Blogger Bundle Volume II: WeWriteRomance.com Selects Presents by Kate Walker

Author:Kate Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2010-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

OF ALL THE PLACES ON EARTH Joaquin Santiago had been—and he’d done his share of moving around in more than a dozen years of playing professional soccer—he had always liked Pelican Cay best.

He’d first visited the tiny Caribbean island at age nineteen when he’d come to spend a holiday with his soccer teammate Lachlan’s family. It had seemed an idyllic lazy paradise to a boy born and bred in the hustle and bustle of Barcelona. It had been his bolt-hole ever since, the perfect getaway from the demands of his fast-paced frenetic lifestyle.

Not that he hadn’t loved that lifestyle, too. In those days he’d sat on the beach, relishing the quiet, yet always aware, whenever he’d stared east toward the horizon, that it was out there—his fame, his fortune, his “fantastic foot” which had made him one of the most feared strikers in football.

No longer.

For the past four weeks he had tried not to even look at the horizon. He knew what it held: nothing. It was empty. Distant. Barren. Bleak.

He had no future.

People hadn’t forgotten him yet. It had only been five months, after all, since he’d been at the top of his game. Five months, one week and five days. If he thought about it, he could have come close to the number of hours since his accident, since he’d leaped up to head a ball at the same time as Yevgeny Pomasanov.

He’d hit the ball. Pomasanov’s head had hit his. And his career had ended—just like that.

It was ridiculous. He still couldn’t believe it. God only knew how many times he’d been hit in the head before Pomasanov’s blow. Thousands, no doubt. It meant nothing, was an occupational hazard.

But this time it had been different. This time when he’d attempted to get up he couldn’t. His arms, his legs didn’t respond. He felt nothing. Couldn’t move!

His brain still told his body what to do. But it was as if the connection had been severed. Unreal. Unthinkable!

He was young. In his prime! Soccer was his life!

But life as he’d known it for thirty-three years was over. They’d taken him off the field on a stretcher in a neck brace. For four days he’d lain in the hospital, paralyzed, motionless, as doctors hovered and poked and prodded. He’d felt nothing but an occasional tingling sensation and a desperate sense of panic.

The sports pages and tabloids had been full of speculation. Would he move again? Would he walk? Would he play?

Of course he would. He had to!

Life had always been about soccer. Soccer was what had saved him from having to spend his life in the mind-dulling Santiago family business. Of course he knew that one day it would be his destiny, but not right away. Not yet!

He loved soccer. He couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

So the morning that the tingling sensations in his fingers and toes actually led to his moving them, he’d breathed an enormous sigh of relief. If he could move, he could come back.

It was just a matter of time.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.