Reforming The Playboy. Karin Baine
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From playboy...to father and husband?
Hunter Torrance, former Demons hockey star, is back—now as the team physiotherapist. And while team doctor Charlotte Michaels doesn’t believe he’s changed his playboy ways, the attraction between them is undeniable!
Hunter has worked hard at becoming a father to little Alfie, his newly found son. With Charlotte’s help, he knows he can be—though she guards her heart as fiercely as he does his. He’s sure they could be a family—if only they can take the risk!
‘Ice Hockey Dude’, as my hero Hunter has been affectionately known throughout the writing process, has been in the planning for a very long time. Ice hockey is a relatively new sport to Belfast, and—as with the town in my book—it brought much excitement with it. Along with a host of handsome Canadian players who did indeed fall in love with local girls and are still here over a decade later. A romance novel just waiting to happen!
As with all bad boys, Hunter Torrance has taken some taming, but with the help of my fabulous editor, Laura, I’ve finally wrestled him into submission. Now all we need is Charlotte Michaels, the team doctor, to forgive him his sins too and learn to trust him again…
Happy reading!
Karin xx
Reforming the Playboy
Karin Baine
Books by Karin Baine
Mills & Boon Medical Romance
Paddington Children’s Hospital
Falling for the Foster Mum
French Fling to Forever
A Kiss to Change Her Life The Doctor’s Forbidden Fling The Courage to Love Her Army Doc
Visit the Author Profile page
at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.
This book is for my sisters, Heather and Jemma, who first got me hooked on ice hockey and encouraged my stalking of No. 28! Also for Jaime and Lucy, the next generation of Giants fans.
Thanks must go to Andrew, because without his help I never would’ve been able to write this book. Or so he would tell you. And to Ricky so he doesn’t feel left out!
It’s been a rough few years for all of us and, though I never say it, I love you all. xx
Finally, to fellow author Annie O’Neil. You’ve been an angel, and although we’ve yet to meet you’ve become such a lovely friend.
Listen to the rhythm
Contents
IF ALIENS HAD landed in the middle of this rural Northern Irish town and declared her their new supreme leader, Charlotte Michaels couldn’t have been any more surprised than she was now.
‘Hunter Torrance? The Hunter Torrance is the new team physiotherapist?’
Although he was standing there, casting a shadow over her, she didn’t quite believe it. Didn’t want to believe it. The Ballydolan Demons was her team, her responsibility, and having ice hockey’s most infamous bad boy on board wasn’t going to dig them out of the hole they were in.
‘Yes. Deal with it, Charlie. We need him.’ Gray Sinclair, the head coach, delivered the news and strode away, leaving her face-to-face with the new signing in the arena corridor. She’d been on her way to watch the team train when the pair had ambushed her and literally stopped her in her tracks.
‘Hunter Torrance, the new physio. For now. I guess my future employment will be dependent on results.’ The latest addition to the team held out his hand as he introduced himself but she wasn’t inclined to shake it until someone convinced her this wasn’t some sort of sick joke.
‘Like everything around here,’ she muttered. He wasn’t the only one on trial. This was her first season as team doctor, and so far, with the list of injuries they had, a run of poor results and the last physiotherapist quitting on short notice, it could be her last too.
With a build more like a willow tree than the mighty oaks usually associated with the sport, she’d worked hard to be taken seriously but now they’d landed her with a sidekick who still held the UK Ice Hockey League record for most time spent in the sin bin she was worried the professionalism of the medical staff would be in jeopardy. The ex-Demons player had undermined the team’s position in the league once before and she wouldn’t sit back and let him do it again. In any capacity.
He smiled at her then, even as she ignored his offer of friendship. It was a slow, lazy grin, revealing the boyish dimples which had made him a pin-up for many a girl around here. Her included. If someone had told her at eighteen she’d be working alongside this one-time NHL hunk some day she would’ve died with happiness. Now the sight of him here was liable to make her forget she was a strong, independent career woman and not that same vulnerable teen. Something she had no time for nine years on.
He