Blind Ice (Razors Ice Book 5)

  BLIND ICE

  Rachelle Vaughn

  BLIND ICE

  Copyright © 2015 by Rachelle Vaughn

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the written permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  rachellevaughn.com

  Score big with more heartwarming romance

  from Amazon Bestselling Author

  Rachelle Vaughn

  Don’t miss the bestselling Razors Ice series!

  HOME ICE

  FRESH ICE

  WILD ICE

  HOT ICE

  BLIND ICE

  From the magical charm of a cottage in the wetlands…

  to the heated passion of a mountain getaway…

  these hot and sweet romances will have you falling in love with hockey all over again!

  Dear Reader,

  In the first four books of the RAZORS ICE series you met Ben, Nathan, JD, and Jace, hockey players for the Red Valley Razors. You went along for the ride as they found their true loves in Ally, Sarah, Lauren, and Violet in unexpected places like hockey practice, a hair salon, a wildlife refuge, and a cozy mountain getaway. But the rest of their teammates were left waiting on the bench!

  Right winger Logan Murray thinks he’s in store for an ordinary day of appointments and everything else that goes along with being a professional athlete. Then he meets Kate Kapowski, a sexy optometrist who has kicked her controlling ex-husband to the curb and is ready for a change in men as well as in her wardrobe.

  Just when they think they’ve figured each other out, a terrifying incident on game day turns everyone’s lives upside down. Logan soon learns that his dream of playing hockey might come to an abrupt end and his relationship with Kate is put to the ultimate test.

  I hope you enjoy Blind Ice, the next installment in the RAZORS ICE series. Please look for my next book in the series, coming out in 2016 and be sure to check out Hockey Gods, my action-packed adventure inspired by Game of Thrones and written especially for hockey fans. As always, the best way to stay apprised of everything that’s happening in Red Valley is to sign up for my newsletter.

  Best wishes,

  Rachelle Vaughn

  Chapter One

  Thorough Examination

  As a professional hockey player, Logan Murray was used to having his life scheduled down to the minute with physician appointments, team meetings, practices, and autograph signings. And today was no different. This morning he found himself sitting in an exam chair while an overly eager optometrist’s assistant gauged his vision with a gauntlet of test that involved bright lights, puffs of air, some weird 3D test, and even a colorblind evaluation. Even though he’d spent most of his life chasing a little black puck across white ice, he definitely knew he wasn’t colorblind.

  Logan particularly hated these kinds of tests because he always felt like he was giving the wrong answers. But today, no matter how he responded, Janis was thrilled with every answer he gave, so he supposed it didn’t matter.

  Logan endured routine tests and checkups all the time, but the way the assistant was checking him out gave new meaning to the word exam. Janis—a Certified Paraoptometric, by the looks of her name tag—was most likely imagining she was on his lap or inside his pants instead of sitting across from him at the veritable torture table. Unfortunately, the quick glance at Janis’ nametag only encouraged her blatant ogling because she probably assumed he was checking out her breasts. He wasn’t. Not that Janis didn’t have a nice pair of breasts. Logan just wasn’t feeling an attraction to her. He was here for his annual eye exam and just wanted to get the tedious appointment over with so he could meet up with his teammates at the new sports bar downtown that they’d been raving about. Apparently, Penny’s Bar & Grill made the best Philly cheesesteak sandwiches outside of Philadelphia and he was a sucker for an authentic American meal.

  After lunch, he had a team promo commercial to film, followed by an appointment with his trainer at the gym. There were a lot of ways to break a sweat and his trainer Guy enjoyed using each and every one of them and wielding them over him like a sledgehammer. The sooner Logan could get this visit to the eye doctor over with, the better.

  “Go ahead and rest your chin here,” Janis instructed him.

  Logan did as he was told and tried to ignore how she kept touching his arm every time she spoke to him. Maybe she was just being overly friendly due to the fact that she worked in a place that probably freaked a lot of people out because of the scary looking instruments.

  When Janis was done with the first round of tests, she took Logan into another room filled with more high-tech looking equipment and explained how she would be using a high-powered camera to take photos of his eyes. When that was done, she checked the dials on the instruments and made notations on his chart.

  Whether she had her sights set on him or not, Janis had really put him through the wringer. After the series of bright lights and puffs of air, he was ready to put his hands up in surrender. The woman had even taken his blood pressure.

  No matter how many times he’d endured these same tests over the years, it was still a little disconcerting. Rest your chin here, press your forehead against here, look here, blink now… But it was just another way to ensure the league he was healthy enough to play the rigorous game of hockey. And that was all that mattered.

  Setting the blood pressure cuff aside, Janis sat back with a heavy sigh.

  Logan’s first instinct was to flirt with her and say something she might find witty and charming, but he really didn’t want to encourage her. “Is everything okay?” he asked instead.

  “Yes.” She looked over his file and sighed again. “You’re perfect.”

  Not really knowing how to respond to that, Logan followed Janis into an exam room where she instructed him to sit in the big chair and told him Dr. Kapowski would be in to see him shortly. Dr. Benz, the team’s regular optometrist was on vacation and Dr. Kapowski was seeing his patients while he enjoyed scuba diving in Bermuda.

