Comeback (10 page)

What was the saying about the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. That was exactly the pattern my life had taken, the pattern I’d been attempting to break.

She wanted me to take a step backward.

“I don’t think I—”

“I’m not asking for him. I’m asking for me. I’m asking for them.” She nodded at little Nils, whose head had slipped down so far that he’d cut off all circulation in my arm. “For him. Nicky needs help, and I don’t know a lot about you, but I know you see what he needs and I know you want to help him. He’d let you, but he won’t ask for it.”

And that was precisely the problem. The more involved I got, the more involved I wanted to get. But I needed to find a way to politely back away from the whole situation. It was how I’d ended up here tonight. Nicky had texted me—as a friend—and told me he’d be starting tonight. I was already too close and getting closer, but what Emma wanted from me went so far beyond anything I could allow.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do what you’re asking me to.” I wasn’t even sure I understood exactly how much she was asking for.

“Will you think about it?”

I doubted I’d be able to think about much of anything else for a while, so I nodded.

“Good. But think fast. I don’t have much time left.”

Nicky came through the door of the owner’s box then, lighting up with a genuine smile as soon as his eyes fell on the way Nils was draped across my lap. “I guess he didn’t see that I won, then?”

“As far as he knows, you had a shutout,” Emma’s computer voice said. “You’re still his hero. Always will be.”

But even heroes had their flaws. And often they were fatal.

TODAY WAS THE
first day of the Light the Lamp Foundation’s involvement at the construction site for the Thurstons’ new home. Carter and his crew had already had the site surveyed, laid the foundation, and put up the frame. They’d gotten to the point that they could instruct my unskilled-but-willing volunteers as to what needed to be done, giving each person a specific task and teaching him or her how to perform it. More than two dozen of the men and women involved in Light the Lamp’s various efforts had signed on to come and help today, and they’d all signed on for additional slots on the schedule over the next month or so as their calendars allowed. Today was the big day, though, when everyone would be involved at the same time.

At the moment, I was making my way through the volunteers, hooking them up with someone from Carter’s crew who could teach them an appropriate job, all the while anxiously awaiting the moment Nicky would arrive on site. He was the final person I was expecting; everyone else had already been put to work. The Storm had the day fully off from official team duties. Most of the guys would be resting and relaxing at home. Some of them might go out with some friends or find some other way to have fun with their time off. But Nicky was giving up his day to be here.

I hated the nervous sensation from knowing I would see him soon because I knew what it meant. I was getting way too close and there didn’t seem to be a damn thing I could do to stop it. More than that, I wasn’t sure I wanted to stop it anymore. Emma had seen that in me before I’d recognized it in myself, and it scared me.

Over the last few weeks, I’d spent more and more time with Nicky and his family. I’d been able to see, day by day, how Emma’s body was deteriorating before my eyes. I’d been watching the deepening of his relationship with each of those three kids, seeing how he was trying to ease the transition from being an uncle to his niece and nephews to having more of a father-child relationship with them. I’d been there in the moments when he needed to break down, to fall apart and let someone else put the pieces back together again. I’d held his hand as, through both foresight and necessity, Emma had taken a step back in terms of parenting and allowed Nicky to fill the gap.

If all that wasn’t enough on his plate, I’d hooked Nicky up with a writer and a speech coach so he could begin working on public speaking. Even with everything else, he hadn’t given up on the idea of trying to reach out to people about his addictions. He wanted to help, whether he needed help of his own or not. He wanted to make a difference in the world, something more than what he could do on the ice.

Every day, my respect for him grew.

He’d also been granted the start in two more games since that first one, and there had been a couple of games on the road when Hunter had been pulled partway through and Nicky had replaced him. Despite all the distractions in his life, he’d played well each time he’d been in the net, and the rest of the team was starting to rally around him again. I hoped that meant the coaching staff would begin to trust him more again, but whether they did or not, he was regaining his confidence on the ice and starting to seem more like himself when he was around his teammates.

I had been able to witness some of that change, too, as I’d been going to more of their games than I typically did. Every time I went, Nicky invited me to go out with the team afterward—whether Emma and the kids came to the games or not, she had insisted he needed to go on about his life as he normally would as much as possible—and a couple of times, I’d taken him up on that offer. He always treated me like a friend in those situations, never anything more than that. There was a small part of me that was starting to wonder if there
was
something more growing between us, though. And then I wondered what I could do to slow it down or stop it in its tracks, but if I was being honest with myself, the whole situation seemed like a freight train going full steam ahead. There was no getting off without jumping for it. Actually, I didn’t really
wonder
. I knew.

I was falling. Hard.

I could only hope that the walls I’d built around me were strong enough to withstand the landing; I knew there was no soft place to fall.

When Nicky pulled up at the jobsite, his two nephews piled out of the minivan with him. He had on jeans, a long-sleeved form-fitting T-shirt, his now-familiar Storm baseball cap, and a sheepish grin. Hugo and Nils were dressed much the same, only there was nothing even remotely sheepish about either of their expressions; those kids were as excited to be here as they’d been to go to some of Nicky’s games.

