Chapter 1

Marabelle didn’t suck at everything. She made a mouthwatering orange pound cake with chocolate ganache. She made the Wicked Witch come to life when she read aloud to her students. And she had a mean slice backhand that gave her opponents trouble on the tennis court. But when it came to biting her tongue and taking direction, she sucked.

“Marabelle, are you listening?”

Marabelle blinked several times to keep from dozing off as Mrs. Crow droned on and on at the tedious gala meeting. She forced her tired eyes to focus on the blue-and-gold-bound agenda in front of her. Marabelle’s cell phone beeped, indicating a text.

“Marabelle!”

Marabelle straightened her posture, grappling to turn off her phone.

“Mrs. Evans is suggesting that you help with the auction as well as the coordination of the golf and tennis tournaments.” Mrs. Crow enunciated as if Marabelle had comprehension problems.

Oh brother. Another project to add to her ever-growing list.

Marabelle shifted her attention to the bleached-blond Mrs. Evans, head of the gala committee, and then to the other members seated around the conference room table, all staring back as if a third eye had grown on her forehead.

“Why me?”

But Marabelle Fairchild already knew the answer to her question. Brandon Aldridge. A five-year-old in her kindergarten class. Well, not him exactly, but rather his uncle, Nick Frasier, the famous NFL quarterback-turned-head-coach of the North Carolina Cherokees. Besides his impressive football career, Nick Frasier held the distinguished title of most eligible bachelor in the Raleigh-Durham area and the most smokin’ hot and sexy. And Trinity Academy for Boys and Girls wanted this particular available hunk helping out with their fund-raiser. To be specific, the women across the polished mahogany conference table with undisguised lust in their eyes wanted him in ways that Marabelle did not care to contemplate.

“Marabelle, honey, you need to use your connections and…assets to convince Coach Frasier to participate.” Carol Evans stumbled over the word assets as she clasped her yellow-diamond-encrusted fingers together.

Assets, my left toe. Compared to these perfectly coiffed women, who looked as if they had stepped out of the pages of Vogue on steroids, Marabelle felt like the poster child for unwanted orphans. Her wardrobe didn’t help. She wore a navy-blue cardigan over a white button-down blouse, and could’ve passed for one of her kindergartners rather than a thirty-year-old with a master’s degree in elementary education.

“We need to raise a considerable amount of money if we want to improve any of the playing facilities and add a permanent teaching position to the staff.” Carol Evans spoke with a Yankeefied Southern twang that grated on Marabelle’s true-blue Southern ears. It was a well-known fact that Carol Evans hailed from Trenton, New Jersey. But she’d married a native North Carolinian and had taken to her new identity faster than you could say “Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina.”

At the mention of the teaching position, Marabelle’s attention ratcheted up. She’d been barely eking by on a teacher’s assistant salary for the last three years, and she wanted nothing more than to be hired as a certified, permanent teacher.

Mrs. Crow said, “The board will seriously consider allocating monies we raise from the gala toward creating another teaching position if—”

“If I do what…exactly?” Marabelle leaned forward in her chair and waited. She hated the age-old twisted plot of high society women out to one-up each other in the name of charity. She recognized the competitive gleam in their eyes and the tension around their mouths. Her mother had worn that exact “game on” expression more times than Marabelle cared to remember. But she knew how the game was played, and she was ready to deal.

“Clearly, you don’t understand what’s at stake here,” Mrs. Burrows, a native Tar Heel, interjected as she played with a strand of perfect South Sea pearls around her neck. She and Mrs. Evans gave each other “we’re doomed” looks with the rise of their perfectly waxed eyebrows.

Marabelle definitely knew what was at stake…a significant increase in salary so she could continue to pay her mortgage without her mother bailing her out. A stand she took very seriously three years ago when she said no to her inheritance from her mother in order to gain her independence. Marabelle put on her best schoolteacher face and said, “I know exactly what’s at stake. You want to raise huge funds, and you want Brandon Aldridge’s famous uncle to participate by calling in a bunch of favors from all his celebrity friends and pro athletes, who will donate sports memorabilia and money.” This wasn’t Marabelle’s first rodeo.

“Well, yes, that’s precisely what we want,” Mrs. Evans said, sounding a bit startled at Marabelle’s acumen. “Marabelle, honey, what we’re all trying to say is that you don’t exactly have the best track record. You remember last year’s carnival?” Carol Evans sounded sympathetic, while looking anything but.

