It Had to Be You (Christiansen Family) (25 page)

But she didn’t understand. “I wish it were just Boo.” He ran his hands down his face. Shoot. He hadn’t wanted to go here. But maybe he’d get it all out, like ripping off a Band-Aid, and then she could walk away before she really got into his heart and destroyed him. “I didn’t tell you everything about . . . about my dad. What you don’t know is that I nearly killed him. Beat him within an inch of his life.”

There, he’d said it. And it sounded as horrible as it was. He closed his eyes and hated that the moment rushed at him, just as full and loud and brutal as the day his father had shown up that last time.

“I’m sure it wasn’t as bad
 
—”

He ignored her because really, she hadn’t a clue. “I wish I could say I was young and impressionable. That I didn’t know what I was doing, but I did.” He ran his hand over his mouth, took a breath. “I’d only met him once before, briefly, after a high school game. My mom didn’t know he was there, and the minute he came up to me, she intercepted us. I remembered him as a big man, soft hands, thick around the middle. We had the same hair, the same eyes, and it unnerved me. I was so angry that Mom had never let me meet him . . . but later, he showed up again. It was right after I signed my contract with the Blue Ox. It was generous, and of course, it made the news. I came out of the tunnel after the press conference, and there he was. I’m not sure how he got into the private lot
 
—probably used the same slick skills he did to lure my mother into dating him.

“I recognized him immediately. And like a little kid, I even felt happy. Like this man I’d never known might care about me. Maybe he’d come to the press conference to tell me he’d been watching. That he was proud of me.”

His chest tightened, and he put his hands on the steering wheel. A chill had settled in the car and was now traveling up his legs. He gave a rueful laugh. “Yeah, he’d been following me, all right. Following the money. I stood there listening to him tell me about this business deal he wanted to make, and my entire body turned to ash. I turned him down, probably a little more vehemently than I should have, and he got in my grill about it.”

Jace didn’t want to go on, didn’t want her to hear the rest, but she put a hand on his arm. “You hit him.”

“No. I walked away.” And he should have kept walking. Just walking. Then he wouldn’t have the darkness eating at him every
day, wouldn’t feel as if he could never escape the moment when he saw exactly who he was.

When he turned into a monster.

“I was almost to my car when he made a slur about my mom.”

He let the silence fill the car. Let her imagine the rest and then had to say it aloud, just in case she didn’t get it. “I took him down. I . . . I was beyond anger. I was livid. I destroyed his nose with the first punch
 
—there was blood spurting everywhere
 
—and then I put everything I felt about him and the life he forced my mother to live into my fists. I kept seeing all those jerks she had to smile at and smelling the cigarettes on her skin, and I exploded.”

He shook his head, hearing his fists crunch bone, the cries of the man who had sired him. “My teammates came out and wrestled me off him. I think one of them drove him to the hospital, dumped him there. My guess is that they suggested they’d finish the job if he ever mentioned it because, while I lived in mortal fear of the cops showing up, nothing happened. Just the memory, digging around inside me.”

He looked at her then, found her eyes, because he really wanted her to get it. “And I’d do it again, Eden. I would do it again.”

Her breath rose and fell in her chest, her gaze unwavering. “Me too.”

Huh?

“I would too, Jace. I’m not saying that what you did was right, but it was human, and the only one blaming you is yourself.”

“And God.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“Oh, sure, God forgave me, but He can’t really like me. Because this is the way I am. And frankly, it’s a little cruel, because He made me this way.”

“Oh, Jace
 
—”

He looked away. See, this was way too much information to give her. So much for her believing in him. Loving
 
—

“Jace.” She moved then, dropping the keys on the mat, getting up on her knees on her seat, and taking his face in her hands. “You are God’s child, and that means He’s crazy about you. And that doesn’t change because you do something stupid
 
—or even do something terrible. God’s love simply is. We can’t sin it away
 
—our only option is to accept or reject it. But He isn’t cruel. And He does like you. That isn’t dependent on whether you deserve it but because you are His child.”

