“I have a confession to make.”

She touched her lower lip with her tongue and took a shaky breath. “I didn’t wear this dress just to distract Ralph. I also wanted to knock your socks off.”

Whoa. If she could be that honest, so could he. “You succeeded. My toes are kinda curled, too.”

“I also wanted you to know that I’m not a Pollyanna.”

The jury was still out on that one, but he knew what he was supposed to say. “I got the message, loud and clear.”

Her smile was faint. She didn’t move. God, he’d only thought her laugh had made him warm. The kiss me look was smokin’. It was also an invitation and he decided to take it. “Wondering,” he asked softly, “just how much further you can go and still be safe?”

She blinked. “What makes you think that?”

“It’s what I’m wondering.”

Dear Reader,

Most of us look forward to October for the end-of-the-month treats, but we here at Silhouette Special Edition want you to experience those treats all month long—beginning, this time around, with the next book in our MOST LIKELY TO…series. In The Pregnancy Project by Victoria Pade, a woman who’s used to getting what she wants, wants a baby. And the man she’s earmarked to help her is her arrogant ex-classmate, now a brilliant, if brash, fertility expert.

Popular author Gina Wilkins brings back her acclaimed FAMILY FOUND series with Adding to the Family, in which a party girl turned single mother of twins needs help—and her handsome accountant (accountant?), a single father himself, is just the one to give it. In She’s Having a Baby, bestselling author Marie Ferrarella continues her miniseries, THE CAMEO, with this story of a vivacious, single, pregnant woman and her devastatingly handsome—if reserved—next-door neighbor. Special Edition welcomes author Brenda Harlen and her poignant novel Once and Again, a heartwarming story of homecoming and second chances. About the Boy by Sharon DeVita is the story of a beautiful single mother, a widowed chief of police…and a matchmaking little boy. And Silhouette is thrilled to have Blindsided by talented author Leslie LaFoy in our lineup. When a woman who’s inherited a hockey team decides that they need the best coach in the business, she applies to a man who thought he’d put his hockey days behind him. But he’s been…blindsided!

So enjoy, be safe and come back in November for more. This is my favorite time of year (well, the beginning of it, anyway).

Regards,

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

Blindsided
Leslie Lafoy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Garrett

Who picked up a hockey stick eight years ago

and changed the course of our lives.

Thank you, Son.

LESLIE LAFOY

A former high school history teacher with wide ranging interests, Leslie collects antique silver and loves to work with stained glass. She admits to being one of the last women in America who considers sewing a recreational activity. And home rehabbing—major, major fun. She’s married—twenty-one years—to David and they have a teenage son who plays hockey and lacrosse.

In her spare time <g>, Leslie has written nine historical romantic suspense novels and one novella. She’s now adding contemporaries into the writing mix just for the fun of doing something different.

The Girls’ Guide to Hockey

There are four basic types of hockey players.

The Goalie. He’s the guy standing in front of the net and looking like the Road Warrior version of the Michelin Man. Under those pads is a man who has the single-mindedness of a medic dragging a wounded soldier to safety. Off ice… They can be a bit oblivious to what’s going on around them. If you want their attention, try tossing a puck across their seemingly blank stare.

The Center. Speed. Drive. Confidence. Loads and loads of confidence. While these tendencies can be a bit off-putting off ice, it is possible to drop his jaw. Off ice… Just sweetly move around him and go on like he isn’t there. They’re so not used to that that they’ll come after you out of sheer curiosity.

The Wingers (Left and Right). They’re every bit as good as the center; they just don’t usually get the spotlight. Which is fine by them. It’s not that they lack confidence, it’s that they prefer to play strong supporting roles. Off ice… Invite the whole team over for dinner and ask him to help. He’ll adore you forever.

The Defensemen. aka The Rescuers. They charge into the fray and put not only their bodies, but also their hearts and souls between the puck and the net. They’re usually the most unassuming guys on the ice. “It’s no big deal. It’s just my job.” Off ice… They live to be needed. Just don’t gush publicly over their rescue exploits. Privately… Everyone likes to be appreciated.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Prologue

That had gone as well as could be expected, Catherine Talbott decided as she watched the team’s now former general manager storm out of the office. The door could probably be put back on the hinges. And if it couldn’t, she could live without one. She’d lived without a lot lately. She was actually getting good at it.

John Ingram—he who had just joined the ranks of disgruntled former employees—was somewhere in the administrative office shouting about Cat pretending to have a penis when Lakisha Leonard sauntered in through the mangled doorway.

Cat’s assistant flipped her assortment of beaded braids over her shoulder and arched a glitter-spangled brow. “He’s not happy.”

The understatement of the year. “People who get fired usually aren’t,” Cat pointed out, organizing the pile of bills on the desk in front of her and trying not to fixate on the huge, red PAST DUEs stamped on them.

“Carl isn’t going to be happy, either,” Lakisha said warily. “The two of them go way back together.”

“Yeah, well,” Catherine countered, setting aside the neat stack of bills with a sigh, “if I could find another coach willing to work for stale peanuts and flat beer, they could go forward together, too.”

Lakisha drew back slightly, puckered her lips and wiggled her nose back and forth. In the month since Catherine had inherited her brother’s hockey franchise, she’d seen Lakisha’s “rabbit look” often enough to know that there was something to be said. “What?” she asked, her pulse racing. “You know a decent coach who can be had cheap?”

“I didn’t want to mention it right off,” Lakisha began, looking like she really wasn’t all that excited about mentioning it now. “Your plate being as full as it is and all. You’ve barely had time to get your feet under you.”

“But?” Catherine pressed.

“Your brother was working on a plan.”

Of course he was. Tom had always been working on The Next Big Thing. All the intricate details of his various plots to take over the economic world had been scribbled on napkins from one end of his office to the other. Putting them together to actually understand the grand plan was proving to be a bit difficult, though. “I must have missed that particular note,” Catherine quipped, eyeing the pile on the credenza. “Do you happen to know which restaurant he had the brainstorm in?”

Lakisha selected a braid and rolled the beads between her fingers. “He said the time wasn’t right.”

“What, he was going to wait until the players filed pay grievances and the power company shut off the lights?”

“No.” The secretary abandoned her hair to consider the palm tree motifs on her impossibly long acrylic nails, then shrugged and turned away, saying, “I guess I could get you the file.”

“That would be nice,” Catherine muttered. She leaned back into the massive leather chair and closed her eyes. “It would have been even nicer a month ago.”

Tom might have owned the team, but the plain truth was that Lakisha Leonard was the one who made the machinery run. And turning the controls over to Tom’s baby sister wasn’t something she’d been willing to do without certified proof of competency.

It had been a grueling thirty days. But somewhere between hauling her life across two states, the endless meetings with the league’s governing board and getting the new season started, she’d somehow managed to assure Lakisha that Tom had indeed been of sound mind when he’d drawn up his last will and testament.

Of course Lakisha was the only one who believed it. Cat sure didn’t. The vote of the governing board was still out. The players, while terribly respectful, were openly uncomfortable. Carl Spady always called her “Little Lady” in a tone that implied that she really ought to be home baking a cake and doing the laundry. John Ingram had called her “Sweetie Pie.” Well, until she’d fired him for nonperformance and then Sweetie Pie had morphed into a power-hungry bitch.

And she could understand how he’d come to feel that way. He’d been the Warriors’ GM for the last ten years. But, as far as she could tell, he’d stopped putting any effort into it somewhere around the sixth. Tom had never called him on it. She had. Not because she could—as John had claimed—but because she simply hadn’t had any other option.

