Her Secret, His Child

by Paula Detmer Riggs

  "Because watching football games with my father was the only time I ever had him totally to myself."

  Tilly sniffed. "He could have done with a good lesson in priorities," she muttered, and Carly chuckled.

  "Tilly, my Tilly, what would I have done without you?"

  "Probably the same as you did with me," the housekeeper retorted brusquely.

  "Just the same, I'm glad you're part of our family." Carly gave Tilly a hug and then left the kitchen.

  The parlor where Felicity preferred to serve drinks when the occasion was an intimate one was on the other side of the mansion, and as she headed that way, Carly's heels tapped a muted tattoo on the priceless rugs covering the polished hardwood.

  Sunset was just starting, giving the light flooding through the front windows a pink tinge. The house seemed still, as though brooding about the crisis threatening its existence.

  Bankruptcy. The very word made Carly recoil. As president, she should have known. But she hadn't. None of the senior administrators, including Bradenton's long-time controller, had had more than a vague inkling. The auditor had blamed the downturn in the economy for a drastic shortfall in alumni donations. The trustees had blamed her.

  She was the one with the ambitious plans, the one who'd pushed through the "Youth at Risk" scholarship program for ex-gang members that had made a new dormitory necessary. And she was the one who had bullied the trustees into approving an expensive revamping of the curriculum. But all those things had been necessary, darn it, she reminded herself firmly. And every one had been done with the trustees' approval. Only when serious trouble started rumbling their way did the trustees suddenly come up with second thoughts.

  Carly refused to waste time on the blame game. What was done was done. The important thing now was to replenish the sadly depleted treasury, and fast. Most of the elements of her plan were already in place. Marca Kenworthy had the publicity campaign ready to go, and Carly had freed enough money to finance it by personally taking on part of next year's teaching load, left open by two retiring professors. All they needed now was the right coach, someone photogenic and irresistible to the media, "a taller Robert Redford with tree-trunk shoulders," Marca had quipped. Carly would be satisfied with someone with a passion for winning, no matter how long the odds. And while you're at it, Carly, why don't you make the guy rich enough to contribute a chunk of the money himself? she thought, pushing her shoulders back an extra inch.

  As she approached the parlor, Carly heard her mother's finishing-school diction countered by Coach Gianfracco's harsh Brooklyn consonants. Those two, she thought, shaking her head. Neither one had anticipated an attraction for the other, but to anyone seeing them together, it was more than obvious. And really quite endearing, Carly thought as she paused outside the door to gather her wits.

  Felicity was in her usual attire of tailored chic and pearls and her usual spot, holding court from the wing chair by the fireplace, the picture of a gracious hostess in every carefully attended detail, including the small glass of excellent sherry in her hand.

  Coach was sitting bolt upright on the small damask and rosewood settee facing her, looking as though he would kill for a cigar. But it was the large man sitting in Carly's father's chair on the other side of the fireplace who drew her eager gaze.

  Casually but impeccably dressed in a camel-colored sport coat and a pale blue Oxford cloth shirt open at the throat, he was a big man, with enough breadth of chest and width of shoulder to please Marca twice over. At first glance he appeared to be in his early forties, with the brooding look of a man given to solemn moods and bouts of deep introspection.

  Carly's heart began racing, and her throat went dry. A long habit of enforced composure kept her from gasping aloud, but one hand went to her stomach nevertheless.

  The deep-set eyes she had fought to forget were the same intense shade of gold, the lashes still thick, the eyebrows quirked at a sexy angle. But the lazy glint of supreme self-confidence was gone, replaced by a world-weary watchfulness.

  There were other changes, too. His thick, sun-burnished hair was now heavily salted with steel, and the lion's mane that had tumbled almost to his shoulders had been shorn to collar length. The firm lips that had smiled so easily seemed cast in a somber line now, and his face had been honed to a new leanness. Under perfectly tailored slacks he was wearing braces on those long legs, once thick with muscle and rippling with energy, and now so utterly still. The brown forearm crutches by the chair spoke very clearly of the extent of his disability.

