She lifted her chin and arched one eyebrow at him. But the belated attempt at defiance was halfhearted. She didn’t really want to fight him anymore.
Rake’s deep voice suddenly boomed into the enclosed space. “Hey! What’s this? C.J., what are you doin’, man? You tell me I gotta keep everything like the Boy Scouts and then you go off in the corner with the professor? Nothin’ doin’, man. No way.”
She welcomed the interruption, despite a stubborn inner voice that labeled it an intrusion.
“You want to know something else?” C.J. huskily repeated as Rake tugged them back into the swirl of dancers. C.J.’s arm tightened around her waist, pulling her up against him long enough for her body to respond to his hardness.
A rush of heat swept into her. She looked away. “No,” she answered in a small voice.
In the moment before the movement of the dance pulled them apart, he spoke directly into her ear. “Okay, Carolyn. No more truths.” His words sounded as intimate as a whisper amid the din of the music. “For now.”
* * * *
C.J. jogged across Michigan Avenue ahead of the early Sunday afternoon traffic, then realized Carolyn, Dolph and the players remained on the other side, waiting for the traffic light.
Glumly he stared at one of the lions guarding the Art Institute entrance while he waited, and reviewed the incremental crumbling of his resolutions to stay away from Carolyn.
He hadn’t been able to stay away from her completely, so he’d vowed to limit their meetings. When he’d encouraged happenstances that brought them together, he’d promised himself he’d act distant. He might hold her in his arms, but he wouldn’t sweep her off to a tower somewhere with a locked door that never let the world in.
He swore under his breath.
The big red bow around the lion’s neck suited the season but not its solemn expression. Nor his own mood, C.J. thought. Everything he’d told her last night was true. But he’d been out of line. Her peck on his cheek had pushed him too far—he wanted a hell of a lot more than that.
The light turned, and Carolyn and the others started across the wide avenue. Just watching her walk toward him . . . He couldn’t take this much more. He could work his tail off, he could be patient as hell for something he had a chance for, but this . . . He’d better accept reality or he’d go nuts: whether or not fire existed behind that marble mask, she sure as hell didn’t want him to play the part of Pygmalion bringing Galatea to life.
At least she seemed willing to have peace between them, maybe friendship. Take what you’ve got, Draper. Quit trying for too much.
* * * *
Carolyn listened with surface attention to the guide tell the team of the Art Institute’s collections. She carefully kept her eyes straight ahead or to her left. C.J. stood to her right. Trailing the guide, the group filed into a gallery filled with Rembrandts.
Of all the irritating stunts C.J. Draper had pulled, she decided that making outrageous statements, then pretending he’d said nothing out of the ordinary, topped the list. She wanted to tell him, with remote dignity and words she’d practiced long into the night, that he was entirely mistaken in his interpretation of her. But how could she when he acted casually polite this morning, as if nothing had happened?
Through connecting galleries they walked past portraits of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English ladies and gentlemen.
She couldn’t bring the subject up without making a big deal of it. He’d left her no choice. And she wanted to throttle him.
The idea of taking all six foot six of C.J. Draper and shaking him until that grin disappeared for good brought a glint to her eyes. The man had purposely plagued her since the first moment they’d met.
The guide brought them into the gallery that held Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte by Seurat and immediately gathered the full attention of all but two of her audience.
All right, Carolyn acknowledged as the players first moved in close to scrutinize the tiny dots of paint, then backed up to see how, together, they formed a whole, he could be charming. And he seemed a good friend to Stewart. He certainly cared about the players. Also, he’d helped when a friend most desperately needed help. Maybe all those things Rake had said about him were true.
After an introduction to the Art Institute’s collection of Impressionists, the guide said they were welcome to look around on their own. She’d remain available for questions, she added with a smile at the attractive young men surrounding her. Carolyn drifted toward the Monets and Van Goghs, her thoughts still working. Whatever his good points, C.J. Draper was the most irritating individual she’d met in her twenty-eight years. She’d led an ordered, planned existence. Before she made changes she considered them carefully. Like Monet’s studies in the altered light of different seasons, the changes were subtle, gradual. Not radical.
She’d known her goal and how she’d get there from the time she was a child. C.J. Draper wouldn’t change that. Eventually he’d get the message that the outrageous things he said and did had no impact on her.
All right, they had some impact on her. But she wouldn’t let them affect her. Not really.
Her gaze moved to a bright sea view by Monet—Cliffwalk: Pourville, 1882. Two women stood on the cliffs looking toward the sailboat-studded ocean and a fleet of white clouds. The blue of the sky tugged at Carolyn’s attention. It was the blue she’d seen in a canvas sky over a field of bright tulips in Paris. Monet blue.
“That’s nice,” C.J. murmured from just behind her.
She turned to look into his equally blue eyes with a sense of inevitability.
No more truths, he’d said. Then why did he look at her that way? Why did she look back?
It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t mean anything.
* * * *
Beyond its own mechanical hum, the bus was quiet. Carolyn stared out the frost-patterned window at black night air so cold it seemed it would shatter. Inside it was warm. Everyone seemed to be asleep except her and the driver.
