Chapter One
“You can do this.” Jamie Walsh narrowed her eyes and glared at her reflection in the rearview mirror. The little pep-talk was supposed to get her motivated and out of the warm car. So far, it hadn’t worked.
The calming voice of her therapist rang in her head: You can do this. You are a brave and confident woman. Repeat after me: I can do this. I am a brave and confident woman.
Try as she might, she considered herself to be neither brave nor confident. Avoidance was her preferred way of handling situations that made her feel awkward or uncomfortable, when the decision to avoid those situations was in her control. Today was not one of those days.
Tired, plainy-janey brown eyes looked back at her from the small rectangular mirror. She should have covered the dark circles under them with make-up, the darkness a sharp contrast to her pale skin. She had the dark circles because she’d been awake half the night worrying about today. Although, she shouldn’t be worried, she should be happy, happy to be a brave and confident woman.
But she just didn’t feel it.
Movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention, and her gaze followed a couple who were holding hands and walking toward the popular restaurant. The younger couple looked good together. The man was trim with a broad chest and narrow hips and the young woman blond and petite. The top of her head barely reached the man’s ear even with the three-inch heels she wore. The young man gallantly opened the door and gave an ‘after you’ sweep of his arm then he followed her inside.
Jamie sighed.
She loved romance and happy endings. Many nights she immersed herself in the newest romance novel wishing that the stories and people on the pages existed in the real world. Things would be so much better if fiction were reality. But it wasn’t. Reality was cruel and people today seemed bitter, resentful, and narcissistic with many couples never making it to the alter and a third of the ones that did ending in divorce.
Looking at the door the younger couple entered, she wondered if they were married and, if they were, would their marriage last? Her marriage hadn’t lasted and that was the reason she was sitting in her car at this Ruby Tuesday restaurant, alone, on a cold and windy October afternoon.
Her therapist, Dr. Karina Dubois, who had been treating her ever since she’d moved into the Metro DC area two years ago, was an energetic and pleasant woman who had the personality of a saint and the honest desire to help people. Despite Jamie’s unease at divulging her entire life to the woman, Jamie liked Dr. Dubois, not just as her doctor, but as someone that Jamie would consider a friend if their positions were different.
At her last therapy session, Dr. Dubois gave Jamie the task of going out on the anniversary of her divorce and enjoying the day alone as a brave and confident woman. The doctor told her to go shopping, see a movie, or go to dinner, so long as she went alone. Jamie was supposed to analyze her feelings and report back during her appointment on Wednesday.
Jamie’s eyes shifted and once again looked at her reflection in the mirror. “Good grief, Jamie. You can do this. You are a brave and confident woman.” She repeated the mantra and wished, just once, she felt it.
She groaned into the quiet car and tried to devise up an excuse that she could use to convince Dr. Dubois she didn’t need to go into the restaurant and dine alone. There had to be something else she could do to bring out the long dormant feelings of empowerment and push the ever-present inadequacy into a dark recess of her mind.
Shopping alone? She could do that without too much discomfort and enjoyed the few hours she’d spent this afternoon at the mall.
Even watching the newest DC Comics movie would be better than the humiliation of dining alone and she entertained the idea of turning around and going to the theater. Buttered popcorn and a diet Coke could count as dinner. She could technically tell her doctor that she’d dined alone, right? Wrong. Her therapist would see right through it and give her ‘the look’ that always made Jamie feel guilty for not doing what she was supposed to do.
But dining alone in a restaurant was torture. Whenever she saw someone dining alone, she felt sorry for him or her. There was a reason all the tables in restaurants had at least two chairs. The thought that the other patrons in the place were going to look at her and perhaps pity her was humiliating. How was humiliation supposed to make her feel empowered? Humbled? Yes. Confident and brave? Not a chance.
Again, movement captured her attention, and she looked over to watch two women slide from an SUV the size of a small boat. The back doors of the monstrous vehicle opened, and kids began pouring out. The two women talked animatedly with one another while they waited for various kids varying in ages from toddler to pre-teen to exit the vehicle. That vehicle probably used more gas in a week than her car did in a month.
“You’re stalling, Jamie.” She gripped the door handle and pulled. “Let’s just get this over with,” she exhaled and slipped her phone and wallet into her sweater pockets, grabbed her Kindle with her free hand, and forced herself out of the car.
The cool, crisp air hit her in the face as a gust of wind blew her straight dark brown hair to the one side. After slamming the car door shut, she reached up her free hand and secured a little hair clip that kept her hair in a bunch at the back of her head. Stray hairs tickled her cheeks, and she tried tucking them behind her ears. As the wind gusted again, dislodging the precarious clip, she yanked it out of her hair and clipped it to her sleeve. Her hair blew defiantly to the one side as if happy to free from the restraint.
Her feet were like lead bricks as she shuffled across the smooth and even pavement pausing at the glass doors to gather her courage. She closed her eyes and counted to ten.
I can do this. I am a brave and confident woman.
Really, what was the big deal about eating alone? It would take an hour out of her life. It wasn’t like she was ever going to see these people again so who cared what they thought of her dining alone? Without the distraction of conversation, she could eat her meal and leave, being home in time to make a good dent in the new romance novel she’d purchased this afternoon. Decision made, she found the courage to pull on the doors and step into the restaurant.
The lobby was empty of other patrons, and she paused to let the air warm her chilled cheeks. The sunny October weather around Washington DC wasn’t as cold as her hometown of Colorado Springs, but today seemed especially cold and windy. And, of course, she picked today to wear just a sweater instead of her heavier coat. It hadn’t been so windy when she left her townhouse in Alexandria this morning.
“Hi. Are you waiting for someone, or dining alone?”
