Knockout Love

By Susan V. Vaughn

She just might be the woman of his dreams….

Maggie Heugan has her life all planned out, from her engagement to a handsome doctor, to her perfect nursing career. Then why does a chance meeting with a captivating stranger, have her questioning everything she has ever known?

Pro wrestler, Sean Miller is on a fast track to his destiny, until an unexpected injury derails his course. Now he can’t refrain from chasing the enticingly beautiful Nurse Maggie, when she just might hold the key to healing him in more ways than one.

For these two conflicted lovers, life spirals out of control, when Love collides with destiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inkspell Publishing
• Release date: Jan 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781939590749

Book preview

Knockout Love

Susan V. Vaughn

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places, or events is coincidental and not intended by the author.

If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher. In such case the author has not received any payment for this stripped book.

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Knockout Love

Copyright © 2016 Susan V. Vaughn

All rights reserved.]

ISBN: (ebook) 978-1-939590-74-9

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Inkspell Publishing

5764 Woodbine

Pinckney, MI 48169

Edited By JoSelle Vanderhooft

Cover art By Najla Qamber

You can visit us at www.inkspellpublishing.com

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. The copying, scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.  Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions, and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Dedication

To my little sister, Marion. The perfect combination of super woman, super wit, and super heart. This is to all the years we spent watching wrestling together, and all the times you filled my life with laughter.

Chapter 1

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Hurry up, Sean. Stop dragging your feet.

Sean’s father stopped walking long enough to turn around and give his son a scalding look. Sean knew that look well—if his father didn’t get his special drink soon, he would take it out on Sean.

I’m coming, Dad. Sean ran, pushing his scrawny five-year-old legs as fast as he could, attempting to match his father’s long strides. It was a challenge, considering his short stature and the fact it had snowed all night. His weathered tennis shoes did nothing to grip against the icy sidewalks, much like his worn jean jacket did nothing to protect his skin from the cold. This was why Sean hated winter. It meant lots of sleepless nights shivering next to his father on the streets.

At least his father had his special drink to keep him warm, Sean thought bitterly. He had nothing but some torn clothes and an old blanket to ward off the icy wind. It made him yearn for the protective walls of the shelter downtown—the shelter they went to only if his father got his special drink in time. If he didn’t, it would be another night out on the street, begging strangers for money.

Listen to me, son. Sean’s father stopped and turned so suddenly, Sean knocked into him and fell back into the snow. Cold wetness invaded the holes of his jacket and made him shiver.

I’m listening, Dad. He looked up at his father and waited for him to finish talking. Sean knew his dad would never help him out of the snow. Not when his eyes looked like that—murky blue, strained with lines of red. It always surprised Sean that they shared the same-colored eyes. Most of the time, his dad’s eyes looked like this—red, gloomy, and irritable. Which meant he needed his special drink and fast.

I’m going to get my drink. He gestured to a bench outside the shop he was about to enter. Sit there and wait.

Sean nodded and scrambled up from the snow. He’d learned early on to obey all his father’s directions. Otherwise, he would likely forget Sean was there. The special drink did that to his dad, made him forget. One time his father had left him at a park while he got his special drink. Sean played there for hours, until every child left and the sky grew dark and he was all alone. Sean hid under a play structure, shaking with fear so bad he wet his pants. Luckily, his father’s drink wore off a few hours later and he remembered to come and find him.

The drink made his father forget other things too. Like getting them to the shelter in time to sleep indoors, or forgetting the last time they ate. Sean’s stomach growled so loudly sometimes, he would eat the old chewing gum out from under park benches. But that was when it was summer. Now that it was winter, Sean would have to eat snow again when Dad forgot to feed them. And that tasted like nothing! Yet another reason to hate this time of year.

Sean waited and shivered on the bench outside his father’s favorite special-drink store. The whole time he wondered what kind of father he was going to get today—the forgetful kind, the mean kind, or the sleepy kind. If his father wasn’t yelling or forgetting, he was stumbling around and sleeping in the strangest places. One time he even dropped down in the middle of a busy street. Sean shook his head. At least that sleepy father wasn’t mean. He was just silly and strange.

Sean shivered again and closed his eyes. He pictured the world around him turning warm and green. He imagined eating a large plate of chocolate chip cookies and ice cream that he had rescued himself—because he had a cape and could fly, just like Superman. He would never be hungry again with marvelous powers like that.