It was done, though. She’d put a man out of work. There was no going back, no point in wishing things were different. The franchise was on the financial rocks and what had to be done to save it had to be done. There was no one else to do it. It was the responsibility of ownership. She owed it to the players. To the fans. It was business. And while every bit of it was absolutely true, none of it made her feel any less guilty. Nice people didn’t make other people unhappy.

The dull click of beads announced Lakisha’s return and Cat opened her eyes just as a fat, brown expansion folder landed on top of the past due bills.

“There you go,” Lakisha announced, already on her way out again. “You read while I go make sure John doesn’t steal my only decent stapler. Replacing it could bankrupt us.”

That wasn’t all that much of an overstatement. Catherine sat forward and turned the folder around. Across the flap, written in Tom’s characteristic block lettering, was a name: Logan Dupree.

She slipped the band and pulled the contents out—a stack of papers, pieces large and small, of yellowed newsprint and glossy magazine and photo stock. The top one was a clipping from a long ago sports page. Lord, what a smile the kid had. Wide and bright and full of life. Eighteen-year-old Logan Dupree, the caption said, had been signed to play center for the Wichita Warriors, the minor league affiliate for the Edmonton Oilers. Tom had written at the bottom of the article: Des Moines. July, 1984.

Catherine mentally ran the math. Over twenty years ago. The kid wasn’t a kid anymore. He was almost into his forties. And two years younger than she was.

She flipped the clipping over, moving on to an eight-by-ten color publicity photo of Logan Dupree in a Wichita Warriors’ jersey. Sweater, she corrected herself with a quick wince. They called them sweaters. Pants were breezers. She had to remember those sorts of things. Like that the C on his left shoulder meant that he’d been the captain of the team. A manly man among men.

She skimmed Tom’s recruitment notes. At eighteen, Logan Dupree had been six foot two and weighed an even two hundred pounds. He shot left and had a slap shot clocked at eighty-seven miles an hour. Catherine grinned. Tom had failed to note that Logan Dupree had thick, dark hair, a chiseled jaw, cheekbones to kill for and the kind of deep brown, soulful eyes that could melt panties at fifty paces.

She worked her way down through the stack of newspaper clippings, photos and magazine articles, through Logan Dupree’s life. She read about his being called up to the majors, about his success there, the trades, the big money contracts, the houses, the cars, the beautiful women.

And she watched him, from picture to picture, change over those years. His shoulders broadened and his chest thickened. The angles of his face became even more defined, more ruggedly handsome. He developed a sense of presence, too; an in-your-face sort of confidence that made his good looks even more dashing, more dangerously appealing.

But it was his smile that changed the most. What had been wide and bright became studied and controlled. Genuine and real were replaced by superficial and plastic. The price of success had been his happiness. The sacrifice of himself. It was so sad.

“Get a grip,” she grumbled as she flipped through the photo spread from GQ, past a picture of Logan Dupree in a tux and seemingly unaware that he had a Hollywood starlet draped around his neck. “You don’t even know the man.”

She gasped and recoiled, then slapped her hand over the picture, unwilling to see any more of the gory details than she already had. The caption was sufficient. An accidental high stick. A freak injury. The sudden end of his playing career. Of his hopes for Lord Stanley’s cup.

And at the bottom of the article, highlighted in yellow, was a quote. “I’m not interested in coaching. If I can’t play, I’m done.” And beside it, in the margin, was a simple note in Tom’s handwriting: Ha!

Chapter One

Logan Dupree didn’t need more than one eye to tell him that the woman in the navy blue suit was a problem looking for a place to happen. He took a sip of his scotch and racked his brain, trying to put her into a place, into a group of people. And couldn’t. Which didn’t necessarily mean much. Long stretches of his memory were nothing more than a chemical-induced blur.

The boat beneath him rocked on the wake of a vessel slowly leaving the yacht club marina. The motion brought him back to the moment and the curly-haired blonde standing on the floating dock. She was shading her eyes from the Florida sun with one hand and studying the stern of his ship. In her other hand she clutched a battered leather bag.

He skimmed her from head to toes. Navy skirt, navy blazer, navy pumps with barely a heel. Run-of-the-mill stockings. A simple white blouse with the first two buttons left open. On a woman who had decent cleavage it would have been sexy. On her… She wasn’t a supermodel; that was for sure. Or a model, period. She was too short, too plain. Not his type at all. She looked more like a—

He dragged a slow, deep breath into his lungs and considered her again with narrowed eyes. A reporter? No, reporters almost always had a photographer in tow. A lawyer? Yeah, that was the more likely possibility. She was wearing the uniform. Logan thought back, ticking through the calendar and the parade of women who’d knotted his sheets over the last year. There weren’t that many of them; his stock had plummeted the day they’d announced that he’d never again meet the NHL’s vision requirements.

But in the years before that there had been a hell of a lot of women. Most of them without names that he could recall on the spur of the moment. Which was about as clearly as he could recall the particulars of their encounters. Safe sex was automatic, though. Even when three sheets to the wind. If this woman was here to threaten him with a paternity suit…

Good luck, lady, he silently challenged as he watched her move farther out on the floating dock. She was halfway between the stern and the gangplank when she managed to get her heel caught in the space between the dock boards. He winced as it brought her up short, smiled as she frowned down at it and then wrenched it free with a little growl. She shoved her foot back into her shoe and immediately started forward again. And without looking around to see if anyone had seen the graceless moment. He took another sip of his drink and decided that he had to give her points for that.

“Good morning,” she said brightly as she came to a halt at the base of the gangplank. “I’m looking for a Mr. Logan Dupree. Would that happen to be you?”

She had to know damn good and well who he was. She wouldn’t have found him if someone in corporate hadn’t pointed her this way. But that realization paled beside another that swept over him in the next second. She had the bluest eyes. Bright blue. With the hair and the “kiss me” mouth… God, put her in a frilly little costume and she’d look like one of those dolls off the Home Shopping Network. “Maybe,” he answered. “It depends on who you are and what you want.”

She smiled. “May I come aboard?”

He wanted to say no. He really did. Instead, he shrugged, dredged up a smile he hoped passed for polite, set his drink on the table beside him, and levered himself up out of the deck chair. She didn’t wait for him to step over to the railing and offer her a hand up the ramp, though. No, she vaulted up the narrow walkway all on her own and without catching her heel and toppling over into the water.

Logan released the breath he’d been holding as she gestured to the other chair on the deck and asked brightly, “May I have a seat?”

He nodded and watched as she lowered herself into it with an easy, confident smile, smoothing the skirt over the curves of her hip and backside as she did. They were really nice curves, he had to admit as she put the bag down between them.

She waited until he’d taken his own seat again before sticking out her hand and saying, “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Catherine Talbott.”

The name meant absolutely nothing to him, but he politely shook her hand and replied, “Ma’am,” while bracing himself to remember a string of names followed by Attorneys at Law.

“Tom Wolford was my brother.”

The fact that he’d guessed her wrong was hammered into oblivion as the past slammed forward, crisp and clear. Tom Wolford, standing in the shadows and exhaust clouds of the Wichita bus station, a vending machine ham sandwich in one hand, a can of pop in the other. The big man lumbering forward to throw a welcoming arm around the shoulders of an already homesick kid and lead him off into the world of minor league hockey. The pair of plaid polyester pants, white belt, white shoes, the hat with the crimped crown and the narrow brim… The half cigar that was never lit but always clamped in the corner of his mouth….

