Contents:
Prologue
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Epilogue
Prologue
^ »
He was running, his feet pounding the turf beneath his cleats. Eighty thousand fans were on their feet, screaming, and the frenzied sound roared in his head.
Yes, he thought. Yes! He had broken free—
Mitch Scanlon woke to find his heart pounding and his naked body drenched in sweat. For the third night in a row he'd been dreaming, and yet, for an instant before he'd opened his eyes, he'd been so sure he'd actually felt the ground under his feet.
Eagerly, he lifted his head and stared down at the body that had once been as perfect and reliable as a well-tuned machine. He was still lean, still hard, his stomach muscles clearly visible, his hips still fluid. At thirty-three, he was a man in his prime. A conditioned athlete. A superstar.
Lying back, he ran his hand over his flanks until sensation faded into numbness. What he couldn't feel, he couldn't control. Little by little, the once powerful muscles of his thighs and calves had atrophied until they were as wasted and thin as a kid's. He hated the way his legs looked. He hated the way they refused to move, no matter how hard he tried to make them.
But this time the dream had been so real. He'd felt his muscles respond, he was sure of it. Maybe, if he tried harder…
Digging desperate fingers into the mattress, he poured all his strength into straining every tendon, torturing every sinew, willing his muscles to obey. He felt … something. Didn't he? Didn't he?
But the legs that had once taken him fast and far remained motionless. Withered. Dead.
Exhausted and spent, he buried his face in the pillow. He was as helpless as a baby. Useless.
It had been a year since he'd felt like a man instead of a collection of mangled nerves and flaccid muscles, a year of pain and struggle and discouragement so deep it was like a cancer eating at him from the inside. Still, he hadn't given up, not even once. When they'd asked him for a hundred sit-ups, he'd given them two hundred. When they'd asked him to endure an agonizing hour of stretching contorted muscles, he'd pushed himself and the therapists for two. Yet all he'd done was become more skilled as a cripple.
Inching closer to the side of the narrow hospital bed, he reached between the mattress and springs and took out the cellophane bag filled with small pink capsules. His hand was steady as he shook them onto the sheet covering his belly. Without counting, he knew there were thirty sweet, beautiful little pills, his ticket to oblivion, one for every night he'd spent tossing and turning in agony from the spasms that tortured his hips and thighs while the nurses thought him nicely sedated.
The cramps had gotten worse after he'd been fitted with full leg braces. Just balancing himself between parallel bars for five minutes at a time had him sweating and swearing and close to passing out by the time they made him sit down. According to his therapist, he had months of struggle and brutally hard work ahead of him before he achieved even minimal mobility. Lord, but he hated that word. Not since the first few weeks after he'd gotten out of traction had anyone used the word walk to him. Instead, they promised to teach him to drag his legs and ten pounds of metal and leather between two crutches everywhere he went.
It's the best we can offer, Mitch. Even so, you're very fortunate to have come back as much as you have. At least you have some feeling in your thighs. Some possibility of movement. Perhaps, if he got lucky, the ability to make love again someday.
Damn them, why couldn't they understand?
He was an athlete, a guy who threw a football for a living. It was all he'd ever done. All he knew. Without it, he had no identity. No worth. Football had given him more than fame and money. It had given him back his self-esteem. His very life.
California's Golden Boy, the media had dubbed him. Nothing could be further from the truth. A bastard who'd never known his father's identity and didn't care to, he'd been on a fast road to trouble when Tyrone Williams, an ex-football player turned social worker, had found him sleeping under an oleander bush in the garbage-littered park near the apartment he shared with his mother and her latest "boyfriend." Bettina Scanlon and the man Mitch had been ordered to call Uncle Duane had been coked-up for two days, ready to take out their manic mood swings on him the minute he'd showed his face. Tired of getting hit and spat upon and pushed into walls, he'd taken to the streets, waiting until the john's money ran out.
