Love Game

by Maggie Wells

  “You don’t get to talk to my players like that,” McMillan growled.

  “I either threaten him with a run or shove that phone up his ass. I chose the one that won’t get me fired.”

  He opened his mouth, but she held up a hand to stop him. Her knee burned like fire, and the last thing she wanted was to go another ten rounds with him. They’d given Millie and her minions plenty of fodder for one day.

  “Hey, just let me get this out, then we can hit the locker rooms and go to our separate corners. Okay?”

  He snapped his jaw shut so hard she heard his teeth click.

  “I’m sorry. I was… Well, I guess it’s pretty obvious that I’m a competitive person,” she began.

  “It’s pretty obvious that you’re an egomaniac…”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, and she couldn’t help noticing what nice arms they were. Muscular but not bulked up. Silky, dark hair on his forearms. Thick wrists. Broad palms and long fingers. Quarterback hands. Hands that knew how to put just the right spin—

  “…and you’re threatened by me.”

  Just like that, her sanity returned. Blinking away the sheer audacity of his statement, she scoffed. “Threatened? By what? Your stellar coaching record?”

  “By the fact that I’m even standing here.”

  Tipping her head down, she gave him the same look she gave her freshmen when they couldn’t believe she wouldn’t be bumping an all-American senior just to start them. “You do realize we had a football coach before you got here, right?”

  “You don’t like the fact that the media knows my name better than yours.”

  “I’m not sure I’d be as proud of the reason as you seem to be.”

  “I’m not the one struggling with my pride here.” His voice dropped enough to make his point strike home. “I got on a treadmill for a quick run. You’re the one who turned it into a scene.”

  “And I was trying to apologize for that,” she retorted.

  He nodded once. “Apology accepted. But just so we’re straight, I’m not apologizing to you or anyone else for taking this job. I’m good at what I do. And if you doubt that for even one second, I suggest you take a good look around, Coach.” He waved one graceful hand toward the crowded weight room. “My guys have every right to be here, and so do I.”

  He turned and pushed his way into the men’s locker room. Frustrated and flustered, Kate tugged at the neckline of her tank as she blasted a gust of air at the hair that escaped her straggling ponytail.

  She looked up just in time to see a player holding a phone pointed directly at them. Her suspicions solidified when he attempted to hide behind a circuit machine half his size, but there was not much she could do if he had snapped a picture. The phone was his. They were in a common area. But she was a coach, and that did give her some leeway in dealing with student athletes.

  Her mouth pulled into a grim line, she started toward him. “Okay, big guy, it looks like you need a hobby, so you’re going for a run.” She snagged the sleeve of his athletic department T-shirt and dragged him out into the open. “And guess what? I’m going to be your head cheerleader.”

  Coach Jenkins just smirked and shook his head as she hauled the hulking young man along behind her. She shoved the kid toward a treadmill, then stepped around to the other side so she could stare straight at him as he ran. “Tell you what else.” She held her hand out palm up and wiggled her fingers. “Seeing as how I’m so nice and all, I’ll even hold on to your phone for you.”

  Chapter 6

  “This one?” Millie yanked a low-cut, leopard-print top from a rack and held it up for Kate’s verdict.

  Kate huffed a laugh. “For me or for you?”

  Red lips pursed, Millie tilted her head as she inspected the blouse. “You’re right. Mine.”

  Hangers clicked as she added the top to the clothing pile draped over her arm. Kate glanced down at the skirt dangling from her fingers. She should have insisted on the wine first. A little dutch courage to get her through what Millie kept calling the “day-to-evening” department. God, she hated shopping.

  “May I help you ladies?”

  Kate automatically shook her head. “We’re just look—”

  With the agility of a point guard, Millie stepped into the space between Kate and the salesclerk. “We’re looking for date outfits for my warrior princess here.”

  Kate glared, but Millie was undeterred.

  “I must warn you, she hasn’t had lunch yet, and the guy she’s seeing has a stick up his ass and, frankly, isn’t worth the wax. But she wants to look pretty, and I want her to have what she wants.” Millie tossed a playful glance in Kate’s direction. “What do you have in super-tall, I’m-too-sexy-for-you?”

