Love at First Snow: A Christmas Miracle by Boroughs PublishingGroup Page A

forget. Even though hockey
was all he had left, he couldn’t get his game back. He bounced from
NHL team to NHL team. Coaches scratched their heads, frustrated at
how to get through to him, how to get back the player they’d
drafted. Teammates avoided him as if he’d caught some contagious
disease. Friends expected him to recover and move on. But how does
a guy move on from something like that?
    Now he didn’t even have hockey. L.A., his
third team in a year, had cut him a week ago, and so had his
limelight-seeking girlfriend. He’d never been a huge star, but he’d
been a good defenseman, the guy a team could depend on to replace a
starter, a steady, straight guy who avoided the limelight and just
did his job. Yeah, that’d been him. The guy who’d rather read books
on the team plane than play cards or video games, rather have a
quiet meal than go out and get drunk, the guy who’d longed for a
nice girl rather than a groupie—until everything changed four years
ago. Lately he’d bounced from meaningless relationship to
meaningless relationship. His latest girlfriend Candy—that name
should’ve been a clue—had dumped him like yesterday’s bread for an
up-and-coming rookie.
    So far, not one team had contacted his agent
to pick him up. At thirty-four he should have a few good years
left, but he’d lost his edge and run out of second chances. He was
tired of forcing a desire that didn’t exist, too. In some ways,
walking away from the game would be a relief, but what the fuck was
he going to do with the rest of his sorry-assed life? He’d never
contemplated his future without hockey any more than he’d
contemplated it without his boisterous family.
    Blake stared at his size-thirteen feet and
heaved a big sigh. The weight of the grief he’d denied for four
years settled on his shoulders like a concrete yoke. Snow fell
softly around him. He buried his face in his hands and listened to
the silence.
    Mew. Mew.
    Blake lifted his head and looked around. The
snow muffled most sound, but he heard it again, a pathetic little
cry like that of a cat or a kitten.
    Standing, he held the railing so he wouldn’t
crash down on his ass on the icy steps. He scanned the snow-covered
yard but only saw one set of footprints leading to the cabin. His
own.
    “Kitty? Kitty?” Blake stood absolutely
still, listening.
    A tiny gray kitten appeared, dragging a
useless leg, its hair matted and caked with ice crystals and snow.
Malnourished and shivering, it managed few more steps toward him
before collapsing in a pitiful heap.
    A life-long animal lover, Blake was on the
kitten in two strides. He cradled the kitten in his arms, amazed
the poor creature was still alive. The kitten gazed up at him with
eyes yellower than a sunflower, and a small piece of Blake’s heart
cracked open.
    He carried the freezing animal inside the
warm three-story cabin, wrapped it in a blanket and sat down on the
fireplace hearth. He ran his large hands over the kitten’s
protruding ribs, feeling for injuries. The leg hung lifeless. Blake
touched it gingerly. The kitten mewed and licked his hand just once
with a sandpaper tongue.
    “What happened to you, little guy?”
    The lump in the kitten’s leg indicated an
old break which had improperly healed, but Blake was no animal
doctor. Hell, he couldn’t even heal his own sorry-assed life.
    Despite the sad shape the thing was in, a
rough purr vibrated in its stomach. The sound seemed to indicate
the kitten’s desire to live, and that desire struck Blake like a
slap in the face. While it fought to survive, he’d given up
trying.
    * * * * *
    Sarah Whitney stared out the vet clinic
window at the snow sticking to the ground and getting deeper by the
minute. It rarely snowed in the San Juan Islands, and when it did,
the snow never piled up. Not to this extent. Heck, she doubted the
county even owned one snow plow. In all her years here, she
couldn’t ever recall a snowstorm like this. Not even the