Pucking Around

Rachel Price is awakened when her roommate, Tess, calls her name urgently. Rachel’s phone has been ringing with calls from her boss, Doctor Halla. Her work life has been unsatisfying since her recent and unexpected rejection from the prestigious Barkley Fellowship, which pairs doctors with professional sports teams. Tess has been encouraging her to find a new romantic relationship, but after spending a night with a stranger in Seattle several months prior, she is uninterested in finding anyone new. (Rachel’s night in Seattle is depicted in the prequel novella That One Night. The stranger from that evening—Rachel’s “Mystery Boy”—will be revealed in Chapter 11 as Jake Compton, a star hockey player for the Jacksonville Rays.)

Rachel returns her boss’s call and learns that she has received the Barkley Fellowship after another fellow dropped out. She has been chosen from a waitlist, so she will have no choice in the location of the team, the type of sport, or the gender of the players. She learns that she will be assigned to the Jacksonville Rays, a new hockey team. This prospect excites her because injuries are common in hockey. Shocked but happy, Rachel tells Tess that she will be moving to Jacksonville, Florida, immediately.