  A younger man's face rose in her mind, equally tanned, with the same fiercely proud jut to the strong square chin, the same resolute mouth. It was a face she'd seen on the covers of sports magazines when he'd won the Heismann Trophy, the same face that had smiled with such cocky pride when the Raiders took him in the first round of the NFL draft his senior year.

  Sometimes she wondered if she hadn't been half in love with Mitch Scanlon before she'd actually laid eyes on him. He hadn't been a pro then, merely UCLA's latest golden boy, but everyone knew he was headed for superstardom. To top it off, he had been gorgeous at twenty-two.

  Six feet four, hard as rawhide and deeply tanned, he'd had sandy hair burnt nearly blond by the sun and nut brown eyes that seemed to be smiling even when he wasn't.

  They'd met her freshman year, when she and Marca had driven down to Palm Springs for spring break. Everyone had been talking about him that week. Of course, Marca, with her passion for new experiences, had been the one to spot him leaning against the bar. Carly had just tagged along as Marca had approached him, scarcely believing her luck at being near her idol.

  She had been close to speechless when he'd smiled her way. His lazy gaze promised an excitement she'd only dreamed about, and yet his smile was oddly shy, touching an as-yet-undiscovered chord deep inside her.

  Afraid he would lose interest once he found out how inexperienced she was, she made up an alter ego on the spot—a girl named Sarah from the big city of Seattle. Sarah was twenty-one and adventurous. Sarah was fun; Sarah drank.

  He'd bought her a beer and then another, laughing when she'd licked the foam from her upper lip. The room had begun to spin, and she'd felt as though she were floating above the peanut-strewn floor. While other girls glared jealously her way, he'd slowly wooed her in that rough cat's purr of a voice that stirred feelings of excitement she couldn't seem to control, no matter how hard she tried. And when he asked her to go with him to his motel room, she hadn't stopped to think twice. Six weeks later she'd found out she was carrying his child, a little girl she'd named Tracy and raised alone.

  Drawing a long breath into her burning lungs, she closed her eyes and tried to calm her suddenly racing heart. For Tracy's sake, she had to find out if Scanlon recognized her. No matter what, Tracy had to be protected.

  The resemblance between father and daughter was subtle, but it was there nevertheless. Anyone with any suspicion at all could see a more innocent, trusting replica of Scanlon's cynical golden eyes in Tracy's, the same tumble of thick hair framing the same square face.

  No, she wouldn't let Tracy be hurt. For Tracy's sake she would be strong, just as she'd made herself be strong during those terrible first months of her pregnancy.

  For Tracy's sake, she would be polite and cool and every inch an Alderson. This was her turf, her home field advantage. She was a professional now, a woman at the top of her career, the president of a well-respected college. Taking another deep breath, she stood tall and curved her lips into a polite smile of welcome. President Alderson had guests waiting.

  Chapter 2

  « ^ »

  While Coach regaled their hostess with another of his football stories, Mitch sipped enough sherry to be polite and wondered how things were going in Sacramento without him. He trusted Jeannie, but she was new to management and still a little shaky when it came to making decisions.

  A quick glance at the ornate clock on the spindly table near the French doors off the terrace told h
im it was still early, not quite seven-thirty. Later, when he was settled in his motel, he would give her a quick call. If she had a problem, she would likely let him know then.

  Not that he was worried, he reminded himself as he took another sip of the too sweet wine and watched Coach punctuate the story he was recounting with his usual expansive gestures. Okay, so maybe he was edging toward worry, but the spa was his baby, the only one he was ever going to have. Putting it together little by little had given him a reason to get out of bed every morning. And watching it prosper had bumped his self-esteem up a few badly needed notches.

  "I understand you're from California?"

  It took Mitch a moment to realize his hostess had swung her gaze his way. Unlike most women he'd known, she had a knack of concentrating completely on a man when she spoke to him.

  "I live in Sacramento now, but I grew up in East Los Angeles." In a neighborhood boasting a shooting gallery on every other block and the thickest concentration of hookers in the entire city.

