Frozen Hearts Series Box Set

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

JACKSON

OCTOBER

Park City, Utah

The door to the training center hasn’t even closed behind me when TJ calls out, “Please tell me you’re not engaged to that man-whore so I don’t have to fire you?” He’s already walking toward me with his arms wide open and sweeps me up in a quick hug.

I take a deep breath, inhaling the gym scent that’s so familiar to me in the off-season—rubber and metal and sweat. The tangy smell never ceases to bring me back to my own days as a ski racer. These days I’m relegated to training the men’s team instead.

He steps back and puts his hands on my shoulders. “Please.”

I hold my bare left hand out and raise my eyebrows in mock disapproval. “Nope. And just so you know, you could get in big trouble with HR for threatening to fire me for getting engaged.”

“If half naked pictures of you and Marco keep making the front page of every newspaper in Italy, we’re going to have a PR nightmare on our hands.”

“We were on a boat, in the middle of Lago di Garda. How was I supposed to know the paparazzi were camped out on the shores, and why the hell does it matter if I’m photographed in a bathing suit while on vacation?

” I know my frustration is evident in my voice, even while I try to play this off like it was no big deal.

“Uh, that was half a bathing suit, Jackson,” he says. TJ’s neck gets red when he’s embarrassed, which doesn’t happen often, but clearly this conversation is out of his comfort zone.

“No,” I clarify, “that was a lucky angle for some photography hack who was able to make my one-piece with almost no back look like I was topless. Besides, you know I’m not looking to show off my scars to the world.”

“Please, Jackson, just think about how your relationship with Marco looks,” he says as he guides me down the row between some of our simulators and weight equipment.

“You’re a physical therapist for the Men’s Alpine Team.

You’re responsible for our men being in peak shape”—he gestures around the Elite Training Center like I need to be reminded that I’m here to train our athletes—“and you’re dating an Italian.

He’s the competition. And it doesn’t help that he’s the reigning world champion of pretty much every event in ski racing.

Like I’ve been telling you all along, this could easily be seen as a conflict of interest. If this were an Olympic year, dating Marco would be career suicide. ”

“I can’t help that he’s the competition.” I shrug. But even as I feign nonchalance, I know this is a dangerous game I’m playing, pitting this relationship against my career. I thought any objections to me dating Marco had settled down, but this damn photo seems to have riled things up again.

“Don’t let yourself become a liability to this program.

” TJ slings an arm around my shoulder, pulling me close, and says, “I’m giving you this advice because you’re at the beginning of what promises to be a great career, and our program can’t afford to lose you.

But there are some higher-ups making noise about your relationship. ”

“Duly noted,” I say, elbowing him in the side. He doesn’t budge, just hugs me tighter to his side in that protective way he has about him. I sigh and rest my head against his shoulder. “Thanks for looking out for me, I do appreciate it. Really.”

“I love you like a little sister,” he says, and pulls my hair just like I imagine a big brother would. “As your boss, I can’t tell you not to date Marco. But as a friend, I hate seeing you take this kind of a risk with your career.”

TJ has been supportive through many ups and downs—my terrible and very public breakup with my ex-boyfriend, my recovery from a catastrophic career-ending ski injury, successfully completing my doctorate in physical therapy—and then took a risk hiring me as a physical therapist right out of grad school two years ago.

But despite all this, there are some things I can’t make him understand, no matter how close we are.

“So, there have been some changes to the team,” he tells me when we reach my office, which is separated from the gym by a glass wall.

I quirk an eyebrow at him. “This close to the start of the season?” It’s only October, but we’re due to ramp up our training this week and we’ll be on snow in a few weeks.

“Yeah, Josh decided to retire. He’s making the announcement this afternoon.”

“What?” My voice squeaks several octaves higher than normal. “He’s not going to race anymore and he didn’t even have the decency to tell me in person?”

I mean, of all the people to keep this a secret from!

