Coach Morgan didn’t swear. In fact, he got irritated each time one of his players did, and now he was dropping the F-bomb like it was going out of fashion. Something must be seriously wrong.
But the coach ignored his question, instead looking to the side of the ice, where the new team doctor was poised in the door.
Waving frantically, he yelled, “DOOCCCCCCC.” His voice echoed around the silent arena.
The next words were the worst Frost had ever heard in his long career in hockey.
“HE’S NOT BREATHING,” Coach Morgan bellowed, then began to press rhythmically on Aiden’s chest.
The players looked at one another, and both teams came together to form a ring, protecting their teammate from the eyes of the spectators and cameras.
Frost’s gaze swung over to where he had seen the doctor. Enid or Mabel? It was some old lady’s name, as they had all sniggered like children when she was introduced. Although the glare she gave the locker room full of men who were all far, far bigger than her, stopped them dead.
She then declared, “That’s the one time you get to laugh at my name. Try it again, and I won’t be so forgiving. And so we start off on the right foot, the first one to try and nickname me after my hair gets kneecapped.” She crossed her arms, and her hazel glare met the eyes of every man in the locker room. She tossed her ginger curls back over her shoulder and stomped off.
Frost thought her gaze had lingered on him more than on anyone else. He was older than all the other men—actually, he felt some of them were still boys.
He was thirty-six and had just played his last season in the NHL, as each game was taking him longer to recover from. He needed physio, massages and many, many ice baths to get him through a game, and he knew his body couldn’t take much more punishment or sustain the fitness he needed to play in the NHL.
He had genuinely been ready to retire from playing at the end of the last season. But then he was offered the deal to make a documentary and come to Australia as part of it to play a season for the Australian Ice Hockey League. He could play at eighty percent and still keep up easily.
Ice hockey was his first love, and after a lot of thought and some intervention by his mom—who wanted to see her son on screen—and his agent—who thought it would be a wise move to keep some money coming in while he decided what to do next—he couldn’t resist the lure of one more season and had agreed.
Although when Frost thought about his very healthy bank account and what his financial adviser told him about his ‘portfolio’, he figured now, in hindsight, his agent had just been keen for his twenty percent cut of Frost’s money.
So here he was, standing on the ice ‘down under’, watching Coach Morgan try to revive a man at least ten years younger than him, who had a wife and baby daughter in the crowd somewhere watching it happen.
Frost frowned when he saw the doctor wasn’t even on the ice yet. He turned slightly to watch her as she snatched something off the wall behind the player’s bench, where the assistant Coach was yelling at the benched players to stay where they were and not go out onto the rink like they were all straining to do.
When she finally ran out onto the ice, he watched in horror when her feet flew out from under her, and in the silent arena, there was an audible impact when her head hit the ice. A wave of relief flooded over him when she started to struggle to her feet.
When she frowned down at her hand and pulled a glove on, he was already moving across the ice. They needed Mabel, Enid, Doris? And they needed her now.
He skidded to a stop in front of her and would have grinned at the look of shock in her hazel eyes if the situation hadn’t been so dire.
“Doc.” He nodded to her and swept her up into his arms, pulling her into his chest before he turned and skated back across the ice at full speed, depositing her right next to Aiden’s still body.
She didn’t hesitate and dropped to her knees beside Coach Morgan.
“Keep on with the CPR. I’ve got the defib, okay?” Doc didn’t wait for an answer, she was unzipping the case containing the defibrillator.
Frost observed her pull the pads out of the box, grab the waist of Aiden’s jersey, and try to pull it up to get to his chest. The bulky gear thwarted her, and she couldn’t move his jersey.
Frost was on his knees next to her before he had even thought about it, and he gently pushed her hands out of the way, grabbed the V-neck of Aiden’s jersey and ripped it open. He used so much force his elbow caught her in the arm as she reached across to Aiden’s now exposed chest, and he heard her grunt in pain.
“Sorry,” Frost apologised as he slid himself back out of her way.
The doctor ignored him as she peeled sticky backing off the pads and applied them to Aiden’s chest, then pressed a button on the box, which brought it to life.
“Stop compressions,” the box squawked in its unnatural voice.
The doctor indicated for Coach Morgan to stop and added. “Don’t touch him.”
Coach Morgan nodded and sat back on his heels.
“Analysing rhythm.” The stilted voice announced. “Shock advised.”
The box made a noise which gradually increased in tone until an alarm blared. The doctor’s hand hovered over the button, but she didn’t press it, she stared at the ice under Aiden’s body.
