At just before four thirty a.m., Elena walked into the dark, empty lobby of the hospital and approached the lone security guard sitting at the half-moon reception desk. Her heavy backpack full of all her story research and her laptop dug into a large knot on her shoulder, and her arm throbbed as she dragged her small suitcase behind her. She’d packed quickly, focusing more on getting all of her notes than clothes. She wasn’t even sure if she remembered to grab pajamas.
“I’m here to see a patient.”
The guard—a youngish woman with a hard edge to her—barely looked up when Elena spoke. “Visiting hours don’t start until seven.”
“But it’s my husband. I just got in.”
The woman glanced up finally. “Name?”
“Vlad Konnikov.”
The woman snorted and rolled her eyes. “Nice try.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re the tenth fan who has tried to get in here to see him.”
Elena had barely registered that bit of information when she heard an out-of-breath voice behind her. “Elena, hi, sorry.”
Josh Bierman jogged to the desk in a disheveled dress shirt and jeans. He waved at the guard. “It’s okay. This one is actually his wife.”
Elena wanted to nurture the small flame of resentment that she’d been dismissed as just another puck bunny, but what right did she have to feel slighted? She hadn’t even been watching the game. She’d never been a real hockey wife and never would be.
Josh reached for her things. “Let me take those from you.”
Elena clung to the backpack. “I—I’ll carry this.”
Josh nodded and took the handle of the suitcase from her. “He’s on the fourth floor. The elevator is around the corner up here.”
“How is he?”
“He’s in recovery.”
“Did you call his parents?”
Josh hit the button for the elevator. “Talked to his dad about an hour ago.”
It would be late afternoon in Omsk, the Siberian town where she and Vlad had grown up and where Vlad’s parents still lived. Elena had spent countless hours as a child and teenager in their home to escape the emptiness and the silence of her own.
As they exited the elevator, Elena tugged her backpack higher on her shoulder and followed Josh down the hallway. Their sneakers squeaked on the linoleum floor, a chirping chorus to the drumbeat of her suitcase’s wheels. Josh settled his hand gently on her back and guided her around a corner. Two automatic doors whooshed open at their approach. Inside, a nurses’ station sat at the center of a star-shaped intersection of hallways. A man in blue scrubs sat behind the tall counter, studying a computer screen. He glanced up briefly and then nodded in recognition at Josh.
“He’s in room 414,” Josh said in a hushed tone. “It’s a VIP room, so there is a couch you can lie down on until he wakes up, if you want.”
Her heart thudded erratically at the assumed intimacy in the suggestion. Just because Josh knew their marriage was unusual didn’t mean he knew the whole story. It was their little secret. What would people think if they knew that after six years of marriage, husband and wife had kissed exactly once? Just a chaste brush of lips after saying their vows.
Josh stopped outside the door to his room and moved aside to make room for Elena. She wrapped her hand around the knob but didn’t turn it.
“He’ll play again, right?” Her voice shook.
“Not this season.”
“But what about next season?”
Josh got the kind of expression that people use when they want to break bad news gently. “I think you should wait to talk to the doctor.”
No. Elena was done waiting, and Vlad had spent enough time waiting for her.
She hoisted her backpack high on her shoulder and opened the door. Josh set her suitcase just inside the door and then raised his eyebrows to ask if that was okay. Elena nodded, whispered, “Thank you,” and waited for him to back out of the room before shutting the door. With a quiet click, she was alone, finally, with her pounding heart and her soon-to-be ex-husband.
She lowered her backpack to the floor and slowly turned around, allowing her eyes to land on the farthest object in the room—a large window with a view of the city that probably would have been beautiful in any other circumstance. Josh wasn’t lying. This was a VIP suite, three times the size of a mere mortal’s room and more hotel suite than medical unit. Built-in cabinets along the walls hid all medical equipment from view, and beneath the window, a full-size couch faced two plush chairs.
