MIKE HAD BREAKFAST with the team, so Bridget got room service before going to the arena for the pregame practice routine. There was a goalie on the ice when she got there, and it wasn’t Mike.
“Come,” said Turchenko. “See if you can score on me.”
Turchenko was not the hardest working player on the team. Bridget had to assume that since Mike had demonstrated that he wasn’t giving up his position as starter, even against Quebec, Turchenko had realized he needed to work a little harder. Bridget didn’t know if Mike was just too good for her to ever score against him, or if she wasn’t good enough to ever win this bet. This was the perfect chance to find out.
Turchenko wasn’t Mike, but Bridget didn’t score either. He was playing very intensely, as if this counted. Maybe he thought this was a competition with Mike. She’d taken only a few shots when she thought she had a chance on a rebound. She skated in, corralled the puck, and then heard Mike. She whirled around, lost her balance, and went down with Turchenko.
Bridget began to think she did have some superpowers. The game that night was chaos. Quebec took run after run on Mike. The coach finally pulled him for his own safety. Turchenko wasn’t terrible, but the game was completely out of hand at that point, with Toronto players out to extract revenge on Quebec. The final score was 7–6 for Quebec. It was a deflated team on the bus to the airport that night.
Bridget had a seat by Mike. He had a couple of stitches on his forehead, and she was sure he had some bruises as well.
“That was quite a game,” Bridget said. Mike just grunted. He was obviously distracted, so Bridget left him in silence. The coach took a moment to talk to her while she was waiting for her bag to come out from under the bus at the airport.
“Was this morning an accident?”
“Completely. I didn’t know Turchenko could show up that early.”
“Hmm.”
Bridget sighed. She got the message. He didn’t want her to do that again. Everyone was buying into this superstition now.
* * *
LAST YEAR, the team had been swept in four games by Quebec. When they came back this year with a split, the city was ecstatic. The fans finally had hope, and most of it was residing in their goalie. There couldn’t have been a bigger contrast with last year. The team fed off their fans and won both games in Toronto. They flew back to Quebec with a chance to clinch the series and win their way to the third round. The arena had seats, but they weren’t needed that night. The fans were on their feet nonstop. It was a punishing game. No quarter was asked or given by either team. Bridget wasn’t sure who all she’d knocked down that morning, but every player was doing his best. The game went to overtime, then another overtime. And finally, Toronto scored, and the game was over.
The team was going crazy. They had a new attitude, brimming with confidence. They’d beaten their biggest rivals, and now, going to the third round of the playoffs, they had exceeded all expectations. Everything was going well. Except with Bridget.
Bridget knew something was wrong. It wasn’t with the Blaze. The team was doing awesomely. Making the third round of the playoffs hadn’t happened for a team in Toronto since the arrival of smartphones. Bridget was getting to spend time with the team in a way she’d never dreamed would be possible. She was like their mascot, at least in the mind of some of the players. She was with Mike, and that was still something that made her smile to think about. So what was her problem?
She wouldn’t admit this to anyone, but a lot of the time now she was bored. She was used to being a participant in events, not a spectator. Thanks in part to her, Mike was now gelling with the team. She made extra effort to be sure not to intrude where she felt she wasn’t needed. There were still times she and Mike had together, but they were getting more and more difficult to carve out from among his other commitments. In Toronto, she didn’t have a pool to swim in, and though she could go to the club to work out, she was avoiding it, and Wally. She’d started driving for long periods of time as a way to keep herself busy, finding ever better routes to get around Toronto, just to fill her time. Maybe she could start a career as an Uber driver. She was glad Jee was busy with prenatal classes and therefore not as observant, because Bridget didn’t want to talk about this. There was nothing to do now but ride out the playoffs.
* * *
THE NEW YORK SERIES was another tough one. The first game Toronto lost. Close, but that didn’t count in hockey. New York won the second game as well, but Toronto pulled back even at home with two wins.
It was when they were back in NYC for game five that the swim race took place at the hotel pool. Mike wasn’t quite sure how this happened. Someone had asked where he’d met Bridget, and the next thing he knew, six people were lining up at the edge of the pool: five guys and Bridget. Someone counted down, and they started.
