It Had to Be You (Christiansen Family) (19 page)

He started to get up, but Eden grabbed his sleeve. “Seriously, Jace?” She appeared almost angry. “She said it because she meant it. She loved you
 
—it didn’t matter if you played hockey or not.”

“She gave up a lot for me, Eden. She was going to school to be a nurse when she got pregnant with me. Her parents kicked her out of the house, so she quit school, started working at a bar, and that was our life. She died of lung cancer
 
—didn’t smoke a day in her life.”

She frowned. “You blame yourself for your mother’s choices, how it all turned out.”

He lifted a shoulder.

“Jace, you can’t carry that. Your mother made her own choices, and she chose you. Because you were worth it. Are worth it. You’re an amazing guy.”

Her words wove inside him, wrapped around him.

And then, because it felt easier than arguing, easier than putting words to all the emotion roiling through him, he grabbed her scarf and tugged her to him.

Then he kissed her.

Her lips were cold and tasted of snow, but all the feelings bottled in his chest rushed out
 
—anger and regret and appreciation and . . . desire. The idea of holding Eden, of hiding in her embrace, fueled him as he curled a hand behind her neck, pulling her closer.

Except . . . except she wasn’t kissing him back.

The realization came to him like a slap, and he pulled away, a coldness sliding through him. Oh . . . no . . .

She stared at him, wide-eyed.

“Eden, I’m so sorry. I
 
—wow. I’m not sure where that came from.”

“It’s okay, Jace,” she said but looked away fast, wiping her mitten across her cheek. “I get it. It’s been a crazy day, and of course, I probably came on to you a little. I didn’t mean to send you mixed signals.”

Mixed signals? If sitting in the snow with him constituted coming on to him . . . yeah, well, he’d had Zamboni drivers who flirted with him more than Eden did.

Which should have been a red-flag alert, a truth he’d bullied right past.

“No
 
—it’s not you. I’m sorry, Eden. I guess I’m still learning what ‘just friends’ means. I totally plowed over that line. I’m calling a penalty on myself.” He tried to laugh.

She was getting up, backing away from him, affecting a let’s-forget-it smile. “No problem. Hey, so maybe we should get back to the house.” She turned away from him, and he closed his eyes.

Every headline, every accusation rushed back at him. She didn’t say it, and frankly, his kiss seemed tame compared to his pre-Christian lip-locks, but still, Eden probably thought he’d nearly attacked her.

Maybe he should pack, tonight.

Except then she turned back, extending her hand to him, forgiveness in her eyes, and he was a pitiful sap because he drank it in. Taking her hand, he followed her out of the enchanted forest to the truck.

Just friends. Okay, he could do that.

Really.

“What kind of idiot am I?” Eden lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, warm under her blankets against the chill in the room.

“I don’t know; what kind?” Grace said, huddled in her own bed. Amelia also lay under her covers, headphones plugged into her ears, feigning sleep.

Admittedly, it felt as if they’d traveled back in time to high school and late-night conversations about boys, but, well, this qualified. “Jace kissed me this afternoon.”

“What?” Grace sat up in bed, a shadow streaming across the ceiling. “He kissed you? Oh, I knew he liked you. The way he was looking at you tonight, a sort of tenderness on his face
 
—”

“That wasn’t tenderness. That was horror. Or confusion. Because . . . I didn’t kiss him back.”

Grace got up and came over to Eden’s bed, sat down on the edge. “What do you mean you didn’t kiss him back?”

“He grabbed my scarf and pulled me to him and kissed me, and I was so shocked that I just . . . sort of sat there.”

“But you didn’t push him away.”

“Would you?”

Grace smiled. “Hmm . . . Six feet four of pure muscle, tease, and temptation? Nope.”

“Grace!”

“I’m just saying, a guy like that kisses you and you don’t kiss him back?”

“I was going to
 
—I mean, I think so. But he made such a big deal about us being friends that I couldn’t catch up. You should have seen him in the car on the drive up. He practically made me repeat after him, a solemn oath. ‘Just friends.’”

“Well, apparently he’s not quite as serious about that as you are. As usual.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, Eden. You’re so . . . well, excuse me for saying this, but tightly wound.”

“I just needed a second more to catch up.”

“And then what
 
—you would have leaped into his arms and kissed him until the snow melted around you?”

Eden laughed. “You’ve been reading too many romance novels.”

“And you don’t read enough of them.”

“I do, actually. A stack of them.”

“You just don’t think they apply to you.”

“They are fiction. As in,
not true
.”

“You don’t think you can get the handsome, hunky alpha male?”

Eden glanced at Amelia.

“She’s not a child anymore. Trust me, when her boyfriend kisses her, she doesn’t stand there like a board.”

“I can hear you.” Amelia pulled out one earbud. “Kiss him
back, Eden. He’s hot. And nice. He purposely didn’t send me back to start tonight when he had the chance.”

“He was too busy taking out Casper,” Eden said. “Remind me to be on Jace’s team next time we play Sorry!”

“I can’t figure out why you haven’t joined yet. Jace is a great guy
 
—”

“Jace is a superstar. A celebrity. He could have anyone.”

Grace took Eden’s hand. “And he picked you.”

“No. Really. He was just having an emotional moment. He nearly got in that fight with Owen, and all that unused adrenaline . . . it came out in a kiss. When he realized he was kissing me, he wanted to run. I saw it in his eyes.” She pulled the covers up to her chin, settling back in bed as Grace rose and returned to her side of the room.

Except Eden could still feel the smooth, cool touch of Jace’s lips exploring hers, prodding them open. He’d smelled amazing, all cotton flannel and outdoorsy. Strong. Even breathtaking. And if it weren’t for the shock of the moment, she really would have let herself kiss him back.

Maybe.

“Next time . . . ,” Grace said into the night.

