Center Ice Read Online Free PDF

wasn’t like I thought I was actually going to get there, but it felt good to have a goal. And Karen followed right alongside me.
    I finally stopped, and she started treading water beside me, giving me a look as if she wanted me to explain the game I was playing. Of course, I had no idea, so I shrugged. “Nobody here. Just us.” I should have had a better explanation, something that would tell her what a rare treat that was for me.
    She obviously wasn’t quite understanding. “Okay, if you’re going to drown me and bury my body in the trees, you should just get it over with. You know?”
    I had no idea what to say. “If you think there’s a chance of that, why the hell did you follow me out here?”
    “I didn’t think there was. But then you said we were alone, and it just… I don’t know.” She ducked back under the water, but I understood what she was doing, now, finding a little solitude down there until she was ready to deal with me again.
    Or, I guess, until she ran out of oxygen.
    When she finally bobbed back to the surface I said, “Karen, I promise not to drown you.”
    She was ready for that, and added, “Or kill me at all. Or rape, or torture, or—”
    “No crimes,” I said quickly. “No assaults. No unwanted physical contact of any sort. I promise.”
    She squinted at me. “Of course, that’s exactly what a torturing-rapist-murderer would say, isn’t it? I mean, with a list of sins like that, I don’t think you’d have to worry about a little lying.”
    “Those aren’t the sins on my list,” I said. And I didn’t want to get into all that, so I waved my arm toward the shore, defaulting back to my tour guide persona. “Down that way is the public beach. Sand right to the water, and all the conveniences. And there’s a kids’ sports camp over that way. That’s where I worked this summer, off and on. Beyond that is mostly trees. A few cottages, a few small beaches like the one we’re at, but otherwise, just forest.”
    She was obviously bowled over by the sudden tidal wave of information, but she found her balance and said, “That’s nice. In Toronto we have Lake Ontario, but it’s not like this. Almost all developed, along the shore.”
    “That’s where you’re from? Toronto?” I’d known she was from somewhere different, but not that different. “Damn. How’d you get stuck up here?”
    She ducked back under the water again. I got the message, and when she surfaced I didn’t press her for an answer to my question. But I couldn’t think of what else to talk about, so it was a bit awkward, the two of us just treading water, staring at each other. “I’m getting tired,” she finally said. “I’d better go back to shore. But you can stay out here.”
    I didn’t say anything, just flipped over onto my back and started kicking. She swam right alongside me. Sometimes we’d be on our backs, sometimes we’d roll like otters, onto our sides, our stomachs, back again. There was no hurry, and by the time we got to the shore, Karen seemed calm. She swam in to the shallows, tucked her skirt under her ass and sat on the cool stones, watching me like she was expecting an answer to some question I was pretty sure she’d never asked.
    I swam around a bit more but didn’t go far, and eventually I worked my way into the shallows and sat beside her, my elbows resting on my drawn-up knees. I kept myself from edging in too close to her, even though of course I wanted to. Her dress was wet and clinging to her in lots of interesting places, and it would have felt totally natural to explore those places a little. And, okay, I admit it, I snuck a few peeks. But I kept my hands to myself, even though I wasn’t really sure why. I mean, Karen was different from other girls I’d known, sure, but that wasn’t really what was holding me back. It was more like I was different, or at least like I wanted to be.
    So I didn’t make any of the moves I knew so well. Instead I said, “Must be lots