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‘He did dismiss it, actually. He thinks the players should be doing sport-specific training.’
Joni coughed. ‘You’re the sports medicine doctor, not me. And I seem to remember you saying something about sport-specific training being the most effective.’
‘But it’s not the only kind of training they should be doing,’ Bailey said. ‘Yoga means dynamic stretches, which are more effective than static ones. And there’s the discipline of holding the pose and doing the breathing. It’s really good for the boys, and it helps them to focus.’
‘Maybe you should make Jared do the stuff with the boys,’ Joni suggested. ‘And you can make him do extra planks.’
‘Don’t tempt me.’ Bailey ate more cake. ‘Actually, Joni, that might be a good idea. He needs to chill out a bit. Downward dog and breathing—that would do the trick.’
‘I’d love to be a fly on the wall when you suggest it to him,’ Joni said.
‘No, you wouldn’t. You hate people fighting—and he really doesn’t like me.’
‘You don’t like him, either,’ Joni pointed out.
‘Well, no. Because he’s rude, arrogant and narrow-minded. With men like him around, I’m more than happy to stay single.’
They both knew that wasn’t the real reason why Bailey was resolutely single. After her life had imploded two and a half years ago, her marriage had cracked beyond repair. And Bailey still wasn’t ready to risk trying another relationship. She didn’t know if she ever would be.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Joni said, giving her another hug, ‘except I love you and I believe in you.’
‘You, too,’ Bailey said.
‘And I worry about you. That you’re lonely.’
‘That’s because you’re all loved up. Which is just as it should be,’ Bailey said, ‘given that it’s just under two months until you get married to Aaron. And he’s a sweetie.’
‘Even so, I worry about you, Bailey.’
‘I’m fine,’ Bailey said, forcing herself to smile. ‘Just grumpy tonight. And don’t breathe a word of this to my mum, or she’ll say that I’m attracted to Jared Fraser and I’m in denial about it.’
‘Are you?’ Joni asked.
Bailey blew out a breath. ‘You’re about the only person who could get away with asking that. No. He might be nice looking if he smiled,’ she said, ‘and to be fair he does have nice eyes. The colour of bluebells. But even if he was as sweet as Aaron, I still wouldn’t be interested. I’m fine exactly as I am. I don’t need anyone to complicate my life.’
Her words were slightly hollow, and she was pretty sure that Joni would pick up on that. But to her relief Joni didn’t push it any further, or comment on that stupid remark she’d made about bluebells.
She wasn’t attracted to Jared Fraser. She wanted to give him a good shake and tell him to open his mind a bit.
And bluebells were out of the question.
Before the next match, Bailey had a meeting with Archie to discuss the latest results from her software. As she’d half expected, Jared was there. Still playing dour, strong and silent. Well, that was his problem. She had a job to do.
‘Travis is underperforming,’ she said, showing them the graph on her laptop screen. ‘It might be that he’s had too many late nights over the last week, or it might be that he’s coming down with something—but I’d recommend that he doesn’t play as part of the team today.’
‘I’ve already assessed the squad this morning, and they’re all perfectly fit,’ Jared said.
‘A player who’s underperforming is at a greater risk of soft-tissue injury,’ she reminded him.
‘According to your theory. Which has yet to be proven, because if you pull a player off every time they do a few steps less per game, then of course he won’t get a soft-tissue injury, because he won’t actually be playing. And if you follow that through every time, you’ll end up with a really tiny pool of players. And the rest of them won’t have had enough practice to help them improve their skills.’
‘If they’re off for weeks with an injury, that’s not going to help them improve their skills, either,’ she pointed out.
‘Travis is fine.’ He folded his arms. ‘You’re making a fuss over nothing.’
‘Travis isn’t fine.’ She mirrored his defensive stance. ‘But it isn’t our call. It’s Archie’s.’
‘Fine,’ Jared said.
Archie looked at them both and sighed. ‘I’ll have a word with the lad.’
Clearly Travis was desperate to play, because Archie came back to tell them that the boy was in the team.
If Jared said ‘Told you so’, she might just punch him.
He didn’t. But it was written all over his face.
Cross, Bailey sat on the bench at the side of the pitch and texted her best friend: Jared Fraser has to be the most smug, self-satisfied man in the universe.