He stared at her, longing to believe her words. “No, Eden. Because God also says that a man who has hate in his heart murders his brother, and there is no eternal life for him.” He steeled the truth into her eyes. “I hate my father.”

Her eyes filled, and he gave her a small, sad smile. They sat there in the quiet of the car, and he wanted to cry too.

Because she was finally figuring out she’d been right about him all along.

He gently pushed her back into her seat, reached past her, and picked up his keys.

His cell phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out. Read the text. “That’s Graham. I gotta get to practice.”

She looked at him, her expression stricken. “Jace
 
—no. Your head . . . please
 
—”

“Eden.” He touched her face, ran his thumb down her cheek. “This is who I am. It’s all I have.”

Then, although he expected it, his heart broke a little when she didn’t argue.

If Sam hoped to give Maddy a new life, he had to do it now, before his courage failed him.

He still shook, residue of watching the nightmare of Trey’s death two days ago. Sure, he’d only known the kid for a week, but he and Maddy had hit it off, and the ten-year-old seemed to be on his way to victory.

A new heart.

He’d liked Tony Hawk video games and the Avengers movies, played a mean game of Dominion, and slept with a plush football his dad gave him. As if believing in someday.

Sam couldn’t erase the scene of Alyssa’s and Mike’s lives unraveling. Blood covered the floor of the room, the tubing ripping from Trey’s body as the doctors attempted to reconnect the device before racing him to surgery.

An autopsy would tell the full story about what had gone wrong, but Sam knew the truth.

Only he could save his daughter. It had just taken him a couple of days to work out the details.

His old suitcase, the one he used to take on the road when he traveled with the team, lay on the sofa. He’d already filled it with a few of Maddy’s things
 
—shirts, her favorite jeans, a few of the Beanie Babies, a picture of Mia pregnant, her hands over her belly, smiling into the camera as if they’d all live happily ever after.

He was trying. Oh, he was trying. He just needed a little help.

Only two days ago, it had seemed that God might be on his side. Or at least not trying to destroy him. Then Trey died, and he couldn’t deny the fear that had snuck into his bones.

God just might let Maddy die.

The light washed over the other suitcase, the one crammed with cash. It had taken him longer to liquidate his remaining assets than he’d thought, and finally a loan shark had traded him cash for the bar. Sam grabbed the passports
 
—he’d had one made for Maddy a year ago, when he thought of taking her to Canada to visit Mia’s parents. With the new border laws, it seemed only prudent.

He opened the page, ran a thumb over her smiling face, the shine in her eyes.

Downstairs, the bar had closed for the night. Nell had left a slew of receipts, notes, and orders on his desk, but he couldn’t look at them.

He’d stood in the hallway for a long moment as he came in, before escaping upstairs, watching the lights from the street skim over the smooth wooden floor he’d refinished, the memorabilia collected from years in hockey, pictures and sweaters and posters and . . . The breadth of all he left in his wake could crumple him. But he’d surrender it all for Maddy.

Anything, even his life, for Maddy.

“Sam! I saw the light on and thought someone might be robbing you.”

Sam jerked around and found Jace in his doorway. He’d left it open in his rush, because at midnight, who would find him packing? Except Jace, of course, who kept rock-star hours. The man wore his leather jacket and workout gear, and when he walked into the room, Sam didn’t know whether to run or to collapse in relief.

Jace would understand. He’d help, too. After all, he was as worried as Sam, even calling him while he was on vacation up north.

But he also might stand in his way, try to talk some sense into him.

To Sam’s thinking, this was the only thing that
made
sense.

He kept his voice cool, light. “So, of course, you decided to come up, surprise the robbers, and what, make a citizen’s arrest?”

Jace didn’t smile. “I saw your car in the lot. What are you doing? It’s midnight.”

“Maddy’s sleeping. I had to get away, and this was the only time.”

Jace nodded. “Right. How is she?”

Sam forced a smile, his hands around the passports. “Hanging in there.” Even he could hear the faux hope in his voice. “What are you doing up so late?”

“Had a meeting with Graham. Then stayed to work on my slap shot.”

Jace’s attention grazed the open suitcase of money, then came back to Sam. He stepped into the apartment and shut the door. “What’s going on?” he said quietly.