The team had filed on the bus after the game, subdued but not down. They’d lost. But they weren’t beaten. They could hold their heads up, knowing they’d given the number three team in the country a close game. They’d contained the other team’s star. He’d scored only fourteen points, and he was good. Perhaps the next Rake Johnson.
Earlier Rake had given her a kiss on the cheek and a big hug, which he’d used as a cover to whisper. “Take care of him.”
Carolyn had pretended she hadn’t heard. Taking care of C.J. Draper—if, in fact, he needed taking care of—formed no part in her plans for the future, immediate or otherwise.
As if her thoughts had stirred him awake, C.J. rose from a few seats in front of her. He seemed a little stiff. Slowly he walked down the narrow aisle quietly checking on everyone. Carolyn wondered if moving helped ease his knee.
He came back up the aisle and sank down next to her.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked softly.
“Didn’t try.”
“I tried, but I couldn’t. Too much to think about.” Carolyn glanced up at him quickly. But before she could respond, he went on.
“This coaching is hell on the nervous system, you know. Don’t sleep when we lose—too depressed. Don’t sleep when we win—too excited.”
“Same thing for eating?”
He met her eyes, and she saw surprise in his. Then, as the look held, she saw more. A hundred reactions and emotions, like the dots of Seurat’s art. But she couldn’t make out the whole. Sitting so close like this in the bus, she couldn’t get far away enough to see the pattern. Maybe she didn’t want to get far away.
“You didn’t do justice to Rake’s chicken and rice, or the steak at the hotel last night,” she explained. Did he think she was prying? Is that why he turned away so abruptly?
“I didn’t want to tell you before,” he answered with a lazy drawl that reassured her, “but I remember some brownies Rake used to bake back when he was living wild
, and I wanted to see what that chicken and rice did to you before I dug in.”
Carolyn smothered her laughter before it woke the others, but it left a comfortable afterglow in the silence. She was totally aware of where his shoulder and knee touched hers, and felt no need to change it. It felt good, solid and dependable, like his slow voice.
“When do you leave for your grandparents’?” he asked. “Indiana, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Indiana. Tomorrow. How about you? What are you doing for the holidays?” It seemed intimate and cozy somehow, talking softly in the quiet bus.
“I’ll go down to Florida in a couple of days.” His mouth twisted into a wry smile. “An Indiana farm sounds a lot more like Christmas than a Florida rambler, but it’s not Christmas without family, is it?” He paused, then added, “You’d like Mom, and she’d like you.”
Such casual words. Polite, really, but they settled a warmth around her that was totally unexpected.
“I’ll spend a few days with them, then tournaments start again on the twenty-seventh. There are a couple I want to hit. Do some scouting, make some connections...” His voice drifted off as his mind seemed to shift to another track. “Watching the guys play tonight, for the first time, I thought maybe this team could be something. Not just respectable, but a good basketball team.”
Just above a whisper, his voice still vibrated with energy. “That loss did more for this team than any damn practice I ever held.” He turned to her. “I saw a team tonight. Not just a group of individuals, but a team. They thought like a unit and played like a unit.” He grinned in light mockery at himself. “I never thought I’d be so happy with a loss.”
“ ‘There are some defeats more triumphant than victories,’ ” she quoted softly. “A sixteenth-century French essayist named Michel de Montaigne said that.”
His self-mockery deepened. “Yeah? Well, Michel must have known his basketball.”
He shifted a little to straighten his left leg into the aisle, and his arm, hip and thigh came into firmer contact with her. Lost in languorous content, she didn’t move away.
“When I first came to Ashton,” he said, “I thought if I could just make the team respectable, I’d have really accomplished something. But now... well, there’s something to be said for having players with brains. Those guys don’t have a lot of talent, most of them, but they make the most of what they’ve got. They could be the base for some really good teams. Add a little more raw physical ability and Ashton could be one of the premier teams at a tournament like this one instead of the cannon fodder they thought we’d be.”
“You like that, don’t you? Surprising people.”
“You bet. That’s how you grab their attention enough to show what you can really do.”
Had he tried that with her, surprising her to get her attention? She shook her head clear of the notion to focus on his words.
“If we make a splash this season, then back it up next season with a good record, I’d have a name. Then I could write my own ticket to whatever I wanted in basketball. Coaching big-time college or pros. Whatever I wanted.”
She understood. He’d build his opportunity brick by brick. And when he finished, he’d follow it right out of Ashton University. Then Ashton could return to what it was before. And so could she. That was what she’d wanted. A happy ending for the school, for her, for him.
As C.J. spun his dreams, Carolyn shivered just once.
Chapter Eight
January brought snow, the new semester and changes. By the third Thursday in February the snow was replenished, the semester was old and the changes were routine.
She’d mailed her essay for the seminar’s publication in England, and now she was teaching an advanced seminar as well as lecturing to other classes on her studies abroad. In addition, she was continuing as academic adviser to the team.