“Just friends,” Eden said softly.

“I’d like to be his friend,” Amelia said.

Eden threw a pillow at her.

But she let that thought sink into her, trail into her dreams. The kind of dreams that had her and Jace sliding down Honeymoon Bluff together, tumbling into the snow, laughing. Or her sitting in the stands, cheering him on as he chased the puck around the ice. Or even sitting next to him at Sammy’s, sharing a grilled cheese sandwich.

The kind that had him pulling her into his arms, his mouth on hers, kissing her with all the delicious passion she felt simmering under the surface of his bigger-than-life persona.

She woke with her heart beating hard as the sun poured into the window. Grace was still in bed, as was Amelia, but Eden slipped on her bathrobe and tiptoed downstairs to make coffee.

She stopped midway, caught by the sight of Jace seated in a leather chair, wearing sweatpants, a T-shirt, a pair of reading glasses low on his nose, a book open on his lap.

A Bible.

He looked up then. Smiled, something slow, even sheepish, and a flood of tenderness coursed through her.

Eden headed for the kitchen, noticing the pot of freshly made coffee. She poured herself a cup, doctored it, and came out to join him.

“I didn’t know . . .” She sat down and gestured to his Bible.

“I became a Christian after I nearly died in that accident.” His hair was tousled but still curly, and the fragments of her dream nearly prompted her to reach out, run her fingers through it.

No, no, no. Bad Eden. That’s the last thing he needed
 
—more mixed signals from her.

His Bible was thick like a study version, with a frayed leather cover as if this wasn’t his first time through. Bulletins parted a number of the pages. “What are you reading?”

He met her eyes. “Do you ever feel like you don’t really belong in the Kingdom of God? Like you’re loved but not liked? Saved but not favored?”

She sipped her coffee, thought for a minute. “I guess sometimes I feel like I’m not necessarily God’s favorite. I look at my
family and wonder what happened. Everyone else got the talent, and I got . . .”

Obits. She sighed. “I don’t know what happened with my life, exactly. I always thought I’d be a great writer, a reporter. But I didn’t land the job of my dreams out of college, and since then, I can’t seem to find my footing. And yet I don’t really have a reason to complain.”

“Yeah, that’s it. You feel like there should be something more waiting for you, but at the same time, you’re grateful for the life you do have.”

He seemed so unfamiliar to her, so normal, a man searching, authentic, honest. This wasn’t the Jace she’d seen on the glossy pages of
Hockey Today
.

Maybe, just maybe, she’d discovered the real Jace. The one she hoped might be behind all the headlines. “You know what, though? I wonder if most Christians feel this way. I mean, look at Peter. He saw Jesus, who He really was, and told Jesus to get away from him, called himself a sinful man. And Paul . . . he suffered so much that he wanted to die.”

“But Paul also said that he considered everything in his life worthless compared to knowing salvation and the wonder of God’s love.”

“Yeah. And that’s the hard part. When we’re struggling
 
—when my car doesn’t start or when you’re injured
 
—”

“Or have a migraine.”

She frowned at him but nodded. “Yeah. When life seems to go south, we feel like God doesn’t love us. But I keep going back to something my dad said to Owen. Maybe we have to start redefining how we understand God’s love. And start hoping. My dad says that hope is one part confidence in God’s love for us and one part
our delight in Jesus. And that when we start to hope, it changes us, sets us apart. Makes us see life more clearly.”

“We look at our own problems, and we say . . . why? Maybe we should look at our
blessings
and ask the same thing.”

She took a sip of her coffee. “I think I need to remember that, too. I do have enough. I have this wonderful family, and so what that I’m not a reporter
 
—”

“Yet.”

“Yet.” She smiled. “This is enough. More than enough.” She raised an eyebrow. “However, you
do
have an amazing life.”

But his mouth fell into a grim line. “I beat people up for a living. How can God possibly like me? I feel like a cautionary tale
 
—look, kids, don’t be like Jace Jacobsen, only skidding into heaven under the pads or, worse, due to a technicality.”

Her mouth opened, and he looked away fast as if embarrassed.

He was serious. It was the first time she ever really saw it, the fact that his position as an enforcer dug into him. Made him something he didn’t want to be, yes, but also skewed him into believing a lie. The one that called him a monster.

Her voice softened. “For the record, I don’t think you like beating people up. I know you said that, but the truth is, it’s your job. And you’re oversimplifying. But here’s the biggest part.” She reached for his Bible, turned to 1 John 3, and read, “‘See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children.’”

She handed him back the Bible. “Children of God. Beloved by God. Zephaniah 3:17 says, ‘He will take delight in you with gladness. . . . He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.’ That’s what we should be hearing, I think
 
—the delight, the applause of heaven. If we could get that through our heads, it would change everything.”

Jace took off his glasses, rubbed his finger and thumb into his
eyes. “Did you tell your dad what I said to you? About liking to fight?”

She frowned. “No. Why?”

“No reason.” Then he met her gaze. “You know, you’re right. It is enough.” He smiled. But it didn’t reach his eyes, and she wasn’t sure why his words sent a fist into her heart.

Eden showered and dressed and didn’t blink when Jace joined her family for church, sliding in beside her in the third center row.

She had no doubt he was blocking the view of the screen for those behind him, but she didn’t care. Let the world see him, the man behind the headlines, the one lifting his voice in worship. She closed her mouth and let herself listen as he poured it out to the Lord. “Amazing Grace” and “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”
 
—her small-town church loved the old hymns.

A couple regulars recognized Jace, greeting him in the welcome moment. Eden grinned, but as she sat down, Owen’s words niggled at her.
She’s latched herself to someone else. Some other superstar, just itching to take my place.

The pastor launched into the sermon, but she couldn’t free herself from the grip of Owen’s accusation.