Taking Charge (19 page)

“That sounds like psychobabble to me,” she responded,
pulling at her ponytail and averting her gaze for a second.

“Is it? Believe me, I really don’t want to feel this
way, but no matter what I do, I can’t get away from the fact that
we fit, Robyn. I don’t know why or how, but we fit.”

“You’re so obviously drunk. Shame on you.”

“I think you feel it, too, but you won’t admit it,
because Clive and whatever ‘make-do’ life you have back in England
is familiar—no matter how shit it is.”

“Oh my God, Cole! Where is all this coming from? I
have a bit of a thing with the rapist turning up and you go all
caveman on me and want to be my protector? I appreciate you having
my back with Jason, but…” Robyn began.

“Close your eyes,” Cole told her.

“Why?”

“I’m going to kiss you. And although I know I
shouldn’t, I want it to be a prologue to something,” he
whispered.

Her eyes closed of their own accord, like a magnetic
clasp had drawn them shut, and she felt the soft, smooth lips on
hers, tempting her mouth to open. She wanted to let the feeling he
gave her fill her whole body and take away every horrible memory.
She reached for him, drawing his head closer to hers, her lips
demanding more from his, until tears were seeping from the corners
of her eyes.

She broke away, out of breath, her cheeks damp, and
her heart hammering in her chest. Cole took hold of her hand and
gripped it tightly in his.

“You felt that, right?” he asked.

Robyn watched the rise and fall of his chest and
nodded her head. She had felt more from every kiss they’d shared
than she had felt for the last nine years. Her heart was racing,
her palms were itchy, and she couldn’t stop looking at him.

“Marry me,” he said, his eyes not leaving her for a
second.

“What?”

“You heard me,” Cole said steadily.

His expression was serious. The inky eyes were
focused on her and the intensity made her shiver.

“Is this a dare? Have one of the team put you up to
this?”

“Marry me,” Cole repeated.

“I heard you, but one more time, and I’ll think you
actually mean it. I’ll hold you to it,” Robyn said with a
swallow.

“Marry me.”

“We’ve known each other three days.”

“You haven’t given me an answer.”

“We have a game tomorrow, the biggest game of the
season. I have to focus on that.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“Of course I am. You’re being crazy!”

“Yeah, maybe I am. I mean, I’ve never thought about
marriage before, you know that. And I really didn’t ever have a
scrapbook of potential outfits. Hell, after the year I’ve had, I
was never having any sort of relationship ever again. But then I
met you and you’re messing things up, messing me up.”

“We should rewind. We can forget I said I wanted to
kiss you, we can forget you kissing me, and we can go and ask the
refrigerator what it suggests we snack on at this time of
night.”

“Are you saying no?” Cole asked.

“Yes.”

“Yes? You’re saying yes?”

“No! I’m not saying yes. This is insane.”

“Do you want me to ask your dad first? Because I’m
serious about this. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it, just call
it a chemical reaction I can’t analyze yet.”

“Jeez! Are you for real?”

“I’m going to ask one more time. Robyn Matthers, will
you marry me?”

She pulled at a section of hair in her ponytail while
biting the inside of her cheek. She raised her eyes to meet
his.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Did you say yes?” Cole asked.

“I…I don’t know. Did I?”

“I think so.”

“This is weird.”

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure you’d say yes.”

“Why did you ask me?”

“Because you make me feel…I don’t know…better. When
I’m with you it’s like finally something else matters. D’you know,
since you’ve been living here, I haven’t thought about work once
when I’ve come home. Not even when you made me sit through every
replay of the Red Wings game twice last night. I can switch off, I
can be twenty-five, playing hockey, being who I am without the
white coat and the safety glasses.”

“I’m not like other girls. I don’t do emotion and Meg
Ryan films or the color pink.”

“I know that. I live with you,” Cole reminded
her.

“I’m screwed up, and I’ve been sleeping with someone
who pays my bills and keeps me in crisps and beer.”

“I know that, too. And I hated it. I hated it so
much, I almost had another crack at the mirror in the Gen-All
bathroom.”

