Chapter 2

The sound of the Marching Warriors blaring the school’s fight song, “War Cry,” filled the air, and Ty’s entire body went rigid. Instinctively, he reached into his pocket for his cell, but he came up empty. He groped blindly at the area around him. Nothing. Then, mercifully, the phone fell silent.

Ty felt the light pouring through the wall of glass before he even dared to crack an eyelid. It wasn’t the good kind of light, the sort that welcomed and warmed a guy. No, this was diabolical light. Light determined to leech the last of his life force right out of him. He could feel his liver shriveling. The roar of his own blood in his ears. The persistent throbbing of a brain counting down the seconds to implosion. His eyes remained glued shut. If he wasn’t mistaken, someone had cut out his tongue and replaced it with a swatch of suede.

The phone chirped to indicate a missed call, and he groaned. He wasn’t dead.

Damn.

He winced as he peeled his cheek off the cushion. A dark patch marked the spot where he’d drooled in his sleep. Stupor, he corrected, pushing up on shaky arms. He hadn’t been asleep; he’d been sleeping off an epic bender. One that started the minute Millie walked out his door.

Tired of women leaving him high and dry, he’d decided to get wet. Soused.

Ty swung his feet to the floor. His knees popped and creaked, as usual. His head thumped like a subwoofer. His vision swam and his stomach lurched. The second he felt the bile rise, he slammed his eyes shut again.

Funny, he’d always considered the floor-to-ceiling windows in the great room an asset. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking. The massive panes of reflective glass allowed an obscene amount of light into the room. Sliding his parched tongue over cracked lips, he grunted and forced himself to sit up straighter. This injury was self-inflicted. “Man up,” he whispered.

Shuffling across the room, he marveled at the fact that he’d managed the distance to the wet bar. The bottles marked vodka and scotch stood empty. Only the bourbon survived, but it had taken a hit as well.

Millie hadn’t been far off in her assessment on how much it would take to get him drunk. No surprise. Millie was rarely wrong.

Ignoring the mini fridge stocked with bottles of imported water, he flipped on the tap, held a glass under the faucet, then guzzled all he managed to capture in three big gulps. Two glasses later, he started to feel reconstituted. He filled the tumbler one more time, then hazarded a look around. The television remote sat squarely on the arm of the chair. Other than the spotted sofa and the empty liquor bottles, the room didn’t appear to be any worse for wear. But his phone was missing.

He stood still and listened for the chirp again. He wasn’t sure if the noise was a notification or the sound of the battery’s death throes. A true man of the millennium, he’d never allowed his phone to run all the way down. God forbid he risk missing something. Until this week, he might have counted his phone among his favorite possessions, and he had a lot of possessions.

But ever since a tip from one of his assistant coaches pointed him toward his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s PicturSpam account, his precious phone had slipped down a few notches in the rankings. Incriminating photos. She hadn’t only made a fool of him with the man she was now calling her “soul mate.” Oh, no. Once people got to talking, it came out that she’d had inappropriate relationships with at least three of his former players and the assistant who’d taken a job with their biggest rival.

Mari had been restless and unhappy with his lack of high-profile success; he knew that. He just didn’t know how far afield she’d strayed in the two short years they’d been at Wolcott until he saw that picture.

The phone bleeped again.

Narrowing his eyes at the oversized armchair, he approached with caution. His cell wasn’t on the arm or under the cushion. He ran his fingers along the crevice between the seat and the arms and back. Nothing. Frustrated and aching, he dropped into the chair and stared up at the dark television screen. If he waited, the damn thing would beep again, and he’d get a better bead on its whereabouts. Propping his elbow on the armrest, he cradled his aching head. Two fingers pressed into his temple helped alleviate the worst of the pounding. He leaned into the relief.

He’d almost dozed off when “War Cry” blasted once more.

Hurling himself from the chair, Ty let loose with a cry of his own as his reconstructed knee hit the floor. Bionic man my ass, he thought as he swung his head around, desperate to find the source. He blinked as a beam of sunlight bounced off the glass screen. He lunged for the screaming device, swiping his hand across the glass as if he were a grizzly set to tear the damn thing to shreds in order to make the ringtone stop.

