9. Dan
CHAPTER 9
DAN
Maple Fest has always been the biggest annual event in my hometown. I have such fond memories of the parade, the pumpkin carving contest, the little dogs in costume, gorging myself silly on maple popcorn and maple fried dough, not to mention the cotton candy that mom always said would rot my teeth. I didn’t care, I was a kid, sucking every last drop of fun out of the annual town fall festival.
Then, when I got older, I would hang out at the festival with the other guys on the ice hockey team. I would pretend to be as cool as they were, all of us big guys attracting attention from the girls. But me? Well, I only had eyes for one girl. Yup, I was in love with Keira Johnson way before she even spoke to me.
Tragic, right? I prefer to think of it as romantic. I was a fourteen-year-old guy, a jock, popular with guys and girls alike, and all I could do was think about the mysterious girl with her nose buried in a book.
And then, when I finally plucked up the courage to talk to her when I was sixteen—I was not a fast mover—somehow I found the words to ask her out, and she stunned me by saying yes.
Our first date was to Maple Fest. As we wandered around with my teammates and their girlfriends, I slung my arm around her shoulders. It felt incredible to get to be so close to her after wanting to be with her for so long. We meandered through the festivities, drinking maple apple cider and feeling very grown up, in the evening under the lights, strung overhead.
It was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen in my short life.
Of course, there was the hayride, that seminal, almost cliché, small-town experience. I had just turned sixteen and Keira was still fifteen when we first hopped onboard. Shy and awkward, it felt good to be away from my jock friends, who’d been teasing me mercilessly about dating the nerd. I didn’t care. They could have their cheerleaders and popular girls, with their highlighted hair, makeup, and short skirts. I wanted Keira.
We sat side by side, my nerves pinging about me like balls in a pinball machine. I reached for her hand, the touch of her soft skin sending a jolt of electricity through me. And then, when I finally plucked up the courage, with my pulse hammering in my chest like a drum machine, I cupped her face in my hand, leaned in toward her, and softly brushed my lips against hers.
Our first kiss.
She had smiled up at me, her face a rosy pink, and I knew she felt it too .
We were inseparable after that.
As I think back on those days, I didn’t know how good I had it. As crazy in love with Keira as I was, I figured it would always be like that with women. I didn’t know how special it was. I took it for granted, assuming after I left for college that I would meet someone new when I was older and ready to settle down, fall in love with that same feeling I had whenever I was around Keira: that heady combination of hot, molten desire and the innate knowledge, held deep within my very bones, that I loved her.
I walk past the stalls selling cotton candy and cider and spot my teammate, Cooper Montgomery. With his perpetual frown in place, he’s standing mute as his PR person, Blair, I think he said her name was, talks to him. He looks about as happy about whatever it is she’s saying to him as he does about pretty much everything.
I throw him a smile as I make my way toward the team table. Some of the guys from the Ice Breakers are already here, signing jerseys and other Ice Breakers merch, chatting with the townsfolk and visitors. Ted “the Bear” Powell; Dawson Hayes, my old college buddy and teammate; and Noah Beaumont, the former hot property of the NHL, brought back to earth with his relegation to the AHL a while back, are talking at the team table with a group of people I don’t recognize.
I slide in beside them. “Hey, guys,” I say, and Dawson reaches out and gives me a fist bump.
“Watch out, guys. Maple Falls’ favorite son is here. We’re about to get mobbed,” Dawson says as he flashes me a grin.
I shrug. “What can I say? I can’t help that everyone loves me.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it’s a real drag for you,” he replies.
“What’s up, Dan?” Ted says with a lift of his chin.
“Hey,” I reply before I take my seat and grab a pen, a line of people forming in front of me. Several move from Ted’s line to me, and he shrugs and shakes his head at me good-naturedly .
Cooper sits down heavily in a chair on my other side and wryly observes the growing crowd. “Why don’t they have a statue of you? I half expected one when I went downtown,” he says, and I think he’s making a joke, but it isn’t clear.
“It’s just cause I’m the hometown guy,” I reply.
“You’re our hometown hero,” Marie-Ellen McCluskey, the resident town gossip, says as she thrusts a jersey with my number on it in front of me.
“Hey, Mrs. McCluskey. Nice to see you,” I say as I scrawl my signature across the jersey.
“Put some kisses on it,” she instructs.
I glance up at her. She looks just the same as she did when I lived here: cropped grey hair, glasses, her lined face lifted in a big smile. “Sure thing.” I add a couple of kisses in the form of “x” to the jersey and hand it to her.
“Now everyone in my knitting circle will be jealous,” she says.
Dawson shakes his head. “Man, you’re like a God in these parts. I wonder if anyone will be wearing a jersey that doesn’t have the number twenty-nine on it at the games.”
The mention of my number makes me think of Keira. Heck, most things make me think of Keira now that I’m back in Maple Falls. And particularly since I’m here at Maple Fest, memories of us together are my constant companions.
The way she looked at me when I gave her my jersey and explained my number sends a warm glow spreading through me, like sunlight breaking through the clouds. It gave me hope, and if we hadn’t left straight away for Benny’s lesson, and I hadn’t needed to leave from the arena to go to dinner at my parents’ place, I would have tried to get her alone and finally found the courage to tell how I feel about her.