The results were never in doubt. The guys were fit, and they could swim, but they’d spent their lives training to play hockey. For them, swimming was a way to build cardio so they could skate longer. They thought that their experience, plus being male, would be enough to beat Bridget. Mike knew better. Bridget had spent her life learning how to get through the water as quickly as possible, and it showed.
Halfway through the lap back to the start line, Bridget flipped over and finished in a backstroke, keeping an eye on her competitors. She touched the wall, and hung on to it, a big grin on her face. Mike was grinning, too.
Most of the guys took it well. Turchenko did not. Being beaten by a girl was a slap in the face to his masculine ego. The other players had already pulled themselves out of the pool when he started to yell at Bridget and reached forward to grab her arm. Mike wasn’t sure what Turchenko thought he was going to do, but Mike started to rise from his chair. A hand on his shoulder kept him down. Bridget said something to Turchenko; he took a quick step back. Troy Green jumped back in to pull Turchenko away.
Mike looked up and saw the coach, hand on his shoulder. Coach moved his hand and sat down. Mike gave him a questioning look.
“Let her deal with it. She’d rather take care of herself if she can. As you see, she’s quite capable.”
Mike knew she could handle herself, but he’d had a strong urge to intervene. Coach was right, though. Bridget was happy to fight her own battles.
One of the swimmers came over to Mike and Coach.
“Turchenko doesn’t like losing?” the coach asked, with an ironic undertone. Mike thought he probably wished Turchenko felt the same about his hockey games.
The player laughed. “He doesn’t like losing to a girl, anyway.”
“What did Bridget say that made him back off like that?” the coach continued.
“She told him if he touched her again he’d better be wearing a cup or there wouldn’t be a second generation of Turchenkos. She’s something else.”
Mike and the coach laughed. “She has five older brothers,” Mike said.
“That explains a lot,” said the coach.
A second race was then set up. Turchenko was convinced he could win over a longer distance. So, eight laps, just Bridget and Turchenko. A couple of players went to the far end to make sure the competitors touched the wall fairly.
Bridget assumed her starting pose, and Turchenko copied her. Someone counted down, and they took off.
This race was different in that it covered four times the distance. Different, also, because Turchenko had the lead. Mike was surprised, and watched closely. Turchenko kept ahead, but Mike would have sworn that Bridget’s turn at the wall was deliberately slow.
Turchenko stayed just ahead. He was swimming hard, while Mike was sure Bridget was taking her time. Turchenko kept about a body length lead on Bridget. After the halfway turn, Bridget flipped, got a little closer to Turchenko, and he turned it up a notch to stay ahead of her.
Finally, the last two laps. Mike wondered if she’d decided to let Turchenko win, to help team morale. But he saw he’d been mistaken. She knew exactly what she was doing. She wasn’t just going to out-swim Turchenko, she was going to do it by outsmarting him.
Turchenko was struggling. He was starting to flail. Bridget had been pushing him, just enough to keep him swimming all-out to stay in the lead. Bridget’s only concern was in hitting the final wall first, but Turchenko wanted to be in front the whole way. She’d known and used that to get him to spend his reserves. In these last two laps, he had nothing left, and Bridget passed him as if he was standing still.
She didn’t wait in the pool after hitting the wall this time. She pulled herself up from the water to the sound of cheers from the guys. She flashed a big smile at Mike, and he smiled back, feeling proud, though he knew he’d had no part to play in her victory. But she was his, and she was amazing.
Turchenko offered his hand, and Bridget shook it. Then a couple of the guys wanted to know how to do that turn at the wall, or the butterfly stroke. In a matter of minutes, Bridget was back in the pool, providing an ad hoc coaching session.
Mike turned to his own coach, wondering what he’d think of this.
“She’s good,” he said. Mike nodded.
“I’d hire her.”
Mike was surprised by that.
“If she coached my sport, and I could get management to sign a female coach,” he continued. “She’s got Green and Turchenko listening to her. That’s impressive.”
Mike looked back at the coaching session. He’d never seen her with her swim team, he realized, but he was getting a glimpse now. She was very good at this, and she enjoyed it. Even her hair seemed brighter. Finding a place where you excelled and felt good—that was a special thing. Unfortunately for Bridget, she was just doing this for an afternoon. The club pool still wasn’t open. It would be hockey as usual, and Bridget would be back on the sidelines. Mike knew he should do something to help her. Surely, he had some contacts somewhere. Bridget needed this. He swore he’d find a way to help—after the playoffs. These playoffs had lasted longer than he’d expected, longer than anyone had. They were finite, though. For just a bit longer he had to focus on hockey. It was a familiar thought.