  Janis paused in the doorway like she wasn’t quite ready to leave him yet, but then quickly left and closed the door behind her.

  Logan took a seat, looked around the room and wondered if Dr. Kapowski was as overly friendly as his assistant. If so, he was in for a very long morning.

  * * *

  Katherine Kapowski, O.D. removed the chart from its hook on the door of exam room 2. She gently rapped her knuckles on the door and pushed it open with a smile. “Today’s the day,” she said brightly.

  Jenny Sheppard sat in the exam chair and beamed at her from across the room. The fresh-faced teen looked like she might squirm right out of the big chair. Kate couldn’t blame her.

  “Are you ready to try on your new lenses?” Kate unhooked the plastic case from the clipboard and waved it in the air. “I’ve got them right here in my hot little hands.”

  “Squee!” The sound of the teen’s enthusiasm bounced right off the walls. “I can’t wait, Dr. K.”

  Jenny had been ridiculed, made fun of, and called cringeworthy names ever since she started wearing glasses in Kindergarten. She’d heard all the hurtful names associated with a kid who wore glasses. Her parents couldn’t afford to buy her contacts, so Jenny had started
babysitting to save up the money and finally had enough to make the dream a reality. No more fogged up lenses after entering a warm room on a cold day, no indentations on her nose and the tops of her ears from the weight of the heavy frames. No smudges, no scratches… Nothing but pretty shimmery eye shadow and lash-lengthening mascara from here on out. Her first year of high school was going to be awesome.

  “And how does Mom feel about all this?” Kate asked Jenny’s mother who was sitting in the guest chair in the corner.

  “I think I’m just as excited as she is,” Mrs. Sheppard answered honestly, sharing the same megawatt smile as her daughter.

  “Good.” Kate smiled at them both and sat down on her wheeled stool. “All right then. Let’s get them in and see how they feel.”

  Kate spent the next half hour showing Jenny how to take her new lenses out and put them back in again, how to clean them by gently rubbing them with cleaner, and how to store them in conditioning solution overnight.

  “It’s really weird touching my eyes,” Jenny remarked after putting them in on her own for the first time.

  Kate nodded. “I know, but you’ll be a pro at it in no time. Pretty soon you won’t even think twice about it.”

  Jenny’s big blue eyes didn’t have to hide behind coke-bottle glasses anymore and her mother nearly cried when her daughter took her first few blinks.

  Supplied with a couple of sample bottles of solution to get her started—the stuff was so expensive it was like liquid gold—Jenny was off to begin her new life sans polycarbonate eyeglasses.

  Kate thought about Jenny long after she left the office. The girl reminded Kate of why she had chosen this profession in the first place. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t completely because of her sister Julia. Well, maybe Julia was 99% of the reason, but it never got old being on the receiving end of a grateful smile and an appreciative hug.

  Kate was thrilled to be a part of this milestone in the young teen’s life.

  When Janis informed her that the patient in exam room 3 was ready to see her, she pushed thoughts of her sister out of her mind and got back to work. The day was just beginning and there were more patients to—hopefully—make an impact on.

  * * *

  When Dr. Kapowski opened the exam room door, Logan swallowed hard. His dick twitched when she strode into the room and sat her long, curvy body down on the stool in front of him. Any assumptions he’d made earlier about the optometrist had been completely wrong.

  Dr. Kapowski was definitely not a man and she definitely wasn’t a frumpy woman who spent her free time with her nose buried in medical journals and research books. And she didn’t look the least bit desperate like Janis. If anything, she was the complete opposite. Although Logan couldn’t imagine this woman being the least bit unsure of herself, something self-conscious lay just beneath the surface of her sophisticated appearance.

  No, this was a woman who could bring a man to his knees, he was sure of it. And what a wonderful place that would be, he thought to himself, staring up past her incredible body and into a pair of gorgeous green eyes.

  Unaware of his rampant internal dialogue, she smiled warmly at him. “Hello, I’m Kate Kapowski. I’m taking Dr. Benz’s patients while he’s on vacation. And you must be Logan,” she remarked, looking down at the file in her hands.

  “Yeah,” Logan replied, oh so smoothly. “Hi Dr. Kapowski.”

  She put her hand out to shake his. Logan had shaken a lot of people’s hands over the course of his career, but this handshake surpassed all others. As tempted as he was to hold on to the softness of her hand a little longer than necessary, he forced himself to let go before things got awkward.

  “Your assistant was gettin’ frisky with me.”

  “Oh yeah?” she asked with narrowed eyes. Kate bit back a grimace and hoped this wouldn’t affect Logan’s experience at her office. Janis was an excellent Certified Paraoptometric, but she did have a tendency to get a little overeager with the male patients. That woman really needed to nail down a husband once and for all.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “She blew a puff of air into my eyes,” he said, referring to the tonometry test used to measure the pressure in each eye to check for glaucoma. “I told her she’d get further if she blew into my ear instead.”