A few seconds later, her phone beeped. She glanced at the screen, expecting Joni to have sent her a chin-up-and-rise-above-it type of message, and was surprised to see that the message was from Jared Fraser. Why would he be texting her? He was sitting less than six feet away from her. He could lean across and talk to her. He didn’t need to resort to texting.
Curious, she opened the message. Herod?
What?
Don’t understand, she texted back. Ridiculous man. What was he on about?
Her phone beeped a few seconds later. Your message: «Herod Fraser has to be the most smug, self-satisfied man in the universe.»
Then she realised exactly what had just happened.
Oh, no.
She’d been typing so fast that she obviously hadn’t noticed her phone autocorrecting ‘Jared’ to ‘Herod’. And Jared’s name was right next to Joni’s in her phone book. When Bailey had tapped on the recipient box, she’d clearly pressed the wrong name on the screen.
So now Jared Fraser knew exactly what she thought about him.
Which could make life very awkward indeed.
Sorry, she typed back. Not that she was apologising for what she’d said. She stood by every word of that—well, bar the autocorrected name. She was only apologising for her mistake.
Didn’t mean to send that to you.
I’d already worked that one out for myself.
She sneaked a glance at him to see if she could work out how much he was going to make her pay for that little error, and was shocked to realise that he was actually smiling. He wasn’t angry or even irritated; he was amused.
There was a sudden rush of feeling in her stomach, as if champagne was fizzing through her veins instead of blood. Totally ridiculous. But when the man smiled, it changed him totally. Rather than being the dour, hard-faced, slightly intimidating man she’d instinctively disliked, he was beautiful.
Oh, help. She really couldn’t afford to let her thoughts go in that direction. For all she knew, he could be married or at least involved with someone. She knew nothing about the man, other than that he was the new youth team doctor and he didn’t believe in her research at all.
‘Sir, are you the Jared Fraser?’ Billy, one of the substitutes, asked, coming over to sit in the pointedly large gap on the bench between Bailey and Jared.
The Jared Fraser? Why would there be something special about a football team’s doctor? Bailey wondered.
‘How do you mean?’ Jared asked.
‘Me and the lads—we saw it on the Internet. We weren’t sure if it was you. But if it is—you were one of the youngest players ever to score a goal in the England under-nineteen team. And on your debut match,’ Billy added breathlessly. ‘And you scored that goal in the championship, the one that won the match.’
‘It was a long time ago now. I haven’t played in years,’ Jared said.
Bailey couldn’t quite work this out. Jared had been a star football player as a teenager? Then how come he was a doctor now? He didn’t look that much older than she was—five years at the most, she reckoned—so surely he could still play football. Or, if he’d retired from football, it was more likely that he would have become a coach or a manager. Footballer to medic was quite a career change. Especially given that you needed four years at university followed by two years’ foundation training, and then you had to work your way up the ranks. To be experienced enough to have a job as a football team doctor, Jared must have been working in medicine for at least ten years. Maybe more. So why had he switched careers?
Feeling slightly guilty about being so nosy—but she could hardly ask the man himself, given how grumpy and impossible he was—she flicked onto the Internet on her phone and looked up ‘Jared Fraser footballer England team’ in a search engine.
The photograph was eighteen years old now, but the teenager was still recognisable as the man she knew. Jared Fraser had indeed been a footballer. One of the youngest players to score a goal for his country, at the age of seventeen. He’d played in several international matches and had scored the winning goal in a championship game. All the pundits had been tipping him to be one of the greatest players ever. But then, according to the online biography she was reading, he’d been involved in a bad tackle. One that had given him an anterior cruciate ligament injury that had ended his playing days.
So his dreams had been taken from him and he’d ended up in a totally different career. Poor guy. It would, perhaps, explain the dourness. She’d be pretty grumpy, too, if she was no longer able to do her dream job.
Maybe she’d give Jared Fraser just a little bit of slack in future.
Though not from pity. She remembered what it felt like, being an object of pity. It was one of the reasons why she’d moved departments. She might’ve been able to stick it out, had it not been for the guilt—the knowledge that people felt they had to be careful around her instead of beaming their heads off about a piece of personal good news, the kind of joy everyone else would celebrate with. Because how did you tell someone you were expecting a baby when you knew they’d lost theirs, and in such a difficult way?
