh ouch, look at that prune on your forehead. It’s as big as a plum. It’s not blue anymore, though. It’s purple and yellow with dried blood on it.” She
replaced the cover on the chocolate sauce, put it back in the refrigerator, and shut the door. Then she saw his knee. “Cripes,” she said, opening the freezer. “You gotta get off that leg.”

“Yeah, well, I needed to get some ice first. Thanks.” He accepted a couple of frozen gel slabs and turned to go.

“Wait a minute. Come here,” she said, taking his arm and leading him toward her suite. “You need some serious first aid. Oh, for pity’s sake, stop being so macho and lean on me, will you?”

The fact that he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers made Jason hesitate, though at least his were black and opaque, never mind that she was wearing, well, not a whole lot more, and he could see through hers.

But his knee, and a wide range of other parts, hurt so much, he gave in and slipped his arm around her bare waist and let her help him. Her naked midriff felt incredibly soft against his hand. He splayed his fingers to see if he could reach her breast. Close enough. Nice.

At least one part of him hadn’t been damaged. The most important part. Harvey was in fine form.

When she got him to her sofa and bent to raise his foot to a pillow on her coffee table, Jason got a glimpse down the front of her top. Same naked breasts as date night with the candy-ass, same lovely navel, though her belly button ring was small and less flashy. And he caught sight of a few new freckles he’d like to explore.

He could, in fact, see every incredible inch of her, including her nipples and the wide band of rose surrounding them. He covered his pounding heart with a hand. After a sight that awesome, he was surely doomed to going blind.