Chapter Seven

Though it was unlikely that any of his teammates would have arrived yet, the Music City Ice Center was alive with noise and activity when Emile entered. There was always a lot going on this time of day—youth hockey practices, figure skating lessons, public skates. He paused to look through the door of rink D where the Junior Nashville Sound, the 16-20 year olds, were practicing. Juniors were the first level of elite hockey after youth hockey.

He’d loved his junior years as much as he’d hated his time in youth hockey, because junior hockey meant living away from home with a host family—not that he’d wanted to get away from his mother and sister. He’d just thought it would be better for everyone if he didn’t live with them. After all, he was the one who infuriated Andre. Emile had thought with him gone, his mother and Gabriella would be able to live in peace. He’d been wrong about that. Emile understood now that a man like Andre was always going to have a punching bag—it was a just a matter of who. Turns out, he should have stayed and let it be him.

But he hadn’t, and he’d hit the jackpot when he’d been drafted by the Buxton Ice Demons and Paul and Johanna Lindell had become his billet parents. Not every junior hockey player was so lucky, but the Lindells had provided him with a warm, welcoming home where clean clothes appeared like magic and he had the best food he’d ever had in his life. They treated him like family, but it was only after his son-of-a-bitch stepfather broke Gabriella’s arm and knocked his mother down the stairs that Emile knew he was family. They’d taken Emile back to Canada for his mother’s funeral, and when they found out that eleven-year-old Gabriella had no place to go, they’d gone through a mountain of red tape to bring her back to North Dakota to live with them.

Bad times. Good times. One always followed the other.

He wondered if the kids on the Junior Sound team had happy billet homes. The kid in the net wasn’t bad. He’d stop by their practice one day next week.

When he entered the Sound locker room, he expected it to be empty, like it usually was when he arrived, but today he got a surprise—another one. The head equipment manager was not only there, but he was also fussing with things in Emile’s stall.

“Bonjour, Packi,” Emile said.

The weathered, gray-haired man looked up from hanging Emile’s practice sweater in the oversized goalie stall. He’d played minor league hockey in the days when bloody fights were practically required but helmets were not, and he had the scars to prove it. Weathered and gray, he might be, but no one could accuse Oliver Klepacki of being wizened or weak. He was straight and strong, and Emile imagined a woman of a certain age would have said he was handsome. Maybe a woman of any age.

“Cześć,” Packi said in Polish. Emile had learned his lesson about pointing out that Packi was a native of Milwaukee and had never set foot in Poland. Packi had given it right back to him; he cared not that Emile was a star and a two-time winner of the Vezina Trophy. Anyway, so what Emile if hadn’t been to France—yet? He’d get around to it. On the other hand, Packi said he had no desire to go to Poland. He began to arrange Emile’s pads.

“What are you doing?” Emile asked.

“I’ve decided to take care of you myself for a while. I sharpened your skates. I told Caleb and Marty not to touch them for the time being.”

This stopped Emile in his tracks. Packi supervised two equipment managers and two locker room attendants. He ordered new equipment, made repairs on the bench during games, sharpened skates, and bossed his underlings around. He did not hang sweaters and put players’ stalls in order—except when he did.

Every once in a while, Packi assumed taking care of a player when he needed a little extra care—sometimes when bad things happened, like when Jake Champagne was going through a divorce or when Mike Webber’s mother died. But sometimes it was because of good things. He’d catered to Glaz when Noel was pregnant and to Mikhail Orlov when he, Sharon, and their three children were moving to a different house. Jan Voleck had gotten special care during the time leading up to his wedding to Krystal, the puck bunny who was seven years his senior—though no one could be sure if that was a good thing or bad. Probably bad, though Emile knew from personal experience she was good in bed—or really not so much in bed as up against the wall in the handicapped stall in the women’s toilet at the Big Skate.

Glaz and some of the others swore that Packi had some kind of magical sixth sense, that he just knew when someone needed some extra help, but Emile didn’t believe in that any more than he believed in superstition.

But there wasn’t anything particularly good or bad going on in Emile’s life, so why him and why now?

Packi handed him an insulated container and a fork. “You didn’t have time to eat before coming here today, did you? Though you would have, if you didn’t have to be the first one here. If I was guessing, I’d say you might have had a protein shake.”

“How did you know?” Emile opened the container. It was his usual quinoa and wild rice with chicken on top.

“I know my boys. I know when there’s something going on.” He picked up Emile’s helmet and began to polish it as if it were game day. “When you have this touched up, you should add something for the Stanley Cups.”

Parfait! Why hadn’t he thought of that?

“You are the wisest man I know, Packi.”

Packi looked up and raised his eyebrows. “Because I thought of a new way to embellish your ego? Do you want to talk about what’s going on with you?”

Emile took a bite of the chicken. “There’s nothing going on with me.” He pointed to the food. “But this is good. Merci.”

“Nothing going on? You sure?” He replaced the helmet on the shelf. “I cooked that chicken myself. I didn’t just dump in a can of that stuff like you do.”

“Maybe you should teach me to cook chicken.”

“I could teach you a lot of things.” Packi picked up one of Emile’s skates. “Laces looking a little worn. I thought I’d change them.”

“Good idea. You didn’t tape my sticks did you?”

Packi sat down next to Emile in Swifty’s stall and began to unlace the skates. “You know I never mess with a man’s stick-taping unless he wants me to. You tape your own.”

“Always.” Emile finished his food and began to undress. He liked to stretch in the locker room and then again on the ice before anyone else arrived.