“Hello,” he growled.

“Good morning, friend.”

The husky rasp combined with the intimate greeting did a myriad of things to him. A flush burned deep beneath his skin. His sluggish thoughts slowed to a near halt, then jumped into hyperdrive as a series of images and remembered sensations rocketed through his brain. Millie Jensen slipping through his back door. Cherry-cola-red hair. Bright-eyed determination. Long, lithe arms. Bare but not naked. No, he hadn’t gotten her naked. A realization that filled him with relief and disappointment.

Millie’d popped up at his patio door wearing some kind of silky black tank top over skinny black pants. A cat burglar in zebra-print shoes.

Cigarette pants. That’s what Mari had called them. The term suited Millie. The deep, throaty timbre of her voice would lead anyone to believe the woman chain-smoked Marlboros all day. But she didn’t. Millie was a distance runner. Had been since her high school days, she’d told him. Each year, she entered and completed one of the big marathons. Boston. New York. Chicago. She’d pounded the pavement in all those cities and more. And finished with impressive if not news-making time.

He wasn’t surprised she would make a good showing. Everything about Wolcott’s public relations guru was sleek, streamlined, and ruthlessly vetted. The lines of her clothing suited her to perfection. As did the flamboyant animal prints and outrageous colors she chose. Millie didn’t do anything she didn’t want to do, and what she did do, she did breathtakingly well.

Even kissing.

And Ty certainly remembered laying one on his good friend Millie the night before. Mortification mixed with a smidge of pride as he tried to figure out exactly how to respond to her greeting. As always, he did what he did best—pressed until he was forced to fall back. “Good morning, sweetheart.”

“Sleep well?”

Ty didn’t know how it was possible for a woman who sounded like a veteran truck-stop waitress to coo, but somehow, Millie pulled it off. “Like a baby,” he grumbled.

“I bet.”

Every word left unspoken sizzled and popped in the silence that followed. Weakened by dehydration and the harsh sunlight, Ty closed his eyes, then covered them with his hand for added protection. “I had the strangest dream…”

The opening hung like a buzzer beater hurled from the half-court line. He counted three full seconds off the clock before she took mercy on him and went up for the alley-oop. “Did you? Was I in it?”

“You were the star.”

Millie laughed. As expected, she had few girlish giggles or glass-shattering squeals in her repertoire. Only a low, gravelly chuckle that let him know she knew exactly what had gone on in his dream. Because his fantasies had actually come to life. After nearly two years of keeping his hands shoved firmly in his pockets, he’d given in to the impulse that had seized him the first time he’d laid eyes on Millie. He’d seized her. Kissed her. Finally. But the scene hadn’t played out in any of the millions of ways he’d imagined.

“I’m always the star, Ty.”

Her cocky retort jolted him out of the potential pity party. Confidence. Her self-assurance was one of Millie’s most attractive qualities. And that was saying a lot. The woman had assets in abundance. Even if they were the obvious ones. “I have no doubt.”

Running his hand down his face, he rubbed his fingers over two-day’s growth of beard. Did she leave his house with beard burn? Did she like the way he kissed?

But of all the questions bouncing around in his head, he only needed answers to one. “Do I owe you an apology?”

“Do you think you do?” she countered.

Ty grimaced and shielded his eyes again as he lay back. If he stretched out on the hard, unforgiving floor like some kind of religious martyr, would she let him off the hook? Did he want to be let off?

Millie was a master at playing games. She’d keep dodging and deflecting until she forced him to come straight at her. He knew it. She knew it. This was a dance they’d perfected over countless months of fruitless flirting. But soon, he’d be free. He was pretty sure she was free too. If they wanted to, they could see if the attraction between them continued to blossom, even after the fruit wasn’t forbidden anymore.

Exhausted by the ramblings of his own thoughts, Ty heaved a sigh he dredged up from his toes and gave up the struggle. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable last night.”

“Well, I can tell you I’m probably not going to take up breaking and entering as a hobby. I don’t have the right footwear for a life of crime.”