Reaching for her water bottle, Marabelle took a huge gulp before addressing the committee. She needed to make a good impression. These women may have thought she had nothing in common with them, but they were dead wrong. Marabelle had lived in their world for years and had learned from the master. “Once again, I’m sorry about the mishaps at the carnival last year. But in my defense, the minute I noticed the clown was drunk, I had him escorted off the grounds. And the carny apologized for setting the Tilt-a-Whirl at warp speed.” She omitted the part where he’d proceeded to proposition her.

“Three of our first graders were thrown into the holly bushes.” Beak-Face Crow scowled. “Thanks to Mrs. Evans’s husband, our school attorney”—she fluttered her hand in Carol’s direction—“we avoided a costly lawsuit.”

Marabelle had been thrust into taking over the volunteer job at the last minute, from a faculty member who’d suffered a broken foot. For the past three years, she’d been forced to “volunteer” a lot. Even though she hadn’t booked the carnival company, her reputation had been on shaky ground ever since.

“So the committee, faculty, and I thought we would offer you another chance to…you know…shine, so to speak, if you acquire Coach Frasier’s sponsorship…” Mrs. Crow’s voice trailed off.

So, that was the catch. They planned to hold a teaching position hostage until she had hooked Coach Frasier for their cause. Brilliant! But her parents, Edna and Ed Fairchild, hadn’t raised an idiot. Sarcastically, she blurted, “Why don’t we raise some real money and have all the eligible bachelors auction themselves off to the highest bidder?”

The school conference room grew so quiet Marabelle could hear the sweep of the second hand on the oversized black-and-white clock hanging above the closed door. Mr. Turner, the only male member of the committee, stopped swiveling in his high-back leather chair. All eyes fixed on her. Marabelle twisted her hands in her lap to keep from clapping them over her mouth. She’d just catapulted herself from the frying pan into the fryer.

Beak-Face Crow cleared her throat, appearing very interested in the papers she was shuffling between her bony fingers, while the Blondie Twins, Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Burrows, grinned like the Grinch contemplating diabolical ways to steal Christmas.

Mrs. Cartwright, the eldest member of the committee, continued to work on her needlepoint and, without looking up from her stitches, spoke in her gravelly voice. “You’ve just come up with the only idea that might work. A live auction with the best-looking bachelors we can find.”

Marabelle pitched forward, grasping the edge of the table until her knuckles turned white. “I was being facetious,” she said through cold lips. “Nobody is going to agree to auction himself off to a room of drooling, miserable housewives with too much money. It’s degrading.”

“It’s da bomb!” Carol Evans shouted in all her New Jersey glory. “A live bachelor auction! The perfect addition to this year’s gala. I can see it now.” Her eyes took on a dreamy quality while her hand floated in front of her face as if reading a marquee.

“It will be a huge success. The mothers at St. Michael’s are going to be pea green with envy,” Mrs. Burrows added.

The image of besting her good friends, who gave of their time and money at St. Michael’s, probably danced in Carol Evans’s over-bleached head. Raleigh’s high society had stringent requirements: children needed to attend either Trinity Academy or St. Michael’s. The schools shared a long, bitter rivalry, and just mentioning them in the same sentence was risky.

“I’m bidding on Coach Frasier. His abs make a great six-pack,” Mrs. Cartwright cackled as she snipped the end of a black thread.

Beak-Face Crow, the Blondie Twins, and even Mr. Turner talked at once as their excitement escalated over the racy new element to be added to this fine Christian event.

Marabelle watched in horror. The tornado was heading her way, and there was no stopping it.

* * *

Nick Frasier strolled into room B12, where his nephew attended kindergarten. He glanced around the empty classroom and then at his Rolex Submariner. Three minutes past four. The room appeared to have been swept clean of debris from a day of active kids. The small chairs pushed under the laminate desks looked like obedient little soldiers, and a hint of Lysol hung in the air as if the desktops had been wiped down. But no signs of life.

Until he heard grunting.

Nick’s eyebrows rose as he caught sight of an attractive, heart-shaped ass poking out from under a wall of cabinets below the windows across the room. He spied hot-pink panties peeking from the bottom of a pleated skirt.

He double-checked his location.

This was where his nephew went to kindergarten. Hand-painted pictures tacked up willy-nilly, toys lining one wall, Play-Doh, paint smells. Yep.

So what kind of place were they running around here, where young women showed their butts off to anyone who happened to walk by? Nick cleared his throat just as Miss Cute Ass yelled “Gotcha!” and bumped her head scooting her way out from under the furniture.

“Shhhugar. That hurt.”

A petite person struggled to stand, with a very large ball of caramel fur cradled in her arms. He remained unnoticed as she marched to the guinea pig cage on a nearby table and placed the furball on its wheel. She turned while brushing hair off her front, glanced up, and stopped short.

“Whoa, you’re huge.”

