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“So where do we go from here?” he said. “You’re irritated...”
As he said the words, Jordan watched Serafina with bemusement and not a little lust. With blond hair swinging past her shoulders and amber eyes, she was a knockout. He’d been around plenty of beautiful women, but Sera’s personality shone like an inner light. Of course, she directed snark at him, but he enjoyed tangling with her.
She was a puzzle he was interested in solving. Because if he’d ever met a woman with a boulder-sized chip on her shoulder, it was Sera Perini.
“Listen, I’ll make you a deal,” he joked. “I’ll try to behave if you stick around and help me out.”
“You will behave,” she said firmly. “And your coupon is valid for today’s session only. After that, the sale is over.”
His eyes crinkled. “Hard bargainer.”
“You have no idea.”
“But I guess I’m going to find out.”
“True, but first you need to sit on the treatment table so we can take a look at that knee.” She paused. “Let me help you.”
“No need.”
Even though they were now related by marriage and had seen each other at the occasional family gathering, they’d never come close to touching. Not a pat, not a brush of the arm, and certainly not a peck on the cheek. Nada. It was as if by tacit agreement boundaries had been drawn, because they were more like warring in-laws than the friendly kind. And maybe because they understood that, it was dangerous to cross some unspoken line.
Now, bracing his arms, he hopped up onto the table using his good leg.
“Nice stunt,” she commented drily.
He tossed her a jaunty grin. “More where that came from.”
With a last warning look, she turned her attention to the paperwork he’d brought with him to the appointment and had dropped on the counter before she’d walked in.
He took the opportunity to study her again. Today, she wore nondescript, body-concealing light blue scrubs. When she’d sometimes waitressed at the Puck & Shoot, the popular local sports bar, she’d usually kept her hair pulled back in a ponytail or with a headband and had had a black apron tied around her waist. But thanks to the fact that they were now related by marriage, he’d seen her in other getups: body-skimming dresses, tight-fitting exercise attire... She had an hourglass figure that was fuller on top, so everything flattered her. More than once he’d caught himself fantasizing about what it would be like to run his hands over her curves and skim his palms over her endless legs.
Yet he didn’t know what to make of her. He was attracted as hell, but she was an in-law...and she didn’t like him. Still, the urge to tease her was as natural and unavoidable as breathing, and as irresistible as the impulse to win a hockey championship. And on top of it, he needed her physical-therapy skills. Already the companies behind his endorsement deals were getting nervous because he’d been off the ice. For the umpteenth time, he pushed aside the thought that his career could be over. He’d work like hell in therapy to make sure that possibility would never become a reality. Sure he’d made some savvy business investments with his earnings, but his plans depended on continuing to play.
With a grimace, Jordan turned and stretched out his legs in front of him on the treatment table.
Sera looked up, seemingly satisfied with what she’d gleaned from his intake papers. “So how did the ACL tear occur?”
“A game three weeks ago against the New York Islanders. I heard a pop.” He shrugged. “I knew what it was. Cole’s been through this before.”
His older brother had suffered a couple of knee injuries that had ended his professional hockey career. These days, Cole was the head of Serenghetti Construction, having taken over after their father’s stroke had forced Serg Serenghetti to adopt a less active lifestyle.
“You’re lucky it happened at the end of the hockey season, and the Razors didn’t advance in the playoffs this year.”
“I’ve never thought of getting knocked out in the playoffs as a lucky break,” he quipped. “Especially when I wasn’t there to help.”
“It’s a tear, not a break,” she parried. “So who performed the ACL surgery on your knee?”
“Dr. Nabov at Welsdale Medical Center, and it was last week. In-patient for a day. They insisted I stay overnight. I guess they didn’t want to take any chances with my recovery. Hockey fans, you know.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Sera flipped through his paperwork again. “Did you sign autographs while you were there?”
He cracked a smile and folded his arms over his chest. “A few.”
“I assume the nursing staff went wild.”
He knew sarcasm when he heard it and couldn’t resist teasing back. “Nah, they’ve seen it all.”
“You’ve been icing the knee?”