  "My late husband and I attended a conference of college presidents in Los Angeles in—now let me see—1981?" Mrs. Alderson's patrician forehead puckered daintily as she reflected. "Yes, that is correct," she declared with a genteel nod of her perfectly coiffed head. "I remember because it was the same June Caroline graduated from Bradenton. She was the third Alderson to matriculate here, you know, although, sadly, she missed being the valedictorian by two percentage points. Her father was terribly disappointed."

  "Yes, ma'am," Mitch repeated while mentally adding bottle-thick horn-rim glasses to the picture forming of Coach's lady boss.

  "Did you attend college in California?" she asked brightly.

  Mitch shifted, heading off the hamstring cramp he felt clutching at his left thigh. "Yes, UCLA."

  "Best quarterback the Bruins ever had," Gianfracco inserted. "Mitch still holds the record for passing yardage. Played his last collegiate game in the Rose Bowl. Beat Ohio State by thirteen points."

  "My daughter's hoping for a bowl bid this season. Not the Rose Bowl, of course, but perhaps one of the smaller, regional bowls."

  "She's not the only one hoping," Coach declared before swallowing the remainder of his drink. "I'd like to end my career with a winning team myself."

  Felicity nodded. "More sherry, Peter?"

  "Don't mind if I do, thanks."

  Felicity's gaze came to Mitch, and she smiled. "Mitchell?"

  Mitch indicated his nearly full glass and shook his head. As he did, a whisper of silk and skin drew his gaze to the door. He stopped breathing and for a split second felt as though he'd just been body slammed into a wall. If this was President Alderson, he and every other man within a ten-mile radius were in big trouble.

  Simply put, Coach's dragon lady was a knockout, all the way from the sheen of her sleek brown hair to the tips of her classically simple high-heeled shoes.

  From where he sat, she looked to be half a head shorter than six feet, every inch designed to steal a man's breath and, unless he had completely lost his male compass, enticingly packaged in smooth white skin.

  She was wearing purple, an appropriate color given her family history and the regal angle at which she held her slightly cleft chin. Her eyes were a muted green, somewhere between emerald and a morning sea, and fringed with curly brown lashes just short of lush. Her nose was standard female issue, shaded toward small, and her mouth was wide, with enough fullness to keep a man's blood pressure in the red zone.

  Though younger than he'd expected—early to midthirties was his first guess—she gave off pulses of power that didn't surprise him, along with waves of hidden vulnerability that did. Steel and velvet, an unusual combination and definitely classy, he thought, watching her gaze sweep the room with perfect poise before coming to rest for an instant on his face.

  Unbidden, a smile tugged at his mouth. Maybe his stay in Oregon wasn't going to be all work and no play. As though privy to his thoughts, she firmed her lips, and the smoked green of her eyes iced over.

  Whoa, what'd I do to deserve that? he wondered, and then he remembered the last woman he'd taken to bed, and the pity in her eyes when she'd seen his withered legs. She hadn't even stayed around long enough to button her blouse. Probably gave some half-sloshed conventioneer a real thrill when she left his Tahoe hotel room. He'd spent the rest of the evening getting drunk, alone.

  "There you are, Caroline," Felicity murmured with the barest trace of annoyance hardening her vowels. "I heard your car pulling in quite a long time ago, and I was beginning to worry."

  Carly offered her mother the same tolerant smile she'd been using for most of her life. "I stopped to chat with Tilly."

  "I see." Felicity smiled then. "Sherry, dear?"

  "A small one," Carly said before gliding forward to greet Coach Gianfracco.

  "How was the conference?" Coach asked, after lumbering hastily to his feet.

  "Challenging."

  "Bet you wowed all those other presidents with your speech," he said before introducing her to Scanlon. "Mitch, meet the best boss a man ever had, Carly Alderson."

  "Ms. Alderson."

  Carly had forgotten the gritty, bone-shivering quality of his deep voice—or, more accurately, erased it from her mind, just as she'd tried to erase everything else about him.

  "Mr. Scanlon," Carly said briskly, her hand extended as she approached his chair. "How nice of you to accept Coach Gianfracco's offer to visit."

