by Lynn Shurr
Unlucky in love, sports photographer Stevie Dowd has given up on men on order to concentrate on her goal of getting a cover shot for a prestigious sports magazine. Connor Riley, wide receiver for the New Orleans Sinners, has remained celibate all season to strengthen his game for a Super Bowl victory. Their goals collide, literally, when Connor bowls over Stevie on the sidelines as she attempts to get her perfect picture. Realizing Stevie is the woman he had a crush on in high school, Connor feels his vow is about to be broken. Can he win both the Super Bowl and Stevie Dowd?
He took a step into the room. “Do you remember me, Stephanie?” he asked, almost shy. “Certainly. Connor Riley, wide receiver for the New Orleans Sinners, last seen through my viewfinder yesterday with thirty seconds to play in the game. Your team did win?” she asked, trying to put him at ease.
Of the three, he seemed the most stricken about her condition, but then, he was the one who had landed directly on her and put that helmet-sized bruise on her chest. Thank heaven, her legs had splayed open, or both of them might have been broken.
“Sure did. Ancient Andy came through for us again,” Billodeaux answered for the tongue-tied Riley.
“Do you remember Kevin Riley?” Connor hinted.
“Of course, the first of my lying, cheating boyfriends. See, no brain damage from the fall,” Stevie answered glibly. Then, she put a hand to her mouth and took it away again. “Oh, no! You’re Kevin’s little brother. All this time following the Sinners and I never tied the names together. I guess I put everything to do with him out of my mind. We played football together once when you were just a high school kid.”
Connor sidled up to the bed, seized the only chair and presented his bouquet. “You said you liked daisies because they were simple and cheerful.”
“You remembered that? We only met the one time when he brought me home to meet your parents, but they were out of town. Your brother dumped me the next weekend because we’d dated three months and I hadn’t put out for him. But you remembered I liked daisies?”
Goals of a Sinner
By Lynn Shurr
COPYRIGHT © 2009 by Carla S. Hostetter All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected] Cover Art byAngela Anderson The Wild Rose Press
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0706
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com Publishing History
First Champagne Rose Edition, 2010
Print ISBN 1-60154-717-X
Published in the United States of America Dedication
For my husband, Dave, who answered questions even when the game was on and serves faithfully as my computer geek.
Chapter One
With the weight of her long blonde ponytail streaming out behind her through the loop in her black New Orleans Sinners football cap, Stevie Dowd raced down the sidelines toward the end zone.
She stumbled to a stop, turned, braced her legs and raised the Canon EOS digital camera to her eye.
This was it—her chance at the cover of Sports Illustratedmagazine. No more being assigned to photograph rhythmic gymnastics or water ballet. No more being razzed by the guys about her “sensitive” portrait of the little lame bat boy. Stevie Dowd was in the right place at the right time.
The long pass thrown by reserve quarterback Joe Dean Billodeaux sailed down the field past the other photographers jostling each other at the fifty yard line. The football seemed to spin out on an endless trajectory. Then, just as Stevie had bet, wide receiver Connor Riley charged down the field in a race to get under the ball. His calf muscles bunched under the tight leggings of the Sinner’s all-black uniform. His arms reached skyward. “Let him fill the frame,” Stevie schooled herself with time-honored advice.
Riley was so close now she could see his signature blond curls sticking out from under his helmet and resting on his shoulder pads. He turned his head to search for the ball and the red devils on his helmet seemed to wink at Stevie as she pressed the shutter at the very moment he leapt and connected with the pigskin. She captured him going up and coming down with the prize. As the wideout touched ground and dug in to take a step toward the goal line ten yards away, Falcon cornerback, Revelation “Rev” Bullock, rose up behind him, a black mountain all covered in white, and came crashing down on Riley like a two-hundred pound avalanche. Stevie surged forward and kept rapid fire snapping.
The two men locked together arrowed out of bounds and Stevie Dowd caught every nuance of it with her camera. She took one more step closer and was buried beneath four hundred pounds of football player.
The Rev removed his massive frame from his opponent’s torso and offered a hand to Connor Riley, who shook his head as he rose. That was the Rev for you, always the good sport, but something felt wrong. He had landed on a surface much softer than artificial turf.
The Rev spit out his mouth guard. “Couldn’t let you get away from me and score, man, but it looks like we done sacked ourselves a photographer and he out cold.”
“She,” corrected Riley, noticing the blonde ponytail fanned out behind the delicate head of an unconscious woman. The hair held the black Sinners cap in place despite the impact. She had made no attempt to save herself. Both her arms protected a fancy digital camera held to one side away from the blow. She was fair, probably paler than usual now, no makeup, and no color on her partially open pink lips. Her long, light brown lashes fluttered as if she were getting ready to wake from her bed after a long, steamy night of sex.
Riley shook his head again. This celibacy thing was getting to him. Thank God the season was nearly over. Still, he remembered something about this woman, something familiar that didn’t come to him. The medics interrupted his thoughts as they squeezed between the two players and knelt by the victim whose feet lay splayed open on the playing field. The short, balding medic unsnapped the many-pocketed photographer’s vest. Riley inhaled.
