THREE DAYS LATER Brooks sat in Earl Highland’s office, finishing up the last interview he would do before training camp started in three weeks. The Kentuckians’ offices would closed, giving the employees a short break before the craziness of the season started up.
“Why Parker Jamieson?” Brooks made a notation in her reporter notebook. “You run a West Coast offense, he’s from a Wildcat background and you already have a solid quarterback in Jonas Nash.” It felt weird to ask a question about Jonas when he wasn’t in the room.
Earl sat back in his beat-up leather desk chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “We were a little short at the tight end position. Never hurts to have another good pair of hands when you have a versatile quarterback like Nash in play.”
Walking the line between truth and hope. Just as she was doing. Calling him solid, referring to him as in play. In truth she and Earl knew that although he had a light go-ahead from the doctors, the full release was still three weeks in the future. Maybe more.
“Still, does it give the rest of the team the wrong idea when you bring in a tight end with outstanding quarterback numbers, even if those numbers are from college?”
Earl pressed his lips together. “Let’s just say Jamieson is the man we need at tight end. Nash is the man we need running the offense.”
“Rumor has it there is a bit of a disconnect between the front office and the coaching staff. Those rumors began with the former coach, but has continued since you took the helm. Is the front office working the same game plan as the coaching staff?”
“Yes,” he said, voice flat. Earl sat straighter in his chair and unclipped his microphone. “I’ve got a staff meeting in five. We’ll have to wrap it up.”
Brooks signaled Kent to start the teardown as she made a few more notations in her notebook. Earl’s words said there was no disconnect, that Jonas was still the man. His body language was not nearly so clear. He’d looked over her head when he answered the questions or let his gaze dart around the room. She needed to watch tapes of older interviews with him to see if she could pick up any other discrepancies.
“They’ve got a booth set aside for us at the station. Meet you downstairs in five,” Kent said as he hefted the oversize camera bag onto his shoulder and left the office.
“Hang back a minute, Brooks.” Earl waited until the door fully closed behind Kent, and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Ran into your dad the other day,” he began.
Brooks bit her lower lip. She had a feeling she knew where this was going.
“He says you and Jonas have been spending a lot of time together. I need to ask you a favor. Off the record.”
Brooks put her notebook away. “Okay.” She clasped her hands in her lap and ordered her foot to stop twiddling. Her foot ignored her.
“You’ve seen him in workouts, and you’ve suspected his shoulder injury is bigger than the team has advertised. How much do you know?”
“I know it required surgery. We, ah... Kent just returned from his assignment, so we haven’t sat down for that interview yet.” The excuse sounded lame to her own ears. The truth was she could have set up a static interview set and run the camera herself. But she hadn’t asked him, and he hadn’t brought it up.
“He’s been advised that coming back could lead to bigger problems down the road. Arthritis, more separations, more surgeries.”
Brooks loosened her hands. This was not the conversation she expected. What she expected were questions about the relationship, and maybe a veiled accusation about using their attraction to get a better story. She’d been ready to fight that accusation. This she didn’t know how to fight. “Did you bring in Jamieson to replace Jonas?”
Earl quickly shook his head. “I didn’t bring in Jamieson at all. The GM saw an opportunity, and to be honest another set of hands on the offense is a good thing at this point. I know Jonas well enough to know he’s going to do everything he can to get back on the football field.” Earl sighed. “I’m just worried about what happens if he can’t.”
“Can’t play? But I thought the doctor more or less gave him the go-ahead already.”
“He did. A doctor saying a player can play and that player actually getting back his form are two different things. Some guys have eight concussions in a career and no problems, some guys have one and they’re done.”
“And if he’s not up to the caliber you need, you’ll have to look elsewhere.” Something turned in her stomach. Earl couldn’t turn on Jonas, too. From what she had seen, the coach was the closest thing to family Jonas had. He needed football, but he needed his coach in his corner more.
“Yeah. Watching him play has been a privilege, but I never encouraged him to think about what comes next. Coaching, the booth. It’s always just been playing. That might have been a mistake.”
Brooks watched the older man across the desk for a long moment. He looked sad, as if he’d just told a child Santa didn’t really exist.
“Are you in love with my quarterback?”
Brooks’s head spun at the abrupt change in the conversation. “I don’t... He’s a good person, funny. Great football player—”
“Do you love him? Do you want what’s best for him?”
Brooks wrung her hands together. Love Jonas? In such a short time? No, she didn’t love him. She liked him. Wanted to be with him. Missed him when he wasn’t around. Wanted, desperately, to know more about what made him tick. That didn’t mean she was in love with him. “I, uh, want the best for him, yes.”
“Then I’ll ask the favor. Don’t do this interview. Not before the last checkup. Give him more time to get strong, to be ready for the field.”
“I don’t know if I can do that, Earl.”
“I’m not asking you to can it completely. I’m telling you there isn’t anything groundbreaking to report right now, so why bring it up at all?” His weathered gaze pled with her. “Just a little more time.”
