Fighting to Dream (The Elite Book 2) Read online

  Fighting to Dream

  The Elite Book 2

  Nicole Flockton

  Contents

  Back Cover Copy

  Copyright

  Dear Reader

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Coming Soon

  Also by Nicole Flockton

  Back Cover Copy

  At the 2016 Rio Games, Olympic runner Drake Roberts is chasing a dream, a dream that isn’t his. For as long as he can remember it has been his father’s dream for him to be an Olympic gold medalist. Now an injury could rip away everything he’s worked so hard for.

  Tamara York has her dream job. She’s part of the team that keeps the Olympic track and field athletes in peak condition. With plenty of growth potential, no one is going to deviate her from her goals, until she sees Drake hiding his injury. Now she has to help Drake to a full recovery while resisting his charms.

  Can time spent together help them realize that love as well as dreams are worth fighting for?

  Copyright © 2016 by Nicole Flockton

  Cover Design: Jennifer Greeff - More Than Words Promotions & PR

  Model Photograph : Fotolia.com © romanolebedev

  Proofreading: Authors on a Dime

  1st Edition

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

  review.

  Created with Vellum

  Dear Reader

  Welcome back to The Elite series.

  This is Drake and Tamara’s story. We met Drake in Fighting to Win. He is Mitch’s best friend and, well he is dealing with something more than nerves at competing at the Olympics. Can Tamara help him overcome his troubles? Well I guess you’ll have to keep turning the pages to find out.

  I would like to thank my nephew Mathew who helped me with information about knee injuries. Any mistakes are totally mine.

  I also want to thank Jennifer at More than Words Promotions for all her help with all my promotional needs and creating some fabulous covers for this series. And for beta reading this for me.

  To Abigail Owen for being a great friend and sounding board and brainstorming partner, not to mention beta reading this book too.

  As always a big thank you to my wonderful husband and kids for dealing with me as I write my words. I love you all always.

  I really can’t say how much I appreciate the person that is reading this note. You the reader who took the time to buy this book. I sincerely thank you and hope you enjoy Drake and Tamara’s journey to finding love.

  Hugs!

  Nicole

  1

  Drake bounced down into a squat, grimacing at the sharp needle of pain that lanced through his knee. He gritted his teeth and rose up again, hoping against hope his coach hadn't seen his face. He'd told Len his knee was fine. That he was fit to compete in the Olympics.

  Now he was here in Rio, and his knee was giving him grief.

  These Games were going to be his last. He hoped to win a medal. He didn’t care what color. Any one would do. If he won, he hoped his dad would stop lamenting how he'd missed out on Olympic glory and stop living vicariously through his son. Drake didn’t want to contemplate what his father would do if he’d lost. Pressure weighed heavily on his shoulders. Losing wasn’t an option.

  Some would say Drake Roberts was living his father’s dream, a statement he didn’t deny. He was. When he’d won silver at the World Championships last year for the 1,500m race, he thought that might be enough for his dad after he’d failed to get even close to medaling at the 2012 Olympics. Unfortunately, his win had only fueled his father to push him to work toward qualifying for the Olympics. After all, his father said, he got silver, and if he worked harder, he could get gold.

  So now, here he was, in the training room in Brazil, nursing an injury he’d hidden from his father, from his coach, from his friends. He’d told his coach it was fine, but he’d aggravated it when he’d taken a run around the Olympic track the day after he’d arrived. He should’ve given his knee a chance to recover from being cramped up in a plane for over eight hours.

  The buzz of being at the Olympics was something that couldn’t adequately be described to people, unless they lived it themselves. He wanted to experience it one more time. Experience the roar of the crowd as he walked into the stadium during the Opening Ceremony. While London hadn’t been a successful Games for him, it had been a thrill to compete in an event where the whole world watched. He wasn’t going to let a niggling knee issue stop him. Once it was all over, he could announce his retirement from competitive running, and his life would no longer be composed of getting up at the crack ass of dawn to practice and travelling all over the States from meet to meet. He might be able to have a normal life. Although what was normal? If he didn’t win gold, his father would no doubt push him to try again for the 2020 Olympics. He would be thirty then. He really didn’t want to do another four years of training.

  Drake closed his eyes as he squatted down again. This time the pain sharpened. He blew a breath out as he rose up again. How many more squats was he going to have to do?

  “Your knee bothering you, Drake?”

  He swiveled around at the sound of the voice over his left shoulder, the movement doing nothing to help his knee.