Mike stole that game in NYC, and the team was able to pull off a win back home. So Toronto, at long last, was going to be in the finals. They were playing for the Cup. The city was covered in black, red and yellow, and, for now, everyone was a Blaze fan.
* * *
BRIDGET WAS AT loose ends, again. It had become a familiar, though unwelcome, feeling, and now there were two more weeks to get through. The team was flying to Victoria for the first game of the finals tomorrow, and she would be flying out, too. The press was making a field day about the young goalie in Victoria—the new Mike Reimer, meeting the old Mike Reimer. Bridget asked Mike if he needed a cane now.
The joke had been forced. Of course, she was happy for Mike and the team. But today they were doing publicity, and she couldn’t sit in her apartment on her own or she’d go crazy, so she decided to drop by the swimming club where Annabelle was now in training. She could torture herself for a bit. That would be a sure way to cheer herself up.
She walked through the doors. This was a top club, maybe the top club. The swimming program at the athletic club where Bridget was still technically coach had been improving when it came to their swimming program, but this club already had Olympic swimmers. One day, Bridget promised herself, she’d be working at a club like this, going to the top meets and seeing her swimmers on the podium.
Or had she missed her chance, she wondered dismally. Couldn’t she be happy having accomplished what she had, and watching her A-team as they potentially became those podium swimmers? She sighed. She didn’t think so.
Bridget arrived a little early to watch practice. She was taking Annabelle for brunch afterward. Maybe she wouldn’t have much chance in the future to use it, but she’d try to pick up some more knowledge while she was here and had the opportunity. She’d already incorporated some of the innovations Jonesy had pioneered in conditioning into the program she’d instituted at the club. Not all. She had her own ideas and had been trying some of those also. She thought they’d been working but...
She took in the chlorine smell, the echoing sounds, the humid feel of the air. She breathed deeply, having missed this so much. Then she spotted Annabelle. The girl looked to be doing well. She was talking to her new coach, Jonesy. Annabelle looked up, saw Bridget and waved to her. Bridget waved back. Annabelle said something to the coach, then they both walked over to Bridget.
Jonesy was an ordinary-looking guy. You could pass him on the street and not remember him. Brown hair, medium height and medium build. He was quiet and undemonstrative, which meant he was pretty well the opposite of Bridget. But close to him, you could feel the intensity. He might not be someone you’d notice in a crowd, but he exuded a confidence and charisma when you spoke to him. And he was very observant. Bridget had been surprised that he recognized her in Winnipeg after that short meeting in Atlanta. After all, there were a lot of coaches trying to make it to Jonesy’s level. Not only did he remember her name again today, he surprised her by asking if she had a moment to talk. Bridget said of course. He probably had questions about Annabelle. Any time she could spend with him would be of value. She even wondered if by any chance he knew of someplace needing a coach.
Annabelle ran off to change and Bridget followed him to his office. It was bigger than her cubbyhole at her club, and had pictures of his past winners on the walls. She’d have loved to check them out, but he offered her a seat. There was a moment while he seemed to collect his thoughts.
“You’ve done a good job with Annabelle. She’s talked a lot about you. I’m sure you weren’t happy to lose her.”
Bridget shrugged. “Not happy” was an understatement.
“Do you know when your pool will be open?”
“No date yet.” Bridget didn’t think Wally would tell her till it was filled with water again. Maybe not even then.
“How long are you signed with them?”
Bridget liked the trend of these questions. “Through the end of the summer. But since there’s no pool, and no date set for it to open, I’m pretty well done now until next season.”
Jonesy was pursuing his own line of thought. “I’ve had a good five years here.” Thinking of the results he’d had, including medals in the Olympics, Bridget had to agree. “But my daughter is pregnant.”
“Congrats!” said Bridget. She wasn’t sure why he was sharing this with her, but maybe he was just making conversation. She was probably reading too much into the questions he’d been asking.
Jonesy smiled. “Thank you. My wife has told me she’s moving back to Australia to be a grandmother, and I think I’d be wise to go with her. Still, I have a lot invested here, and I want to leave it in good hands.