She could see the logic in what he said, could see the desperation in the big, gruff man she’d known since she was a little girl. He wasn’t asking for himself. He was asking for the man he’d molded into a great quarterback, and who had somehow lost his way.
“That first meeting, between the three of us, when you brought up the camp—”
“I want him to see the possibilities that are out there. Working with kids is one of the most rewarding parts of my job. On an intellectual level he knows the importance of mentoring, but he’s never seen that he has anything to offer another person, outside of the act of playing the game.” Earl lifted one shoulder. “I hoped he’d see some of the footage, hear some of the interviews and see himself differently.”
“For what it’s worth, I think he’ll always be in football. You didn’t see it, but he was an amazing coach for those kids. A good listener for them.”
“But he didn’t take credit for any of it, did he? He set the schedule. Developed the team-building activities, got the other guys interested in spending part of their summer teaching.”
“He said his foundation did it.”
“His foundation is him. He has a team, but he decides which projects to move on. He reads the letters explaining what school and church and community organizations need and figures out how to deliver.”
She’d had no idea. “I asked him to do a mud run with me, for my friend’s ortho clinic.”
Earl didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I know it’s a lot to ask. You have a job to do, but if you could hold the story just a little while longer I think it would do him a lot of good.”
The idea of burying the story made her stomach turn and her palms sweat. Wasn’t that what she had been doing? She could have brought up the interview after his doctor visit earlier in the week. Could have insisted on it happening as soon as the last bus pulled out of the camp parking lot. She’d found an excus
e every time not to do it.
It had been so much easier to only see him as a football player then. The faux-charmer in the locker room, the gruff voice on the other end of a telephone line, the guy who called her “Princess” when she was far from the description. Then she’d followed him around the field as he set up, and she watched him with the teenagers, and she heard him encourage Mark to find a way to let football back in his life.
Now she was considering going along with Earl because she knew the coach was right. She saw what Jonas had to offer the kids in their community. Earl saw it. His teammates saw it or they wouldn’t have taken part of their summer to volunteer.
Jonas only saw that he had let everyone down.
In the grand scheme of things, three more weeks weren’t likely to do anything to change the way Jonas saw himself.
Then again, running the story now would only ensure reporters followed the man around for the next three weeks, interrupting the time he could have spent finishing his rehab sessions.
“I can try to keep the story off the network’s radar for a while longer,” she said.
* * *
JONAS ADJUSTED HIS grip on the football, cocked his arm and threw. No pain, but he’d missed the target Tom set up by at least six inches. Before the injury, he’d have hit it dead on and from twice the distance.
“Three more and then hit the treadmill for a mile or so,” Tom instructed as he gathered the balls littering the indoor practice field at the stadium.
“I should get more distance—” Jonas began. Distance would be good. He was always better under pressure.
Tom shook his head and tossed the football underhand. It landed near Jonas’s feet and wobbled around on the field turf. “The doc said short throwing sessions. I’m adding short yardage to that. No need to throw your shoulder out before we even get the okay that you can play again.”
Jonas grumbled, but he picked up a ball. Slid it around until his fingers touched the laces and imagined a defensive line before him. He dropped back, pretending one of the defenders had gotten free, did a side step and threw. The ball spiraled ten feet down field, landing with a plop on the turf. It bounced awkwardly, still at least five yards from the target.
“Shake it off. Two more to go.”
Jonas threw again, missed again. The third time he didn’t bother with the mental images. He picked up the ball, slid his fingers into position and threw. “Shit,” he said when it hit the netting surrounding the target pouch. Any of the other throws, the ones he’d cared about, could have hit the netting and he’d have called it a progress. The fact that he couldn’t aim the ball where he wanted and instead had to rely on luck ticked him off.
“How did that one feel?” Tom asked as he gathered the balls and put them away.
Jonas rolled his shoulder, searching for pain. There was nothing. He went through the throwing motions again, without the ball in his hands. Still nothing.
“Feels normal.”
Tom nodded. He wheeled the ball cart into a storage area. “One mile, seven percent incline. I’ll be back in ten to see how you did.”
Jonas crossed to a grouping of treadmills on the back side of the training facility, punched the details in and began running.
Brooks should be finished with her interview by the time he was showered and dressed. Maybe they would grab dinner before going back to her place. He considered the options as the treadmill incline raised. He checked his watch and then the distance meter. Four minutes and he was past the halfway mark.
She liked quiet, out-of-the-way places as he did. Maybe they’d go back to Lionel’s. The treadmill slowed as he reached the mile mark, but Jonas kept it going at the slower pace while he cooled down.
Dinner, maybe another walk through that park.
“Hey,” Tom called from across the turf. “You’re going to want to see this.”
Jonas shut down the treadmill and made his way to Tom, who held his tablet in one hand. Familiar footage from the game last season rolled across the screen as a voice he didn’t recognize talked about the hit and subsequent surgery.
