Page 82 of The Hellion and the Captain
Before they could regroup, Harrington himself had the ball, charging down the other way as everyone had been sodistracted with the expectation of Colin scoring. It was only Harrington against the goalkeeper, Hardy, and the Athletics captain sent the ball rocketing over Hardy’s outstretched hands to the top left corner, sending it sailing through the small opening.
Damn it. Tied game.
Rhys held in all of his frustration and instead clapped his hands, urging on his men — and woman – to break the tie.
“One goal and we have this!” he called out. “Let’s go!”
The minutes both sped by and seemed agonizingly slow as Rhys waited for that exhilaration he longed to feel again. They were so close. They couldn’t come this far a second year in a row and not make it.
Especially with so much at stake for Emmaline. With others closing in on her secret, this would likely be her last chance to play for something so monumental. He realized that suddenly, somewhere along the way, he had stopped playing for himself and his team but was now playing for her, so that she could experience such a victory before her playing time was over.
Colin took the ball, flying down the field with Emmaline across from him, the two of them against one defender for the Athletics and the keeper, with two of the other Athletics hustling back, trying to catch them.
Just when Rhys thought Colin would take the shot, he passed it across to Emmaline. As her foot connected with the ball, sending it flying forward, a body wrapped around her, tackling her to the ground so viciously that the gasps from those watching were audible.
Rhys was across the field before he even realized he had decided to move. As Reeves stood over Emmaline, an evil grin covering his face, Rhys didn’t even stop to ensure Emmaline was all right before he drew back his fist and sent itflying into Reeves’ nose.
When Reeves doubled over, Rhys pulled his leg back to let his knee finish the job, but Colin grabbed him by the shoulders before he could.
“She needs you,” Colin said, finally cutting through his fury to capture his attention, but he didn’t have to worry, for the rest of the players began shoving one another, and Rhys knew, in the back of his mind, it wasn’t just about Reeves but was all of the restless energy of the desperate desire to win pouring out of them.
It was his job to stop it, but he had only one focus.
Emmaline lay on the ground, turned over on her chest. Her cap was beside her, and her hair draped around her one shoulder to the ground, part of it still tied back. So far, none of the other players had noticed, and Rhys could only hope that the melee had hidden her from any onlookers.
He quickly put her hat back on her head, hoping it would hold, as he touched her shoulder.
“Em,” he settled for, needing to call her by her name, but knowing that her disguise could still be intact. “Are you all right? Can you hear me?”
“I’ll live,” she groaned in a way that sent relief coursing through her. “But my shoulder… it might not.”
It was only then that he noticed that her arm was sticking out at an odd angle, and he realized with sickening dread that her shoulder was likely out of its socket. She’d recover, but it would hurt like the devil going back in.
“Lockwood!”
He turned to find Harrington waving him over to where he was conversing with the two referees — one representing each club — and the umpire, the final decision maker.
“We’ve agreed to take a ten-minute break. See to your player.” He eyed Rhys as though he had suddenly realized that Reeves might not have been lying as they had thought he was, “and we’ll each calm our players before we finish this thing. All right?”
Rhys nodded in relief, running back to Emmaline, who had managed to get to her feet with Colin’s help. The two of them supported her to the bench on the side of the field across from the stands just as Dr. Lewis, the physician who attended all games to see to any injuries, arrived, slightly out of breath from his run from the stands.
“Let me take a look at that,” he said, placing down his bag and feeling around Emmaline’s shoulder. Rhys bit his lip, trying to determine a reason to provide the man for just why his player couldn’t be treated at the moment, but at least he was saved from Emmaline being outed in a public setting when the doctor continued, “I’ll have to remove his shirt. Let’s go to the bathhouse.”
Emmaline stared at Rhys with eyes wide with pain and supplication as she followed the physician.
Rhys could do nothing but follow along, just as he saw her brothers make their way down the stands.
He had to figure something out. And he had to do it now.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Through her pain, Emmaline cursed her weak, feminine bones. Would a man’s pop out of the socket like this? Rhys must have guessed her line of thinking as he sat her down on the bench, even as she realized that she wasn’t going to have the privacy she had wished for as the rest of the team trickled in behind him.
“Anyone would have been injured after such a hit,” he said. “Don’t blame yourself.”
She wouldn’t tell him how much she did. Perhaps it would have been better had she not played at all.
“Shirt off,” Dr. Lewis said flippantly, as Emmaline and Rhys met one another’s gaze.
