Chapter 3

Chapter 3 

Maeve

"No," I said, before Rowan could even open his mouth. "Whatever you were about to say over that coffee, the answer's still no, so you can save your breath and drink it yourself."

It was morning, and the big stone fireplace in the lodge had burned down to orange coals, and half the people who'd been stranded on the mountain overnight were already dragging their suitcases toward the door because somebody near the window had shouted that the roads were open again. Rowan was standing next to my armchair holding two paper cups of coffee, his dark hair dried messy and sticking up on one side, the cuts on his knuckles covered with crooked bandages that somebody had clearly put on in a hurry and not very well.

He looked at me for a second like he was deciding whether to argue, and then he just held one of the cups out to me anyway.

"I was going to say good morning," he said.

"Oh." I took the cup because my hands were still cold and it was warm, and that was the only reason. "Then good morning."

"And then I was going to ask if you'd thought about my offer."

"See? I knew it. I knew you were going to say that."

"I asked once, and you said no, and that's fine. I'm not going to beg." He sat down on the arm of the chair across from me like it was his own living room and not a ski lodge full of tired strangers. "I'm just saying the offer doesn't expire. If you ever want to watch Zayne choke on his own ego, I'm volunteering."

"And your whole family would say I jumped from one Ashcroft to another in twenty four hours like some kind of gold digger with nothing else going on in her life," I said. "No thank you. I've been called enough names this week."

He opened his mouth like he had a comeback ready, and then he closed it again, and then he smiled, small and a little crooked, like he respected that he'd lost the argument.

"Fair point," he said. "You win."

"I always win."

"Last night didn't really look like winning."

"Last night I was frozen in a ditch, so I'm not counting it."

That got a real laugh out of him, short and surprised, and I hated how much I liked the sound of it. I looked down at Whiskers sleeping in my lap so I wouldn't have to look at Rowan's face anymore, and that was when my phone buzzed on the arm of the chair, plugged into a charger I didn't own and didn't remember plugging in. It was an email from the Ice Wolves Medical Department, and I read the first line and sat up so fast that Whiskers rolled off my lap and landed on the floor and gave me a look of pure betrayal.

Dear Ms. Carter, we are pleased to offer you the position of Sports Medicine Intern, effective immediately.

"I got the job," I said, and I was smiling so big it hurt my face. "The Ice Wolves. I've been applying for four years, Rowan, every single season, and they finally said yes."

"My Ice Wolves?" he asked.

"I don't think they're yours specifically."

"I'm the captain, so they're a little bit mine," he said, and I rolled my eyes and grabbed my cat and my bag and walked out to the tow truck that had my wrecked car on the back of it. He didn't ask for my number, and the old voice in my head whispered that it was expected with a body like mine, and I shoved that voice down hard and kept walking.

The head of medical met me at the staff entrance of the arena, a tall woman in her fifties with short gray hair and reading glasses pushed up on her head and a tablet held against her chest like a shield. She told me her name was Margaret Sloan, and she shook my hand once, firm, and asked if my file was right about three years in trauma, and when I said yes, she nodded like that settled everything.

"This team has too many stars who get whatever they want," Dr. Sloan said as she walked me down the hallway fast enough that I had to hurry to keep up. "My last intern spent more time taking selfies with them than taping their ankles. I need someone who won't baby anybody. You're hired. Can you start today?"

"Today," I repeated, laughing a little because I still didn't believe it. "After all those rejections, I figured it was my background or something."

"Timing worked out," she said, and pushed open the treatment room door. "Make yourself at home. Somebody always gets hurt in warmups."

Twenty minutes later I was laying out tape and gauze when the door swung open and Rowan walked in carrying his gear bag, wincing with every step, his left arm held tight against his ribs. He stopped dead in the doorway when he saw me and stared like I was a ghost.

"You're actually here," he said. "I thought you meant next month or something."

"I start today, so sit down before you fall down," I said, pointing at the exam table, and he sat, and I pressed my fingers along his shoulder and his ribs until I knew it was a separated shoulder and some bad bruising. Then I pushed on the joint, not gently like everybody else in this building probably treated their superstar captain, and he sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

"You're really not going easy on me, huh? Most people would have me on ice by now and telling me I'm great."

"You've been babied long enough. Push back against my hand. Harder than that, come on, captain."

"Easy for you to say when you're not the one with bruised ribs."

"It's not easy for me, actually, your arm weighs about a hundred pounds and I'm the one holding it up," I said, and he laughed and grabbed his ribs and laughed again anyway. "Lift it higher. And stop favoring that side, I can feel you doing it."

"You're very bossy for somebody who's been here twenty minutes."

"And you're very whiny for the toughest guy in the league, so I guess we're even. Again."

He grunted through three more sets with sweat beading on his forehead, glancing at me between each one with a look I couldn't read, curious and annoyed and maybe a little impressed. When we finished, he stood up slowly and rolled his shoulder and told me most people were too scared to talk to him like that, and I told him somebody had to, and he stopped at the door and said he was glad I was here before he left. My heart was beating faster than it had any right to, and I told myself it was way too soon to feel anything about another Ashcroft.

At four o'clock, after practice, Coach Hank Doyle called the whole team into the hallway outside the locker room and yelled that the new medical intern, Maeve Carter, would be rotating through every single one of them starting tomorrow, no exceptions. Every head turned toward me where I stood next to Dr. Sloan with my clipboard pressed to my chest. One of the defensemen leaned over and whispered something to the guy beside him, and the other one snorted, and I didn't need to hear the word to know it was forklift, because they'd all seen my sister's stream.

"I've got a question," Rowan said from the back of the group, and he pushed off the wall with an ice pack still on his shoulder and walked forward until his arm brushed mine. He didn't look at me. He looked at the defenseman who'd whispered.

"She's not rotating," he said. "She's my physio. Only mine. Starting now."

The hallway went dead silent, and Dr. Sloan said that wasn't how it worked, and Rowan said it was now and that anybody with a problem could talk to him. Nobody said a word. Every single person in that hallway stared at us, and I stood there on my first day of work with my face burning hotter than it had at the festival, because I knew exactly what every one of them was thinking. The girl who got rejected last night had already found herself another Ashcroft.