It Had to Be You (Christiansen Family) (10 page)

“Owen,” Ingrid said, going into the room.

Casper backed away, then ran a hand over his forehead, turning to look out the window.

Amelia started to cry, hands pressed to her mouth.

Grace continued to clean up the muffins.

And Eden stood at the threshold of the room. She couldn’t watch Owen’s life crumble. She turned away from the door, walking down the hallway, her heart in her throat, her eyes hot.

Just breathe.

She turned at the elevators, then again down the next corridor, and found herself at the room with the John Doe patient. She slipped inside. Sunlight streamed in through the open curtains with so much hope that it seemed almost sacrilegious.

Doe still lay hooked to oxygen, his levels monitored on a screen behind him. Alone. No flowers, plants, or balloons wishing him well. No freshly baked brownies, no family clustered around him, talking, playing games.

It made Owen’s room seem like a party. Until, of course, reality broke in.

Eden sat on the chair next to his bed. Doe seemed young
 
—maybe in his early twenties. A college student. He wore a bandage around his shaved head. What had the nurse said
 
—something about hypothermia along with head trauma? He had the lean body of an athlete, though
 
—strong shoulders, sinewy arms, reminding her of Owen. And good-looking, with high cheekbones, a square jaw, a growth of golden-brown whiskers.

“So,” Eden said quietly, “how did you get hurt? And why don’t they know who you are?”

She looked behind her in case anyone might be listening. But no nurse barged in to discover her, so she got up and closed the door. She just needed a moment or two alone. Someplace where no one would find her so she could collect her thoughts, figure out how to put the pieces back together.

Her voice fell to a whisper. “I’m sorry this happened to you. And I’m sorry your family isn’t here.”

He didn’t move. Not like she expected him to, but what did they say about coma patients hearing people around them? Maybe he needed some company. She looked at his hands. His fingernails were clean, filed. Like he took care of himself.

She sipped her coffee. Considered the chaos happening down the hallway. Then she picked up the remote and aimed it at the television. “Let’s watch some hockey.”

“Get it together, Max!” Jace skated over to the team box and opened his mouth for the trainer to spray in water. It hit him in the teeth and dribbled down his chin, catching in his beard.

Behind him, Max chased down the pass he’d missed, scooping up the puck and bringing it back to the blue line to run the play again.

Everyone seemed on edge, missing passes, playing sloppy.

So maybe Coach had good reason for Sunday’s hastily called practice.

Jace wiped his chin with his jersey. He could read the stress in Max’s expression
 
—and not just from the fact that Coach had moved the forward up to the first line to play Owen’s empty wing position, but also from the news today that Owen might be out for the season.

And the murmuring suggested a career-ending injury.

Poor Eden. Funny, that thought hit him more than the demise of Owen’s career. Since yesterday, she’d lingered in Jace’s head.

She’d let him buy her tapioca pudding. Let him play funny food tricks to coax another smile from her. And then she’d started playing a game with him.

“Who’s that man over there?” she’d asked, pointing at an elderly gentleman dressed in a brown polyester suit and a blue tie, carrying a spray of pink carnations.

He’d frowned, not sure what she meant.

“I think he’s a retired English lit professor and he’s here because his wife of sixty years is recovering from hip surgery. They used to go dancing on Thursday nights, and he knows she’ll never dance again. So he bought her a bouquet of carnations to remind her that he still loves her.”

She took a spoonful of her pudding while Jace considered the man.

“And he is secretly relieved that he never has to dance again,” he said.

“Jace!”

He lifted a shoulder. “Just being honest.” He nodded toward a woman in a lab jacket, her dark hair piled up on her head, glasses
low on her nose as she read her iPad and nursed a bowl of soup. “And her?”

Eden had turned to study her, and he took his opportunity to trace the outline of her face, take in the way her blonde hair fell around her shoulders. He’d like to run a strand between his fingers.

He let the thought linger, sinking into her game as she answered.

“She’s a doctor. Maybe even . . . Hmmm. I think she must work with children because she’s wearing a pink stethoscope. She’s reading the file of one of her newest patients, someone she is worried about from the way she keeps frowning. I think she’s probably married to the hospital.”