A few days shy of eight years old at the time, he'd been dirty and hungry and ready to fight even the gentlest kind of restraint. Streetwise himself, Tyrone had taken him by the scruff of his dirty collar, hosed him down at the youth shelter and taken him off to a UCLA-USC football game. That had been the first of many Saturdays they'd spent together.
When the court had finally freed him from his mother's control, he'd gone to live with Tyrone and his wife, Arietta. Tyrone had bought him shoes that actually fit and his first toothbrush, taught him hygiene and manners and the best way to throw a perfect spiral. Arietta, a Baptist minister, had taught him self-control, respect for his elders and her mother's recipe for the best barbecue sauce in Los Angeles County.
Both had encouraged his love of football, knowing that he needed the discipline belonging to a team would force on him. Scrawny and short for his age, he'd learned to play sandlot ball first, taking his lumps from the bigger boys over and over until he'd finally mastered the intricacies of the game.
Pressing his hand over the pills so none would be lost in the rumpled sheets, he dug his head deeper into the pillow and tried to ignore the scalding pain in his knotted thigh muscles. He rarely allowed himself to think about the night that had changed his life forever, but when he did, he felt an icy, killing rage.
There had been two of them, one to hot-wire Mitch's Porsche, one to watch for the cops. Instead of the police, however, Mitch had been the one to surprise them in the act. He'd had a split second of premonition, felt a jolt, a scalding numbness, and then … nothing. According to the doctors, the hopped-up kid swinging the crowbar had pretty much turned his lower spine to mush with the first blow.
God in heaven, why me? he cried silently. What did I ever do to deserve this kind of punishment? He'd asked that question before, sometimes in a delirium of pain, sometimes in fury, and, ultimately, with no expectation of an answer. In a few hours it would no longer matter, he thought as he collected the pills and returned them to the plastic bag for safekeeping.
Glancing around, he saw that his roommate, Franco, was still sleeping. Poor kid had just turned fourteen when he'd broken his neck in a surfing accident that had turned him into an instant quadriplegic. As though sensing his gaze, Franco slowly opened his eyes and smiled. He'd already made it plain that he thought Mitch was some kind of god, just because he'd made it to the pros.
"Morning, Mitch," he murmured, shifting his gaze, all that remained under his control, toward the window. "Looks like it's going to be a great day. Maybe you and I can get outside during lunch, soak up some rays."
Mitch felt his stomach twist. Wouldn't that be a sight? Two gimps in bathing suits. He glanced down at his legs. The surgeon might as well have sliced them off, for all the good they would do him.
"Not today, kid," he said, wondering how long it would take for the pills to put him out of his misery.
"That's what you said yesterday," Franco reminded him with a grin. "Besides, I sorta promised Lupe we'd be out on the patio this afternoon when she came to work."
"Lupe?" Mitch asked, curious in spite of himself.
"C'mon, Mitch. She's that cute candy striper who's got the hots for me. Remember, I introduced you two day before yesterday?"
Mitch cast his mind backward, finall
y coming up with a vague picture of a short, plump cheerleader type with black curls down to her fanny and big brown eyes.
"Yeah, I remember. Cute kid." And young enough to be his daughter, if he'd been lucky enough—or man enough—to father a child.
"What do you mean, 'kid'?" Franco protested, his tone indignant. "Lupe's sixteen and one prime example of womanhood. As soon as I get myself sprung from this place, me and her are gonna have us a picnic on the beach."
Mitch pushed himself higher on the pillow. "I hate to be the one to give you the bad news, kid, but your surfing days are over."
"Surfing maybe, but sex, never!"
"Yeah? How are you going to manage that?"
Franco lifted his black eyebrows and clucked his tongue. "That's between me and Lupe."
The nurse bustled in with the morning medication and her usual cheery patter. Mitch ignored her. Franco gave as good as he got, asking rude questions about her love life and laughing at the insults she shot back in return.
From the first, Franco had never given in, never stopped grinning, never stopped talking about the future. Dumb kid, didn't he know he didn't have one?
