Unwrapping Her Perfect Match: A London Legends Christmas Novella (5 page)

Near the end of the week, Oggie dragged the
story out of him at training. When Oggie asked how he knew Gwen’s
address, John shrugged. “Got it off the internet.”

Oggie’s brows shot up. “You got her address
off the internet and started sending her shit, and you’re surprised
she hasn’t called you? Mate, count yourself lucky she hasn’t called
the
cops
. ”

Well, when he put it like that…

John didn’t know what to do. He at least
wanted Gwen to listen to his apology, but the only way to get her
attention now would be sitting on her doorstep and waiting for her
to get home. Probably not a smart move.

He tried to shrug the incident off. He’d
never meant to hurt her, and he’d tried to make amends. She’d made
it clear she wasn’t open to that, so all he could do was ignore the
slight nausea he felt whenever he thought about having injured her
somehow. With the most important—and probably most
difficult—Christmas of his life just a week away, he couldn’t
afford to lose focus on his priorities.

Make that
priority
. Making the
holidays perfect for Agnes.

The Saturday after the auction, John was with
his team in the Legends stadium changing room preparing for a match
against Leicester the way he always did—earbuds in, Metallica’s
Black Album blasting away at his eardrums while he pounded his
fists against his quads in time with the music. His gaze had spaced
out as he imagined the thumping he would deliver in a few minutes’
time, but his concentration was shot all to hell when the door flew
open and tiny Tess strode into the room. She found him, her eyes
narrowing in a way that made him want to hide. Ridiculous when he
was a foot and a half taller and made his living flattening grown
men.

He took his earbuds out just in time to hear
her demand, “What did you do to my sister?”

Panic set in. “Gwen? What’s wrong? Didn’t she
make it home?”

“Home from what?”

He blinked. “Uh…the teacup place?”

“Nice try. I know she went home with you. She
hasn’t returned my calls all week. And when I left a message asking
her to teach me how to make a birthday cake for Liam, she texted
back that she was busy. Busy!” She paused for breath, then spoke
more to herself than to him. “Okay, she’s a nurse in the A&E,
so she’s always busy. But she’s never been too busy to bake, and
she’s especially never too busy to prove she’s better than me at
something. There’s a problem, and it has to be you.”

“Why me?”

She poked the sensitive skin covering his
sternum, and he tried not to wince. “Because you went home with
her, and now she’s shutting herself away. Keep. Up.”

Liam approached her and captured her pokey
finger, giving it a kiss before saying, “Out of my changing
room.”

“But—”

“You’re distracting my men. I’ll sort this.
Get out.”

With a final glare at John, she left the room
in a huff. He collapsed onto a bench, knees wide, hands clasped
between them. He really,
really
hadn’t wanted to talk to his
captain about this, but Liam’s unnerving stare gave him little
choice. “I honestly don’t understand it, skip. She was at my place,
things were going well, then…total freak out.”

Liam propped his foot on the bench next to
John. “You’ve
no
idea? Nothing at all?”

Grimacing, John confessed. “Just before the
bidding started, Oggie and I made a bet about who’d raise the most.
She found out.”

Dropping his chin against his chest, Liam
muttered, “Fucking hell.”

“But I explained that I’d planned to chat her
up anyway. She still got really upset and left.”

Liam glanced around and nodded toward an
empty corner of the room. “Follow me.”

When they were far enough away that no one
could overhear, Liam said, “Tess once told me something that I
think you should know, but I swear to God I’ll kill you if you ever
say anything to either of them about it.”

John nodded.

“When Gwen was in school, a boy bet his
friends he could get a blowjob from her.”

John’s gut cramped. “You’re fucking kidding
me.”

“I wish. Anyway, I get the impression he took
it to an extreme, turning on all his charm and convincing her he
loved her. Most of the school knew what was going on and encouraged
her to think she was special to the fucker. After the whole school
found out, other boys made life very unpleasant for Gwen, to the
point that she changed schools for her final year.”

A vein throbbed behind John’s eye. His head
would explode any minute now. “No wonder my offering to share my
winnings didn’t go down well.”

