Chapter 16

Kate drifted through the doors to the athletic complex, certain the perma-smile on her face looked every bit as goofy as it felt but too happy to care. Danny had taken her to Caprice for dinner. The restaurant was not only the home of an award-winning chef, but also a favorite with the locals. The place had been packed when they walked through the doors.

She’d stood inches taller than Danny in the heels she’d worn in retaliation for the skirt demand, but it didn’t seem to make much difference to him. He guided her through the crowded tables, his hand warm on the small of her back and his smile wide. They’d endured the drive-bys from friends and fans and even signed a few autographs. Danny didn’t seem to mind that she signed three to his one, but he grew impatient with the speculative glances halfway through their appetizer. The second she set her fork aside, he took her hand in his, making it clear they were anything but enemies.

Even Millie’s late-night phone call did little to dampen the evening’s perfection. If anything, the older woman’s raspy harangue added fuel to the fire.

Kate smiled as she strode down the deserted corridor. For the first time since her affair with Danny began, she’d awakened to find him nestled into the pillow beside hers. He looked so delicious in his sleep—an overgrown boy with whiskers speckled with silver and a mouth so kissably soft it wouldn’t have shocked her to discover it was outlawed in some conservative states. By unspoken agreement, they’d moved their early-morning workout session from the weight room to the bedroom. But unlike the joyous pillage and plunder of the previous night, their lazy, languid coupling in the gray light of dawn seemed more of a celebration of freedom.

She didn’t even mind that he refused to let her out of the bed to brush her teeth. He loved her, morning breath and all. She was his. He was hers. And they didn’t care if the whole world knew it.

Her smile grew to the Joker proportions as she tapped the faded plywood Wolcott Warriors sign permanently mounted to the cinder-block wall. Not that she needed extra luck. She’d gotten lucky a total of three times in the past eighteen hours. The wicked smirk Danny wore as he strolled from her front door to his truck told her she was bound to come into more good fortune soon.

She rounded the corner at full speed but slid to a stop when she spotted Jim Davenport leaning against the wall outside her office. He had a copy of that morning’s Sentinel and his ever-present tablet curled in one hand. An insolent sneer twisted his beigey-bland features into something almost interesting when he pushed away from the wall. Kate opted for offense. No way she was letting a loser like Jim force her into playing defense.

“Jim. How did you get in here?”

He snorted as if her questioning a reporter’s ability to gain access to a building closed to the general public this early in the morning should have been obvious. And it was. “I know people,” he said with a dismissive shrug. “Other than you, that is.”

He unfolded the paper to show a grainy photo printed under the “Out and About” header. “To think I bought all that bullshit you used to spew about preferential treatment. I actually admired how scrupulous you were about it.” The sneer seeped into his voice as he took a step toward her. “So stupid of me. I should have realized that a good screw would have meant so much more to a woman like you than some pesky scruples.”

Kate blinked, unsure how he managed to knock the ball out of her hands so quickly. But she recovered soon enough. Shaking off the commentary on her sex life and whatever the hell he meant by a woman like you, she charged at him, over six feet of woman pissed off about having her exceptional mood pissed on.

“What exactly were you after, Jim, sex or a story? Because I could never figure that out. Maybe if I’d been a little clearer on what our relationship was, I might have been more forthcoming, but I owe you nothing.”

The once-over he gave her made her skin creep and crawl. “I wouldn’t have minded the sex,” he conceded at last. “Lucky for me, I got the story without having to go that far.”

A chill raced through her. She froze in place, willing every muscle in her body to be still as she scanned his face, searching for any hint of his next play. Only her rebellious heart dared to move. Each thump against her breastbone felt like a blow. She focused all her energy on holding his gaze and tamping down the swell of panic rising inside her. “What story?”

Jim smirked as he tipped his head to study the photo in the paper. “You and your guy look good together. The sparks fly on camera, but you know that already, don’t you? Got you both national airtime. Not that you really needed it, but then again, people tend to forget about women’s sports once the highlight reels stop running.”

Her hands curled into fists, but she held back the punch she desperately wanted to throw. Her hands were too important to her to risk breaking a knuckle on this bonehead. She was still attempting to summon a scathing retort when he droned on.

