Her dad smiled. “I get it. Someday you’re going to get in trouble with that temper. It’s your mother’s fault—her red hair, you know.” He winked.
Bridget leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I know, ’cause you never get mad,” she teased.
* * *
BRIDGET FOUND HERSELF a seat and waited to get Mike’s attention. She thought he’d be eager to leave, but he ended up staying for the entire game. Her brothers, Bert, and Bernie, all wanted to talk hockey with him during the first intermission. She’d caught his gaze, raised her brows and nodded to the door, but Cormack had asked a question, then Bert, then her dad. Mike had shrugged, so...she’d planned to watch the game anyway, so she sat back and enjoyed the evening.
It wasn’t easy to drag Mike away from the postgame family room analysis. Cormack wanted to continue discussing the move the Whiteouts’ goalie had made that almost led to a goal.
“You gotta be aggressive. Get out there and challenge the skater,” Cormack said, for about the fifth time. Bridget knew from playing with the boys that Cormack liked that move a lot.
Mike shrugged. It was obvious he didn’t agree, and that Cormack was hoping to grind him down.
Her dad interjected. “Son, you’ve got a man here who’s won three Cups. I think you should listen to him.”
Bridget could see Cormack badly wanted to bring up how Mike had played last spring, but a look from their father kept his mouth closed...for now. He’d probably grumble about it for the next week.
Bridget led the way to the door. Patrick shook Mike’s hand for a second time.
“If you ever get the urge to play road ball again, stop by. We have a game going most weekends.”
Mike thanked him, and followed Bridget out to the street without making any further commitments to the O’Reillys. She had to admire his public relations game. That was something she was lacking herself, and needed to work on.
Once in the car, she’d been quick to turn the volume down on the music. She drove more calmly through the darkness, temper gone.
Bridget broke the silence. “I just wanted to apologize again for, let’s see, kidnapping you, making you play road ball, inflicting my family on you and taking over your evening.”
Mike laughed, a warm sound in the dark. “I had fun, believe it or not. I had no plans for the evening, and you have a nice family.”
Bridget shifted gears. “That’s right, you said no siblings.”
“True,” he answered sounding puzzled.
“Only children always love my family. My best friend was an only child. She loved to hang at our place. She ended up marrying my brother.”
“Patrick?” Mike hazarded.
“Seriously? No, he’s way too old for her. He’s my oldest brother. He’s married to Nancy and already has three kids.”
“Cormack, then?” he asked, surprised.
“No, Brian. He is the best of my brothers, so—”
“Brian? You have three brothers? All older?”
Bridget laughed. “No, I have five brothers, all older.”
Mike was silent.
“Yes, tonight could have been so much worse,” Bridget continued. “When we’re all together, we’re our own hockey team.”
Mike leaned back. “I was an only child, but I hung out with the Sawatzkys upstairs from us. They had four boys. As an only kid of a single mom, it used to be nice to feel like part of that big family.”
Bridget didn’t respond. As the youngest of six, she’d loved visiting her only-child friends in their nice, quiet houses, where they had their own things and didn’t have to fight for them. The grass is always greener, she thought.
They pulled in to the club. She rolled down her window and waved her pass to open the gate.
* * *
BRIDGET PULLED THE car to a stop beside Mike’s McLaren. He noticed her eyes linger on it for a moment. He hoped she wouldn’t ask to drive it since he didn’t want to upset her, now that they were getting along. And he was curious about something.
She turned, ready to say polite farewells, when he spoke. “May I ask you a serious question?”
She cocked an eyebrow as she turned off the ignition.
The car was immediately thrown into darkness. Mike could barely make out her pale skin, but he could tell she was still looking at him.
“You were...not a professional swimmer, but as close as that gets, right?”
He could tell she nodded in the darkness before she said, “You could put it that way, yes.”
“What made you decide to move to coaching?”
“I wasn’t fast enough.” Her answer came immediately, either a familiar response or so obvious she didn’t need to think.
He paused, considering the sentence, then asked, “That was it?”
“There’s so much that training and conditioning and sheer will can do. But I wasn’t getting PRs anymore.”
“PRs?” Mike echoed.
“Personal records. When you go faster than you’ve gone before. Even when I stretched myself, it wasn’t making that fractional difference that would separate between first and fourth place. I competed to win. When that wasn’t happening, I was frustrated and couldn’t enjoy myself anymore. New swimmers were coming up, and they were starting to pass me. I wasn’t helping the swim team, and I wasn’t winning, so I retired.”
The R word, Mike thought.
“So, why coaching? You didn’t want to leave the sport?”
She considered before saying, “It wasn’t so much that I realized I wasn’t fast enough and therefore decided coaching was the next best thing. I’d been a swimming instructor when I was in high school, and took all the jock courses at college. As I became one of the older team members, I found myself helping the coach out. When I announced that I was retiring, he asked if I’d stay on as his assistant. Then, when this opening came up at the club, it seemed like a good opportunity to become a head coach. It was less of a career plan than a natural evolution.”
“You like it? You don’t miss competing?”
Bridget laughed. “Oh, I still compete. With you the other day in the pool, and then this afternoon. With my brothers, over almost anything. With a guy at the stoplight who thinks his little souped-up toy with a spoiler can beat me from the line. I compete.” More seriously, she continued, “I do still miss racing, but less than I used to. I’m starting to feel that when my kids win, I win. And that’s pretty good.”
The dark encouraged confidences. There was a moment of silence, then Bridget blurted, “Are you thinking of retiring?”
Mike was. He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone but his college coach. After the disastrous playoffs, he had vanished as soon as possible and gone to see his former coach. They’d had a relationship that was closer to father and son, and Mike trusted him more than anyone else, outside of his mother. That was the only time he’d mentioned the R word.
Mike wasn’t ready to retire. Hockey was his life. He had no plans for what would happen after hockey. He’d just turned thirty and he should have years yet to play. But something had changed with the way he’d played, and he didn’t know if that meant the end of his career. He wasn’t ready to share that, though, especially with an almost complete stranger.
“I’m