Elena sucked in a breath, held it for a beat, and then turned her eyes to the center of the room. And there, like a felled giant, was Vlad. Flat on his back in an oversize bed. All the air in her lungs evacuated in a shaky puff. His six-foot-four frame somehow managed to look small with his broken leg wrapped in an Aircast and held aloft by a harness attached to the ceiling.
His face was tilted in her direction, his eyes closed and lips parted. Along his jaw was a thick layer of whiskers that probably would have taken other men a week to grow. For Vlad, it was likely just a day’s worth of growth. A thin white blanket covered his good leg and . . . Elena gulped. Very little else. It stopped just below his belly button, leaving bare to her gaze a hard, flat stomach and a broad, defined chest covered by more dark hair.
The room seemed to shrink in half as she inched forward. She realized that someone had at least attempted to dress him in a hospital gown, the kind that tied in the front. But at some point in the night, the ties had come undone, and the two sides had fallen open. He was essentially naked under that blanket.
Elena cautiously approached the side of the bed, where the arm had been raised presumably to keep him from falling out in his sleep. His chest rose and fell in a deep rhythm, accentuating the valley between his pecs. It was voyeuristic, the way she stared at him, but this was the first time she’d seen her own husband shirtless in years.
Elena shut her eyes and pressed her hands against her closed lids until spots danced in her vision. This was wrong and inappropriate. Vlad was hurt and had no idea she was even there. And they were getting a divorce. The least she could do was give him the dignity of not ogling over his naked body while he slept.
Elena peeled her hands from her face and gingerly picked up the edge of the blanket so she could tug it higher. When she gently draped it across his chest, he stirred and turned his head in the other direction on the pillow. Elena froze, hands hovering atop his body. She stayed that way until his breathing resumed its heavy rhythm.
Easing out a breath of her own, she backed away from the bed, turned around, and tiptoed back to where she’d left her things. She toed off her shoes, picked up her suitcase and backpack, and carried them to the seating area. The cushion creaked when she sat down, and once again she froze, breath locked in her lungs. She watched him as he stirred again, this time letting out a small moan as he rolled his head back and forth twice on the pillow.
Elena leaped up and quickly walked back to the bed. Was he in pain? Was he having a nightmare? His head rolled again in her direction, and his breathing picked up. Beneath his closed eyelids, his eyes moved rapidly. Elena reached out her hand and, after a moment of hesitation and second-guessing, lowered it to his forehead. She smoothed his thick hair back.
“It’s okay, Vlad,” she whispered in Russian.
He relaxed beneath her touch, so she repeated the gesture and the words. But instead of falling back to sleep the second time, his eyes opened. They were glassy and red, but he appeared neither confused nor surprised by her presence. He held her gaze, blinking slowly, before saying, “My leg is broken.”
Elena ran her fingers through his hair again. “I know. But everything is going to be okay.”
“I can’t lose hockey. I can’t lose that too.”
The pain on his face combined with that one word—too—broke her heart in half. This beautiful man deserved so much better than her. “You’re not going to. You are going to heal stronger than ever. Just go back to sleep for now.”
“Don’t want to,” he said, but it was a losing battle. His eyelids were dropping again. “Don’t want you to go.”
“I’ll still be here when you wake up,” she said, but she had no idea if he’d heard her.
He’d already fallen back asleep.
“Vlad.”
He didn’t want to wake up. The dream had been too good this time, too vivid. He could almost feel her hands on him and hear her voice reassuring him that everything would be okay. This time, she’d promised to stay, and he wanted to stay too, stay in that place where she was touching him.
“Vlad, can you hear me?”
Light and sound broke through the weightless haze, and with a groan, he opened his eyes. Morning sunshine cast a long, bright streak onto the floor. He squinted at the silhouette of a woman next to his bed. A moment of hope surged that maybe he’d manifested Elena into existence, but when the woman stepped out of the glare, he saw that she wore blue scrubs and a nurse’s badge. His hope went as numb as his broken leg. Whatever they’d given him last night after carting him off the ice had yet to wear off.
“Good morning,” she said. “Can you tell me how your pain is?”
