Page 7 of Love Game

“Done.” She heard the click of Millie’s pen. “And, Kate?”

“Yeah?”

“Avery said to remind you that you built this athletic program. Don’t let them marginalize you. Keep giving him hell.”

Kate smiled, seeing straight through the moment of sisterly solidarity to the media circus that was sure to blossom at the center of this hiring fiasco. “Will do.”

“Good girl. You can’t buy this kind of publicity.”

Millie’s rasping cackle blared from the receiver as Katie hung up, but the second she pulled her hand back, the phone rang again.

Heaving a sigh, she answered with a simple, “Snyder.”

“Coach Snyder, it’s Davenport with the Sentinel.”

The tersely professional greeting both amused and annoyed her. “Davenport from the Sentinel” had kissed her good night at her front door a few nights ago. Choosing to let the flash of irritation go, she rocked back in her chair and tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder.

“Yes, Mr. Davenport, what can I do for you?” she asked, a smile adding some lilt to her voice.

The head of the sports department for both the local newspaper and television station, Jim Davenport also happened to be number one on her roster of potential lovers. Not that the bench was deep at the moment. When one lived and worked in a college town, men of appropriate age and unencumbered marital status weren’t exactly thick on the ground.

Jim was handsome, if a bit pedantic. She figured sooner or later, he might grow into the suave newspaperman persona he swiped from Cary Grant in His Girl Friday. He just needed to cultivate a bit of charm. They’d flirted with becoming something more than friends for years, but the timing was never quite right. First, she was married. Then, by the time she was divorced, Jim was involved with someone else. In the months since his messy breakup, they’d established a semiregular routine of drinks or dinner, but things were slow to develop from there.

The stagnation left her feeling both frustrated and oddly relieved. She liked Jim, and if things didn’t work out between them…well, alienating her closest ally in the press wouldn’t be a prudent move. Not that she worried he’d abandon the team. The guy was a basketball fan through and through. He’d continue to be a fan as long as she continued to win.

“Listen, I need you to get me an interview with McMillan.”

Her head jerked back. She gave the receiver an incredulous glare. “Excuse me?”

“I need a one-on-one with him,” he persisted.

Agitated, she turned back to her desk and jiggled her mouse to wake her computer. The website’s banner screamed “Danny McMillan to Lead New Warrior Uprising.” A hot flush of annoyance prickled its way up her neck. “And you got confused and dialed my extension instead of the press office?”

“Millie just laughed and hung up when I called. If Mike Samlin thinks he can tuck Danny Boy away until the season starts in the fall, he’s mistaken. That last-minute press conference was bullshit.”

Last-minute or not, Jim had come running when the athletic director called. Touching her toe to the floor, Kate pivoted just enough to shift her focus to the dark hunter-green jersey framed and mounted on her wall. If she counted back to the day she signed her letter of intent, she’d spent almost a quarter of her life as a Wolcott Warrior. She could lay claim to one championship and a handful of prestigious awards as a player, as well as three titles and even more accolades as a coach. And now, this man wanted her to play social secretary for a man whose salary made hers look like tip money.

“I’m sorry your inability to seduce a woman with a rerun addiction is impeding your ability to find an angle on the biggest story in the history of Wolcott athletics,” she drawled, each word dripping sarcasm as thick as Spanish moss. “But I’m afraid I won’t be able to help. The folks from NSN will be here soon to start filming me for the Warrior Woman documentary they’re so hot to do—”

“I didn’t say he was the biggest story—”

She had to give him credit. Jimbo recognized a blunder when he made one. Too bad he was better at giving offense than launching it. There was no way she would let him off the hook without making him squirm first. “Why don’t you give Cheryl Miller a call and see if she can use her pull to set up a playdate with Reggie for you?”

Without giving Jim a chance to sputter, she took a cue from the university’s media officer and hung up on him. Whirling away from the computer, she propped her feet on the windowsill and narrowed her eyes against the vivid green of the spring leaves as she sank into a sulk. The quad was crawling with students happy to bask in the sunshine, but all she could do was wish away the months until the season started in November.

At least the multiyear, multimillion-dollar man got to hold spring scrimmages with his team. All she had left on her agenda were her usual appearances at commencement ceremonies, basketball camps, and a month or so on the lecture circuit. The sad fact was, a couple weeks of delivering motivational speeches to middle managers earned her more than a championship season.

Eyes fixed on an old team photo, she counted to fifty in her head as she drew air in through her mouth and expelled it from her nose. Her one-time coach Buzzy Bryant had taught her that trick. In the years since, she’d discovered it worked just as well when one wasn’t standing at the free-throw line. She closed her eyes, absorbing the stab of pain that always accompanied thoughts of her late mentor.

But she’d done Old Buzzy proud. He’d visited her the day the surgeons informed her there’d be no repairing her knee and coaxed her into coming home to Wolcott. In a little over a decade, she’d experienced unprecedented success. Only a handful of coaches could claim a better win-loss record. She was nationally recognized for her excellence as a player and a coach, a living legend, a champion who didn’t allow such pesky details as limited resources or the gender bias inherent in collegiate athletics to hold her back.

And she wouldn’t let it now.

She scowled at the play of sunlight on newly unfurled leaves. It was the quintessential early April day, and all that spring green and golden sunshine depressed the hell out of her. She and all the other nonbaseball fanatics called the time between postseason tournaments and the first tip-off in the fall the dead zone. For people like her, the kind who lived for basketball, there was no such thing as the off-season, no matter what the schedules said. Life without basketball wasn’t any kind of life. The truth was, she barely felt alive outside of the season.

Until Danny McMillan’s hand closed around hers.

Something had happened when he’d touched her. Something she didn’t want to examine too closely. She dropped her feet to the floor and crossed her legs, squirming in her seat until she sat up straight and tall. She might have assigned the tingling in her nether region to the molded seat cushion on her ergonomically correct desk chair, but she wasn’t a woman who lied to herself. At least, not often. Visions of black hair and icy-blue eyes danced in her head.

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