When My Husband and Son Begged, I Chose the Hockey King

I stood there with my bag strap cutting into my shoulder.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Ronan rolled the chair forward a foot. "Your license is active. You finished forty-two hours of continuing education last year. Neuro rehab, spinal cord protocols, gait retraining. You paid for every course yourself."

My face went hot. "You looked me up."

"I hire people. Of course I looked you up." He nodded at a folder on the side table. "Somebody who quit wouldn't keep studying for seven years in secret. You never quit, Maren. You were waiting."

I didn't answer. I didn't trust my voice.

He didn't ask about Damon. He didn't ask about the ring missing from my hand. He just tapped the folder.

"Read it."

It was a contract. Twelve pages. Title: Chief Rehabilitation Consultant. Full authority over my treatment plan. Final say on scheduling. A salary that made me read the number twice.

"This is senior specialist rate," I said.

"Yes."

"Ronan, I haven't worked in a clinic since—"

"I'm not doing you a favor." His voice was flat and sure. "Favors make people feel like they owe something. I'm paying for a skill. If you're bad at it, I'll fire you. I've done it five times."

A laugh slipped out of me. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"

"It should. It means you'll know where you stand."

I signed on page twelve.

...

The door banged open before the ink dried.

A heavy man in a team jacket strode in, phone in hand. The logo on his chest was a snarling wolf over crossed sticks. The Harbor Wolves. Ronan's team.

"Ronan. I just got the memo." He looked me up and down. "This is her? Pelletier asked around. She hasn't set foot in a hospital in seven years. She's a housewife."

My fingers tightened on the pen.

"Gus," Ronan said.

"I'm just saying. We've had the best people in the country through here, and you pick some suburban mom who—"

"She is my chief rehabilitation consultant."

The room went still.

Ronan didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. "You can question the treatment plan. You can argue with every exercise. But you will not insult her. Not in this room. Not anywhere."

Gus's mouth opened, then shut. He gave me a short nod that cost him something and walked out.

I set the pen down very carefully. "You didn't have to do that."

"Yes, I did." He turned back to the window. "Start whenever you're ready."

...

I started with his legs.

I pressed my thumbs along his quads, his calves, the backs of his knees. His muscles were soft where they should have been firm. I tested reflexes. I asked him to push against my palm.

His left foot moved. Barely. But it moved.

"Again."

"It's pointless."

"Again, Ronan."

He pushed. His jaw locked. The muscle under my hand twitched hard.

I sat back on my heels. "Who told you that you'll never walk?"

"Three surgeons. Every headline in America."

"They were wrong. Or at least, they jumped ahead." I pointed at his leg. "You have signal. You have response. What you also have is six months of wasted muscle and pain you've been sitting on so you don't have to feel it. You're not paralyzed. You're afraid to put weight down."

He stared at me for a long time.

Then he laughed. One low, ugly sound.

"You think I'm scared of the chair?" He gripped the wheels. "I could live in this thing forever. I've got ramps. I've got money. That's not it."

"Then what is it?"

His eyes slid to a photo on the wall. A younger Ronan on ice, mid-stride, stick raised, grinning through a broken tooth.

"I learned to skate before I could read," he said quietly. "Every bad day of my life, I went to the rink. Now I sit in the owner's box and watch other men do it." He swallowed. "And the people around me stay because they feel sorry for me. I can see it on their faces. I'd rather they leave."

I knelt in front of him.

"I won't lie to you. I'm not promising ice." I held his gaze. "But as long as your body has one small chance left, I'm not letting you sign your own loss early. You don't get to quit before the game starts."

His throat moved. "And if I fail?"

"Then you'll fail standing up. Not sitting by a window."

...

The parallel bars were cold under my hands as I checked the height.

Ronan gripped them. His knuckles went white before he even rose an inch.

"Fuck." He sank back down. Sweat broke across his forehead. "No. Not today."

"Okay. Not the whole thing." I stepped between the bars, right in front of him, and held out my hands. "Grab me instead."

"I'll pull you over."

"You won't. I've lifted a sleeping six-year-old up two flights of stairs. Hold on."

He took my hands. His palms were damp and shaking.

"One thing at a time," I said. "Feet flat. That's it. Just that."

He set his feet.

"Now lean forward. Nose over your toes."

He leaned. A low groan tore out of him.

"Good. Now push through your heels. Just push. I've got you."

His whole body trembled. His grip crushed my fingers. His face went gray.

"Maren—"

"Push."

He rose.

Slowly, then all at once, he was upright, swaying between the bars, his chest a foot from mine. Taller than I'd guessed.

I counted out loud. "Three. Four. Five."

"Shit. Shit."

"Eight. Nine. You're doing it, Ronan. Ten—"

At eleven his left knee buckled.

He fell forward, straight into me. I caught him around the ribs and braced my feet. For one second his forehead rested against my temple. I could feel his heart slamming. I could hear him breathing hard against my ear.

Neither of us moved.

Then I eased him back to the chair, and he leaned away first, gripping the armrests. I stepped back too. One full step.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Don't be. Falling is part of it."

He looked up at me. His eyes were wet. He didn't hide it.

"Eleven seconds," he said. "Six months, and nobody got me eleven seconds."

"You got yourself eleven seconds."

"No." He shook his head slowly. "You made me think there's something after this. A future. I haven't thought about one since the crash."

I looked down at my hands. Red marks where he'd held on. The thin pink scar on my finger from the knife.

These hands had peeled ten thousand carrots. Scrubbed floors. Folded tiny shirts.

And today they had pulled a man out of a chair.

"Water break," I said, my voice thick. "Then we go again."

...

I was refilling his bottle when my phone buzzed on the bench.

Damon.

Eli had an accident. He's in the ER at St. Agnes right now. If anything happens to him, it's because you abandoned him.

The bottle slipped. Water splashed across my shoes.

"Maren?" Ronan wheeled closer. "What happened?"

"My son." The word came out in pieces. "He's hurt. The ER. I have to—I'm sorry, the session—"

"Go."

He was already on his phone. "Tomas. Car to the east entrance. Now. St. Agnes."

"Ronan, I just started, I signed the contract an hour ago—"

"Maren." He caught my wrist, gently, just long enough to stop my shaking. "Go to your son. I'll be here. I'll wait for you to come back."

...

The car hadn't fully stopped when I shoved the door open.

The ER doors slid apart. Noise, beeping, a child crying somewhere. I ran past the front desk.

"Eli Whitlock! Where is he?"

A nurse pointed. Curtain three.

I ripped it back.

Eli sat on the bed, tiny in a paper gown. Blood streaked his whole forehead, matted in his hair, dried in dark lines down to his eyebrows. His eyes found mine, huge and terrified.

And beside him stood Brielle, dabbing a wet tissue at the hem of her cream dress.

"Ugh, this is silk," she groaned. "Damon is buying me a new one. There is no way this is coming out."

She looked up and saw me.

Then she smiled.