“As you know, things change quickly in our sport. I have assistants here who would be happy to keep things going the way I have them now, but if this club is to stay a success, it needs to advance—take risks, try new things, keep on the front line of innovation.”
Bridget nodded. Exactly what Jonesy was known for, and which she’d tried to emulate. Annabelle and Austin showed that it could be successful even when done at a more basic level.
“I’m looking for someone to take over here. Someone with a drive for winning, someone innovative and successful. Someone who isn’t going to try to be Jonesy Two, but who will make this club over into the way she wants it.”
Bridget froze. She?
Jonesy nodded. “I’ve talked to Annabelle, and her parents and some of your other swimmers. Your previous coach sings your praises. I’ve watched tape of you competing, and your swimmers before and after training with you. I know you’re young, but I started young and I’ve taken risks before. I’d like you to work with me for six months to transition over, and then I can go see my grandchild and feel confident the club is in good hands.”
Bridget was almost speechless. “Really? Are you sure?”
“I know it’s a lot to take in, and I’ve hit you out of the blue. Take a bit of time to consider it. It’s a demanding job, but I think you could do some good things here. When can you come back so we can discuss this in a little more detail? That is, if you think you might be interested.”
Bridget could only nod. Interested? Words couldn’t describe how interested.
They set a time to meet again. Bridget had a nice brunch with Annabelle, and listened to her talk about the club with renewed interest. Underneath, the excitement was thrumming. You didn’t get your dream handed to you every day.
She had a lot to think about.
She wanted to call Mike, but he was tied up with a team event. So she went home and fidgeted with anything she touched. She should be over the moon, calling everyone she knew, but there were a lot of things to consider, and she wasn’t sure Mike was who she should talk to after all. If she mentioned this to him, they’d have to start talking about the future, and it was a bad time for that. She should do what she did when she needed to think: swimming or road hockey. Thanks to Wally, there was no pool, so she went out to the garage to get a net and a ball.
There wasn’t much to do but practice her shot on her own. While part of her mind calculated distance and speed, the other part worried over her problem. Word got out, as the day waned and her brothers showed up to join her. Cormack got in net, and Patrick and Brian joined up against the two of them. Brian and Patrick were soon up 3–0.
Cormack called time.
“What’s your problem, Bridget? You let Brian right by you.”
“Sorry, I’m a little distracted.”
“No kidding. What’s the matter?”
Bridget sat on the curb, dropping her stick. “I was offered my dream job today.”
Brian cocked his head. “So why aren’t you celebrating? Isn’t that good news?”
“It’s excellent news. Really. It’s at the club downtown that is basically the best in the country. I’ve been asked to be head coach.” Her stomach dipped. It was good, but scary, too.
“Congrats, Bridgie,” said Patrick. “But, yeah, you don’t look happy.”
“Part of me is. Really. Unless I mess up, I’ll be working with the best swimmers in Toronto. I’ll get to go to international meets, probably the Olympics. It’ll be lots of work, lots of traveling, and I’ll get to do the thing I want to do most.”
“I can see why that would upset you,” Patrick said, ruffling her hair.
Cormack spoke up. “What about Mike?”
There was a pause.
“How serious are you guys, B?” asked Brian.
Bridget shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Cormack snorted. “How can you not know?”
Bridget glared at him. “I’m not a moron, Cormack. But it’s not that easy. We had just started going out when the playoffs began, and since then it’s been crazy. I don’t know how serious Mike is. We didn’t discuss any plans for after the season, but no one thought the Blaze would go this far and that the playoffs would last this long. And I don’t think that the start of the Cup finals is the time to ask Mike to sit down and discuss the status of our relationship.”
The guys flinched. Obviously not a discussion they were fond of having either.
“Mike isn’t going to be here next year,” Cormack stated, and the others nodded.
Bridget knew that. The Toronto teams couldn’t afford the salary he could ask for now. And realistically, while the city was going crazy for the Blaze, the team could go this far again only if there was another perfect storm of hockey circumstances. It was not likely. There was no future for arguably the best goalie in the league staying in Toronto, even if money wasn’t a factor.
“Could you get another coaching job somewhere else, if Mike wanted you to go with him?” Patrick asked. “I mean, if you’ve got this offer, you’re pretty good, right?”