“Of course, your little dog and pony show scored lots of free promo for the university. Tell me, Kate, were you the dog or the pony?”

“Get out.” She ground the words from between clenched teeth.

Davenport just laughed her off. “Hey, look on the bright side. Your new boyfriend had enough pull to remind NSN that you’re still around. They finally shot the fawning feature film you’ve always wanted, and it’s all thanks to Dreamboat Danny.”

“That documentary was contracted two years ago,” she retorted.

“And they managed to get a crew on campus just two weeks after Coach McMillan’s inaugural press conference.” He tossed the paper at her feet. The photo of her and Danny holding hands across a table stared up at her. “Well played, Kate. Too bad you won’t be able to leverage your boyfriend’s notoriety too much longer. You’ll have to find some other schmuck to set a pick for you.”

Her head shot up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means lover boy is in violation of his contract. The board can fire him today.” He raised his eyebrows, daring her to refute the statement.

Hands on her hips, she curled her fingers around the bone like she did when she was trying to catch her wind. It was the exact same spot Danny grabbed when he pulled her hips high in the air and plunged into her until she screamed his name. Powered by the memory of kisses feathered along her skin, she planted her feet and prepared to take Jim’s charge full force.

“We’re colleagues. We had dinner.”

“You’re holding hands,” he pointed out.

She tried to match his snide tone but fell short as she fumbled for plausible deniability. “We were shaking hands. He’d just agreed to reinflate all the basketballs in the storage closet each week if I brought him a Cubs hat back from my trip to Chicago.”

Jim nodded as if he might actually swallow that load of bullshit and flipped open the cover on his tablet. “Good, ’cause I doubt he’ll be wearing the green and gold much longer.”

He turned the pad to show a photo of her kissing Danny goodbye that very morning. She wore nothing but a faded Warrior Women T-shirt and a pair of panties that showed as she stretched into the kiss.

“Not that it matters. It seems there are a few programs looking for a new head coach. Now that Samlin popped his redemption cherry, Danny Boy may have other options. We all knew this was a stepping stone, but I guess we thought we’d get to see the guy call one play before he skipped.”

Danny had teased her about giving a floor show as she shoved him out the door. She stared at the photo, memorizing every crease in his rumpled slacks. She’d put those pleats in the front of his dress shirt with her very own hands. The green-and-gold Wolcott hat he wore to cover his bedhead was hers. He was hers. Or she thought he was. But for how long?

Squaring her shoulders, she looked Jim straight in the eye. “What story are you looking for, Davenport?”

“Something better than another up close and personal with the NCAA basketball’s reigning queen.”

His words proved to be a timely reminder of who and what she was. “That’s the only story I have to tell.”

“I bet I can get a juicier story from your lesser half. I want to know what really went down at Northern and what he expects to get out of coaching a team like Wolcott.” He snapped the cover closed on the tablet and brushed past her as if they hadn’t shared the world’s most anticlimactic courtship. “Tell Coach McMillan I’ll be in touch to set up my exclusive.”

“He won’t give it to you,” Kate called after him.

“He’ll give it to me,” he said without turning back. “You can call the dinner a business meeting if you like, but I can email this little scrap of evidence straight to the chancellor’s office.” He paused, derision contorting his bland features into something ugly. “Nice panties, by the way. If I’d known you were wearing something that girlie, I might have tried a little harder to get a peek at them.”

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Kate was wedged into Danny’s broom closet of an office with a wall of unpacked cardboard cartons boxing them in close. She and the university’s athletic director were the only things standing between her stubborn alpha male of a lover and the phone on his desk. He’d threatened to plow through them both to get to it, but Mike hadn’t flinched, and Kate figured she was safe enough taking her cues from him.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t give in to him. It’s blackmail. He doesn’t have the balls to follow through anyway,” she asserted, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt.

Danny glared at her. “It’s not about the balls. It’s the cockblocking that’s got him pissed off.”

“I don’t think so.” The tips of her ears warmed at the compliment, but she snorted nonetheless. Casting a sidelong glance at Mike, she shook her head. “If he really wanted to get into my pants, he would have made it a while ago.”