Yeah. Bailey Randall knew all about broken dreams. And how you just had to pick yourself up, dust yourself down and pretend that everything was absolutely fine. Because, if you did that, hopefully one day it would be just fine.
Halfway through the match, she noticed Travis lying on the ground, clutching his leg. Jared was already on his feet and running towards the boy; play had stopped and Jared was examining the player as she joined them.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘Let me finish the SALTAPS stuff,’ Jared said.
‘SALTAPS?’ It was obviously some kind of mnemonic, but not one she’d come across before.
‘Stop play, analyse, look for injury, touch the site, active movement, passive movement, stand up,’ he explained swiftly. ‘Travis, what happened?’
‘I don’t know—there’s just this pain down the back of my left leg,’ the boy said, his face pale with pain.
Gently, Jared examined him. ‘Did you hear a pop or a crack before the pain started?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Travis admitted. ‘I was focusing on the ball.’
‘OK. Does it hurt when you move?’
Travis nodded.
‘I want you to bend your knee. If it hurts, stop moving straight away and tell me.’
The young player followed Jared’s instructions and winced. ‘It really hurts.’
‘OK. I’m not even going to try the last bit—getting you up on your feet. I think you’ve got a hamstring injury, though I need to check a couple more things before I treat you. Archie’s going to need to substitute you.’
‘No, he can’t!’ Travis looked devastated. ‘I’ll be all right in a second or two. I’ll be able to keep playing.’
Jared shook his head. ‘Play on when you’re injured and you’ll do even more damage. You need treatment.’
Bailey had been pretty sure it was a hamstring injury, too, given Travis’s symptoms. Hopefully it would be a partial rupture and wouldn’t affect the whole muscle. ‘Dr Fraser, you need to be on the pitch in case there’s another injury,’ she said. ‘I’ll take Travis to the dressing room and finish off the assessments for you.’
He looked at her and, for a moment, she thought he was going to refuse. Then he gave a brief nod. ‘Thank you, Dr Randall. That would be helpful.’
‘I’ll talk to you when I’ve assessed him,’ she said. Even though she was pretty sure that they’d recommend the same course of treatment, strictly speaking, Jared was in charge and Travis was his patient, and she was only here for research purposes. She didn’t have the right to make decisions for Jared.
She supported Travis back to the dressing room. There was a wide, flat bench that would do nicely for her purposes; she gestured to it. ‘OK. I want you to lie down here on your back, Travis, so I can go through the assessments and see how much damage you’ve done.’
‘There’s no need, really. I’ll be all right in a few minutes,’ Travis said, but she could see that his mouth was tight with pain.
‘I still have to assess you, or Dr Fraser will have my guts for garters,’ she said with a smile. ‘OK. I’m going to raise your legs one at a time, keeping your knees straight. Tell me as soon as it hurts, OK? And I’ll stop immediately.’ She took him through a range of tests, noting his reactions.
‘I’ll put a compression bandage on—that’ll stop the pain and the bleeding inside your ligament, which causes the inflammation—and an ice pack,’ she said when she’d finished. ‘And now I’m going to make you a cup of tea, and I want you to sit there with your leg up and the ice pack on the back of your thigh for the next ten minutes or so, while I go and talk to Dr Fraser, OK?’
‘Yes, Doc.’ He sighed. ‘Am I going to be out of the team for long?’
‘For at least a couple of weeks,’ she said. ‘I know it’s hard and I know you want to play, but it’s better to let yourself recover fully now than to play on it too soon and do more damage.’ She finished making the tea. ‘Sugar?’
‘No. You’re all right.’ He gave her a rueful smile. ‘Thanks, Doc.’
‘That’s what I’m here for. And painkillers,’ she said. ‘Are you allergic to anything, or taking any medication for anything?’
‘No.’
‘OK. I’ll give you a couple of paracetamol for now—you can take some more in another four hours—and I’ll see what else Dr Fraser suggests.’ She patted his shoulder. ‘Chin up. It could be worse.’
‘Could it?’ Travis asked, looking miserable.
‘Oh, yes. Imagine having an itch on your leg in the middle of a really hot summer day—except your leg’s in a full cast and you can’t reach the itchy bit.’