“No husband?”

“I can’t see a ring, but she has a sort of no-nonsense aura around her. I’ll bet she was once terribly in love but had her heart broken.” She scooped another spoonful of pudding, giving him an impish smile. “Now she wants nothing to do with men.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, well, we scare easily.”

“Really?” He hoped not because he didn’t want to send her running. “And you can see her aura?”

“It’s a gift I have. I see the truth in people.”

He wanted to ask her about his aura, not sure she was kidding, except right about then he remembered.

Of course she knew so much about people. She spent hours writing about them. Dissecting their lives.

He couldn’t bear to see what she’d do to his. And though she hadn’t mentioned an article, blog, or even Facebook posting . . . well, she probably wouldn’t be able to help herself.

Which was why he’d packed up their food, dumped it in the garbage, and ended their little escape. He’d put her on the elevator
back to her brother’s tragedy and hightailed it over to Maddy’s room.

He’d found her sleeping, Sam curled up on the sofa, so he’d headed home.

Where he sat in darkness and wished that he didn’t have such an overactive protective gene. But that’s what happened when you grew up without a father, only you to protect your mother.

That protective gene was what made him a good enforcer, too.

Although not today. Today he wanted to check his right wing into the boards, maybe grab him by the jersey and tell him to snap out of it. They had a game on Tuesday, one without Owen Christiansen.

Someone had to make the goals.

“Set it up again!” Coach Duggin stood in the box, his arms folded across his pullover, looking peeved at the lack of chemistry between his players. Max seemed so rattled that it might just be easier for Jace to make the shot from the blue line.

Maybe . . .

They ran the play four more times before Max anticipated the pass, before he flicked it in between the goaltender’s skates.

Coach left them standing there, sweaty and frustrated, as he called practice. Just for fun, Jace slapped in four shots, then headed for the showers. He stood there as the water sluiced off him, aware of the uneasy quiet in the locker room. So they felt it too
 
—the gaping hole left by their star forward.

Would Jace leave a gaping hole if
he
were injured? Taken out of the sport?

He changed into a T-shirt and shorts, then headed to the therapy room for ice. His knee had stiffened like a board after practice.

Graham found him seated on a table, the trainer wrapping
Jace’s knee with ice and saran wrap. He stood at the door, arms crossed over his fancy suit.

“What?”

Graham waited until the trainer finished, then came in and leaned against the opposite table. He looked at his shoes, back at Jace. “Management isn’t happy about your decision not to take the offer.”

“Of course not, but I need to talk to you about that.”

“No, see, they know what you’re doing. And they don’t like it.”

“What are you talking about? They should be happy I’m not injured
 
—”

“Did you even read Saturday’s papers? They said the game lacked spark. That if it weren’t for Owen Christiansen, fans would be attending a peewee game.”

“Oh, for
 
—”

Graham held up his hands. “Listen, at the end of the day, it’s about ticket sales. And if you have another game like the last one
 
—”

“I had a
great
game. One assist, five shots on goal.”

“You had a safe game. But safe isn’t going to get you far at this level. And with Owen out, the pressure is on. You’ve got to show them something if you want anyone to pick you up after the season.”

Jace frowned. “So in order to keep my job, I have to get in a fight without getting injured?”

“At least play with an edge. Give the fans what they want.”

Jace adjusted the pack on his knee. Sighed. “I’ve decided to take the offer.”

Graham had turned silent. Again, looking at his shoes.

“Don’t tell me
 
—”

“They withdrew the offer when I turned it down.”

Of course they did.

“You heard the doc
 
—if I fight and get hurt, if I get another concussion, it could all be over for me.”

Graham met his eyes. “I know.”

No. This couldn’t be happening. Not now.

“Hey, Jace.” Max walked into the room, wearing track pants and a T-shirt, his hair slicked back. He handed Jace a cold soda. “I’m going to get it, you know.”

Jace nodded, but Max wasn’t done. “Can I talk to you?”

Graham moved toward the door but paused beside Max. “And when you’re done, I’ll be waiting for you in the hallway.”

Max’s eyes brightened, a little too much perhaps.

