On the Fly (26 page)

Dana smiled. “Sorry. I know I sprung
that on you out of nowhere. I’ll talk to Brenden about it, and then
you two can decide.” She looked up when Eric came around the corner
from the direction of the gym. He held out his hand for hers. She
took it, and they headed back out to the ice together. “No
pressure!” she called over her shoulder.

She’d barely been gone a few seconds
when Laura Weber took the seat she’d vacated, setting her designer
purse on the bench on her other side. “Did you get a good look at
the rock? Zee did good.”

I smiled. “It’s huge.”

For a brief moment, an image of a ring
like that on my hand flashed through my mind. The thought of
something that size on my finger was laughable. Dana at least had
long limbs, long fingers. She could pull something like that
off.

But I didn’t have any business
thinking about rings, big or otherwise. Being kissed a couple of
times wasn’t nearly enough to start thinking along those lines, no
matter what Dana Campbell believed her brother might feel for me or
what I might feel for him. I forced the thought aside.

“
So I’ve only got a few
minutes,” Laura said, “but I’ve been trying to get a minute with
you all afternoon, and this is my last chance. Katie’s not feeling
well and I’m taking her home once she gets changed. Dave’s gonna
stay with the other two until after the big dinner.” She pulled her
sweater tighter, doing up the buttons as she talked. “I’m heading
up all the players’ wives charity events this year, and we need
your help now that you and Soupy are an item.”

She didn’t even give me a chance to
object, to say that we weren’t an item. Granted, I didn’t know if I
could really say that anymore. Everything about our behavior, at
least over the last few days, said otherwise. He’d even called me
his girl in front of some of the guys, and I hadn’t done anything
to contradict him. And now his sister was inviting me to spend
Christmas with them as part of the family.

What was I getting myself
into?

“
I know you’ve got a full
plate working for the team,” Laura said, “but there are a lot of
young guys this season who aren’t married and don’t have
girlfriends right now. That means the rest of us have to do more,
and that means we need you. Tomorrow’s game is in the afternoon, so
you have no excuse not to bring the kids and join the rest of us up
in the owner’s box. We can talk more about what I need from you
then. I’ll pay for your time and efforts with good wine and cheap
gossip.”

I laughed out loud over that one. “I’m
not sure I should take you up on the wine. I don’t really drink
much.”

“
Fine. But you’ll eat my
gossip up and beg me for more.”

Katie and Jamie were coming back into
the stands, and she looked even sicker than I’d imagined. Whatever
it was had hit her hard and fast. Only a little while ago, she’d
been out on the ice with everyone else, having a grand old time.
Now she looked like the only way she was staying upright was
because Jamie was holding onto her waist.

Laura stood up and put her purse strap
over her shoulder. She looked down at me with the kind of look only
a mother can get away with. “Don’t try to get out of this with
using those other tickets for the game. I’ll hunt you down and drag
you up to the box by your ear if I have to.”

“
All right,” I said. “I’ll
talk to Brenden about sitting in the owner’s box with
you.”

She winked at me. “Maybe it won’t be
too long before you’ve got a big rock, too.” Then she turned and
put her arm across Katie’s shoulders, and the two of them headed
back out together.

Jamie took the seat next to me, and
the two of us watched until they disappeared around the corner. I
tried not to think about rings.

“
She’d been looking tired
for a little bit, but she just fell down out there,” he said. He
sounded dazed. “By the time I carried her over here, she had a huge
bruise on her elbow where she hit the ice. I hope she didn’t break
anything.”

“
Her mom will make sure
she’s okay.” That’s what moms do, after all. I patted him on the
hand, trying to reassure him.

“
Yeah. She’ll be
okay.”

When I turned back to the ice,
everything moved in slow motion.

Maddie’s feet slipped out from beneath
her. She fell backward, hitting her head hard on the ice. I stood
up and screamed.

The ice was red. Blood. Maddie’s
blood.

Bodies converged on her. Men. Men she
didn’t know.

I tried to run to her.

Jamie stopped me. Put his arms around
my waist and held me back.

“
That’s my baby.” I
struggled to get free. Had to get to her.

They were surrounding her. People kept
racing around, blocking me. All of them bigger than me. I couldn’t
see her. I couldn’t get to her.

“
Soupy’s out there, Rach.
He’ll get her.”

A hand touched mine. “He’ll bring her
to you. Sit down with me. You can’t help her if you fall and hurt
yourself on the ice.”

Dana. It was Dana. I grabbed hold of
her hand and wouldn’t let go.

“
I’m calling for an
ambulance,” Eric said from somewhere nearby.

Jamie and Dana urged me back to the
bench and made me sit. They sat on either side of me, staying with
me.

I couldn’t breathe, I was sobbing so
hard. I didn’t know who else was around me. They were all talking,
trying to calm me down, but nothing would calm me down until I saw
my little girl.

The bodies between me and Maddie
finally thinned, and then she was in front of me in Brenden’s arms.
She smiled at me.

I shot to my feet, my hand shaking
uncontrollably as I reached for her forehead, took in everything I
could with my eyes. The blood was coming from the back of her head,
dripping slowly down Brenden’s arm.

“
It’s already slowed down a
lot,” he said.

I could only nod.