Jamie looked over at the young greeter standing behind a small podium off to her right. The nametag on the girl’s shirt read Tiffany. Some people’s names didn’t seem to fit — like a bald man named Curly or a rotund man called Slim — but when she closed her eyes and pictured what a Tiffany would look like, she saw someone who resembled the young greeter before her.
Tiffany wore what looked like a man’s unbuttoned white dress shirt tied in a knot at her small waist. Under the shirt she wore a skintight black tube that barely seemed to contain what it was designed to. Her hair was unnaturally blonde, she wore an abundance of eye make-up, and her lips looked like she’s had a run-in with a strawberry blow-pop and lost. To top off the image, she was chomping on what had to have been a brick of gum, blowing little bubbles and snapping them into the quiet lobby.
Jamie forced a smile and headed over to Tiffany. As soon as she got close, she could smell the floral perfume the young woman seemed to have marinated in before coming to work. Jamie fought the urge to wave her hand in front of her nose and cough.
“I’m dining alone.” Jamie’s tone was polite, her father’s strict upbringing allowing nothing less. Running a hand along her hair to smooth it down, she wished she had easy to manage hair.
Her hair was thick but pin straight. When she was caught on windy days like today, if her hair wasn’t contained, it tended to tangle despite the copious amounts of conditioning cream she used in the shower. She winced as she worked a few tangles out with her fingers hoping her hair didn’t look as awful as she imagined it did. She noticed the small clip still secured to her sweater sleeve and yanked it off, stuffing it into her pocket.
Tiffany looked down at the plastic-coated diagram of the restaurant and, it seemed to Jamie, struggled to make sense of things. She looked up with a smile and a chomp of her gum.
“It’s going to be just a sec, okay?”
“Sure,” Jamie replied with a smile and was amazed how the girl’s jaw didn’t tire out from all that chomping.
Jamie eased back away from the floral scented cloud surrounding the greeter podium and looked over at the salad bar. She should get the salad bar and eat something healthy. She should do a lot of things, like leave while she still had some dignity left.
Turning away from the colorful and healthy salad bar, she watched a large group of people noisily enter the lobby from the dining area and begin putting on their coats. From their boisterous conversation, Jamie gathered they were planning to reunite someplace else after dinner but were disagreeing as to the exact location. They milled about the small lobby trying to decide.
At the same time, the outside doors opened filling the area with a gust of cold air and two men stepped into the crowded lobby. They made their way in her direction over to the temporarily empty greeter podium.
Jamie stepped out of their way, feeling suddenly claustrophobic in the small lobby. She managed to avoid getting stepped on by one of the bigger men in the large party of loud people and turned just in time to avoid smacking her face into the back of one of the men who had entered the lobby after she did.
At five-foot-five, she was not an overly short person, but she felt diminutive compared to the other people surrounding her. The large, loud party of people was mostly men, all of whom were around six feet, even the two women who were with them seemed tall in Jamie’s estimation.
The man right in front of her nose was huge, her eye level hitting the broad leather-clad expanse of his back. He looked as solid as a brick wall as he stood perfectly still waiting for Tiffany to return. Taking a deep breath, she smelled expensive cologne and leather. She closed her eyes and inhaled the wonderful scent, trying not to stand too close to the man but the crowded space made it impossible to back up too much.
From the back, he reminded her of her ex-husband, Adam, tall and well conditioned. And the man in front of her smelled really good. Adam had always smelled good, too. It was one of the first things that attracted her to him.
It still hurt to think of Adam but on today of all days, how could she not? The sense of smell was so closely related to memory that the scent of the big man’s expensive cologne slung her thoughts into the past. She recalled the first time she’d met Adam.
It was her friend, Stacey Walton’s, twenty-fifth birthday and Jamie had flown all the way from Colorado to New York to attend the bash. The party was one of those colossal gatherings she’d read about in the gossip magazines and was hands down the coolest thing Jamie had ever been invited to.
Adam was standing by the bar and when she stepped up next to him to get a drink, his cologne was the first thing she noticed. After she’d been introduced to him, she admired his bright blue eyes and handsome features as well as his quick wit and sense of humor.
She should have never flown to New York. She and Stacey had drifted apart during high school and hadn’t kept in touch after Stacey moved to New York. The invite had been a surprise and the excuse Jamie needed to do something impulsive for once in her life. But apparently, she had to discover the downside of impulsiveness by making the biggest mistake of her life.
Stacey had always been pretty, outgoing, and graceful. She had dreamed of becoming a dancer from practically the first day out of the womb. Jamie was always in Stacey’s shadow, being more introverted and fascinated with numbers from the first time she found out that one plus one equaled two. Somehow, despite their differences, they forged a friendship that lasted until the pressures and cliques of high school pulled them apart.
In high school, Stacey tried out for cheerleading and was in the drama club. Jamie occasionally watched the sports rallies or plays Stacey was in and was an avid member of the mathematics and chess club. They still saw each other in the halls of school, but Stacey always hung out with the popular kids and Jamie hung out mostly a group of people who thought she was so cool just because she could say she knew Stacey Walton.
After graduation, Stacey announced she was moving to New York City to attend a dance college and she wanted Jamie to come out and visit sometime. Jamie promised she would, but it wasn’t until almost seven years later that she made good on that promise.
A sudden crash of dishes in a bus boy’s clearing tray brought Jamie’s thoughts back to her present situation. The loud group was still discussing their plans and the large man was still standing motionless in front of her and, although it felt like minutes had passed, they were all still in the same position they were in when her mind wandered off. She resisted the urge to inhale deeply again the wonderful scent of the man’s cologne.
Some space cleared behind her and just as she was about to step back, the large man in front of her shifted his arms to remove his coat and Jamie was unable to avoid the bone-jarring elbow to her shoulder. A sudden burst of pain shot through her as she was jolted backward. She swung out both her arms in the attempt to retain some dignity and remain on her feet, rather than take a nasty spill to the dirty and wet tiled floor. When she swung her arms out, she lost her grip on her Kindle and it went tumbling to the floor, but she, luckily, managed to remain standing.
