Page 135 of On the Power Play

Chapter Thirty-Two

Jack startled awake to Clara shaking his shoulder. It brought him straight back to his childhood when he'd slept past his alarm for school. He grunted. "What is it?" His barely awake brain went to all kinds of weird places. Fire? Lost kitten? It wouldn't have been the first time.

"Jack, you need to take this." Clara shoved her phone in his face, and he pushed to sitting. He blinked to clear his vision, but couldn't read the name ticking across the top of the screen. Before he'd even raised his hand, Clara pushed the phone against his ear.

"Hello?"

"Jack? Oh, thank God. I've been trying to phone you for an hour and finally found Clara's number in Delia's phone?—"

"Mary?" Adrenaline surged through him. Why would Mary be phoning him? Why would she be desperate enough to look up his sister's number? He grabbed his phone off the nightstand, yanking the charging cord from the wall. It was only ten o'clock. He'd only been asleep for forty-five minutes. Fifteen missed calls.

"Delia was in an accident."

Jack's blood ran cold as everything seemed to drop into slow motion. There was an accident. She was driving over to drop off the ladder she'd borrowed from the garage. Jack was sitting at the table across from Tony in darkness, his eyes fixed on Delia under the spotlight as he absorbed her lyrics. I've never been one to reach for the stars because flying has never felt safe. He was standing in his apartment in Toronto, listening to Angie's mother weep on the other end of the line. She's gone, Jack.

"They took her to Toronto General," Mary continued in a rush. "I tried to phone her, but she's not answering. The only reason I knew is because the security team dinged me—Bryce, her security guard was driving."

"Is she—how bad—" Jack couldn't form words into sentences. Clara sat next to him on the bed wringing her hands.

"I don't know, I'm driving over now. I already phoned her mom and Tony. I'll keep you post?—"

"I'm on my way." Jack stood, throwing off his sheets and ripping open his dresser drawer.

"On your—Jack, no, I wasn't trying to tell you to get on a plane right?—"

"I'm on my way." He dropped the call and tossed Clara's phone onto the bed next to her.

"You have a game on Friday." Clara's eyes were glassy.

"I'm well aware." Jack yanked a pair of trousers from his drawer and shoved his legs into them, then grabbed a shirt and shoved the drawer closed.

Clara looked as if she was going to protest again, but instead she adjusted her robe and stood. "I'll drive you. Oscar can look for a flight while we're on our way. Just let me throw on some clothes."

_____

Jack bolted from security the second his backpack came through the machine. He had twenty minutes to get to his gate. Oscar had reached the airline and convinced them to give Jack a seat on the 11:55 p.m. flight. Clara had sped for probably the first time in her life to get him to the airport in record time. Thankfully, because of the late hour, the place was mostly empty.

He was a sweaty mess when he arrived at the still-open door to the walkway. "Jack. Harrison." They'd called his name over the speakers in the terminal twice. He held out his phone so the attendant could scan his boarding pass.

"Glad you made it." She smiled and motioned for him to go through the door.

The past hour and a half of his life settled against his bones as he made the walk to the plane. Delia was in an accident. How? When? He'd been talking to her right before he'd gone to sleep. Why had she left the house?

He found his seat and settled in next to the window, shoving his backpack under the seat. He needed to let his coaches know. He was supposed to be at practice the next morning. Getting permission hadn't even crossed his mind. The second Mary had said Delia was headed to the hospital, his mind had been made up.

What if she's already gone? The thought gnawed at his insides with razor teeth. It wasn't possible. He'd already lost someone he loved in a car accident, and there was no way that could happen twice.

The thought of Delia being taken from him was like being hit by a bucket of scalding water. It washed over him, sweeping away any excuses or rationalizations for why he'd acted the way he had with her. Why he'd pulled back so hard in the beginning. Why he'd harboured so much guilt at the thought of touching her.

Even then he'd known. He'd recognized something in her from the second he'd heard her perform that night at the club. Like chemistry on the ice, he could just feel it. Sense it. As much as he'd tried to push it away, that connection had worn away at him like water through sand.

That night in the hotel room had punched a hole in that dam he'd built three years ago. Then when she said, "I love you" on the way to the airport? Everything had broken loose.

And not just the good things.

He felt again, and it sent him reeling. He'd barely held it together long enough to get food in the suite, then holed up in his hotel room and cried like a baby.

He loved her.

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