Simmering Ice Read online

  When the gloves come off, she’s worth the penalty…

  Physical therapist Annie Davidson is great at her job but unlucky when it comes to love. She’s just out of a bad relationship. A really bad relationship. All she can do is focus on work…that is until she runs into professional hockey player Alec O’Meara. She’s a touch insecure and doesn’t understand why he’s interested in her.

  Despite being one of the biggest players on the team, right wing Alec O’Meara prefers finesse over force. After the tragic death of his wife, he likes to keep things loose on and off the ice. But the red-headed Annie challenges his beliefs and makes him think about taking their relationship to the net.

  The passion and fun they share is addicting and makes them long for more. But her insecurities that she’s not good enough, and his anxiety over a long-term commitment will keep them apart, unless they can find a way to break through the defenses they’ve built around their hearts.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Discover the Atlantic City Hustlers series… Flirting On Ice

  Find love in unexpected places with these satisfying Lovestruck reads… The Rules According to Gracie

  Flirting with the Competition

  His Millionaire Maid

  A Change of Plans

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Veronica Forand and Susan Scott Shelley. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 109

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Lovestruck is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Candace Havens

  Cover design by Heather Howland

  Cover art from Hot Damn Stock

  ISBN 978-1-63375-338-9

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition July 2015

  For Kate Forest and Betty Bolte.

  We appreciate you more than you could ever know.

  Chapter One

  Jab him in the ribs with the end of a hockey stick or check him into the boards, head first. Alec could take any amount of roughness on the ice, but a crying little girl destroyed him. He’d walked into her hospital room, teddy bear under his arm, to visit at the insistence of the floor nurse. And then he woke up the girl.

  Probably scared the hell out of her.

  “Please don’t cry. It’s okay. I’ll tell the nurse you want your mom.” Where did she go? Damn, he felt like an ass. He tried to soothe the girl’s emotions, but tears in women always made him uncomfortable and awkward. He twisted around to head to the desk and slammed into someone. A very feminine someone. He reached out and grabbed her before she hit the floor. His body was always the biggest in the room and on the ice was also the fastest.

  “Tam-?” He spoke without thinking and almost called her Tamara. It had been two years since his wife died and still the red hair reminded him of her. “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”

  He released her as soon as she had her footing. The warmth of her skin remained in the palms of his hands for a few moments.

  The woman straightened up to her full height and then smiled. She was breathtaking, the attraction hitting him like a punch in the gut.

  Jesus. He hadn’t felt anything like that in a long time.

  “No problem. I heard Emily crying and thought I’d help you out.”

  He glanced back and waved. The little girl sat in silence staring at the scene outside her doorway.

  “I think I scared her. Could you give her the bear I brought for her?”

  “A three-year-old girl takes on the biggest hockey player in the league and wins.” She laughed and took the bear from him.

  “Not a fair fight. Tears are my kryptonite.” The tension in his chest eased when she walked away and spoke with Emily.

  Mikael, the goalie for the team, ambled up next to him. “I see you’ve met Annie. The nicest woman ever. I eat with her now and then at the diner near my house. She gives me quality dating advice, and I ignore it and fall for the gold diggers and puck bunnies of the world.”

  “She’s not your type?” Alec stared at the red hair and the confident attitude of the woman working with the little girl.

  “She’s too intelligent to fall for a guy like me. You, however, may be perfect for her.”

  Perhaps it was because the red hair reminded him of Tamara. Another glance at her revealed a petite nose, long limbs, and a booming laugh. No, she wasn’t anything like his deceased wife. Okay, he was curious about her. Nothing more. Mikael and Alec remained standing in silence for a few moments until the little patient cuddled up to the brown bear in her bed, and the woman returned to the hallway.

  Mikael called out to her. “Annie, this is the great Sequoia, also known as Alec.”

  She lifted one very perfect eyebrow higher than the other. That breathtaking smile emerged again. “We’ve met. And I’d love to introduce him to the little girl with his bear in her arms.”

  Return to the crying little girl? Uh. Nope. But Annie didn’t budge, and Mikael took off down the hallway. He’d pay for this.

  “Emily loves teddy bears, and her family loves the Hustlers,” she continued. “She’s watched both games you’ve played since arriving here a few days ago with a leg fracture. Come on. I’ll introduce you.” She smiled, and something weird twisted in his gut.

  He didn’t want to be rude, so he followed her back into the room, trying to hide his huge frame behind Annie’s trim figure so he didn’t scare the girl again. Instead of tears, however, he was greeted by a smile. The little girl was in bed, her leg encased in a large brace. A few bruises marked her face, and she had a scratch on her chin. The injuries didn’t take away from a wonderful gap-toothed smile and big expressive eyes.

  “Hi.” She waved. “You came back.”

  “I wanted to make sure you liked the bear.” He approached the bed, but didn’t crowd it.

  “Thanks.” She glanced between him and the physical therapist. “You play hockey for the Hustlers? My brother plays hockey. He’s a goalie. Are you a goalie?”

