Carly winced. "Was he hurt?"
"Just his pride. His face got real red, and he sort of bit off his words, you know? Karen and I were about to cry, 'cause he was so helpless, and the guys just looked at each other like they didn't know what to do. And then Mitch just started to laugh. It was like he broke the tension, you know, and everyone else started to laugh, too. Ian and one of the other guys helped him up, and then Mitch ordered Jackson Finney to stand behind him so he wouldn't fall. Told Jackson his tail would be in a sling if he let the coach fall on his, um, butt, and then Mitch threw that ball right into the hands of Billy Randolph." She shook her head before reaching down for her suitcase. "I gotta tell you, Mom, Mitch must have been some great football player."
Carly busied herself checking the zipper on a large tote, her eyes swimming with tears she didn't dare shed. "He was," she said softly, lifting the tote's strap to her shoulder. "And I have a feeling he's going to be a great coach."
Just as he would have been a great father.
* * *
They were two days into the fall semester when Carly ran into Mitch in the foyer of Alderson Hall. He was wearing an orange polo shirt with the Wolves' logo written across his broad chest in electric blue, and twill slacks, as though he'd just come from practice. He had just left the Dean of Men's office and looked preoccupied and tired.
He smiled a little when he saw her, but something in his eyes kept her from smiling back. He stopped as she neared, and she felt her pace slowing, though a part of her wanted to ignore the obvious invitation. Her heart still ached from the harsh words they'd exchanged the last time they were together. The last thing she needed now was another confrontation, especially in public.
"So, how was your trip?" he asked after they'd exchanged stilted greetings.
"Exhausting," she replied, both relieved and disappointed at his impersonal tone. "It'll be a long time before I can get excited about fifteenth-century architecture and archaic plumbing."
His mouth slanted, but his eyes remained guarded. "Guess I probably shouldn't mention the problem McNabb has been having with the training room whirlpool to you right now."
"Not unless the building's in danger of falling down and I'm the only one who can save it."
His eyes crinkled slightly. "It'll keep till you've sorted yourself out."
Somehow she managed to work up a smile. Being near him, and yet so emotionally distant, was much harder than she'd anticipated. "Thank goodness. I knew I'd come home to a stack of paperwork. I didn't expect a mountain." But that was her problem, she reminded herself. "How about you? Are you and the Wolves ready to take on the Jacks on Saturday?"
"Ready as we'll ever be."
Carly felt a hole open in her stomach. They were conversing like colleagues who didn't know each other very well, using the stilted words that polite people used when they had little in common with one another. But we made a baby, she wanted to shout. And we made love.
"Think you'll win?"
He shook his head. "No, but that's not the point, is it?"
"No, I guess not." She shifted her briefcase to the other hand. She wanted to be in his arms, and, at the same time, she wanted to forget she'd ever met him. "Marca tells me it's a sellout."
"So I hear." He noticed that she'd changed her hair. Cut it, curled it, something, but it was still shiny and clean-looking and framed her face like a shimmery cloud. He wanted to crush it in his hands and inhale the scent of flowers he knew he'd find there. But during one of the endless string of nearly sleepless nights he'd endured these past three months, he'd vowed never to touch her again without her permission.
"I saw the interview you and J.C. Cobb did with Scott Bendix last Sunday. All three of you looked like you were having a good time."
"J.C. did most of the work. I played straight man."
Carly didn't agree, but the hard edge to his voice warned her to drop the subject. "Tell me about the team. Is it really shaping up to be as good as Coach says?"
He shrugged. "They're better than they were a month ago. Not as good as they should be." He shifted position, and she realized she'd never seen him looking so discouraged.
"Can they win? That's the important thing right now."
"Yeah, they can win—once they get it into their heads they're not still a bunch of losers."
"Everyone who's watched the scrimmages has raved about the great job you've done molding them into a team."