Tom Wolford. Daddy Warbucks. The old days and the first foot in the door. It had been a long time since Logan had looked that far back. Now that looking forward wasn’t an option, maybe he could afford the luxury of reminiscing every now and then. It had been, what—almost five years since they’d last spoken? He should call Tom and— Logan blinked and frowned. “Did you say was?”

She nodded ever so slightly and her smile looked tired. “He passed away a little over a month ago. A heart attack.”

“Unless he’d changed a lot in the last fourteen years,” Logan said as his throat tickled, “it couldn’t have been an unexpected one.”

Catherine Talbott’s smile faded on a sigh and shrug of her slim shoulders. “No, it really wasn’t. Still…”

Logan silently swore and kicked himself. “I’m sorry,” he offered sincerely. “I can be a real clod sometimes. Tom was a decent man. I owe him a lot and I’m sorry he’s gone.”

Tucking her hair behind her ears, Catherine Talbott managed a slightly brighter smile. “I was hoping you’d feel that way.”

Duh! his brain groaned. The memorial plaque. The endowment of some fund for underprivileged kids’ sports. He’d been tapped for such things before. It came with making the pro ranks. He knew the drill from beginning to end. “Oh, yeah?” he drawled, wondering how much she had in mind. “Why?”

“Tom left me the team.”

As responses went, it didn’t even come close to his expectations. “You own the Wichita Warriors?” he asked, having a hard time getting his brain wrapped around the image of Shirley Temple sitting behind Tom’s huge metal desk.

“Yes, I do.”

The assurance didn’t help one bit. “What does Millie think of that?”

“Well… She’s…”

The obvious hesitation sent a cold jolt through his veins. “Millie’s not dead, too, is she?”

“No, no,” she hurriedly answered. “My sister-in-law is very much alive.” She hesitated and took a noticeably deep breath before she added, “But she has dementia. There are good days and there are not so good days.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he offered again, thinking that he was beginning to sound a little too much like a parrot. A socially retarded parrot. He used to be a lot better at this sort of thing.

“It’s one of the risks of growing old,” she went on. “You don’t have much choice except to deal with what life gives you. Tom provided well for her, though. Millie doesn’t want for anything now, and there’s money to see her through even a long decline. She’s not going to be pushing a grocery cart around town and eating out of Dumpsters.”

Millie eat out of Dumpsters? Never. Not even demented. Where Tom had been the loud impresario, Millie had been the perfect princess. “That’s good to know. I can’t tell you how many Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter dinners I had at Millie’s house. She always made sure that we weren’t alone those days.”

“She still does the bring-all-your-friends spreads. With a little help now, of course. We did a backyard brat and potato salad affair when all the players came in for the new season.”

God, it was so small-town, so Wichita. So incredibly minor league. “I’ll bet everyone had a real good time.”

She nodded and then her smile faded on another sigh. “Until Tom collapsed.”

Oh shit. He should have seen it coming. The nod followed by the sigh was the tip-off. He couldn’t offer apologies again. He just couldn’t. He’d choke to death if he even tried. “So,” he ventured, then cleared his throat as subtly as he could. “How are the Warriors doing these days?”

“Well,” she drawled, “that depends on your perspective, I suppose.”

Uh-oh. Evasion was never a good sign. She was working up to something. The something that had brought her halfway across the country. And odds were it wasn’t to hit him up for a memorial contribution. “You’re a month into the season. What’s the win-loss record?”

“Two wins, ten losses,” she supplied with a little grimace.

Bad. Really bad. “Why are they losing?”

“I wish I could tell you, Mr. Dupree, but I don’t know anything about hockey.”

Gee, there was a surprise. “What are your GM and coaching staff saying?” he pressed.

She seemed to chew the inside of her cheek as she stared off over the water. “That it’s not their fault,” she finally answered. “That Tom didn’t spend enough to get the talent necessary to win.”

Yeah, it was usually someone else’s fault. And dead guys made perfect scapegoats. “Is it true?”

“Looking at the books,” she replied, still staring off, “I’d have to say that he spent all that he could. And then some.”

And then some? There it was. The Warriors were in financial trouble and as the club’s poster boy for Big Dreams, he was the logical choice for White Knight, too. “Let’s cut to the chase, Ms. Talbott,” he said firmly. “Why are you here? What do you want from me? A bailout?”

Her gaze came back to his with a snap and a blink. “Well, yes. In a—”

“How much to take the ink from red to black?” he demanded, not caring that he sounded irritated. He was irritated.

“I don’t want your money, Mr. Dupree,” she challenged as she squared her shoulders and her blue eyes flashed icy fire. “I want your talent. And I’m willing to pay you for it.”

She couldn’t afford to pay him so much as a nickel on his NHL dollars. “My talent at what?”

“I’ve had two offers for the franchise. Both of them reasonable and fair considering the shape it’s in.”

How had they gone from him bailing out the team to her selling it? Talk about conversational whiplash. “You should signal left turns before you make them,” he growled.

Another sigh. “I know. I’m bad about that.” Another little heave of her shoulders. Another pointless effort to tuck her curls behind her ears. “Here’s my thinking on it all,” she said, holding her hands in front of her like a balance scale. “I could sell tomorrow and walk away with a lot more than I have now. But if I did, I’d be selling out Tom’s hopes and expectations. I have a problem with that on a personal level. I’d feel much better about it if I could improve the franchise before I let it go. Tom couldn’t be disappointed then. Does that make sense?”

It did. But in the most dangerous sort of way. If that was the full scope of her reasoning, the woman was playing a high-stakes game listening to her heart, not her head. And that was a guaranteed way to fail. He looked away from the big blue eyes that were so earnestly searching his. “Do you have experience in running any kind of business?”

“I’ve organized several successful charity events.”

He waited for her to toss out the next item on her résumé. All he got were the sounds of the marina. “That’s it?”

“I have a master’s degree in Sociology,” she offered brightly. “And I’m an expert in robbing Peter to pay Paul. No one does it better.”

What the hell had Tom been thinking? Millie, even with her marbles rattling loose, could do a better job than this little socialite. Had Tom lost it, too? “Let’s go back,” Logan said tightly. “What do you want from me?”

“I understand that you’re something of a legend in the minor leagues.”

Yeah, he was a legend there. In the majors, too. But not for the reason he wanted. In two years the only memory of him was going to be the moment when his eye tumbled out of its socket on national television. “Nail the point, Ms. Talbott. What do you want from me?”

“I want you to coach the Warriors this season.”

He gripped the arms of his chair, trying to keep himself from falling out. Step back twenty years? Start all over from nowhere? He’d never in his life wanted to coach. “You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not.”

She certainly seemed sane. And sober. “Give up kicking back in the Florida sun and surf,” he posed dryly, “to spend the winter riding a broken-down bus across the windswept, frozen prairie with a bunch of third-rate hockey players. Would you go for an offer like that?”

“Actually,” she said, with a fleeting, weak smile, “if you don’t, I’m going to have to.”

“Come again?” he asked, stunned and even more appalled. “You know nothing about hockey but you think you can coach?”

“The sea of red ink is deep. Really deep,” she explained, her eyes darkening. “I’ve already let John Ingram—the GM—go and taken over his responsibilities. The office staff has been pared down to one. Looking at the team’s record so far, I figure no one can do worse than Carl Spady when it comes to coaching. I’ll promote the current assistant coach and play his second for no pay. And when we get back into black, I’ll leave the bench and hire the best I can to replace me.”

His head pounded. “You’re nuts.”

“Maybe,” she allowed. “Mostly, I’m determined.”

“The men won’t play for a woman.”