  “I’m a forward. I score goals. The goalie tries to stop them. Do you play a sport?”

  “Ballet.” Her arms lifted over her head in some ballet move, the bear clutched in one of her hands.

  “Great sport.” He lifted his arms over his head and pliéd. A move he’d learned in camp one year when a college coach thought learning to be graceful would help score goals. It was one of the hardest classes he’d ever taken. He’d never admit it, however, especially to his teammates or either of his brothers, who also played professional hockey.

  Emily smiled and clapped.

  A sexy laugh echoed across the room. Annie had probably never seen a hockey player do ballet before.

  “I wish I had my camera out for this,” she said.

  He dropped his arm
s immediately and glanced at the door, in case Mikael had returned.

  “I only perform for little girls named Emily.” He winked at the two females laughing at his dance moves.

  “Your secret is safe with us. Thank you so much for visiting her.” Annie approached Emily and brushed her hair behind her ear. “Time for you to rest, little one.”

  She was a cute kid.

  “It’s really nice meeting you, Emily. You’ve made my day, so I’d like to give you something else. The next goal I score is for you.” He leaned down and touched her nose.

  “Me?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll try to find Zac, the captain of the team, and see if he can come and visit you too.”

  “Maybe he can dance with me, too.” Her arms lifted up into another ballet pose.

  “If he does, call me over, I’d love to watch.”

  He waved to Emily, nodded to her physical therapist, and left.

  “Thank you,” Annie called after him.

  “Any time.” And he meant it.

  An hour and fifty patients later, he and Zac were the last two to leave. They tended to remain longer than the other guys. They enjoyed talking to the kids and giving them hockey advice. He saw the red ponytail a few more times moving in and out of rooms. She seemed sweet. Okay, sweet wasn’t the word. Sexy and fun. After a few minutes with her, his gut—which he almost always trusted—told him Annie was a forever kind of woman. But he wasn’t looking for another forever.

  No matter how pretty she was, she wasn’t the one for him.

  …

  Two weeks after the Hustlers’ visit to the hospital, Annie’s patients were still talking about meeting their favorite players. She hoped that visit, and the upcoming excursion to watch the team play this weekend, would keep them motivated to stick with their rehab programs. She helped Emily back into her bed. “You did a great job with your exercises today.”

  “I wanted to make Sequoia proud. He said I inspired him.” Her pigtails bobbed from side to side.

  Alec “Sequoia” O’Meara, star right winger, had become Emily’s favorite topic of conversation. She never spoke about the bad fall out of a tree that had landed her in the hospital anymore. Annie smiled at the hero worship shining in the kid’s eyes and fought the wave of warmth that crested every time she thought about how his hands had felt on her shoulders and the flash of interest she’d seen in his eyes. A flash quickly quelled before he’d walked away. So quick that maybe she’d imagined it.

  His wife’s very public battle with cancer had endeared both her and Alec to the entire community. The image of the stoic hockey player, felled by grief, was ingrained in her memory. In the two years since Tamara’s passing, the gentle giant had worked his way into the hearts of all the fans. Annie cheered harder for his every on-ice success, feeling vested in it, willing it for him. If anyone deserved happiness, it was him.

  Rolling her shoulders, she focused on the chart in her hand. No use thinking about Alec when she’d probably never see him again. She made a notation. “You’ve improved so much that you get to go home tomorrow. The doctor talked to your mom. She’ll be here soon.”

  Emily’s smile lit up her face. “I get to go home?”

  Annie placed her hand on the child’s shoulder. “I’ll see you on an out-patient basis for the next two months. You’ll be back in your ballet shoes before you know it.”

  “Maybe I’ll play hockey like my brother and Sequoia.”

  Annie glanced at the side of the bed, where Alec had entertained Emily with his attempt at a grand plié and ignored the flutter of disappointment that he hadn’t stayed longer. “Sure, and tell him to give ballet a try. It’s good for flexibility. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She was working with Tim, one of her long-term rehab patients when Hustlers’ goalie Mikael Larrson walked in. The dark-haired Swede had become a friend and frequent dinner buddy in the months since he’d began weekly visits with Tim.

  “How’s the leg today?” He wrapped Annie in a quick hug and then fist-bumped Tim.

  The sixteen-year-old shrugged. “Getting better. Watching my teammates play without me sucks. I wanna be back on the ice.”

  “You’ll get back there, as long as you keep doing what Annie says.” His eyes twinkled when he smiled at her. A hopeless flirt as harmless as a puppy and a good friend who’d given her a shoulder to cry on after she’d learned of her ex’s cheating, Mikael was like the brother she’d never had.

  She grabbed a bag of ice and patted the side of Tim’s chair. “I wish they all listened as well as you do. Keep this on for ten minutes, then you’re done for today.” Leaving Tim and Mikael chatting about his team’s latest game, she set up equipment for her next patient.