She wore nothing under the vest but a white Sinners T-shirt with its little red devil logo plastered by sweat against one full, braless breast. Her nipples were clearly delineated and peaked up in the cool stadium air. Riley swallowed his saliva.
The Rev elbowed him. “You lusting after a knocked out woman, brother.”
“I know, I know,” Riley confessed. “This was all your idea.”
“Best season you ever had, right?” the Rev answered.
“I know,” Riley said again. “But there’s something else about her.”
The medics listened to the patient’s chest, checked her blood pressure. When her big blue eyes opened, the EMT with the crew cut held up two fingers and asked her “how many.”
“Ah, four. No, two. Three?” she answered faintly, trying to cooperate.
“She’s guessing. Concussion. Do you know your name?” The balding medic spoke slowly and clearly.
“Ah—” was the only answer that came from the full pink lips.
The other medic checked her credentials. “Says her name is Stevie Dowd.” He wrote on the chart he held. “Not hardly a dowd,” the Rev commented.
“Not Stevie, either,” Connor Riley said. “It’s Stephanie, Stephanie Dowd, my brother’s old girlfriend, the woman I loved my entire senior year of high school.”
“Get out.” The Rev pounded Connor on the back.
“A lost love. Good things come to those who wait.
Didn’t I just tell you?”
Stevie’s pink lips moved again trying to articulate a whole sentence. Connor removed his helmet
and walked around the medics to kneel by her side. “Stephanie, it’s Connor. What can I do for you?” he asked.
“My pictures. Sports Illustrated. Get them to—” Her eyes closed again.
Riley looked up suddenly aware of the click and whir of other cameras around him. He pointed to one of the sports photographers preserving the moment on a memory card. “You, Dexter Sykes,” he commanded, reading the name off the man’s ID. “See that this camera gets to Sports Illustrated. And I better not see your name on the photo credits.” Gently, Riley unfolded Stevie’s hands off of her Canon. He unfastened the neck strap and thrust the whole piece of equipment at the man he had selected from the group. “See she gets her camera back, too,” he added with just the faintest threat.
“Sure thing, Mr. Riley. We all know Stevie. She’s been trying to get a shot like this for years. How about one for me, Connor?”
The photographer snapped without waiting for an answer. Connor blinked and gave a low growl.
Dexter Sykes stepped back behind the other photographers and took off at a run, rushing the pictures to Sports Illustrated, no doubt.
The emergency cart arrived. The medics secured her head and neck, slid a board under Stevie and strapped her down. On a count of three, they raised the board and placed her on the cart for the run to the waiting ambulance. Connor Riley watched Stephanie Dowd move out of his life again, this time on the Sinners’ meat wagon.
****
In the broadcasting booth, once the commercials had run, sportscasters Al Harney and Hank Wilkes filled the dead air time with their patter.
“For those who are just joining us, we are experiencing a delay of game. An innocent civilian got in the way of the troops and was mowed down by wide receiver, Connor Riley, and cornerback Rev Bullock at the end of the most spectacular play of the game. The medics are checking out the victim now and the game will resume once they get the meat wagon off the field. Say, Al, do you remember the time back in ‘96 a cameraman got sacked?”
“I do, Hank. That one always makes funniest sports videos. Here’s another one for the show. But about that play, Billodeaux’s long pass set a new record for the Super Dome and for this relatively young expansion team, the New Orleans Sinners, who moved in here when the Saints were lured to Salt Lake to take up residence in a new stadium near the Jazz. I wonder how happy the Saints players are because I can tell you Temple Avenue ain’t no Bourbon Street. The Sinners are doing their best to fill the gap left by the Saints though.”
“Yes, they have quite a reputation, but that doesn’t seem to be hurting their play any this year.
The next thirty seconds of the game will determine which of these teams goes on to win the wild card spot in the coming playoffs. The score is twenty-one to twenty with the Falcons in the lead. Three touchdowns to the Sinners’ two and two field goals and thanks to Billodeaux’s long pass, the Sinners are now within easy field goal range again.”
“Give some credit to wideout, Connor Riley. This is a case of the receiver making the quarterback look good, Hank. Riley is the only man on the Sinners’
team with the speed to get under a pass overthrown by a mile on the third down. Billodeaux has an arm, but not much control. The loss of veteran quarterback, Art Golden, with a broken leg at the beginning of the third quarter is going to hurt the Sinners in the playoffs unless Billodeaux settles down. But, the boy has potential. Could be Art might get his only Super Bowl ring sitting on the bench after playing out his last years on this young team.”
“There’s the whistle, Al. As the meat wagon goes into the tunnel, the Sinners’ field goal team takes the field. Ancient Andy Mortenson gets into position, kicks, and it’s good. At forty-two, he’s still got the toe. The Sinners go on to the playoffs.”
Chapter Two
The night had been hellish. Every few hours, a nurse entered her room and nudged Stevie awake to the terrible pain of her concussion. Then, she would ask her patient some idiotic question like, “Do you know where you are, dear?”
“Hospital. Pain,” Stevie would answer.
“We’ll be able to give you something for that in the morning if the doctor okays it. Now go back to sleep.”
