Page 4 of Love Game

Kate stifled a sigh when Ty moved to stand beside her. At six two in her stocking feet, there weren’t many men in the world who made Kate feel small, but this one did. Ty was living proof all the good ones were taken. Most of them by women more than ten years younger and about fifty shades blonder, like Ty’s wife, Mari.

His chuckle went a long way toward dispelling some of her tension. They’d become friends since he’d come to Wolcott, but that didn’t mean the sight of his thick gold wedding band didn’t ding her battered heart. To this day, Ty had no idea that his hiring had thrown a wrench in her ex-husband’s ambitions and pounded the final nail in the coffin of Kate’s marriage.

“Not much of a turnout for a press conference,” he commented, nodding to the small knot of reporters gathered at the base of the steps. “You’d think there’d be more, what with all the scandal he stirred up a few years ago.”

About halfway down the stairs, Millie Jenkins, Wolcott University’s public relations guru and one of Kate’s closest friends, flitted around the two men positioned at dead center. The woman was in her element. Millie was born to direct, position, and basically boss people around. She was a master of spin, and this little one-act play was her brainchild.

“It’s not a press conference,” Kate murmured, not taking her eyes off the two men at the eye of the storm. Mimicking the self-proclaimed PR goddess, Kate gave a fluttery wave as if wielding a magic wand. “It’s an impromptu gathering of select members of the press.”

Ty barked a laugh. “Right. Of course it is.” He pursed his lips as he watched the small throng of reporters shift impatiently. “Frankly, I always thought the guy was kind of a scapegoat.”

Kate raised her eyebrows. Was Ty actually going to stick up for a man who’d been ridden out of Division I coaching on the proverbial rail? “He admitted to having an affair with a grad student.”

Ty waved the point off. “Not that. The recruiting violations, sanctions, and that stuff. He wasn’t doing anything everyone else wasn’t doing. He just got caught, and they needed to make an example of someone.”

Kate snorted. “I can’t believe you’re defending him.”

He raised both hands. “Not defending him, just saying I’m not sure I believe everything I hear about the guy, that’s all.”

“Where there’s smoke—” she began.

“There’s usually someone like Millie fanning a match,” he concluded.

Kate laughed. How could she not? He was right. So much of their world was little more than smoke and mirrors. “Point scored.”

Grinning, he pushed off his pivot foot and nodded to the shiny new trophy. “Beautiful prize there, Coach.” He turned in the direction of his office and called over his shoulder, “Enjoy the circus. And be careful. Don’t let the clowns in tiny cars run over your feet.”

Kate pursed her lips as she watched Ty walk away, his gait thrown off by a slight limp that favored his right leg.

The minute he rounded the corner, she returned her attention to the scene unfolding beyond the tinted glass doors. Circus was right. Millie was damn good at her job, but soon it would be three rings around here—with one guy at the center of it all.

Her eyes narrowed as she homed in on the man of the hour. Danny McMillan was a fine-looking fella in his own right. Dark-haired, tall, and solid. Not beefy, like so many former football players. Of course, he’d been a quarterback in his playing days. Those guys were expected to be trimmer, more agile than the guys paid to put up a protective barrier around them. Still, he looked like a man who could take a hit and keep his feet under him.

And he had taken more than his share. She had to admire his stamina. If only grudgingly. This guy had the balls to step foot into her press room, walk onto her campus, and stand on the mica-studded steps of the athletic center her program had built as if he owned them.

He was the savior they’d all been waiting for—the man who could make Wolcott football something more than a sports radio joke.

She moved to the doors for a better look, gratified to note that the assembled members of the media looked unimpressed. Jim Davenport was there, of course, but she didn’t recognize the painfully young blond wearing NSN credentials on a lanyard around her neck.

Did Mike Samlin truly think he could hire the bad boy of collegiate athletics, at a purportedly astronomical salary, and not have that come back to haunt him at contract time?

Oh, hell no.

She was a Wolcott Warrior and a champion. These men thought they could waltz into her world and take what they wanted? Not likely.

The heels of her palms came to rest on the door’s crash bar. She watched as McMillan spoke, trying not to notice the way his eyes crinkled when he squinted against the sun or the open hopefulness in his smile. Attractive he might be, but this man was a rule breaker and a cheat. He didn’t deserve to stand on the steps of the house she built.

This was her time. Her turf. The center ring belonged to her.

And she’d be damned if she let some clown run over her to get to it.

Chapter 2

Feeling a bit like a sideshow freak, Danny McMillan ignored the small group of people staring at him and took a second to drink in the scenery. The sky was blue, the spring sunshine bright, and the Wolcott campus looked like something Hollywood had nailed together on a back lot. The crowd gathered at the base of the steps appeared to be marginally friendlier than the lynch mob that had converged on Coach Snyder’s conference at the Bridgestone Center in Nashville. That was as optimistic as he could get about this little dog and pony show.

The last time he’d held a press conference, camera shutters clicked like machine gun fire and flashbulbs flared. This time, the assemblage came equipped with exactly one shoulder cam and a smattering of cellular devices. Hell, the smirky, white-blond cheerleader with the National Sports Network credentials dangling from her lanyard didn’t even bother pointing her phone in his direction. She was too busy thumb-typing. He stared at the razor-thin part on the top of the young reporter’s head and rattled off the usual string of gibberish.

“I can’t tell you how excited I am to be a Wolcott Warrior.”

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