Amazon hopefully had klutzy people like her in mind when they designed the small reading device and after she made sure her struck arm was still attached to the rest of her body, she crouched down to retrieve it from the floor, happy to see the machine still in one piece.
Before she could grasp it, however, a large, masculine hand covered the device. Jamie lifted her eyes from the hand to see a leather-clad male arm. The man’s hand curled around her device, and he brought it into his palm. She slowly stood when the man did and cautiously raised her eyes.
Her greedy gaze stopped at a well-developed chest. The man wore a black T-shirt under his open leather jacket. The shirt looked to be a perfect fit as it stretched across his broad chest. The T-shirt depicted four skeletal faces with a banner above them that read: The Walking Dead and another banner underneath that read: The Darkest Night Tour. She’d heard one or two of the group’s hit songs on the radio, but she wasn’t a huge music fan and had never been to a concert in her life.
Jamie swallowed the lump in her throat and continued her gaze upward pausing when she locked onto a pair of eyes that were the most unusual shade of golden brown. They were a unique combination of gold with brown and green flecks. Those eyes seemed better suited to a cat than a human. The unusual color seemed to give the man a hypnotic effect and the way his unblinking eyes focused on her was unnerving to say the least.
She managed to tear her eyes away from his intense gaze to look at the rest of him. He had a ruggedly handsome angular face not the smooth, beautiful face of an actor or model. He had a few faded scars, one above his left eyebrow and a larger one on his chin. His large nose was crooked looking like it had been broken once before but it didn’t diminish his attractiveness. If anything, it added an element of depth and aggression. His hair was a dark blond and wavy, falling in thick locks around his face, but from what she could see, it was cut short on the sides and in the back.
“I am sorry. I did not see you behind me. I hope you are not hurt.” He spoke in a deep, confident voice, thick with a Russian accent. His rich timbre seemed to resonate throughout her body and vibrate her bones, making them feel like they were humming. “And I hope your little electronic thing is not broken.” His mouth was a straight line as if he didn’t know he was allowed to smile.
Jamie mentally shook herself to try to speak. The man in front of her was such an imposing figure, and the way his eyes unblinkingly bore into hers made it impossible to look away or formulate coherent thought. Had he even blinked once since she’d been looking at him? She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. All she could do was stare at the handsome man who was holding her Kindle out in front of him like a peace offering.
“You are hurt?” His smoldering, golden gaze left her face and slid over to where she was absently rubbing her throbbing shoulder. He was kind enough not to make a big deal out of her ogling, as if he brought out this kind of behavior in women every day. Heck, as sexy as the man was, he probably did.
She creased her brow as she continued to scrutinize him. He looked familiar for some reason, and she struggled to get her addled brain to focus and figure out where she’d seen the man before. Maybe he looked like someone she’d seen on television. She hadn’t met him before. She was sure she would remember someone with those eyes.
He raised one thick, blond eyebrow in a very Spock-like manner as he waited patiently for her to answer him. A crooked half grin appeared on his handsome face as if he could read her mind and was aware of his effect on her.
If she thought his eyes were hypnotic taking away her ability to think, the man’s little crooked smile was enough to get her heart palpitating. It was higher on the left side then the right and created the most adorable dimple on his left cheek. She saw a quick glimpse of his bright white teeth before the grin disappeared and his forehead furrowed in a worried expression.
“I am thinking you are hurt.”
“I . . .” Jamie stammered. “Yes. I mean No. I’m . . . I’m not hurt.” Her voice sounded as wobbly as she felt on the inside. The man’s intense eyes were constricting her lungs making it impossible for her to breathe. Her cheeks heated as embarrassment of her behavior finally broke through the lust clouding her brain.
“Tiger? You ready, my man?” The question came from the other man who’d come into the restaurant with him.
The man called Tiger looked over his shoulder at the other man. “Da,” he said in his rich, deep voice. Turning back to Jamie, he held out her Kindle a little closer to her. “Please accept my apology for hitting you.”
He set such an intense gaze on her that Jamie sensed her acceptance of his apology was the only thing in the entire world that mattered. It was unsettling and yet made her feel important at the same time.
She curled her hands around the Kindle, but when she tugged to bring the device closer to her body, she felt his resistance. Instead of letting it go, he slid his fingers over hers. His hands felt rough and calloused as if he worked them a lot, but his skin felt so warm. It sent small jolts of electricity through her as if she’d shuffled her feet along the carpet on a dry afternoon and touched something metal.
She swallowed, realizing he was waiting for a response and, from his expression, looked like he would wait there all afternoon until she accepted his apology. She exhaled and smiled weakly, her cheeks burning.
“It was an accident,” she offered in a friendly tone, trying to convey with her words that she didn’t blame the guy for elbowing her. He couldn’t have known she was so close behind him and the injury was the result of an accident, not malicious intent.
Still, he didn’t move. He held her with his scorching golden gaze. He hadn’t released his hold on her Kindle and her fingers were still encased in his firm grip.
“I accept your apology.” Her voice seemed to come out more like a whisper, but he heard her because he finally released her hands and smiled again at her making her knees wobble.
With a curt nod, he turned and strode toward the other man and the two of them followed Tiffany as she led them out of the lobby.
Sometime during her embarrassing exchange with the sinfully handsome man, the loud party had worked out their travel plans and had vacated the establishment.
Jamie was alone again in the small lobby. She took a few deep breaths to try to calm her frazzled nerves and to settle her heart back down to a normal speed. She felt heated, almost as if his hands touching hers was an erotic encounter rather than the innocent action it was.
Where had she seen that man before?
As she recalled the intensity with which he looked at her to accept his apology, she shivered, not from the damp cold but from the heat. Her cheeks were burning with embarrassment and her long dormant libido was heating her body in other places.