“Fine,” he rasped. His mouth was fuzzy and sour, and his throat felt like he’d swallowed sand.
“How about some water?” the nurse offered, handing him a disposable cup with a lid and a straw.
Vlad lifted his head from the pillow to accept a long, much-needed drink. “Thank you.”
After returning the cup to the table next to his bed, she did something on an iPad before smiling down at him again. “Dr. Lorenzo will be in soon to discuss the procedure. Your wife should be back in just a minute. She was exhausted from sitting up all night, so I sent her down to get some coffee—”
Vlad’s brain was sluggish, so it took him a second to catch up to what she said. “My what?”
The nurse looked up from her iPad. “Your wife? Elena?”
“M-my wife is not here.”
The nurse’s smile turned amused. “You don’t remember her getting in last night?”
Vlad shook his head as his heart began to pound. No, that was a dream. Wasn’t it? But the wisp of a memory pulled his eyes toward the couch by the window. On the floor was a suitcase and a backpack. Her backpack.
Everything is going to be okay.
The sound of the door brought his gaze in the other direction. He rose up on his elbows as she walked in with a to-go cup of coffee, her fist pressed against a wide yawn. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, and she wore a large sweatshirt with the word MEDILL emblazoned across her chest.
She stopped short when she saw him, and the yawn became a gentle smile. “You’re awake,” she said in English.
Vlad coughed against his dry throat. “You are really here?”
The nurse laughed and looked at Elena. “He doesn’t remember much about last night. I was just telling him that the surgeon will be in in a few minutes. Do you need anything until then?”
The question was directed at him, but Vlad was still staring at Elena. She answered for him with a quiet, “No, thank you.”
The nurse left a moment later, and when the door clicked shut, it was as loud as an air horn announcing to the world that they were alone. Vlad tried twice to speak but failed both times as she inched toward his bed. He still didn’t trust that he was actually awake. This could all just be a hallucination to distract him from the nightmare of his reality. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him by dangling the illusion of the only thing he wanted more than hockey.
“Are you okay?” Elena set down her coffee next to his water and then rested her hands on the arm of his bed. “Can I do anything?”
He licked his dry lips as he reclined again. “How did you get here?”
“Josh got me a flight.”
Josh had said that he would call Vlad’s family. He hadn’t said anything about calling Elena. “I don’t understand. Why are you here?”
The brusqueness of the question, which was more a product of his shock than his intent, made her lips part in surprise. “Josh thought—I mean, we didn’t want you to be alone.”
That was the last thing he needed. Her pity. “I’m sorry he bothered you. You didn’t have to come.”
Her mouth fell open again. “He didn’t bother me. I thought—”
“Where’s my phone?”
She started again at his tone. “I—I don’t know. I think they put your stuff in the closet.”
“I need to check my messages.”
“I’m sure anyone who texted you will understand if you haven’t responded yet.”
“My parents—”
“I can call and update them.”
“I need to do it. My mom will get her hopes up.”
“She should. You’re going to be fine.”
He dragged a frustrated hand down his jaw. “About us, Elena. If she knows you’re here, she’ll get her hopes up about us. So just . . . just let me handle my own family.”
She reacted as if he’d reached across the arm of the bed and smacked her. Her eyes pinched at the corners as her lips tightened. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Let me find your phone, and I will step out so you can call them.”
She immediately turned away from him, giving him a chance to mentally punch his own face. That had been cruel. His parents were the only family she had left, and just because he and Elena were getting a divorce didn’t mean she was being exiled from them.
“I didn’t mean that,” he said, trying to make his voice convey sincerity.
She pulled open the door to the closet next to the bathroom. “They put all your things in here, I think.” Elena crouched and pulled his overstuffed duffel bag from the floor of the closet. “Do you mind if I go through this?”
“Elena, please, I’m trying to apologize.”
“For what?” She opened the zipper and started digging through the clothes he’d worn to the arena before the game and all the other things they’d pulled from his locker.
“They’re your family too.”
