Joker's Wild by Sandra Chastain Read Free Book Online

if she’d had her crutches. She gave in to her weakness and laid her head against him, closing her eyes and tightening her muscles in an attempt to stop the agony.
    Through the foyer, up the stairs, and into her bedroom he strode. He placed her on the bed and removed her shoes. “Your leg is cramping. Where is your medicine?”
    “I threw it out the window somewhere outside of Washington,” she answered, wondering again what she had hoped to prove by that piece of stupidity.
    “All right, then. We’ll improvise,” Joker announced, taking the hem of her skirt and lifting it.
    “What are you doing?” Allison panicked, grabbing his hand.
    “I’m going to massage that knee. Then I’m going to pack it with hot towels. Try to keep it still until we can get you over to soak in the mineral water at the springs. It’s brought a major league pitcher back to form. We’ll see what it can do for you.”
    Joker left the room and she could hear him moving around in the bathroom. The situation was getting out of hand. She’d come home to get away from the world, only to find out that her safe refuge had been invaded by a stubborn stranger who seemed intent on taking over her life. She had to put a stop to that—somehow. Allison felt a fresh wave of spasms rack her leg, and she held her breath until it passed.
    If she could get to a phone, she’d call … who? And … and do what? Report that she wanted to evict a red-haired giant who rode a red motorcycle and made her body flush with desire every time he touched her? No! Since the accident she’d avoided the press. She certainly didn’t want to call attention to herself now.
    First there had been her injury, then the slap in the face Mark had given her by quickly replacing her with a younger, more beautiful Olympic champion—on the ice and in his bed.
    It took the time she’d spent in the hospital away from Mark for her to recognize the hypnotic effect of his power. Every gesture, every loving word had been a calculated seduction. He used all women, just as he’d used her. Mark didn’t love anybody but himself. Once she could no longer perform, he didn’t needher any more. That was when she realized that Josey and Saville would never be a team again.
    She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen through him. Even now she refused to believe that Mark hadn’t cared about her in the beginning. They’d been so young and so in love, the darlings of the press. For fourteen years it had been she and Mark against the world. She’d loved the ice, the fame, and the man. They’d all become jumbled together in her mind. Now she had to separate them out, and she wasn’t sure that she could.
    “I’m not going to any springs. I don’t care if every pitcher in the National Baseball League is developing a bionic arm there,” she managed to spit out between the waves of pain. “Where in hell are my crutches?”
    “They’re downstairs, Beauty. But I don’t think you’re ready for them. I’ll get you a wheelchair this afternoon.”
    “No! No more wheelchairs! I will walk downstairs and get the damn crutches myself!”
    “When camels fly! I shouldn’t have taken you on my bike. You probably weren’t supposed to drive, and I don’t think you’re supposed to be walking either, are you? Does your doctor even know where you are?”
    “No, and he’s not going to,” Allison said wearily, bringing herself to an upright position. “I’ve come through other injuries and skated again. And I’ll skate after this one, too, no matter what those doctors think. They aren’t going to operate on me again. I don’t need them, or anyone else.”
    Throwing her leg over the side of the bed, she gritted her teeth and attempted to stand. The minuteher leg supported her weight, stars exploded behind her eyes, and she cried out in pain as she collapsed on the floor.
    Joker was beside her instantly, lifting her back to the bed. He folded a pillow and slid it under her bad knee, forcing