Candy for Christmas: Hockey Player vs Ice Skater (5 page)

“There’s a blizzard
out. It came over when we were asleep.”

Candy peered out the
window. It was daytime, but dark. The snow was heavy and visibility
was nil. “It’s only two hundred metres or so.” She knew it was
stupid even as she said it. You could get lost in a blizzard even
if you only had to go five feet.

“Which you think you
can make it with no winter clothes, in the dark, on that ankle?”
The bloody man missed nothing.

“My ankle’s fine.”

He just looked at her
but didn’t say anything.

She broke the silence.
“Do you have something I can wear?”

Nolan left the room
but returned a few moments later. She was looking out the window
and saw his reflection as he approached. “How long is this going to
last?” She gestured out the window.

“Radio says it’ll be a
couple of days.”

She turned to face
him. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

“I know.”

“So I’ll be here for
Christmas.”

“Is that a
problem?”

“No, of course not. I
mean, you like Christmas music, what more could I want?”

Nolan crossed his arms
over his bare chest and arched a brow. She instantly felt
ungrateful. “I’m sorry. I’m being wretched. I just haven’t had a
proper Christmas in a long time. Not since I lost my parents. This
year I wanted it to be different. That’s was why I was cutting down
the tree. Why I bought all those decorations.”

“The decorations you
threw at me?”

She half-smiled.
“Those very ones.”

Nolan ran a hand
through his hair. “About that. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said
what I did.”

Candy shrugged and
turned back to the window. “Forget about it.” And like that she was
thinking about her ankle again. A part of her wanted the Christmas
she’d imagined. All those decorations sitting in the shopping bags,
unused. She was forlorn at the thought. But that wasn’t the real
reason she was being a fractious child.

She wanted indulge in
some moping over her messed up ankle. And Nolan Ducayne was turning
out to be entirely too perceptive. She had a sneaky suspicion he
knew. But the biggest part of her was clamouring at the delicious
idea of spending days snowbound with Nolan. So why was she making a
fuss?

She was worried.
Unsure how he felt about the idea of an uninvited guest. Which was
ridiculous. Just last night she’d been entirely confident, sure she
knew what was really between them. But with every twinge of her
ankle that confidence leeched from her.

“This year will be
different, Candy. But not because of a tree or some
decorations.”

Once more she turned
to face him.

“It will be different
because you won’t be alone.”

He tossed something to
her and this time he was the one who turned away. Walked out of the
room as she looked at the blue fabric in her hand. The thing he’d
brought her to wear.

His Rangers
jersey.

Candy didn’t know
where Nolan had gone. She’d found the bathroom but hadn’t ventured
any further into his space. Instead, she went back to the kitchen
and looked through the cupboards. It had been hours since she’d
eaten and the least she could do was make them both Christmas Eve
dinner.

She couldn’t stop
touching the jersey. Every time she did, a wide smile crept across
her face. He could have given her any one of a dozen shirts. But he
hadn’t. He’d given her his player jersey, with his name and number
across the back. An ice hockey player didn’t give his jersey to
just any girl. This was deliberate. One more time his actions spoke
louder than either of their words.

Candy pulled a frozen
goose out of his freezer and set it to defrost in the microwave,
then went to his pantry. He had precious few spices but she could
make them work. She found potatoes, carrot and corn. She would
create gravy from the pan drippings and in the fridge she found a
jar of cranberry jelly.

He had a bowl full of
cherries, wonder of wonder. It was the middle of winter so she had
no idea where he had got them from, but if he had them he must like
them a lot. There was sugar, flour, butter. Everything she needed
for pastry, so she decided on cherry pie for dessert. She began
with the pie crust since she’d need to refrigerate the dough. She
was just rolling it out when the back door banged open. She jumped
and turned to the far end of the kitchen where a small wetroom
opened onto his back verandah, overlooking the pond.

Candy was astonished
when Nolan, covered in snow, walked through dragging something. She
leaned back so she could see around him then abruptly
straightened.

