The Dysfunctional Test (37 page)
She tried to pull away, but his fingers tensed. The feel of his calloused skin, hot against her—thankfully shaved—knee made her shudder involuntarily. He gave a brief, concerned smile as one might to an injured animal that was ready to bolt.
“Let me look at it,” he instructed. His voice was soft, but she could tell he meant business.
She started to argue since she was perfectly capable of fixing her own oozing road rash, thank you very much, but when he pushed the hem of her pants higher, Emmy relaxed into his touch and sat on the hard ground staring at him. Her back and bloody knee throbbed in time with her fluttering pulse.
Tucker removed the bandana he wore over his dark brown hair and gave her another tentative smile.
“Oh, um, you really don’t need to do that,” she insisted. In her medically trained mind, Emmy thought,
Oh yeah, awesome plan, clean my wound with a sweaty bandana.
She placed her fingers on his wrist in an attempt to stay his hand. It was nice to have a smoking-hot MVP pitcher attending to her, but he was the MVP pitcher
she
would soon be attending to. Professionally. How could he respect her as his therapist if he thought she didn’t know how to look after a little scrape?
“It’s okay, I know what I’m doing,” Tucker insisted, his gaze meeting hers, and up close she got a chance to marvel at his famous eyes.
A lot of baseball players had pretty eyes. Sometimes it was all you could make out of a man with the brim of his cap pulled low and a serious scowl on his face. Tucker’s eyes were famous because of how unusual they were, though.
He had heterochromia—a mouthful to say, but a glory to behold. One eye was a warm melted-chocolate brown. The other was so blue it put the spring sky to shame. He was a bit of a freak, but in a good way.
Staring at his eyes made her forget whatever argument she’d been about to make, and she pulled her hand away from his wrist.
Oh, what the hell? He’s just trying to help.
She made a mental note to douse her knee in rubbing alcohol when she got home.
Besides, his touch
was
distracting her from the pain, and that was something she wouldn’t have been able to do on her own.
She looked from Tucker to his friend, and knowing who the pitcher was, the realization of his sidekick’s identity sank in. Alex Ross. She’d almost run over the star pitcher and the team’s only reliable catcher, all in one fell swoop.
For someone who’d been hired to keep the players of the San Francisco Felons in good working order, Emmy was doing a hell of a job.
She’d joined the Felons club over the winter as their new head athletic trainer. The competition had been fierce—every trainer worth their salt wanted to have an MLB team on their resume—but she’d been the only candidate who needed more than mere skills. She was a woman seeking access into the almost totally male-dominated world of professional baseball, and she’d known from the outset getting her dream job wouldn’t be easy.
But she’d fought for it, clawing her way up the ladder from intern to the head of the athletic department at her alma mater. She had her master’s degree while many of the men in her profession made do with their bachelor’s degrees and prominent internships. More than anything, though, she had a passion for baseball, and it had shown when she’d gone through her interviews.
It wasn’t only about a good job. Emmy had wanted to be an integral part of the team. She wanted to matter to the clubhouse. Even if she couldn’t play the game herself, she wanted to do her part to lead a team to victory.
She’d never been a cheerleader, or a baseball groupie. Emmy was a true lover of the game, and she’d laid her desires on the table during her interview. She must have seemed crazy to the managers, but something about it stuck out because they offered her the job later that same day, and a week later she was moving from snowy Chicago to Northern California.
And now—on her first day at spring training—she’d almost taken two key players in the Felons lineup off their roster.
“I’m
so
sorry,” she said, directing her comment to Alex since Tucker was focused on her leg, and she didn’t think she could watch him work without cringing over his improper medical hygiene.
“It’s nothing to get bent out of shape over,” Alex said, then laughed like he’d made a joke only he understood. Normally it would drive Emmy crazy when a guy thought of himself as hilarious, but Alex somehow managed to make his boorish behavior charming in a ridiculous sort of way.
It also kept her mind off the fact that Tucker had wrapped his bandana around her knee, until he secured it snugly and the extra pressure brought her attention reeling back to the pain. “
Oh.
Ow. Owowowowow.”
“That’s going to swell something nasty. You’re going to want to—”
“Ice it. I know.” She could let him be the knight in shining armor if he wanted to, but she wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t know how to look after her knee.
“You a doctor or something?” Alex asked, his tone teasing.
“Or something.” In spite of the fact they would be meeting her officially in a few short hours at the team’s first practice, this wasn’t how she’d imagined introducing herself. And she couldn’t bring herself to tell
the
Tucker Lloyd she was his new athletic trainer after he’d gone to all the effort of wrapping her up. Especially not when he was kneeling by her side, giving her such a sweet, concerned look.
“Thanks,” she said.
“No problem. You think you can stand up?” He offered her his hand.
Emmy was struck dumb momentarily when she met his eyes. She shifted her gaze, staring at his hand like she didn’t understand what its purpose was. “Stand up?” She must have still been woozy from the fall.
“Like, on your feet?” Alex suggested. “Did you sustain any head injuries we didn’t see?”
“No,” she said with forced certainty and took Tucker’s hand, letting him draw her up to a standing position. The front of their bodies brushed against each other, making her cheeks flush. His chest was hard and toned and felt warm through the threadbare material of his shirt.
Too bad she couldn’t blame her blush on an imaginary bump to the noggin. What had gotten into her? She
never
got worked up around famous athletes.
“I have to go.” She pushed herself off him, letting her touch linger a moment longer than was respectable before snatching her hand away and giving herself a stern internal lecture.
Bad Emmy!
Her bike hadn’t sustained any serious damage, so when she climbed back on, the frame was still in excellent shape to help her make a speedy getaway, though her knee protested something fierce.
“Hey,” Tucker called after her. “What’s your…?”
His voice trailed off as she turned a corner. She realized too late he’d been trying to ask her name, and she’d run off without so much as a backwards glance.
She’d just completely blown off Tucker Lloyd.
The Dysfunctional Test
Kelly Moran
You are cordially challenged to a test of true love.
Growing up in her large, crazy Serbian family, Camryn Covic became an expert at shutting down her emotions in order to maintain her sanity. But when she loses her apartment, her job and her boyfriend all in one day, she hits her breaking point.
Worse, if her family finds out she’s single
again
, her sister’s upcoming wedding will be a disaster. The bride-to-be has a plan, though. A plan that involves an old friend, a pretend relationship…and the probability of ending up in a padded cell. This time for real.
Troy Lanske agreed to the crazy plan only because, when he was a lonely foster child, Camryn was his lifeline. But she isn’t the idealistic girl he remembers. She’s become so jaded that she doesn’t even believe in love anymore.
He sets out to restore her faith in happily-ever-afters, but his plan backfires when the fake relationship begins to feel all too real. Falling for the one woman he can’t have could mean losing more than just his honorary family. He could lose everything.
Warning: Contains a Playgirl-material hero and a woman who thinks she couldn’t be any more wrong for him. Enter one “Big Fat Overly Romantic Serbian Family”. Sit back and watch the magic happen. Enjoy!
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
The Dysfunctional Test
Copyright © 2013 by Kelly Moran
ISBN: 978-1-61921-662-4
Edited by Tera Kleinfelter
Cover by Kim Killion
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: September 2013
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