Mitch didn't bother to acknowledge the compliment. He knew how far the team had come and that he'd had a big part in that. But he also knew they were far from the championship team Carly wanted so desperately. Check that, he thought wearily. The team she needed if her plan was to succeed.
"A team that's still going to lose its first game against Beaverton unless things improve," he admitted to her—and to himself.
"There's still time. The season doesn't start for two weeks."
He nodded, then drew a deep breath. He wanted to touch her so badly he ached. If he could just hold her for a moment, maybe he could purge himself of the terrible pain in his soul. Maybe then, breathing in her scent, feeling her softness, he could find the courage to plead for her forgiveness. He knew he didn't have the right to ask even that much of her—not after what he'd done.
He glanced around. The administration building was always a busy place at the start of the term. He caught the curious looks directed their way and wondered if his shame was as obvious to everyone else as it was to him. Heat climbed his neck, as he forced himself to steady his gaze on hers.
"I, uh, see Tracy now and then at the field. Practicing with the junior varsity yell leaders."
"It's a wonder she doesn't sleep in her uniform."
"She tells me she's going to be living in the dorm."
Carly nodded. "It was her decision, and, I think, a good one. But that big old house will seem terribly empty once she's gone."
"She, uh, asked me to come to your welcome-home dinner, but I figured that I'd be the last person you'd want to see." Mitch realized that he was actually praying for her to contradict him. For the past two months he'd gotten the shakes every time he'd thought about seeing her again. As he watched her soft lips curve into a frown, he felt the same clammy chill in his belly.
"I'm sure Tracy understood why you refused," she said in that same coolly polite voice she'd used that first night in the parlor when she'd ordered him to call her Dr. Alderson. He knew then that he'd had his chance with her, and he'd blown it. Though he was standing perfectly still, he felt as though he'd taken a helmet in the gut.
"I hope you know I would never say anything to her. About my being her father, I mean. I know I don't have the right."
Carly felt a wave of sadness so intense she nearly cried out. "Maybe someday, when she's older," she murmured.
"Yeah, maybe then." Mitch knew he should leave, but he couldn't seem to make himself say goodbye. Seeing her again had sharpened the pain that had only just begun to dull, but being able to watch the small, familiar gestures of her hands and the sweet curve of her mouth when she spoke of their daughter was worth the torment he would suffer later.
"Carly, I was out of line that day in the guest room when you were trying to explain your reasons for not telling me about Tracy. Once I calmed down, I realized that you don't owe me anything, not even an explanation. I'm the one who owes you." He dropped his gaze, then lifted it slowly to hers again. "Is there any way we can get past this? Maybe talk it out and see if we can at least be friends?"
She drew a long, shaky breath. "Is that what you want? For us to be friends?"
He wanted to spend the rest of his life trying to make her forget the pain he'd caused her. He wanted her face to be the first thing he saw when he woke up every morning, and he wanted the taste of her lips to be the last thing he remembered before sleep claimed him every night. However, what he wanted and what he deserved were about as far apart as the goalposts at the stadium. "I know it's asking a lot," he said around the lum
p in his throat, "but yeah, I'd like us to be friends."
"I don't know, Mitch. Without trust…" She shrugged. "I'll have to think about that." The pressure in her chest was getting worse.
"I understand." He ran his tongue over his bottom lip. It was the kind of nervous gesture she'd never associated with him. "I guess what I can't understand is why you even talked to me when I showed up here last spring. Or … why you let me make love to you?"
It hurt her to hear the vicious self-hatred in his voice. She'd heard it in her own voice enough times to imagine the savagery of the wounds he'd inflicted on himself. Mixed emotions stirred inside her.
"I asked myself that same question," she said in a low, controlled tone. "The only answer that works is that I saw you as a different person. It was difficult, at first, to believe that. But I also know that when someone as active as you were suddenly faces total destruction of his self-image, it takes enormous strength and courage to survive, let alone become whole again. And you are whole," she murmured. "I admire you more than I can say." Her voice trembled, and she bit her lip. He reached out as though to touch her, then changed his mind and returned his hand to the handle of his crutch.