I hope to get that chance soon. Real soon.
“Look out, guys. Puck bunnies at eleven o’clock. And they’re all Dan Roberts fans,” Dawson says, gesturing at a group of women wearing my jersey. One of them has it knotted at the front, exposing her taut belly, and as her eyes land on me she tosses her long dark hair and throws me a flirty smile.
“Definitely puck bunnies,” Cooper grinds out, sounding totally unimpressed by them.
The women reach the desk, and a couple of them begin to flirt with all of us. The one with the long dark hair has me in her sights, and she leans on the table toward me, her hair falling over one eye.
“It’s great to see you again, Dan,” she purrs.
“I’m sorry. Do I know you?” I ask, not recognizing her.
“We met in Chicago after a game last winter. I’m Lana. My friend, Stacey, and I talked to you for ages at Glenn’s party?” she replies, referring to the Blizzard’s defenseman, Glenn Mitchell.
I vaguely remember the party—one of many, I’m sure. There are always parties after matches when you play in the NHL, particularly if your team wins. And with the parties come the women. Plenty of them.
“My friend, Stacey, got on real well with Glenn that night,” Lana continues. “And I thought you and I got on pretty well, too.”
Now that I look at her, I do remember her from that party at Glenn’s house, just down the road from my own. A few of us had houses in the same neighborhood, and we often hung out together between practices. When you’re a recognizable face it’s often easier to hang with the team rather than navigate others. Sometimes it’s hard to know who’s genuine and who’s not, and I’ve found I can trust my teammates.
The way Lana toyed with her hair the whole time we talked comes back to me, her shirt tied in the same knot, exposing her midriff. She was flirting, making it clear what her intentions were toward me, and I’d been tempted, I’ll admit. She’s a gorgeous, sexy woman and I was single. But I’ve never been one to go for the puck bunnies much, not like some of my teammates. They’re only interested in you because you’re in the NHL. That might have been enough when I first started out, but it got old, real fast.
“How are you doing, Lana? Sorry I didn’t recognize you straight away.” I glance at her empty hands. “Have you got something for me to sign?”
“This shirt,” she replies, straightening up so I get the full view of her figure, showcased in her skintight pants and cropped shirt. “Right about here.” She points at her chest.
Subtle? That would be a hard no .
Dawson throws me a knowing look.
I lift my lips into a fake smile. “No can do, sorry, Lana, but if you get a new jersey from over there,” I gesture at the merch stand. “I’ll sign that one for you, no problem.”
Her features drop, but I’m no longer looking at Lana. I spot Keira, talking with Cooper’s PR person. She’s laughing at something she said, her whole face lit up. Unlike the walking sex advertisement in front of me, Keira is wearing a fall-appropriate jacket, fully covering her midriff, over a pair of jeans and sneakers, a bobble hat on top of her head.
She looks cute and sexy in a much more subtle way than women like Lana. My chest expands at the sight of her.
She looks in my direction and I raise a hand in greeting. She flashes me her slightly shy smile before she returns her attention to her friend.
“Oh, you could do so much better than her ,” Lana says, clearly having watched Keira’s and my exchange. “Although I guess she’s cute in that kind of girl-next-door kind of way. I could totally rock that look, you know. Just give me the word.”
I’ll give her points for persistence.
One of the younger guys on the Ice Breakers team, a twenty-one-year-old kid called Nate who looks a lot like an oversized Thor, plunks down next to Cooper. “Better late than never, right?” he says with a grin in Lana’s direction.
I see an opportunity.
“Nate, meet my old friend, Lana,” I say .
He stretches out his hand and takes hers. “Nathaniel Simpson, although you can call me Nate.”
She glances down at his jersey. “You’re on the team?”
“Babe, I am the team,” he replies, and I swear I see Lana melt on the spot.
I seize the opportunity to escape.
“I’ll be back in a few,” I tell the guys.
“You only just got here, man,” Dawson complains.
“Yeah, but I gotta see about a girl,” I tell him, and he raises his brows at me in question.
“I’ll tell you another time,” I say as I see Keira hugging Blair and turning to walk away.
In a few short strides I catch up to her. “Kiki,” I say, and she turns and looks at me.
“Dan. I thought you were signing merchandise,” she replies, and I hope against all things holy that she didn’t see Lana flirting with me. Not that I flirted back of course, but I’m sure it didn’t look good to have a woman leaning in close to me, dressed the way she was.
“I’m done with that,” I tell her, even though I’m not officially done. I take a mental note to apologize to Coach Strickland later. But there are some things that are more important than signing jerseys. “I thought we could hang out a while. Like old times.”
“I was just going to check on the pumpkin carving. I provided all the pumpkins, you see. It’s my thing.”
“Pumpkins?”
Her lips quirk into a smile. “I’m involved in the whole setup with the pumpkins for the Maple Fest.”
“Got it. Are you running the pumpkin carving these days?”
“Actually, I’m involved in the whole festival. I guess it goes with the territory when you run the town’s farmers’ market.”
