Page 72 of Love Game

* * *

“See what I’m up against?” Danny asked his old friend. He sighed and shoved his hands into the pockets of his track pants. “I can’t walk away this time, Mike. I won’t roll over and play dead for you or for this job. Not again. Never again.”

“Even if she asks you to?”

“Especially if she asks me to.” Danny skirted the edge of the desk and dropped into his chair like a bag of rocks. “She doesn’t want me to lose this job. I don’t want to either, but I can’t deny her, and I won’t hide behind her skirts.”

“She doesn’t wear skirts very often.”

“Actually, she does. She looks fucking incredible in them.”

Mike sank into the lone guest chair as if he was scared it would be yanked out from under him at any time. “Listen, I know where you’re coming from. Kate does too, if I’m reading her right.” He sat back, caution slowing his movements. “But you can’t just pound Davenport into the ground.”

“Bet me.”

Mike smirked and shook his head. “He knows people around here. Board members, boosters, former and future players. Don’t let the size of the pond fool you. It may be small, but it runs deep. He’s been in the loop for the better part of a decade, and he hasn’t completely given up his hopes of a national spotlight. Don’t make yourself his launch pad.”

“You know what Tommy did,” Danny said, looking his friend in the eye. “If I can handle getting torpedoed by my little brother, I can handle a small-time local reporter. I just wish I knew whether the guy’s semistiffy is for me or Kate.”

“I think he’s after both of you.” Mike shrugged. “All the more reason not to be hasty. You might be ready to charge in, but you’re not the only high profile at risk here. You have to think about how this could blow back on Kate.”

Danny exhaled in a slow, measured gust. “Fine. I’ll wait for Millie to spin her magic web, but I’m dealing with Davenport one way or another. Damned if I’ll have that pencil-necked geek lurking around Kate’s house again. That’s just damn creepy.”

Mike smiled as he reached for the phone on the desk. “I’ll hold him down for you.”

* * *

Danny wound the frayed threads of his self-control tight. “We’ve been over this,” he growled.

Millie didn’t even blink. She just stared at him over the rims of her zebra-striped reading glasses, unmoved. “And we’ll be over it a dozen more times before I let you do an interview.” Her lips pursed, and she wrinkled her nose. “Even one with a wanker like Jim Davenport.”

“You think he’s a wanker too?”

Millie just rolled her eyes. “You won the fair maiden. No need to trample the knave into the ground. Hell, I doubt the guy could even lift one of those jousting things.”

Danny grinned, tickled that Kate’s friend found it so easy to brush away the competition. “Lance.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll all concede that your lance is bigger. Now answer the question,” she prompted.

He heaved a heavy sigh as he slumped deeper into the chair. “I’m just proud to be a part of the Wolcott athletic program. Coach Snyder has been very helpful and encouraging with my players. I can’t wait for the Warrior faithful to see our team in action this fall.”

“He’ll keep trying to trip you up, trick you into saying something personal about you and Kate,” she said, tapping her stylus against the screen of her ever-present tablet.

“I’ve been down this road before,” he reminded her.

Eyebrows arched, she leaned in and spoke slowly but with scalpel-edged precision. “Yes, but the last time, the woman in question decided to ditch you, spill her guts to the press, and marry your little brother.” She fixed him with a piercing stare that had Danny squelching the urge to squirm. “I’m pretty sure Kate’s not going to go that route, so you need to be prepared to protect her privacy.”

“Her privacy is my privacy.”

“Yes, well, that’s something, isn’t it?” She flashed a sweet smile so patently false he nearly burst out laughing. “It’s not just her privacy at stake here. You know that, right?”

“I do.”

“I mean, her heart is on the line too. Do you get that?” she prodded.

“Mine is too.”

His blunt answer seemed to take some of the starch out of her. “That shithead she married hurt her, and now this jerkoff is going to give it his best shot—”

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