Reluctantly, yet compelled by a gut-knotting feeling he didn't want to define, Mitch glanced down at his fist. Yeah, he had the means to end his life, all right, a handful of them. And he had the courage to swallow them.
So what if a few sorry do-gooders claimed suicide was a coward's way out? Everyone knew Mitch Scanlon had never backed down from a fight in his life. Mitch Scanlon was a man. A winner!
Or was he?
Is that what Franco would say about him when they zipped him into a body bag? Or would he shake his head and decide he'd picked the wrong guy for his hero?
Hell, it was no better than he deserved. Franco was the real winner. The real hero. And big, tough, kick-ass Mitchell Scanlon, best quarterback in the NFL since Unitas, was the real loser. Admit it, Scanlon, the kid has more courage than you had on your best day.
He shut his eyes tight, trying to escape the shame tearing at him. Slowly, relentlessly, a determination to beat this thing filled him until it burned in his soul. He'd made himself into a football player and a role model for a lot of would-be quarterbacks. Maybe he could turn himself into the kind of man that a kid like Franco could respect. It wouldn't be easy; he wasn't even sure he would succeed. He just knew he had to try.
Franco was watching him when he opened his eyes again. "How about it, Mitch? Looks like a winner of a day outside."
It cost Mitch to smile. He knew it would cost him every day. "Sure kid," he said as he tossed the bag into the waste basket by the bed. "We'll get some sun today. You have my word on it."
Chapter 1
« ^ »
It was rush hour in Sacramento. Traffic was snarled from one end of the civic center to the other. Peter Gianfracco had been away from the fast-paced California sprawl for almost seven years, long enough now to admit that the doctors had been right when they'd ordered him to retire from his stress-filled job as a coach for the Los Angeles Raiders or risk another massive heart attack.
He lived in north central Oregon now, where he was athletic director for Bradenton College, and it was college business that had brought him south. The college was in desperate need of a head football coach, someone who could turn a bunch of talented but dispirited kids into instant winners. After forty years in football, thirty of those in the NFL, the man everyone still called Coach knew of only one person who had the combination of intelligence, knowledge and grit to get the job done.
"Say, ain't I seen you someplace before?" the cabby asked as he pulled over to double-park in front of the K Street Gym. Wincing at the sudden cacophony of blaring horns behind them, Gianfracco added a precise fifteen percent to the amount on the meter and handed it over as he asked, "You ever watch the Raiders on TV?"
"Every chance I get," the cabby boomed, nodding his thanks for the gratuity. "Are you with the team?"
"Used to be, yeah. Quarterback coach."
"Must be where I seen you then, on the sidelines." The cabby narrowed his gaze. "No offense, but the damn team ain't been the same since Mitch Scanlon retired a few years back."
"Can't argue with you there." Coach opened the door and stepped out. Setting his overnight bag on the pavement, he reached back for his briefcase.
"Guess you know Scanlon owns that there gym," the cabby said, nodding toward the two-story brick building opposite. "Heard he made a pile of money designing exercise equipment for cripples like himself."
Gianfracco scowled. "Thanks for the ride," he said, slamming the door. Head down like the charging bull he resembled, he headed for the entrance.
Not sure what he would find in a place devoted to physical fitness for the disabled, he decided he was impressed. The place was bright and nicely decorated, with splashes of color on the white walls and soothing New Age music playing in the background. To Gianfracco's eye, it seemed as large and well-equipped as any NFL training room. The only real difference appeared to be a half dozen shiny parallel bars set waist high in one section and a bank of thick raised mats along the sidewall, the kind that he'd seen in the rehab departments of sports medicine centers. A man without legs was doing push-ups on one, a woman in a neck brace doing leg lifts on another.
Averting his gaze and feeling guilty about it at the same time, he headed toward the small reception area to the left of the door. A young woman stood behind the counter, studying a large yellow card. He couldn't help noticing that she was dressed in skintight workout clothes, revealing a figure that had an old man's blood pressure shooting sky-high.