“You got me another
Christmas tree.”

About a half an hour
earlier, Nolan had secured a secured a thin nylon rope around his
waist — for the second time in twenty-four hours. Candy trying to
venture home when she was hurt and had no winter gear was stupid,
but beyond that, he wanted her to stay.

And if Candy wanted a
fucking Christmas tree, she was getting a fucking Christmas
tree.

He had owned this
property for almost a decade and it was his favourite. He knew it
better than anywhere on earth except the rink. Enough to navigate
the space between their cabins. But he wasn’t stupid. He tightened
the knot and hooked an arm through the extra rope.

Then he stepped out
into the blizzard.

In a dozen steps his
cabin was no longer visible. He kept down the slope at an angle so
he could skirt round the pond. Turned when he judged he’d gone the
correct distance and angled back in the direction of her cabin. He
reached the little clearing that surrounded it — a protection all
the cabins in these woods maintained against bushfire — and waked
in the direction he knew it to be. All told, it took him less than
five minutes.

Nolan opened her front
door and took off the backpack he’d brought. He ignored the red
shards that still littered the hardwood floor and put the bags of
decorations in the pack. He thought about getting some of her
clothes but decided against it. If he did he might never see her in
his jersey and that was something he
really
wanted. He
wouldn’t mind seeing her in more of that lacy underwear, but if he
brought that and nothing else, she’d was liable to murder him with
a toe pick. Better to pretend he hadn’t though of it.

He was about to head
back out when he remembered one last thing. Then he grabbed the
tree and flipped it over, took the trunk, still in the metal base
and hauled it outside. It took him longer to get back. Mostly
because the rope was more hindrance than help. He had to keep
stopping to wind it in so it didn’t tangle with the tree. But in
about fifteen minutes he was dragging the tree up another set of
porch steps, for the second time in as many days. All to please one
little figure skater who still didn’t seem to realise there was
precious little he wouldn’t do for her.

Nolan shrugged off the
pack and set it down by the door, then pulled off his coat. He
banged the tree against the porch to remove as much snow as
possible, then pulled it inside and closed the door. When he turned
back around it was to find a small body flinging itself towards
him. He caught her, murmured, “Easy, your ankle,” but she didn’t
care. Her arms wrapped around his neck and tugged him down. He
wrapped his arms around her waist and picked her up, until he had
an armful of Candy, then turned and sat her on the kitchen
countertop.

She proceeded to kiss
him as though he’d just saved the planet. Lips and tongue and
heart. It was some time before they surfaced.

“You’re wearing the
jersey,” he murmured as his hands explored underneath.

“Uh huh,” she mumbled
against his lips.

“It looks better on
you than it ever has on me,” he said. Then he pulled back and
asked, “What’s all this?”

She looked where he
gestured to the pie dough on the bench. “I’m making dinner.”

“Really? You’re
cooking?”

“Haven’t we already
had this discussion?”

“No, I mean, you’re
cooking for me?”

“You got me a
tree.”

“Your tree.”

“What?”

“I went to your house
and got the one from earlier.”

“
Really?
”

Nolan nodded. He
gripped her waist and gently set her down on the ground then
returned to the the tree that had temporarily been abandoned and
dragged it across to the living room. He turned it upright and set
the metal base down beside the fireplace with a small thud. Then he
stepped back and looked at her.

Candy was leaning
against the kitchen bench, a smudge of flour on her nose that had
somehow remained despite their prolonged kissing session. Her arms
were wrapped around her waist in an excited hug.

“It’s beautiful. Thank
you, Nolan.”

“That’s not all.” He
went back to the pack and carried it into the living room, then
began to take out the shopping bags. “So, you wanna decorate a tree
with me?”

Candy nodded shyly.
Yes. Yes, to decorating the tree. Yes, to anything he wanted. She
recognised a tin he pulled out of the pack. “You brought the
gingerbread trees.”

“I’ve really wanted
one, ever since you mentioned them.”