Bridget looked at him. “Sure, I march in to whatever club I like in the city Mike settles on, and ask, totally ignoring whether or not they have a vacancy, if they want to hire me, because I was offered a job here in Toronto but wasn’t committed enough to take it? And of course, I’ll give notice if my boyfriend goes to another team?”
Brian sat down beside her and gave her a hug. “So it’s love or money?”
“Not really,” said Cormack. “Mike has lots of money. Love and money or your job?”
“Dream job or dream guy, I guess,” said Bridget.
Brian was Bridget’s favorite brother for a reason. He looked at her and asked, “Bridget, if Jee had come to you with a question like this, what would you have said?”
Bridget didn’t pause. “Job. I’d never tell someone to give up their job for a guy. I mean, who knows what’s going to happen with the guy?” She took a moment and thought over what she’d said. She sighed. “I just didn’t imagine it would be so difficult. Mike’s great.” There was longing in her voice.
“Are you sure that’s what you want to pick?” Cormack asked. “You have to admit, the perks with Mike are pretty awesome. And he’s not a jerk.” Cormack had come around since that first road hockey game in the fall.
Patrick raised an eyebrow. “Well, Bridgie?”
Bridget thought about the last month and a half. It had been fun. But as Mike became more integrated with the team, she was doing less, and getting bored. And this was the playoffs. During the regular season, it would be worse. Whatever coaching she might pick up on an ad hoc basis, after having had this offer dangled before her, would drive her crazy. She’d tried being a hockey girlfriend, and it wasn’t enough. She needed her dream, too.
Bridget sighed. “I can’t settle.”
“What are you going to tell Mike?” asked Brian.
“Nothing right now. I have to meet with Jonesy again after the first Victoria trip to formally accept. And I don’t think I should say anything to Mike in the middle of this series.”
The brothers agreed on that one. No one who called themselves a hockey fan would upset the team in the finals. Bridget stood up again, grabbed a ball, and shot it at Cormack. She played better, since talking to her brothers had brought out into the open what her decision would have to be, but she could see bad times coming, and she wanted to put it off as long as she could.
* * *
PHYSICALLY, MIKE WAS feeling good. There was some fatigue, and a lot of sore muscles, but no injuries. These last couple of rounds of hockey had been incredible. He was playing as well as he’d played in his life. He had Bridget and her crazy family around, which gave him a break from hockey when he needed it. It seemed counterintuitive, but as his feelings grew for Bridget, hockey got a little less important but somehow easier. If they’d lost to New York, or if they lost to Victoria, it was, well, not the end of the world. He still loved hockey, but it wasn’t so scary to think of it ending someday. He had something else, something big enough to replace hockey eventually. Maybe he could even have his own team of little redheads. He could admit, at least to himself, that he was thinking permanent. He thought Bridget was, too. As soon as the playoffs were over, they were going to have a talk.
The strain was starting to tell on Bridget, he could see. Just trying to “accidentally” bump into someone at practice was a challenge. There were only so many players, and they would pretty well line up like dominos. No one would admit to taking this ritual seriously, but everyone was there, just the same. The players were desperate. They were afraid of any change in their routine at this stage of the game. For this team to be here was a miracle, and they all knew it. They were waiting for the shoe to drop, ending things.
But something was up with Bridget. Finding time alone now was a problem, but he would swear she wasn’t trying anymore. Part of him wanted to find out what the problem was, but a bigger part of him preferred to skirt the issue. He could claim he wasn’t superstitious, but he didn’t want to upset the balance they had, either. He’d almost scared himself once, thinking impatiently that the season needed to be over soon so he could get things settled with Bridget, and that traitorous thought disconcerted him. He couldn’t play to win if he was thinking of losing.
The impromptu swim race in New York had made him face some hard facts. Bridget had been a trouper, hanging around to be there for him throughout these playoffs, but this was an anomaly. When he’d seen how she’d come to life at the chance to compete, and to do a bit of coaching, he’d had to realize that she needed that just as much as he needed to play. He’d been shocked when his coach had said he’d hire her. Mike hadn’t appreciated how good she was. Not only did she need that outlet, she had too much talent to waste. And if he really loved her...with a jolt, he realized he did.
This wasn’t like his relationship with Amber. It had come on slowly, but that had only made it stronger. Somehow, it went deeper. He was older and wiser. He had a better idea of what he needed in a partner, and Bridget was exactly right for him.