Amused by her dry reply, he pitched his voice low and stern. “For God’s sake, save the shoes.”

“One must have one’s priorities in line,” she answered with a prim, little sniff.

“Millie, I—”

“If you’re going to apologize for kissing my socks off, you can save your sorrys.”

Pleased, he smiled for the first time since he woke up not-quite-dead. “You weren’t wearing socks.”

She snorted. “How would you know? You can’t remember your own name at the moment.”

“I remember kissing you,” he retorted. “I remember every second.”

Truth. He did remember, despite the cotton wool filling in his head. He remembered every second of it all too well. The slide of her lips. Her taut, little body pressed against his. She had small breasts and boyish hips. Her arms were toned, the muscles long and subtly cut. And they’d been bare. Silky, soft, and supple.

She wore her hair short and changed colors so often, he’d stopped being shocked by the alteration. Brusque and sharp-tongued, he’d seen her dismantle reporters piece by piece, all the while smiling as if she were having the time of her life. Taken individually, not one of these attributes should have turned him on, but wrapped up in Millie, the package worked for him.

He cleared his throat. “So you don’t want me to apologize?”

“Not for kissing me, but you might consider an apology for ignoring my instructions about not talking to reporters,” she answered in her brisk, efficient manner. “And you might consider groveling when or if Greg Chambers calls.”

Ty scowled as he searched his memory, but he couldn’t quite bring anything non-Millie-related into focus. Dread welled in his gut. He hated the National Sports Network’s golden boy and his smug smirk, but Ty couldn’t for the life of him remember what he’d done to owe the man an apology. “Chambers? Why? Did I talk to Greg Chambers?”

He heard her exhale long and slow. “No, but you talked to Jim Davenport from the Sentinel last night.”

Jim Davenport. Greg Chambers. Millie. A montage of clips from the night before flashed through his brain. Finally, he zoomed in on Davenport. The slimy, sad wuss of a sports reporter worked for both the local television station and the newspaper. Old Jim used to date Kate Snyder, Wolcott’s women’s basketball coach. Until Danny McMillan came to town and swept Kate right out from under Davenport’s nose. Good thing too. Kate was miles too good for a jackass like Davenport.

But as a result, their once-staunch supporter had turned against the university. In the weeks since Kate and Danny had gotten hitched at the courthouse, old Jim seemed to have developed an agenda. One that included a hard-on for anything having to do with Warrior basketball. Ty’s troubles with Mari had made him an easy target. It took a second for him to connect the dots in his head, but by the time the last line was in place, the dread in his stomach liquefied into thick, bitter bile and started to rise.

“I talked to Jim last night,” he confessed.

“Yes, you did.” Now Millie was using her patient kindergarten teacher voice, which was not a good sign. Millie wasn’t known for her patience and, as far as he knew, had never stepped foot in a kindergarten classroom. “He called me bright and early this morning. Told me that while you were talking to him, you apparently cast some rather…offensive aspersions on Mr. Chambers’s athletic prowess as well as his manhood. You also said you’d had him banned from the Wolcott University campus.” She paused. “That is why Mr. Davenport ended up calling me. He was kind enough to ask me to verify the quote about the ban on Mr. Chambers.” She paused to let the information sink in before going for the kill. “I’ve tried to reach you by phone a number of times this morning. I was about to come over to see if you’d put on your concrete shoes and jumped in the pool. I’m glad you didn’t.”

Feeling like ten thousand kinds of a fool, he wedged the phone against his ear and pressed the heels of his hands to his eye sockets. “I was angry. I didn’t want to say, ‘No comment.’ I wanted to comment, to say…something.”

“Well, you sure did,” she said snidely.

He groaned again. “You left the party to check on me last night, and I kissed you.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t say I wasn’t well rewarded.”

“And now you’re having to babysit me again. Millie, I’m sorry.” Letting one hand fall to the floor, he took hold of the phone once more. “What story did Davenport run?”

“Well, I managed to squash the bit about the ban,” she announced. “But since the rest were direct quotes and opinions you willing gave to a member of the press…”

He didn’t need to see her to know she was using the universal hand signal for “I can’t fix stupid.” He ran his hand over his face again, as if he could scrub the cobwebs from his brain. “Oh shit.”