"Don't," he said in a raw tone. "Please don't hurt." A muscle pulled at the side of his jaw, and he swallowed hard. "Tell me what I can do to make this up to you, Carly. Anything you want you can have, only don't hurt anymore. I can't stand that."
"Oh, Mitch." Carly took a step toward him, only to stop abruptly when someone called out her name. Glancing in the direction of the voice, she saw the Dean of Women hurrying toward them.
His face changed. "I'd better take off. It's almost time for practice."
She sensed his torment and ached to reach out to him. But the stiffness of his spine and the rigid set of his shoulders told her more than any words could have that he would take that kind of simple human gesture as pity.
"Yes, I have a meeting of the Deans' Council in a few minutes myself."
"Take care of yourself," he said, his voice gruff.
"Always," she said, angling her chin a little higher. "See you around campus."
Chapter 13
« ^ »
Mitch watched his quarterback disappear under a crowd of defenders and spat out a curse foul enough to curdle black coffee.
"Damn it, Ian," he said, when the boy had extricated himself from the pileup. "How many times have I told you not to telegraph your pass?"
Ian took off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his hot face. "Sorry, Coach. I thought I had it that time."
"Son, I could have picked six people at random off the street to line up opposite you, and you still would have been sacked."
Ian's eyes turned defensive, but Mitch wasn't in the mood for excuses. The Jacks game was tomorrow, and one week later, the Wolves played last year's conference champion in the first real game of the season. "Look, Ian," he said, letting his impatience show, "a quarterback has to do more than throw a decent spiral and scramble when he has to. Sometimes he's got to be a good actor, good enough to fool those big, mean-as-sin guys on the other side of the ball into thinking he's going to do one thing long enough to let his receivers find running room."
Ian stared at his cleats, a mutinous set to his jaw. Mitch leaned on his crutches and bit down hard on the need to vent his frustrations on the kid who was the cause of only the immediate one.
One more time, he thought. The kid has to get it sometime—if I don't wring his neck first. Glancing around, Mitch spotted Ian's backup leaning against the goalpost, flipping a football from hand to hand.
"Hey, Henry!" he called, aware that Ian had suddenly stiffened. "Come here a minute."
"What d'you need, Coach?" the backup QB asked eagerly, his grin as eager as a small boy's.
"You saw the play we just ran?"
"Yes, sir."
"I want you to run it."
Henry's dark eyes shifted nervously toward Ian, then snapped back to Mitch. Eighteen months ago a Portland judge had given the boy a choice, college or prison, and Henry had chosen college. He'd managed a C minus average his freshman year and had promised Mitch to do better this semester.
For the first week of practice Mitch had watched the youngster carefully, then decided to make him Ian's understudy. Henry had learned quickly, and although his passes were often off target, they had possibilities, and his footwork was nothing short of awesome. In another year Henry would have every pro scout in the country taking notice.
"Now?" Henry asked tentatively, as though he hadn't quite decided if Mitch was serious or not.
"Now." Mitch blew his whistle, and practice stopped dead as the other players on the field shifted their full attention his way. It had taken him two weeks to establish the kind of discipline he knew was necessary for a championship team, and another week to convince even the most rebellious of his squad that he meant it when he said he didn't give second chances.
One lapse of discipline, one broken rule or halfhearted effort, and that player was off the team. He'd had to cut three of last year's starters before the rest of the team paid attention. After that, however, he'd had little trouble.
With Ian, however, the trouble wasn't discipline. It was ego. For three years he'd been the best player on the field, and he knew it. Ian was still the best player, which was why he'd gotten it into his head that he didn't have anything more to learn.
"Same play, red 68," Mitch shouted. "And let's get it right this time."
The players lined up quickly, but when Henry took his place behind the center, Mitch caught the questioning looks sent his way.
"Pay attention, Cummings," Mitch ordered, ignoring Ian's furious expression. "Maybe you can learn something."