Sam took a breath, walked over to the case, zipped it. “Nothing.”

“Sam. That’s a lot of money. And you’re packed.”

“You should go, Jace.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Jace put his hand on the suitcase, met Sam’s eyes.

Fine. “I’m getting Maddy a heart.”

Jace just stared at him, and for the first time, Sam stepped outside the panic in his brain and registered his words. But he couldn’t go there, couldn’t think it through from the outside anymore.

He was all in.

“You don’t get it, Jace. Maddy is going to die if we don’t find one soon. And I don’t even know that she’ll be approved for the transplant list. I’m afraid, after everything they find out, it’s not going to go my way
 
—”

“Sam. Stop. First, they’re not going to deny Maddy a heart.”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t have time. A little boy who had her same condition died a couple nights ago. She’s alive because a machine is pumping blood through her. And any day she could form a clot or get an infection or the machine could malfunction
 
—”

“Sam, breathe. Think about this. What are you talking about
 
—checking Maddy out of the hospital, getting on a plane
 
—for where, Mexico? She’s on a Berlin Heart
 
—have you thought at all about that? Because this is crazy talk.”

Sam stared at him, Jace’s words finding his bones. Then he sank onto the sofa. “I don’t know. Maddy is my whole life. Wouldn’t you do anything for your child? You better than anyone understand doing the unthinkable for someone you love. Look at what your mom did for you. Or . . . what you did to your dad.”

Jace’s face went taut. “That was different.”

“Not much.”

“She could die and you could go to jail. Have you lost your mind?”

Sam pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe. But I have to do something. I can’t just sit by her bedside, helpless. Praying to a God who clearly isn’t listening.” He shook his head. “Why is this happening, Jace? I’m trying hard here to hold on to something, anything. But . . .” Sam looked at his friend, his voice tinny. “If I don’t take care of her, who will?”

“Dude.” Jace sat on one of Sam’s ratty chairs. “I’m going to give you the same speech you gave to me that morning I woke up in the hospital, nearly drowned. God has not forsaken you. He cares. He weeps. He loves you. And I don’t understand why you were the one chosen to go through this with Maddy, but you are. I know
you’re tired, but you’re not alone. However, you will be if you walk away from God. And I can’t think of a more terrifying place to be. God will bring you through this if you let Him.”

Sam considered him. “You still believe that? That God loves you? That there is a plan in all this?”

Jace drew in a breath. “With everything inside me, I’m trying to.” He stood. “C’mon. Let’s go back to the hospital. I’ll sit with Maddy so you can get some sleep.”

“You’re just trying to babysit me.”

“That I am.”

“I
HOPE YOU’RE READY
to cheer, Hudson, because I’m expecting a win tonight.”

Eden set the single-serving pizza on his bedside table and pulled up a chair. He seemed unchanged since yesterday, when she’d stopped in with Jace. Still caught just below the veil of consciousness. She touched his hand. “We’re getting closer. Don’t give up.”

Not a twitch. But she had to believe that inside
 
—deep inside
 
—it nudged something. Maybe that’s what it took to awaken someone to life. Seeing who they truly were, telling them they weren’t forgotten.

She sat in the chair and used the remote to find the channel for the Blue Ox away game. The announcers chatted in the pregame, and she tried to spot Jace warming up on the ice behind them.

It’s all I have.

His words still thrummed inside her, so painfully spoken in
the car. She’d wanted to reach out, to grab him by the lapels and say,
Me. You have me.

But that sounded so eager and desperate.

She should have said it anyway. Because the moment he dropped her off at work, kissing her good-bye with such a lingering sadness in his touch, she knew . . .

She loved him.

Sitting there in the car, listening to Jace pour out his gut-wrenching story, watching his face tense, seeing the scene behind his tortured eyes, she’d wanted to cry with the flood of pity that filled her chest. She felt his frustration, his hopes, so brutally dashed.

She was with him in that dank parking garage, pummeling the man who had stolen so much from him.

And the emotion scared her.

