Prologue
Flashback…Leeda, age 10
“Oh come on! My blind grandmother could make a better call than that!” Young Leeda sat in the stands with her father, brother and grandfather watching her favorite team hash it out on the ice. New Jersey Natives hockey. She loved it! She stood yelling at the referee, looking swallowed up in her team jersey. She always wanted to play like the big boys, but her mother forbade it, stating it was too violent for a pretty girl like her. Her mother tried to push her into beauty pageants and figure skating instead. Those were ‘elegant’ skills befitting a young lady. Leeda hated them so much she intentionally sabotaged herself. Finally, her mother gave up but would not relent on hockey.
Oh well. She would come to the games and watch instead. That’s what she was doing today. It was game six of the playoffs with the Natives going head-to-head with the Sounders. Much to her mother’s disapproval, her dad had let her skip school so she wouldn’t miss it. “YES!! Right in the five hole!!” The Natives had just scored a goal and the crowd was going crazy. She stood the entire game, chewing her nails to nubs and immersing herself in it as if she was out there on the ice playing. (End flashback)
Leeda smiled at the memory of that game. Her Natives had lost that year but it was still one hell of a game. She was a season pass holder and went to every game she got the chance to. As an ER physician, her time was crunched but she fit in time for her Natives. It was her stress relief and her version of socializing. She was sitting in the stands watching the team warm up, waiting for the action to start. For three periods, she could block out the grueling mental drain of working trauma and just be herself, a simple woman who loved hockey.
She felt eyes on her, watching her. A small shiver skittered down her spine laced with a tinge of concern. That’s when she spotted him. Darius Dakiedes. Undoubtedly the hottest player in the league right now. He was pure power on the ice and in the bedroom if everything the tabloids said about him were true. Well, he was gorgeous. It was ridiculous how good looking he was with his black hair and Mediterranean blue eyes. Those blue eyes were currently staring holes through her. As he rounded the rink, he came to a stop in front of her. She leaned back in her seat, crossed her arms over her chest and arched an eyebrow at him.
Darius dropped his panty melting smile at her and skated away. Leeda sighed and shifted in her seat. Damn, those eyes are intense but she refused to be drawn in. She was sure that smile caused many a woman to crawl in his bed but she had no interest in being another notch on his bedpost. The list was long of partners he’d had traipsing in and out of his bedroom. She was not going to add her name to that list. How he had noticed her in the stands to begin with was a mystery but she wasn’t curious enough to want to find out the answer to that question. He would have plenty of women to choose from for his next conquest.
The game was intense. Darius played like a beast and the Natives pulled off a win against Boston. Leeda couldn’t stay for the celebration, slipping out as the last goal was shot. She was due in the ER in two hours and didn’t want to get caught up in the after-game traffic. With a win already, she had a feeling this season was going to be the season the Natives took the Cup. As she cruised through the streets on her way to Gateway Medical, her thoughts traversed to the strange stare off she’d experienced with Darius. Those eyes. She shook her head to clear the image of his smile and the promise she saw reflected in the blue depths. Shit. She couldn’t waltz into work with him on her mind. She needed to be focused.
She hit the ground running when she got there, throwing on her scrubs in record time. It was already shaping up to be a busy night in the ER and as the physician in charge, she was ready for the onslaught. Just as she finished up with a gunshot wound and sent the patient off to be admitted, in strolled the man whose eyes she couldn’t forget holding a bloody towel against his face and sporting scraped knuckles. Oh great.
