Worth the Fall Read Online Free PDF

’d had surgery for lesser injuries before. Hell, Lizzie’d been at the hospital in Detroit through all of them. Katie and Ron had sent flowers. Zeke, Lizzie’s twin and Petey’s other best friend besides Lizzie, had flown into town for one of them.
    Had Alison ever acknowledged any of his surgeries? A card? Anything?
    No, he would have definitely remembered it if she had. Sudden pissiness overcame him. “I thought I said you could go home.”
    She gave him a look of stone. “I’m sorry. I must have missed the memo that said I listened to you.”
    “ Did you at least text Lizzie and give her the scoop?”
    “ Yep. She and your parents are still out in the general waiting area. Your parents still have no idea I’m back here. Or that anyone’s allowed back here with you.”
    “ Let’s keep it that way.”
    “ What? I’m going to go out there and tell them I’ve been back here the whole time and they could have been, too? And deal with the wrath of Lieutenant Dan? Uh, that would be no.”
    And that ’s exactly how it would happen, too. “Jesus, he needs to get a life.”
    “ He has a life,” she said with the compassion he knew was there but seldom got to witness. “You. You’re his life.”
    He let out a long sigh that felt good. “I know,” he said softly. They both knew it to be true. “This is going to kill him. I mean, hours after I told him I was going to retire, you’d think it wouldn’t be a big deal.”
    “ That was for real? You are retiring?”
    “ Retired,” he said, motioning toward his offending knee, which looked perfectly fine. From the outside.
    “ And you already told your parents?”
    He nodded. “That’s why I came home even though it’s just a couple of days’ break for the All-Star Game. I put in my paperwork this week. I’m done at the end of the season. I wanted to tell my parents face to face. Then I figured I’d need to see Lizzie after that.”
    She looked away for a moment, thinking. Always thinking, Alison. With that genius brain of hers that he never had a hope of matching.
    “What exactly would have happened in the next three months or so if you hadn’t fallen? Between now and your last game?” Her voice was low, soft and just a touch melodic, and he suddenly felt like her patients probably did—valued…important…safe.
    But he didn ’t want her to see him as a patient. Had never wanted that.
    “ I don’t know. Nothing much. Maybe a speech or something at the last home game. Hell, maybe even a bobblehead,” he said
    “ You already have a bobblehead.”
    She knew that? Did she have one? And why did the thought that she did mean so much to him?
    “Stevie has all your crap like that.”
    Oh. But still, how would she know what Lizzie ’s stepson collected unless—
    “ He insisted on showing off all his Pete Ryan paraphernalia when I was over for dinner one night.”
    The woman was never going to give an inch where he was concerned. A lesson he ’d learned long, long ago. But had recently forgotten.
    “ I think there would probably be more than just a bobblehead. How many years have you been playing?” she asked.
    They graduated from high school the same year, though she from Hancock and he from Houghton. They graduated from college the same year, though she with honors and he just squeaking through. They ’d both begun their careers right after, though she went on for more degrees and he played a game for a living.
    She knew damn well how many years he ’d been in the NHL. Didn’t she?
    “ Fifteen.”
    “ Right. That’s a long time for hockey, isn’t it?”
    “ For a defenseman, yeah.”
    “ And all those years with just one team. That—”
    “ I wasn’t with the Red Wings the whole time. I got traded and then traded back.” Christ, she really had no idea, did she? She’d been hanging with Katie and Ron up here all those years, and Petey knew they kept a close eye on his career. They wouldn’t have mentioned that one of their closest