DARE TO STAY
He’s the one who left.
She’s the one he left behind.
Willow James, athletic trainer for the Miami Thunder football team, knows abandonment and hurt. A child of foster care, she’s been moved around and left behind more times than she cares to count. Just when she was starting to let her guard down with Braden Prescott, he left for a two year stint with Doctors Without Borders. Now he’s back.
Dr. Braden Prescott always felt like an outsider in his family of professional sports players. He’s traveled the world and is better for it, but now he’s home with a job for the Miami Thunder. When he comes face to face with the woman he left behind, their chemistry still smolders. She’ll give him her body again but not her heart.
He knows leaving her once was the biggest mistake of his life. Can Willow learn to trust him not to leave, especially when adventure comes calling again?
Chapter One
Braden Prescott’s suit felt stiff and scratchy, a far cry from the loose scrubs he’d worn for the last two years with Doctors Without Borders. He pulled at the knot on his tie as he waited for the press conference to begin, announcing him as head team general doctor for the Miami Thunder. Beside him was his cousin and team owner, Ian Dare.
“Nervous?” Ian asked, an understanding look on his face.
“More like uncomfortable.” And stressed but Braden wasn’t about to admit as much. Instead he rolled his shoulders in a futile effort to unwind and believe this new phase would work out.
“Excuse me. I need to talk to someone before the press conference starts.” Ian placed a hand on Braden’s shoulder before walking away, leaving him to ponder his sudden life change.
It was ironic that he’d accepted this position considering sports medicine had never been on his list of career choices. And for good reason. He’d steered clear of anything that reminded him of the father who’d raised him, because Jesse Prescott had belittled him for his brain, wanting only sons capable of smashing into other men on a football field.
Four of his siblings had ended up in sports in one way or another, and Braden was proud of all they’d accomplished, but it had never been his calling. However, now that he was back in town, he needed a job as much as Ian needed a general practitioner physician he could trust. The last man who’d held the job had betrayed his oath and the people he was supposed to care for.
From the wings, Braden glanced out into the audience of reporters in the front seats and team members filing into the chairs in the back. He caught sight of Hudson Northfield, his best friend, whose idea it had been to join Doctors Without Borders. He’d returned to the States with Braden and come to Florida instead of heading home to New York, where his high-pressured family resided. At Braden’s recommendation, Ian had hired Hudson as a team physician, meaning he’d be staying in Florida and not moving home.
But Braden wasn’t looking for Hudson when he scanned the crowd. He was searching for a certain blonde-haired, blue-eyed siren he’d left behind. He and Willow James, now head of the Athletic Training Department for the Thunder, had been a couple before Hudson had approached him about joining Doctors Without Border, or MSF as it was known, Médicins Sans Frontières.
He’d been the odd man out at home, the only Prescott brother who hadn’t been into sports, and the opportunity to travel and help people in need, while carving out his own niche in life, had been too much of a lure to turn down. At the time, he’d thought Willow, with whom he’d been in an exclusive but not overly serious relationship, would accept the notion that he’d be gone for two years. That they’d see one another when possible. He’d been wrong.
She’d listened, nodded, told him to have a nice life, and walked out, stunning him with how easily she’d dismissed him. Although looking back and knowing her foster care background, he should have dug deeper into her reaction. Instead he’d left despite knowing he’d hurt her with his sudden pronouncement, not taking into consideration the fact that she probably felt abandoned and had thrown up her walls. And though he didn’t regret the time he’d spent abroad, he knew he’d done irreparable damage to their relationship.
When Ian had offered him the job, he’d done his research on who he’d be working with, already knowing she’d been with the Thunder when he left. And maybe he’d scanned her social media. A little. The glimpses being the equivalent of a punch in the gut as he realized how much he’d given up when he’d left.
He hadn’t realized the depth of his feelings for her until he’d been gone. Hadn’t thought he’d miss her as much as he had. And considering her silence in response to his early texts and the calls she’d let go unanswered, she hadn’t forgiven him for his last-minute decision to leave.
As the head of the Thunder’s Athletic Training Department, she’d be answering to him as lead team physician, something he doubted would make her happy. But they were both adults and professionals. They’d make things work.
And if he had his way, he’d win back her trust.
Somehow.
* * *
Willow James walked down the hall of the Miami Thunder Football Stadium, headed to the area reserved for press conferences. Ian Dare would be announcing the new head physician. Normally the information would be revealed via press release to the public and in a private team meeting, but given the fact that the former doctor, Peter Jonas, was currently doing time in prison for defrauding the IRS, taking a bribe to pay gambling debts, and injecting the Thunder’s star quarterback with banned substances in return for money to pay off his loans, the team needed to make a statement.
As she turned a corner toward the press room, she passed life-size photographs of the Thunder’s star players, a tribute that followed them from the old stadium. Because this one was new, the smell of paint still permeated the air around her.
She’d been around the organization for a while, had done two summers and a full-year internship with the team prior to working as one of the trainers for years before being promoted to lead last month. She knew how fortunate she was to have found a place for herself with the Thunder. There were many trainers like her with a stellar academic record, but it had been her relationship with Dr. Peter Jonas, her one-time foster father, that had given her an in. Having known him for years, she’d never suspected he was capable of such betrayal.
His wife, Bella, was destroyed, and since the Jonases were the last of five foster homes Willow had been in, and by then she’d been near to adulthood, she had an ongoing relationship with them, unlike the other families who’d taken her in and easily let her go. She kept in close touch with Bella and spoke to her often. If there was anyone in her life Willow trusted, it was Bella Jonas, and she’d look out for her any way she had to.
Peter was another person who’d let her down. Life taught her that it was in her best interest to keep people at a distance, and every time she broke that rule, she’d been hurt in the end.
Given Damon Prescott’s status, the news about Doc had spread fast, hitting the team hard. Ian had withheld the name of the new doctor until announcement time, and she’d find out along with everyone else in a few minutes.