One day he would fly. He would run faster and be stronger than any man in the world. Everyone would look at him with love in their eyes. They would point as he flew past, with their mouths dropped open in awe.

Sean felt someone shaking his shoulder and opened his eyes. It was his dad. He was back, and the look on his face told Sean he would be getting the mean kind of father today.

Get up, boy! his dad growled, making Sean’s heart race. I didn’t tell you it was time to sleep.

Yes, sir. He scrambled to his feet.

His father staggered closer to Sean and narrowed his eyes, lips drooped down in a deep frown. Sean tensed, waiting for the punishment he knew would come. But he could not imagine what he’d done wrong. Did his father not get his special drink? No, Sean could smell its foulness from here. Then why was he so angry?

What is it, Dad? Why are you mad at me? Sean didn’t realize he was crying, only that his voice shook when he tried to speak. His father just looked at him with so much hate and disgust, it made Sean want to disappear.

Because you were born.

***

Sean Miller woke up panting, his father’s cruel words piercing his heart, making him want to cry. Luckily, the large white bandage covering his face hid it all. He was twenty-eight, a man—too old to cry, and too old to pant.

Sean took a deep breath. It took him a minute to erase the childhood nightmare from his mind and process reality. He was in the hospital lobby still, waiting for a ride that would never come. He had been discharged from the Indianapolis Trauma Center hours ago. The nurse had wheeled him out into the lobby and put his release papers and prescription pain pills on his lap. Then she’d left him there, as if someone would magically pick him up.

But no one was coming. Sean knew that. He’d followed his dreams to a strange city and gotten injured in the process. Now he had to find a ride out of this predicament and keep following his dreams. He was on his own, like always. It was the painful truth. Almost as painful as the throbbing area where his nose had gotten swiped clear off his face. Literally. Sean touched the bandage covering his nose and swallowed the shocking pain crawling up his throat.

The cruelest part of all of this was the medicine on his lap he couldn’t get to. Sean could hold the bottle of pain medication that would take the edge off his agony, but he could not open it—not by a long shot. Every time he tried to concentrate on opening that little jar of pills, tiny black dots danced over his sight and made him want to throw up. So Sean was stuck with the only thing he could do—sleep. Which was why he had not come closer to a solution for getting out of the hospital.

The room began to spin again, reminding him that his eyes had been open too long. Sean closed them and rested his head back against his wheelchair. There was nothing to do but sleep and hope the nightmares of his past remained in the past.

Sean had a feeling if he lay here long enough, someone was bound to help him. He was an optimist. His hopefulness and dreamy nature were something his father couldn’t steal from him as a boy. And no matter what happened to him, his father couldn’t make him give up his dreams. That truth was what helped him move forward in life. It was why he felt hopeful now. He had survived worse than this moment. Sean smiled, and the smile hurt his face. He was waiting on an angel of mercy—and while he was dreaming, hopefully one that wasn’t hard on the eyes.

***

Maggie Heugan parked her car outside the Indianapolis Trauma Center and killed the engine. It was a quarter to nine. She was fifteen minutes early for her nursing interview, but she would have liked to have been thirty. Unfortunately, a late March snowstorm had ruined her morning completely.

Maggie wasn’t sure what it was about snow that made everyone drive like idiots—either dangerously slow, causing traffic jams, or foolishly fast, causing traffic accidents. Both had caused her perfect schedule to be ruined. She hated when that happened. Especially as she spent so much time creating those perfect schedules days in advance. If only people would learn to drive in the snow, like Maggie had. Just a steady forty miles an hour with a car-length space in front of her so she wouldn’t need to slam on the brakes. It wasn’t brain science!

Maggie sighed and pulled down her car visor. She couldn’t control whether people learned to drive properly. She knew that, just as she understood she was a perfectionist. Her parents were both doctors and had encouraged her to do everything obsessively, from cleaning to following schedules to studying. Growing up was more of a boot camp than a childhood. But because of it, she had gotten into the University of Michigan’s prestigious nursing program and graduated top of her class. At just twenty-five, she was already engaged to a handsome doctor named Trevor and she was about to interview for a top-notch nursing job in his hospital. Thanks to all her hard work, dedication, and obsessive-compulsiveness, life was good.