He hated to slice into the kid's pride, but he had to know now if Ian had enough fire in his belly to get the job done. He'd tried damn near everything else. Maybe the threat of replacing him with a green sophomore would kick start him into some much needed humility.
Henry wiped his hands on his butt, then took his position, legs planted squarely, head up, his hands snugged tight against Tom Pulli's thighs.
"Red 68. Red 68. Hut … hut, hut!"
Like a finely tooled machine, the play meshed flawlessly, just as Mitch had diagrammed it one late night while reviewing some old Raiders' plays. Henry tap-danced left, his shoulders signaling a cross-field pass. At the last moment, with the defenders moving left, he suddenly twisted right, cocked his arm and sent the ball zinging a full forty yards into the hands of the receiver—and out again.
Crestfallen, Henry came trotting up, his body language telling Mitch that he considered himself a failure.
"Damn good job, Henry." Mitch made sure his voice was loud enough to carry to the others, but not so loud that his intention was obvious. "Perfect misdirection, well-timed throw. Work on softening those bullets of yours next, okay?"
Henry's eyes lit up. "Sure will, Coach. Right away." He jogged off, his back just a little straighter. Ian watched him go, a muscle working in his jaw.
"He's not as good as you are yet, which is why you're the starting quarterback and he isn't," Mitch told Ian quietly. "It's up to you to make sure I don't change my mind."
Mitch didn't bother to wait for an answer. He had other things on his mind, like a place kicker who tended to hook the short ones left, and a secondary with holes like Swiss cheese. And a woman whose eyes haunted his every lonely hour, awake or asleep.
* * *
Ian kicked the left rear tire of his BMW and swore long and fluently.
"Ian, don't," Tracy pleaded, laying a hand on his arm. "You'll hurt your leg, and then you won't be able to play."
He shook off her hand, still furious at the humiliation he'd suffered at the hands of the man he'd idolized. "I'd like to knock Scanlon on his crippled ass, that's what I'd like to do. Hard-nosed bastard thinks he knows it all." He leaned against his car and ground his teeth. Not even Tracy's shyly eager kisses had been able to distract him.
"H
e's just doing his job, Ian," she said with that quick little rush in her voice that had first attracted him—as though she were in a hurry to say and do it all.
"Like hell. He's just got it in for me because I can do all the things he can't anymore."
"That's not true, and you know it. Mitch wants you guys to win, that's all. You said so yourself only a few weeks ago."
He scowled, wanting her to be wrong, but knowing she was right. A few weeks ago he'd been as excited as a five-year-old on Christmas Eve. But that had been before Coach Scanlon had started ragging on him. Now all he wanted to do was kick down doors.
"Yeah, well, if he wants us to win so bad, how come he's threatening to put Henry in my place just because I screwed up one lousy play? Tell me that, Miss Sunshine and Light!"
"I don't know, Ian. Maybe because he thinks you can do better."
Ian stared at her, his stance belligerent, his fists clenched, but the fury he'd carried with him from the field was ebbing away. "Well, he's right," he muttered. "I can do better than any of those guys."
"Then why don't you show him?"
Tracy's smile always made him feel special. Maybe that was why he'd broken his own rule about dating girls who didn't know the score. "C'mere, Sunshine," he ordered, his voice a low growl. "I'm tired of talking."
She wait into his arms eagerly, love shining in her eyes. But it was the soft invitation of her sexy little mouth that he cared about most. Soon he would convince her to let him make love to her. Very soon.
* * *
Ian dropped Tracy off at the bottom of the mansion's driveway, and she walked the rest of the way. It was Friday night, and, since Ian had to study for an exam, she'd invited herself to dinner. Besides, her mother hadn't been herself since she'd returned from Europe.
Even so, as her short skirt swished against her thighs and her feet fairly danced up the drive, she felt slightly guilty for being so happy while her mother seemed more and more preoccupied. But life was so great! She was a Bradenton cheerleader, and Ian loved her.
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