Free Comeback by Catherine Gayle Page A

the ice, but none of our guys could get a stick on it. A couple more passes, then a shot from the slot. I got just enough of it with my toe to keep it from going in. Couldn’t control the rebound that time, either. Kicked it straight at an Oiler, who pulled it to his backhand and went high stick side. The crossbar saved me again, but we still couldn’t gather in that damn little piece of rubber.
    Eventually, Babs was able to put some weight on his leg again. He stayed with the point man, trying to kick the puck out of the zone with his skate every chance he got. At one point, he got his skate blade on it and shoved it out, but he didn’t get enough on it and only cleared it to center ice. The Oilers got out of the zone, changed a few players, and immediately brought it back in. None of our guys, including Babs, was able to get off the ice for a change, but he got a new stick, at least.
    The onslaught continued until they got the puck into the crease. I tried to snag it, but too many bodies came crashing in around me and I couldn’t get it covered. The Oilers kept poking at it, and my guys were trying to push it underneath me so the ref would blow the whistle. I kept my eye on that little black disk, constantly trying to draw it in so I could cover it. No use. Burnzie and Babs somehow ended up behind me, both of them pretty much thoroughly in the net. An Oilers’ stick tipped the puck just before I got my glove over it, pushing it behind me. I had gone down in a split at some point, and I tried to flip and twist my body around to grab the puck, but it was too late. It crossed the line, the goal light came on, and we had a tie game.
    I dropped down onto my ass while the bodies surrounding my crease cleared out.
    “Well, fuck. We’ll get that one back for you, Nicky,” Burnzie said, cuffing a gloved hand over my helmet.
    I didn’t say anything to Burnzie. What was there to say? I wasn’t really paying much attention to him, anyway. My eyes were on Bergy as I tried to figure out what he was thinking. Did he want to pull me and put Hunter in? Was he blaming me for the way the game had turned around?
    Babs was the last guy to clear out, gingerly putting his weight on his left leg.
    “You all right?” I asked.
    He grunted. “Just a stinger. I’ll be fine.”
    “You don’t have enough padding on to be blocking shots like that.”
    “What are you saying?” he asked, feigning offense but with a huge grin on his face. “I should leave stopping pucks to your sorry ass?”
    “My ass might have been the way to go with that one. I tried everything else in the book and nothing worked.”
    He tapped my pads with his stick. “It’s fucking big enough, you’d think it’d work. Your ass, I mean.” Then he skated over to the bench.
    I couldn’t help it. I busted out laughing, probably because that was the first time one of the guys had really picked on me in a long time. Maybe, at least as far as Babs was concerned, I was still the same Nicky he’d known when he’d first come into the league. Maybe I was starting to earn my way back.
    I took off my mask and rolled my head, stretching my neck to get ready for the game to start up again. I’d let a couple pucks in, but this game wasn’t over. We still had a chance to win, and fuck if I was going to roll over and let them beat me that easily.

    NILS HAD FALLEN asleep on my lap late in the second period. I wasn’t really sure how to feel about it. I mean, I’d just met these kids, and he was already climbing up in my lap and making himself comfortable enough that he could fall asleep on me.
    “Sorry about that,” Emma had said through her computer, but she hadn’t looked sorry. The look in her eyes was pleased, which only confused things even more in my head.
    There was a part of me that was nearly giddy about Nils taking to me so easily, too, but I tried to shake the sensation. The thing was, I’d always wanted kids. Steve and I had almost started a family, too,