Yes, she loved him. Not the crazy, unrealistic kind of fan love but the kind that wanted to stand beside him and fight his battles. The kind of love that saw the man he wanted to be, the compassion, the honor.

Not normal at all. But maybe she didn’t want normal. No, she wanted amazing.

Which meant that maybe she did belong in his world. And sure, he might believe he only had hockey, but he was just afraid of throwing everything into his dreams and having them implode.

Weren’t they all, really?

She turned up the volume on the television as the Blue Ox took the ice. The camera flashed on Jace, and he raised his stick, smiled. Warmth swirled down, right to her belly, pricked only by the slightest edging of fear.

Please, God, keep him safe.

She noticed Owen’s absence from the lineup, as did the
announcers, who segued into an update of his injuries. She guessed the team trainer still had him on injured reserve tonight.

She reached for a piece of pizza and ran through the events of the day, just to keep them straight for her conversation with Jace after the game.

The fact that Hudson might have run track had hung in her mind since leaving the community center, so much so that she’d spent last night googling his name.

Nothing popped.

She’d needed the newspaper’s access to state high school rosters and track meet results, so at lunch, she did a search for Hudson Peterson and came up empty. Expanded it to the nation and still found nothing under his name.

“Whatcha doing?” Kendra had said, setting her coffee down beside the computer as she started her late shift.

“Trying to find a kid named Hudson Peterson, who may have run track.”

“Really?”

“Except I’ve googled him and run his name through the paper’s files and nothing is coming up.”

“Peterson is a pretty common Minnesota name.” Kendra retrieved her chair and brought it around the cubicle.

“You’re telling me. There are forty-seven Petersons in the track-and-field meets from the past ten years. I narrowed it to the past five, and there are seventeen Petersons.”

“None of them named Hudson.”

“Nope. But I was thinking, when I was going to school, we had a number of kids who used their middle names. Like this one girl, her middle name was Watson
 
—like a family name
 
—so that’s what we called her. Watson. Sorta like Sherlock Holmes. . . .”

Kendra ran her finger down the screen. “Niles, Jacob, Drake, Myron
 
—”

“That’s it. It’s gotta be. Who would want a name like Myron?” Eden googled his name.

She scanned the first few hits for a Myron Peterson. One on Match.com, one located in Iowa, and the third listed as a runner on a track team from St. Cloud in an article filed in the
St. Cloud Dispatch
.

Eden clicked on the link to the article and saw that it included a team photo. The world slowed to a crawl as the picture loaded. She stared at the screen, trying to confirm his identity.

Myron Hudson Peterson stood with three other guys, holding a baton, wearing the green and white colors of his high school team.

“Is it him?”

“I don’t know. Could be. He’s wearing a bandage over his head now, and his face is gaunt . . . but yeah, maybe.”

Young, blond, and handsome, Myron filled out his track uniform, wearing a smile, the kind that someone full of life, of hope, might possess. She read his name, just to confirm. “He’s a junior in this picture.”

“Which would make him around nineteen now. Does he look nineteen?”

“Could be. I’ll google his name as a senior runner.” Nothing popped up. “Funny that he didn’t race as a senior.”

“Maybe he didn’t place. Can you find an address?”

She searched but found nothing for St. Cloud, Minneapolis, or St. Paul. She pulled up the white pages for St. Cloud and did a quick search.

“There are 137 Petersons listed in the St. Cloud phone book.”

Kendra picked up the headset. Handed it to Eden. “I know what you’re doing after your shift.”

Except what if she got the wrong Peterson? Yeah, that would be a fun conversation. Maybe she’d save the part where he lay near death until she really needed it.

“I think I’ll start with the school. Certainly they’ll help the Minneapolis
Star Tribune
track down a John Doe.”

“Spoken like a real reporter,” Kendra said.

Eden stayed after her shift ended and spent the last hour of the day convincing the principal of the St. Cloud Saints to hand over Myron Peterson’s phone number. Yes, he knew Myron
 
—or Hudson, as he preferred to be called. No, he hadn’t raced as a senior, but the principal wouldn’t reveal why. He’d finally given her the number when she told him the story.