When she saw him approaching, her pixie face brightened into an infectious smile. "Hi, I'm Jeannie," she said, before returning the card to a file box. "Beautiful day, isn't it?"
"Sure is," Coach agreed, enjoying the rush of blood through his veins. Just because a man had been a widower for the past eight years and mostly celibate didn't mean he was over the hill.
"Is Scanlon around?" he asked, scanning the room once again.
She nodded. "His office is in the back, just past the aerobics studio and to the left."
"Thanks." Taking a tighter grip on his case, he made his way to the back, enjoying the familiar grunts and groans of those working out on the machines. In the glassed-in aerobics studio, a class was in progress, and the room was crowded with men and women in wheelchairs or straight-back chairs. Muffled music accompanied the equally muted shouts of the leader, who was also seated in a chair.
Slowing as he approached the corridor's end, Coach took a deep breath, then straightened his shoulders and prayed that his poker face was still in working order. The last thing a man as proud as Mitch needed to see in his former coach's eyes was pity.
The office door was ajar. He was about to knock when he heard voices. He paused to listen, then grinned. It sounded for all the world like his old buddy Mitch was working hard at getting a lady into bed. But then, Mitch Scanlon had always been wildly popular with the ladies in his playing days. No reason to think that had changed any just because he was a paraplegic. Still grinning, Coach was about to retreat when the sudden blare of music caught his ear, followed by a pitch for laundry detergent. What do you know, it's a damn soap opera, he thought, pushing open the door without knocking.
Scanlon was seated behind a large oak desk, a pair of brown forearm crutches propped against the wall behind him. Frowning slightly, he was running the nib of a black fountain pen down a column of figures on a thick computer printout. He was dressed in a white polo shirt bearing the gym's logo in blue across his still impressive chest, and his tanned arms seemed even more muscular than Gianfracco remembered. The photogenic face that had seemed custom-made for a camera lens had permanent lines etched into the wide brow and a look of hard-won control around the mouth. And even though Gianfracco couldn't see the long, muscular legs that had taken a troubled kid from East Los Angeles to national glory by the time he'd been old enough to drink legally, Coach knew they
would never move at Mitch's command again.
"Yo, Mitchell. Long time no see."
Scanlon looked up, his lean face registering fleeting pain before lighting in pleasure. "Hell, Pete, I thought you'd be six feet under by now."
"Might as well be, the way the doctors want me to live," Coach admitted as he approached the desk.
Scanlon leaned forward, stretching out a hand, which Gianfracco took eagerly, discovering as he did that he'd missed Mitch more than he'd thought. "Damn, but it's good to see you, boy," he said, his voice gruff.
Scanlon reacted with that same mixture of cautious warmth and streetwise toughness that Coach had first noticed in a touchingly eager rookie.
"Last I heard you were the Athletic Director for a college up north some place." Scanlon waved him to a chair, which he accepted gratefully.
"Still am, in a place called Bradenton," he said, placing his cases next to the chair. "It's up in north central Oregon."
"How do you like baby-sitting a bunch of spoiled college kids instead of prowling the sidelines, cussing out everyone in sight?"
"Actually, it's a pretty sweet life, all things considered. Got me a nice little town house next to the prettiest little golf course you've ever seen, and three months off every summer to enjoy it."
"Still hooking your drive to the right?"
Coach laughed. "Might have known you'd remember that, considering how much money you won from me over the years." Taking a chance, Gianfracco directed a pointed look at the small TV on the corner of the desk. "You taken to watching the soaps these days, Mitch?"
Scanlon glanced at the screen while at the same time switching off the set. "Hate to admit it, Coach, but I got hooked on them in the hospital, and I can't seem to shake the habit."
"Sounded to me like daytime TV has become X-rated."
Mitch looked sheepish. "More like R. Everyone keeps their clothes on until the commercial, then they hop into bed." His grin faded. "What brings you to Sacramento?"
"Football, what else?"
Her Secret, His Child Page 1
