by Amy Field
Then why now was she letting a jerk like Robert dictate her life?
Was she such a coward?
For a week, Wade had comforted her. She couldn’t even say anything to comfort him. She had seen the sadness in his eyes, at losing the chance to play. She knew if it had been the old Wade, he would have shaken it off and pretended that it didn’t matter. No, she wouldn’t let his hard work go to waste.
She couldn’t because she loved him, more than anything.
The stand was full, the murmurs of the audience were loud enough to cover the court. Everyone was setting up their cameras to record the game. That’s when she stood up and walked over to Robert.
“Let’s go,” she ordered.
“Go where,” he muttered.
She leaned in and glared at him. “This time you don’t get to ask why, if you want to keep your job, I suggest you follow me. Your stunt a few weeks ago in the parking lot will do a lot more damage to your career than my pregnancy.”
“You wouldn’t,” he glowered.
“You want to try me?”
Robert scowled and gathered his equipment, and they headed over to the players but she turned without calling forward any of the players.
“Hello, this is Tammy Forester reporting live. We are here for the latest match of the Florida Eagles. Right now, all of you are all wondering why star player Wade Conley has been benched. Coach Mathews has divulged nothing to us yet but I do have news for everyone.”
Robert looked uncomfortable and her face hardened. She would not let him off so easily.
“Here’s the thing, no one knew this but Wade Conley and I are dating.”
At her words, Wade got up from the bench and she could see him from the corner of her eyes.
“I am also pregnant. But my cameraman, Robert Kelvins, found out about everything and threatened to blackmail me for certain, favors.”
There was a hushed silence in the crowd if a pin dropped you would hear it.
Robert put down the camera, his face completely red but Tammy had an audience. The rest of the stations had turned their cameras towards her and she was glad she had their support so she kept on speaking.
“He came to my house but Wade had known something was wrong and before he could take advantage of my predicament, Conley stepped in. He didn’t care about giving up his position because he cared about me. I was suspended, and pending a disciplinary enquiry, I stand a chance to lose my job, but before I do, I want to set the record straight. Wade Conley is, in my eyes, a hero. And I’m in love with him.” Tammy’s eyes pricked with tears.
Wade strode over to where she stood with a big smile on his face and the crowd erupted in cheers when he took her mike and handed it to the referee who stood close by. He didn’t have to say a single thing, and when he cupped her face and kissed her in front of an entire crowd of spectators, her heart melted.
For the first time, she allowed herself to smile and knew everything would be all right from now on.
She had him with her.
Wade watched the players practice, but he didn’t try to join them. There was no use in it anyway because he would not play in the next game, anyway. He was still on the bench but he wasn’t bitter about it. He deserved it. He understood now how much slack the coach had been cutting him. He had always been tolerant, and he held no grudge against the coach for it.
The thing that made him so happy was that his relationship with Tammy was going as good as he expected it to go. She hadn’t been fired, and the network had generously told her she could keep on working until she had to take her maternity leave which wouldn’t be for a while now. Robert had disappeared, and he was glad he was finally gone. He was a sleaze ball and Wade promised if he ever saw him again, he would make sure that no one could recognize his face.
Meanwhile, he had adjusted to the notion of becoming a father. Tammy was the one who kept complaining about her cravings but he could tell that it made her happy. They were both happy about the baby and he didn’t care that it wasn’t his biologically, but he would give the child everything he had.
It was Coach Matthews that pulled him out of his train of thought where he sat on the bench.
“Why the hell are you sitting on the bench?” he asked.
“What are you talking about coach?” Wade asked surprised.
“I am telling you that you have to practice for the future games. Get your ass off the bench and practice. You had enough time being famous, it’s time to play for the team and I won’t take any more shenanigans.”
Wade couldn’t believe his words at first but grinned as it hit him. With no second warning from his coach, he got up and ran to the court, thinking about how happy Tammy would be when she heard everything.
It was a full house.
Tammy looked at everyone grinning. She was happy to see they were here to see Wade’s first game back on the court. She had never doubted that he wouldn’t be able to come back, but she didn’t think it would happen so soon. Her words had something to do with it, she supposed.
All the reporters that had nothing good to say about him now considered him to be the best person ever. They flooded columns talking about him and he was their sweetheart now. She was ecstatic that everyone felt the same way as she did but today wasn’t about her. Today was about Wade and she motioned at her new camera man to get everything.
Aaron was short and pudgy but she didn’t care about his appearance because he was a far better person Robert was. He was nice, and he was considerate of her condition. The station had been far more lenient that she could have hoped for but she was planning to work up until she was ready to pop. It was the least she could do for the network.
She interviewed all the players and then took her place among the crowd, ready to watch him play. Wade was passionate about his playing and he was finally showing it to the crowd. The crowd cheered for him as the game started. He spurred into action and he disappointed no one as he played. She watched him happily, this time able to cheer as much as she wanted.