Danny’s jaw tightened. “He didn’t try because he knew you were too much for him.”

The AD feigned interest in a box labeled “Special Teams and Other Shit,” but the color rose in his face. “All that aside, we can do more damage control internally. I’ve called Millie. She was scheduled to have a root canal this morning but ended up canceling it.” He chanced a small smile. “That alone should get you a little forgiveness for blowing her battle-of-the-sexes strategy.”

“Yeah, but now she’ll want to exploit the sex,” Kate muttered.

“I don’t care what either of you say,” Danny interjected. “I’m talking to Davenport. Whether he has a hard-on for Kate or for me, it doesn’t matter. I’m tired of taking the hits. The media’s been coming at me from all sides for the past four years.” He turned his full attention on Mike. “I’ll talk to the chancellor and the board myself, and I’ll do it before I talk to Davenport, but I’m not keeping my mouth shut on this one. I will tell the truth. Whether people choose to believe it is their problem.”

Mike pursed his lips as he considered Danny’s play-calling. “Enforcing the morality clause is optional,” he mused. “It’s not automatic termination, so if you can talk a good game with the chancellor—”

“I don’t need to talk any game.” Danny planted his hands on his hips. “I just need to know if you guys are going to cover my blind side.”

“I saw that movie.” The words popped out. Kate clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Both men stared at her.

While Mike wore the expected “are you crazy?” crease between his brows, Danny’s eyes danced with affection and amusement. “Then you know one bad hit can end a career.”

She blinked, and the common denominator finally seemed so obvious, she was embarrassed to have missed it. All this time, it wasn’t about her versus Danny or the two of them in collusion against Mike and the administration he represented. It was the three of them against everyone who didn’t eat, sleep, and breathe pure love of a game. Any game.

“Aren’t the three of us proof of that?” Kate asked. This time, the guys wore matching looks of puzzlement. “We all took hits that knocked us out of the game. Mine might not have come from a flying tackle, but believe me. When body parts bump from sixteen inches off the floor, the landing is rarely pretty.”

“I can’t imagine you being anything but pretty,” Danny said, and the gentle gruffness in his voice made her knees wobbly.

“I, uh, sorry.” Mike made a point of clearing his throat. “Still here.”

Kate couldn’t spare their boss a glance. Not when Danny was looking at her like that. His steely-blue eyes were deceptively calm, but in their depths, she saw determination burning bright as a gas flame. And there was nothing sexier than a man so cool he smoked like dry ice.

“Don’t talk to him. Please,” she added a bit belatedly. “Call that cute, little Barbie girl from NSN. She’d love to get to you.”

The corner of Danny’s mouth twitched, but he gave nothing else away. “Jealous?”

“I could snap her like a twig,” she retorted.

“And I am still standing here,” Mike chimed in.

“Why is that?” Danny asked without taking his eyes from hers. “Don’t you think you should be calling the chancellor and prepping him for my call?”

“I never said I’d run interference for you.” They both turned at that, and Mike gave them a meaningful glare.

“You will,” Danny said quietly.

“Maybe I should just fire you now and save everyone the trouble,” the AD said heatedly.

Kate scoffed. “You won’t.”

“How do you know?”

Mike’s expression was hard. Holding his gaze was a challenge, but Kate was a woman born to smash any obstacle that got in her way. That was what she’d lost sight of in the years since her playing career ended. She was the type made to climb mountains to reach her goal. The kind of woman who fought for the man she loved and the life she wanted.

“You won’t because firing him would be ridiculous, and you are not a ridiculous man.” She turned to face Mike as certainty bloomed inside her. “You’ll call the chancellor and anyone else you need to call because you don’t want to lose the best thing Wolcott football has had going for it in…forever.”

“That isn’t saying much,” Danny reminded her.

Shifting her attention to the man on the chopping block, she gave him a smile that felt more than a little shaky. “Just hold your horses and wait for Mike to grease the wheels. Don’t talk to anyone but the two of us. And I mean anyone.”

“Even my mother?” Danny shot back, hackles rising.

“Your mother is okay, but I’d appreciate it if you’d hold off calling your agent until we’ve had a chance to talk.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mike asked, instantly defensive.

“It means we all know Danny has other options.”