Now alone with just her thoughts, she felt awkward all over again at the scene she had to have created and figured she’d made a big enough fool of herself for one evening. Jamie turned to leave. Before she’d taken a step toward the door, the silence was broken
“Your table’s ready.”
She glanced over her shoulder to see Tiffany standing at the end of the lobby, smiling, with a menu in her hands. One lonely menu. Ready to seat her at a table for one.
Jamie eyed the exterior doors and the freedom they represented. She wanted to go home, take some Advil and a hot shower, and curl up with her book.
On the other hand, she could visualize the knowing look Dr. Dubois would give her and her pointed gaze as she studied Jamie, giving her a raised eyebrow and a clinical “umm-hmmm” as she tapped notes in her electronic tablet. If Jamie left, the doctor would see her retreat as a feeble attempt to avoid the awkwardness of her current situation. Jamie could never get even a partial lie past the woman. It was really annoying.
Jamie sighed, resigned to staying and completing the task she was assigned, and turned to follow Tiffany to her table for one.
I can do this. I am a brave and confident woman.
“Theo will be your waiter and he’ll be by in just a moment,” Tiffany said sweetly as she handed Jamie her menu.
Jamie thanked her and absently took the menu before Tiffany scurried away. As she set her Kindle down, Jamie glanced over at the bar area where a television was showing hi-lights of last night’s hockey game between the Washington Capitals and the Detroit Red Wings.
As the announcers recapped the three-two loss to the Wings, it finally struck her where she’d seen that handsome golden-eyed man before. The other man calling him Tiger further added conviction in her mind that she’d just had a brief and very embarrassing encounter with the hockey player, Sergei Tigarov.
Sergei Tigarov was an all-star defenseman who came originally into the NHL from a Russian KHL team to play for the Colorado Avalanche. He played in Colorado for ten years before being traded to the Washington Capitals three years ago.
Having lived in Colorado, Jamie recalled the first game Sergei Tigarov played. Her recollection was so vivid because not only was it the first hockey game she’d ever watched, but it was also her eighteenth birthday and one of very few days she’d been able to spend with her uncle Jessie.
Her uncle, Captain Jessup Walsh, was her father’s younger brother. Both Jamie’s father and Jessie were Navy men. Her father, Lieutenant-Commander Joseph Walsh, never seemed to know quite how to raise a daughter so Jamie pretty much raised herself. Jamie knew her father cared. He just had a cool and composed way of showing it. She understood his way now that she was an adult but as a child, she thought her father’s distance meant he didn’t care, and it caused a rift in their relationship that they were still working on patching up.
As a result of her father’s distance, she treasured the times Jessie came to visit. Jessie was so full of life and the polar opposite of her father. Jamie figured Jessie must have got all the happy genes in the family because her father never seemed to be interested in hugging or any other form of affection. Jamie never remembered getting a hug from her father. In fact, she’d never seen the man hug anyone.
Just before her eighteenth birthday, Jessie was on shore leave from the military, so he came to spend the time between Christmas and New Year’s with them. He was scheduled to ship out for someplace in Asia on January second. The Christmas Jessie spent with them was one of the few that Jamie could remember being pleasant.
Jessie wanted to throw a huge New Year’s Eve bash, to celebrate both Jamie’s birthday and a going-away of sorts before he headed off over-seas for potentially years, but her father refused to allow it, so Jamie and Jessie spent a quiet celebration by watching on the television Jessie’s favorite sport of hockey.
Before that day, Jamie had never seen a hockey game. She’d never seen much television at all. Her father forbade her from turning it on, but she occasionally watched it was when her father wasn’t home.
Jessie explained what was going on during the fast-paced game and Jamie fell in love with the sport instantly. Jessie told her about this talented new defenseman the Avalanche had just signed from Russia. Sergei Tigarov was his name and from the first shift the man took on the ice, he made his predatory presence known.
The game they watched that night was a contest between her hometown Colorado Avalanche and the Chicago Blackhawks. Jessie joked that Sergei Tigarov coming to the team was his birthday gift to her and the home team ended up winning the game four to one.
After Jessie was deployed, Jamie sneaked in watching the games when she could and read about almost every game in The Denver Post. Along with almost every female Avalanche fan, Jamie developed an instant crush on the sexy new defenseman and followed his every move in the papers.
Back then, Sergei Tigarov didn’t speak much English and had to have an interpreter with him whenever he talked to the press, but his lack of verbal skills didn’t diminish his predatory presence on the ice. Soon after he started playing, the media dubbed him ‘The Iron Tiger’ because he stood up at the blue line and didn’t let the opponent through.
Along with making penetration into the zone nearly impossible, he became one of the most efficient and most feared open-ice body checkers in the league. In his entire career with the Avalanche, she never recalled Sergei Tigarov ever deliberately delivering dirty or illegal hits. All his checks were all clean body-on-body or body-into-the-boards hits, which earned him respect from not just the fans but from the other players as well — having won the Ted Lindsey award six times that she knew of for best sportsmanship as chosen by the players. The die-hard and rugged Avalanche fans adored him and were devastated when he was traded to the Washington Capitals.
Jamie couldn’t believe that Sergei Tigarov was here in the same restaurant as her. She didn’t know where she expected famous hockey players to be hanging out, but a Ruby Tuesday restaurant in Silver Spring, Maryland wouldn’t have been her first choice.
She smiled. She’d finally met the man of her dreams, having been infatuated with him from afar since she was eighteen and he did not disappoint. He was gorgeous and those eyes of his were downright erotically hypnotic. They were so intense they almost glowed. Just the thought of it sent a flutter to her belly and heat to places that had been dormant for two long years.
