Grace hadn’t been exaggerating—she’d had a ton of physicals. A competitive skater had to be in peak condition, couldn’t risk anemia or vitamin deficiency or, God forbid, some lurking condition like a heart or kidney problem. But this was different.

“I can do that. Two o’clock.”

Nine

Although they didn’t talk about it, Grace realized that she and Troy were having a standoff. She wanted to hear some words of love before she told him the whole story of her life and he wanted the story of her life before there could be words of love. She might be very vulnerable to the promise of first love, but she wasn’t an idiot.

She had kept her appointment with Peyton.

When Grace had visited Peyton and asked her about birth control pills, she told her they’d only been using condoms for protection. “I’m not worried about it,” she said. “But Troy is getting a little nervous about depending only on that when the pill is safer.”

“Perfectly understandable. Are your periods regular?” Peyton asked.

“No, unfortunately. I’m pretty sure I’m due any day now. Seems like it’s been a while.”

“Well, let’s do a physical exam and blood work and then I’ll give you a prescription for birth control pills. You can start taking them the first day of your period, but stick with your other protection until two weeks on the pill. I’ll also give you a pregnancy test to take home just in case that cycle doesn’t arrive—you can check to be sure you’re not pregnant.”

Troy hadn’t even asked her about it. She decided she was going to tell him everything about her past before his friends visited on the weekend. If there was anything about her he no longer liked, he could just sleep on his own couch while they were in town.

She put the morning mail on her desk, went about her work, put together a few floral arrangements for Justin to deliver later. She went upstairs to fix a sandwich for lunch, then cleaned up the shop, made a list of flower orders for the week and visited with customers. It was late afternoon and Justin had already picked up his deliveries before she went through the mail. She leafed through the usual ads and bills, then came across a letter. Her name and address were typed on the envelope and she expected an offer of cheap insurance or something similar. But inside was one folded slip of paper. She opened it and read what was typed across the page.

“I dream of you every night. B.”

She stared at it, mouth open. Her hands began to shake. She looked over her shoulder left, then right. Her breath came in short gasps. She locked the back door. She wanted to go upstairs and lock her loft, but she was afraid to go outside. She grabbed her cell phone and then spoke aloud, to calm herself. “Stop. Stop. You’re alone here. He’s not here.”

But she checked every nook and cranny, in the cooler, the office, even under the desk. She looked into the alley and saw nothing unusual. She didn’t know who to call. Not her mother, who would only say I told you so. Not Mamie and Ross in Portland—what could they do? She finally speed-dialed Mikhail’s cell phone. She had no idea where he might be; he could be anywhere in the world. She usually got his voice mail and was constructing the message she’d leave him when he answered in Russian.

“Mikhail, he found me! I just got a letter. It says what he used to say, that he dreams of me every night. It’s Bruno! Oh, God.”

“Sons of bitches!” he barked into the phone.

“It’s not addressed to Izzy. It’s addressed to Grace Dillon. Here at the shop. Where I live.”

“But he is in hospital,” Mikhail said. “I will call them now. Then I call you. Stay where you are,” he instructed as though she’d leave the phone if she left the room.

“Thank you. I couldn’t make myself call them.”

The first note had come when she was twelve, just a little girl, but her parents hadn’t shared it with her. At twelve she was already a skater with enormous promise and a winner in her age category. Her parents screened everything that came near her, but she saw one of the notes lying on her father’s desk a year later. She got a little excited at first—someone loved her? Dreamed of her? But her mother said, “Don’t be ridiculous! It’s another nutcase! We reported him to the police.”

She didn’t think another thing about it. Then, not long after her father’s death, after an early morning practice with Mikhail, her new coach, she took off her skates in the arena where she’d been skating and walked toward the exit where the chauffeured town car waited. A man she didn’t know and couldn’t remember ever seeing before stepped out of a dark hallway, grabbed her, put his hand over her mouth and ran down that dark hallway with her. She struggled and fought and he babbled that he was going to take care of her, rescue her from the people who were exploiting her.

He held her in a maintenance closet with a broken lock on the door. She huddled in the corner, sitting on the cold floor, while he paced and babbled about foreign countries using children to spy for them, that the beautiful children should be freed, on and on with nonsense that had no meaning. He hadn’t been armed that she could see, but he was a large man. His hair was thinning on top but long on the sides and back; she found out later that he was twenty-four. She tried to get up and run for the door of that small space but he smacked her right down and threatened her, told her he’d have to hurt her to protect her if she didn’t follow his rules.

It took a little over two hours for the police to open the unlocked door, wrestle him to the ground and remove her. It was much later that she learned he was delusional and had to be hospitalized.

After that incident there were a couple of other stalkers that were handled quickly, efficiently and with restraining orders. Those two later perpetrators were not delusional but appeared to be aficionados of the young female sporting scene and seemed to move on with little argument. Who knew who they bothered after her?

Once Grace understood exactly what had been going on she also understood there were predators out there, people who preyed on pretty young athletes, male and female. They usually began by giving small gifts or flowers and praising their talent, but too soon they’d be seen at every practice and competition, always trying to get closer, to chat it up with the coaches or athletes.

It was very likely a combination of her own close calls and the tearful words from that young skater, Shannon Fields, that caused Grace to fire such rash and destructive accusations at the coach, Hal Nordstrom, suggesting he’d been inappropriate. Poor little Shannon had said to Grace, “You don’t understand! I gave him everything he asked for. Everything, even if it was horrible!” Grace believed, in her gut, that Shannon had been talking about something other than, more than, practice. She had no evidence. But he did have a sleazy, lecherous look in his eye and he did way too much fondling and butt patting.

What did she know about it? She had Mikhail Petrov, that cold, angry, often silent little Russian who never touched her, not in anger, not in praise. Since his compliments came in the harsh, brittle Russian tongue, she had no way of knowing, for years, that he was sentimental on the inside. Looking back, she could see that Mikhail had almost become the man of her small family; both Winnie and Grace had depended on him. He was always present, completely devoted.