  Behind him stood Tamara York, the team’s assistant physical trainer, easy on the eye with her honey blond hair caught in a high ponytail and crystal blue eyes, curves in all the right places. Not so easy on the rehab exercises she’d had him doing when he first injured his knee. She was also the last person he wanted to know how sore his knee actually was. He knew the other guys on the track squad talked about seeing if she’d go on a date with one of them. None had tried, though. They’d all been warned by TJ, the head physical trainer, that she was off limits. And seeing as most of the guys on the squad like their balls, they obeyed.

  Like Joey with his sure-fire, How you doin’ line to get the girls, Drake flashed Tamara his signature melt-your-panties smile and winked. “Nope, all good here. But if you feel the need to give me some extra hands-on attention, I won’t say no.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow at him. Okaayyy, if he’d been standing in a bar, he’d be wearing her cocktail or whatever she was drinking all over his face.

  He knew it was sleazy, and he could have TJ’s wrath come down on him for flirting—he just didn’t care right at that moment. He didn’t want Tamara anywhere near his injury. He didn’t want her telling him his Olympic run was over before it even started.

  “Does that really work for you, Roberts? Or am I just the lucky one you want to practice your cheesy lines on?”

  “It can be whatever you want it to be.” Yep,
he was certifiable to keep on being super sleazy with Tamara. He just hoped she would walk away and be none the wiser about what his body was going through.

  “Right, well I’ve been watching you, and I’ve seen you cringe through every one of those squats. If you want to compete in these Games, I suggest you come see me in the treatment room after you’ve finished your practice.” She walked away, back straight, her ponytail swishing from side to side, giving him no chance to object to her edict about their meeting in the treatment room.

  Great, how could his coach and TJ miss the pain he was in but Tamara hadn’t? Unless she’d been watching him because she was interested in him.

  Drake chuckled to himself and pushed the thought away. No way would Tamara be even remotely interested in him. He was just the unlucky one she’d decided to observe that day.

  Forcing his attention back to warming up his body, he slightly modified his actions when completing the rest of the exercises in the hope no one else noticed his discomfort.

  Sweating like a proverbial pig, Drake headed for the showers. It was warm out on the track. The more he ran, the more he got used to the climate of Rio, which would help him when it came to running in his heat and, if luck was on his side, competing in the final of his event.

  “You looked good out there, Drake. How’s the knee holding up?” his coach Len asked as he walked into the locker room.

  He’d left the track while Len had been busy talking to another team member. He and Len had been together for a while and had a good working relationship. At this stage of his career, Drake didn’t need to get constant pep talks, unlike the newer guys. If Len had any issues, Drake knew he would connect with him after he’d spoken to the younger guys.

  "It's holding up fine." While not completely lying, he wasn't completely telling the truth either. A couple of times he'd overstretched his stride, and his muscles had told him all about it. If he could just hang on for another couple of weeks, get through the Games, then he could rest it.

  "I saw a couple of missteps out on the track. I think I should speak to TJ and have him look at it."

  Shit.

  Seems he'd only been fooling himself in believing no one but Tamara had noticed his discomfort. While he'd been out on the track, the thought of avoiding the treatment room had crossed his mind. Now there was no way he could avoid it.

  "I don't need to see TJ. I'll see Tamara instead."

  Len's eyebrow rose in speculation. "Is that right?"

  "Geez, Len, you know she helped me when I first hurt my knee. It makes sense I see her instead of TJ."

  "It doesn't matter to me. I just want to make sure you're okay. I suspect you want this to be your last Games, and I want to make sure it's a memorable one."

  Len’s suspicions didn’t surprise Drake. His coach knew him well and was the only person who knew how much Drake's father pressured him to be the best. To be better than Simon Roberts had ever been. To be the one who brought home the gold.

  Last chance. The weight of his father's expectation landed on Drake like a ton of bricks all over again. He'd managed to push the expectation away, or so he’d thought, but with the Opening Ceremony only a day away and now, with Len's comment, he knew he'd only temporarily forgotten about it.

  "I'll be fine. Winning would be great, but I'm realistic enough to believe that, unlike others on the team, my chances are slim."

  "The Games are a fickle bitch; anything can happen," commented Len. "An opponent can eat something that doesn't agree with them. Or they trip. Or they pull a muscle. You have to be present and ready for anything and, the most important thing, take advantage of anything that happens. Own the race. Make it yours."

  Drake nodded, and for the first time since he arrived in Rio, a little bit of confidence that he might have a chance at these Games began to grow. Len was right, anything could happen at an Olympic Games. Drake remembered the guy from Australia winning a medal in a speed skating event at a winter games because he kept his footing while everyone fell around him. He’d probably gone into the race prepared to give it his all with the idea of winning a pipe dream. Against all the odds, he’d crossed that line first, and that medal was his. He owned it.