  Kate laughed and then forced herself to stop and clear her throat. Although it was just the two of them in the small, dark, confined space, Janis she was not.

  Liking the sound of her laugh, he smiled.

  Oh Lord, Kate thought. Why did he have to go and smile?

  Kate had been alone with patients a million times before, but it was never like this. She was never so aware of their breathing. Their scent. Their maleness. The way his legs were spread out, he almost bumped her knee with his.

  Dr. Mallan, the team’s ophthalmologist, was a good friend of Kate’s and had recommended her for the stand-in position. If she was the Razor’s regular team optometrist she might be more used to seeing hot hockey players on a daily basis, but as it was, she only saw them on occasion when Dr. Benz was unavailable or on vacation.

  With his sandy blonde hair and year-round tan, Logan Murray looked more like a surfer than a hockey player. The friendly banter she used with her other patients didn’t seem appropriate with him. It seemed childish and superficial. Especially when he looked at her like he wanted to do X-rated things to her.

  For some reason, Logan stood out from the rest of the hockey players she’d seen come through her office before. Although it was a turn-on, it probably wasn’t the confident way he carried himself; most hockey players had that confident way about them. Maybe it was the sound of his voice and the way he said her name with just a hint of a Swedish accent. Maybe it was the mischievous twinkle in his blue eyes. It very well could have been how he looked at her like she was the only woman within a 200 mile radius. Whatever it was, she was having a difficult time focusing on the job at hand.

  How would he like it if she showed up where he worked and made innuendos about his stick?

  “That was just a routine test for glaucoma,” she told him. “And fortunately, you don’t appear to have it.”

  Taking her eyes from him, Kate looked over the test results from Janis’ examination and everything looked normal and even above average in some areas. Then she scrolled around the fundus photo images, looking for any abnormalities. The photos turned out clear enough to where she wouldn’t have to dilate his pupils. “Everything here looks great. Are the Razors still taking good care of you?”

  Logan had almost forgotten what he was here for when she reminded him by promptly getting down to business and verifying the information in his file.

  “Yeah, they are,” he answered.

  Something about how his voice made it sound like he was smiling made Kate look up from the paperwork to meet his gaze. Their eyes met and he was smiling the barest hint of a smile like he was privy to a secret she didn’t get the memo about.

  Kate clamped down on her teeth and grinded them together. No matter how delicious he smelled or how much he sped up her heartbeat, she had a job to do. And a very important one at that. “Good,” she said briskly.

  She held up a pen. “Follow the pen with your eyes without moving your head.” She moved the pen, but his eyes remained locked on hers.

  “You have beautiful eyes, Doc.” His voice was soft in the small, dark room, but she felt the impact of his words as if he’d shouted them.

  “Thank you.” She waved the pen.

  “Right,” he said and followed the pen up, down, left and right.

  She dimmed the lights and handed him an occluder to cover his left eye with. “Cover your left eye, please.”

  His hand brushed hers when he took the small paddle-shaped device from her. She could see the ripple of his muscles beneath the thin fabric of his T-shirt and wondered why she’d agreed to cover for Dr. Benz. She prided herself on having incredible self-control with chocolate and wine, but sticking her very single self in a roo
m with athletic perfection was downright cruel.

  “A paddle, Doc?” he asked with a smirk. “Did I do something wrong?”

  He was treading into very dangerous territory and Kate couldn’t go there. Not until after his examination at least.

  “Are you able to read the second line down from the top?” she asked, firmly ignoring his comment.

  He did one better and read the entire bottom line. “D…E…F…P…O…T…E…C.”

  “Good. Now, the right eye.”

  Logan skated through the rest of the eye exam without much thought to the answers he gave to Dr. Kate’s questions. While he mindlessly read out the letters on the chart, the majority of his brain wondered why she wasn’t wearing a ring on her left hand. How could a man in his right mind let a woman like her slip through his fingers without making things permanent?

  Shaking his head, he shook off the ridiculous thought of walking down the aisle with any woman, including the incredibly sexy Dr. Kate Kapowski. He wasn’t in the market for a wife. What the hell was he thinking?

  “No, nothing on that line?” she asked.

  Logan realized she thought he’d been shaking his head about the lines on her chart. “Oh, uh…” He rattled off the letters with perfect accuracy eliciting a satisfied smile from her.

  “Perfect.”

  What was perfect, he thought, was the little bow in the middle of her top lip. And the way the rich brown color of her hair brought out her eyes. And how her heels made her legs look shapely and—

  Logan resisted the urge to shake his head again. The last time a woman had caused him to be this distracted—well, that was the thing—he couldn’t think of a time he’d let someone of the female persuasion hijack his thoughts like this.

  When he boldly proved he had 20/15 vision, Kate moved on to the slit lamp exam. They sat across from each other with the biomicroscope between them. She projected a beam of light onto the eye to get an optical cross-section under high magnification and examined the eye for any problems. When the iris, cornea, sclera, and conjunctiva showed no abnormalities, she powered down the microscope and pushed the instrument off to the side.