She opened her menu. Doing so, however, gave her a twinge of pain in her left shoulder and she rubbed the sore area. At least she’d have an interesting story to tell tomorrow at work, and she would even have the battle wound to prove it...
The calming voice of her therapist rang in her head: You can do this. You are a brave and confident woman. Repeat after me: I can do this. I am a brave and confident woman.
Try as she might, she considered herself to be neither brave nor confident. Avoidance was her preferred way of handling situations that made her feel awkward or uncomfortable, when the decision to avoid those situations was in her control. Today was not one of those days.
Tired, plainy-janey brown eyes looked back at her from the small rectangular mirror. She should have covered the dark circles under them with make-up, the darkness a sharp contrast to her pale skin. She had the dark circles because she’d been awake half the night worrying about today. Although, she shouldn’t be worried, she should be happy, happy to be a brave and confident woman.
But she just didn’t feel it.
Movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention, and her gaze followed a couple who were holding hands and walking toward the popular restaurant. The younger couple looked good together. The man was trim with a broad chest and narrow hips and the young woman blond and petite. The top of her head barely reached the man’s ear even with the three-inch heels she wore. The young man gallantly opened the door and gave an ‘after you’ sweep of his arm then he followed her inside.
Jamie sighed.
She loved romance and happy endings. Many nights she immersed herself in the newest romance novel wishing that the stories and people on the pages existed in the real world. Things would be so much better if fiction were reality. But it wasn’t. Reality was cruel and people today seemed bitter, resentful, and narcissistic with many couples never making it to the alter and a third of the ones that did ending in divorce.
Looking at the door the younger couple entered, she wondered if they were married and, if they were, would their marriage last? Her marriage hadn’t lasted and that was the reason she was sitting in her car at this Ruby Tuesday restaurant, alone, on a cold and windy October afternoon.
Her therapist, Dr. Karina Dubois, who had been treating her ever since she’d moved into the Metro DC area two years ago, was an energetic and pleasant woman who had the personality of a saint and the honest desire to help people. Despite Jamie’s unease at divulging her entire life to the woman, Jamie liked Dr. Dubois, not just as her doctor, but as someone that Jamie would consider a friend if their positions were different.
At her last therapy session, Dr. Dubois gave Jamie the task of going out on the anniversary of her divorce and enjoying the day alone as a brave and confident woman. The doctor told her to go shopping, see a movie, or go to dinner, so long as she went alone. Jamie was supposed to analyze her feelings and report back during her appointment on Wednesday.
Jamie’s eyes shifted and once again looked at her reflection in the mirror. “Good grief, Jamie. You can do this. You are a brave and confident woman.” She repeated the mantra and wished, just once, she felt it.
She groaned into the quiet car and tried to devise up an excuse that she could use to convince Dr. Dubois she didn’t need to go into the restaurant and dine alone. There had to be something else she could do to bring out the long dormant feelings of empowerment and push the ever-present inadequacy into a dark recess of her mind.
Shopping alone? She could do that without too much discomfort and enjoyed the few hours she’d spent this afternoon at the mall.
Even watching the newest DC Comics movie would be better than the humiliation of dining alone and she entertained the idea of turning around and going to the theater. Buttered popcorn and a diet Coke could count as dinner. She could technically tell her doctor that she’d dined alone, right? Wrong. Her therapist would see right through it and give her ‘the look’ that always made Jamie feel guilty for not doing what she was supposed to do.
But dining alone in a restaurant was torture. Whenever she saw someone dining alone, she felt sorry for him or her. There was a reason all the tables in restaurants had at least two chairs. The thought that the other patrons in the place were going to look at her and perhaps pity her was humiliating. How was humiliation supposed to make her feel empowered? Humbled? Yes. Confident and brave? Not a chance.
Again, movement captured her attention, and she looked over to watch two women slide from an SUV the size of a small boat. The back doors of the monstrous vehicle opened, and kids began pouring out. The two women talked animatedly with one another while they waited for various kids varying in ages from toddler to pre-teen to exit the vehicle. That vehicle probably used more gas in a week than her car did in a month.
“You’re stalling, Jamie.” She gripped the door handle and pulled. “Let’s just get this over with,” she exhaled and slipped her phone and wallet into her sweater pockets, grabbed her Kindle with her free hand, and forced herself out of the car.
The cool, crisp air hit her in the face as a gust of wind blew her straight dark brown hair to the one side. After slamming the car door shut, she reached up her free hand and secured a little hair clip that kept her hair in a bunch at the back of her head. Stray hairs tickled her cheeks, and she tried tucking them behind her ears. As the wind gusted again, dislodging the precarious clip, she yanked it out of her hair and clipped it to her sleeve. Her hair blew defiantly to the one side as if happy to free from the restraint.
Her feet were like lead bricks as she shuffled across the smooth and even pavement pausing at the glass doors to gather her courage. She closed her eyes and counted to ten.
I can do this. I am a brave and confident woman.
Really, what was the big deal about eating alone? It would take an hour out of her life. It wasn’t like she was ever going to see these people again so who cared what they thought of her dining alone? Without the distraction of conversation, she could eat her meal and leave, being home in time to make a good dent in the new romance novel she’d purchased this afternoon. Decision made, she found the courage to pull on the doors and step into the restaurant.
The lobby was empty of other patrons, and she paused to let the air warm her chilled cheeks. The sunny October weather around Washington DC wasn’t as cold as her hometown of Colorado Springs, but today seemed especially cold and windy. And, of course, she picked today to wear just a sweater instead of her heavier coat. It hadn’t been so windy when she left her townhouse in Alexandria this morning.
“Hi. Are you waiting for someone, or dining alone?”
Jamie looked over at the young greeter standing behind a small podium off to her right. The nametag on the girl’s shirt read Tiffany. Some people’s names didn’t seem to fit — like a bald man named Curly or a rotund man called Slim — but when she closed her eyes and pictured what a Tiffany would look like, she saw someone who resembled the young greeter before her.