Just about the time Stevie slept again, the routine started all over.
In the morning, an orderly brought a breakfast tray. The glassy eye of a poached egg in a cup made her stomach roil, but she did choke down the toast, a cup of hot tea and a few spoonfuls of orange Jell-O
guided to her mouth with a shaking hand.
As a reward for her good behavior, an Indian doctor with slick black hair and a wide, white smile prescribed a mild painkiller which allowed Stevie to turn her head very slowly from side to side without the sensation that her brains were oozing out through her nose. She dozed.
When she woke, Stevie found she could focus her eyes again. One worry out of the way. Carefully, she pulled out the front of her hospital gown and peered down into the aperture. A large bruise about the size of a football helmet had formed in the center of her chest. The inner sides of both breasts were prune purple. Below them, the white bandages holding her broken ribs in place covered her torso to the waist.
The bruise seemed to continue beyond the bandages, but it was dark down there and hard to tell. The Indian doctor had said she was very, very lucky her lungs had not been punctured or worse internal damage done.
“Those football players, they are like bulldozers,” he claimed.
Stevie thought the sensation more like being hit by a fast moving SUV and then run over by an eighteen-wheeler coming from the other direction.
Around one, the flowers and guests began arriving. The Sinners’ organization sent three dozen red roses in an enormous black vase that took up most of the space on her windowsill. A stuffed toy red devil was attached to its base with a red bow. A small, white winter bouquet made up mostly of spider mums and glittering curlicue thingamabobs held a card reading, “I’ll get your camera back to you, baby. Dex.”
She started to shake her head—no-no-no, this could not be happening again—but the inside of her head collided with her skull and forced her to stop.
Up until that moment, her worst fear had been that her Canon, ripped from her hands by the impact, was now in the possession of some groundskeeper who had found it after the game and thrown out the memory card. Stevie had just learned there were worse fears than her worst fears. No-good Dex had access to her shots.
The rest of the flowers came delivered in person.
A flustered day nurse preceded them. She handed Stevie a disposable comb and a warm washcloth.
“You might want to clean up a little. Three of the biggest men I have ever seen are asking to see you. I tell you, that is some prime, grade-A beef on the hoof out there at the nurses’ station. Sinners players,” she added as if Stevie might not get the drift of the conversation.
“My vest. Is it in the closet?” Stevie asked in a panic. “There’s lipstick and some mascara and blush in the top right pocket.”
The nurse pulled the vest out on a hanger. She helped Stevie wobble into the bathroom. The little plastic container of blush was cracked and its contents scattered, but Stevie managed to brush up a little color for her cheeks. When she missed her eyelid with the mascara wand and drew a row of lines down her cheek, the good nurse darkened her lashes for her. The eyebrow pencil was broken in two, but the tip still worked well enough. Stevie added some frosty pink lipstick, combed her hair back and secured it with a blue scrunchie from another pocket in the vest.
“How do I look?” she asked the nurse.
“As good as you are going to. Might want to use the potty while you’re in here. Let me check for blood before you flush.”
Stevie obeyed and hobbled back to bed. As the last sounds of the flush died away, the room filled with Sinners bearing gifts. She recognized Joe Dean Billodeaux, a Cajun quarterback who hadn’t played much but had a way with the ladies that kept him in the gossip columns regularly. He was the smalle
st of the three—if a man over six feet tall and weighing one-ninety could be considered small. He had well-developed shoulders, slim hips, a killer smile, and one red rose which he added to the enormous bouquet on the windowsill.
“Comment ca va, cher?” he asked.
“Tres bien, merci. Et vous?” The opening dialog of her high school French class came back in an instant. She hoped he wouldn’t continue in that language because otherwise, she drew a blank.
“Why, I’m just great, and you don’t look so bad yourself for someone who’s been tackled by the Rev.
You know, Billodeaux means ‘love letter’ in my language.” He leaned amorously over Stevie’s bed.
The enormous black man hulking behind Joe Dean elbowed him aside. “Get out wit’ your Cajun crap. Let a man apologize for putting this pretty lady in the hospital.”
The Rev knew what women wanted. He offered a two-layer box of Godiva chocolates and placed it on her nightstand. The man was both wide and tall. A small, solid gut sat atop thighs the size of telephone poles and when a smile spread across his deep brown face, his head and neck seemed even larger.
Several inches taller than the Rev at a good six-five, the unmistakable Connor Riley hung back in the doorway. He gripped a small bouquet of daisies in front of the large chest that could push through a defensive line in order to gain the open space where his long legs would take him far beyond the meanest blockers. He’d brushed his golden hair back behind his ears. The long ends curled up on his wide shoulders. Connor was the only one of the group not smiling. He took a step into the room. “Do you remember me, Stephanie?” he asked, almost shy.
“Certainly. Connor Riley, wide receiver for the New Orleans Sinners, last seen through my view finder yesterday with thirty seconds to play in the game. Your team did win?” she asked, trying to put him at ease.
Of the three, he seemed the most stricken about her condition, but then, he was the one who had landed directly on her and put that helmet-sized bruise on her chest. Thank heaven, her legs had splayed open, or both of them might have been broken.