Miss Cute Ass gawked, but whether from fascination or fear, he couldn’t tell. He figured she’d seen him on TV, of course, when the camera would pan the sidelines of a Cherokees game. He always wore a billed Cherokees cap like the one he had on today, but with a headset attached, and he usually paced up and down the sidelines, barking orders or reviewing plays on a beat-up clipboard. But against the other players, the Carolina blue skies, and evergreen pine trees, he imagined it could be hard to determine true size.

He smiled as she started babbling.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to imply… It’s just that you look much smaller on TV.” She motioned with her hand. “Would you like some hand sanitizer?” She squirted some onto her palm from a huge, commercial-size pump that sat on the edge of the teacher’s desk. “You can never be too sanitary around here.”

Nick couldn’t agree more, but declined as she rubbed the clear goop over her palms and around the backs of her hands as if she were scrubbing up for surgery.

“Well, now we can shake hands without spreading germs.” She thrust her small hand forward. “Hey, I’m Marabelle Fairchild, Brandon’s teacher’s assistant. Mrs. Harris is on maternity leave.”

Brandon’s teacher? She had to be kidding.

Nick masked his surprise as he engulfed her much-smaller hand in his, shaking it firmly but gently. “Nick Frasier, Brandon’s uncle. I believe you wanted to meet with me about something?”

* * *

“Uh…Ms. Fairchild?” Coach Frasier gently shook her palm again. Marabelle stared at the end of her arm where her hand used to be, swallowed up within his warm grasp.

“Oh.” Marabelle snatched her hand back as if she’d gotten too close to a burning flame. Her face blazed. God’s nightgown, she needed to get herself back in the game.

Coach Frasier towered over her. He had to be about six four. A fine specimen indeed. Chiseled from his jaw down to his toes, the perfect proportions created by his broad shoulders and trim waist. Naturally sun-streaked, sandy-blond hair curled out from under his red cap. And golden-brown skin only highlighted his piercing blue eyes. The gods had kissed this guy but good. No wonder all the women in this town want a piece of him. Marabelle remembered the painful meeting the day before and what she had to do, and her stomach muscles tightened into a cramped ball.

“Take a seat, Coach Frasier, any seat,” she said, dreading her next course of action. Coach Frasier arched a brow at the room full of miniature furniture.

“How ’bout I just prop myself up against your desk?”

Coach Frasier had a deceptively soft but husky voice. Marabelle had the strangest sensation of melting butter on top of a steaming bowl of homemade grits. Lord, this man was dangerous with a capital D!

Marabelle gave Coach Dangerous a covert glance from beneath her lashes as he rested one hip on the top of her desk. It wasn’t so much what he wore as how he wore it. He made ordinary clothes look extraordinary. His off-white Nike fleece pullover with the Cherokees tomahawk logo hugged his mile-wide shoulders, and his well-worn jeans, snugly fit to showcase his muscled thighs, dropped comfortably over expensive brown ostrich-skin boots. Why do all football players have to play cowboy?

A large hand waved in front of her face. “Ms. Fairchild?”

“Sorry. I was having a moment.” Marabelle erased the fantasy of playing cowgirl to his sexy Clint Eastwood and marched around her desk. “Um, just let me get my folder.” She rustled through a stack of papers, hoping to get her mind back on track and out of the gutter.

“Is Brandon in some kind of trouble? Is he doing well in school?”

Marabelle’s head popped up, the shuffled papers forgotten. “Oh no. Brandon is completely out of control and in danger of becoming much worse, but that’s not why I called you here.”

Coach Frasier’s head jerked back. “Excuse me? Do you really teach here?” he asked.

Wishing she could shove her words back down her throat, Marabelle gulped. Probably not the best time to bring up Brandon’s awful behavior.

“Uh, yes, and I’m sorry if my comment offended you. But don’t you think it would be better if you knew the truth? About your nephew, that is.”

* * *

Was this some kind of joke? Stumped, Nick openly studied the woman before him, not caring if she noticed.

No, make that half woman, half urchin with curly brown hair wrestled on top of her head in some clawlike device. She couldn’t be more than five feet, if that. Nick’s gaze tracked from her head to her feet. The extra-large gray Trinity Raiders sweatshirt she wore swallowed her entire upper body and fell somewhere midthigh, and a black-and-white-plaid pleated skirt peeked out as if gasping for air.

The only thing with any shape was her legs, and they were nicely formed. Slender ankles and muscled calves showed that she exercised regularly. Small, narrow feet sported a pair of Nike tennis shoes. No glamour in that footwear. Nick’s gaze traveled back up her bulky form and landed on a faint blue paint smudge on her right cheek, which somehow seemed fitting. After sizing her up, he couldn’t help but mentally question the credibility of the school. She should be taking the class, not teaching it.

