“And after that?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did.”
“I appreciate you coming to my rescue at the gala, but I needed to confront Mark myself.”
“Just like I needed to handle the social situation myself, even if your intentions were good ones.”
She smiled. “Touché. I’m a work in progress. So are you. No one’s perfect.” She wasn’t giving up on them. Not yet.
“I know.”
“I was hoping…” The words caught in her throat.
“Hoping what?”
“That you’d be willing to forgive me, and that I’d have at least one real friend.”
He pulled her into his arms and held her with a desperation that came through loud and clear. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she stared up into his troubled eyes. She wanted to wash away all the hurt, all the sadness, and make him happy. But it took two, and she wasn’t sure if he was in the game or on the bench.
Standing on tiptoes, she kissed him, a kiss full of hope and promise, a kiss of forgiveness. He kissed her back, soft and tender, yet hesitant. When he drew back, he stared over her shoulder instead of in her eyes. She stroked the rough stubble on his cheek, and he shuddered.
Like a fog blowing off Puget Sound and revealing the Olympic mountain range beyond, Kelsie saw everything with amazing clarity. The truth surrounded her, enveloped her, and left her wondering if she’d always known and refused to see it, even as a teenager.
Kelsie loved Zach. Her heart was all in. Her body was all in. Even her head was all in. She loved him, and she believed he loved her.
But did he love her enough to work through their differences, learn to trust her and believe in her, make a family with her—the family they’d both dreamed of and never had? Could he get beyond their pasts and accept her as the person she’d become, not the person she had been? A tough task for a man prone to holding his grudges close to his heart, but he’d managed to tolerate Harris. Could he finally forgive her?
His clean, earthy scent, like pine needles and soap, plain, manly soap, mingled with the smell and taste of saltwater from nearby Puget Sound. A hundred years ago, Zach Murphy would’ve been a lumberjack, a man who worked hard and played hard. A man with a work ethic and integrity. Today, he was still that man. A man a girl like her could fall in love with and had fallen in love with. Now, if only she could drive the deal home. Convince him that she truly did love him and that the old Kelsie had been laid to rest forever. Convince him he could trust her.
If only.
As she stared into those deep brown eyes on the most magical night of the year, she believed they could make it happen. They could take this fragile trust poking itself up through the wet earth, nurture it, and turn it into a beautiful rose.
Chapter 26—Out of Time-Outs
Almost a week later, Kelsie sat in the owner’s box with Rachel and Lavender on one side and Veronica on the other.
This past week, she and Zach hadn’t talked out their feelings. Instead, they’d talked with their bodies. If Zach’s body told the truth, he didn’t want out either. But not wanting out and believing they should stay together were two different things. If he didn’t trust her, then they had no future to build upon.
She glanced over at Veronica, who was so focused on the field she didn’t seem to realize the rest of them existed. For reasons Kelsie couldn’t fathom, Mr. Simms had invited her, along with Rachel and Lavender, to watch the last game of the season in the warmth and luxury of the owner’s suite. Kelsie had wanted to say no, but she didn’t. She’d decided to be a bigger woman than that. Oh, yes, gracious to a fault.
On the field below, a miserable Monday Night Football game played out, the last game of the regular season. Win or go home for the Steelheads. Extend the season or finish it tonight.
Freezing rain blew in vertical sheets across the field, sometimes making it impossible to see a thing. The players on the bench huddled in hooded parkas, though Kelsie doubted even the thick, waterproof material kept out all the rain.
The coach called a time-out and Veronica bolted for the bar. Kelsie focused on the players huddled on the bench.
After the loss a week before, the Steelheads needed this one desperately. A win coupled with a loss by the Rams, who were currently getting stomped with a minute to go, and the Steelheads were in the playoffs. A Steelheads loss and they were done for the season. Simple as that.
Well, not exactly simple from where she sat. She’d had every intention of having it out with Zach, laying it all on the line. Only life had a way of postponing even the most important things. Zach hadn’t needed the added drama in his life with the team’s playoff hopes hanging by a shoelace. After all, Kelsie was with a football player. During the season, it was all about the game. Any NFL wife or girlfriend worth her salt understood that harsh reality. Kelsie prided herself on being the best support person for Zach her current situation allowed her to be, even going as far as joining the Simms family for the game.
Veronica returned and plopped back into the plush chair next to her, glass of wine in hand. Kelsie could do with her own glass of wine to calm her jangling nerves and woozy stomach. Game days did that to her, especially one as important as this. Zach’s last chance at a ring. She wanted this for him as badly as he wanted it.
“I bet you’re curious why we invited you to join us?” Veronica studied her over the rim of her glass, her red lips pursed in a severe, uncompromising line.
“Yes, I am.” Kelsie lifted the binoculars and followed Zach off the field as he headed for the bench. His uniform had already soaked completely through, and when he pulled off his helmet, his hair was matted to his head. Yet the grim determination on his face defied the weather.
“He was going to offer you a second chance working with some of our more challenging players. Of course, none as challenging as Zach, but one of the requirements is that you not be with Zach.”
“Whyever would he require that?”
“Conflict of interests, or something like that. He wants to make sure if we cut Zach, we still have your services.”