  The saleswoman threw her head back and laughed, but the genuine amusement in it made it hard for Kate to take offense. “I’m Julie, and I just love customers like you.”

  She beamed at Millie, then plucked the skirt from Kate’s hand and studied it as if she were drawing up the play for the game-winning shot. Kate closed her eyes, teetering between hope and humiliation. A gentle hand on her arm forced her to open them again, but instead of seeing a fashionista’s disdain, Kate caught the sparkle of challenge in Julie’s eyes. Game on.

  “Not a bad choice, Coach,” Julie said, wiggling the hanger so the skirt’s filmy overlay flounced.

  Kate stiffened, momentarily discomfited, but quickly resigned herself to the recognition. She was a big fish in a tiny pond.

  Julie flashed Millie a conspiratorial smile and dove deeper into the sea of racks. “Come with me. I know just what we need.”

  “And we need a dress for the banquet tonight,” Millie decreed as she prodded Kate away from the cashier’s station.

  “I have a dress for the banquet.”

  Millie rolled her eyes. “You wear the same boring black dress every year. What do you say we try living life in color this year?”

  An hour later, Kate adjusted the two carriers filled with purchases and planted her feet in a WNBA-worthy pick to catch the slippery dress bag sliding off her shoulder. “I need to put this stuff in the car, and then I need the wine you promised.”

  Nodding, her friend motioned toward the exit closest to where they’d parked. “Fine, but after that, we shop for shoes.”

  “And underwear,” Kate added in a hushed tone.

  “Underwear!”

  Millie’s voice carried over the music pulsing from the cosmetics counters and ripped right through the adjacent men’s sportswear department. More than a few heads turned.

  “You do love a spectacle,” Kate muttered.

  A harried-looking woman wearing a stretch bracelet loaded with keys jabbed a finger toward the far corner of the store. “Lingerie, floor two, southeast,” she said without breaking stride.

  “Underwear,” Millie repeated, dropping it down a notch but infusing the word with more consideration than it warranted. “So you’re planning to sleep with Jim?”

  Embarrassment set Kate’s ears on fire. Within a heartbeat, the heat of a blush consumed her. Jim wasn’t the first person she envisioned when she decided she needed something new from the lingerie department, but she’d quickly stuffed thoughts of Danny McMillan down deep. He wasn’t the man she needed to be thinking about when it came to sexy things.

  “I was only planning to find a bra that doesn’t have a racerback.”

  “Bullshit.” Abruptly, Millie started toward the door closest to where they’d parked.

  It took Kate three seconds and two full strides to catch up to her friend. “Where are you going?”

  “You said you wanted to drop your bags,” Millie reminded her.

  The rigid set of her friend’s posture somehow filtered down to her voice. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m just hungry.”

  Kate wasn’t fooled by the explanation or put off by Millie’s dismissive wave. “I don’t get it. You’re the one who’s always getting on me about how my relati
onship with Jim has been at a standstill. We were just shopping for date clothes.” She stepped up the pace to get ahead of the tiny torpedo of a woman. “You’re the one who’s always after me to…”

  She trailed off, smiling as she held open a door for a young mother pushing a double stroller. By the time she let it go, Millie was halfway to the car.

  “Hey,” Kate called as she hustled after her friend. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” Leaning back against the fender of Kate’s car, Millie glanced up at the sky as if she were reading the time by the alignment of the sun. “Hurry up. I need that wine.”

  Kate dumped her purchases into the trunk and then slammed it with a little more force than necessary. When her friend jumped away from the car, Kate caught her arm. “Tell me.”

  “It’s nothing,” Millie replied too quickly. Her mascaraed lashes fluttered, but she didn’t meet Kate’s eyes.

  Kate stared at the thick fringe in wonder. “Do you have false eyelashes?”

  Millie reared slightly, then looked up at last. “Extensions. You really should get some.”