“They’re not men. They’re boys,” she calmly countered. “The average age is twenty-three. And their choice is to play for the Warriors or go home. I may not know much, but I do know that we’re the bottom rung of the professional hockey ladder.”

With her at the helm and on the bench…? The publicity would be incredible. The minors’ first female coach of a men’s team. The tickets to the freak show would go like hotcakes. She’d make money out of it. Hand over fist. But the players… God, being relegated to an unaffiliated team in the Central Hockey League was humiliation enough for them. Adding professional pity to it… Thank God it wasn’t his problem. His smile was grim and tight and he both knew it and didn’t care. “You have a lot to learn, Ms. Talbott. You might want to start with a copy of Hockey for Dummies.”

“I’ve read it from cover to cover. Twice,” she assured him. “And I bought myself some books on practice drills, too. They don’t make all that much sense at this point, but they will eventually.”

He’d bet the boat that she’d never even laced up a pair of skates. The poor bastards. All the Warriors wanted was to make a living playing a game they loved. It wasn’t much of a living and as dreams went it was a long shot at best, but… Jesus F. Christ. Did they have any idea of what was coming down the ice at them?

“Carl Spady pulls down a hefty five-figure salary,” she said, interrupting his nightmare. “I’d rather pay it to you.”

And he’d rather give up his good eye. “I’m making a solid seven-figure one sitting right here in this deck chair.”

“So I’ve heard.”

She’d said it softly, but there was an edge to her tone that made it ring like an insult. He held his breath and tamped down the instinct to charge squarely into the challenge. It took a of couple seconds and a conscious effort to unclench his teeth, but he eventually managed a fairly even, “Oh?”

She didn’t reply. Instead, she leaned down and flipped open the leather bag at her feet. “Here’s my card,” she said in the next second, straightening to hand him a fuzzy-edged card. “Please consider the offer and let me know what you decide.”

He looked down at the business card. Pink. With some fancy, feminine font. Pink! “There’s no thinking to be done, Ms. Talbott,” he declared as he tossed the card on the table beside his drink. “The answer’s ‘no thank you.’ I’m not even remotely interested.”

“Well, if you’re sure…” she said while she rose to her feet.

Logan gained his own, reached down, snagged the handle of her briefcase, and held it out to her saying, “I am.”

She had to tilt her head way back to meet his gaze. For a long second she seemed to be considering him, chewing on the inside of her cheek as her eyes darkened. Then the boat shifted slightly beneath them and she rocked back, unbalanced. Even as he reached out to steady her, she righted herself with a tight smile and turned away.

His arms fell back to his sides as she put the briefcase on the seat of the chair and opened it again. From it she drew a thick, brown expansion folder. Handing it to him with both hands, she explained, “Tom built this file over the years. Since there’s no reason for me to keep it, I think he’d probably want you to have it.”

He looked down to see his name scrawled across the front flap in black magic marker. The thing was stuffed to the gills and weighed a ton.

“Mr. Dupree?” She waited until he looked up. “If you change your mind…”

“Not going to happen,” he assured her blandly, plunking the file down on the table.

“Just the same,” she went on as she closed her case and took it in hand. “I’m on my way to the airport. My son has a ‘Hockey in Focus’ class tonight and I promised to have locker room treats for everyone afterwards.” She moved toward the walkway, adding as she went, “You can reach me on my cell after six. I’ll either be at home, making brownies, or at the rink, handing them out.”

Brownies. Probably with little pink sprinkles on top. Did she make them for the Warriors, too? Did she send them out on the road with little care packages tied up with pink ribbons? She probably put notes inside reminding them to eat sensibly and to remember to brush their teeth.

“May I ask you a personal question, Mr. Dupree?”

He brought his attention back to the marina. She stood on the floating dock, shading her eyes with her hand again. He shrugged his permission and refrained from mentioning that he considered an answer optional.

“My son is twelve. The first time he ever set foot in an ice rink was the day after Tom’s funeral. The hockey bug seems to have bitten him just as he stepped inside the door. As a man who played the game, can you give me some idea of what the odds are that it might be nothing more than a passing interest?”

Twelve? If he was remembering right, that made the boy a Pee Wee. The second year kids were allowed to check. Having to learn to skate while getting hammered into the boards meant that the kid was either a masochist or had found a passion. Given that his mother was an obvious loony tune… He decided to give the kid a break and yank Mama’s chain. “I hope Tom left you some stock in CCM.”

She arched a brow. “CCM?”

God, she really was beyond clueless. “It’s a company that makes hockey gear,” he supplied. “Along with others like Easton, Bauer, and Itech. Just to name a few. Didn’t you notice the names when you bought him his equipment?”

“I didn’t buy it. The Warriors outfitted him with their old stuff and hauled him out onto the ice. I was too busy worrying about broken bones to pay any attention to the labels.”

What a typical mom. Logan chuckled and shook his head. “Hockey players will do anything to bring another guy into the fold. Does the kid nag you about getting to the rink on time?”

The look on her face was answer enough. His own mother had often worn the very same exasperated expression. “He starts in two hours before we have to leave the house.”

“It sounds to me like he’s been pretty well bitten. Brace yourself,” he warned, grinning. “It’s a long, hard, expensive haul.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, rolling her eyes as she turned away.

The question came out of the blue and tumbled off his tongue before he could even think to stop it. “Why did Tom leave you the team?”

She paused and looked over her shoulder to meet his gaze. “I normally charge ten bucks for the story,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “But if you’ll take the job, I’ll tell you for free.”

Damn, she was cute. In a pink, fuzzy, kid sister sort of way. The cameras would love her behind the bench. Is that what Tom had been thinking? “I can live with the mystery,” he countered, knowing that he wasn’t being completely honest about it.

With a quiet laugh, she walked off, waving and calling back, “Have a good one, Mr. Dupree. Talk to you soon.”

Hopefully she had enough good sense to stop holding her breath before she passed out and went face-first into a bowl of brownie mix. Shaking his head, Logan watched her make her way along the floating dock and up the steps to the parking lot. As she climbed into the driver’s seat of a bright red Taurus, he smiled and turned back to the chair and his now watery scotch. She had a nice swing. Not that he wanted it in his backyard, of course. And she did have killer legs—especially considering how short they were.

Logan polished off his drink in one quick swallow. Rolling the empty glass between the palms of his hands, he eyed the expansion folder she’d handed him. There was no reason to open it up and go through it; he knew what was inside. Tom had kept a file on every one of his players. On “his boys.”

With a bittersweet smile, Logan wandered his memories. The Warriors had been Tom’s family, their accomplishments his greatest source of pride. Every morning ten copies of the Wichita Eagle had been delivered to the front office and Tom would cull the sports page, carefully cutting out the articles. One copy was always stapled to the bulletin board by the ticket counter. Another copy went into the individual files. Another was always mailed to the player’s parents with a note from Tom about how pleased he was for the opportunity to know such an outstanding young man, such an outstanding human being.

Being a good person had been important to Tom. Being a good hockey player hadn’t mattered nearly as much to him. He’d insisted that every man on the squad pick a social cause or a community organization and give it at least ten hours a week of volunteer time. It had been part of the playing contract and Tom had made the rounds, checking to make sure the players were where they said they’d be and when. No one had ever gotten away with shirking their charitable commitments. For Tom, giving back had been important.

And when the local paper mentioned the good works, Tom had posted, filed and sent those clippings home, too. Logan’s mother had saved them all. He and his sisters had found them in a box in the bedroom closet after her funeral. Along with them had been cards from her bridge club ladies congratulating her on having raised such a good, caring, talented man.

