You're the One That I Want (33 page)

T
HIS WAS A BAD IDEA
 
—
the last person Owen would want to see was his big sister.

It didn’t matter. Apparently tonight someone had to watch his back, and that’s what sisters did. Eden Christiansen turned up her collar and marched across the street.

Sammy’s Bar and Grill hosted one of the largest collections of hockey paraphernalia in Minnesota. The pub had been an old shipping warehouse, its grand windows now lit up with neon beer signs. Inside the brick-and-mortar interior, promo posters, signed pictures, goalie equipment, and framed team sweaters plastered the walls. Flat screens hung from the ceiling and were tucked into every nook, televising games from around the nation.

The owner, Sam Newton, had played eight seasons as a Minnesota
Wild defenseman before being sidelined by a hip injury. Now he lived out the action from behind the long oak bar.

As Eden entered, the sweaty heat and raucous noise flooded over her. The odors of too much cologne, fried foods, and chaos tightened her stomach. Bodies pushed against each other, and she heard the chanting even as she stood at the entrance and looked over the crowd.

“Fight! Fight!”

Perfect. She plowed through the onlookers, ignoring the protests, dreading what she heard
 
—the familiar sounds of men hitting each other, laughing, huffing as they tumbled onto the floor.

She reached the edge of the brawl and there he was. Owen, power forward for the St. Paul Blue Ox, with a button ripped off his shirt, his long hair over his face, his nose bleeding, writhing as right wing Maxwell Sharpe caught him in a headlock.

“Tap out!” Max yelled.

Oh no. Eden watched as Owen flipped him over, broke free, and found his feet, his eyes too bright.

“Eden!” Kalen caught her arm. “We have to get him out of here.” He wore a black Blue Ox T-shirt, a plastic lei around his neck. And he had cut his hair into what looked like a Mohawk. Nice.

“Where are his keys?”

“Jace took them. He’s at the bar. I’ll get Owen’s coat.”

She turned and found the hulking form of Jace “J-Hammer” Jacobsen sitting at the bar.

Someone, probably the Blue Ox PR department, had tamed the beast, at least for tonight, dressing him up like a gentleman in a pair of black wool pants and a silver dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his strong, sculpted forearms. Up close, she
could admit that
 
—for others
 
—he possessed a raw-edged, almost-dangerous allure that might have the ability to steal a girl’s breath. Maybe
Hockey Today
magazine hadn’t been completely wrong about putting him in its lineup. His dark, curly hair fell in tangles behind his ears, as if groomed by a fierce wind, and he’d close-trimmed his dark beard. His fitted dress shirt only accentuated all his cut muscle and brawn, but she knew he had the finesse of a skater, smooth and liquid on blades. And his eyes
 
—blue as ice
 
—yes, they could look right through a gal, send a shiver through her.

But Eden was immune to Mr. J-Trouble and his apparently lethal smile. Because she wasn’t a rink bunny, wasn’t a crazed fan. Wasn’t dazzled by the star power of one of hockey’s top enforcers. She was family, thank you, here for one reason only.

Owen.

Yes, Eden was made of ice, and Trouble hadn’t a prayer of thawing her anger. She marched up to Jace. “Nice birthday bash. If Owen gets in trouble and kicked back down to the AHL, it’s on you.”

“Hey!” Jace turned, looking backhanded.

But she didn’t plan on listening to his lame excuses. “You’re the team captain. Who else is supposed to watch Owen’s back?”

He rebounded fast. “Are you kidding me? You’re not his mother or his trainer. He’s just blowing off steam. Trust me. Your brother can watch his own back.”

“Really? This is watching his own back?” She gestured at Owen, who had grabbed an eager girl, begun to slow dance. If that’s what she could call it. “Who gave him alcohol, anyway?”

“Seriously?”

“He’s underage. He doesn’t turn twenty-one for three months.”

Jace raised a brow at that.

“Yeah, that’s right. And if he makes the papers
 
—”

But Jace’s eyes tracked past her, to the door.

Eden followed his gaze. And the terrible roaring of anger inside stopped on the burly image of Ramsey Butler, Blue Ox manager, sliding into a booth.

Kalen appeared with Owen’s coat. “You distract Butler, Eden, and we’ll get Owen out the back.”

She gaped at him. “
Distract
him? How?”

Jace slid off the stool, towering nearly a foot over her. “Flirt with him or something.”

Flirt
 
—oh, for crying out loud. “Fine. Get Owen to his car, but don’t let him drive.” She shrugged out of her coat and draped it over the chair. Flirt. Right . . . But what choice did she have? As long as this was the one and only time. Besides, truth was, she would do anything to protect Owen’s future.

She looked like a mortician in her black pants and white blouse, but maybe Butler wouldn’t notice. She still had game, right? After all, tonight she’d had a date.

Maybe she was hotter than she thought. Eden put a little sashay into her walk, feeling stupid, but making her way to the booth. “Hello there, Mr. Butler. Nice to see you tonight.”

In his midforties, Butler had his own reputation to manage
 
—the kind that traded players midseason and fired those who embarrassed the newborn franchise. Eden managed not to look behind her as she stood at the booth, blocking his view of Owen. She added a smile, propped a hand on her hip. Tried to look . . . flirty.

He looked up from where he perused the menu. “I’ll take an appetizer basket of curly fries and a Guinness on tap.”

She stilled. “Huh?”

