cost for you by picking up towels or cleaning the locker room or mowing your lawn or something? I’d do anything. I just want to play. Sincerely, Christopher Hart Campbell. P.S. You can reach me at 111 Shady Lane in Holly Springs or by phone.”
Her face pale, Janey let the note fall to her side.
Thad looked at her brothers. “I think I can take it from here,” he told them confidently.
ALL FIVE of Janey’s brothers filtered out. Janey looked as if she had never felt more mortified than she did at that very moment, and Thad could understand why. Her son had just done an end run around her, by taking a problem outside the family. Thad saw it as a sign he was growing up. Something for which Chris was to be commended. Janey seemed to think it was a sign she had failed her son, for not being available to him in the way Christopher needed her to be. She turned to Coach Lantz. Her peachy gold skin was ashen, her eyes turbulent with emotion.
“I don’t know what to say except I’m very sorry my son put you in an awkward position.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Thad advised. “Just fix it.”
She held his steady, probing gaze. “Our situation is more complicated than it seems,” Janey muttered at last.
“I’m sure it is,” Thad agreed.
Janey regarded him suspiciously. “That’s it? You’re not going to try and convince me to let Christopher attend hockey camp?”
Thad shrugged, and decided to take the opposite approach of what she was obviously expecting. “You want to break his heart by denying him the opportunity to chase his dreams, that’s your business.”
Janey flushed at his blunt, matter-of-fact tone. “You don’t understand the circumstances,” she insisted.
Thad pulled out a chair at the white wrought-iron table in the corner. He sank into it and waited for her to do the same. “I know your late husband was Ty Campbell, and that he nearly made the US Olympic ski team.”
Janey shook her head bitterly. “Nearly being the operative word.”
“That’s something to be proud of,” Thad replied, stretching his long legs out in front of him.
Her eyes held such sadness as she sat down. “Being an alternate made my husband miserable.”
“And by association you and Chris,” Thad guessed.
‘That’s right.”
“Fortunately, we’re not meeting to talk about your late husband. We’re here to talk about your son.” He looked at her sincerely. “I’ve got to tell you. I’ve been coaching hockey fifteen years now—and running camps during that time—and I’ve never had a letter like the one he sent me.”
Janey shrugged her slender shoulders. “He’s a resourceful kid.”
“Obviously.” As they both tried to get comfortable in chairs that were more ice-cream-shop-style decorative than utilitarian, their knees bumped. Rubbed. Pulled apart.
Janey dragged her thumb across the lacy scrollwork pattern on the table. “But he doesn’t need to play hockey this summer to be happy.”
Thad studied the defensive posture of her spine. “I don’t think you can make that decision for him.”
“Don’t tell me what I can or cannot do, Coach Lantz!” She jumped up and began to pace the shop, her hips moving provocatively beneath the loose-fitting white cotton baker’s trousers. “Chris is my son. I get to say if he plays hockey or not.”
Thad tried not to think what her legs might look like. Were they as sexy and curvaceous as the rest of her? Struggling to keep his mind on the conversation at hand—instead of where this inherent attraction between them might lead—he turned his glance to her face. “And?” he demanded impatiently, irked with himself for getting sidetracked.
Janey gestured broadly with two delicately shaped hands. “And up until now I’ve allowed it.”
“Because?” Thad prodded, curious as to whether her hands would feel as soft and silky as they looked, despite the fact she worked with them all day.
Janey folded her arms in front of her and regarded Thad stubbornly. “It wasn’t skiing, or worse, the avalanche-skiing that led to his own father’s death. Somehow hockey seemed a safer path—psychologically—to follow. But now it’s becoming an obsession,” she said worriedly.
Thad stood and closed the distance between them. “Maybe he’s meant to go pro, like his uncle Joe.”
“And maybe he’s not. Maybe Joe’s success has fueled Chris with false expectations and unrealistic dreams.”
“So you’re going to do what?” Thad queried in a dry tone meant to make her come to her senses and see how foolish she was being. “Deny him the opportunity to try?”
Janey gave him a measuring look. “Joe left home at sixteen. Did you know that?”
Thad was close enough to smell the deliciously sweet fragrance of vanilla and confectioner’s sugar clinging to her hair and skin. “To play in the junior league up in Canada.”
“Right. Mom wanted him to go to college and play there, if he wanted, on a university team. But Joe couldn’t wait, so he did terrible in all his high-school classes and he begged and pleaded until Mom finally gave in.”
“Not unlike most pro hockey players, I imagine. It’s in their blood. And in their hearts.”
“Which is fine, if they make it to the big time,” she said, desperation in her eyes. “But if they don’t. If they spend years chasing a certain vision and their dream never comes true, they become disillusioned and bitter.”
“Not always,” Thad disagreed. “Sometimes they become coaches.”
Her lips parted as she looked up at him. “You—?”
“Tried to go pro. Didn’t have the speed. So I took another path.”
She leaned back against the display counter, her elbows propped high on either side of her. “You’re the exception, not the rule.”
Thad shrugged and tried not to notice how nice she looked in profile. “Chris seems pretty exceptional, too.”
Janey turned her head to face him. “I’m not going to let him play hockey this summer.”
“Your son has already lost a father,” he reminded her calmly.
Janey stiffened, and swung all the way around to face him. “So?” She squared off with him deliberately.
“So you don’t think it’d do him good to be around a lot of positive male role models?”
She shrugged and assumed a look of extreme boredom. “Who also happen to play hockey for a living.”
She was making a dig at his profession, too, but he refused to take the bait. “They’re good guys. They share a common interest with Chris. And at his age, he needs to