So he knew, if they were to have a future together, her career would have to be as big a factor as his. And that complicated things.
At this point, it didn’t much matter if the Blaze won the Cup or not; Mike was going to be the hottest property in free agency. He’d have his pick of teams and would be offered a lot of money. He could go for the cash, or go to a team that would be a Cup competitor for the next several years. He knew the Blaze’s position this year was a fluke, but there were teams that would be a strong contender with him. He had once thought he’d retire after spending his career with just one team in Quebec. Now, his options were wide open, and that was exciting. His agent was getting “hypothetical” offers, since Mike was still under contract. Mike had asked him to research competitive swimming potential in any city that was making serious “hypotheticals.”
He wanted to talk to Bridget about this, but it would have to be a private discussion, and really, he should keep that talk aside till the playoffs were over. There was a reason players didn’t sign contracts during the playoffs. They couldn’t afford the distraction. But this worry about Bridget was taking his mind off the game. He needed to let her know he saw a future with her, and to do that they needed to talk it out. There were teams he’d prefer to sign with, but only if Bridget was on board. He could compromise, maybe quite a bit. He felt rather magnanimous, admitting that.
He also wanted to take her to meet his mother after the playoffs. He figured they could visit her before the July 1 free agency started, and maybe visit some of these prospective destinations. Check out coaching situations at swim clubs, as well as hockey possibilities.
He knew it would be smart to wait till the playoffs were over. But when he came out for practice, before game five, he saw Bridget skating. Something about her expression disturbed him. He wanted reassurance, so he found himself asking, impulsively, “Hey, Bridget, how would you feel about flying out to Phoenix?”
“Phoenix?” She glided to a halt, looking perplexed.
“Yeah. I usually head out to see my mother at the end of the season. I’d like you to meet her.”
Bridget stared at him, eyes wide. He wondered what was up. He’d met her family; didn’t it follow that she would meet his?
“It’s a little premature, right? I mean, we should wait till the series is over, and who knows how long things could take?” she asked.
Mike straightened. Something was wrong. “I wasn’t talking about tomorrow. I didn’t have a definite date, but win or lose, we’ll be done in a week and I’ll be free. Unless the pool’s opening?”
Bridget shook her head. “Not that I’ve heard,” she said, but she wouldn’t look at him.
He laid his stick on the net, and skated over to the faceoff circle where she was focusing on a skate lace.
“Bridget,” he said.
She looked up at him, and he was startled to see tears in her eyes. “We should talk later, okay? Big game tonight.”
A fist was squeezing his chest. Why didn’t she want to make plans with him? She couldn’t just be afraid of meeting his mother. “Bridget. What’s up?”
“Can’t we—” she started.
“No. I don’t need the distraction of worrying about this. Let’s lay it all out in the open.”
Bridget straightened slowly and chipped at the ice with the toe of her skate. “Um, I kind of have plans.”
Plans. Plans she hadn’t mentioned to him. Plans that apparently didn’t include him. The fist squeezed tighter.
He waited.
“I went to see Annabelle at her new club.” He knew the club. Best in the city, maybe best in the country, she’d said. That Aussie coach, Jonesy, she’d been so excited to meet in Atlanta. And great swimmers. He nodded that he was following her.
“They offered me a job. My dream job. Head coach.”
Mike was about to congratulate her when it struck him. Bridget had made her decision, and she hadn’t included him. And it meant she wasn’t moving anywhere. She was going to be in Toronto for a long time.
She finally looked up at him. “Mike, I know how much hockey means to you. I would never ask you to give it up. But it turns out this is pretty much the same for me. I know you can’t stay in Toronto, and I can’t leave now. I just wanted to wait till you won the Cup to tell you.”
Mike couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe.
“I tried, Mike. I really tried to be who you need. But I’m just not the right kind of person. I can’t let this coaching thing go, and you deserve someone who can put you first.”
She looked at him, at her eyes pleading for understanding. He wanted to say something, say the right thing, but then the team was jumping onto the ice, whooping and hollering at the excitement of starting game five in the Cup finals, tied up, a chance to win it all. Mike had been feeling pretty much the same thing until five minutes ago. But he’d give it all up if he could just start over with Bridget. She headed straight for the exit, hardly noticing a rookie fall on his butt while he got out of her path. One minute she was there, then she’d skated away. And Mike stood there, immobile, trying to get air into his lungs, watching her go.
