AllFreeNovel
Share Us
PROLOGUE
I was ten when I met the love of my life.
As a hockey coach’s daughter, it was inevitable that I’d lose my heart to a player. Though I doubt my dad expected it to happen during a summer hockey camp at such an early age. Had he, I probably wouldn’t have been asked to tag along as often. It’s not as though I even knew what was happening back then anyhow.
Besides, I’ve always loved the sport. My dad was blessed with daughters, and he encouraged our interest in his chosen profession.
My sister, Willa, played a few years of youth hockey, but it didn’t last long and that wasn’t ever the path I wanted to take. The sidelines are my favorite place. Catching the subtle nuances of each player, knowing their strengths and weaknesses, that’s the part I love.
I might not have played the sport, but I’d been on the ice plenty, and the hero worship I always had for my dad had me soaking up every word he said like a sponge.
Dad played the game his whole life, as soon as he could toddle on both feet, my grandfather put him in a pair of skates and padded him with goalie equipment. He said dad had more horsepower at the age of three than a HEMI V8 engine and needed an outlet for it all. Personally, I think my grandfather fell in love with the sport too late in life to play himself, so he lived vicariously through my dad. Either way, Dad excelled at it and was drafted to an NHL team right out of college.
He left the league and started coaching junior hockey when I was six and Willa was four. He didn’t quit the sport, though. Instead of playing for the NHL, he moved to coaching for the Wester Hockey League. Junior hockey always intrigued me. It wasn’t the path my dad took; he played youth hockey and earned a college scholarship for it. A lot of boys don’t do that and instead move to junior hockey at an earlier age, some as young as fifteen.
It’s not easy. You often have to leave your family, and many will play until the age of twenty before they can pursue a full-time education. That was if they don’t get picked up by a professional team, which wasn’t guaranteed.
Grandpa felt like it would be putting life on hold in hopes of the pros, if my dad went to play junior hockey rather than college hockey. Anyone who hoped to play a professional sport took a certain amount of risk, but I always looked at WHL players as edgy rebels because of my grandfather’s take on things.
Because if my dad hadn’t been drafted at the end of his college career, at least he already had the education and a degree to fall back on.
Growing up with a dad that coached a WHL team meant an endless stream of teenage boys around all year long. But it was the summers I remember best. Dad coached a hockey camp at the University of North Dakota and brought the family with him most years when Willa and I were on summer vacation from school.
That was where I first saw Cillian Wylder. He stood out for all the wrong reasons. Dad always started with skating drills; Cillian wasn’t the best. Not the worst, either, but the middle of the pack wasn’t where any elite player wanted to be and that was firmly where he was. His speed on a straight away was fine, good even, but he’d lose it all with every turn and then needed to play catch up to the leaders.
I wrote him off as just another helmet head with dreams that would never come to fruition. That was most of the boys Dad worked with honestly. Except the following day when he switched them over to drills that included a stick and puck. Cillian’s puck handling was exceptional. Not only could he shoot from the center of his stick, but from the heel and toe as well. All with a high degree of accuracy. It’s not a common trait in seasoned players and certainly not something seen regularly at peewee levels.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him while he had the puck. Looking back, I recognized it was the first time I’d ever been fascinated by anyone other than my dad or the random celebrity that me and all my friends had a crush over.
Hanging out by the tunnel to the locker rooms wasn’t something I ever did, instead keeping my interaction with the players to a minimum. My dad and hockey were the reason I was there, not to meet a new batch of stinky boys that would be gone in two weeks’ time anyhow.
That day was different.
That day, I moved down to the ice so the boy with so much potential couldn’t help but hear me.
“Lunge into your turns more. You’ll move with more power and won’t fall behind as easily.”
“Me?” he asked, removing his helmet as he paused to look me over the same way I did him. Sweat soaked his light hair, dripping and running down his face. It didn’t take away from his gleaming blue eyes that pierced me so directly I didn’t think my feet could have moved from that spot even if I had tried.
“Yes. Bend your knee more, it will make a difference.”
“Who are you?” He blinks at me a few times as if he hadn’t noticed me at all until I spoke. Maybe he hadn’t. But I was one of only a few spectators allowed in to watch and since I didn’t take much time to brush my hair back then, it was a mass of messy curls making me even harder to miss.
“That’s coach’s daughter, dude,” another boy said, bumping Cillian as he moved past into the tunnel.
“I have a name, dude,” I said with an exaggerated eye roll. I idolized my dad, but I hated when someone wrapped my entire identity around him. When I turned back to Cillian, he was smiling.
“What is it?”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Your name?” he asked, beaming.
“Isla Cole.”
“Thanks for the tip, Isla Cole. I’ll work on it.”
Work on it, he did. By the end of camp that year, he could almost keep up with faster skaters. The following summer, he was faster than most. After the first day, he pulled his helmet off and searched for me in the stands to wave at me. I reciprocated and moved down to the ice.