Candy walked over to
him and took the tin. She opened it and pulled out one of the
little green-frosted Christmas trees and held it up to his
mouth.

“Aren’t they for
decoration?”

“There’s a dozen more.
I think you’ve earned this one.”

Nolan bit into the
cookie and moaned. “That’s so good.” His gaze went to the bench.
“What are you making for dinner?”

“Roast goose and
veges.” She didn’t mention the cherry pie. Candy took a nibble out
of the cookie before Nolan captured her hand and brought it back to
his lips. He took another big bite.

“Right, here’s the
plan,” he said. “I’m gonna get the Christmas lights out and test
them, then I’ll come and help you finish making dinner. When it’s
in the oven cooking we’ll come back here and decorate the
tree.”

Candy smiled at him.
“That’s a good plan.” Candy took another bite of the cookie then,
before Nolan could reach for it, held it up to his lips. He took
the final piece and his lips brushed her fingertips. They both
inhaled sharply and Candy swayed towards Nolan, but he muttered,
“
Tree
. She wants a fucking tree,” beneath his breath and
took a step back.

Candy touched the
jersey and decided against looking in the pack to see if there was
anything else. What if he’d brought her clothes?

While Nolan unpacked
the coloured lights Candy finished the dough and made the cherry
filling, then hid them in the fridge.

“You know, I bought a
copy of
Ice Hockey for Dummies
.” Her words carried over the
softly lit distance between them. Nolan had dimmed the ceiling
lights so he could test the lights for the tree.

She could feel his
smile across the distance. “I know. I saw it on your
bookshelf.”

“Did you know I watch
your games?”

That brought his head
up. “Since when?”

She shrugged and
glanced at him out of her peripheral. “Since we met.”

“When I first found
you on the pond?”

“And yelled at me for
putting craters in the ice.” Worried about sparking the war, she
continued in a rush, “I don’t mean to wreck your ice. It’s just…
toe pick is to me what your stick is to you. I’ve got no game
without it.”

“That’s not why I
yelled at you. Why we fight.”

She looked at him
directly. This time he was the one pretending focus on the task at
hand. He was a picture, sitting on the floor near the Christmas
tree, coloured lights spread across his lap.

“I don’t care about
the rough ice. I care because you fall.”

There was silence
between them. But they were finally looking at each other.

Candy had a choice.
She could pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about or she
could open up to him. Her hand stroked down the jersey.

“You know I was
injured.” It was a statement but he nodded his head. “It was
serious, but I probably could have come back from it and kept
competing. But I didn’t want to. I don’t care about competitive
skating anymore. I’ve been thinking more and more that I might like
to try my hand at coaching.” She paused before saying, “Some people
think coaching is what you do when you can’t play the sport
anymore.”

“I don’t care what
people think.”

She smiled at him
gently and said softly, “Neither do I. The thing is, they wouldn’t
be wrong. I can’t skate anymore.”

“That’s bullshit.”

She started at the
blunt statement.

“I watch you skate
every day. You’re stunning.” Another statement, more soft than
blunt.

“I can’t stick the
landing.” She said the thing they both knew.

Nolan pushed the
lights off his lap, stood and walked over to her. He cupped her
cheek gently. “That doesn’t mean you never will. You said it
yourself. It wasn’t a career-ending injury. But you keep pushing
when you’re not ready.

“You need to forget
that you’ve been the best in the world for a long time. Forget this
crazy idea you have that if you just try harder, somehow the next
jump will be different. And forget about the fact that watching you
fall and not being able to do anything about it drives me fucking
insane.

“Here’s the thing you
shouldn’t forget: The ice is thin. You keep trying before you
ready, you’re gonna go through. And there won’t be anything I can
do about it this time.” He paused. “And if you break yourself over
this, it’ll break me too.”

Candy was staring up
at him with big, wide eyes. That was a lot to put on her at once,
so he re-directed. “While we’re on the topic of ice. Yesterday,
didn’t you check the fucking ice on the pond?”