Josh let out a frustrated sigh, and this time, his voice took a hard turn. “Look, Elena. I don’t know what’s going on with you two. I’ve never understood your marriage, but it’s not my business. All I know is that he’s scared, and he’s going to need someone to hold his hand and to take care of him. Someone who really knows him, someone he trusts. I can’t get his parents here in time. That leaves you. So are you going to get on that plane, or not?”
He was right. Vlad shouldn’t have to go through this alone. Vlad had wonderful friends, but this was different. And maybe it was selfish, but suddenly the answer was staring her in the face. How could she ever pay him back? How could she ensure that they parted as friends?
This. She could do this.
She was going to take care of him.
Elena straightened and swallowed away her doubts. “I am on my way.”
CHAPTER TWO
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.