“I’ve heard that ballerinas sew the ribbons on their toe shoes themselves. It’s kind of the same thing.” Packi wove the new laces through the eyelets slowly and deliberately. Emile knew he could do it lightning fast with just as much precision. He’d seen him do it on the bench during games. A Sound player never missed his rotation during a game because of equipment failure.

“Really?” Emile was impressed. He’d been to the ballet. He’d wanted to like it like he wanted to like opera and modern art, but in the end he just didn’t get it. “You know of ballet?”

“No. But I know of my wife. She likes to go, and I like her. Quite a lot. So, I go. Sometimes.”

Emile had nothing to contribute to a ballet discussion, so he changed the subject.

“Tell me, Packi, what do you know of Cameron Snow?”

Packi looked up, surprised. “Voleck’s agent? Not a lot. I’ve seen him around a few times. I didn’t cotton to him. Too slick. You’re not thinking of changing agents are you?”

“No. Miles suits me, and he has become my friend. In any case, I would not choose Snow. I am not sure of all the details, but I met his girlfriend today—or former girlfriend. It seems he has abandoned her and maybe taken all her money.”

“And she let that happen? Is she stupid?”

“No. She’s very smart.” Emile wasn’t sure how he knew that, but he was certain of it. “It’s a mystery.”

Packi gave out a gruff little laugh. “And you say you have nothing going on with you? Where is this woman right now?”

Chagrined, Emile admitted, “At my home. But it’s temporary. By the time I return from practice, she will have figured out a plan.” Probably she’ll want to go to her family. Maybe one of them was en route, even now, to collect her. Certainly, if that had happened to Gabriella, that’s where he’d be—even if it was the Stanley Cup finals. The Sound would have to make do with Case Cole, Emile’s backup.

“So, she’s good at figuring out plans?”

In truth, Emile didn’t know. But if she wasn’t, he was. He could buy her a ticket and put her on a plane to Georgia. Yes. That’s what he’d do unless she had a better idea.

“Glad to hear there’s nothing going on in your life.” Packi finished lacing the skate and picked up the other one. “I hope she doesn’t steal the silver.”

“I don’t have any silver.” Though he would hate to lose the nice flatware set he’d bought at Pottery Barn. “She wouldn’t take it. She’s not the type.”

“And you know this about her? You’ve known her how long?” Packi put down the second skate, picked up the first one again, and began wiping it down with a cloth.

“Not long.” No way was he going to admit to anyone that he had left a woman he’d known four hours in his house alone.

“How long?”

“Four hours.” Unless he was asked directly by someone he respected—and it was impossible not to respect a man who got tears in his eyes over a good win or a bad loss, and out-and-out cried without shame over a great win.

“Uh huh.” Packi could confer more with an “uh huh” and head shake than most people could with entire French and English vocabularies.

“You’re probably wondering why I know she wouldn’t steal from me.”

“I wasn’t wondering. But why don’t you tell me?”

“I am pretty sure she had some money. She said she’d sold her business and signed a non-compete contract.”

“People don’t usually sell their businesses without collecting money. What was her business?”

“She didn’t say. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters. Could have been a computer software company. Could have been a tattoo parlor or food truck.”

“Do tattoo parlor and food truck owners sign non-competes?”

“Seems less likely than if she had a software company."

“I have considered getting a tattoo to match my helmet and mask.”

“And your car. Don’t forget that. And don’t forget to add the trophies.”

“If she’s a tattoo artist, she could do the job.”

“If you want to take your clothes off in front of her, just do it. From what I hear, you usually find a way.”

“I wouldn’t say usually. Only sometimes.” And it seemed only with women who were interested in Goaltender Emile, but not the Emile who caught colds and wanted a Christmas tree. He had struck out completely with two women whom he could have imagined having Christmas Eve with him and Gabriella—Abby Whitman, who was a real hockey fan from the cradle, and Hélène-Louise Soileau, who could speak fluent French. They were both classy, sophisticated, smart, and educated. “Anyway, I don’t want to take my clothes off for Amy.”

“Amy? That’s her name? You were telling me how you know she won’t steal the silver?”

“Apart from the fact that I own no silver?”

“It’s a figure of speech. Symbolic for your belongings.”

“Right. I know because she found it so hard to accept that Cameron Snow stole from her. Only someone who would not steal wouldn’t see it right away.”

“Would you steal?”

“No. Why would I? I have plenty.” He made eight million dollars a year, plus bonuses and endorsements. Right now, he had all that he and Gabriella would ever need—and he had a few more years ahead of him. There would be more hockey seasons and more underwear, wine, and chocolate commercials.

“Refusing to steal has more to do with the character of a man than what he’s got. But regardless, you wouldn’t steal, and you saw it,” Packi pointed out.

“Not the same thing. I am an outsider. Uninvolved.”

“Uninvolved? Uh huh.” Emile didn’t like it when Packi wouldn’t look up from what he was doing when he said uh huh—like now, when he just kept wiping skates like a victory over the Blackhawks next week depended on it.

“That’s right. But now that the shock is over and she’s had some time alone to think, I am sure she knows. She will go to south Georgia to her family. They will set things right for her. That’s what family does.” Or what they should do.

Though, Emile had to admit he was getting pretty curious about the whole thing. Maybe he’d find out what happened. Emile didn’t have the inclination or skill to find Cameron, but he knew someone who did—at least the skill. And the fee he would be willing to pay Miles would provide the inclination.

Packi set the newly laced skates on the shelf. “Are you going to stretch or are you going to stand there all day in your underwear thinking about this woman who isn’t impacting you?”