Jace shook his head. “’Sup?”

Max couldn’t look at him. “I’ve been thinking about it all day, ever since . . . Well, I think I’m the one who busted Owen’s eye. I remember jerking my stick back, ready to level it at a Blades player, and Owen was right there, behind me. It happened so fast
 
—the fight, the yelling
 
—but when I slow it down . . . I hit him. I remember it.”

Jace took a sip of his Coke. Considered Max, who looked as if he’d just confessed to sleeping with the principal’s daughter. The soda burned his throat as he swallowed it down. “Let it go, Max. It was an accident.”

“But
 
—”

“He’ll never forgive you if he finds out. Trust me . . . let it go.”

Max’s mouth tightened. Then he nodded. “Thanks, Cap.”

He walked out into the hall, and Jace heard Graham greet him.

Jace set the soda on the table beside him, then leaned back, propping his arm over his head. The faintest throb of pain speared his brain.

Poor kid. He knew what it felt like to live with guilt, even over accidents.

Eden drifted back into his thoughts, the way she’d looked at him when he’d put her on the elevator. Confused. Even hurt.

If he could overlook the reporter in her, maybe they might actually . . .

No. He didn’t need anyone else in his life. He had Sam. And Maddy. And hockey.

Well, he had Sam and Maddy.

Jace got up and grabbed one of the crutches by the table, pulled it to himself, and limped out of the room, down the hall. Max and Graham had vanished
 
—probably to plan Max’s stellar career, if he could ever figure out how to catch Jace’s passes. He made it to his locker, opened it, and grabbed his coat.

Jace could sulk and consider the destruction of his career, his life, just as easily at home.

He worked on the jacket and was reaching for his duffel when his phone vibrated in his pocket. Pulling it out, he found a text message. He’d missed a slew of them but opened only the last.

From Sam.

Maddy’s heart is failing. She’s going back into surgery.

F
ORGET HIS OATH
not to pray, not to get on his face and beg, because right here, right now, that’s all Sam had. Just God and desperation.

Sam sat in the front pew of the tiny chapel, hardly able to breathe, a noose around his chest, his face in his hands.

He wanted to weep, but even that he couldn’t manage. Just a low moan of pain.
Please, God.

Why would God spare him, a rough-around-the-edges ex–hockey player, and take Mia? Kind, wise, beautiful Mia, who knew how to braid Maddy’s hair and sing her to sleep and believe in happy endings.

Maybe that was the problem
 
—he had stopped believing in happy endings years ago. Now he just believed in holding on.

Surviving.

Take me, God. If You have to take someone, take me.
It didn’t sound like the right theology, and he knew it. God didn’t bargain, didn’t play favorites. Sam’s head told him all this, but his heart couldn’t quite grasp it.

Why were some children born with perfectly healthy hearts and his priceless daughter born with one destined to betray her?

At the very least, he didn’t understand why God stood by and let her suffer.

Sam pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, hating the spiral of thoughts, the way fear could suffocate him. They’d given him a beeper like they might in a restaurant
 
—
Sir, your table is ready. Your child is ready. Your verdict awaits.
Maybe they knew that desperate parents couldn’t hang around in the waiting room, hollow gazes not meeting each other, afraid to acknowledge the grief.

He couldn’t bear it.

If Sam could tear out his heart and give it to Maddy, he would. Had even thought it through
 
—how he might convince some doctor to carve into his chest, give life to his little girl. But before he could do it, the unthinkable had happened to some other undeserving family. Their child had died, and because of it, Sam’s daughter had lived, and it cost him nothing.

Sure, the medical expenses, even with his insurance, had cost him his home
 
—their home
 
—the one Mia had created for them, with Maddy’s pink room, the canopy bed, what seemed like thousands of Beanie Babies that Mia had collected over the years. But Sam would sleep in a cardboard box under a bridge if it meant Maddy might have a safe, normal childhood.

Or even have a childhood at all.

He couldn’t go through this again. Sam sank to his knees before the altar in the clean, bright hospital chapel, closing his eyes.

Sam?

He heard her voice like a whisper in the back of his heart and let Mia walk in, let her sit down beside him.

