our center forward is choking under pressure. He’s a great player all year but when we get to the championships, he just freezes up.”
“Performance anxiety,” she diagnosed.
“I know. But we can’t replace him. He’s the best we’ve got, plus one of my closest friends. I need you to work with him, get him over this choking thing.”
“I’m not a sports coach.”
“Serena, you could get Bill Gates into the NBA if he wanted it.”
“Okay. You have a point. But it’s not really my field.”
“Look at it this way. You won’t get paid, so nobody’s going to judge you.”
She was as busy as she’d ever been, had recently turned down paying work in her chosen field, business, and now she was contemplating working pro bono for a sports guy? If it were anyone but Max...
“I don’t know the first thing about hockey,” she warned.
“You don’t need to know about hockey. His problem isn’t related to stick-handling skills. He’s choking under pressure. Nobody helps a man struggling to find success like you.”
“He’d better be super motivated.”
“Adam Shawnigan is dying to work with you,” he assured her. “I can’t wait to tell him the good news after our game tonight.”
* * *
ADAM LOVED HOCKEY. After a day of precinct coffee, discovering evidence he’d worked months to gather in a murder trial had been deemed inadmissible and getting yelled at by a woman who insisted her taxpayer dollars gave her the right to report her dog as a missing person, it felt good to step out onto the ice.
Out here the sound of a skate blade carving cold, clean tracks helped clear the crap out of his mind. With a stick in his hands and a puck to focus on, he had control over his destiny, even if only for a couple of hours.
Max and Dylan played alongside him, as they had since their parents had signed them up for hockey when they were in first grade. They’d all kept up the game and now played in the same emergency-services league. Most of the players were cops and firefighters, with a few ambulance guys thrown in. Max barely qualified since he was a reserve firefighter, but he paid for the uniforms, so the Hunter Hurricanes weren’t inclined to complain.
Normally they practiced once a week at 5:00 or 5:30 a.m. and played a weekly game, but with play-offs looming, they’d upped their practice schedule and it showed. Well into the third period against the Bend Bandits, they were ahead 3–2. Adam was center forward. With Dylan and Max as wingmen, he felt they were a dream trio. They’d come close to bagging the Badges on Ice championship not once but twice. This time, he told himself. This year that cup was theirs. All he had to do was focus.
Max, the right wing, had the puck and stayed back while Adam and Dylan crossed paths and headed for the offensive zone in a classic forward crisscross they’d practiced hundreds of times. Max then shot a crisp pass to Dylan. They were gaining speed. Adam felt his adrenaline pump. Focus and timing were everything. Max maneuvered himself into the high slot. Dylan, under attack, passed to Adam, who flicked the puck to Max. But the goalie was right on him. Instead of taking the shot, Max tipped the puck to Dylan, who then sent the thing flying past the stumbling goalie and scored.
Magic. They were magic on ice. This year that championship was theirs, and nothing was getting in the way.
After the backslaps and congratulations, the shaking hands when the game was over, the teams headed for the change room. Max said, “Adam, hold up a second.” Dylan hung back, too.
He listened in growing irritation as Max told him about the great “favor” he’d arranged.
“There is no damn way I am letting some bossy do-gooder inside my head,” Adam snapped, sending puffs of white breath into the freezing air inside the rink.
“She’s a performance coach. The woman’s amazing.”
“I don’t need a performance coach. How many goals did I score this season?” He turned to glare at his two best friends.
“How about in play-offs last year?” Dylan asked.
The familiar churn began in his gut as it did whenever he thought about play-offs. “I had a stomach bug or something last year. That’s why I was off my game.”
“And the year before?”
His scowl deepened. “Maybe a case messed up my concentration. I forget.”
“Dude, my grandma could have made the shot you missed last year. The net was open and you missed it! You choked,” Dylan said. “It happens. But we want to win the championship this year. We all want it real bad.”
“So do I!” What did they think? He was the team captain, center. Of course he wanted to win. All he needed to do was focus more. Somehow he’d lost his edge in the last two championship games. He wouldn’t let it happen again.
“Then at least meet with Serena Long,” Max said. “She’s eager to work with you.”
He scowled. Glared at both of them. “She’d better be hot.”
2
SERENA SNUGGLED INTO her black wool jacket, wishing she’d thought to throw a parka into her car when she’d headed out into the early-morning darkness. Except that she didn’t own a parka.
Or skis.
Or snowshoes.
Or a sled.
Or skates.
She didn’t do winter if she could help it. And she certainly didn’t get up at 4:45 in the morning in order to turn up at a freezing-cold rink by 5:30 a.m. to watch a bunch of grown men practice sliding around on the ice chasing a disk. And beating up on each other when they didn’t get it.
The heels on her black boots clacked as she made her way to rink 6. Amazingly, all the rinks in the sportsplex seemed to be full. Sleepy parents with takeout coffees watched kids of all sizes slide around. It was amazing, an entire life that went on while she slept.
When she entered the practice rink Max had directed her to, there weren’t any parents pressed up against the plexiglass looking sleep deprived. In fact, there were only players on the ice and players on the bench. The small seating area was empty.
She wasn’t a hockey fan by any means, but she’d played field hockey in school and figured the basic rules ought to be similar. Max had told her he played right wing, and yep, there he was, one of the smaller players on the ice. The big guy in the middle would be Adam Shawnigan.
She watched him. They seemed to be working on some kind of passing drill. She could feel the concentration of the guys on the ice. With no crowd the sounds were magnified—the scratch of skates, the smack of stick to puck, the groaned obscenities when some guy missed the puck completely.
* * *
WHEN