Tiffany wore what looked like a man’s unbuttoned white dress shirt tied in a knot at her small waist. Under the shirt she wore a skintight black tube that barely seemed to contain what it was designed to. Her hair was unnaturally blonde, she wore an abundance of eye make-up, and her lips looked like she’s had a run-in with a strawberry blow-pop and lost. To top off the image, she was chomping on what had to have been a brick of gum, blowing little bubbles and snapping them into the quiet lobby.
Jamie forced a smile and headed over to Tiffany. As soon as she got close, she could smell the floral perfume the young woman seemed to have marinated in before coming to work. Jamie fought the urge to wave her hand in front of her nose and cough.
“I’m dining alone.” Jamie’s tone was polite, her father’s strict upbringing allowing nothing less. Running a hand along her hair to smooth it down, she wished she had easy to manage hair.
Her hair was thick but pin straight. When she was caught on windy days like today, if her hair wasn’t contained, it tended to tangle despite the copious amounts of conditioning cream she used in the shower. She winced as she worked a few tangles out with her fingers hoping her hair didn’t look as awful as she imagined it did. She noticed the small clip still secured to her sweater sleeve and yanked it off, stuffing it into her pocket.
Tiffany looked down at the plastic-coated diagram of the restaurant and, it seemed to Jamie, struggled to make sense of things. She looked up with a smile and a chomp of her gum.
“It’s going to be just a sec, okay?”
“Sure,” Jamie replied with a smile and was amazed how the girl’s jaw didn’t tire out from all that chomping.
Jamie eased back away from the floral scented cloud surrounding the greeter podium and looked over at the salad bar. She should get the salad bar and eat something healthy. She should do a lot of things, like leave while she still had some dignity left.
Turning away from the colorful and healthy salad bar, she watched a large group of people noisily enter the lobby from the dining area and begin putting on their coats. From their boisterous conversation, Jamie gathered they were planning to reunite someplace else after dinner but were disagreeing as to the exact location. They milled about the small lobby trying to decide.
At the same time, the outside doors opened filling the area with a gust of cold air and two men stepped into the crowded lobby. They made their way in her direction over to the temporarily empty greeter podium.
Jamie stepped out of their way, feeling suddenly claustrophobic in the small lobby. She managed to avoid getting stepped on by one of the bigger men in the large party of loud people and turned just in time to avoid smacking her face into the back of one of the men who had entered the lobby after she did.
At five-foot-five, she was not an overly short person, but she felt diminutive compared to the other people surrounding her. The large, loud party of people was mostly men, all of whom were around six feet, even the two women who were with them seemed tall in Jamie’s estimation.
The man right in front of her nose was huge, her eye level hitting the broad leather-clad expanse of his back. He looked as solid as a brick wall as he stood perfectly still waiting for Tiffany to return. Taking a deep breath, she smelled expensive cologne and leather. She closed her eyes and inhaled the wonderful scent, trying not to stand too close to the man but the crowded space made it impossible to back up too much.
From the back, he reminded her of her ex-husband, Adam, tall and well conditioned. And the man in front of her smelled really good. Adam had always smelled good, too. It was one of the first things that attracted her to him.
It still hurt to think of Adam but on today of all days, how could she not? The sense of smell was so closely related to memory that the scent of the big man’s expensive cologne slung her thoughts into the past. She recalled the first time she’d met Adam.
It was her friend, Stacey Walton’s, twenty-fifth birthday and Jamie had flown all the way from Colorado to New York to attend the bash. The party was one of those colossal gatherings she’d read about in the gossip magazines and was hands down the coolest thing Jamie had ever been invited to.
Adam was standing by the bar and when she stepped up next to him to get a drink, his cologne was the first thing she noticed. After she’d been introduced to him, she admired his bright blue eyes and handsome features as well as his quick wit and sense of humor.
She should have never flown to New York. She and Stacey had drifted apart during high school and hadn’t kept in touch after Stacey moved to New York. The invite had been a surprise and the excuse Jamie needed to do something impulsive for once in her life. But apparently, she had to discover the downside of impulsiveness by making the biggest mistake of her life.
Stacey had always been pretty, outgoing, and graceful. She had dreamed of becoming a dancer from practically the first day out of the womb. Jamie was always in Stacey’s shadow, being more introverted and fascinated with numbers from the first time she found out that one plus one equaled two. Somehow, despite their differences, they forged a friendship that lasted until the pressures and cliques of high school pulled them apart.
In high school, Stacey tried out for cheerleading and was in the drama club. Jamie occasionally watched the sports rallies or plays Stacey was in and was an avid member of the mathematics and chess club. They still saw each other in the halls of school, but Stacey always hung out with the popular kids and Jamie hung out mostly a group of people who thought she was so cool just because she could say she knew Stacey Walton.
After graduation, Stacey announced she was moving to New York City to attend a dance college and she wanted Jamie to come out and visit sometime. Jamie promised she would, but it wasn’t until almost seven years later that she made good on that promise.
A sudden crash of dishes in a bus boy’s clearing tray brought Jamie’s thoughts back to her present situation. The loud group was still discussing their plans and the large man was still standing motionless in front of her and, although it felt like minutes had passed, they were all still in the same position they were in when her mind wandered off. She resisted the urge to inhale deeply again the wonderful scent of the man’s cologne.
Some space cleared behind her and just as she was about to step back, the large man in front of her shifted his arms to remove his coat and Jamie was unable to avoid the bone-jarring elbow to her shoulder. A sudden burst of pain shot through her as she was jolted backward. She swung out both her arms in the attempt to retain some dignity and remain on her feet, rather than take a nasty spill to the dirty and wet tiled floor. When she swung her arms out, she lost her grip on her Kindle and it went tumbling to the floor, but she, luckily, managed to remain standing.