“What does all this mean in the short term for the Kentuckians?” The camera returned to the anchor desk and the man with a too-white smile, too-tanned skin and highlighted blond hair. “All we’ve heard through the off-season is that the surgery was minor and Jonas Nash would be back on the field for the team in the fall.”
The sports anchor, a middle-aged man who had never liked Jonas, offered a triumphant smile to the camera. “Let’s roll the footage this station acquired just this afternoon.” A fresh B-roll clip rolled across the screen and Jonas uttered a curse.
He took the tablet from Tom and pushed the play bar back to the beginning, listening as the sports reporter recounted the old injury and played an interview clip from the general manager after his surgery, and then another from earlier in the week when the GM announced the team had acquired Parker Jamieson. Then the new footage started again.
It was the boys from the camp and him, tossing balls and talking. Jonas watched as one of the boys broke for a long run and ordered himself not to throw the ball. But the Jonas on the screen ignored him and threw a wobbly pass that barely made it past the ten-yard marker, woefully short of the running teen. The reporter began talking again.
“Anyone can flub a pass,” he said, and then showed a close-up of Jonas’s face as he threw. The grimace was evident, but just in case, the reporter showed it again in slow motion. “But as you can see, what the Kentuckians might call a flubbed pass I think we can all identify as a big problem heading into training camp.”
“Goddamn it,” Jonas muttered.
“What response did the team have to the footage?” The main anchor asked the reporter.
“The main office is closed until training camp begins in three weeks. We have calls in to the general manager and new head coach Earl Highland, but so far our calls have been ignored.”
“Or maybe they haven’t had time to call you back because it’s after five o’clock and I’ll bet you didn’t call until after the news had started,” Jonas yelled at the man on the screen.
“What about Jonas Nash? What does the quarterback have to say about this throw and his injury?”
“Again, our calls have not been returned.”
Jonas shoved the tablet into Tom’s hands and stalked to the bench where he’d left his wallet, keys and phone when their workout started. One missed call that came in fifteen minutes before the news program began. When he’d had his phone silenced.
“Where did they get that footage?” Tom shut down the tablet.
Jonas gritted his teeth. Only one camera crew had covered the camp.
Brooks and her cameraman.
He flexed his hands, wanting to punch something. Anything.
He’d been wrong. Wrong to start this thing with Brooks Smith. Wrong to keep coming around her after that first night. He should have left it as a one-night stand.
“I’ll take care of it,” he said as he shoved his phone and wallet in the pocket of his shorts.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“WE’LL WRAP THE package with Earl tomorrow morning,” Brooks told Kent when she arrived in the parking lot outside the main office. It was after five o’clock, but she didn’t want to spend the next couple of hours in a small editing booth. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to spend them with Jonas. She needed to wrap her mind around that conversation with Earl. Figure out why she’d agreed to hold off. “Just drop off the tapes, and take the rest of the night off. There will be plenty of time to get everything to the network before the noon shows.”
Kent shrugged. “You’re the boss. What are you covering over the break?”
“Nothing. Three weeks of freedom before the fifteen-hour days of training camp start,” she said. “You?”
&n
bsp; “Shooting the All-Star Game next week, then I thought I’d surprise my girlfriend with a quick trip somewhere. She’s still in Texas until we know if this gig is permanent or just for the season.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then,” she said and waved as he pulled away from the curb.
Permanent or seasonal. Good question. Were her feelings for Jonas the kind that would last or was it just the proximity? Was it part and parcel of the concentrated focus she’d had on the man for the past few months?
Despite Jonas not having a firm yes or no from the doctor, she knew enough about what was going on with his shoulder to know there was a story there. Struggling franchise, struggling quarterback and three weeks until training camp. The network, the viewers and the talk show hosts would eat it up.
But she didn’t want to move on it. Brooks put her bags in the back seat of her sedan and shut the door to lean against the vehicle.
Earl’s motives were wrapped up in his affection for the quarterback. He wanted Jonas to play, to succeed. So did she.
He’d asked her if she was in love with him.
She liked him. She wanted what was best for him. He didn’t go into deep, dark places in his mind, but she knew when he was thinking about the injury and what it might mean. She admired his determination to turn his career and his life around. Those things could be love. They could be affection.
Could be fleeting or could last a lifetime. Brooks put her hands to her face. It was too soon for this to be love.
“Planning your next exposé?” Jonas said from behind her, his voice sickeningly calm, startling her.
“Something like that. I thought you were working out with Tom until six?” He looked sweaty, a little angry. Things must not have gone well in there tonight.
“Thought or hoped?” He put his hands on the roof of the car on either side of her shoulder. Brooks’s heart began to pound.
“What’s going on with you?”
He watched her for a long moment, anger turning his chocolate-brown eyes nearly black, accentuating the little crow’s feet he’d picked up from years spent in the sun. “You know, I never expected you would bury the story completely. Every day this week I woke up wondering if this was the day you’d set up the camera and start questioning me. Every morning you came up with a new training route for the mud run or made an excuse about Kent not being back from his assignment at the College World Series.”
Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set Page 93