Maggie glanced at her reflection. Her auburn hair was tied back into a neat bun, not a loose, wavy strand out of place. Her makeup was flawless, applied with a light hand, to highlight her green eyes and diminish her girlish freckles. Maggie wanted to be seen as classy and sophisticated. She pulled the pink lipstick from her jacket pocket and retouched her full lips, then straightened her coat, peeking underneath to make sure there was no lint on the black blouse or wrinkles on her tan pencil skirt. Everything appeared to be in place. She looked neat and professional.

Maggie raised the car visor carefully back into position and glanced at the time. Five minutes had ticked by. She had two minutes to get to her interview so that she would be at least eight minutes early. Hopefully, eight minutes was enough to make a good first impression.

She hurried out of her car, shut the door, and pressed the Lock button of the key fob three times. Three times meant her car locked completely. She waited for the final beep and hurried toward the trauma center, eyes on her wristwatch, tracking her progress. She couldn’t run in her black heels. She would slip! Slipping would be a disaster, ruining her outfit and potentially injuring herself. At times like these, Maggie hated having to dress like a woman. But there was no time to dwell on silly things like that. If she wanted to make it to her interview eight minutes early, she would have to speed-walk. Maggie quickly calculated the correct pace to achieve her goal and maintained that pace all the way through the trauma center doors.

Once inside, she glanced at her wristwatch again—thirty seconds had passed. She would have to take the steps two at a time to make it to the third floor for her interview in ninety seconds. At least she had eliminated the risk of slipping in the snow!

Maggie jogged and wove through the waiting room, making excellent time. Heels on ice were one thing, but when it came to running inside on them, Maggie was a professional. She made it to the other side of the lobby in ten seconds flat, ignoring the stares of people around her—people wondering at the crazy lady running in heels. Maggie didn’t care how crazy she looked, not when she was on a mission. Not when achieving her perfect plan was almost in her grasp. She walked over to the stairs and immediately became blocked by a wheelchair parked in her path. Actually the chair was on an angle, half-blocking the stairs and the elevator, thereby eliminating both options to the second level of the hospital simultaneously.

Maggie’s heels came screeching to a halt. If this had been an empty wheelchair, she would have just pushed it out of the way. But unfortunately a large man was slouched over and asleep in it. She glanced at her watch and calculated how much time it would take to ask the stranger to move. If she hurried and took three steps at a time, maybe she could still get to the interview on time

Excuse me, sir. Maggie placed her hand on the man’s shoulder and gently shook.

The man groaned loudly and rolled his face toward her, but he still appeared to be sleeping. He had a large white bandage across his nose, dark black bruises on each of his cheeks, and his eyelids were swollen and puffy. It was as if a truck had hit him directly in his face.

Maggie stood back and examined his worn jeans, dirty white T-shirt, and scruffy blue baseball cap. Shaggy, brown hair spilled out from underneath that baseball cap, giving him a youthful appearance. He looked extremely pathetic, passed out in a wheelchair—all alone—pink discharge papers and prescription pills lying on his lap.

Maggie chewed her bottom lip. She should put her nursing skills to use and ask the patient if he needed assistance. Connect with him on a human level. But she’d never understood the compassionate part of nursing. In her opinion, compassion and the science of healing were too different things entirely.

Sir! Maggie crouched down to the man’s level and shook his shoulders hard. "Hello? Anyone there?"

The man groaned and scrunched his bruised eyelids as if her voice pained him. Maggie glanced at her wristwatch and shook him again—time was running out. Wake up, mister!

I’m awake, I’m awake, the man grumbled and slowly opened his eyes. Maggie swallowed hard as the bluest eyes she had ever seen focused on her.

Hello, beautiful. The stranger somehow managed a sexy smile despite his injuries. For a moment Maggie forgot about the large, white bandage covering his nose—or the fact that time was ticking away on her wristwatch. I’m definitely awake now.

That’s good to hear. Maggie stood up and readjusted her coat. She needed the man to move his wheelchair, but she had to be careful not to come off too harshly. Already the receptionist was eyeing their interaction suspiciously. If Maggie wanted a job here, it was time to pretend to be a compassionate nurse.

Sir, I’m not sure you realize this, but you have been sleeping in your wheelchair. And blocking the steps in the process! Maggie bit her tongue and