  “You put extensions on your eyelashes? Like hair extensions?”

  Millie rolled her eyes, showing off the long, subtly curled fringe. “I once told you I went to a party where they injected botulinum into my forehead, and you’re shocked that I wear fake eyelashes?”

  “Everyone makes questionable choices,” Kate said with mock solemnity.

  “Like sleeping with Jim Davenport?”

  Kate threw her hands up and stalked away. “I thought you liked Jim.”

  Millie’s kitten heels clicked on the pavement, but Kate didn’t slow. She was still struggling to get a handle on the disturbing ambivalence she felt each time she thought about her upcoming date. She didn’t need Millie’s razzing on top of it.

  The dating dance she and Jim had been doing had gone on long enough. Their timing was finally on target. And now, after months of haranguing Kate to push for more, her best friend was doing a one-eighty.

  So Kate pulled one of her own.

  She spun, and Millie thumped into her, carried by the momentum she’d gained in those ridiculous shoes. “Hey!”

  “You’ve been after me for months to do this,” Kate hissed.

  Millie smoothed her hair back from her face and straightened to her full five foot three. “That was before Danny McMillan came to town.”

  Kate’s eyes popped in disbelief. Did Millie have some kind of psychic power? She needed to deny, deflect, de-Danny this conversation as quickly as possible.

  “You can’t be serious. The man—”

  Millie held up a preemptory hand. “I’m not saying you should sleep with him.” She paused, pursing her lips as she considered, then shook off the thought. “No. Definitely not. It would spoil the chemistry.”

  “There’s no chemistry!”

  “Sweetie, the two of you have so much chemistry there’s been talk of handing out hazmat suits to the entire athletics department, but I need you to hold off for a while.”

  “I’m not going to sleep with Danny McMillan,” Kate said through gritted teeth.

  “Yet.” Millie threw an apologetic smirk in with her qualifier. “I need some time to build the story, so don’t jump him yet.”

  “I’m not jumping him.” Kate huffed. “And wasn’t the picture you posted on Twitter bad enough?”

  The snapshot of Kate and Danny had been taken at a staff meeting. Whoever snapped it just happened to catch the moment when the two of them had swiveled away from one another. But the earnest look on Mike Samlin’s face made it appear intentional. As if his two high-profile coaches couldn’t bear to look at one another.

  “It’s working. People like the whole Bobby Riggs versus Billie Jean King angle.”

  “We aren’t tennis players.”

  Millie’s face brightened, and the worry lines that defied her beauty experiments disappeared. “I didn’t think of an actual matchup,” she murmured.

  Wary of the speculative gleam in her friend’s eye, Kate decided it was time to put a stop to this nonsense once and for all. She spoke slowly, so Millie couldn’t blame her enunciation skills for any lack of understanding. “I’m having dinner with Jim Davenport. That dinner will most likely lead to sex. At least, I hope it does. It’s been too damn long, and I’m starting to worry about rust.”

  Millie’s face softened as she linked her arm through Kate’s and propelled her toward the mall entrance. “You’re not going to rust.”

  “Just last month, you were giving me the ‘use it or lose it’ speech.”

  “Then I saw what you could have.”

  “What makes you think I could have Danny McMillan?”

  “I’ve seen the way he looks at you when you aren’t looking.”

  “When?”

  “Staff meeting.”

  Unable to resist, Kate asked, “How did he look at me?”

  “Like he thought you’d be tastier than the Danish.”

  “Bull.” Kate sighed. “Besides, you just told me I couldn’t sleep with him.”

  “Yet.” Millie held one finger up to make her point. “It would be awkward. And probably against some rule.” She added the last as an afterthought, then promptly brushed it away. “But you might want to hold off on doing anything with Davenport too. I have a deal brewing with one of the local affiliates for you and Coach McYummy, and it might involve our old pal Jim.”

  “Are you telling me I’m about to get cockblocked by the evening news?”

  “God, I love it when you talk dirty.”

  “Sleep with him, don’t sleep with him,” Kate muttered, her sights on the Italian restaurant that anchored the food court.