“Not for long, though, right?” She retrieved his phone and tugged the white charging cord out from the bottom of the bag. It was wrapped around a sock. “Found it.”
She shoved everything back in the bag, shut the closet door, and then returned to his side. She wouldn’t look at him as she plugged the phone into an outlet attached to the arm of the bed. “It will probably take a second to charge up.”
Her arms came around her torso in a pose he once found defensive, standoffish. Now it made her look small and insecure.
“Elena, look at me.”
She plastered a fake smile on her face as she raised her gaze to his.
“They will always be your family. Always.”
Her chin lifted and lowered in a single, noncommittal nod.
The phone screen blared white as it came back to life. Vlad punched in his passcode and then sighed heavily when he saw the number of notifications he’d missed. More than three hundred texts had come in overnight. Probably half were from the Bros alone. Another surge of guilt soured his mood even more.
The door swung open. A tall woman walked in wearing scrubs and a white doctor’s coat. Behind her was a familiar face from the team—head trainer Madison Keff. Both women paused to pump hand sanitizer into their palms from the dispenser on the wall before advancing farther into the room.
The doctor approached his bed with a wide smile. “Good to see you awake, Vlad.” She extended her hand to Elena. “I’m Dr. Celia Lorenzo. You must be Mrs. Konnikov.”
“Konnikova,” Elena corrected.
At the doctor’s look of confusion, Elena clarified. “Women in Russia often feminize the last name when they marry.”
It was an old tradition, and some people didn’t even do it anymore. But his mother had done it, and so had Elena’s when she’d married Elena’s father. So Elena had decided to do it too. At the time, it had meant something to Vlad. It meant she thought their marriage was special. Now he knew better. And the last thing he needed besides her pity was a reminder of how naive he’d once been.
Madison strode forward next, hand outstretched to Elena. “We haven’t met before. I’m Madison Keff, the head trainer.”
Elena shook hands with both women. “Where is the coach?”
“Coach . . . ?” Madison asked.
“Yes. The coach of the team. Why is he not here?”
“Because he’s on the road,” Vlad said, failing to keep the annoyance from his voice. “They left this morning for the next game in the series.”
Because they’d lost last night. If they’d won, his team would already be on their way to the Stanley Cup. They had to win tonight, or it was over. But no matter what, Vlad would not be there.
Dr. Lorenzo, either because she was efficient or because she sensed a growing tension, interjected. “Let’s go over the surgery.”
Madison turned on the wall-mounted TV, did something on her iPad, and then the TV screen came alive with a still image from the game. It was the moment just before the fall. Vlad didn’t need to see it to relive it. He would never forget the moment his career flashed before his eyes. There was a pop followed by a searing pain, and then his vision blurred as he fell to the ice. He might have cried out, but all he could hear was the sound of his own frantic heartbeat. The game went on, but time stopped for him as he tried and failed to get back up.
A hush fell over the crowd, and officials finally paused the game. Trainers raced out. Crouched beside him. Asked him questions as they tried to locate the source of the injury.
He’d seen it play out a hundred times to a hundred different players over the course of his career, but now it was him. It was his turn to wonder if this was it. Had his entire career just ended in a split-second mistake?
They splinted him on the ice and carted him off on a stretcher. It was a blur after that. At some point, they’d peeled off his pads and cut off his pants. Thankfully, they gave him a shot of a powerful painkiller almost immediately, numbing him all the way to his toes. Then they moved him to the X-ray room, followed up with an MRI, and walked back in with a look that told him it was as bad as he’d feared. His brain could only grasp key words and phrases over the rush of blood in his ears and the pounding of his heart.
Broken tibia.
A clean break, but he would need surgery.
And then they loaded him into an ambulance and brought him here, Nashville Orthopedic Hospital. He was rushed into surgery before he could even fully process what was happening.
And then he’d had the dream about Elena. She’d lulled him into a peaceful state with her gentle touch, her voice, her reassurances. Only now he knew it wasn’t a dream. She was really here. But instead of making him feel better, it made him feel worse.