  Maybe he should use his dad's expectations in a positive way instead of letting them negatively rule his thoughts. Now if only his knee would cooperate.

  2

  Tamara sat at her desk, reading through her notes on Drake's injury. From what she had observed in warm-up, his chance of competing was at risk.

  A quick glance at her watch told her most of the team would be back in the locker room. The million-dollar question running through her mind—would Drake come and see her? Or would he blow her off in an attempt to further hide his injury? She wouldn't put it past him to avoid her. He'd been cooperative after his initial injury, determined to make it to the team trials.

  His race time in the trials was, at best, just enough to get him on the team. As she'd watched him run at the trials, his action and stride looked excellent, but he wasn't going at full pace. She'd seen him at full pace. At the time she'd thought to herself it was a smart move on his part to not overtax himself—now she had to wonder if, between their last treatment on his leg and the trials, he'd done something to aggravate the injury.

  Drake, being like most men, wouldn't admit anything was wrong. If she wanted to find out the seriousness of his injury, sitting at her desk reminiscing about his past races wasn't going to achieve that.

  Pushing away from her table, she closed the file and left it in the middle of the shiny wood surface. She headed for the locker room. While she'd been around male athletes in all array of undress, this was the Olympics. There were competitors from other countries she didn't know, and even though she appreciated the male body, she figured she should give them their privacy. Plus, not all men were comfortable with a female hanging around the male locker room.

  Fortunately for her, the guys she worked with had accepted her the moment she started working with the team. What had been surprising was that, until today, when Drake pulled that cheesy crap with her, most of the guys had not tried to ask her on a date or flirt with her. She had a feeling she had TJ to thank for that. Her boss had treated her like a daughter since walked into his office for her interview. No doubt he'd laid down the law to the guys, and because the guys respected TJ, they listened and obeyed him.

  As she stood off to the side of the door to the locker room, she watched the parade of fit men walk in and out of the room. Some smiled at her; others avoided making eye contact with her. The amount of testosterone in the room had to be sky high—no wonder copious amounts of condoms were used during the Games. This was her first Olympic Games, and she had a job to do. She didn't plan on adding to the statistics.

  "I suppose you're waiting for me."

  Lost in her thoughts, Tamara hadn't seen Drake walk out. Dressed in a tight- fitting, navy polo shirt, tan cargo shorts, his dark hair, wet and slicked back, he looked tempting and attractive. Her heartbeat jumped, and she had to remind herself who he was, where she was, and her goal not to be part of an Olympic Games condom-using statistic.

  Getting involved with anyone, least of all a player like Drake, was the last thing she needed. This gig with the U.S. Athletic Team was a dream come true, a dream she didn’t want to end when her contract expired at the end of the Games. She hoped to get her contract extended. To ensure that would happen, she planned to prove her worth during the next two weeks. She knew TJ would recommend her for an extension, but she didn’t want to rely only on that. Tamara wanted to know she’d earned her new contract because of her skills. Her ability to be totally professional around the athletes and keep her hormones under control. She would do well to remember what had happened to her mentor, Mary-Lou. The pain her friend had gone through when her affair with an athlete she was treating had gotten out wasn’t something Tamara wanted to experience.

  "You okay, Tamara?"

  Again Drake's voice pulled her from her tho
ughts. This time she directed her attention to the here and now and not a possible future that might never happen.

  "I'm fine. And, yes, I was waiting for you. I wasn't too sure if you would find your way to the treatment room like I asked you to."

  Tamara bit back a laugh as a hint of red bloomed on his cheekbones. She’d been right. Lucky she’d decided to wait for him.

  "Well," started Drake. "I was coming to see you, but…"

  "You decided there was something more important you wanted to do."

  "Not exactly," he huffed out a breath. "I was kind of hoping you might have forgotten."

  Tamara shook her head. When Drake had first injured his knee, getting him to rehab hadn't been an issue. He’d kept every appointment they’d made. He’d followed her instructions and worked hard to get back on the track.

  She’d believed they’d built up a good professional relationship with each other. She respected his dedication and hard work. And she thought he respected her and her treatment skills. She’d assumed they’d built a friendship too. His reluctance to come see her today, to even admit his knee hurt, concerned her. If he didn't let her look at it, he could end up doing more damage and be out of not only the Games, but a successful career as well.

  "Want to tell me what the real issue is here?"

  Before her eyes he pulled out that grin he’d used on her in the warm up room. A move he’d never tried on her before, until today. It didn’t matter that the grin generated a tiny bit of warmth in her; hanging around Drake could be bad for her both professionally and personally. Nothing good would come from getting involved with someone she was treating.

  With the sexy grin still plastered on his face, Drake encroached on her personal space. "Sure, your place or mine?"