“And what are your specials?”

So much for flirting. She glanced at the chalkboard over the bar. “Uh, fish-and-chips and a cheddar bratwurst?”

“I’ll just have the bacon cheeseburger.”

“Good choice. How do you want that done?” Now she glanced back and saw Kalen with his arm over Owen, directing him through the kitchen entrance.

“Rare. And bring out some of Sam’s special mayo sauce.”

“You got it.”

She quick-walked to the bar, grabbed her parka, and stepped out into the frigid cold.

Jace stood over Owen, barring him from opening his car door. Owen put up a meager fight, then let Kalen maneuver him to the passenger seat and buckle him in.

Eden shook her head and held out her hand. Jace set the keys in it.

She closed her hand around them. “I know I should say thanks, but frankly, you should do better. You’re some
captain
. Is this how you take care of your players? Or maybe this is what you want
 
—for them to all turn out like
you
.” Then she opened the door and climbed in, ignoring Jace’s glare. “Owen, what were you
 
—?”

Owen turned to her, wearing a green expression. And then his double-mushroom-and-Swiss cheeseburger, curly fries, and about a fifth of whiskey mixed with the sweet syrup of Coke landed on her lap.

“Thanks for coming to get me, Sis.”

H
AVE YOU EVER MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE?
Or worse, sinned big, deliberately or not? I have. There are moments in my life that I look back on with a terrific shudder and think . . .
Who was I, and how could I have done that?

Our first response
 
—at least mine
 
—is to run. Maybe not physically, like Owen, but definitely to flee from the pain of our failures. Of disappointing those we love. Of seeing ourselves in the mirror and wondering who we are.

We run from the guilt. From the truth. From God . . . and especially from forgiveness. Because we look at ourselves honestly and, like Peter in Luke 5:8, say, “Oh, Lord, please leave me
 
—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.”

Faced with such truth, we see only that. A sinner. Unredeemable. Unable to accept anything but condemnation.

But God will not allow us to stay in that place. He is a pursuer, and even as we push Him away, He says,
“You are not alone. If you will allow Me, I will fix this.”

The words are beautiful
 
—and yet brutal because even the touch of grace is a living ember, and we are reluctant to grasp
hold, to bring it to ourselves, to bear the fiery cleansing. Easier to endure is the self-flogging, the shame, the guilt. Because that, we know we deserve.

It was from this place that I launched out on Owen’s journey. From the first, Owen knows he is wretched. He is fully aware of his sins and the destruction in his wake but is unable to face it or fix it. Even after he realizes his folly and begins the crawl back to faith, it is more words and hope than reality.

Owen sees grace but hasn’t accepted it.

In his estimation, he owed God everything. And yes, he could agree that in the face of his sins, grace felt a bit too overwhelming. It almost seemed easier to live like Scotty
 
—alone, unbeholden to God.

Because a God who dispensed grace was a God a person couldn’t bargain with.

Except perhaps that was the point. God didn’t want to bargain.

See, grace is free, but without our ability to bargain for our freedom, we are left wondering exactly what we have to give. More, even when we step under the mantle of grace, it feels too heavy upon our shoulders.

Like Owen, it could be that we’ve been prodigals so long, we can’t see any other visage in the mirror. The question becomes
Who am I beyond the prodigal?

We are the redeemed. The forgiven. The sons and daughters of the King.

Suddenly we can rise, look forward into a new dawn, glorious and rose gold, full of promise. And it is this view that changes
everything. Because what are we to do with the unblemished future? As Pastor Dan says:

“I warn you, once you embrace Christ, you too become a rule breaker. Because a life committed to God requires us to live uncomfortably. Inconveniently. Accountably. Bravely. Transparently. Vulnerably.”

We are the bold, the fishermen, the warriors of Christ, going forth to tell the world the truth of grace. Of redemption. Of second chances and fresh starts and happy endings.

As John Christiansen would say, “Some of God’s best players were His imperfect, broken prodigals.”

When I conceived this series, I wanted a story about real people dealing with real issues of faith and family. I didn’t want to shy away from the mistakes but to tell a story about a family that faces its share of darkness . . . and discovers a God who is standing at the doorway
 
—even more, launching out in relentless pursuit with the goal of bringing us home.

Thank you for reading the Christiansen Family series. I pray that you, too, have heard the call of grace, let it into your heart, and found your way home.

Grace to you!

Susan May Warren

S
USAN
M
AY
W
ARREN
is the bestselling, Christy and RITA Award–winning author of more than forty novels whose compelling plots and unforgettable characters have won acclaim with readers and reviewers alike. She served with her husband and four children as a missionary in Russia for eight years before she and her family returned home to the States. She now writes full-time as her husband runs a resort on Lake Superior in northern Minnesota, where many of her books are set.

Susan holds a BA in mass communications from the University of Minnesota. Several of her critically acclaimed novels have been ECPA and CBA bestsellers, were chosen as Top Picks by
Romantic Times
, and have won the RWA’s Inspirational Reader’s Choice contest and the American Christian Fiction Writers’ prestigious Carol Award. Her novels
You Don’t Know Me
and
Take a Chance on Me
were Christy Award winners, and six of her other books have also been finalists. In addition to her writing, Susan loves to teach and speak at women’s events about God’s amazing grace in our lives.

For exciting updates on her new releases, previous books, and more, visit her website at
www.susanmaywarren.com
.