Tammy could see some of the cameras turning to her and she knew she was in the spotlight as well for her new status as his girlfriend. The station had been happy about the dating news because they thought it was great for them and it had turned out like that. They got better ratings and everyone was happy about their love story. Tammy could only shake her head and sigh at everything.
Wade was doing well on the court. He was smooth, and he had put in a lot of practice for his first game off the bench. He didn’t shun his players, he played for the team and they moved with him. He had finally learned the value of teamwork.
The ball was a flurry of activity, she could barely see it but she knew it was in his hands. Half time came, and they were leading. Tammy took another interview of the coach and had enough time to lock hands with Wade before he went into the locker room. They came back out, and it was time to finish the game.
Tammy had known they would win. Her cheer was one of the loudest as the game ended. Wade was surrounded by his teammates but his eyes were on her and he broke away from them. She was ready to hug him but he wasn’t doing that. Instead, he reached into his pocket and jogged over to her. She blinked, and he was suddenly on his knee in front of her. He opened the small box to show her a solitaire diamond ring. She gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Tammy Forrester, you are the only person I want to spend my life with. You are everything to me and I want to give you and that baby my name. Will you marry me?”
Tammy couldn’t speak over the tears flowing down her cheeks but she nodded. He picked her up and spun her in a circle as the other stations reported the live news. She was the new gossip, but she didn’t care.
She looked down at Wade, at his glowing face and pressed a kiss to his lips.
She had her happy ever after with him.
The End
For you to discover!
Book I
Fallen
A Sports Romance
Cha
pter 1
Despite her opulent surroundings, Katie Cory woke up feeling rather ordinary. The bed was soft, the pillows and linens plush, and the room itself luxuriously appointed, but as Katie rubbed the grist from her eyes and stumbled to the bathroom she couldn’t help but feel agonizingly, hopelessly, ordinary. She caught sight of herself in the mirror before sitting on the stool. Her pyjamas might be more expensive than they once were, but with her skin blotchy from the bed, eyes bleary from the night, and her hair tousled from sleep, she could just has easily have been the same quiet little kid from Kansas City she’d been when this all started.
Her dad had made his money in the oil business, owning about half the gas stations between Chicago and Denver. He’d grown up on a farm, however, and while he certainly wanted to provide Katie with opportunities he’d never had, he never wanted her to feel privileged. She went to the best of schools, took dancing and riding and singing lessons, but they lived in a relatively modest house, drove lightly used cars, and each member of the family always had chores to do.
Growing up it had driven her nuts. Because of the schools she went to her friends were always out doing things, going on expensive trips, meeting famous people, and spending the money their families earned or managed as quickly as they could get it. Katie felt caught between two worlds: was she wealthy, or was she poor? Did she have to work for a living, or would things simply be handed to her? And if life wasn’t all parties and playing, how did you decide what to do with yourself, even just day-to-day, let alone for a lifetime?
All of that changed the first time she’d slipped on a pair of skates. They’d been picking her brother, Steve, up from hockey practice and her mom had to stay for some kind of a meeting with the booster club, so she sat in the stands reading while the parents had their meeting and the boys hit the showers. The coach, however, saw her sitting up there and called her down to the ice. When he asked her if she’d ever skated before she admitted that she hadn’t, and so he disappeared for a couple of minutes into a storage locker and returned with a pair of skates. They fit like a glove and gave her an almost superhuman ability to glide on the ice. By the time the moms were done with their meeting, Katie was zipping to and fro across the rink and the boys, who were all two or three years older than her, had their faces pressed to the glass in awe. She was simply a natural, and that natural gift was a great joy to watch.
Katie had wanted to play hockey like her brother, but her mother wouldn’t hear of it. Her dad, as always, had struck a compromise by signing her up for figure skating lessons, but it wasn’t long before it was clear that speed skating was where her talents could be put to best use. Though twelve when she started, she had caught up to other kids her age within a year, most of whom had been skating since before they could walk, and by the time she started high school already had two district titles under her belt, plus a silver from the last national competition.
This is how she came to be running the water for her shower in the Palace Hotel along the Las Vegas Strip. This was the third year in a row that she’d taken the World Speed Skating Championships, and after last night’s award ceremony she knew today would be filled with interviews, meet-and-greets, and lots, and lots of photos. She groaned as she looked into the mirror on the vanity. “Gameface, Kid,” she told herself. “You don’t want to get tweeted looking like a drowned rat.”
The sound of a door knocking shook her out of her stupor. She threw on a robe from the bathroom door and walked through the suite and to the door leading to the hallway. She knew before opening who would be waiting for her.
“Mornin’, Kat!” It was her manager, Pete. He called out brightly, handing her a plastic cup with a domed top. She could tell from the smell it was wheatgrass, spinach, and some kind of citrus fruit. She wrinkled her nose.