“He’s having a hard time with it,” TJ says. “He knows it’s time to go, that he’s not helping the team anymore. He didn’t want you to try to talk him into staying.”

“I poured my heart and soul into that man,” I grumble. As his physical therapist, I’d traveled with him to every World Cup race around the globe. I was the reason he came back from a torn hamstring that his previous physical therapist said was career-ending.

“And you got a couple extra years out of him when he was past his prime. But when was the last time he was in the top ten with any kind of consistency? He knows he’s not at the level he once was.

You have to know it too.” He looks at me like he expects some sort of confession.

And while thirty-four-year-old Josh definitely wasn’t finishing on the podium as often as he had in his twenties, he still had some good races left in him.

But, if I’m being really honest with myself, it was getting difficult to keep him in fighting shape.

Sometimes it seemed like the harder I pushed, the more afraid I was that I’d eventually break him.

Retirement, rather than a catastrophic injury, probably is his best option.

It worries me a bit that he recognized that reality before I did.

It’s my job to make those assessments and recommendations, and maybe I was too close to see it—maybe I was seeing his success as my success, believing that if he retired it meant I’d failed him.

“I wasn’t ready to give up on him,” I say, glancing away so I don’t have to meet TJ’s eyes.

“This is the most elite level of alpine skiing. Don’t be the patron saint of lost causes.”

I cross my arms over my chest in what I’m sure is a too-juvenile reaction for someone nearing thirty. “You really know how to welcome a girl back from vacation.”

“I do have other news, though,” TJ says, and I expect his trademark lopsided grin, but instead his face is an odd mix between an uncomfortable grimace and a conciliatory smile.

“A fresh start. A new racer who’s younger than Josh, but he’s going to need you every bit as much.

There are some medical issues you need to be aware of.

You’ll definitely be expected to travel with his support team like you did with Josh’s. You up for that?”

Like there’s another option. As a physical therapist, traveling to races with athletes is part of my job. “I’m up for anything,” I say, while praying this new racer isn’t too young or too immature. I have no time to stroke some teenager’s overdeveloped and undeserved ego. “Who’s the new guy?”

“Go read his medical file. I left it on your desk. Get settled in and review his records today because you’ll need to meet with him tomorrow. And welcome back.” He clasps his hand on my shoulder and gives it a quick squeeze before he turns to head into his office.

“You’re back!” I hear the squeal as soon as TJ shuts the door to his office. I turn to find Sierra barreling toward me, her golden hair flowing behind her as she literally runs across the training room.

I brace myself for her hug and she still manages to knock me backward a step. “You’re a little overexcited to see me,” I say when she finally lets go.

“You were gone forever! Seriously, I need girl time, and I need it now.”

“Too much testosterone in your apartment these days?” Until this past summer, Sierra rented the second bedroom in my condo. Then her boyfriend, Peter, proposed and she moved in with him.

“You have no idea. Please tell me you’re free tonight?

I’m not joking about needing some girl time.

If I come home to find that Peter’s left his post-workout dirty towel on the floor of the bathroom and started cooking dinner using every single bowl, pan, and utensil in our kitchen one more time, my head might explode.

” Peter is in ridiculously good shape and is an amazing cook, but his messiness gets under Sierra’s skin.

“Sure. I mean, I’m pretty jet-lagged, but if you don’t mind me yawning every five minutes, we can probably grab dinner and drinks.”

“Perfect,” she says, following me into my office. “So, I’m not waiting until tonight to hear about your vacation—why is there no ring on that finger?”

“Were you and TJ concocting engagement scenarios in my absence or something?” I force a laugh, trying to dismiss her question.

“Guilty as charged.” She plops into one of my office chairs as I lean back and half sit on the corner of my large wooden desk.

I tuck a strand of my dark brown hair, which is long overdue for a haircut, behind my ear. “I told you that Marco and I aren’t on the marriage track. It hasn’t even been a year. I don’t know why you’d be thinking that an engagement was even a possibility.”