Logan swallowed down the lump in his throat and rose from the chair. He needed another drink, he told himself as he headed for the liquor cabinet below deck. He didn’t need to feel guilty or the least bit obligated about a damn thing.

Chapter Two

There was the good, the bad and the ugly. And then there was the Wichita Warriors. They had exclusive claim to the deepest pit of god-awful that Logan had ever seen. He gazed out over the sparse crowd, mentally calculating the gross. Unless the concession contract was a good one, Catherine Talbott was going to be paying expenses out of her own pocket this week. What did it cost her per game to rent the Kansas Coliseum these days? Public venues seating nine thousand didn’t come cheap. It had cost a fortune when he’d played here and odds were the rent hadn’t gone down in the past twenty years.

Arena rent, office rent and overhead, hockey equipment, insurance, travel expenses… Add in the player salaries. Minor leaguers—especially those in the west—didn’t make huge amounts of money, but considering the Warriors’ performance in tonight’s game, hell, if they were pulling down five bucks an hour they were being overpaid.

The ref brought the puck to the face-off circle in the Warriors’ own end and Logan watched the players slide into position. Wheatley, the center and a left-hand shooter, stood at the dot with his back to the goal. Vanderrossen and Stover fell in on either side of him and opposite the Austin Ice Bats’ wingers. Andrews and Roth, the Warriors’ defensemen, slipped in behind their teammates, checking over their shoulders to make sure they weren’t blocking their goalie’s view. Rivera nodded and set himself at the outside edge of his crease.

The ref did his quick visual check with the linesmen, and Logan drew a breath and held it. The puck dropped. It was still in midair when Vanderrossen flung his stick and gloves to the ice and himself at the opposing winger. Stover did the same on the other side. The whistle came in the next second—but about a half second after the puck ricocheted off Andrews’s shin guard and wobbled through Rivera’s wide open five hole.

The Ice Bats bench didn’t put up much of a celebration for the goal. Apparently the previous ten had pretty much used up all their enthusiasm. The players on the ice were too busy trying to de-sweater and break each other’s noses to notice the score. The fans obviously didn’t care that the tally had just gone to eleven-zip; they’d come for the fights. And to jeer the refs, Logan decided a few seconds later as the officials sent all four of the brawlers to the locker room with ten-minute game misconducts.

Logan glanced at the clock suspended from the arena ceiling. Three minutes, eighteen seconds left in the third period. An eternity by hockey standards. The way things were going, the Ice Bats could easily double the score before the final buzzer. There was no hope for the Warriors in that amount of time, though, and everyone knew it. What there was of a crowd was running toward the exits while the players set themselves up for the face-off at center ice and the Ice Bats’ goalie did push-ups in his crease.

With a hard sigh, Logan scrubbed his hands over his face and closed his eyes. He’d been insane to even come look, to so much as entertain the notion that coaching the Warriors might be a more productive use of his life than drinking the days away on his boat and feeling sorry for himself. So much for nice thoughts. Basking in the sun and polluting his liver was a slow road to hell. Coaching the Warriors would be like getting there on the bullet train.

Logan checked his watch. Ten o’clock. They’d already rolled up the ramps and shut down the airport for the night, so he was stuck until the first morning flight to civilization at six. How to kill eight hours in the middle of a Wichita night had always been a problem and from what he’d been able to tell on his trip from the airport to the Coliseum, no one had come close to solving it in the fourteen years he’d been gone.

The options tonight were the same as they’d been from October through April for almost all of his adult life: go back to the hotel, drink in the bar until they closed it down, leave a wake-up call request, crash a couple of hours and then stumble to the terminal gate with a raging headache so he could do it all over again the next night in another town. The beauty of his boat was not having to do all the stumbling between point A and point B.

Snagging the overpriced, too glossy program from the cement floor, Logan rolled it into a tube, shoved himself up out of the hard plastic seat and headed toward the exit just as the final buzzer sounded. He paused and turned back to check the scoreboard—12–0. He was thinking that the Ice Bats had shown the Warriors some mercy when his gaze slipped past the scoreboard to the sky boxes along the east wall.

Only two were lit. One was the press box with a pair of announcers undoubtedly trying to wrap up a dismal show. The other contained a single, slim figure with blond curly hair. Catherine Talbott stood alone in the owner’s box, her arms folded across her chest and her head bowed as though she were praying for a miracle. She needed one, he knew. Just as he knew that he wasn’t going to be it.

Logan shook his head and was turning away when his conscience squirmed. With a wince, he stopped again. He’d already given her offer way more time, money and consideration than it deserved. And he’d told her yesterday before she’d walked off his boat that he wouldn’t take the job, that he didn’t want or need it. There was no reason for her to hear it again. It would be cruel to go up to that sky box. It’d be like rubbing salt in an open wound; she had to feel bad enough already.

Cool reasoning didn’t settle his conscience. It prickled and then clenched tight like some long neglected, suddenly over-exercised muscle. With a growl, Logan eyed the sky box again, wondering just what the hell he could say to her that might be anywhere near encouraging or optimistic. Hey, at least you didn’t have to call an ambulance. Cheer up, they won two of the fifteen fights. Lady, if someone wants to buy this loser franchise, sell it!

Logan blinked, and in that same second the lights in the owner’s booth winked out. The scoreboard went dark in the next. He considered the now silent arena and the scarred, shaved ice below. Wichita had never been a great hockey town; it was too far south, too far north and nowhere near cosmopolitan enough to bring in transplants from the parts of the country where hockey was a way of life. It didn’t matter how bad or how good the Warriors were; it had never made a difference and never would.

Tom Wolford had spent his life swimming against the tide. And from the looks of things, he’d been pretty well swept out to sea for his effort. If Catherine Talbott didn’t know that the odds were stacked against her, then someone needed to be bluntly honest about it. It didn’t have to be him. It wasn’t like there was some big ledger book that said he owed her anything.

Aw, hell. Who was he kidding? Getting the hard stuff done had always been his job.

Cat leaned back against the grille of her ancient Jeep and crossed her ankles. The team’s just as ancient bus idled on the far side of the private parking lot, its running lights glowing bright orange in the crisp autumn night, the storage doors open, the driver standing beside them, smoking a cigarette and waiting for the team to file out and board. A good fifty feet separated the bus from the rear doors of the Coliseum. Cat considered the space, wondering what she should say to the players as they passed. Good game! probably wasn’t going to cut it. Even she knew that tonight’s game had been beyond pathetic. Telling them they’d win next time wasn’t something she thought she could choke out. At least not sincerely. Chewing Carl Spady up one side and down the other might cheer them up for a while. Or not. Most of the players had been on the team long enough to know that their coach would react by making their next practice a revenge-fest.

Of course she could just jump in her car and drive off before she had to face them. Cowardly, yes, but it would spare them all the awkwardness of trying to be upbeat. But it would also leave the players with nothing to counter Carl’s infamously nasty potshots. Why Tom hadn’t dumped him years ago was a mystery she hadn’t been able to solve. There had been nothing in the scribbled-on napkins to give her so much as a clue.

She was wondering about the therapeutic value of a good cry when the rear door of the arena squeaked on its hinges. Putting self-indulgence on hold, she stared down at the gravel just long enough to summon a smile and then lifted her head to give it to the man coming through the doorway.

The smile evaporated the instant the shape of the dark silhouette registered in her brain. The player had changed into his street clothes; they all did before boarding the bus. Always. And they always had their gear bags over their shoulder and their sticks in their hand as they went that way. Except this time, this player. He’d left his gear behind. God, was he quitting the team? Were they all packing it up and leaving it behind?