“Apparently obits has sway after all,” she said to Hudson now. “So I called. And I called. And not even a machine. So I’m thinking I should head up there. Deliver the news in person.” With Jace.

Yes, Jace deserved to have a taste of this moment. She glanced at Hudson as the game played. “You were a handsome guy, Hudson. I’m so sorry for what has happened to you. But we’re going to find your family, and you’re going to wake up and be just fine.”

The television erupted with a siren, cheering, and she saw Jace circle the ice, his hands high.

A cadre of Blue Ox players descended on him, thumping his helmet.

She leaned back, toed off her shoes, and set her feet on the bed.

It’s all I have.

Not anymore. And tomorrow, when his plane landed, she planned on meeting him with the truth.

I love you, Jace.

Sam hated this room. With the happy animals painted on the walls, the bright-colored furniture
 
—all a facade to hide the truth.

In this room, children died.

And with them, parents died.

Until then, like the cheery animals on the walls, parents had to plaster on fake smiles. Pretend as if their world wasn’t imploding a little more with every beat of the heart monitor.

“One more chapter, Daddy. Please?” Maddy looked up from where she was playing with a pile of Beanie Babies. Apparently the penguin was the teacher, trying to teach the other animals to fly.

One more chapter of
The Farthest-Away Mountain
. The book Mia had left for her daughter, an heirloom copy. Sam had read it so many times that he could quote it.

“One more chapter, honey; then you sleep.” He managed it in a voice that didn’t break, didn’t betray that tomorrow morning he would no longer be her daddy.

At least on paper, temporarily.

She plopped the animals in the middle of the bed and leaned back, closing her eyes as he opened the book, reading the scene about Dakin’s tears bringing the brass ogre to life.

He felt like the ogre, except his life, his heart, were slowly hardening. Jace had done the right thing in stopping him from his crazy behavior. But with everything inside Sam, he longed to pull Maddy into his arms, steal her from this hospital, and simply drive.

Leave it all behind as if she’d never gotten sick, never needed a new heart to replace the one God gave her, so much like Mia’s.

He finished the chapter, then kissed her forehead, pulling the covers to her chin before he moved to the recliner. Green and
red lights from the monitor played on the ceiling like lasers. He reached out for Maddy’s hand, found it, and held on.

Oh, he didn’t want to let go.

When the woman walked into his dream, the ethereal place just below consciousness, at first he thought she was Mia. Long black hair, doe-brown eyes. She wore pink scrubs, however, and that threw him, along with the necklace, a dangling gold cross.

Not Mia, but not frightening, either. She wore a smile, something of peace in her expression as she walked toward him.

He tried to rise, feeling himself awaken . . . but perhaps not, because he couldn’t move, his arms pinned to the chair.

She sat on Maddy’s bed, gazed at her with such compassion that the fear drained from him, leaving only warmth.

“You are not alone,” she said when she turned to Sam, but it seemed he felt her words more than heard them. She got up, leaned down, and kissed his forehead. Then she stood over him, her lips unmoving.

“And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart.
”
The verse thrummed deep inside him.

Mia’s verse.

He woke with his hand to his head, his heart thumping into the darkness. Maddy’s machines kept hissing, the lights still glaring on the mirror across the room, like eyes.

He let go of Maddy’s hand. Then, slipping to the floor in front of the recliner, he bowed his head. Heard Jace’s words again.

I know you’re tired, but you’re not alone. However, you will be if you let go of God’s hand. And I can’t think of a more terrifying place to be.

“Oh, God, I don’t want to give up on You. On the belief that
You love me, that You love Maddy. But I’m so tired. And I feel so alone.” He pressed his hands to his eyes, the tremor in his voice scaring him.

“I want to believe. Help me to believe, Lord. Give me the strength for whatever lies ahead.”

Above him, from Maddy’s monitor, the beeping turned to a siren, filling the room with the sounds of his daughter’s heart crashing.

Jace had barely slept with the press interviews stretching long into the night, but he could also blame the heady taste of adrenaline, so reminiscent of his rookie days. Except this time he hadn’t made any headlines but the ones he longed for.