I throw an admiring glance over her. She’s become so enmeshed in our town, become such a part of it.
Is it terrible that I feel a pang of jealousy ?
Yup. Terrible. I can’t seriously be jealous of a town, even if I want all of her attention on me.
We reach the pumpkin carving area where there are a bunch of pumpkins already carved on a shelf, people working hard at their creations with tub loads of pumpkins ready and waiting for people’s artistic endeavors. I spot a few people I know, including Harlow Lemieux, the woman Ted insists he’s “just good friends” with, and say hello to them as Keira checks up on the status.
“Daniel Roberts,” a voice says, and I look down to see Mrs. Nelson, my old high school English teacher, holding a carved pumpkin in her hands.
“Hello, Mrs. Nelson. Nice to see you again. Great work you got there.”
“Oh, this?” She holds the pumpkin up. “I do the same design every year. It’s a witch.”
“I can tell. I never knew you had such an artistic streak, Mrs. Nelson.”
She flushes with obvious pride. “You charmer, you.”
I give her a mock salute. “All part of the service, ma’am.”
She looks between Keira and me before she leans in toward me. Of course, she’s almost half my height, so I’ve got to lean right down to meet her.
“What’s going on with you and Ms. Johnson over here? Word on the street is you’re giving her nephew some hockey lessons.”
“Benny’s a great kid,” I reply, evading her real question. “He’s got a lot of potential. I’m just trying to give him a head start.”
“Be that as it may, people are wondering why you’ve singled Benny out and not some other children. Ice hockey has become very popular in this town since you made it into the National League, you know. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry wants to be the next Dan Roberts. Which got me thinking that perhaps you had some hidden agenda, if you know what I mean.” She raises her brows at me in question.
So, the townsfolk are talking about me and Keira. They’re more on the money than I care to admit, but without having even had a conversation about how I feel with the woman in question, I’m not exactly going to spill the beans for Mrs. Nelson.
“I think I’ll just have to leave you guessing, Mrs. Nelson, because right now I’m here to carve a pumpkin.”
“You are? Oh, goodie.” She claps her hands together in delight. “Perhaps we could auction off your work of art? Raise some more money for the kiddies?”
I think the last time I carved a pumpkin, right here at this fall festival, it was an unmitigated disaster, the creative gene some members of my family seemed to have inherited clearly passing me by without so much as a glance my way.
“Let’s just see how it works out first, shall we?” I straighten up just as she grabs my sleeve and says urgently, “You be sure to treat our Keira right. She’s very important to us, here in Maple Falls, you know. No funny business. No messing her around. Got it?”
If only she knew.
“Got it,” I reply with a smile.
A few moments later, I’ve talked Keira into carving, and sitting side by side, we work on our respective pumpkins with people dropping by to say hello to both of us. More than one comment is made about how it’s like old times seeing Dan and Keira together, to which I simply smile and nod, throwing furtive glances Keira’s way and catching her smiling.
Hope is beginning to build a sandcastle in my heart by now.
Keira eyes my creation. “What’s yours meant to be?”
“Once I saw a pumpkin carved as a jack-o’-lantern with a part of the pumpkin hanging out of its mouth as though it were a tongue.”
“Where’s the tongue?”
I pick up a piece of pumpkin I carved out already and hold it up. “One tongue.”
“That’s a new one,” she comments.
I eye her pumpkin. It’s fair to say in a carving competition she would win hands down. She’s carved an owl into the skin, complete with eyes, and has begun carving what looks like a tree. “Creative, but then you were always better at everything than me.”
“With one notable exception.”
“You mean dancing?” I tease.
Keira was so good at pretty much everything at school, with a perfect grade average and involvement in a bunch of extracurriculars, like the school paper. Physical stuff was less her thing, right down to dancing.
“I can dance,” she replies indignantly.
My lips quirk. “Of course you can.”
She shoots me a look, although I know it’s in good humor. “At least my dancing is better than your singing. Need I remind you?”
I hold my hands up in the surrender sign. “I was never going to be a singer.”
“And I was never going to be a dancer.”
“I guess that makes us even.”
“I guess it does, Dan Roberts.”
“I like this,” I murmur.
“Carving pumpkins?”
I nudge her with my elbow. “Yeah. That’s what I mean,” I joke, and we share a smile.
We may be surrounded by pumpkin carvers and festival goers and busy bodies like Mrs. Nelson telling me what to do, but I don’t care. I want Keira to know how I feel.
It’s now or never.
But then a little voice inside my head asks, what if she only wants to be friends? What if I’ve misread this whole situation? What if she’s happy to keep what we had in the past? Because if that’s how she responds, if that’s what she truly wants, then the torch of hope I’ve been carrying with me all these years, the torch that has grown into a bonfire, will be extinguished forever .
I glance at this beautiful woman at my side, mouth twisted as she concentrates hard on her carving.
All my hopes could be extinguished by her in one short sentence.
I’m not ready for that to happen. Not now. Not ever.
So, instead I finish up my pumpkin and enjoy the moment with her, sitting side by side with the woman I love, still holding out the hope that she does still love me, just as I still love her.