That earned her another wry smile. ‘OK. That’s worse. Because I’d be off even longer with an actual break, wouldn’t I?’
‘Yes. But you’re young and fit, so you’ll heal just fine—as long as you do what Dr Fraser says.’
‘I guess.’
She left him miserably sipping his mug of tea while she went to find Jared.
Jared knew the very moment that Bailey stepped out of the tunnel onto the field, even though his back was to her. The fact that he was so aware of her was slightly unnerving. They didn’t even like each other—he’d known that even before she’d accidentally sent him that text saying exactly how she felt about him, in very unflattering terms. Dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, baggy tracksuit pants and flat training shoes, Bailey Randall should’ve looked slightly scruffy and absolutely unsexy—the complete opposite to his über-groomed ex-wife.
The problem was, Bailey was gorgeous. And those unflattering baggy clothes just made him want to peel them off and see exactly what was underneath them.
Not good. He didn’t want to be attracted to her. He didn’t want to be attracted to anyone.
Work, he reminded himself. This is work. You have an injured player, and she’s helped you out. Be nice. Be polite. Be professional. And stay detached.
‘How’s young Travis?’ he asked when she reached him.
‘Pretty miserable,’ she said.
Yeah. He knew how it felt, being taken off the pitch with an injury when you were desperate to keep playing. And, even though Travis’s injury was relatively minor and he’d make a full recovery, Jared knew that the inactivity would make the boy utterly despondent. He’d been there himself. ‘So what’s your verdict?’ he asked.
‘I got him to do a straight leg raise and resisted knee flexion, then did a slump test and palpation,’ she said. ‘I’d say it’s a grade two hamstring strain. I’ve put an ice pack on and a compression bandage for now and explained to him about standard RICE treatment. He’s having a cup of tea while I’m talking to you and seeing what treatment you want him to have.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. He was impressed by the quiet, no-fuss way she’d examined the boy and reported back. There was no ‘Told you so’ or point-scoring against him, even though he probably deserved it; all her focus had been on making her patient comfortable. She’d also come to talk to him about a treatment plan instead of telling him how to treat his patient, despite the fact she was obviously more than capable of doing her own treatment plan, so she’d respected his position in the club, too. Maybe he’d been unfair to her about her project, because she’d been spot on about the actual medicine she’d discussed with him. If she was that competent, she was unlikely to be working on a project that had no merit.
‘The poor lad’s going to be gutted about missing training and matches, but he needs to do it properly or he’ll end up with another tear in the muscle on top of this one, and it’ll take even longer to heal,’ she said.
Jared nodded. ‘He needs cold therapy and compression every hour for the first day, and to keep his leg elevated while he’s sitting, to reduce the swelling.’
‘I gave him some paracetamol—he said he’s not on any other medication and he’s not allergic to anything.’
‘Good. That’ll help with the pain during the acute stage, over the next couple of days,’ he said.
‘I told him that you’d come up with a rehab programme,’ she said, ‘but if he was my patient I’d suggest a sports massage at the end of the first week, and strengthening exercises in the meantime—standing knee flexion, bridge and seated hamstring curls with a resistance band. Nothing too strenuous, and he has to stop as soon as it hurts.’
‘Good plan,’ he said. Exactly what he would have suggested. They might not get on, but in medical terms they were definitely on the same page. ‘He can also do some gentle walking and swimming, then introduce running gradually. Though it’ll be several weeks before he’s ready to come back to full training.’
She nodded. ‘Look, I know you don’t believe in the stuff I’m doing, and I’m not going to rub your nose in it and say “I told you so”. But I do want some time to talk you through what I’m doing and—well, I suppose I really want to get you on board with the project,’ she admitted. ‘Can we have a meeting to talk about it—I mean really talk?’
If he’d listened to her and supported her argument that Travis was underperforming, the boy might not be sitting in the dressing room right now with a hamstring injury. Guilt made him sharp. ‘The only free time I have is before breakfast.’
He knew he was being obnoxious, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. What was it about Bailey Randall that made him behave like this? Something about her just knocked him off balance, and he liked things to be in perfect equilibrium nowadays.