“You can’t!” she cried, vaulting off the front of her car to stand in the path of the player made featureless by the dark. “As long as you play, there’s hope. If you quit, it’s gone.”

“Empty hope doesn’t count for much.”

She knew the voice. Her heart actually fluttered, just before it shot up into her throat and cut off her air supply. “Logan Dupree?” she croaked out, her oxygen-deprived brain suggesting that she throw herself into his arms and kiss him senseless.

“I’m surprised I’m here, too,” he drawled with a lopsided smile as he stopped in front of her.

God, even in the dark he was so damn good-looking. And so tall. So broad shouldered. Throwing herself into his arms would require a running leap. The automatic half step back sparked some common sense. Swallowing around her stupid heart, Cat leaned back against the grille of her car and asked as nonchalantly as she could, “Do you want the free story now or later?”

“Never will be fine,” he replied, settling in beside her and crossing his arms over his chest. “There isn’t enough money in the world to get me to sign on to this disaster you call a team.”

Her heart dropped like a lead weight into the pit of her stomach. He wasn’t here to be her knight in shining armor. “Please lower your voice,” she said, desperately trying to anchor herself and hoping she didn’t sound as dizzy and queasy as she felt. Thank God she hadn’t done the grateful damsel routine. “The players will be coming out and they don’t need to hear themselves being run down.”

“They’re not stupid,” he pointed out quietly. “They know they suck.”

The choice was between crying, throwing up, or going on the defensive. “Well, they don’t need to hear anyone else say it,” she countered, lifting her chin. “That would be mean. And I happen to believe—contrary to what Carl thinks—that you don’t get people to improve by focusing on the negatives.”

“If you don’t look at the negatives, there’s no way you’ll ever turn them into positives.”

“But where’s the motivation to improve if there’s never a word of praise for the things you do right and well?”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one.” The shrug that went with the concession said that he considered it a very minor one.

God, she didn’t want to ask, but she had to. Just had to. “Do they do anything right or well?”

“Well,” he said slowly enough that she knew he was searching, “they can all skate.”

“Big deal,” she grumbled.

“Actually, it is. No hockey player is ever any better at the game than he is at skating. The two go hand in hand. Your boys could stand some fine tuning, but they’re not send-’em-packing bad.”

Yes, they were her boys. And they had heart. They went out and took the beatings night after night. If they were willing to step up and keep trying, then she couldn’t do any less. Her stomach settling and her brain coming back to earth, she stared at the idling bus and asked, “So if they can skate, why don’t they win?”

“Consultants make big money, you know.”

His voice was light, his words edged with amusement. He wasn’t going to hold out on her. Cat smiled. “And the owners of struggling minor league teams don’t have big money. Could we work out a trade of some sort?”

“What are you offering?”

Her body if it were twenty years younger. “Dinner and drinks?” She sweetened the offer by adding, “At the best sports bar in town.”

He turned his head and grinned at her. “Toss in the ten dollar story and you’ve got a deal.”

“Deal,” she said, resisting the urge to stick out her hand by shoving both of them in the hip pockets of her jeans. “So tell me why they don’t win.”

“They don’t play as a team.”

She waited, watching him out the corner of her eye. He seemed fascinated by the lighting on the water tower over at the Greyhound Park. “And?”

“That’s the biggie.”

“For dinner, drinks and the story, I want the smallies, too.”

He frowned. “Are you still thinking about stepping behind the bench and coaching?”

And he’d complained about her not signaling unexpected turns? “Let’s just say that the possibility is looming large,” she replied. “You’ve seen what Carl Spady’s got going. Do you think I could do any worse?”

“Probably not,” he allowed as a smile slowly tipped up the corners of his mouth. Still studying the water tower, he said, “You’ve got two sets of problems going on out there on the ice. The first is in the technical aspects of the game. Players are often out of position, they don’t have a plan for salvaging a busted play, the lines aren’t set up to maximize skills and styles, shift changes are rough, and they’re running a playbook that was outdated ten years ago. Those are the most glaring problems, by the way, not the only ones.”

Lines. She’d read about those. Something about the five guys on the ice together. She’d look it up again and figure out how it went with what he’d told her. “What’s the second set of problems?”

“Attitudes,” he supplied, a steely edge to his voice. “You have Glory Boys, Grinders and Goons. As long as they see themselves and each other as being only one or the other, they’ll never play together as a team.”

She was trying to remember if she’d ever heard the terms before and wondering where she could get a decent definition when he added, “Hell, I actually saw Wheatley strip the puck from his own wingers three times tonight. Vanderrossen and Stover would rather take a penalty than a pass. And your third line didn’t take a single shot on goal the entire game. All they did was D—badly—to give the first and second lines a rest. Which, quite frankly, they hadn’t earned.”

She blinked, stunned at how thrilling she found his passion for the game. Found him. “D?” she asked lamely, hoping the response would take long enough for her to gather up a few of her scattered wits.

“Defense,” he replied, grinning. “Keeping the puck out of your own net.”

Oh, yeah. She knew that. “Can the problems—both sets of them—be fixed?”

His smile disappeared. “It would be a long, hard haul.”

That was the second time in two days she’d heard the expression. “Seems to be a standard description of the game,” she observed.

“Accurate, too.”

He cleared his throat and took a deep breath in the same way she did when she was getting ready to say something necessary but unpleasant. Not wanting to hear it, she deliberately cut him off. “But these boys aren’t new to hockey. They’ve been playing the game all of their lives. They have the grit to change, don’t they?”

He slid her a sideways glance and sighed. “Some do, some probably won’t,” he answered, going back to his study of the water tower. “They each have to weigh the coach’s expectations against their own and figure out if they want to give the coach what he needs. Some will hang up the skates and others will lace them tighter.”

“Is there any way to know who’s going to do which?” Please God, she silently added, let the hanger-uppers be the expensive ones.

“The Glory Boys are going to be your toughest sell. They have the biggest egos, and they tend to view themselves as God’s gift to hockey.”

Ah, a definition. She knew which ones he was talking about. She called them The Swaggerers. Glory Boys was more descriptive. And much easier to say. “It’s occurred to me,” she admitted, “that anyone playing hockey in Wichita, Kansas, isn’t God’s gift to anyone or anything.”

“You might want to remind them of that,” he said coolly as he looked into the distance. “Especially when they threaten to take their razzle-dazzle to a more appreciative team. If they do, offer to help them pack their bags. You’ll be better off without them. Nothing poisons a locker room faster than an out-of-control ego.”

If he saw her nod of agreement, it didn’t give him pause. “Your Grinders will be the next hardest. They don’t have any self-confidence. They’ve got to take some shots thinking they can actually score the goals. And the Goons are going to have to be put on leashes. You played an entire twelve minutes at full strength tonight. Your penalty killing unit was exhausted before the end of the first period and your power play unit never went out.”

More stuff to look up. More things to think about and figure out. But since she had such incredible expertise at her fingertips… Well, figuratively anyway… “Why hasn’t Carl fixed these things?”

“Good question,” he conceded with a slow nod. “Have you asked him?”

“I’ve asked him why we don’t win. He told me it was because they were no-talent bums who don’t want to win. Tom did all the recruiting, in case you’re wondering.”

“He did back in my day, too.” He turned his entire body to face her and unfolded his arms to stuff his hands in the pockets of his khakis. “And in case you’re wondering, there’s decent talent on the team. It’s just not put together in the right combinations and pointed in the right direction. As for wanting to win…. They have to think they can. Believing is nine-tenths of winning.” He smiled. “Don’t you know about the Miracle on Ice?”

