Chapter 2
Icy Blast from the Past
Sam Freaking Durbin.
Angelina Rossi shook her head, desperately hoping she could change the channel and the image of Sam Durbin right along with it.
She blinked—multiple times—but there he sat in all his chiseled glory, his marine-blue eyes flickering with intensity, his square jaw covered with enough stubble to leave a delicious scrape on sensitive skin, and his dark blond hair perfectly tousled—as though those curly strands had been arranged by a stylist to look messy.
One crew-sock-encased foot was propped on the table, and he stared at her with a shocked expression that probably mirrored her own.
Damn it! Why hadn’t Celia warned her that Sam was her new patient?
Because he’s not supposed to be my new patient.
One of the other therapists had up and walked out, without notice or any inkling of warning, leaving a handful of patients dangling in his wake.
Celia had done an admirable juggling job, managing to reassign most of them, but had called Angie in a panic, begging her to come in despite this being her off day.
The mercenary in Angie had jumped at the chance to take on any new assignments.
Call that the desperate mercenary in her.
This job with the physical therapy operation that tended to the Blizzard hockey team was a new gig for Angie, one she was well-trained for, and a sweet spot that could carry her swiftly up the rungs of her ambition.
The fact that one of her new patients was a Blizzard player had been the frosting on the cupcake.
The reality sitting before her had licked off all that frosting and left a soggy mess behind.
She hadn’t learned his name before rushing in.
She hadn’t known a thing about him except he had a syndesmosis injury.
She’d been flying blind, having only now arrived, leaving her no time to review his profile.
If she’d had his paperwork ahead of time, she would have at least seen his name, but those documents were currently on the desktop of her shared workstation, where Celia had just dropped them off.
Cripes, why hadn’t she asked which Blizzard player before she’d committed to this particular assignment?
She needed to build her business as badly as she needed the money, and she was good with ankles, which made her the perfect PT match.
Had she known his identity ahead of time, though, would she have taken him on anyway?
No effing way.
Of all the PT joints in all the towns in all the world, he limps into mine.
She unstuck her feet from where they’d rooted themselves to the floor and willed them to walk with a casual gait toward the guy she swore she’d never speak to again in this lifetime. Not that she had ever imagined getting another chance to walk that dark path.
A wicked thought caused her to mentally rub her hands together.
Angie thought of herself as a glass-half-full kind of girl, and right now she was telling herself there was a bright side to this irony.
How badly could she torture him under the pretext of physical therapy?
Grab that ankle and yank it this way, twist it that way …
Oh, how she’d love to get the upper hand on the cocky douche canoe.
Bring him to his knees. Make him cry for mercy.
Make him sob out a long-overdue apology.
Make him snivel as he confessed to her how cruelly he’d behaved.
And now he was here. In the flesh. On her table. Injured.
Yeah, she could make this work.
“Rossi?” he croaked. “Is that you?” Those dark blue eyes summed her up in one thorough sweep, and a corner of his mouth twitched tentatively.
One tiny movement, and her revenge fantasy went poof.
She should have been cackling with glee in the bottom of her cold, dead heart.
Technically, only one corner of said heart was dead, thanks to the frostbite inflicted on it by Sam Freaking Durbin.
But she was at a loss to muster delight over this turn of fortune.
The promise of paybacks splatted at her feet.
This man was to her willpower what kryptonite was to Superman.
She needed to slide into a lead suit if she hoped to survive him this time.
She cleared the surge of emotions from her throat “Hi, Sam. Long time no see.” Ooh, nicely played, Ange. Casual indifference is always a good fallback.
She reached for her rolling laptop stand to give her hands something to do and her eyes somewhere to point besides his infuriatingly handsome face.
Even as she broke eye contact, though, she felt the weight of his gaze on her.
What thoughts were buzzing through his head?
What a mistake he’d made that night six years ago?
Or how smoking hot she looked in her baggy pants?
Yeah, right. Maybe he was realizing how drunk he’d truly been and that his liquored-up eyesight had been so thoroughly compromised he’d imagined her as …
someone else. Someone with a pink puffy-lipped mouth.
Someone pretty. Someone with a supermodel build whose name was Brianna.
