Read It Had to Be You (Christiansen Family) for Free Online Page B

enforcer, and he sold seats.
    The pucks swam around the net, waiting for him to retrieve them, and he grabbed the bucket.
    But not before glancing up at the stands. More out of an old habit than anything   —he didn’t really expect to see her. After all, she’d been gone for two years now. But for a second, he imagined he saw her there, in her fan gear, wearing a self-knit cap, her cheeks red from the cold. Grinning. And cheering. Always cheering, even when he missed his shots or got ejected from a game.
    Mom. His biggest fan. The only person who’d stuck around in his life, through the good, bad, and ugly.
    Jace swallowed away the loneliness that could creep up his throat as he gathered the pucks, one by one, shooting the last out to the blue line.
    When he skated back, he spied movement near the penalty box. Silly him, his heart skipped, as if fooling him, and then settled when he recognized Graham, his agent.
    Only a couple years older than Jace, Graham had signed him when Jace didn’t know better, a punk still in high school, playing in the juniors, dreaming he would be a star. He guessed that Graham had shaped him into one, although he could admit, looking back, that he’d become more infamous than famous.
    To cement his image off the ice, Graham had practically thrown women at him that first year, helped him purchase his first sports car. Arranged for a handful of magazine shoots.
    Sometimes he wondered just what he might have been without Graham’s nudging. Without his urging to make a name for himself on the ice, regardless of the cost.
    Only, wasn’t this what he always wanted?
    Jace didn’t know anymore. It just felt like, when he looked in the mirror, he’d envisioned a different man looking back. But maybe this was all he’d ever be   —and that should be enough. Plenty of guys would give everything they had to have his golden life.
    No, he wouldn’t complain.
    “Hey, Graham,” he said, skating close, spraying ice as he stopped. “Did they come back with a new contract?” He tried to keep the worry from his voice, but he was no fool. With two concussions last year that had kept him sidelined for sixteen gamesand a handful of migraines that took out a dozen more this year, it was enough for the franchise to take another look at his numbers.
    He was still an asset, still the one guy who knew how to play old-style, rough-and-bloody hockey. And he still had chops   —had managed thirty-two assists and fourteen goals last year. That should count for something.
    Graham always looked dressed for the boardroom, today in a silver silk suit, baby-blue shirt, black tie, shiny shoes, his hair gelled north of his forehead. “Yeah, they gave me some numbers.” He wasn’t smiling.
    In fact, his gaze darted past Jace as if he didn’t want to talk about it.
    “Give it to me, straight up.”
    Graham took a breath. “Have you talked to CEP? They’ve got some great ideas for guys heading into ret   —”
    “I’m not talking to the career enhancement guys. I’m not done yet, Graham. I still have plenty of hockey in me.”
    “Fine. They offered $1.2 million in a one-year, two-way contract.” Graham met Jace’s eyes then, his own steely black.
    “Two-way? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
    “I suspect they want to keep their options open.”
    A two-way contract meant less money if the Blue Ox decided to send him down to the AHL. Not that they would, him being a veteran, but they had the option. In fact, they could tie him up playing games with kindergartners if they wanted and reduce his pay to pennies while they did it. A one-way contract at least secured his income, wherever they played him.
    “Shred Warner just nabbed $10 mil one-way, and he’s only a year younger than me.”
    “And at the top of his game, Jace. He’s a top scorer. And hedidn’t spend most of last season on the injured reserve list. Most of all, he doesn’t go out on the ice with a giant target on his back, almost a dare