* * *
BRIDGET ALMOST TORE off her skates and ran out of the rink. She sped down the sidewalk, not looking where she was going. This had gone so, so wrong. What was her problem, blurting it out like that? Why couldn’t she have just smiled and said “sure”? There were two, three games left, maximum. All she had to do was pretend for less than a week, but she couldn’t. She’d had to give up playing poker with her brothers because they busted her every time. She could never bluff. How had she thought she could pull this off?
And the look on Mike’s face... Bridget was walking down the sidewalk so fast people were giving her odd looks. She needed a good game of road ball, but she wasn’t going to find that in downtown Victoria. Her other option? A swim. That she could do. The hotel had a pool.
She’d walked a fair piece away from the rink and she hadn’t been sure where she was. By the time she got back, she had a moment of panic. What if Mike was there? She couldn’t face him. But no, he would still be at practice. He couldn’t throw away a practice for the finals on game day. She could swim for maybe an hour, and hopefully by then she’d be ready to face him again. That was, if he was still speaking to her. She wasn’t sure if he’d want her to leave immediately, or to stay around for the team for the last few games. It was going to be difficult either way. Her stomach knotted.
She went through the hotel lobby and caught an elevator with some Toronto fans. Fortunately she’d never gotten much publicity, so she slipped off on her floor unremarked. She slid the card in the lock and headed over to the stand where she’d left her suitcase with her swimsuit. Then she saw him. Still wearing his hockey uniform. He was sitting in a chair waiting.
“We need to talk,” he said, in a tight voice.
* * *
MIKE HAD NEVER left a practice. He was a professional, and he behaved that way. He was proud of it. The day Bridget got had her altercation with Wally when the pool closed, he’d sent in his excuse before practice started, and that was as close as he’d ever come to ignoring his commitments. But walk off the ice like he’d just done? Never.
And yet he’d marched off the ice today, ignoring the questions thrown at him, made his way to the dressing room where he pulled off his skates and pads to put on shoes and then headed out. He was terrified Bridget might just leave. In that moment, he knew straightening things out with her was more important than anything else in his life.
He was sure he’d looked a sight tromping down the sidewalk in his Blaze uniform, but he needed to find Bridget, and the only place he could think to start was her hotel room. She’d have to pick up her stuff, and he wanted to get there before she could leave.
Whether it was the uniform, knowing who he was or the determination in his face, somehow he was able to get the maid to let him into her room. Some of the tension left his body when he saw her things still inside. She hadn’t left. He’d just wait until she showed up.
He saw himself in a mirror. He looked ridiculous. He sat and started to pull off the remaining pads and protective gear that were out of place when he was off the ice. He realized that, suddenly, all those questions he’d been debating about what to do were resolved. He was going to do whatever it took to be with Bridget.
He had time to straighten out his thoughts before he heard her at the door. She stopped when she saw him, looking almost scared. He didn’t like that. But there were a few things he didn’t like, and the only way to work them out was to talk.
“We need to talk,” he said. He tried not to sound angry or hurt, but he was. He’d like to block the door and tell her she wasn’t leaving till things were worked out, and worked out right, but he had a pretty good idea how that would go. He’d prefer to see her angry, not sad and fearful, but this wasn’t the time to provoke her.
She smiled tremulously. “Nothing good ever comes after ‘We need to talk,’” she echoed from an earlier conversation.
“Let’s make an exception to that. Could you sit? I’d rather you didn’t run away before we can work through this.”
That made her chin go up. “I’m not going to run. I just didn’t expect to find you here. Shouldn’t you be at practice?”
“Yes,” he said baldly.
“Then?”
“This is more important.”
She stared. And sat.
“So what happened with Jonesy?” Mike asked.
Bridget fidgeted with her cuff. “He’s retiring. New grandchild. He’s offered me a six-month lead-in to take over his position.”
“That’s certainly a step up from coaching at your current club. You deserve it. Congratulations. When did this happen?”
Bridget stared at her cuff. “I went to see Annabelle just before the Victoria series, and he asked to talk to me.”
“And you accepted?”
She nodded, biting her lip. “Day before yesterday.”