Unfortunately, there was nothing wrong with Angie’s eyesight, and he looked finer now than he had then. He was taller, for one thing. More squared off. More … manly. He wore his testosterone well.
Damn him.
“High ankle sprain?” she said dully, waking up the workstation.
“Yep.” He popped the p.
Keeping her eyes averted, she scrolled the screen. “I assume they took X-rays last night and didn’t find any breaks?”
“No breaks.” He pointed at the monitor she was currently drilling her gaze into.
“Isn’t it right there?” he grunted with annoyance.
“I don’t get why I have to keep repeating the same damn thing every time.
Yes, it’s a high ankle sprain, aka a season-ending injury.
” Those last words came out with some spicy sauce on them. Or was that venom?
She wasn’t about to tell him this was her first look at his records. Instead, she turned and snapped her wrist at him.
“Okay. Lie back. Let’s see what we’ve got.
” She took the crutches from him and watched his posture as he reclined, his lungs seeming to deflate with a sigh.
She tried not to notice how he filled the entire bed.
Or that he was a big guy … with big muscles.
Everywhere. He was dressed in gray sweat pants and a black T-shirt that didn’t exactly cling, but it didn’t hide the blocky definition of those toned muscles beneath the soft fabric.
After carefully rolling down his sock, she removed the ACE bandage and scanned his ankle, taking in the swelling and purply-blue hue of his skin. Oh, that didn’t look good. “When was the last time you iced?”
He stared up at the ceiling tiles. “The trainer did this morning when I got to the arena.”
“How long ago was that?” She snatched the tablet from the workstation shelf and took images of the offended joint from different angles.
He shrugged. “Two hours?”
“And before that?” She slid the tablet back onto its shelf.
“Last night.”
She corralled her surprise. “So only twice since you injured it?”
He flicked up a finger. “Last night.” Another joined it. “This morning. That’s twice. And yeah, I know I was supposed to do more, but like I told the trainer who just finished chewing me out before I got here, I was too fucking exhausted.”
She ignored the snark, instead zeroing in on the fact that twice wasn’t nearly enough and that her patient obviously hadn’t followed the trainer’s instructions.
If Sam had a significant other at home, she would have made sure he iced.
Therefore, no SO. Angie told herself she needed these important details because it affected his rehab.
She had to gauge how difficult he was going to be when it came to sticking to his treatment.
This was all about business and not for any personal reasons. Of course it was.
“Tell me if this hurts.” She palpated the ligaments, watching his expression closely for telltale signs of discomfort.
Most hockey players had high pain thresholds and were good at masking their reactions when something did hurt.
They all shared a strange macho don’t-show-any-pain gene, and some of them schooled their features so well one might mistake them for being bored.
Nothing registered on Sam’s face. Then again, he was a good actor. This she knew firsthand.
“I’m going to check your stability.” She began some gentle range-of-motion tests. A quick flex of his jaw muscle was the only sign that what she was doing made him uncomfortable.
“Did that hurt?”
He shook his head. Still looking at the ceiling, he murmured, “You look different than you did the last time I saw you. Of course, that was six years ago.”
Whoa! He remembered how long ago it had been? She paused a beat before resuming. “Different how?”
“I don’t know,” he chuffed. “Different. Maybe it’s the clothes.”
She couldn’t stop herself from calling bullshit. “Yeah? What was I wearing the last time you saw me?”
“Jeans. You always wore jeans.”
He had it wrong. She’d been wearing leggings and his jersey. For one untethered moment, she wondered if he remembered what she’d had on under the leggings and jersey. She’d worn those uncomfortable lacy bits for him after all.
Pressing her lips together to keep herself from spitting out something she’d regret—he was a patient, even if he was a user and a loser—she put her hands on his ankle with a firmer touch than necessary, and his butt lifted slightly off the table.
“Fuck!”
“Sorry,” she muttered. Not sorry.
“You didn’t hurt me. Your hands are cold,” he grumbled.
She took two steps back. “If you don’t like my cold hands, you’re really not going to like this.” She couldn’t keep the smile from her voice.
“What’s this?” He rolled his head toward her, his voice pitching with a hint of panic.