In his memory, he took her hand. Smooth and soft as he ran his thumb over it.
I miss you.

I miss you too.
Her voice could still catch his heart in his throat. And even though he knew she couldn’t possibly be here, he let himself talk.

“I’m so sorry. I know I probably messed up. I should have done better, I know.”

Hang on, Sam.

The image changed to Mia sinking into her hospital bed, her skin pasty, white, the veins in her beautiful hands bruised.
Hang on, Sam.

And then she’d slipped away.

“You should have been the one to hang on, Mia.” His voice echoed in the tiny chapel, and he opened his eyes to see if he’d shaken anyone.

He’d surely shaken himself, the anger right on the edge of his tone.

But maybe he didn’t care. “You should have hung on. Waited for a donor. Maddy needs a mother. She needs someone to do her hair and sing her songs and hold her hand. Because I can’t do this. Not anymore.”

You’re not alone.

Not her voice, maybe. It bore a deeper resonance that sank into his bones.

He covered his mouth before he let sobs leak out.
Oh, God, please help me hold on.

The beeper went off
 
—loud and abrupt, nearly sending him through his skin. Sam picked it up.

Then he took off running.

To Jace, Sam looked like he’d succumbed to a three-day bender, an odor emanating from him that called up images of the man passing out behind a Dumpster. His hair stood nearly on end; his beard had grown in reddish and gnarly; his shirt still bore the stains of Maddy’s illness
 
—

But now was not the time to tell Sam that he might be mistaken for a derelict. Not when he was seated on the couch in Maddy’s room, his daughter still on the surgical table, on life support, while the doctor explained to Sam the details of the artificial heart he wanted to use to save her life.

Temporarily.

The device hailed from Germany. Or maybe Jace just thought so because he’d caught “Berlin” in the conversation. He was trying to make sense of the terminology, trying to listen so he could explain it to Sam later if he had to.

Not that Sam didn’t know everything about post–heart transplant options. The man had spent years scouring the Internet, reading books, monitoring Maddy’s diet, trying to keep her on schedule with her meds. He was a fanatic about her hygiene, and the fact that he’d lost his house and moved above the bar, the fact that somehow in that mix Maddy had missed some of her antirejection meds, seemed a cruel tragedy.

Sam didn’t deserve this. Maddy didn’t deserve this. But life wasn’t fair
 
—Jace had learned that long, long ago. If it were, he
would have never made it to the pros. He would be working in some bar or mine or paper mill in International Falls.

At the twilight of his career, and especially in light of Sam’s journey, Jace might want to remember that.

The nurse handed Sam some papers, and he signed them with the look of a man headed for Folsom prison.

Then the doc took off to connect Maddy’s heart to tubes and wire and the desperate hope that it might keep her alive until . . .

Until hope died?

Sam sat back, his hand on his chest as if he couldn’t breathe.

“Dude. I’m so sorry.” Jace sat on the end of the green sofa. “Tell me what to do.”

Sam lifted a shoulder, his eyes empty. “All we can do is wait.”

Wait. Jace could taste the helplessness like acid in his throat, and he stood. “I’m going to get you some clothes.” He paused. “Unless you need me to stay.”

But Sam didn’t even look up.

“I have my cell phone. And I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“It’ll be a few hours at best.”

Sam sounded exhausted. As Jace watched, he got up, went over to Maddy’s bed, and climbed in, pulling her pillow to his chest.

Yes, perhaps Sam didn’t need him here. And “Hang in there” sounded . . . Well, he just couldn’t say enough for what his friend needed.

“Call me if . . . I’ll be here the minute you need me.”

Sam nodded, nothing of comprehension in his eyes.

Jace walked down the hall and dug his thumb into the elevator button, his stomach a knot.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Not for little girls. Especially not for little girls who’d already lost their mothers.

He took the elevator to the main level, then out to the parking garage. He’d run by Sam’s, find him some clothes, pick up dinner, and be back before Maddy got out of surgery.

And yet he found himself pulling into the medical center parking lot. As if his GPS had its own mind.

He’d just do a quick run in and check on Owen.

