At her age, he had still been all hormones and testosterone, chasing puck bunnies with the same reckless abandon he chased actual pucks on the ice.
He had to keep his gaze averted from her. That was the trick. Staring too long into those sparkling blue depths was a dangerous game. Maintain boundaries. Maintain self-control.
Maintain a shred of respect toward your ex-wife, you absolute dufus.
Clearing his throat, Liam sat up straighter and gestured vaguely with his free hand.
“So, uh, thanks for the patch job…but you should probably get some sleep, eh? I’ll be alright to take over from here, and the girls are bound to run you ragged tomorrow.”
He could have sworn he saw Sunny’s shoulders slump ever so slightly. Though whether from fatigue, guilt, or something else, he could not tell. But then she blinked and nodded briskly.
“Oh! Right, of course. You’ll want to switch out the compress when it gets warm and alternate warm and cold through the night to keep the swelling down.”
“Got it, thanks. Been here before,” he replied.
Liam mustered a tight smile, hoping to convey his gratitude without any unintended undertones.
Sunny chewed her plump lower lip pensively for a moment, then seemed to make up her mind about something. She met his guarded gaze with those earnest blue eyes.
“The girls — and I — are really glad you’re okay, Liam. Those brawls always look so brutal on TV. When we were watching…they got scared. They worry about you. I can’t say my heart wasn’t hammering away either.”
There it was again, that flicker of wistfulness in her tone that he didn’t quite know how to process.
Liam gave a sheepish shrug.
“It’s part and parcel of the job, no getting away from it,” he said. “And it pays for all this.” He gestured around the big house. “Plus the best schools and anything the girls could ever need. Everything comes with a price, but I’m hardly complaining about my station in life.”
Sunny searched his face with those impossibly bright blue eyes, seeming to find something in the depths of his expression.
“But you,” she said, “take care of you, Liam. Money and fame mean little to the girls. They just want their dad, whole and healthy. Big houses and big cars are nice things, but things are just…well…things. They aren’t people. They aren’t what really matter.”
Liam could hear echoes of Kate in those words. His wife would be mortified every time he came home with an injury, always telling him to hang up his skates and that he’d done enough for the team.
He felt his breath catch and a sheen of wetness form in his eyes.
Sunny looked stricken as she stared into his face. After a brief hesitation, she leaned in and pressed a feather-light kiss to his uninjured cheek.
“Take care, Liam,” she whispered. “You are needed here.”
Then she abruptly stood and left.
Liam was left alone with the sound of his own ragged breaths, the pictures of his late wife, and his swirling thoughts. Sunny’s kiss had been innocent, he reasoned — just a charitable gesture while he was in pain. There was probably no more to read into it.
Yet his cheek still tingled where her lips had brushed gently against his scruff. Every rational instinct warned him to keep the wall up, to maintain the boundaries firmly in place.
But a more reckless, primal part of him couldn’t help wondering how those honeyed lips might taste if she kissed him for real.
Sunny
With shaking hands, Sunny closed the door to her bedroom and leaned against it. She squeezed her eyes shut, but it did nothing to quell the violent pounding of her heart.
What had she been thinking, kissing Liam like that? She hadn’t been thinking — that was the problem. She had simply seen that familiar, haunting pain in his eyes and acted on instinct. So casual and impulsive, like a love-struck teenager instead of a professional. The soft rasp of his evening stubble still tingled against her lips, sending aftershocks through her nerve endings.
“Get a grip, Sunny,” she chastised herself, pushing off the door to pace her modest room.
She sat heavily on the bed, clenching her fists. She needed to get her head straight, and that started with being honest with herself.
When she had interviewed for this job, the prospect of working for a handsome and well-known figure like Liam Anderson had been an added incentive. What red-blooded woman wouldn’t feel a stir of attraction for the charismatic hockey star? With his brooding athleticism, artfully tousled hair, and penetrating eyes, he epitomized the tall, dark, and smoldering ideal.