  Mikael approached her. “I thought I’d stop by the diner tonight around six. Want to meet me there?”

  She placed her hands on her hips. “Not if you want me to play wingman while you flirt with the new waitress.”

  He held his hands over his heart, the mock hurt on his features dissolving as his lips twitched into a smile. “I don’t need a wingman, but I’d be happy to play one for you.”

  “Maybe I’ll take you up on that.” She’d spent enough time licking her wounds over Corey’s cheating. It would be nice to have someone in her life again. She felt ready. Alec’s face flashed into her mind. Rugged, handsome, and framed by long blond hair she wanted to touch.

  “Yeah? You’re finally taking my advice?” His eyes brightened. “Who’s the guy?”

  Asking him about Alec caught in her throat. Why would a star hockey player be interested in her? And if he wasn’t, the rejection would be humiliating and might mess up her friendship with Mikael. “No one in particular. I’d better get back to work. My next patient will be here soon.”

  “All right. See you tonight.”

  Ignoring the pull of imagining herself with Alec, she waved good-bye, then walked over to Tim.

  After eight hours of non-stop action and a missed meal, she was more than ready for the promise of friendship and hot food ten blocks away.

  She shrugged into her coat and strode past the nurses’ station. They no longer whispered as she went by. No longer a need to, now that Corey was her ex-boyfriend, and the gossip over his affair with a medical assistant, the ink barely dry on her certification, was old news. He’d tried to hide the affair, but everyone had known about it…except for Annie.

  Shaking her head, she checked her purse for bus fare. Seeing them together, day after day had been too much. Thank God he’d moved to a different hospital and the assistant to a different floor. The occasional spotting of the other woman, sporting a diamond on her left hand, was a stark reminder that, once again, she hadn’t measured up.

  After her second bumpy bus ride of the day, Annie stepped onto the curb outside The Blue Dog Diner. Its neon lights glowed with promises of food, a home away from home. Stomach rumbling, she tugged the heavy door open. The bells over the door chimed, and a blast of warmth and scents of fresh coffee and fried food rushed into the cold February night. People lined the counter and filled the booths. She smiled at some of the regulars, wove a path over the blue and red-checkered floor, and placed her usual order of a grilled cheese sandwich and bowl of tomato soup with Stella, the waitress at the counter.

  “Hey, Annie. How’s your car?” Stella, a grandmother of five, worked the dinner shift six days a week.

  “It’s still in the shop. I might have it back next week. Busy night in here.” She ducked under an oversized shiny red heart. Valentine’s Day decorations hung from the ceiling and dotted the counters and windows.

  The bells chimed again. Annie glanced over her shoulder.

  Him.

  Alec walked in, followed by Mikael. He waved, motioned to Alec, and headed in her direction, then caught her in an eager hug. “Vouch for me. This place has killer sandwiches.”

  Alec caught Annie’s gaze. She attributed the flutter in her stomach to the lack of food and coffee. His brows lifted, and t
hen he smiled. “That true? No one beats Basker’s.”

  “Until it burned down last week.” Mikael slapped him on the back. “Annie, you’ve met Alec, my misguided friend.”

  Alec’s gaze journeyed from her eyes to her feet, then back again. A warm buzz of awareness dimmed the surrounding sounds. She stared at him and slowly rocked back on her heels. On one level, she barely knew him, other than watching games and catching a few player interviews. But on another, she felt strangely close to him—his grief over his wife was similar to what she’d experienced losing her grandmother to the same disease.

  “It’s nice to see you again.” His hand closed over hers, large, warm, and firm.

  She raised her gaze from his hand, to his chest, over the thick neck and square jaw and into gray-blue eyes intent on hers. “Yes, you too.”

  At her words, his grip tightened, then eased.

  “I forgot to ask you earlier. How’s the kid he scared?” Mikael nudged him.

  Alec’s hand dropped to his side. The scent of leather stung her nose. He pushed up his jacket sleeves, and his lips curved into a smile. “Yeah. How’s Emily?”

  “She’s going home tomorrow. And…she carries the bear you gave her everywhere.” She smiled over the memory of Alec going through ballet positions with her pint-sized patient. “She’s telling everyone that you’re her boyfriend.”

  “Sequoia’s a heartbreaker.” Mikael smirked and thumped him on the shoulder, then turned and placed orders for Alec and himself.

  “A table just opened up in the back.” Stella pointed to the corner of the room. “You better grab it before someone else comes in.”

  “Thanks.” Mikael winked at Stella then turned to Annie. “Did you already order?”

  She nodded.

  “Cool. Then let’s go.” Mikael gestured for her to walk ahead.

  Her gaze slid to Alec. Eating with Mikael was always entertaining, but what if Alec didn’t want her there? “I can get mine to-go, if you two would rather be alone.”

  Mikael burst out laughing. “When you say it that way, I picture flowers and candles. Hell no. Sorry, Sequoia, you’re not my type.”