And because he’d never been especially inclined to make love to a woman who smelled like engine oil and wore steel-toed boots? Molly wondered.
Well, she could get rid of the smell and buy a new pair of shoes.
And then what?
Joaquin Santiago would know, her irritating little voice reminded her.
And yes, that was true. He would. But she did not want to ask him!
OF ALL THE PLACES ON EARTH Joaquin Santiago had been—and he’d done his share of moving around in more than a dozen years of playing professional soccer—he had always liked Pelican Cay best.
He’d first visited the tiny Caribbean island at age nineteen when he’d come to spend a holiday with his soccer teammate Lachlan’s family. It had seemed an idyllic lazy paradise to a boy born and bred in the hustle and bustle of Barcelona. It had been his bolt-hole ever since, the perfect getaway from the demands of his fast-paced frenetic lifestyle.
Not that he hadn’t loved that lifestyle, too. In those days he’d sat on the beach, relishing the quiet, yet always aware, whenever he’d stared east toward the horizon, that it was out there—his fame, his fortune, his “fantastic foot” which had made him one of the most feared strikers in football.
No longer.
For the past four weeks he had tried not to even look at the horizon. He knew what it held: nothing. It was empty. Distant. Barren. Bleak.
He had no future.
People hadn’t forgotten him yet. It had only been five months, after all, since he’d been at the top of his game. Five months, one week and five days. If he thought about it, he could have come close to the number of hours since his accident, since he’d leaped up to head a ball at the same time as Yevgeny Pomasanov.
He’d hit the ball. Pomasanov’s head had hit his. And his career had ended—just like that.
It was ridiculous. He still couldn’t believe it. God only knew how many times he’d been hit in the head before Pomasanov’s blow. Thousands, no doubt. It meant nothing, was an occupational hazard.
But this time it had been different. This time when he’d attempted to get up he couldn’t. His arms, his legs didn’t respond. He felt nothing. Couldn’t move!
His brain still told his body what to do. But it was as if the connection had been severed. Unreal. Unthinkable!
He was young. In his prime! Soccer was his life!
But life as he’d known it for thirty-three years was over. They’d taken him off the field on a stretcher in a neck brace. For four days he’d lain in the hospital, paralyzed, motionless, as doctors hovered and poked and prodded. He’d felt nothing but an occasional tingling sensation and a desperate sense of panic.
The sports pages and tabloids had been full of speculation. Would he move again? Would he walk? Would he play?
Of course he would. He had to!
Life had always been about soccer. Soccer was what had saved him from having to spend his life in the mind-dulling Santiago family business. Of course he knew that one day it would be his destiny, but not right away. Not yet!
He loved soccer. He couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
So the morning that the tingling sensations in his fingers and toes actually led to his moving them, he’d breathed an enormous sigh of relief. If he could move, he could come back.
It was just a matter of time. After all, he’d been hurt before. Three years ago he’d lost his spleen as a result of a motorcycle accident. He’d nearly died from loss of blood before the injury was discovered. But he’d recovered from that. He’d come back. And this time would be no different.
He’d worked his tail off. He’d done everything the docs told him to—and more. He’d rehabbed until he was sure he was as fit as ever. It had taken him four months. Then, a month ago, he’d walked into the training room and said to the docs, the trainers, the team owners, “I’m back. I’m as good as new. I can do everything I ever did.”
And he went out onto the pitch and showed them.
They had watched politely. And then, to his amazement, they had shaken their heads. “You’ve recovered wonderfully,” they agreed. “But you can’t play soccer. It’s too risky.”
“What?” He’d stared at them, disbelieving.
“Spinal stenosis—” the congenital narrowing of the spine that had contributed to his paralysis and which they had discovered while treating him “—is nothing to mess around with. Next time you might not recover feeling at all.”
“How do you know there will be a next time?” he’d demanded.
They’d just looked at him. “How do you know there won’t?”
He’d argued. Damn it, he’d had to argue!
But in the end, it was the insurance companies who carried the day. They wouldn’t insure him. It all came down to liability. Joaquin Santiago was too big a risk for any team.
Ergo, he couldn’t play.
His world collapsed. He felt fine. He felt fit. He felt gutted. His father expected him to come back to Barcelona and get on with life.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Martin Santiago had said. “You just need something to do. A job,” he’d added pointedly, “which has been waiting for you for fourteen years.”
But Joaquin couldn’t face it. Not yet.
“Take your time,” his old teammate Lachlan McGillivray advised. “I know it feels like the end of the world. It felt like it to me when I retired. You get over it,” he promised. “You just need some space while you find something else to do with your life.”
Easy for Lachlan to say. Lachlan had long ago found something he wanted to do. He’d begun buying property and rebuilding and restoring old buildings, turning them into a series of one-of-a-kind small elegant inns across the Caribbean. Since retirement he’d made his home here on Pelican Cay where he’d married a local girl and had a baby son. His future, even out of soccer, was of his own making.
Joaquin’s was not.
His future had always been a given. Soccer had given him a reprieve, but his life had been foreordained since birth. Santiago men went into the family business. It was as simple as that. For the past five generations all of them had devoted their lives to the company Joaquin’s great-grandfather, for whom he’d been named, had begun.
Since there had been telephones, the Santiagos had been involved in communications. The company had evolved with the times, and now had its corporate fingers in a lot of pies. It was thriving, growing, facing daily challenges.
“Santiago men always faced the challenge,” Martin was fond of saying.
Joaquin would, too. He knew that. His father expected it. So did he. Martin had been tolerant of the years Joaquin had spent playing soccer only because he was a strong vigorous man in good health who didn’t need his only son and heir trying to take over before he was ready.
“So you play a while,” his father had said, waving a hand dismissively.
But it had always been understood between them that when Joaquin’s soccer-playing days were over, Santiagos was waiting and real life would start.
Joaquin was no fool. He’d always known he wouldn’t play forever. He’d accepted that.
But that had been when “real life” was somewhere in the future. Not now.
Not yet.
But