The AD whirled to face his friend. “You’re jumping?”

“Only if someone makes me.” The two men stood still for an endless moment, eyes locked on each other. Finally, Danny turned and looked directly at Kate. “I don’t want to go.”

“Then we have to see what we can do to keep you here.” Her voice was embarrassingly husky.

She reached over and grabbed a sticky note and pen from the cluttered desk. Biting her lip, she scrawled an amount with a staggering number of zeroes attached to it, folded the paper in half, and thrust it at the AD.

“This is the minimum it’ll take to keep me. It’s less than Geno Auriemma, but more than everyone else,” she said, referring to the winningest coach in women’s basketball. “And when I top Geno’s record, I’ll be coming back at you, so you might as well break it to the chancellor while you’re chewing the fat.”

Mike goggled at the number on the paper. “I can’t… No one—”

She held up a hand to stop his stammering. “Bullshit.”

“God, I love you.”

Danny’s quiet declaration snared her attention. When she turned, she found him staring at her, his face alight with admiration. She clamped her mouth shut. A lifetime of living in locker rooms charged with the hormones of two dozen women had taught her that silence was often the most effective weapon when trying to get one’s point across. The seconds crept past, each one ticking like a time bomb as the three of them sized one another up. Finally, she cracked the tension with a grim smile.

“So now we all know where we stand.” Shooting a glance at Mike, she yanked open the office door and gulped in some less-testosterone-saturated oxygen. “Danny’s not the only one with options, Mike. Make sure the chancellor and the board understand that when you show them that number. I think we can all agree I’ve earned it.”

Mike said nothing, only nodded and tucked the paper into his pocket.

“Get to it, ladies,” Kate ordered. “I have a camp to run, and I’m missing my morning session.”

Their heads jerked back in unison. Mike scowled, but Danny just guffawed. “Ladies?”

She smirked. “You’re right. I shouldn’t insult women like that.” Stepping into the hall, she started to pull the door closed behind her and paused. Meeting Danny’s eyes, she smiled. “Stop by if you get a chance. I love having pretty cheerleaders watch while I work.”

* * *

“See what I’m up against?” Danny asked his old friend. He sighed and shoved his hands into the pockets of his track pants. “I can’t walk away this time, Mike. I won’t roll over and play dead for you or for this job. Not again. Never again.”

“Even if she asks you to?”

“Especially if she asks me to.” Danny skirted the edge of the desk and dropped into his chair like a bag of rocks. “She doesn’t want me to lose this job. I don’t want to either, but I can’t deny her, and I won’t hide behind her skirts.”

“She doesn’t wear skirts very often.”

“Actually, she does. She looks fucking incredible in them.”

Mike sank into the lone guest chair as if he was scared it would be yanked out from under him at any time. “Listen, I know where you’re coming from. Kate does too, if I’m reading her right.” He sat back, caution slowing his movements. “But you can’t just pound Davenport into the ground.”

“Bet me.”

Mike smirked and shook his head. “He knows people around here. Board members, boosters, former and future players. Don’t let the size of the pond fool you. It may be small, but it runs deep. He’s been in the loop for the better part of a decade, and he hasn’t completely given up his hopes of a national spotlight. Don’t make yourself his launch pad.”

“You know what Tommy did,” Danny said, looking his friend in the eye. “If I can handle getting torpedoed by my little brother, I can handle a small-time local reporter. I just wish I knew whether the guy’s semistiffy is for me or Kate.”

“I think he’s after both of you.” Mike shrugged. “All the more reason not to be hasty. You might be ready to charge in, but you’re not the only high profile at risk here. You have to think about how this could blow back on Kate.”

Danny exhaled in a slow, measured gust. “Fine. I’ll wait for Millie to spin her magic web, but I’m dealing with Davenport one way or another. Damned if I’ll have that pencil-necked geek lurking around Kate’s house again. That’s just damn creepy.”

Mike smiled as he reached for the phone on the desk. “I’ll hold him down for you.”

* * *

Danny wound the frayed threads of his self-control tight. “We’ve been over this,” he growled.