Amazon hopefully had klutzy people like her in mind when they designed the small reading device and after she made sure her struck arm was still attached to the rest of her body, she crouched down to retrieve it from the floor, happy to see the machine still in one piece.
Before she could grasp it, however, a large, masculine hand covered the device. Jamie lifted her eyes from the hand to see a leather-clad male arm. The man’s hand curled around her device, and he brought it into his palm. She slowly stood when the man did and cautiously raised her eyes.
Her greedy gaze stopped at a well-developed chest. The man wore a black T-shirt under his open leather jacket. The shirt looked to be a perfect fit as it stretched across his broad chest. The T-shirt depicted four skeletal faces with a banner above them that read: The Walking Dead and another banner underneath that read: The Darkest Night Tour. She’d heard one or two of the group’s hit songs on the radio, but she wasn’t a huge music fan and had never been to a concert in her life.
Jamie swallowed the lump in her throat and continued her gaze upward pausing when she locked onto a pair of eyes that were the most unusual shade of golden brown. They were a unique combination of gold with brown and green flecks. Those eyes seemed better suited to a cat than a human. The unusual color seemed to give the man a hypnotic effect and the way his unblinking eyes focused on her was unnerving to say the least.
She managed to tear her eyes away from his intense gaze to look at the rest of him. He had a ruggedly handsome angular face not the smooth, beautiful face of an actor or model. He had a few faded scars, one above his left eyebrow and a larger one on his chin. His large nose was crooked looking like it had been broken once before but it didn’t diminish his attractiveness. If anything, it added an element of depth and aggression. His hair was a dark blond and wavy, falling in thick locks around his face, but from what she could see, it was cut short on the sides and in the back.
“I am sorry. I did not see you behind me. I hope you are not hurt.” He spoke in a deep, confident voice, thick with a Russian accent. His rich timbre seemed to resonate throughout her body and vibrate her bones, making them feel like they were humming. “And I hope your little electronic thing is not broken.” His mouth was a straight line as if he didn’t know he was allowed to smile.
Jamie mentally shook herself to try to speak. The man in front of her was such an imposing figure, and the way his eyes unblinkingly bore into hers made it impossible to look away or formulate coherent thought. Had he even blinked once since she’d been looking at him? She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. All she could do was stare at the handsome man who was holding her Kindle out in front of him like a peace offering.
“You are hurt?” His smoldering, golden gaze left her face and slid over to where she was absently rubbing her throbbing shoulder. He was kind enough not to make a big deal out of her ogling, as if he brought out this kind of behavior in women every day. Heck, as sexy as the man was, he probably did.
She creased her brow as she continued to scrutinize him. He looked familiar for some reason, and she struggled to get her addled brain to focus and figure out where she’d seen the man before. Maybe he looked like someone she’d seen on television. She hadn’t met him before. She was sure she would remember someone with those eyes.
He raised one thick, blond eyebrow in a very Spock-like manner as he waited patiently for her to answer him. A crooked half grin appeared on his handsome face as if he could read her mind and was aware of his effect on her.
If she thought his eyes were hypnotic taking away her ability to think, the man’s little crooked smile was enough to get her heart palpitating. It was higher on the left side then the right and created the most adorable dimple on his left cheek. She saw a quick glimpse of his bright white teeth before the grin disappeared and his forehead furrowed in a worried expression.
“I am thinking you are hurt.”
“I . . .” Jamie stammered. “Yes. I mean No. I’m . . . I’m not hurt.” Her voice sounded as wobbly as she felt on the inside. The man’s intense eyes were constricting her lungs making it impossible for her to breathe. Her cheeks heated as embarrassment of her behavior finally broke through the lust clouding her brain.
“Tiger? You ready, my man?” The question came from the other man who’d come into the restaurant with him.
The man called Tiger looked over his shoulder at the other man. “Da,” he said in his rich, deep voice. Turning back to Jamie, he held out her Kindle a little closer to her. “Please accept my apology for hitting you.”
He set such an intense gaze on her that Jamie sensed her acceptance of his apology was the only thing in the entire world that mattered. It was unsettling and yet made her feel important at the same time.
She curled her hands around the Kindle, but when she tugged to bring the device closer to her body, she felt his resistance. Instead of letting it go, he slid his fingers over hers. His hands felt rough and calloused as if he worked them a lot, but his skin felt so warm. It sent small jolts of electricity through her as if she’d shuffled her feet along the carpet on a dry afternoon and touched something metal.
She swallowed, realizing he was waiting for a response and, from his expression, looked like he would wait there all afternoon until she accepted his apology. She exhaled and smiled weakly, her cheeks burning.
“It was an accident,” she offered in a friendly tone, trying to convey with her words that she didn’t blame the guy for elbowing her. He couldn’t have known she was so close behind him and the injury was the result of an accident, not malicious intent.
Still, he didn’t move. He held her with his scorching golden gaze. He hadn’t released his hold on her Kindle and her fingers were still encased in his firm grip.
“I accept your apology.” Her voice seemed to come out more like a whisper, but he heard her because he finally released her hands and smiled again at her making her knees wobble.
With a curt nod, he turned and strode toward the other man and the two of them followed Tiffany as she led them out of the lobby.
Sometime during her embarrassing exchange with the sinfully handsome man, the loud party had worked out their travel plans and had vacated the establishment.
Jamie was alone again in the small lobby. She took a few deep breaths to try to calm her frazzled nerves and to settle her heart back down to a normal speed. She felt heated, almost as if his hands touching hers was an erotic encounter rather than the innocent action it was.
Where had she seen that man before?
As she recalled the intensity with which he looked at her to accept his apology, she shivered, not from the damp cold but from the heat. Her cheeks were burning with embarrassment and her long dormant libido was heating her body in other places.