Mike was silent, and Bridget looked up, blinking behind her glasses. “It was the most difficult decision I’ve ever made.”
Mike asked. “Why? It’s your dream job, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “It is, but there’s nothing for you in Toronto.”
Mike hoped that wasn’t true, but didn’t say it out loud.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” This was the part that tore at him. It was the part that would let him know if he had a chance.
Bridget sighed. “We’re in the finals. It wasn’t really the time to ask where you thought our relationship was headed. If you didn’t think there was any future for us, it didn’t matter. And if you did—” She broke off for a moment. “If you did, then we’d be faced with deciding between my career here and your career elsewhere. When I got that offer, I wanted it so badly. And I just couldn’t see any way to have that and have us. This job involves traveling—not just in North America but around the world. We had a hard enough time finding time together when we were both in Toronto. And if we wanted to have a family—” Bridget stopped.
A sliver of hope there. She’d thought about them having a family. Good.
Mike spoke softly. “You thought you’d save me having to choose between the woman I love and hockey again.”
Bridget’s head shot up.
Mike nodded. “But it turns out that having the choice made for me is even worse. Tell me, what do you want, Bridget?”
She looked at him. “Well, the Blaze to win the Cup.”
He shook his head. “No, the real stuff. What do you most want in your life?”
She went back to her cuff. “My job, obviously. My family. You.” Her cheeks flushed.
“Okay. Ask me what I want.”
“I know you want—”
Mike shook his head. “Ask me.”
“Okay, Mike. What do you want?”
He waited till she looked up. She stilled, staring at him so intently through those crazy big glasses. He hoped she could see he meant what he was saying.
“You.”
There was a pause. The silence was loud. She opened her mouth, but he went on, “No, that’s it. When you left. I didn’t care who won the hockey game, I didn’t care who was starter, I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t lost you.”
Bridget didn’t seem to be able to speak.
“It wasn’t always that way. For a long time, I thought I didn’t have anything if I didn’t have hockey. But really, hockey wasn’t that much. I’d got the money, the accolades, and at the end of the day, I was going home to a hotel room, alone.
“That changed after I met you. I don’t want to go back. I won’t go back. I don’t know how to make this work, but I’m going to find a way. I love you. You’re my top priority.”
Bridget looked at him, eyes serious behind the lenses. “Mike, I love you, too, but I won’t make you choose.”
“You don’t have to. I’ve already chosen.”
* * *
BRIDGET DIDN’T GIVE him much time before she insisted he call the team and let them know he was fine. Mike expected he’d be benched, but at this point, the team needed to win more than they needed to enforce rules, so Mike would start after all.
Bridget was down at the glass for warm-ups, and the whole team saluted her. The coaches had some questions about what had happened this morning, but Mike knew he was fine to play. He’d never felt better in his life. Tonight, he couldn’t lose.
And he was right. This game did come down to the two goalies, but the “old” Mike Reimer had never been better. It took two overtime periods for someone to score, but the Blaze shut out the Victoria Chinooks to go up in the series, 3–2. It was a big win, and the whole team could feel it. Two nights later, playing back in Toronto, Mike knew that they’d broken the Chinooks after that grueling overtime win. Victoria pulled their goalie in the closing minutes, but Mike was in his zone, and shut the door.
The Blaze won the Cup.
There was a moment when the arena was frozen. Mike could feel the people in the arena, collectively, coming to terms with this. Toronto, the hockey crazy city with two hockey teams that hadn’t managed to claim the prize in more than fifty years, had won the Cup. The upstart Blaze had finally, finally brought the Cup home. The place exploded.
Only a few people noticed the redhead in the Reimer jersey run toward the tunnel where the team entered. A couple of team assistants helped her over the glass. Mike saw her running toward him. He had no idea how she’d gotten there, since he’d been the center of an ecstatic group of hockey players, but they cleared a path and she leaped into his arms, knocking him down. He wrapped his arms around her, knowing he’d won a prize more valuable than the silver trophy about to be paraded around the ice. He stared into the happy, vivid face above him, and ignoring the rest of the team, the crowd and the cameras, he kissed Bridget, kissed her with all the love and excitement and joy he was feeling in that moment. And her response let him know that he’d made the right choice.
That kiss was the photo on the front page of every Canadian paper the next day.