Free Face-Off by Nancy Warren

life, her implacability caused a certain friction.
    She’d be married by now if she had a different personality. For a second she allowed her thoughts to stray to the man she’d loved so long ago, but she’d become an expert at steering her mind away from painful thoughts of the past.
    Back to business. Always business, where rules were clear and if there was any doubt, a judge would always decide. There were no gray areas, no “if onlys” in her practice, and that was exactly how she liked things.
    She was feeling pretty damned pleased with herself when she got home from work later that day. As she was changing for her run, the phone rang. Normally, she didn’t deviate from her routine, but when she saw it was her older brother calling, she grabbed the phone, one leg in her running tights.
    â€œHi, Jarrad. How’s the coaching going?” If there was ever a good news/bad news scenario it had to be recently learning that her big brother was coming home to Vancouver where he belonged. That was the good news. Naturally, she’d assumed that he’d finally listened to her excellent arguments on the reasons for returning home and not wasting his life in Hollywood.
    However, the bad news part of the equation was that he was here not because he’d heeded her superior advice, but because Greg Olsen had asked him to coach the amateur firefighters and police league. Greg Olsen. Of all people.
    She’d wanted her big brother to come home and figure out what he wanted from life. He had a boatload of money and he’d enjoyed a decade of success in pro hockey. Now he could do anything. Go back to school, open a business,travel the world. Instead he’d informed her he was coming to coach.
    â€œYou’re coaching? Seriously?” Sam could not believe her ears, and she’d heard some improbable stories in her seven years as a practicing lawyer. “Hockey?” she wanted to clarify to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood. Perhaps her older brother had completely lost his mind and was coaching synchronized swimming or something. Though, based on his marriage to the swimsuit model, she doubted he wanted to get close to that many women in tank suits anytime soon.
    â€œYes. Hockey.” Jarrad had sound vaguely irritated. “Of course, hockey.”
    And now, weeks into the coaching thing, he was calling her. “Can I come up?”
    â€œYou’re here?”
    â€œRight outside your building.”
    She rapidly considered her options. She could say no. Not an option with a big bro who had always been there for her and had so rarely asked for help. She could make him come running with her. Also probably not an option since he’d go at his athlete’s pace and then she’d get competitive and run too fast for conversation.
    So, she’d run later. She yanked her tights off. “Yeah, sure you can come up.” And then she scrambled into a clean pair of jeans and a blue shirt.
    When Jarrad arrived, he said, “I need your help.”
    â€œTrouble with Sierra?” She hoped that wasn’t it. She really liked Sierra and to see Jarrad with a sweet, normal woman was like seeing him grow up. She didn’t want to find out that he’d regressed again.
    He waved her words aside. “Nothing, but Sierra doesn’t understand hockey the way you do.”
    â€œI think we both need a beer to have this conversation,”she said, crossing into her galley kitchen to the fridge and pulling out two cold Granville Island lagers. She didn’t bother to offer him a glass, and, having grown up with brothers, she didn’t take one herself. They twisted off the tops and both drank.
    â€œSo, is the problem hockey or Sierra?” She really needed clarification.
    Her big brother looked at her as though she might have drunk twelve beers instead of taking one sip. “What are you talking about? I love Sierra. It’s the coaching gig