Page 13 of Breaking the Ice

But the best thing was the way her relationship with Nick was developing. They’d gone from being friendly to, well… friends. In the past, during their fleeting encounters, it had been too easy to be dazzled by him but now they worked together, she got to see that under all the hockey fame and celebrity, he was just an ordinary guy.

She’d never had a male friend before. Men were either acquaintances, colleagues or lovers – there’d been no in-between. So it was a novelty she was enjoying, just talking and laughing and hanging out without all thatrelationshipstuff getting in the way.

Sure, he flirted but she knew he was only doing it to boost her ego. And itwasworking, she just had to keep it in perspective and not be dazzled by it or give too much credence to those occasional breathless moments.

Or looks that seemed to go on for a little longer than was necessary.

Strictly speaking she was pretty sure Nick would have managed without her – it wasn’t like they were run off their feet. She could have probably just come in to cover the hours he was at his physio sessions but, had Birdie not died, this would have been the place she’d have been hanging out during herbreakfrom work, anyway.

She might as well be helping out.

“So tell me about the whole seventh son thing,” Samantha asked him, licking orange syrup from her fingers.

She’d introduced Nick to her orange and poppy-seed friand obsession supplied by Martha’s, an old tea house that stood on the boundary between the Glassworks and the city and was a ten-minute walk from the bookshop. They were made with fresh oranges direct from just down the road in the San Joaquin Valley and came smothered in a zesty syrup.

Nick had been a convert. Or at least he liked to watch the way she sucked her fingersaftershe’d devoured one, which may or may not have made her take her time with the process.

“Ahh.” Nick peered at her through half-closed eyes, trying to look all smoldering and mysterious. “Legend has it that the seventh son of a seventh son is blessed with many gifts.”

Samantha laughed. She’d always been fascinated by Nick being the seventh son of a seventh son. Frankly she’d found it much more interesting than his pro-hockey career.

“Such as?”

Dropping the mystical act, he took a sip of his latte before replying. “Healing, second sight, luck. And apparently, we are born travelers, full of adventure and wanderlust.”

Samantha propped her head on her side. “A healer? Oh goody. Does it extend to animals? Because I have this obese goldfish that needs a miracle.”

He shot her a look of mock severity as her laughter tinkled around him. “I see you are skeptical.” Nick half-shuttered his eyes again. “I may have to punish you for your lack of respect for my powers and your superiors.”

The tempo of Samantha’s heart picked up as sinful thoughts of her punishment worked their way into her head. And into his, too, if the way he was staring at her was any indication. Her breath roughened in the growing silence. Or maybe that was his?

Thankfully, Nick broke the intensity first. “Nah.” He gave a half laugh with a very definite husky edge to it. “I think the whole spiritual healer stuff is crap, but I did get the wanderlust. I got a huge dose of that and I’m lucky that hockey’s helped me fulfill that part.”

“Birdie always showed me your postcards.” Cards from Nick and whatever city he was playing in arrived regularly. Even if he’d played there before he’d made an effort to get a different card and not double up. “It was sweet of you to send them.”

In the era of electronic communication – email, texts, insta-messaging – buying a postcard and a stamp and posting it was terribly old-fashioned, but Birdie had been thrilled.

He waggled his eyebrows. “I’m a sweet guy.”

Samantha snorted. He might do sweet things but there was nothingsweetabout Nick Hawke. In faded jeans and a black T-shirt, the man hadspicywritten all over him.

“I guess it’s easy to indulge your wanderlust,” she said, veering the conversation back on track, “when you have million-dollar contracts stuffed in your back pocket.”

“Definitely.” He nodded. “But had hockey not come calling I would still have left home at eighteen with my trusty backpack and gone exploring.”

Samantha shuddered. The mere thought gave her palpitations.

Ever since high school, when her mother had finally told her bookie father they weren’t moving again, she’d had her life planned out. Her dad had dragged them from one town to the next, one racetrack to the next, and although she had him to thank for her lightning-quick ability at mental arithmetic, she had never been comfortable with the nomadic existence.

Bec the extrovert had thrived. She, on the other hand, had lived at the library, written lists and planned her very stable future. Stay put, work hard and get to the top had been her mantra and she hadn’t stopped or deviated in any way.

“And when my hockey career is done, I’ll keep exploring. Maybe not so much with a backpack anymore though,” he said with a grin as he massaged his knee.

“How bad is it?” she asked. “Your knee.”

Nick sobered. “It’s my second ACL and I did a pretty good job of it.”

“Will it be okay for the start of the hockey season?”

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