Liam clapped him on the shoulder. “Mate, I
know this is going to be tough, but you have to put this out of
your head now. We’re about to line up, and I need you focused on
the match.”

John nodded, but he didn’t manage to bottle
his thoughts. He lined up on the pitch with the team and prepared
to demolish Leicester. With two minutes left to play before the
half, Leicester kicked the ball into touch, killing it. John and
his team got into position for a line-out, ready to fight for
possession. When his hooker threw the ball in, John leapt up to
grab it, two of his teammates clasping their beefy hands around his
quads to lift him higher.

He never knew what hit them. Suddenly, his
support disappeared, shoving his legs to the side, and he was
plummeting toward the ground head-first.

“Trauma in three!”

Gwen excused herself from the patient in
recovery whom she’d been chatting with and rushed to help her
colleagues. When she reached the patient’s side, her breath fled as
if she’d been sucker punched. “John?”

Oh, God.
His face was gray, he was
strapped to a board and he wasn’t conscious. Gwen went into
autopilot, following the doctor’s orders while she silently pleaded
with anyone who would listen.
Please let him be okay.
Please.

They managed to stabilize him, and Gwen was
called away to another patient and then another. Every time she
passed his bay, she peeked through the curtain. Color slowly
returned to his face, but he wore a cervical neck brace and they
awaited his X-ray results to see how bad the damage was.

When she finally had a break, she dragged a
chair to his bedside and grabbed his hand. It was warm, and she
pressed it between hers as she tried to contain the unexpected
panic welling inside her. Every day of her career, she bottled her
emotions. Injured patients, grieving families—she coped with them
all while she was on the clock, doing her best to maintain that
fragile balance between being an effective nurse and an empathetic
human being without losing too much of herself.

But she’d never had to treat anyone she knew
before. The fact she didn’t know John well meant she’d been able to
do her job, but that wasn’t the only thing causing her blood to
rush. It was also the memory of how she’d overreacted when they’d
been so close to having sex. Utterly humiliating. When he’d
arrived, she’d had no time to process her emotions. Now she had a
few moments with nothing to do but think—never a good thing.

“Gwen?” His voice was croaky, and she
squeezed his hand. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here.” She was surprised her voice
wasn’t as useless as his.

“Oh.” His gaze flicked down toward her
uniform. “I’d hoped…Never mind.”

His tongue swept over his bottom lip, and she
laid his hand down on the bed so she could pour water into a small
paper cup for him.

“Drink it slowly,” she said as she tipped it
against his lips.

When his head relaxed against the pillow
again, his forehead crinkled. “What happened?”

“You fell when you were being lifted in the
air.” Someone had put the video on YouTube before John had even
made it to the hospital. The medics who’d brought him in had shown
her the video, in case seeing the way he’d landed would help
diagnose injuries. It’d made her want to vomit. “You turned your
head at the last second, which is probably the only reason you
didn’t break your neck.”

“I didn’t—oh, thank God.” His whole body
seemed to melt into the bed. His feet shifted a bit under the
sheet, as if he needed to test whether they moved at his will.
“Anything else broken?”

Before she could answer, the curtain around
his bay was yanked back, and one of Gwen’s favorite colleagues
stepped around it with John’s folder in her hands. “Mr. Sheldon?
I’m Dr. Maya Reynolds. I’m happy to see you’re awake.”

He gave a pained smile. “Happy to be
awake.”

Maya’s brows drew together and she glanced at
the papers again. “John Sheldon…Why does that sound familiar?”

A hint of a smile crossed his lips. “I play
for London Legends.”

“Oh? And that’s…” She paused. “A band?”

Gwen couldn’t stop a snort. Quickly, she
covered her mouth and pretended to sneeze, but John’s scowl told
her he wasn’t fooled. So she explained to Maya, “It’s a rugby
team.”

“Ah, that makes more sense, given the number
of bones it looks like you’ve broken and healed over the years.”
Flipping through the folder, Maya quickly scanned his test results.
“Well, I overheard Nurse Chambers giving you the good news that you
haven’t broken your neck. There’s more good news—you didn’t break
any other bones that I can see, though how you managed that I’ve no
idea. You must’ve drunk a lot of milk when you were a little
boy.”