The upperclassmen no longer came to the basketball study hall, except Frank Gordon. He expressed no resentment at being the single exception to the all-freshman group of Thomas Abbott, Ellis Manfred and Brad Spencer.
Carolyn leaned against the frame of her office window, staring out at the campus wrapped in a mid-February layer of snow, and wondered if Frank would express resentment even if he did feel it.
He rarely said much to her. He would give her that half-shy smile readily enough, but even when he asked questions, she had the impression they came almost against his will.
His work kept improving, and that was the main thing. Thomas and Ellis continued to do well; Carolyn had no concerns about how they’d do in subsequent years.
Brad Spencer, however, would have to be watched as long as he stayed at Ashton. When a topic sparked his curiosity, he went beyond assignments to learn about it. Otherwise, he required continual prodding. And if he thought she’d let up on him even when he finished playing basketball in his senior year, he had a surprise coming. She intended to see every one of these players graduate.
Carolyn blinked into the reflected dazzle as the snow caught the last afternoon sun. That sounded as if she intended to continue as academic adviser. She hadn’t made a decision about that yet. At least she hadn’t sat down and considered the facts, drawn a conclusion and decided on a course of action. How could she make a decision without even realizing it?
She’d told Stewart she would continue her duties through this season because of the difficulty of anyone trying to pick up in the middle and, yes, because she didn’t want to relinquish her stake in the players quite yet. She hated to leave things unfinished.
But would it be finished until these freshmen graduated? By then, of course, new freshmen would have replaced them, and they’d need four more years of guidance. Would it ever be finished? Did she want it to be?
If she wanted to join the ranks of the academic elite, she needed to get back to teaching top-level classes, attending prestigious seminars, writing well-regarded articles. A year off might not hurt too much, but more than that?
Carolyn moved away from the Wisconsin cold seeping around the window’s edges. She pushed the questions back. No need to work all that out now. She’d sit down and think it out after the season. For now, everything was going smoothly.
The players were doing well in class and steadily improving on the court. Since they’d upset the team ranked number eighteen in the country two weeks before, media attention had definitely increased. A lot of the questions went to C.J. He made a good story, and she appreciated how he acted as a buffer for the players, sparing them the roller-coaster emotions of media attention.
In fact, she felt quite charitable toward C.J. Draper these days. He’d even stopped his efforts to unsettle her . . . or had almost stopped. A tiny stuffed koala bear did appear one day on her desk, but that hardly counted. Though she’d waited for some comment from him on his color-matching effort, he’d said nothing.
So she couldn’t really blame him when she’d found herself stroking the little fellow’s soft fur against her cheek when she’d only meant to check the color against her hair. Too brown, she’d thought, and smiled a little self-consciously at herself in the mirror.
If the sight of the koala bear now residing with the teal-bowed teddy bear in her bottom desk drawer where she saw them every time she opened it, or a stray memory of strong arms and firm lips disturbed her peace now and then, she firmly reminded herself that these days she and C.J. talked to each other compatibly and companionably. That was all she wanted from their dealings.
The phone on her desk rang.
That might be C.J. now. She smiled. But the man’s voice wasn’t C.J.’s. She didn’t recognize the name at first, either.
“Scott Gary. From the Milwaukee Tribune. We talked back in December about the team, Professor Trent.”
She remembered. Polyester and too many buttons unbuttoned. “Oh, yes, Mr. Gary. What can I do for you?” She’d gotten enough of these calls to know the routine now. “I’m sure you know that all interview requests for the players are handled through the athletic
department.”
“I know.”
She frowned at the phone. An undercurrent in his voice jangled at her nerves.
“Actually,” he continued with confidence, “I called because there’s something I can do for you. I mean, since you were so helpful last December, I thought I’d let you know we're running a story in the morning about the Ashton basketball team.”
She waited, frozen in premonition.
“I mean, it’s about Frank Gordon and how he got admitted despite Ashton’s vaunted academic standards.”
She knew what he was going to say. Her heart pounded angrily with the certainty. Her head throbbed with it. But she made him tell her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She sat in the chair and listened to the voice telling her that neither Frank Gordon’s grades nor his test scores met Ashton’s stringent requirements for admission.
“I remember you telling me last December how things like that just aren’t done at Ashton. I guess they are now—for basketball players. Or is it just a coincidence that the exception was made for a seven-foot center?”
Cold, hard reason told her he hadn’t called just to lacerate her. There had to be a reason. Think, Carolyn. Think. Of course. He wanted a reaction from her—fury or denial, anything to spice up his story.
“Records like that are confidential. What are your sources for this alleged information?” Her voice tightened to keep the anger and pain out of it.
“The records are confidential, but there are ways of finding out. I mean, there are always sources. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you check yourself, Professor Trent? Or did you already know—”
She hung up, then shook her head to clear the thoughts that whirled in jagged fragments. With her hand still on the receiver, she sat as the winter sun retreated and lights popped on around campus. Nearly five-thirty. She just had time; Mary Rollins never left the registrar’s office till six.
Hoops Page 13