The doctor approached the screen and pointed with a pen. “We think the initial break from the fall itself was probably small,” she explained. “But when you stood, you likely displaced the bone further.”
The video began. In slow motion, Vlad watched himself try to stand before falling back to the ice, face twisted in agony. “So, I made it worse,” he said.
“Yes, but also no.” Dr. Lorenzo turned away from the TV. “Ironically, your recovery would have been a lot longer with the simple fracture. We would have had to cast you and let the bone heal on its own with almost no weight-bearing activity for twelve weeks. With this kind of break, we place a metal rod into the bone to hold it in place. Believe it or not, this means you’ll be up walking and rehabbing a lot sooner.”
Dr. Lorenzo checked her watch. “I have to prep for another surgery. I’ll check back in before I head out for the day.”
Vlad didn’t even wait for the door to close before he looked at Madison. “When will I play again?”
“You know I can’t tell you that yet.”
“Please, Madison. Give me an idea of how long I will be off the ice.”
She pursed her lips and exhaled a reluctant sigh. “If you were an average person, it would be a year before you could return to normal activity.” Madison held up her hand at the look on his face. “But you are not average. You’re a professional athlete in top physical condition who will have access to round-the-clock care, nutritional support, and a detailed rehabilitation plan.”
“So how long?”
“Our goal is to get you back on skates by October.”
Vlad let his head fall against the pillows. Four months off the ice. He pressed his fist to his forehead. How could this be happening?
“But there is a lot that happens between now and then,” Madison said. “Most people with this kind of break wouldn’t be allowed to put any weight on their leg for at least a month. You? We expect you to stand for a few minutes every day starting next week.”
“What happens next?” Elena asked in a voice that managed to be both quiet and determined. She had inched closer to his side as she spoke. As much as it pained him to admit, there was something comforting about her presence and her journalistic skill for pushing through the panic of the situation to ask the important questions.
“He’ll stay here again tonight,” Madison said. “Barring any complications, he should be able to go home tomorrow.”
Elena made a noise. “Tomorrow? You can’t send him home tomorrow!”
“We’ll make sure he has everything he needs,” Madison said.
“But this was major surgery. What if something goes wrong?”
“Elena,” Vlad said, trying to redirect her attention, because the look on her face was the same one she’d given him when he was sixteen and had the boneheaded idea to jump into the frozen Om River.
“The trainers will be in contact every day,” Madison said with a patient smile. “Probably more than Vlad would like. We’ll equip the house with mobility assistance and training tools, and he’ll have a detailed rehab plan. If you have any questions—”
“Of course I have questions! Can he go up and down stairs? Can he get his leg wet? How often does his bandage need to be changed? Does he need to ice it? Will he get painkillers? What if he falls down?”
Madison smiled again. “I know how worried you must be. But all of those questions will be answered, I assure you. Trust us to do our jobs, okay?” She nodded without waiting for a response and turned her attention to Vlad. “One thing I do need right now is access to the house. The team needs to deliver several things before you can go home tomorrow.”
“One of my neighbors has a key to the house. She can unlock the door for you.”
“That will work. Let her know we’ll be there this afternoon.” Madison folded the iPad against her stomach and winced, as if her next words were going to hurt. “I don’t mean to pry, Elena, but I need to know if we should hire someone to take care of Vlad for a while or if you are planning to stay—”
“She’s leaving.”
“I’m staying.”
Vlad dragged his gaze from Madison’s confused and uncomfortable expression to gape at Elena. He switched to Russian. “What—what did you say?”
Elena held his stare. “I’m going to stay and take care of you.”
“Why?” He hadn’t meant to sound so incredulous, but he was.
“Because you need me,” she said. At his answering silence, she blinked rapidly and shrugged. “I mean, you need someone.”
Madison cleared her throat. She didn’t speak Russian, but she obviously understood tone of voice. Her own conveyed a desire to get out of there as quickly as possible. “Why don’t I leave you two alone to discuss things, and you can let me know what you decide tomorrow?”
