Page 10 of The Rebound Play

Which is exactly what she does, her eyes roving over my hoodie and tracksuit.

“Well, aren’t you the hometown hero come back home to roost,” she declares.

I’ve got no idea what that even means.

“We are so pleased you’re here, Dan,” another woman says, this one older, with salt and pepper hair and thick-rimmed glasses.

“Mrs. Nelson?” I ask.

“You remember me,” she says with a smile.

“How could I forget you? You taught me all I know about Shakespeare, which isn’t a whole lot, I’ll admit,” I say to my old high school English teacher. “Do you have a kid skating right now?”

“A granddaughter. That’s my Violet in the fuchsia.” She points at the group of kids, and I spot a short, dark-haired girl in pink, concentrating hard on her teacher’s instruction. Beside her is a girl with a tear in her tights, performing a pretty dang-perfect-looking turn.

Not to be outdone, the woman with dark blonde hair says, “My daughter’s the one with the bright yellow headband. Dani’s her name. She loves figure skating, and we all love hockey, especially you, Dan.”

There’s a murmured agreement among the ladies.

“That’s so kind of you to say, and I’m so happy to be back here, playing for such an important charity,” I reply, and they all titter some more, agreeing with me.

There’s a sudden thud and a woman screeches at the back of the group, half laughing, half in shock. “What are you doing?!”

A few heads turn, and I think I spot a couple of sneaker-clad feet, under the seats.

“Why are you lying down? You’re silly!” a young boy says with a laugh.

“Is someone hurt?” I ask, dropping my bag and bounding up the steps two at a time.

There’s an audible “Shhh!” before someone mutters something I can’t quite hear.

“Keira? Are you okay?” says a woman with curly red hair, sitting directly in front of the sneaker-clad feet as she turns to see what’s going on.

Wait. Keira?

“I’m fine,” comes a muffled but stern and familiar voice.

Is that …? Could it be …?

Keira’s here? My Keira? Well, not my Keira anymore, but you get what I mean.

With my pulse quickening in my temples, I climb the final step to see a figure lying flat on her back beside the bleacher, a hood obscuring most of her face, some sort of baked good that looks a lot like a cinnamon roll clutched in her hands. But what I can see of her mouth, the cut of her jaw, the blonde hair falling down her shoulders, I know it’s Keira.

What I can’t work out is, what the heck she’s doing, lying down on the cold, hard floor between two benches of the bleachers, surrounded by a group of chortling moms, here at the arena on a Saturday afternoon.

CHAPTER 4

KEIRA

What am I doing?!

I mean, sure, I got the fright of my life when I looked up from my book, mid-bite of my cinnamon roll, to see Dan Roberts standing in front of me, chatting with the moms as though he doesn’t have a care in the world. Because of course he doesn’t have a care in the world. He’s a famous and wealthy NHL star. He’s got it made. And he’s looking shockingly good, with his dark hair kind of messed up but sexy, his tan skin glowing as though he just stepped off the beach. His jacket is open, revealing a white T-shirt that more than hints at the muscular torso beneath. He looks effortlessly hot in that unattainable, famous person way, like he’s from another planet, simply visiting us mere mortals here on Earth.

So, what did I do? I panicked. Big time.

I knew it was only seconds before he would look up and clock me. I also knew that I had successfully managed to dodge the guy every time he visited town for the past ten years, and I needed to keep that record for my sanity.

So, I did what every self-respecting, twenty-seven-year-old woman would do: I dropped to the floor and pretended like I wasn’t there, clutching my half-eaten cinnamon roll to my chest as though it was Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.