“1980,” she supplied. “Lake Placid. The American kids beat the mighty Russians. I was eighteen and cheered my ass off in the family room. And for the record—I’d never watched a hockey game before that. I didn’t know squat except that those boys were wonderful. And exciting. And worth cheering for.”

“Nothing’s ever been as exciting as that game. Nothing ever will be.” He hesitated, then shrugged one shoulder. “Well, except for maybe being on the team that wins the Stanley Cup. They say there’s nothing like that feeling.”

She hadn’t been able to look at the pictures in the magazine article Tom had saved, but she had read the story. And done a bit of Net surfing afterwards. The Tampa Bay Lightning had been in the running for Lord Stanley’s cup the year Logan Dupree had been injured. The sportswriters had all predicted that losing him would end the Bolt’s chances. And they’d been proven right. As a player, Logan Dupree had lost his chance to have his name placed on the Holy Grail of hockey. Talking about the cup with him would be right up there with asking Mrs. Lincoln about the play.

But she’d read an article on the history of Lord Stanley’s little trophy and knew that players weren’t the only ones whose names went on it; the coaches’ did, too. His chances weren’t completely over. Odds were that if he could see problems, he could fix them, too. “You’d make a good coach.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

She winced, realizing how self-serving her comment must have looked to him. “I wasn’t talking about the Warriors,” she assured him. “And how do you know you wouldn’t be any good? Have you ever tried it?”

“Yeah,” he retorted dryly. “We went winless the entire season.”

“Tom didn’t have any clippings of that adventure,” she said, suspicious. “When exactly did you do this coaching? Where?”

“Long Island. Ten years ago,” he supplied crisply. He smiled and leaned back against the car again. “My girlfriend at the time had a seven-year-old. I was trying to earn points with her.”

A kids’ team? “Man,” she drawled, trying not to laugh, “if you can’t coach a bunch of Mites to a win…. I’m afraid that I have to withdraw my job offer. No hard feelings, okay?”

He gave her a smile that could have powered the East Coast for a week. “I’ll live. Where are we going for dinner?”

Dinner? Who cared about food when she was being dazzled by perfectly even teeth and crinkly cornered, twinkling eyes? “Hero’s in Old Town,” she answered, really sorry that she hadn’t met him years ago. “It’s just a ways up the left side of that street straight across from the Eagle building on Douglas. Just head downtown, you’ll see the cars packed in there. You can’t miss it.”

“How about if I follow you?”

How about if he gave her time to recover from that smile of his? “It’s going to be a bit before I head that way. I always wait and talk to the boys as they go to the bus. If they come out to see that I’ve bolted on them, they’re going to feel lower than they already do.”

“Then I’ll wait with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know, but women out on the roads alone at night isn’t a good idea. Not that you couldn’t handle anything that might happen, but still…”

Cat nodded and stared at the water tower. When was the last time a man had inconvenienced himself for her? Willingly?

She was back to high school and still searching when he said, “If we’ve run out of things to talk about, it’s going to be a very long dinner.”

Cat smiled. Since she couldn’t see him being pleased about any nomination for Knight of the Year, she went in another direction. “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you come to see the game tonight if you had no intention of taking the job? It’s a long way to travel for bad nachos and even worse hockey.”

“Old time’s sake, I guess. I got to thinking about Tom and remembering the years I spent here. I didn’t have anything else going on, so…” He shrugged. “Whoever said you can’t go back home was right.”

“Did you ever really think of Wichita as your home?”

“Naw. It was just another stopping point along the way to fame and fortune on ice.”

“Where is home? Des Moines?” she pressed.

“It used to be.” He sounded sad. “But my parents are both gone and my sisters moved away after they got out of college. There’s nothing there now to call me back.”

“So Tampa’s home?”

He shook his head and folded his arms across his chest again. “It’s just another of the stopping points. It’s no more special than anywhere else.”

Rootless in Tampa. Not only was it a lousy movie title, it had to be a miserable way to exist. She was about to point that out when the door of the Coliseum opened and the first of the players followed the shaft of light into the parking lot.

Off the hook, Cat stepped away from the car. “Hi, Matt,” she called out, recognizing the shorter than average shape heading her way.

Matt Hyerstrom barely managed a smile and shifted the weight of the bag on his shoulder. “Hey, it’s over,” Cat said kindly. “You have to shrug it off and go on to the next one.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Cat could tell that he didn’t believe a word of it. She pivoted as he went past and then called after him, “We’re going to modify the lines, you know.”

He stopped and turned back. “Really?” he asked. “When?”

“Tomorrow morning at practice sound good to you?”

With a huge grin, he turned back toward the bus, saying, “Sounds perfect, Mizz Talbott.”

“We’re changing up the lines?”

She looked back to find Jason Dody coming her way. “Yes, Jace, we are,” she assured him, hoping that they were indeed talking about the same thing. “I figure it couldn’t hurt. Which line do you want to play on?”

“Anyone’s except Wheatley’s,” he answered quietly as he walked past her.

“Well, we’ll just see what we can do about that. Give your dream line some thought tonight and we’ll see how it works.”

He lifted his sticks and called back, “Will do, ma’am.”

Two for two. Hey, she was on a roll. She greeted the third player crossing the lot. “Georgie, if that lip of yours gets any lower, you’re going to step on it. There’s no reason to add injury to insult tonight.” He lifted his head and grinned. “Ah, that’s much better,” Cat said. “You’re so good-looking when you smile. Girls can’t resist a smile, you know.”

“Yeah?” He stopped in front of her and planted the tips of his sticks in the gravel between their feet. “What are you doing later?”

Cat laughed outright. “I’m old enough to be your mother, Georgie. Get on the bus.”

His grin even brighter than before, he did as he was told, leaving her to watch the next man heading for the bus. Her smile faded as the team’s Goliath came near enough for her to see the contours of his face. “Oh, damn, Ryan,” she said softly, taking his arm and stopping him. She angled his face into the orange glow of the bus’s running lights. A line of black stitches held together a jagged tear that ran over a huge lump above his right eye. “That has to hurt. What did Doc Mallory say?”

“That he had one helluva time getting the needle through the scar tissue, ma’am.”

As always, the gentle voice coming from such a burly body melted her heart. “Maybe we need to think about fighting a lot less and playing a little more, huh?”

He gave her a weary smile. “Coach says I need to get better at the fighting.”

“Consider his directive countermanded.”

“Huh?” His attempt to cock a brow ended in a wince.

“I own the team, Ryan,” she said, “so I get to make the rules. I say less fighting, and I’ll make sure Carl understands that’s what I expect. When you get home, put some ice on that.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he promised as she released him and gave him a little pat in the center of the back. She had to reach up to do it.

There wasn’t anyone else right behind him. Cat sighed in relief and stuffed her hands back into her pockets. Four for four. Now all she had to do was make good on her promises.

“You’re good.”

She smiled at the man leaning against her car, both amazed that she’d forgotten he was there and pleased by his approval. “Thanks. Wait until you see me behind the bench.”

“That’s a whole different world,” he countered. “You’re good at parking lot cheerleading. You’d be smart to leave it at that and not push your luck.”

Yeah, well, she’d spent way too many years of her life not pushing and, with one notable exception, she had nothing to show for it but regrets. “Hold on to that thought, I’ll be back to it in a few,” she said, eyeing the round, decidedly bald silhouette coming through the arena door. She went to meet him halfway, calling out, “Carl! If I could have a minute with you, please.”

He paused, barely, turning sideways as though he would walk off at any moment. His smile was the one he always gave her. The I’m-tolerating-you-only-because-you-sign-the-checks smile. The one that set her teeth on edge every time she saw it.