“
I’m okay, Mommy. Mr. Soupy
is taking care of me.” Maddie reached up and grabbed hold of my
hand. She was so much steadier than I was.

“
The ambulance is here,
guys,” someone said behind me. Nicky. It was Nicky’s voice. “Let
the paramedics through.”

They wheeled in a stretcher, and
Brenden placed her right in the middle of it. I couldn’t let go of
her hand, not even to let the paramedics strap her in
place.

Brenden’s hands rested on my
shoulders, strong and steady. He squeezed and placed a kiss at the
back of my head.

“
Go with her in the
ambulance. I’ll get Tuck and meet you there.”

I nodded, and they started wheeling
her out. I climbed into the back of the ambulance and watched,
almost numb, as they stuck an IV in Maddie’s arm and pressed a
gauze pad against her head.

“
It’s okay, Mommy,” she
said again.
She
squeezed
my
hand, reassuring me. “I just fell. Mr. Soupy took good care of
me.”

He had. Brenden had taken care of
Maddie, and now he was taking care of Tuck, and by doing that he
was taking care of me.

I should’ve made
sure she was wearing a helmet.

That was the only thought going
through my head, over and over again, the whole way to the
hospital. Tuck was in his booster seat in the back, quietly
sniffling, while Dana drove the two of us there.

Babs had had to help me figure out how
to fasten him in because Tuck was too worked up to do it himself. I
hadn’t ever done anything like that before. I’d never even watched,
so I didn’t have the first clue what went where. I should probably
start to pay more attention to things like that.

“
Give me your keys,” Dana
had said once we got Tuck situated. “You’re shaking too bad. You
can’t drive like this.” She’d been right. I was too worked up,
almost as much as Rachel had been. The shaking had started as soon
as the ambulance pulled away with the two of them in it. I’d kept
my cool until that moment, but then I lost it.

Blood had never really bothered me
when it was my own, and I’d seen plenty of teammates and opponents
bleed over the years. But when I saw Maddie lying on the ice with a
pool of blood circling her head, my heart had plummeted to my
toes.

Dana glanced back at Tuck in the
rearview mirror when he sniffled a little louder. “We’re almost
there, buddy. The doctors are going to make sure Maddie is just
fine.”

There she went, reassuring Tuck when I
should have been the one to do it. I was hopeless at this. It was
like our roles had been reversed all of a sudden, and now Dana was
the one looking after me and taking care of all the things I ought
to be doing.

This was a hell of a way to celebrate
her engagement.

“
Shit,” I muttered, then
regretted it when Tuck sucked in a breath. “Sorry, Tuck. I
shouldn’t have said that.”

“
What’s wrong?” Dana
asked.

“
You shouldn’t be here with
me. You should be with Zee…”

“
He’s coming to the
hospital, too, as soon as they finish cleaning up the ice.” She
turned into the drive at the emergency room and parked in the first
available spot. “I’m right where I need to be. Okay?”

I didn’t have it in me to argue. I
just wanted to get inside to Rachel and Maddie.

Dana helped to get Tuck out of the
back, and she held his hand as we went through the glass
doors.

The woman at the desk took one look at
me and all the blood I was covered in. “You with the little
girl?”

I nodded.

“
They took her back for
some tests. Only one family member is allowed in with her at a time
right now. You can wait in that first room on the
right.”

My head was floating while we went to
the waiting room. The only thing that seemed real was the intense
pain in my left ankle. I’d seriously overdone it today, pulling all
the kids around on that sled. I might have even hurt it worse than
it had been from that game against LA. I made a mental note to ice
it once I got home, but with the way my head was working right now,
I’d probably forget.

Dana found a corner full of toys and
got Tuck situated over there, then she left for a few minutes. When
she came back, she took a bottle of orange juice over to Tuck and
sat down next to me, passing me a cup of coffee.

I sipped from it, but it burned the
roof of my mouth. I set it on the table next to me to let it cool
off.

The door opened, and I leaped to my
feet thinking it would be Rachel or a doctor coming to let us know
what was going on. Nicky came in and held the door open, and the
entire Babcock family followed him inside. I sat back down again,
and the younger boys went over to play with Tuck and keep him
distracted. Babs and his parents sat down across from me, and Mrs.
Babcock gave me a tentative smile.

I couldn’t return it. There wasn’t a
fucking thing I could smile about right now.

For the next half hour, that door kept
opening, but it was never who I wanted to see coming through it.
The waiting room was bursting at the seams because everyone had
left the rink and brought the party here. Mr. Engels had even
instructed the catering staff to bring the food here, so they had
set up a table along the wall and everyone was eating.

Zee handed Dana a plate and sat down
on the floor since all the chairs were taken. “You need to eat
something, Soupy.”

“
I can’t.” I was going to
be sick. Better not to tempt fate.

Dana frowned, but she didn’t push. “I
asked Rachel to bring the kids for Christmas and stay the night
Christmas Eve. Told her I’d run it by you, and then you two can
talk about it.”

That was the first thing to make me
feel something other than guilt in a while. “Did she seem like she
would come?” I wanted her to come. I wanted to be with her and the
kids, and her to be with my family.

“
Couldn’t tell.”

“
If Maddie is okay, I’m
sure she’ll bring them,” Zee said.