Vlad spared her barely a glance as she ducked out of the room. As soon as she was gone, Vlad ran a hand over his hair. “Elena, what are you doing?”
“You need someone to take care of you.”
“The team can hire someone to help.”
“But they don’t have to, and why would you want a stranger? I can cook for you and—”
He cut her off before she painted too tempting a picture. “What about your classes?”
“They’re over. I defended my thesis last week.”
Vlad’s lips opened and closed twice as he searched for something, anything to change her mind. Anything short of I need you to go, because that would be just as cruel as what he’d said about his family. He didn’t want to hurt her. He just wanted to protect himself from getting hurt. And that’s what would happen if she stayed. “It’s going to be a lot of work. I don’t want to be a burden on you.”
Her lips thinned in annoyance. “You’re injured, Vlad. Taking care of you is not a burden.”
“Elena—”
She held up her hand. “Look, I know we haven’t talked in a long time, and things have not been good between us, and I hate it. I don’t want us to be enemies. I want to do this for you. I owe you at least this much.”
His eyebrows tugged together. “Owe me? What are you talking about?”
“You’ve done so much for me, and someday I hope I can pay you back for my tuition and everything else, but for now this is what I can do.”
He jolted as if she’d nailed him in the nuts. “When have I ever asked you to pay me back?”
“Never, but only because it would never occur to you. So let me do this for you. Please.” She blanched suddenly and backed away from the bed, arms once again wrapped protectively around her chest. “I mean, unless . . . unless you don’t want me here.”
Want her there? He’d been wanting for as long as he could remember. Longing for a moment just like this—her, next to him, promising to stay. But he never wanted it like this. He didn’t want her there temporarily, and he definitely didn’t want her there because she felt obligated.
“Oh,” she breathed. “I see.” Her arms now hung loosely at her sides, and her eyes were wide with the surprised betrayal of someone who’d just been sucker punched.
Her crestfallen expression cleaved him in half. “I’m just not sure it’s a good idea, Elena.”
“Right,” she said, forcing a smile on her face. “No, of course. I—I understand.” She turned quickly, her sneakers squeaking on the floor, and she crossed the room to where she’d left her things by the couch.
“Elena, I’m sorry—”
She crouched to zip up her backpack. “Why? It’s my fault. I put you in an awkward position. I shouldn’t have come without talking to you first.”
“What are you doing?” Because it looked like she was getting ready to leave right that second, and dammit, he didn’t want that either.
“You have a lot to deal with, obviously,” she said slowly, as if choosing her words carefully. “Maybe it would be easier if I just go unlock the house instead of you trying to track down your neighbor. I still have a key. And then I can stay at a hotel tonight before heading back to Chicago tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to stay at a damn hotel,” he growled. “You have a bedroom.”
Elena stood, swung her backpack over her shoulder, and extended the handle on her suitcase. The wheels made a click-click noise against the floor as she crossed the room before pausing at the end of his bed. “If you need anything from the house, do you want me to have someone from the team bring it over?”
A familiar panic seized his chest. “Are you leaving? You don’t have to go right now, Elena.”
“Or I can bring stuff to you tomorrow. I can stop by before I go to the airport to say—” Her words got stuck on something in her throat that she had to cough to clear. “To say goodbye.”
The door to his room swung open once again before he could respond. He bit off his words with a scowl at whomever had the bad luck to interrupt right now. The team’s media manager poked his head around the corner. “Can I come in?”
Elena held Vlad’s gaze for a split second before greeting the unwanted visitor. “Yes. Come in.”
The media manager looked back and forth between them, finally catching up to the drama apparently unfolding in front of him. “Um, I can come back.”
“Can you please give us a minute?” Vlad asked.
“No need,” Elena said, her voice clipped and her lips thin. “I was just leaving.”
She walked toward the door without looking back.
“Elena, wait—” Vlad tried to sit up as he called her name, but the tightness in his leg sent him flinging back with an argh.
The door clicked shut with quiet finality.