“You’re smart, Cole, and really clever…and whenever
you walk into anywhere, every woman checks you out.”

“Now you’re making things up.”

“They look you up and down and mouth
wow
as
nudge their friends.”

“They do not!”

“You’ve played for the Wolves, and you’ve had a nice,
normal relationship with someone called Veronica. She sounds very
sensible and attractive and probably had a really high-powered job
wearing expensive suits and make-up. I don’t do make-up, by the
way, just lip-gloss,” Robyn continued.

“Come on! Normal? She had an affair with my
brother.”

“But I bet she was normal once. She hadn’t been raped
and she hadn’t slept with her married boss. She liked Meg Ryan,
too, didn’t she?”

“Listen to me. Make that fresh start and make it with
me. We can both start again. Just be Robyn. That’s who I met at the
airport and on the plane. That Robyn had a mouth full of opinions
and she said I was cute,” Cole told her, taking hold of her
hands.

“I did, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Must have been the altitude.”

“Or maybe the jetlag.”

“Or maybe the hostesses nudging each other and going
wow
.”

“Maybe that did it,” Cole replied with a smile.

“This is weird,” Robyn said.

She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how she
should behave. She didn’t know if she was thinking straight. It had
come so out of the blue. But she had reacted with her gut and her
gut had said yes. Her instincts had told her that saying yes was
the right thing to do. Her instincts were rarely wrong. They were
about the only thing she still trusted. But wasn’t it madness
agreeing to marry someone after only knowing them three days?

“Cole, this is crazy. This is a sympathy proposal.
The psycho turned up, you feel sorry for me, you want to protect
me, and this is your way of doing it. You don’t need to. It isn’t
your place.”

“I’d like it to be.”

“This isn’t how things usually go. There’s usually a
prologue.”

“I think ours started at the airport.”

“You’re on the rebound.”

“No, been there, done that. Sally, Avril, and a real
crazy chick called Cleo.”

“I’m not right for you. I’m not educated and I’ve
been stealing from your t-shirt collection,” Robyn admitted
bashfully.

“I know all that. I also know you drink way too much,
and I know how bad you look before your first coffee in the
morning. We’re just right together, Robyn, don’t ask me to explain
it. When we first met, you bowled me over, just because you were
you. Robyn Matthers, straight talking, unpretentious, bossy,
opinionated, determined…” Cole began.

“You can stop now.”

“I like you, you like me. You can’t deny that. It
doesn’t matter whether we’ve known each other three days or three
decades.”

“Is being attracted to each other enough,
though?”

“How does everyone else start off?”

“On a date.”

“And you don’t do dates, so why don’t we start off
with a proposal,” Cole suggested.

Robyn let out a laugh and shook her head. She took a
deep breath and looked at him. He was perfect. In every way he was
perfect—and he was asking her to marry him. Despite the anxiety she
felt, the overriding emotion was excitement and the promise of a
life with someone who knew everything about her and only cared
about her all the more for it.

“What?” Cole asked, looking at her intently.

“I don’t need looking after.”

“Neither do I.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

She threw her arms around him and pushed him down
onto the sofa, savoring the way his mouth tasted entwined with
hers. She ran her fingers through his thick, black hair and felt
him hold her to him so tightly. She wanted so much for it to be
real. She wanted the way she felt for him to be what she had been
too scared to look for. She wanted to be free from everything she’d
been before. She wanted a new start and she wanted to share that
with him.

She stopped kissing him and held him away from her,
drinking in his masculine beauty.

“Your mother’s going to hate me. I’m no good with the
vacuum,” she spoke, touching his lips with a finger.

“And she does love the color pink.”

“Stop it!”

