Tomboy

“I am,” the other woman said, her attention focused on the clinic’s doors. “And he brought friends.”

Fallon whipped around so fast that the tail of her braid thwapped her on the face. Way to play it cool, girl.

Zach strode toward her as the kids and adults between them parted like the sea—all except for Cameron’s five-year-old daughter, Bianca, who stood on a step stool with a stethoscope around her neck and too-big latex gloves on her hands.

“You gotta pick me up,” she demanded, totally nonplussed that she was staring down a professional athlete known for some of the hardest hits in hockey. “The floor is lava, and I have to pee.”

Zach froze, his eyes wide. The four guys behind him—Caleb Stuckey, Alex Christensen, Ian Petrov, and Cole Phillips, who made up the rest of the Ice Knights’ first line—stopped dead in their tracks, too. They looked around at one another, terror and confusion on each of their faces. Did none of them have nieces and nephews? Not that she did, much to her mom’s annoyance, but still, Bianca was a kid, not a radioactive spider.

Bianca held up her arms. “Save me.”

Cameron was hustling over to get his daughter, but before he could get there, Zach scooped her up and tucked her under his arm, which Bianca took to be her cue to stick her arms straight out and make airplane sounds. Then, he started heading their way.

“Good thing I have lava-proof armor on,” he said to the little girl once they, and the other hockey players, made it across the room and he handed Bianca to Cameron.

The girl inspected him as she wrapped her arms around her dad’s neck. “Why do you have a stick in your eyebrow?”

Zach ran his fingers over his only visible piercing. “It’s a metal bar.”

“Did it hurt?”

He shrugged those broad shoulders of his. “A little.”

“Are your ears pierced?” Bianca looked up at her dad and let out a long-suffering sigh. “Louisa’s ears are pierced, but Daddy says that I have to wait.”

Zach looked over at Fallon, and her heart did a little hip-hop-skip thing, which meant she really needed to schedule a physical because there was no reason for it to do that. She may not be getting it on with half of Waterbury like Frankie before he met Lucy, but she knew well and good that one night of hot sex did not mean anything. Her current shortness of breath and a racing pulse had to have a medical explanation because, otherwise, she was in a world of shit, and she refused to accept that. The bitch of St. Vincent’s ER did not develop crushes—especially not on a hot hockey player who only hung around because he thought she was some sort of Lady Luck.

Girl, have some pride. Don’t get sucked in.

“Your dad seems like a smart guy,” Zach said, his gaze sliding over to Fallon for half a second—long enough for a sexy wink—before returning to the little girl. “I’m sure he has his reasons.”

“I like your shirt,” Bianca said, her voice loud and clear. “Daddy says the Ice Knights finally pulled their heads out of their butts.”

Of course, all of the chatter in the clinic downgraded from a loud roar to a quiet chatter in the half second before Bianca made her pronouncement, ensuring her voice carried to every corner of the waiting room. Zach’s eyebrow went up, but his smile didn’t waver. Behind him, the other players let out muffled chuckles. Cameron’s face turned a shade of red that Fallon was pretty sure needed to be documented on a patient care chart.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Nah,” Zach said. “It’s good to know our heads are back where they’re supposed to be.”

“Speak for yourself,” Caleb said, the brawny defenseman whose nose seemed to have borne the brunt of an on-ice brawl or twelve. “My pretty mug has always been in the right place.”

“Pretty?” scoffed Alex, a forward with the hair of a shampoo model and a perfect smile that would sell a million tubes of toothpaste. “Do we need to tell Coach you need concussion protocol?”

“So funny.” Caleb snarled. “Just remember I lost a tooth for you.”

“Boys,” Cole Phillips, one of the other forwards, said, smacking both of them on the back of the head at the same time. “Be nice, we’re in public.”

With another mumbled apology, Cameron hustled off to the bathroom with Bianca, leaving the seven of them standing near the helium tank.

“Thank you so much for coming.” She said it to all of the men, but she couldn’t look away from Zach.

He was in an Ice Knights long sleeve T and jeans, but it wasn’t what he was wearing so much as how he was wearing it. Seriously, someone must have turned on the heat because it was getting steamy in here.

“No worries,” he said, a sinfully knowing smile curling his lips because of course the man knew exac

tly what he was doing to her. “Can I talk to you for a minute? In private?”

Play it cool, girl. She’d had her naked fun time with him already, and he was now officially out of her system. Really. 100 percent. They were just sorta friends now. The kind who sent stupid late-night selfies. OMG, what had she been thinking?