“Emma’s having a bad day,” he said quietly to me after the boys raced over and greeted me exuberantly. “She asked if I could take the kids with me so they wouldn’t have to see. Elin wouldn’t leave her, though.”

I wasn’t surprised by the news about Emma. Nor by the fact that Elin insisted on staying with her. Every time I saw the kids with their mother, the little girl was practically plastered to her side. Emma’s impending death would be difficult for them all, but I was particularly worried about her daughter. That said, I wasn’t sure a construction site was the best place for two little boys.

Dean, the crew foreman came up before I could say as much to Nicky. He took a look at the three new sets of hands he’d been dealt. “Are you boys ready to be my personal assistants for the day?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yeah!” Hugo said.

“We can help,” Nils added, nodding vigorously.

“Only if you’ve got proper gear on and you follow all the work-site safety rules I’m about to tell you, okay?” Dean said. He took his hard hat off and plopped it down on Nils, and it swallowed up the little boy’s entire head. “Well, you need to wear one of these at all times, but I think we’ll have to go find you something that fits a little better, huh? Come on. Let’s go get you two outfitted. Don’t worry, Dad,” he said to Nicky. “They’ll be safe with me, today.” He took off, both little boys following him, never missing a beat.

“Uncle,” Nicky said after them, a definite sense of bewilderment in his voice. He shoved his hands in his pockets, watching as they walked away, and then gestured toward all the men wielding hammers and power tools. “I probably shouldn’t have brought them, huh? I just didn’t know what else to do since I’d promised you I’d be here.”

“It’ll be all right,” I assured him. Maybe I was assuring myself, too. But Dean hadn’t even batted an eye when the boys had arrived, so surely he could find something they could do that would keep them out of harm’s way, not to mention out of trouble. I had every expectation that they’d both be under his watchful eye all day. If a child got hurt on the worksite, that would be disastrous for Carter and, potentially, for all of his crew.

“All right, then,” Nicky said. “Tell me where you want me, boss.”

Before I could answer, one of the crew members walked up to us. “With me. You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

Nicky shook his head. I looked over at the structure and shuddered. It was going to be a two-story home. I wasn’t particularly afraid of heights, but I
was
afraid of falling. I was really glad he was the one heading off to perform this task and I was staying firmly on the ground.

“Good. Let’s go. We’re going to be putting shingles on the roof.” He handed Nicky a hard hat and a work belt.

They hadn’t walked away yet when a couple more vehicles pulled up and parked just across the street from the worksite. It had to be more of Carter’s crew because all the volunteers I had been expecting were already present and accounted for. Color me surprised when a few of the guys from the Storm poured out to join us. Jamie and Levi Babcock got out first, then Ilya Demidov and Hunter Fielding got out of the car with them. The other vehicle carried some of the other young single guys—Aaron Ludwiczak, Riley Jezek, Spencer Ingram, and Nate Golston.

I turned questioning eyes on Nicky because there wasn’t anyone else who could be behind these guys showing up.

He shrugged. “Thought you could use a few more hands, and they were just going to hang out at Babs’s house playing video games if I didn’t do something about it.”

The crew man nodded. “We can definitely use more hands. The more people we have working, the sooner we finish this house for the Thurstons.”

True enough. The family was living in a tiny, cramped apartment right now, and they would continue to live there until their house was built. I herded the guys over to get outfitted with protective gear and made sure none of them had any minor injuries from hockey that might restrict what they could do, and then I paired them up with some of Carter’s men.

With everyone else otherwise engaged, I decided to help out the catering crew, making sure everyone had plenty of water to drink as they worked and preparing to feed them all lunch. We had more people on site than we’d been expecting, so that meant additional last-minute food prep. Time flew by while we put together sandwiches, salads, and desserts. Before I knew it, the whole crew was descending upon us for a meal.

I made sure everyone had plenty of food before fixing a plate for myself. By then, most of the seats had been taken at the long tables we’d set up. The glaringly open seat was the one right next to Nicky, with his two nephews across from him and most of the guys from the team filling up the rest of that table. I took my plate and cup and headed in their direction.

“Anyone sitting here?” I asked even though I already knew the answer.

Nils grinned at me with a mouthful of potato chips. “We saved it for you.” He and his brother were both covered in sweat and dirt, and they looked like they couldn’t be happier even if they’d been at Disney World. For that matter, most of the guys looked just about as filthy. Babs was covered from head to toe in what looked like sawdust, and his hair was even wilder than normal. Most of the others were probably the same but the caps on their heads covered the damage. They were all a mess, but it didn’t seem to matter.

“That was thoughtful,” I murmured to the boys, lowering myself into the chair. The sharp musk of male sweat hit me as I sat—not unpleasant, exactly, and definitely not unexpected after all the work they’d all been putting in.

Hunter was on my other side. He winked and moved his plate over, giving me a little extra room. “Pretty sure Nicky had some very specific thoughts in mind,” he said, and the rest of the guys laughed. Nils and Hugo joined them, although I doubted they’d caught the thinly veiled suggestion.