Now alone with just her thoughts, she felt awkward all over again at the scene she had to have created and figured she’d made a big enough fool of herself for one evening. Jamie turned to leave. Before she’d taken a step toward the door, the silence was broken
“Your table’s ready.”
She glanced over her shoulder to see Tiffany standing at the end of the lobby, smiling, with a menu in her hands. One lonely menu. Ready to seat her at a table for one.
Jamie eyed the exterior doors and the freedom they represented. She wanted to go home, take some Advil and a hot shower, and curl up with her book.
On the other hand, she could visualize the knowing look Dr. Dubois would give her and her pointed gaze as she studied Jamie, giving her a raised eyebrow and a clinical “umm-hmmm” as she tapped notes in her electronic tablet. If Jamie left, the doctor would see her retreat as a feeble attempt to avoid the awkwardness of her current situation. Jamie could never get even a partial lie past the woman. It was really annoying.
Jamie sighed, resigned to staying and completing the task she was assigned, and turned to follow Tiffany to her table for one.
I can do this. I am a brave and confident woman.
“Theo will be your waiter and he’ll be by in just a moment,” Tiffany said sweetly as she handed Jamie her menu.
Jamie thanked her and absently took the menu before Tiffany scurried away. As she set her Kindle down, Jamie glanced over at the bar area where a television was showing hi-lights of last night’s hockey game between the Washington Capitals and the Detroit Red Wings.
As the announcers recapped the three-two loss to the Wings, it finally struck her where she’d seen that handsome golden-eyed man before. The other man calling him Tiger further added conviction in her mind that she’d just had a brief and very embarrassing encounter with the hockey player, Sergei Tigarov.
Sergei Tigarov was an all-star defenseman who came originally into the NHL from a Russian KHL team to play for the Colorado Avalanche. He played in Colorado for ten years before being traded to the Washington Capitals three years ago.
Having lived in Colorado, Jamie recalled the first game Sergei Tigarov played. Her recollection was so vivid because not only was it the first hockey game she’d ever watched, but it was also her eighteenth birthday and one of very few days she’d been able to spend with her uncle Jessie.
Her uncle, Captain Jessup Walsh, was her father’s younger brother. Both Jamie’s father and Jessie were Navy men. Her father, Lieutenant-Commander Joseph Walsh, never seemed to know quite how to raise a daughter so Jamie pretty much raised herself. Jamie knew her father cared. He just had a cool and composed way of showing it. She understood his way now that she was an adult but as a child, she thought her father’s distance meant he didn’t care, and it caused a rift in their relationship that they were still working on patching up.
As a result of her father’s distance, she treasured the times Jessie came to visit. Jessie was so full of life and the polar opposite of her father. Jamie figured Jessie must have got all the happy genes in the family because her father never seemed to be interested in hugging or any other form of affection. Jamie never remembered getting a hug from her father. In fact, she’d never seen the man hug anyone.
Just before her eighteenth birthday, Jessie was on shore leave from the military, so he came to spend the time between Christmas and New Year’s with them. He was scheduled to ship out for someplace in Asia on January second. The Christmas Jessie spent with them was one of the few that Jamie could remember being pleasant.
Jessie wanted to throw a huge New Year’s Eve bash, to celebrate both Jamie’s birthday and a going-away of sorts before he headed off over-seas for potentially years, but her father refused to allow it, so Jamie and Jessie spent a quiet celebration by watching on the television Jessie’s favorite sport of hockey.
Before that day, Jamie had never seen a hockey game. She’d never seen much television at all. Her father forbade her from turning it on, but she occasionally watched it was when her father wasn’t home.
Jessie explained what was going on during the fast-paced game and Jamie fell in love with the sport instantly. Jessie told her about this talented new defenseman the Avalanche had just signed from Russia. Sergei Tigarov was his name and from the first shift the man took on the ice, he made his predatory presence known.
The game they watched that night was a contest between her hometown Colorado Avalanche and the Chicago Blackhawks. Jessie joked that Sergei Tigarov coming to the team was his birthday gift to her and the home team ended up winning the game four to one.
After Jessie was deployed, Jamie sneaked in watching the games when she could and read about almost every game in The Denver Post. Along with almost every female Avalanche fan, Jamie developed an instant crush on the sexy new defenseman and followed his every move in the papers.
Back then, Sergei Tigarov didn’t speak much English and had to have an interpreter with him whenever he talked to the press, but his lack of verbal skills didn’t diminish his predatory presence on the ice. Soon after he started playing, the media dubbed him ‘The Iron Tiger’ because he stood up at the blue line and didn’t let the opponent through.
Along with making penetration into the zone nearly impossible, he became one of the most efficient and most feared open-ice body checkers in the league. In his entire career with the Avalanche, she never recalled Sergei Tigarov ever deliberately delivering dirty or illegal hits. All his checks were all clean body-on-body or body-into-the-boards hits, which earned him respect from not just the fans but from the other players as well — having won the Ted Lindsey award six times that she knew of for best sportsmanship as chosen by the players. The die-hard and rugged Avalanche fans adored him and were devastated when he was traded to the Washington Capitals.
Jamie couldn’t believe that Sergei Tigarov was here in the same restaurant as her. She didn’t know where she expected famous hockey players to be hanging out, but a Ruby Tuesday restaurant in Silver Spring, Maryland wouldn’t have been her first choice.
She smiled. She’d finally met the man of her dreams, having been infatuated with him from afar since she was eighteen and he did not disappoint. He was gorgeous and those eyes of his were downright erotically hypnotic. They were so intense they almost glowed. Just the thought of it sent a flutter to her belly and heat to places that had been dormant for two long years.
She opened her menu. Doing so, however, gave her a twinge of pain in her left shoulder and she rubbed the sore area. At least she’d have an interesting story to tell tomorrow at work, and she would even have the battle wound to prove it...
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