“Tell him thank you, but no thanks.”
Veronica sat back and shook her head as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’d pick an unsure thing such as Zach over a lucrative career opportunity?”
“Of course, I would.” Kelsie rose to her feet, while Rachel and Lavender stared up at her open-mouthed and wide-eyed. They might not have heard any of the conversation, but they could see her face.
“I think it best if I sit elsewhere.” Kelsie nodded at her friends and left the suite.
Not having a ticket for another seat in the sold-out stadium, she wandered to a bar area and sat at the only empty barstool. Only then did she realize her hands were shaking as the enormity of what she’d done hit her. She’d set a torch to that last bridge and burned it until it sank with a pitiful sizzle into the river.
Kelsie had done the right thing but at a huge personal sacrifice. When given a lucrative opportunity to be an opportunistic bitch, she’d turned nice girl, and in effect, achieved the goal she’d set for herself when she’d moved to Seattle months ago. She’d wanted to change, and she had. She’d supported Zach. Even if they parted ways, and he left her with a broken heart, she’d survive.
Maybe her business working with high-end athletes was going nowhere fast, and her work with homeless people didn’t exactly rake in the bucks, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
She liked her life as it was. A lot.
There were other sports teams in town. Of course, as Veronica had pointed out a while ago, her father happened to own a share in every one of them. She was so screwed. She had a part-time, minimum wage job. No home. No Zach. No nothing. But the only part of that she really cared about was Zach.
She sipped on a glass of red wine poured from a box and realized she quite liked it. She smiled, then threw her head back and laughed loud and long, not minding a bit that everyone in the bar stared at
her.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” The bartender kept his distance and regarded her warily.
Kelsie dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. “I’ve never been better.” She set her glass down on the bar. She had her pride and her integrity. Things money couldn’t buy. That meant more than all the gold bars in her father’s Swiss bank account. And she wanted to share her newfound self with Zach.
She stood up with a new sense of resolve. She was a fighter, and fighters didn’t give up. She’d throw one last Hail Mary and hope he caught it.
~ ~ ~ ~
Zach lay flat out on the field. He blinked the sweat from his eyes. Or was it rain? A big hand extended into his line of vision. He followed the hand up to the shoulders, neck, then the face. Tyler Harris towered above him, holding his hand out. Zach took it, and Tyler hauled him to his feet. After which the quarterback turned and trotted off to the huddle. Zach still cradled the ball he’d intercepted on the Steelheads’ twenty. He flipped it to a referee and jogged to the sidelines.
The seconds ticked off the clock. They were down by six. A field goal wouldn’t do it. Harris marched them down the field until only twenty yards stood between the Steelheads and a spot as a wild-card team in the playoffs. Twenty long yards. It might as well have been twenty miles. Zach paced the sidelines, sick to his stomach, shouting until he was hoarse, along with the rabid sold-out crowd.
These moments were what Harris was famous for. He’d come through. He always had. They didn’t call him Mr. Heroic for nothing.
Zach stopped and waited. The crowd quieted, sensing this was it. The final moment of truth in an up-and-down season Zach accepted partial responsibility for creating. Fourth down. Three seconds on the clock. No time-outs. The final play in a season where Zach had learned more about himself than he had in all the other years he’d played football combined.
Harris called the play. It should’ve been a bootleg to Bruiser. Only Bruiser slipped and skidded on his ass across several yards of water-logged artificial turf. Harris didn’t get to be the best for nothing. He looked for a receiver. Once. Twice. He stayed in the pocket until the last possible moment. They were all covered. He tucked the ball under his arm, put his head down, and forged ahead. There was a hole, a small one. Zach watched him power toward it, shoving defensive players off his body left and right. Zach yelled encouragement from the sidelines, not caring that the offense couldn’t hear over the fan noise. Cold, freezing rain dripped in Zach’s eyes, but he didn’t give a shit.
Harris’s helmet popped off as he barreled into the stomach of a three-hundred-pound lineman. He went down, buried under a couple tons of human muscle. Referees waved their arms and started pulling bodies off the pile. Zach stared at the big television and saw it.
Short by inches.
His heart stopped. His lungs constricted. His body slumped. This year was supposed to be his last shot at a Super Bowl. Now it was gone. Down the tubes. Over before it even started. No playoffs for this team.
Out on the field, the last tackler stood, and only Harris still lay on the field. The quarterback didn’t move. Not one toe or one finger. The crowd hushed as they realized their beloved quarterback wasn’t getting up. Even the opposing team halted their celebration to gaze at the field with concern. Several players knelt down in a circle and bowed their heads. Zach ran onto the field in a panic. He’d only felt such overwhelming fear once in his life, when his brother was put in the hospital. Zach never put much stock into praying, but he sent up a silent plea to the man above.
God, please make him be okay.
Several seconds ticked by, though it seemed like hours. Finally, Harris opened one eye then the other. He wriggled his fingers, rotated his ankles.
HughJack held up three fingers in front of Harris’s face. “How many?”
“Is this a fucking trick question?” Harris managed a lopsided grin.