‘Before breakfast,’ she mused. ‘I normally train at the gym then—but OK. I guess I can skip my session in the gym for once.’
‘Or we could train in the gym together.’ The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. What on earth was wrong with him? Panic flooded through him. This was such a bad idea.
‘Train together, and then talk about my project over breakfast? That works for me. As long as your partner doesn’t mind,’ she added quickly.
‘No partner.’ Though he appreciated that she’d tried to be considerate. In the world of football, there was a lot of jealousy. Sasha definitely wouldn’t have been happy about him having a breakfast meeting with a female colleague. Then again, Sasha had had meetings of her own with his male colleagues. In hotel rooms. He pushed the thought away. ‘Will yours mind?’ He tried to extend the same courtesy to Bailey.
‘I’m single,’ she said, ‘and I like it that way.’
Which sounded to him as if she’d been hurt, too.
Not that it was any of his business. And he wouldn’t dream of asking for details.
‘One last thing to sort—my gym or yours?’ she asked.
‘So you don’t go to a women-only gym?’ Oh, great. And now he was insulting her.
She smiled. ‘I’m not intimidated by anyone, regardless of their gender or their age or how pretty they are. I go to a place that has equipment I like and staff who can push me harder if I want a one-to-one training session. And it happens to be reasonably close to the London Victoria, so I can train before work.’ She paused. ‘There’s a café there, too. The coffee’s not brilliant, but they do a pretty good Eggs Florentine—which they don’t serve in the hospital canteen, or I’d suggest breakfast there because their coffee’s slightly better.’
There was no way he could back out of this now. ‘OK. Your gym, tomorrow. Let me know the address and what time.’
‘Seven,’ she said. ‘And I’ll text you the address.’ And there was a tiny, tiny hint of mischief in her eyes as she added, ‘Herod.’
CHAPTER THREE
AT FIVE TO SEVEN the next morning, Jared walked down the street towards Bailey’s gym. She was already waiting outside for him, wearing another of her hooded sweatshirts and baggy tracksuit pants, and she raised her hand to let him know she’d seen him. He acknowledged her with a nod.
‘Good morning,’ she said as he walked up to her. ‘Are you ready for this?’
‘Bring it on,’ he said, responding to the challenge in her gaze and trying not to think about how gorgeous her mouth was. This was a challenge of sorts, not a date. They were supposed to be discussing business. And the fact that they were meeting here right now was his own fault—for being deliberately awkward and not trying to fit their meeting into normal working hours.
They walked into the reception, where she signed him in as her guest, and took him through to the changing rooms. ‘I need to put my stuff in my locker. Meet you back outside here in five?’
‘Sure.’
‘Oh—and do you have a pound coin for your own locker? I have change if you need it.’
‘Thanks, but I’m good.’
It didn’t take him long to stow his things in the locker.
When Bailey came out from the women’s changing rooms, Jared’s jaw almost dropped. Clearly she’d been wearing the hoodie and the tracksuit pants just for warmth outside, because now she was wearing formfitting black leggings and a bright cerise racer-back crop top. And he was horribly aware of just how gorgeous she was. Curvy, yet with fabulous muscle definition. Bailey Randall was a woman who looked after herself. She was utterly beautiful and could easily have held her own with any of the glamorous WAGs he’d known at the football clubs he’d worked at. And yet he didn’t think she’d be the sort to go to endless spa days and nail parlours.
This was beginning to feel like the most enormous mistake. They were supposed to be training together and then discussing her project over breakfast, and all he wanted to do right now was to scoop her up and carry her to his bed. Even though it was actually a Tube ride away.
It was obvious that, like Sasha, Bailey was aware of her effect on men. She was gorgeous. So was Bailey like his ex-wife in using her physical attributes to get her own way? The idea made him pull himself together. Just. ‘So what’s your normal workout routine?’ he asked.
‘Today is a weights day,’ she said, ‘so that means a quick cardio warm-up and then a resistance routine. You?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ll join you and adjust the weights to suit me. Just tell me what we’re doing and when.’
She nodded. ‘Any injuries I should know about?’
Jared had no idea whether Archie had told her anything about his past, but it was irrelevant now. ‘A very old knee problem,’ he said. ‘But I know my limits and I’m certainly not going to be stupid about it.’