Jace took the elevator to Owen’s floor. He still wore his shorts, although he’d discarded the ice pack. He got a few looks as he traipsed past the nurses’ station.

Jace spied the conversation knot from down the hall, the cluster of family members outside the room. He recognized John and Casper, the two sisters, Eden’s mom.

No Eden.

They stood in a worried huddle, talking in low tones. Casper spotted him, and for a moment, the conversation stilled.

Oops. “Hey,” Jace said. “I came to check on Owen.”

Something in John’s face gave him pause. Then the way Ingrid pressed her fingers to her mouth, turned away.

“They had to give him a sedative,” Casper said. “He’s . . . upset.”

“Yeah, well, wouldn’t you be upset if the doctor told you that you might never play hockey again?” the younger, redheaded sister said.

Jace had heard it already, but to listen to the pain in Owen’s sister’s voice made his insides tighten.

He just stood there while the family shifted on their feet. Finally, “So . . . where’s Eden?” He wasn’t sure why that felt important at the moment, but the fact that she hadn’t joined her family seemed weird.

Not that he was concerned.

Okay, maybe a little.

“She took off,” Casper said. “As soon as Owen started losing it, she left.”

“Casper, he didn’t lose it.”

“What would you call that, Mom?” the redhead said.

“He’s just upset.”

“We’re all upset,” John said quietly. He looked at Jace. “She’s probably around here somewhere. She always turns up.”

He nodded. “I’ll track her down.”

Casper raised an eyebrow, but Jace walked away. He was just trying to be . . . a friend. Maybe she needed that right now, and it didn’t mean they’d become best pals or anything.

What if she’d taken the same runaway route as last time? Jace returned to the elevator and retraced his steps. Stood in the hallway.

The cheers and what sounded like the play-by-play of a hockey game slipped out from under the door of a nearby room.

The room with the coma patient. He hadn’t woken, had he? Jace pushed open the door and stuck his head in.

Eden sat with her feet up on the patient’s bed, drinking coffee, watching one of Jace’s shots on goal. A miss, and the crowd moaned.

“That shouldn’t come as a great surprise to you. I missed it before, too.” He stepped into the room, and she looked at him, her face slacking as she withdrew her feet from the bed.

“I was just
 
—”

“Hiding. I know. I saw your family outside Owen’s room.”

“How is he?”

He grimaced. “They had to sedate him.”

She swallowed, ran her thumb around the rim of her cup. “He was throwing things.”

“I’m sure this isn’t easy for him.”

“I feel so helpless, you know?”

He sat on the opposite, empty bed. “I
do
know. My friend’s kid
 
—Sam’s daughter, Maddy
 
—her heart stopped today. They are putting in an artificial heart right now, some mechanical device that will keep her alive until they find her another heart.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Jace.” The compassion in her pretty green eyes rushed through him.

“Yeah. He’s had it rough. We played together when I was a rookie. He took me under his wing, became sort of a big brother to me. He was a great player
 
—until he was injured and sidelined. Had a tough couple years after that. Then he met Mia. She was a waitress at one of his hangouts, but also a fitness geek, and she gave him a new outlook on his life. When they married, I know he thought they’d live happily ever after.”

“What happened?”

“Mia developed an enlarged heart during pregnancy and was put on the transplant list. She never got her heart and died when Maddy was three.”

Eden’s eyes widened. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. But he had Maddy and that helped. Until Maddy developed the same condition.”

“Which is why she had the heart transplant.”

He nodded. “But the medical expenses made him lose his home, and now . . . who knows if they can find her another heart.”

“That’s awful.”

He drew in a breath. Looked at John Doe. “So you’re making new friends?” He tried a smile.

She answered it. “He’s a bit tight-lipped, but we’re getting along. I like a man who doesn’t interrupt me.” But a sadness touched her eyes, and her voice changed. “I feel sorry for him. No family. How is he supposed to get well without family?”

Good question. Where would Jace have been without Maddy and Sam to help him heal after he lost his mother?

“I’m sure he has family.”

“But wouldn’t that be awful
 
—to not know your son or brother was injured?”

Jace walked over to the young man. Clean-cut, despite his growth of whiskers. Jace had never been this guy, but he might have wanted to be.