“You said you weren’t getting engaged, but all the pictures you and Marco were posting while you were in Italy .

. . the candlelight dinner in Verona”—she scrolls through the photos on her phone with a dreamy smile—“the picnic after rock climbing in the Dolomites, the clubbing, the daily workouts together, the bike rides along Lake Garda. Oh, and the weekend in Venice. It looked like you were having the time of your life!”

I cross one ankle over the other as I stand there looking at her squirming in her chair with excitement, so happy for me. “It was a pretty amazing vacation,” I admit, a smile tugging on my lips.

“And this one,” Sierra says as she holds up her phone with a picture that Marco and I both posted on social media at the beginning of my month there.

We’re side by side on our paddleboards on Lago di Garda, our backs to his best friend, Christian, who snapped the photo.

We’re holding hands, and we’re framed by the mountains on either side of us in the distance.

“I mean, if that doesn’t scream ‘looking off into the future, together,’ then I don’t know what does! ”

We staged that photo, and it came out even better than planned.

“Sierra, you know better than to believe a post on social media is the whole picture,” I say.

As the head of social media for the alpine ski teams, Sierra should damn well know that not everything is as glamorous in reality as it looks online.

“It was a great vacation, but if I don’t post photos where my life looks awesome and people don’t keep liking my photos, the sponsorships will dry up.

” Now that I’m no longer racing, I have to work much harder to remain a sports “influencer” and keep my sponsorships, since they pay my mortgage.

Not that I’m not paid well as a physical therapist, but Park City is a ridiculously expensive place to live and I’m down one roommate who helped cover my condo expenses.

“I know.” She sighs. “But if you and Marco are even half as in love as all your pictures make it seem . . .”

“I love Marco dearly, Sierra. But that doesn’t mean we’re getting married anytime soon.”

“But someday?”

“Moving on . . .” I need to stop this conversation before it goes any further.

“Sorry,” she says, “I’m just so happy to finally see you in a relationship again. It’s been years since you were with he who shall not be named.”

“And remember how I vowed to never give anyone the power to hurt me like that again?”

“Marco would never hurt you like that,” Sierra swears. I love that she defends him because of how important he is to me, and I hate that she’s right but for the wrong reasons.

“I didn’t think Nate would hurt me like that either, Sierra.

But sometimes loving someone makes you blind to their shortcomings.

” How else could I have missed what an absolute asshole Nate would turn out to be?

I’d given him my whole heart for almost a decade, then he shattered it and never looked back.

“I really worried that you’d never move on, but maybe it’s true that everything happens for a reason. You and Marco are so good together, it’s like fate that your friendship developed into more. Plus you’d have the most beautiful Italian babies.”

“Can we just get through your wedding first, before you start planning mine too?”

She smiles that sly smile she gets when we talk about Peter, and I’m about to ask her if they have nailed down a date yet when she glances down at her phone, then bounds out of her seat.

“Got to go set up for some new athlete photos I’m taking today.

Let’s finish this conversation over dinner—and drinks.

The drinks are critical. I’ll get in touch later so we can figure out when and where,” she says and rushes out the door without even waiting for my response.

I walk around my desk and glance out the window at the tall grass that grows for miles, right up to the jagged mountains that are forever capped in ice.

It’s a beautiful view, but I can’t wait for it to be entirely covered in pure, white snow.

It’s been two months since we were in New Zealand for summer ski training and I can’t wait to get back out there again.

I take a seat at my desk and glance at the manila folder filled with medical files that TJ left sitting there for me.

It’s about ten times thicker than the medical file of any other athlete I’ve worked with.

Whoever this new guy is, TJ wasn’t kidding about him having “some medical issues.” How the hell does a guy make the national team with a health record long enough to fill a folder over an inch thick?

I open the folder to scan the first page and my eyes land on the one name I never wanted to see again in my entire life.

“Oh. Hell. No.” Anyone but him.