Karin Baine – Reforming The Playboy (страница 1)
From playboy...to father and husband?
Hunter Torrance, former Demons hockey star, is back—now as the team physiotherapist. And while team doctor Charlotte Michaels doesn’t believe he’s changed his playboy ways, the attraction between them is undeniable!
Hunter has worked hard at becoming a father to little Alfie, his newly found son. With Charlotte’s help, he knows he can be—though she guards her heart as fiercely as he does his. He’s sure they could be a family—if only they can take the risk!
‘Ice Hockey Dude’, as my hero Hunter has been affectionately known throughout the writing process, has been in the planning for a very long time. Ice hockey is a relatively new sport to Belfast, and—as with the town in my book—it brought much excitement with it. Along with a host of handsome Canadian players who did indeed fall in love with local girls and are still here over a decade later. A romance novel just waiting to happen!
As with all bad boys, Hunter Torrance has taken some taming, but with the help of my fabulous editor, Laura, I’ve finally wrestled him into submission. Now all we need is Charlotte Michaels, the team doctor, to forgive him his sins too and learn to trust him again…
Happy reading!
Karin xx
Reforming the Playboy
Karin Baine
Books by Karin Baine
Mills & Boon Medical Romance
Paddington Children’s Hospital
Falling for the Foster Mum
French Fling to Forever
A Kiss to Change Her Life
The Doctor’s Forbidden Fling
The Courage to Love Her Army Doc
Visit the Author Profile page
at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.
This book is for my sisters, Heather and Jemma, who first got me hooked on ice hockey and encouraged my stalking of No. 28! Also for Jaime and Lucy, the next generation of Giants fans.
Thanks must go to Andrew, because without his help I never would’ve been able to write this book. Or so he would tell you. And to Ricky so he doesn’t feel left out!
It’s been a rough few years for all of us and, though I never say it, I love you all. xx
Finally, to fellow author Annie O’Neil. You’ve been an angel, and although we’ve yet to meet you’ve become such a lovely friend.
Listen to the rhythm
Contents
IF ALIENS HAD landed in the middle of this rural Northern Irish town and declared her their new supreme leader, Charlotte Michaels couldn’t have been any more surprised than she was now.
‘Hunter Torrance? The Hunter Torrance is the new team physiotherapist?’
Although he was standing there, casting a shadow over her, she didn’t quite believe it. Didn’t want to believe it. The Ballydolan Demons was her team, her responsibility, and having ice hockey’s most infamous bad boy on board wasn’t going to dig them out of the hole they were in.
‘Yes. Deal with it, Charlie. We need him.’ Gray Sinclair, the head coach, delivered the news and strode away, leaving her face-to-face with the new signing in the arena corridor. She’d been on her way to watch the team train when the pair had ambushed her and literally stopped her in her tracks.
‘Hunter Torrance, the new physio. For now. I guess my future employment will be dependent on results.’ The latest addition to the team held out his hand as he introduced himself but she wasn’t inclined to shake it until someone convinced her this wasn’t some sort of sick joke.
‘Like everything around here,’ she muttered. He wasn’t the only one on trial. This was her first season as team doctor, and so far, with the list of injuries they had, a run of poor results and the last physiotherapist quitting on short notice, it could be her last too.
With a build more like a willow tree than the mighty oaks usually associated with the sport, she’d worked hard to be taken seriously but now they’d landed her with a sidekick who still held the UK Ice Hockey League record for most time spent in the sin bin she was worried the professionalism of the medical staff would be in jeopardy. The ex-Demons player had undermined the team’s position in the league once before and she wouldn’t sit back and let him do it again. In any capacity.
He smiled at her then, even as she ignored his offer of friendship. It was a slow, lazy grin, revealing the boyish dimples which had made him a pin-up for many a girl around here. Her included. If someone had told her at eighteen she’d be working alongside this one-time NHL hunk some day she would’ve died with happiness. Now the sight of him here was liable to make her forget she was a strong, independent career woman and not that same vulnerable teen. Something she had no time for nine years on.
He hadn’t changed much in that time, at least not physically. Although this was probably the closest she’d ever been to him without the Perspex partition separating the players from the fans. He was still as handsome as ever, only now the pretty boy-band looks had morphed into the age-appropriate man-band version. Those green eyes still sparkled beneath long, sooty lashes, his dark hair was thick and wavy, if longer than she remembered, and he was dressed in a black wool coat, tailored blue shirt and jeans rather than the familiar black and red Demons kit. Damn but he’d aged well; the mature look suited him. It was a shame she could barely look at him without the abject humiliation of her past feelings for him spoiling the view.
‘It’s good to be back,’ he said, and continued walking towards the rink as though he was returning to an idyllic childhood home and not the scene of his past misdemeanours.
For a moment Charlotte contemplated walking back in the other direction and locking herself in a nice quiet room somewhere until he’d gone away. He’d appeared from the shadows as if he were a bad dream. Or a good one, depending on which Charlotte was having the fantasy—the young infatuated girl or the cynical woman who knew bad boys weren’t exciting or glamorous, they just screwed people over.
She didn’t. Instead, she followed him towards the ice. Hunter wasn’t to know she’d been enamoured with him to the point of obsession the last time he’d been on Northern Irish soil but he had cost her beloved Demons the championship with his antics. Even if she hadn’t been embarrassed by her teen fantasies she still wasn’t convinced he was up to the job and simply didn’t trust him to do it effectively.
‘Why are you here?’ Her forthright attitude obviously wasn’t something he was used to, or expecting. She could see him tensing next to her and she didn’t like it. To her, the guarded reaction meant he had something to hide. The very nature of his defensive body language said he was fighting to keep his secrets contained but she wouldn’t be fobbed off easily when it came to work matters.
‘No offence but you’re an ex-player for a reason. The drinking, the fighting, the generally bad attitude...they’re not qualities I look for in a co-worker either.’ His last appearance here had been a coup for the Demons to have him on board when no other team would have him. A big name for a budget price. Unfortunately, even this easy-going community hadn’t been enough to tame his wild ways. He’d become a liability in the end, his playing time down to single figures for his last matches, as opposed to the many minutes he’d spent in the penalty box. Eventually people had given up on him. Charlotte too, once she’d realised he wasn’t the man she’d thought he was when he’d snatched success away from the team. There’d been a collective sigh of relief when he’d flown back to Canada and she couldn’t say she was happy to work alongside someone prone to such unpredictability now either.
‘Ah, so you witnessed that particular phase of my life? In which case I can’t expect you to be performing cartwheels on my return but I can assure you I’m here to work, not to raise hell.’ Something dark flitted across his features that said he was deadly serious about being here, and sent chilly fingers reaching out to grab Charlotte by the back of the neck. She wanted desperately to believe that having him here would benefit the team, not hinder it, but she needed more proof than his word.
‘I don’t understand. Why would you want to come back to a team that holds memories of what I imagine was a very dark time for you? Especially to work off the ice rather than on it?’ She made no apology for her blunt line of questioning. It didn’t make sense to her and she’d made it a rule a long time ago to question anything she deemed suspect. She’d learned to follow her gut feeling rather than blindly take people at face value. It prevented a lot of pain and time-wasting further down the road.