The Mighty Quinns: Thom by Kate Hoffmann Read Free Book Online Page A

to cry out again.
    Thom was beside her in an instant. “Are you all right?”
    Groaning, she pushed up on her elbow and touched her head gingerly. “I—I just slipped.”
    He stood up and switched off the treadmill. “You had it set for five miles an hour.”
    “Yeah? I guess that was my mistake.” Her fingertips felt damp, and she looked at her hand to find her fingers dripping with blood. The room closed in on her, and Malin knew she was about to pass out. The sight of blood had always...been...her kryptonite...
    She wasn’t sure how long she was out, but when she opened her eyes, Thom was kneeling beside her, concern etched across his features.
    “Hey there,” he murmured.
    He held her arm as she sat up, then pressed a damp towel to the back of her head. Malin winced. “Sorry. I always get a bit woozy at the sight of blood.”
    “Are you dizzy?”
    “No,” she said. “Just completely humiliated.”
    “Can you stand?”
    “I—I’m not—”
    He didn’t give her a chance to try. Instead, Thom scooped her up in his arms and carried her down the stairs. Though she felt like a sack of potatoes, he carried her as if she barely weighed a thing. Malin closed her eyes and tried to appreciate the romance of the situation.
    When they got to the living room, he didn’t stop at the sofa. Instead, he carried her right into his bedroom and gently set her on the bed. “Stay there. Don’t move.”
    Malin pulled the towel away from her head and was stunned at the amount of blood on the white terrycloth. She closed her eyes, fighting off another wave of dizziness but a few seconds later, Thom was back at her side.
    He had a smaller washcloth and pressed it against the cut on her scalp. “I’m sorry to cause such a fuss,” she said.
    “You are a handful,” he admitted.
    “Has it stopped bleeding?”
    “No. It’ll probably need a few stitches.” He glanced around the room, then reached for his cell phone sitting on the table beside the bed. After punching in a few numbers, he retreated to the hall to talk to whomever was on the line.
    Malin tried to hear what he was saying, but in the end the effort was just too taxing. She snuggled down into the pillows, the cloth still pressed against the cut.
    “Don’t go to sleep!”
    Malin opened her eyes. “I—I wasn’t.”
    “If you have a concussion, you don’t want to—”
    “I don’t have a concussion,” she said. “I just cut myself.”
    “How hard did you bump your head? You did lose consciousness.”
    “From the sight of blood. Not from the injury,” Malin explained.
    “I called a doctor. Until he checks you out, I don’t want you to sleep.”
    He crawled onto the bed and sat down behind her, taking over the care of her wound. “Scalp wounds always bleed a lot.”
    “I suppose you’d know. You’ve had your share of cuts over the years.”
    “I bet I’ve had more than two hundred stitches,” he said.
    Malin nodded. “I remember the cut you got last year, the one over your eye. That was pretty bad.”
    He gently grabbed her chin and turned her to meet his gaze. “You remember that?”
    “Yeah,” she said. “I was at that game. They took you in and stitched you up and you came back out and scored the game-winning goal. It was very impressive.”
    “You were watching me?”
    “Every person in the place was watching you. Especially the women. They all love you. That’s why I think it’s important that you stay with the team. We have a lot of female fans. And they like bad boys.”
    He sighed, shaking his head. “Why is that? I mean, I’ve cultivated this reputation, and where has it gotten me? Maybe I ought to try being the good guy for once.”
    “Or maybe you should just be a little less bad,” Malin said. She twisted her body until she faced him, determined to gauge his reaction to her suggestion. “I can help you with that. I can make you over into the kind of man that people admire. And not for fighting. You don’t have to fight