“Is there bad news?”

“I don’t see anything in your test results
that would make me worry about most of your organs. I strongly
suspect you’re concussed, though. I can see from here that your
pupils are dilated, and you seem to be having trouble focusing on
me. Can I take a look?”

“Mmm.”

Gwen switched places with Maya, standing off
to the side during the short exam.

Maya held her finger in front of John’s face.
“I want you to lift your hand and touch my finger with one of your
fingers, then touch your nose as quickly as you can. Got it?”

The corner of John’s eye twitched as he
concentrated on Maya. He lifted his right hand, paused, then
swallowed hard and said, “Sorry, could you repeat the
instructions?”

“Sure. Touch one of your fingers to my
finger.”

It took him three tries. A sinking feeling
dropped in Gwen’s belly.

When he finally managed it, he said, “There
was something I was supposed to do next.”

“Touch your nose as quickly as you can.”

He poked himself in the eye. Wincing, he
cursed.

“It’s all right,” Maya said. “I’m going to
send you for a CT scan. Once we have those results, we’ll know more
about what happens next. Any questions for me?”

“When can I go home?”

Maya’s expression turned regretful. “I’m
afraid I can’t make any promises until I’ve seen the CT results.
And even then, it’ll depend on a couple of factors. Do you have
someone at home who can look after you?”

His Adam’s apple dipped with a hard swallow.
“No.”

“I’m afraid that’s going to be a problem,
John. Even if this is a minor concussion, you’re going to need
someone taking care of you. Is there anyone we can call for
you?”

His gaze flicked to Gwen before he scrubbed a
frustrated hand over his face. “How long will I need looking
after?”

“At least forty-eight hours. Maybe more.”

He cursed again. “Christmas Eve and Christmas
Day?”

“Yes,” Maya said, “I’m afraid your timing was
pretty bad. Is there anyone who can help you? A friend? A
parent?”

“My parents moved to Australia when they
retired. My sister lives in Scotland and just had a baby. Most of
my friends have families, and it’s fucking Christmas.”

“John, I know this is frustrating, but
there’s a five-year-old boy in the bay next to yours, so I’ll have
to ask you to save the language for the rugby pitch.”

“Oh, fu—uh, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Maya replied. “You have some
time to think about it. We probably can’t get you in for the CT
scan for at least an hour yet. Just let Nurse Chambers know whom we
can phone for you. I’ll stop by again soon to see if you have more
questions.”

Before Maya could step out of the bay, John
stopped her. “One question. What happens if I don’t find someone?
Can I check myself out?”

Maya regarded him quietly for several long
seconds. “We can’t hold you here against your will. Try your best
to find someone, though. I’d hate for you to get worse and have to
be rushed back here to share Christmas dinner with me—believe me,
if you thought Brussels sprouts were bad under
normal
circumstances—” She shuddered.

Gwen hoped that would light a fire under John
to impose on one of his friends because the alternative was worse
than staying in hospital over the holidays. Being home alone with a
concussion could be fatal.

Maya made it to the curtain before snapping
her fingers and spinning back around. “The flowers!”

Gwen bit back a curse and tried to throw her
a subtle, silent
shut up
.

“Flowers?” John asked.

“We’ve a beautiful bouquet of lilies at the
nurse’s station, and the card said they were from John Sheldon,”
Maya told him. “But it didn’t say who they were for. Just said,
Hope these are better than whisky.
” She pressed her lips to
one side. “Depends on what you need it for, I suppose. It’s not
better for disinfecting wounds. Or for getting drunk…unless the
water’s been in the vase a very long time. Huh.”

She tossed a final, significant look at Gwen
and then pulled the curtain to the side. Once she’d left, Gwen
peeked around the curtain to see if she was needed elsewhere. All
seemed relatively quiet, so she reoccupied the chair next to John’s
bed. She itched to hold his hand again, but somehow that seemed
more intimate now that he was awake. So she laid her hands
palm-down on the mattress next to his ribs. “What about one of your
teammates?”