HughJack breathed a sigh of relief. So did the rest of the team and staff standing around. Harris was okay if he was being a smart-ass. They did a few more tests and then helped him to his feet. Zach rushed forward and grabbed his arm and slung it over his shoulder. Hoss, the Steelheads’ mountain of a center, did the same on the other side as Harris limped off the field.
Zach kept an eye on Harris in the locker room. The team trainers and doctors had cleared him as good to go, despite how rough the guy looked. He was one tough cookie, Zach had to admit with a newfound respect.
Harris sat on the bench, holding an icepack on his knee.
“You left it all out on the field today.”
“It fucking feels that way.” Harris looked up and smiled. Blood trickled from his mouth and from a gash on his head from a cleat. Bruised and bloody, Tyler met Zach’s gaze. “And it felt damn good to play like that. All out. Balls to the wall. We just didn’t have it today. Too many young, inexperienced guys. But next year.”
“Yeah, losing those veterans last off-season was a blow.”
“But we gained a very important veteran. You played a damn good game, too. Not bad for an old guy.”
“Thanks.” Zach ducked his head, somewhat embarrassed by the rare compliment from the quarterback. Sometimes the simplest answer was best, per Kelsie.
“I think you might still have a few more years in you, old man.” Harris studied him, and their eyes met. Harris’s gaze was open and friendly. None of the animosity of the past showed on his face. “I was wrong about you. You were just what the team needed. I’m sorry for all the hell I put you through.”
A million possible responses raced through Zach’s head, but only one thing truly begged to be spoken. He sat down beside Tyler. “I’m not. I learned more than I’d ever bargained for. Like you can’t judge a guy by the clothes he wears or the words he says, but by his actions.”
“And what did those actions show you?”
“That I’d be proud to call that man a friend.”
“And so would I.” Tyler reached out his hand, and Zach shook it. “I heard the GM offered you a contract extension.”
“Yeah.” Yesterday, he’d been called into the league office, fearing the worst and actually finding out the best. Until just now, his answer had been no, but Zach wanted to come back. To hell with the opening for a college coach. There’d be others.
“Are you taking it?”
“My lifelong dream since I picked up my first football was to win a ring. I chased that goal with a single-minded purpose, convinced that without a ring, my career meant nothing, and my life meant even less.”
“And now?”
“And now I don’t quite see it that way.”
“A good woman will do that to you.” Tyler nodded and smacked him on the back. “Come back. We’ll move hell and high water to get you a ring next year.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“In the meantime, join me in the San Juans. I could use your help getting my retreat for veterans off the ground. I’ve been toying with the idea of a summer camp for homeless kids. I understand you do some work in that area. You in?”
Zach nodded, smiling in spite of their loss. “I’m in.”
Chapter 27—The Clock Ran Down
Zach limped out of the locker room and walked to his truck. His one goal was to find Kelsie. The rain slowed to a steady drizzle, but still better than earlier. Considering his team had lost its chance for the playoffs, he felt okay. Life was looking up in all areas—but one. The most important one.
Kelsie.
As he got closer to the truck, the very object of his thoughts emerged from under a nearby awning and walked toward him. His breath caught in his throat. Even bundled in a raincoat with the hood pulled up, she was striking, every bit the beauty queen who’d imprisoned his heart for life all those years ago. He’d never gotten a pardon for his sentence, and he didn’t want one. Ever.
Zach walked toward her, feeling a lot like that awkward teenager who’d panted after her. He stared down at his feet and swallowed. “Hi.”
“Hi. How
about a ride home?”
Home. He liked the sound of it, but did she really mean home in the truest sense of the word? Zach had never had a home before. He’d bought his Victorian monstrosity because it’d been a childhood dream of Gary’s. Only lately had it felt like home, since Kelsie added her little touches, and her annoying dog scampered around yapping, and her girlie stuff littered his bathroom counter.
“Are you going to open the door or are we just going to stand in the rain and gawk at each other?”
“Oh, sorry.” Zach fumbled for the keys and dropped them on the pavement. He scooped them up and unlocked the door, whisking it open for Kelsie. She climbed into his big truck in her usual ladylike manner. Damn, but they were beauty and the beast, all right.
He got in on the other side and drove toward home. Something made him take a turn into a parking area overlooking the waterfront. Somehow, he felt they needed a neutral place to talk, because for once Zach Murphy was going to bare his heart and accept whatever consequences came along. She didn’t question why he didn’t take her home. Instead she dug in her purse and reapplied her lipstick.
“The team offered me a two-year contract with incentives.” Zach ran a hand through his short hair, wet from a combination of a recent shower and the rain.
“Are you going to accept it?” Kelsie put the cap on her lipstick and stared straight ahead. Zach stared at her lips and licked his own.
“I’ve always wanted that ring more than anything.” God, he’d give it all up for Kelsie. “Now, not so much.”
“Why not?” She looked at him and blinked those big blue eyes.
“I want you more.”
Her eyes opened wide and her gorgeous lips parted. “You do?”
“Yeah, I do.” He grabbed her hand and held it. Tight.
“Zach. You should go for the ring.”
Offsides: The Originals (Seattle Steelheads Book 3) Page 27
