Why in the hell have our lives collided again?
“So how are you?” I find myself asking without the foggiest clue why. I mean, do I really care?
Apparently, I do, because when she doesn’t answer right away, I almost bring my fingers under her chin to make her lift those eyes to me. But she clears her throat and says, “Fine. Happy to be here and all that.”
She starts an elastic bandage, holding it deftly to the inside of my knee with the thumb of one hand and starts a practiced, tight wrap. I wait for more but she stays silent.
So I prod. Because…well, fuck if I know why.
“What made you decide to go into athletic training?” I ask.
She gives a nonchalant shrug. “Just thought I’d follow in my dad’s footsteps, you know?”
I don’t buy her blasé tone for a minute. “You never wanted to do that before.”
Vale finally lifts her face and looks at me intently. “Well, things change, don’t they?”
“Yeah, sure they do. But why?”
Why the new career path? Why did you dump me all those years ago? Why did you refuse to tell me why?
Why, why, why?
She finishes the wrap, holding the end while taping it with the precut pieces. “There you go,” she says, stepping back.
Clearly, she’s not in a sharing mood, and while I need to get back on the ice, I still press her in a roundabout way. “How’s your dad?”
She wasn’t expecting that question, and for some reason, I can see it clearly on her face, she doesn’t want to answer me. But then just as quickly, she schools her features to bland perfection and even gives me a tiny smile. “He’s good. I’ll tell him you asked.”
“Bet he’s still running the training room with an iron first,” I muse, thinking of the paces that hard-ass used to put me through when I played for the Oilers.
Vale doesn’t respond, instead turning to pick up the scraps of tape and empty wrappers. Something about her stubborn silence piques me.
“Well?” I push at her as I hop off the table. My towel falls to the floor but I ignore it, instead reaching down to pick up my shin pads. My knee feels good. Damn good, actually.
She clears her throat, back still to me, and says quietly, “He retired actually. At the end of this past season.”
My head snaps up and I narrow my eyes at her. By a quick calculation of his current age—fifty-four if memory serves—there’s no way he’d be retiring. Dave Campbell is a man so in love with his job and career you’d expect he’d die out on the ice.
“Why did he retire so early?” I ask.
A brief look of panic flits over her face, so fast I almost doubt I see it. But it’s gone, replaced by that cool aloofness. “Just got tired of the grind of it all.”
Our eyes lock, and it’s a staring war. She swallows hard but then tacks on, “And don’t you have to get out on the ice?”
Shit.
I totally need to get back out there. This is training camp. Where decisions are made who makes the team and what line you start on. I can’t afford to be wasting it back here trying to push at a woman to open up to me when I really absolutely don’t give a fuck if she opens up to me or not. In fact, it’s better for me all around if she doesn’t.
I tip my head at her in acknowledgment. “Thanks for the tape-up.”
Relief floods her face and it’s clear she’s glad I’m letting it go. Which really makes me want to push it further.
But she turns her back on me, grabs her laptop, and heads toward Goose’s office. I watch her retreat from me, totally conflicted. I’m curious about Dave and why a workhorse like him would give up his career. A conversation about Dave would hold us together here…keep us communicating. A luxury she denied me seven years ago.
Granted, it’s been a stilted, practically one-sided conversation, but it’s still conversation with a woman who holds so many answers that I used to want answered. Is it possible I still want to know what made her do what she did to me all those years ago? Even as I tell myself I’m past that shit and it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference?
Shaking my head, I finish suiting up and decide that it’s probably best I let it go. Who knows, maybe if I’m lucky, I can go injury free all year and won’t have to cross paths with Vale for the rest of the season, and eventually the need for questions to be answered will just fade away like they did before.
—
And yet, I can’t let go of this opportunity to appease my curiosity.
As I walk through the player parking lot after practice, I see Ryker and Gray standing next to a sporty red convertible BMW. His hands are on her waist and he’s leaning in to give her a kiss. A sweetly intimate moment, yet I’m fixing to bust it up.
I drop my bag to the ground and trot over toward them. When they hear my footsteps, Ryker pulls away and they both turn to look at me. I’m greeted with friendly smiles, so it appears it’s not a big deal that I’m interrupting their kiss.
“Hey, man,” Ryker says as he sticks his hand out. “Good practice today.”
I give him a quick pump and then turn to stick my hand out to Gray. “Miss Brannon.”
She decided to keep her maiden name after marrying Ryker, I suspect an ode to her strong independence as well as reluctance to depart from the branding that makes “Brannon” and “great hockey” synonymous.
She smirks at me even as she shakes my hand. “It’s just Gray.”
“Okay, just Gray,” I say with what I hope is my most charming smile. “I was wondering if you have a second to talk.”
Her eyebrows raise in surprise, because really, what could a player need to talk to the GM about? Contract is signed, sealed, and delivered, and besides, those talks would be through an agent. She slides a quick glance at Ryker, and then looks back at me. “Sure. Is this private?”
“No,” I say quickly, and nod toward Ryker. “Not anything like that.”
She settles her hips back against her car door and tucks her hands into the pockets of her skirt. A skirt I happen to notice fits her form fantastically, and again I have to think Ryker is a lucky fucker. “So what’s up?”
“Well…um, I was curious about Vale Campbell.”
More raised eyebrows, this time from both Gray and Ryker, but they don’t say anything.
“I was talking to her earlier today, and she mentioned her father, Dave, had retired as the trainer for the Oilers, and, well, I was wondering if you knew why.”
Gray narrows her eyes at me slightly and tilts her head to the side. “That’s sort of an odd question.”
I take a deep breath and scrub a hand through my hair, rubbing it hard at the back of my neck as I give her a sheepish smile. “Okay…here’s the deal. Vale and I used to have a thing. Well, not a thing. We were serious. Dated for four years when I was with the Oilers.”
“I see,” Gray says noncommittally.
“She was taping my knee today and mentioned her dad retired, but didn’t say why. And, well, I sort of got the impression…well, not so much an impression as it was I can’t imagine that man retiring early to save my life, and I was curious if you knew why.”
“And she wouldn’t tell you,” Gray surmises.
Wincing internally and with knowledge I’m probably going to hell for this little white lie, I say, “Well…there wasn’t much time to get into it. I was due back out on the ice, and she had to get back to work—”