“I’m not competing today, Pete.” She turned from the door and let him follow. “In fact, I was just about to hop in the shower.”
“Sure, sure,” he said absently, making a beeline for the ottoman upon which sat the remote for the 55-inch television mounted on the far wall. He powered up the set and switched immediately to ESPN-4, where they could seem crowds already gathering for the press conference they’d shortly be attending.
Under different circumstances it might have bothered her that a grown man with whom she was not involved felt comfortable barging into her private space and hanging out while she bathed. Pete, however, was as safe as they came. He had been her manager since she was fourteen and while there were certainly times in there that she’d been angry with him, he’d never once made her feel uncomfortable. When she was younger she and the other girls used to gossip about whether or not he was gay. Plenty of guys in the skating world are, but Katie had come to the conclusion that he was just disinterested—not in her in particular, but in people in general, at least vis-à-vis sex and relationships. Poor Pete simply lived and breathed skating.
He glanced briefly at a clock on the wall that was mostly ornamental. “Better get a move on, Kat,” he said. “We don’t want to be late for your interview.”
She mumbled something under her breath as she returned to the bathroom. Slipping out of her robe she hooked it onto the back of the door and stepped gingerly into the now steaming shower, leaving the bathroom door open in case Pete decided to talk. He usually did, eventually.
As she stepped into the tub her left foot started to go out from underneath her. Instinctively she tried to right herself by bracing her hands against the wall and the door of the tub, but the pressure simply pushed the door out and she went down. Fortunately, her instincts kicked in and she managed to simply do the splits, hitting herself hard against the floor and then bouncing up again. She rubbed the inside of her leg gingerly. She was flexible enough to make a move like that work, but she would have stretched first if she knew her shower was going to be so athletic.
Pete apparently heard the thud. “You alright in there?”
“I am,” she said, a little two cheerily. “Tub’s just slick, nearly fell.”
“Careful,” he said, with a warning voice. “You don’t want to show up with an injury they didn’t see happen.”
She sighed to herself as the water cascaded down her body and massaged her poor, tired muscles. He was right, of course. People presumed you were faking if they didn’t actually see the injury happen, which weirdly meant if you were a professional athlete you were supposed to be immune from falling down stairs and slipping in the shower.
She opted against washing her hair, which meant that her shower took less than five minutes. When she was done she stepped out a little more carefully than usual, dried herself, and then wiped the mirror free of the fog so that she could see what she was doing as she prepared for the day. The shower had helped, but she’d still need a little makeup. She never wore much, but just enough to cover the worry lines and signs of the unending stress which marked her life. Her left thigh throbbed from her impromptu gymnastics I the shower and she wondered, just for a minute, how her life might have changed if she really had hurt herself. What kind of support would she get if she couldn’t skate anymore? Would Pete still be there to help her? How would her family treat her? And what would she do with her time?
She pushed the thought away as she wrapped the towel casually around herself and walked back to the bedroom. Leaving the door still slightly ajar so that she could hear if Pete thought of something he needed to say, she let the towel drop and started fishing in her suitcase for the outfit they’d decided on for her interviews. As she slipped into the sleek warmup outfit she surveyed her body in the mirror and smiled to herself.
Katie was not a small girl. She was raw boned and thick, with muscular tights, broad shoulders, and big arms. Even still, there was nothing mannish about her; those broad shoulders gave way to full, shapely breasts, which themselves flared out into wide, but not heavy hips. All of this was settled onto a frame that pushed five-nine. That made her a full three inches taller than her hero, Bonnie Blair, and the ta
llest female competitive speed skater in the world. She was also presently the eldest. Over the years, though, Katie had learned to use her height to her advantage and though she had more weight to move than most of her competitors, she also had more muscle with which to move it. She could live with only occasional boyfriends if it meant that she was able to devote herself entirely to her craft, and besides, most of the men she’d dated had only been interested in her for her fame, or for her body.
Apart from her dad and her brother, most men in her life had simply not been worth the time. A few of her brothers’ hockey friends pursued her as she got older, but they weren’t good for much more than a quick grope in the backseat of a car and the occasional date to a dance or party. Once she started skating competitively a few of her fellow skaters had approached her, but most were intimidated, both by her size and her confidence. But she didn’t care, most of these guys, who were literally at the top of their game, were basically insecure boys. She wanted a man.
As she dressed, Katie dreamed of the kind of man she’d finally be happy with, and she knew she wasn’t likely to meet him at a competition or in one of the expensive clubs or bars where they tended to host parties following tournaments. He’d be off following his own dreams and succeeding at what he loved. Like her dad, he’d be strong and hard-working, which meant that it would be hard to find him anyplace she was likely to be. She shook her head again and pushed away the thought as she zipped up the jacket of her outfit. For now, she could be satisfied with the all-too-occasional fling, but the emptiness of the whole situation was rotting her soul.