“The Sentinel doesn’t have a wide circulation, and we are talking Wolcott men’s basketball, so not a headline grabber.”

The dismissive commentary didn’t offend him. Everyone knew the Warriors were the whipping boys of the mighty Mid-Continental Conference. Two factors allowed the school to play with the big boys—tradition and the law of averages. Wolcott’s student athletes were better known for putting up impressive grade point numbers, even if their stats lacked in athletic endeavors. As a founding member, Wolcott would have to willingly sever ties with the conference. And why would they do that when the school got a piece of the conference media pie?

“Unfortunately, one of the wire guys picked up a few of your choice comments, and word has filtered back to NSN.”

Ty imagined Greg Chambers’s fat head exploding on a live feed. He smiled, then groaned as the pull of facial muscles reminded him he still had his own aching head to contend with. Part of him couldn’t help but wonder if cranial explosion might not be a relief. Quick, maybe somewhat messy, but painless. Not such a bad end. Had to beat the slow agony he was enduring. “You got some of those cement shoes?” he asked, his voice low and raspy.

Millie laughed, and the sharp edges of her disapproval melted away in the warmth of the sound. “You didn’t say anything we haven’t all thought.”

“Yes, but I said them out loud. To a reporter. One with a growing vendetta to feed,” he added as if she didn’t already know about Jim Davenport’s bruised feelings.

“Yes, you did.”

Ty stared at the ceiling. For months now, he’d been spinning like a top. One whirling a little off-kilter. Now his life was careening out of control. He needed divine intervention. And he had it. He had Millie on his side.

“What do I need to do?”

She blew out a breath as if she’d been hanging out in the deep end, waiting for him to come to his senses. “First, you call Greg and apologize. It won’t be enough, but it’s a start. I’ll sort out the rest of that mess later,” she assured him, all brisk efficiency. “Then, we talk to the rest of the media.”

He heard the tap-tap-tap of her fingernail and knew she was typing notes one-fingered into her ever-present tablet. He wished he could see her. Seeing Millie spring into action was something to behold. She was a force of nature. One of the wonders of the world. Heaven help anyone who dared to get in her way.

“So far, all the chatter has been about Mari and Dante and the morons speculating. It’s time for us to step up and take control of the message.”

Though he knew she was right, it still pinched to agree to the plan. After all, no guy wants to be the schmuck whose wife left him for another man. A younger man. One with the future of his choosing all stretched out in front of him. How was he supposed to make getting dumped look good?

“Ty?”

Millie’s gentle prod pulled him out of his thoughts and back into the present.

And gave him the answer he needed. Millie would know how to spin this mess so he came out looking like a champion. He trusted her. Which seemed odd given what the last woman in his life had done to him. But Millie wasn’t anything like Mari. He knew that right down to his bones. The two women couldn’t have been more different.

Besides, what choice did he have? He was the one who had married a woman over a decade younger than he was. He’d ignored the dollar signs in Mari’s eyes, hauled her off to Vegas, and tied the knot before either of them could think better of the plan. Then, when his idiocy exploded in his face, he was the fool who had holed up in his monstrosity of a house swilling scotch and spilling his guts to some reporter with an ax to grind.

Millie was right, as usual. The time had come to set things straight. He’d apologize to Chambers, let the press poke and prod at him a little, then he’d head back to Nevada to get divorced not quite as quickly as he’d gotten hitched. The wait would be shorter there, and he wouldn’t have to prove anything more than irreconcilable differences. Since Mari had a kid with a multimillion-dollar contract under his belt, she was in as much of a rush as he was.

“Ty, are you still there? Snore or something if you’ve passed out.”

“I’m here.”

“You can do this. All we need is a plan.”

“A plan like what?”

“Well, you could start with a shower.”

Her suggestion was so on target it hurt. “Right. Shower. Getting up.”

“Exactly what you need to do, Ty,” she said gently. “Get up, get out, and get on with your life. I’ll help you.”

He huffed a little laugh, then gave in. “Okay,” he said into the phone. “Let’s do this thing.”