Free For Keeps by Adriana Hunter

in
horror as the knee bent at an odd angle and Tyler went tumbling to
the ground.
    She waited for a moment, covering
her mouth with her hands and praying he wasn’t badly injured,
but when the trainer headed onto the ice, she started shoving her way
through the people blocking her way and ran up and around, finding
the private entrance to the locker rooms blocked by security.
    Tyler had told her the guards
would have a list of people they could let through, and she
stuttered. “Valerie... I’m with Tyler Princeton.”
    The guard radioed something to
someone inside, but Valerie’s ears were buzzing, and she was
too worried to pay attention. Finally, he nodded and told her,
“Follow me.”
    She rushed after the long-legged
guard. Under other circumstances, she would have grumbled about not
being able to keep up, but now, he couldn’t possibly move fast
enough to get her where she wanted to be. She didn’t even know
if whatever medical personnel would allow her to be in the room with
Tyler, but she was damn well going to find out. And she would at
least be waiting right outside.
    The coach smiled at her when
Valerie reached the outside of the locker room, but the crinkles at
the corners of his eyes were missing…he wasn’t happy at
all. “Hey, Valerie, he’s okay. He’s in a little
pain, but the medic’s working on that first so we can figure
out what kind of damage we’re looking at.”
    The coach put a hand on her
shoulder, and Valerie was glad she’d made the effort to get to
know him and some of Tyler’s teammates. She was a little
relieved to be talking to someone who at least had a familiar face
and knew Tyler. “When can I see him?”
    “ I’ll get you in as
soon as I can, okay? I have to get back out to the ice. We’ve
still got two periods to play, and I have to be out there. But I’ll
leave word with the trainer to come get you as soon as he can
convince the doc to clear it.”
    The wait was long and gut
wrenching, but finally, the door opened, and the trainer motioned her
in. Tyler lay across the medical bench, his face pale and his eyes
closed, though his muscles were still tense and she could read the
pain on him. “Tyler?”
    He reached out a hand, wanting
nothing more than to touch Valerie. The instant he felt her hand in
his, some of the pain regressed, and the tension in his body relaxed
ever so slightly. Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes and smiled
at her. “Hey, love.” He winced as a pain shot through his
knee, but recovered quickly, not wanting to dwell on how badly he
hurt, even after the pain meds. “How bad did it look from where
you were sitting? Was I at least graceful when I fell?”
    She let out a small chuckle. “Not
really. It looked like you’d been shot.” She cleared her
throat, and Tyler saw the worry in her eyes that he’d been
hoping to avoid. “How bad is it, Tyler? Did you tear something? Break something?”
    He shrugged. “If I’m
lucky, then I just pulled the ACL. We’ll have to get an MRI to
see if it’s torn.” He saw the alarm as her eyes grew
wide, and he reached up to caress her cheek. Valerie may not know a
lot about sports, but she understood that terminology at least.
“Look, whatever it is, we’ll deal with it, right? If it’s
pulled, I’m out for about three weeks. If it’s torn…I
have surgery and see where it goes from here.”
    Valerie didn’t know what to
say. If, in fact, he had to have surgery on his ACL, that would be
the end of a career that had just started for him, one that he’d
dreamed of all his life. And that could be completely devastating.
“So, do I get to take you out of here and get you in for your
scan?”
    He nodded. “I just want to
stick it out in here through the game, say goodnight to the guys when
they come in, and then we’ll go. I want you to stay with me.”
Really, he feared this would be the last time he’d be in a
locker room, with other players chasing the dream like him. He also
realized that