Page 15 of Love Game

“I guess he’s been on his soapbox already?” she asked.

She shot him a look so heavy with sympathy, it should have pissed him off. But it didn’t. If anything, it stirred him up on a bunch of different levels. Sure, there was a physical attraction, but Danny felt the tug of something more. She was giving him a glimpse of the woman behind the game face and big talk. The superstar who knew exactly how it felt to be condescended to on a daily basis but still held her ground with grace and dignity.

Swallowing a cold lump of pride, he craned his neck to peer into her office, uncertain if sympathy was enough to get him across the threshold. He didn’t chance it. No point in giving her cause to wipe that sweet little smile off her face.

“I know I should listen to him. Logically, I know that.”

“But it’s hard to take advice from a guy who’s never even been near the top of the heap,” she concluded.

Stunned by her quick and highly inaccurate analysis, he took that dangerous step over the threshold. “That’s not it at all—” He jerked to a stop just inside the spacious office and looked up in shock. “Whoa.”

One wall of her office was dedicated to mounted wire racks holding dozens of pairs of shoes. Everything from the newest in the Jordan line to those pointy-toed white sneakers cheerleaders used to wear. Sneakers in every color and style. Some were leftovers from another era, and others looked like they’d never been worn.

“You were saying?” she prompted tersely.

“Do you wear all these?”

“When the mood suits me.”

He tore his gaze from the wall of shoes, but she kept her eyes averted as she rifled through the papers in her inbox. “The mood?” Nodding to the feminine canvas sneakers, he asked, “What mood are those?”

She jerked a sheaf of papers from the stack and stuffed them into her oversized shoulder bag. “Those are for when I’m feeling a little ‘no one invited you in here.’”

Pleased to have put her on defense for once, he stroked the acid-green laces on a pair of gunmetal-gray running shoes. “I bet these are your ‘I feel pretty’ shoes.”

She stepped out from behind her desk and nodded to the door. “Right now, I’m wearing my ‘the lead anchor from the biggest sports network in the country is waiting for me’ shoes.”

Danny glanced down and for the first time noticed that she was wearing sandals. They were flat and black, but they had those super-long laces that wound around her ankle a half dozen times. Like a gladiator. She’d tied the ends in a neat bow front and center. Her toenails were polished fire-engine red, and she wore black capris that clung to every single inch of never-ending legs.

He wanted to unlace those sandals with his teeth, peel that pretty sweater over her head, and drag those snug pants down her legs. Visions of Audrey Hepburn and Mary Tyler Moore danced in his head. Obscene visions in which he did unspeakable things to Dick Van Dyke’s TV wife. The blood rushed from his head, and his dick grew hard. He might have seen a few other kinds of stars too, but Kate grabbed his arm and propelled him toward the door.

“You’re wrong,” he croaked.

She pushed him into the hall and whirled to pull the door closed behind her. “Wrong about what?”

A creak in her voice gave him courage. Then again, it might have been his hard-on talking. Either way, for the first time since he’d stepped foot on campus, he felt emboldened.

“I’m not having a hard time listening to Mack because he doesn’t have a winning record. It’s because he’s right, and I have no idea how to change my game plan.”

“Oh.”

She looked up at him, her face a picture of confused annoyance, and he smiled. It was a slow, cocky smile. The kind he hadn’t been able to muster for quite some time. But pointed at the very fair Kate Snyder, it seemed as natural as breathing. A pretty pink blush rose in her cheeks when she realized she still had a grip on his arm. She let go as if she’d been singed, but it was too late. He’d seen stars in her eyes too.

“And you’re wrong about the shoes,” he added.

“Shoes?”

The husky timbre of her voice told him she wasn’t as unaffected as she’d like to be. That knowledge gave him strength. Treating her to the same kind of slow, deliberate once-over she’d given him, he let his gaze travel all the way down to her feet again. Then he leaned in, not quite touching her. “Be careful with those shoes, Coach. I don’t think you know exactly what they’re saying.”

With that, he turned and walked away. But he felt her eyes on his back as he sauntered toward the no-man’s-land that housed his cracker box of an office. At last, he’d found a place comfortable enough to unpack his collection of ball caps. He just wished he’d thought to ask her where she’d scored those display racks.

Chapter 5

Danny’s steps slowed as he crested the hill, a mixture of anticipation and dread pooling in his gut. He’d asked the school grounds crew to do something, anything, about the condition of the practice field, but he hadn’t brought himself to look yet. He’d also asked Mack to arrange for a half dozen of their most promising players to meet him there. Truthfully, he wasn’t exactly certain the boys would show.

The grass was freshly mown, the field itself cut an inch shorter than the surrounding area. It looked more golf green than gridiron, but someone had taken the trouble to run chalk stripes at precise five-yard intervals and plant neon-orange pylons to mark every ten yards. He caught a gleam of silver and spotted Mack standing in the far end zone. The players Danny had requested milled around the old man.

The young men jostled and jockeyed, but none of them dared bump into Mack. Their semiscruffy faces wore smiles as they peppered the seasoned, old coach with questions, jokes, and jibes. To Danny’s mind, nothing solidified Mack’s status as a Wolcott staple like the boys’ open, carefree interaction with the assistant coach. These were the cocky jock grins Danny rarely got to see.

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