Page 91 of Love Game

“You shouldn’t. Your record has his beat to shit.”

“Just so you know,” she said, straightening her hem, “it’s possible they won’t pony up. And I wouldn’t be here come fall anyhow.”

“If this doesn’t work, I won’t be here tomorrow,” he countered.

“Always trying to one-up me.”

He smiled and tucked her hair back behind her ear again. “No, just letting you know that, although the choices we’ve heard so far aren’t ideal, it doesn’t matter to me where we end up now. I know we’ll be together.”

“Are you two ready?” the assistant asked again, turning the clipboard in his hands nervously. He grimaced in apology and shrugged. “We’re live in three minutes.”

Her heart hammering, she gave Danny’s hand a squeeze and started toward the semicircle of chairs, adding a little extra sway to her step as a reward. “I’m set,” she said, smiling sweetly at the production assistant, “but I think the pretty boy could use a little pancake. Looks like he has a pimple.”

Danny barked a laugh and caught up to her in three long strides. “She thinks I’m pretty,” he said, affecting a simpering tone. But when the makeup woman hustled across the floor clutching a plastic tube and a sponge, he waved her off. “My face is fine.” He shot Kate a glance out of the corner of his eye. “And she thinks so too.”

Kate refrained from further comment, her focus set on the chair to Brittany’s left. Positioning oneself on an opponent’s weak side was a strategy so fundamental old Mack Nord probably used it to determine which side of the bed his wife could sleep on each night. In watching the young woman prepare for the interview, she’d noticed that Brittany was right-handed. That meant she’d be naturally inclined to focus on the person to her right. Kate would cover the left. Out of the line of fire, but right there to protect Danny’s flank if push came to shove.

She was really good at pushing and shoving.

The interview unfolded at a slug’s pace. To start, Brittany aimed a volley of razor-edged questions at Danny but lobbed only softballs at her. The knowing looks the younger woman darted in her direction made Kate wonder if she was supposed to thrust a fist of feminist solidarity.

Frankly, the sanctimonious little twit was pissing her off. Who was she to question Danny’s integrity? Who were any of them? Everyone made bad choices. People lived with consequences. Danny had, and every time they knocked him down, he got right back up and called his next play.

The questions and answers flew. Brittany kept trying to make each one a knockout blow. She must’ve forgotten she was dealing with a man who spent the majority of his adult life staring down three-hundred-pound behemoths hell-bent on smashing him into the turf.

The reporter paused to take a drink of water, and Danny’s gaze met Kate’s above the young woman’s head. He tried to smile, but the misery he must’ve felt each time those manicured nails picked at another old wound dulled the luminescent blue of his eyes.

Millie had been all about controlling the story, but at the moment, it felt like they had no control. Funny, just a day ago, all Kate had been thinking about was cutting Jim Davenport off at the knees. Well, the schmuck got what he deserved for taking the cheap shot at the press conference. His piddling newspaper story was about to be scooped on air by the biggest sports network in the nation.

But whatever triumph Kate felt in besting Jim was dampened by having to sit quietly and watch Danny field one hostile, impertinent question after another without stepping in. Biting her tongue and sitting on her hands was nothing short of torture. But she couldn’t interfere. Millie was right. He needed to come clean about what happened in his past once and for all, before they could deal with their future.

“Do you ever hear from LeAnn Cushing?”

The question jolted Kate from her reverie. Brittany spoke the woman’s name as if it should be known in every household. This time, Kate didn’t bother trying to mask her scowl.

“Well, she is married to my brother, so I’m on the Christmas card list.”

His answer was stiff and terse. It hurt Kate to hear the pain in his tone, but the realization that the mere mention of LeAnn still had so much impact on Danny cut her to the quick.

Brittany pounced. “She married your brother?”

Danny glanced over at her, his eyes a vivid plea for help. In that moment, she understood why he never spoke about the relationship that caused his fall from grace. The woman wasn’t the one he missed; it was his brother. Sitting up tall, Kate charged into the fray and swatted the question like she was blocking a shot.

“Family connections can be complicated,” Kate said, inserting herself into the conversation for the first time since the interview started. “But I don’t see what his relationship with his brother and sister-in-law have to do with football.”

Brittany blinked as if Kate had ripped a strip of hot wax from between her perfectly arched brows. “I’m sorry?”

The woman’s blank expression made it too damn easy for someone with the instincts of a natural-born winner to go on the offensive. “My ex-husband was too threatened by my success to stay married to me, but no one ever asks why. I just think it’s funny that you’re peppering Coach McMillan with asinine questions that have absolutely no bearing on his ability to be a successful football coach.”

Kate thought she heard Danny groan softly, but Brittany shot ramrod straight in the canvas chair. “I’m sure Coach McMillan has the technical skills to be an adequate tactician,” she said coolly. “What I’m questioning is whether a man who dates students—and according to rumor, fellow staff members—should be the man we look to as a role model for young men in sports.”

Danny leapt into the argument. “Ms. Cushing might have been a graduate student, but she was twenty-six years old when we started seeing each other. I wasn’t that much older—”

“But still quite a bit older,” Brittany interjected.

“Huh. I wonder how much is too much?” Kate turned to Brittany, a frown deep enough to make Millie’s head explode bisecting her brows. “Is three years a better spread? Would five be stretching it?”

“I’m not sure I know why you’re asking,” Brittany replied cautiously.

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