  Scanlon didn't rise, nor did she expect him to. Leaning forward slightly, he took her hand in his. His touch was impersonal, his grip strong but not designed to impress. Even as her mind processed the feel of hard calluses against her palm, her body was recoiling inside. Her emotions churned toward violent, but she made herself concentrate on her breathing. One slow, even breath. Another. The need to strike out leveled, and she felt some of the tension lift. He hadn't recognized her, and that was all that mattered.

  Needing distance, she retreated to the settee, conscious that he was watching her with a glint of lazy amusement in his tawny eyes. Did he ever think about that plump, too eager virgin he'd charmed into his bed one hot spring night seventeen years ago? she wondered, tasting a bitterness she'd thought she'd mastered long ago.

  "Have you ever visited Oregon before, Mr. Scanlon?" she asked politely, crossing her legs.

  Scanlon's gaze lingered a beat too long on her ankles before skimming up to meet her eyes. Schooling her features to remain calm, she met his gaze squarely.

  "Once. The Raiders played an exhibition game in the stadium in Portland right after it was built. It was a nice place, and best of all, it had natural grass."

  Carly nodded. "The sportscasters are always saying that players hate artificial grass. Sounds as though you did, too."

  She saw that there was a coiled tenseness about him, even as he acknowledged her question with a slight smile. "No matter what those suits in the front office claim, playing on artificial grass is like playing on a blanket spread over concrete."

  Coach grunted his agreement. "Too many good men had their careers cut short on account of it."

  "But, gentlemen, isn't football always played on natural grass?" Finished pouring Carly's drink, Felicity directed her question to Coach, managing to look both mystified and remarkably pretty, something that Carly was fairly certain Coach had already noticed.

  "Only in older stadiums," Coach told her in an almost courtly way. "In others, it's played on an artificial surface."

  Felicity beamed her thanks, and Carly visualized a long line of Southern belles stretching back a hundred years, hiding their intelligence behind lace hankies and questions carefully crafted to inflate a man's ego.

  She didn't blame her mother for choosing a subservient role. Felicity was only being the woman she'd been raised to be. Carly hadn't set out to break the pattern, but having a child out of wedlock had forced her to.

  "Speaking of Portland, what did you think of this last Super Bowl?" She shaded her voice to convey polite
interest in a guest of the college, nothing more.

  "I heard it was pretty boring." Scanlon's smile was slow, with just enough of a twist to let her know he didn't much like talking about the past.

  "Heard? You didn't watch?" Her surprise was genuine.

  "I had other things to do." He shifted restlessly in the chair, one big hand resting on the arm, the other flattened on his thigh. He'd worn shorts in Palm Springs, and his thighs had bulged with muscles. Even a casual glance told her that those huge thighs had shrunk. She refused to feel sorry for him.

  "I have to admit I watched until the bitter end. It was a good game, even if the press thought lousy officiating cost Portland the win."

  "Yeah, well, the press gets paid for offering stupid opinions."

  Mitch knew he was supposed to be impressing Bradenton's cool and collected lady president, but the pity he'd seen in her eyes at first meeting had gotten his back up before she'd even opened that very unschoolmarmish mouth of hers. For some reason he couldn't pinpoint, he wanted to ruffle her feathers but good. He also, he discovered with some annoyance, wanted to find out if that pouty mouth was really as soft as it looked.

  "Isn't that a rather prejudiced viewpoint?" she asked, shifting slightly to face him more squarely.

  Mitch allowed his expression to reveal just how prejudiced he was. "You might as well know up front, Ms. Alderson. I have zero respect for all but a few members of the media."

  She accepted that serenely, with only a slight lifting of one eyebrow. He wondered what it would take to rile up the sea green calm in those eyes.

  "I guess that's putting it plainly enough. And it's Dr. Alderson."

  The sudden edge to her voice had him grinning to himself. So she liked to call the shots, did she? He'd always liked that in a woman. It made her surrender that much sweeter.

  "Sorry," he drawled, though they both knew that he wasn't. "I'd forgotten how important those extra letters after a person's name can be."