  “To be or not to be,” Millie intoned gravely.

  “You are the queen of mixed signals.”

  Millie chuckled. “Sweets, you have no idea. Now tell me what shoes you’re wearing to the banquet tonight.”

  *

  If Millie Jensen’s intention was to win the award for most awkward seating arrangement, Danny would have to give the woman her due. By the time he’d arrived at the round table closest to the stage, there’d been only one empty seat. The one next to Kate Snyder and her flame-red dress.

  Danny caught the glare she shot at the PR director’s back as she sashayed away and took no offense at Kate’s cool greeting. He wasn’t particularly fond of being set up either. But Mike Samlin sat on Kate’s left, and the rest of the table’s occupants—as well as nosy nellies at neighboring tables—were watching his every move. If there was one thing he excelled at, it was playing under pressure.

  Danny took the time to shake Mike’s hand and plant a kiss on his wife Diane’s cheek. “You don’t look a day over twenty,” he said, meaning every word. The streaks in her hair obviously hadn’t come from the sun, and a fine webbing of wrinkles fanned from her eyes, but her all-American smile was still the same. If they could get her back into her old cheerleading uniform, he and Mike could pretend their gilt-edged futures still lay ahead of them.

  “You always were such a smooth liar, Danny,” she chided.

  “Truth, Di. I speak only the truth these days,” he insisted as he moved to take Ty Ransom’s outstretched hand.

  The men’s basketball coach looked dapper in a blue suit so vivid it would have looked ridiculous on any man under six five. Ty introduced his wife, Mari, a diminutive platinum blond who, by all appearances, took her role as an athlete’s wife to heart. A good bit younger than her husband, Mari flashed a practiced smile and pointed a stunning set of fake tits straight at him as they exchanged greetings. Her barely-bigger-than-a-napkin dress matched her husband’s suit to perfection. Unfortunately, the orange cast of her spray tan clashed with Ty’s mellow mocha complexion.

  Danny moved on with both relief and trepidation. Richard Donner, Wolcott’s biggest booster, and his wife, Jacinda, rounded out their party. As he took his seat between the trophy wife and the trophy magnet, Danny couldn’t help but
note that Kate was the only woman at the table who hadn’t somehow altered her God-given good looks. Her dark hair tumbled thick and lustrous over her shoulders, untamed by stiff sprays. The color in her cheeks came from good health, not a cosmetics counter.

  She looked absolutely delicious. And he was going to do his damnedest to ignore her and the fact that the neckline of her siren-red dress did everything a dress should do to accentuate the positive without pushing…things…over the top.

  He made small talk with the table at large as he studiously ignored the come-hither glances Mrs. Donner shot him from under a thick fringe of fake eyelashes. Oblivious to his wife’s flirty looks, Richard launched into an enthusiastic accounting of all the lucrative opportunities that would come to the university once they brought the football program up to snuff. Hoping to refocus the conversation on the athletic program in general, Danny smiled at Diane and dropped a broad wink.

  “The twins need braces, huh? Don’t worry. I’ve come to save the day.”

  Diane rolled her eyes in response. “Yes, Uncle Danny, and we’re all counting on you.”

  But humor, self-deprecating or otherwise, wasn’t Dick Donner’s strong suit. “We’ve been leaving millions of television dollars on the table by allowing our program to languish.”

  Kate snorted and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “Perish the thought.”

  “Once we prove that we can play with the big boys”—Richard clapped his hands then rubbed them together—“there’s no reason we can’t get just as big a slice of the pie as the other guys.”

  Danny shook his napkin and leaned closer to Kate as he settled it on his lap. “No reason other than they have multimillion-dollar facilities and an excess of kinesiology majors, and I have future doctors, economists, and engineers running drills in a cow pasture.”

  Kate smiled as she reached for her water goblet. “Horse, I think,” she murmured. Perfect pink lips pressed against the rim of her glass, and a sharp stab of envy pierced his gut. “Or maybe there were goats. I can’t remember.”