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.
‘Despite...everything, I like the place. I want to make this my home again. There’s also the matter of laying a few personal demons to rest and proving to you, and everyone else, I’m not that same hothead I was nine years ago.’ It had taken Hunter some time to answer her but when he did he held eye contact so she was inclined to believe what he was saying, even though she doubted it was the whole truth.
‘I trust you have all the relevant qualifications and experience?’ Although she expected his appointment was more to do with his connections here and last-minute availability than actually being the best man for the job, she couldn’t stop herself from asking. She needed someone who knew what he was doing on the medical staff with her.
‘All my papers are in order if you’d like to see them.’ He was teasing her now, the slight curve of his mouth telling her he wasn’t intimidated by her interrogation technique.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest as a defence against the dimples. This so wasn’t fair.
‘Look, I’m the first one to admit I was a screw-up. Not everyone will be happy to see me back but I’m sure we’re all different people now compared to who we were back then.’ He leaned back against the barrier, his coat falling open for a full-length view of the apparently new and improved Hunter.
That giddy, infatuated fan who shared Charlotte’s DNA insisted on taking a good, long look. Who was to say that Mr Sophistication here wouldn’t someday regress back to his rebellious alter ego too?
She’d never been a fan of that particular side of him. The young girl she’d been then had enjoyed the macho displays of the defenceman body-checking his opponents into the hoardings or dropping his gloves in a challenge fight. There was something primitive in watching that, even now, and there’d been times she’d wanted someone to defend her the way he had his teammates. He’d definitely been a crowd-and a Charlotte-pleaser for a time. But those later months when he’d fought with his own coach and smashed equipment in bad temper had made for uncomfortable viewing. It had felt like watching someone unravel in public and had come as no surprise to anyone when the Demons, or any team, had refused to renew his contract. He’d slunk back to Canada in disgrace, never to be heard of again. Until today.
‘Clearly Gray thinks you’ve changed since this was his doing and he’s the man in charge, not me. Well, I mean, if I was in charge I’d be a woman, not a man...’
‘Obviously.’ Hunter dropped his gaze to her feet and she followed it all the way back up to her eyes. He may as well have had X-ray vision the way he’d studied her form so carefully, smiling whilst she burned everywhere his eyes had lit upon her.
No, no, no, no, no! This wouldn’t do at all. Behind the scenes of an ice-hockey team was not an appropriate place to suddenly become self-aware and he certainly wasn’t an appropriate male to be the cause of it. These men were out of bounds. All of them.
Hunter mightn’t be a player, or one of her patients, but he was a colleague. Given their past history, albeit a one-sided affair, his presence here complicated matters even more for her. With the team languishing in the bottom half of the league her position was already a tad precarious, without him in the picture too. Especially when he kept looking at her as though he was trying to pick her up in a seedy bar.
‘Well, I’m sure you’ll want to meet the team...’ She backed away, reminding herself this wasn’t about her, Hunter or any ridiculous crush. They were both here to do a job and a team of sweaty, macho hockey players should be a good distraction from any residual