He’d just proposed. In the middle of the den of a
house he had only spent a few days living in, in a state he had
just moved to, to a girl he had met at the airport. It was crazy,
one of those stories you read in magazines. A hurried proposal, a
short-lived romance, and a messy divorce. But he didn’t feel that
way about it. He felt invigorated. He felt alive. So much for
choosing the single life! So much for focusing on his work, giving
the project his full and undivided attention, and steering clear of
potential heartache. She’d somehow got inside him. He felt more for
her than he had ever felt for anyone. They shared an undeniable
connection. She needed stability in her life and he could give her
that. He could be the person to show her that life was full of ruts
in the road, but the damaged tires made you stronger, you just had
to put on a new tread and keep going. That’s what he’d done and he
was hanging on despite himself. Maybe they needed each other.

He smiled. She was singing in the bathroom. Tammy
Wynette.

The weather was terrible. The Panthers had lost
three-zero and her dad was staying behind lecturing them, making
them train for an hour before he let them leave the arena. They had
been awful, Brad had got injured just before half time, they had
lacked pace, and their mistakes in defense had given away the
goals.

Robyn was walking home and the wind was threatening
a bad storm. It started to rain and she quickened her pace,
breaking into a jog. She was wearing jeans, her Panthers shirt, and
her mom’s bright yellow rain coat. It started to stick to her as
she sweated and it rained. She was concentrating so much on getting
out of the weather, she didn’t see, hear, or feel anything before
it was happening.

Suddenly everything went dark, someone grabbed her.
Her head was covered, she couldn’t see and she couldn’t breathe.
Hands were pulling at her, dragging her off the roadside. She
screamed, but the wind was too loud, the rain too heavy. His gloved
fingers dug into her arms as he wrenched her out of sight. She
gasped for air, she couldn’t see, the Panthers had lost, and she
was going to die.

Robyn bolted upright in bed, her breathing rapid,
sweat forming on her brow. It was the dream again. She hadn’t had
the dream since she had arrived back in Portage, but here it was,
same as always. She usually could never get through a week without
having the nightmare. It never changed; it was just a re-run of
events leading up to what happened that night.

She looked at her watch. It was almost 3:00 a.m. The
wind blew a gale outside and the rain battered the windows. She was
never going to get back to sleep.

She got out of bed, went to the door, and opened it.
Just across the landing was Cole’s bedroom. He was probably asleep.
Her head ached. She had drank too much at Taboo—everyone had. She
only hoped they recovered before the game that evening. They had to
win, or at least draw. She couldn’t have the humiliation of defeat
on her hands.

She crept across the landing and knocked on the door.
She didn’t wait for a reply but opened it. Cole raised his head
from the pillow and looked over at her, his eyes half open.

“Are you awake?” Robyn asked, self-consciously
pulling her t-shirt down over her thighs.

“I am now. You okay?” Cole asked, propping himself
up, straightening the covers, and flicking on the lamp.

“Look, being as how we’re engaged and everything—or
did I imagine that? Because I can tell I drank a lot tonight and
I’m not so good at recalling everything perfectly when I’ve had a
few drinks—but if I’m right and we are engaged, can I sleep with
you? And even if we’re not engaged, could I still sleep with you?
You know, have a pillow or two, share the duvet,” Robyn said, her
cheeks flushing as she spoke.

“You don’t like the wind? I would have thought you
would love the Michigan elements,” Cole remarked with a smile.

“Not all of them,” Robyn admitted.

“Come here,” Cole said, opening up the covers for
her.

“You do have some sort of clothing on under there,
don’t you?”

The thought of lying next to him naked gave her a
dual emotion. One half of her felt a jolt of excitement and the
other half was stricken with fear, like a nervous virgin in a room
full of dildos.

“No. Generally don’t sleep in my clothes.”

“Oh,” Robyn said, pausing by the bed and wondering
what to do.

“Relax, Calvin Klein’s covering me up, get in,” Cole
urged her.

Robyn got into the bed and he put his arms around
her, pulling her into him.

“Listen, about this getting married stuff,” Robyn
said, turning over and facing him.

“Yes?”

“Can we keep it to ourselves for a while?”

“Sure,” Cole agreed.

“I’m not having second thoughts, but in the morning
that might be different. You know after about three pints of water
and some Advil. It’s just my dad hasn’t had his bypass yet and…”
Robyn started.