Millie didn’t even blink. She just stared at him over the rims of her zebra-striped reading glasses, unmoved. “And we’ll be over it a dozen more times before I let you do an interview.” Her lips pursed, and she wrinkled her nose. “Even one with a wanker like Jim Davenport.”

“You think he’s a wanker too?”

Millie just rolled her eyes. “You won the fair maiden. No need to trample the knave into the ground. Hell, I doubt the guy could even lift one of those jousting things.”

Danny grinned, tickled that Kate’s friend found it so easy to brush away the competition. “Lance.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll all concede that your lance is bigger. Now answer the question,” she prompted.

He heaved a heavy sigh as he slumped deeper into the chair. “I’m just proud to be a part of the Wolcott athletic program. Coach Snyder has been very helpful and encouraging with my players. I can’t wait for the Warrior faithful to see our team in action this fall.”

“He’ll keep trying to trip you up, trick you into saying something personal about you and Kate,” she said, tapping her stylus against the screen of her ever-present tablet.

“I’ve been down this road before,” he reminded her.

Eyebrows arched, she leaned in and spoke slowly but with scalpel-edged precision. “Yes, but the last time, the woman in question decided to ditch you, spill her guts to the press, and marry your little brother.” She fixed him with a piercing stare that had Danny squelching the urge to squirm. “I’m pretty sure Kate’s not going to go that route, so you need to be prepared to protect her privacy.”

“Her privacy is my privacy.”

“Yes, well, that’s something, isn’t it?” She flashed a sweet smile so patently false he nearly burst out laughing. “It’s not just her privacy at stake here. You know that, right?”

“I do.”

“I mean, her heart is on the line too. Do you get that?” she prodded.

“Mine is too.”

His blunt answer seemed to take some of the starch out of her. “That shithead she married hurt her, and now this jerkoff is going to give it his best shot—”

“He’ll have to get past me to do it,” Danny insisted, cutting her off.

Millie set her precious tablet aside, tugged at the hem of the snug skirt she wore, and rose from her seat. “Fine.”

Danny stood too, relieved to be excused from this inquisition so he’d have time to prepare for the next. He had an appointment to meet with Mike and the chancellor at three. An appointment that might make all of Millie’s diligent interview preparation a moot point. But he couldn’t think that way. He wouldn’t. When he’d first been offered the job at Wolcott, he thought the school was a bit of a joke. Now, he never wanted to leave.

He extended a hand toward Millie. “Thank you for all that you’ve done since I came here.”

Without warning, the too-cool PR woman was gone, and he found himself being hugged. Hard. “Break her heart, and I’ll break you into pieces so tiny all the king’s horses and all the king’s men wouldn’t even find ’em. You get me?” she whispered in her three-pack-a-day rasp.

“Got you.”

Her smile was a little watery when she pulled away, giving his arm an absent pat. “Just figure out a way to get through these next couple of days, and this will all blow over.”

Though he admired her optimism, he couldn’t quite buy into the possibility of a quick and painless end to all this. “Thanks. It might take more than a couple of days, but I plan to stick.”

Millie picked up her tablet and tapped it with one scarlet-tipped finger to wake the screen. “The key is to minimize exposure. Try to keep this local. Trust me,” she added, turning her attention to the screen with a grim smile. “There’s always a bigger story.”

* * *

Danny’s chest felt too tight as he stalked through the empty halls. Back in his closet of an office, he couldn’t settle. His skin was itchy. His talk with Millie left him itching to do something. Anything. He tried to busy himself with finalizing the schedules for the upcoming football camps, but Mack pretty much had them lined out.

The minutes slowed to a crawl. Feeling defiant, he unpacked the tower of boxes he’d ignored since the day he’d moved in. The need to see Kate built inside him like a pressure cooker, but she was scheduled for lunch at the Kiwanis Club. He’d spotted blue sky and green grass on the other side of Millie’s window. Too twitchy to sit still, he decided to change into his running gear and hit the track. Mike could leave a message on his cell if he needed to. There was just no way he could sit there and wait for the ax to fall.

Mind made up, he started for the door. But the second he twisted the knob, his phone rang. Danny frowned as he answered. His old friend Mike sounded grim as he informed him there was no need to wait until three to come over to the administration building. Chancellor Martin would see him now.