Marabelle twisted her hands and gnawed her bottom lip. “Coach Frasier, may I be perfectly frank?”

“Have you ever been anything else?”

She hesitated before answering. “Well, no, but I think it’s an admirable trait.”

Nick bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. “Then certainly don’t change on my behalf.”

Blinking huge, chocolate-brown eyes, Marabelle looked more determined. Her face—sans the paint—was attractive. Faint freckles were scattered across her small, pert nose, but her mouth—by far the main attraction—had that bee-stung look that Hollywood stars coveted. For a moment, he wondered if her lips were as soft as they were full, if she tasted…

Where had those thoughts come from? She’s a kindergarten teacher, for chrissakes. He punted those unwanted thoughts right out of the stadium, and got his head back in the game by focusing on her small hands, which seemed to talk even more than her sexy, full mouth.

Marabelle paced in front of the large white dry-erase board. “Trinity Academy has a very important fund-raiser every spring that the whole community supports, and this year is going to be extra special, because they’re raising money to improve the football field and add two more tennis courts. And—”

Nick had heard this pitch a million times. Same setup, different location. “And you want me to contribute to the fund? Right?”

She stopped pacing. “Well, it’s more than just your money. Don’t get me wrong, your money is huge.” Nick chuckled at her lack of tact, but she ignored him, intent on lining up dry-erase markers in alternating colors.

“We need your help in contacting your celebrity friends and asking them to participate in the golf and tennis tournaments,” she said, leaning the markers against the board. “And we want you to ask the single, eligible men you know to sell themselves in our bachelor auction,” she finished all in one breath and turned, knocking all the markers to the floor.

“Um, what?” Nick shook his head as he bent to help her gather the scattered markers. This had to be a joke. “Are you secretly filming me for YouTube or something? Is this some sort of practical joke?” He’d had enough of being secretly filmed to last a lifetime, and if this fairy-tale character thought she could pull a fast one on him, she had no idea who she was up against. His gaze darted around the classroom, searching for a hidden camera. The room looked clean. Then he smirked. “Did my offensive coordinator set this up?”

Kneeling on the floor with puckered brows, Marabelle asked, “Who?”

Nick handed over three reds and two blues. “Coach Prichard. We’ve been arguing about the draft, but I didn’t think he was this upset.”

Right on cue, she turned stern schoolteacher. Standing, she released the handful of markers on the metal tray, her back as straight as if fused with a goalpost. “Coach Frasier, this is not some reality TV show, and I don’t even know your offensive coordinator. But if he’s upset, I suggest you make nice, and maybe you guys will start winning some ball games.”

Splaying hands on his hips, he delivered one of his fiercest stares. “You tetched in the head or something? Are you telling me how to coach a professional football team?”

Marabelle didn’t flinch. A room full of five-year-olds must be tougher than he thought. Curling her fingers around a ruler in the metal tray as if she might rap his knuckles, she said in the same firm, schoolteacher voice, “If there’s dissension among your staff, it would be prudent to smooth things over. Arguing with your staff is bound to affect the players. It just goes to reason.” Tap, tap went the ruler in her palm.

Nick swore under his breath. Many a rookie had backed down from his most intimidating stare. Its effect was legendary. But not on crazy Marabelle. “Ms. Fairchild, you don’t know jack shit about coaching football.” Nick rarely lost his temper off the field, but she’d managed to push all his buttons. He knew his young team had struggled last season. He certainly didn’t need reminding from Little Miss Muffet. He had the team’s owner, general manager, and the press for that. But Nick believed in his team. They had raw talent, and with good coaching and proper discipline, they’d only get better. Yet it still rankled when he was confronted with their less-than-stellar record.

He didn’t need this hassle. “I’m out of here,” he muttered, starting for the door.

“Coach Frasier, please wait!”

Nick whipped around to squash the crazy, ruler-toting fairy once and for all, when three high school boys barged through the classroom door, carrying large tennis bags over their shoulders.

“Hey, Coach, you comin’ to practice today?”

“What?” The theme song from The Twilight Zone played in his head. Why would he be coming to practice here?

“Whoa! You’re Nick Frasier,” said the tallest of the boys as all three gazes landed on him.

Nick plastered on a smile, not wanting his scowl to be reported all over social media. “Hey, guys. What’s up?” All three eagerly shook his hand, talking at once. “You boys play for the tennis team?” Nick asked in between introductions and hand pumping.

“Yeah. We’re heading to practice and wondering if Coach is coming.”

“Coach?” Still confused, he searched their faces.

“Surprise, surprise,” Marabelle chimed softly next to him.