“It’ll have to be quick, Mrs. Talbott,” he informed her as players moved around them. “The bus is waiting.”

“And it’ll sit right there until you get aboard,” she pointed out. “I’d like for you to change the lines starting with tomorrow morning’s practice. Obviously they’re not working as they are now.”

“It won’t make any difference. You can’t make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear.”

Sow’s ear, she silently corrected. “I don’t care. I want the lines changed, Carl. And while we’re making changes, I’ve never been a fan of either boxing or professional wrestling. I’m tired of our games being more a contest of fists than finesse. The fighting needs to be stopped.”

He gave a thumbs-up sign to one of the players walking past while telling her, “Fights are what the fans come to see.”

“Yeah, all six of them,” she countered dryly. “Maybe if we actually played hockey a few more people might be interested in coming to the games and helping to pay the rent.” At his snort, she put her hands on her hips and looked him square in the eye. “And your salary, Carl.”

He stopped smiling. He leaned close. “Look, Little Lady. With the exception of Wheatley, this team doesn’t have the talent to play the grand and glorious kind of hockey you’ve been watching on ESPN. Those guys are the pros. These guys are the ones who couldn’t make it. They’re bottom of the barrel.”

Bottom of the barrel? The boys took beatings for this man? Cat had to count to ten before she could unclench her teeth. “Let me ask you something, Carl. If you have such a low opinion of the boys, of their abilities and their chances, why do you bother to coach them?”

“I like seeing the country,” he answered, edging away from her with a sneer, “from the window of a stinking, belching, rattling bus.”

Cat stepped directly into his path. “I’m serious, Carl. Why do you coach them if you don’t believe in them?”

“I dunno,” he snarled. “Maybe it’s because I don’t have any other hobbies that I can make good money at.”

“A hobby?” she repeated, furious. Passing players stared, but she was too mad to care. “You consider coaching the Warriors a hobby? For these boys, it’s life. It’s their dream. How dare you blow them off!”

He tried to step around her again. Cat planted herself in his way, said, “You’re fired, Carl,” and stuck out her hand, palm up. “I’ll have the keys to the office and the rink, please. You can clean out your desk in the morning after Lakisha unlocks.”

He reached into his pants pocket and yanked out a key ring. “You got it, lady. We can talk about my severance package then, too.”

Standing with her hand out, she watched him find and separate two keys from the others. “This isn’t exactly a spur-of-the-moment decision and I’ve read your contract, Carl. There’s no severance provision. You’ll draw this month’s salary and that’s it.”

He slapped the loose keys into her hand, asking, “Your boyfriend over there sweet talk his way into my job?”

Logan. Oh, God. She’d forgotten him again. What would he think when he found out she’d fired Carl? That she was trying to manipulate him into taking the job? How was she going to convince him otherwise when she’d gladly give him anything he wanted if he’d sign on? Oh, wasn’t that going to be a scene and half. She’d rather set herself on fire.

“In the first place, Carl, he’s not my boyfriend,” she said as she stuffed the keys in her pocket. “And in the second, he’s not interested in coaching.”

“You’re not going to find anyone who’ll be willing to take on this bunch of losers. You know that, don’t you?”

Losers? The son of a bitch. She walked away, refusing to give him so much as a backward glance as she called over her shoulder, “And the horse you rode in on, Carl!”

Logan chuckled as she blew past him, “I take it Spady isn’t all that enthused about the idea to mix up the lines.”

She wasn’t in the mood to face the truth squarely or to tap dance around it. Not right now. She needed time to cool down and figure out a plan of some sort. “What Carl Spady thinks doesn’t matter,” she declared as she yanked open the driver’s side door. “I’m starving. Do you need a lift to your car?”

He came off the front end, his amusement replaced by a look of wary assessment. “I’m parked right over there,” he said, making a vague motion in the direction of the lot outside the chained off area.

“Then I’ll see you at Hero’s,” Cat announced, practically throwing herself into the seat and pulling the door closed. She turned the ignition over and snapped on the lights in the next second, all too keenly aware of Logan Dupree’s frown as he walked away.

“God,” she groaned, as she sagged into the seat and closed her eyes. “I hate frickin’ roller coasters. Just hate them.”

But there was no climbing off now and she knew it. Tom had belted her in and shoved the lever into Go! She had a couple of minutes before Logan got to his car. With a hard sigh, she opened her eyes and reached for the Dummies book in the passenger seat. “Lines,” she muttered, flipping through the index. “Definition and composition of.”

Chapter Three

All right, he was a fair man; he could admit a mistake when he made one. He’d been wrong about Wichita’s nightlife being the same now as twenty years ago. In the old days, downtown after dark had belonged to raggy winos and the homeless with their shopping carts. These days the drunks were younger and much better dressed. And the Safeway-mobiles had been replaced by Beemers and Infinitis. Yes, downtown had definitely gone upscale.

Which meant that Catherine Talbott’s very old Jeep stuck out like sore thumb. Logan stood in the public parking lot and considered it. God, what year was that thing? White and boxy, it had to be from the early nineties. It was missing a strip of door trim on the driver’s side. There was piece of duct tape holding the driver’s mirror in place. And the fact that she was walking around to lock each of the doors by hand told him that the automatic controls didn’t work anymore.

The engine apparently ran well, though. She’d flown down the highway, powered through half a dozen ramp curves like a NASCAR driver, and sailed through downtown with green lights all the way. She’d hit the brakes only twice—to slow down just enough to keep it on four wheels as she made the turn in to the parking lot and then to stop the charging beast after she’d whipped it into the tiny spot between a late model Yukon and a Suburban with a temporary tag. Did she drive like a bat out of hell all the time? Or had she been driving off her “Come To Jesus” Talk with Spady?

He’d made a mistake about her, too, he admitted while she locked the back hatch with the key. Well, sorta, anyway. Yeah, she wasn’t a model, super or otherwise. He’d gotten that part right. But she wasn’t a kid sister, either. Especially when she stuffed her hands into the hip pockets of her jeans. Lord, what her too big shirts had hidden up until that moment. Like the fact that Catherine Talbott had curves. Really nice curves. In all the right places. The kind of curves that made for perfect handholds. And handfuls.

She dropped her keys into her purse, slung the saddlebag-looking thing over her shoulder, and came toward him with an easy smile. Logan smiled back and asked, “Who taught you to drive? One of the Andrettis?”

“The choke sticks,” she answered as he fell in beside her and they headed up Mosley Street. “It’s either pull off the road and shut it down for ten minutes, or hang on tight.”

“Why don’t you get it fixed?”

“Because mechanics don’t take rubber checks.”

Good reason. “You have a brake light out, too. Left side.”

“Always,” she said with a groan. She looked over—and up—at him to add, “Thanks. I’ll put a replacement bulb on the parts list. Maybe Santa will be good to me this year.”

She owned a semi-pro team. Why didn’t she have a company vehicle? Something that wasn’t falling apart. Was the franchise that poor? A coach’s five-figure salary would buy a new car. A nice one. Maybe he should take the job but not the paycheck. No, he corrected as they turned off the brick paved street and headed toward the door of the bar. He was going to get on the plane in the morning. With a totally clear conscience. He’d already given Catherine Talbott some free advice. Excellent free advice. He’d give her some more over dinner, and all of it combined would be contribution enough. He didn’t owe her—or Tom—any more than that.

He took a half step to get out in front of her, to make sure he got his hand on the door pull before she did. She looked up at him, obviously shocked by the courtesy. For about a half second. Then she grinned her thanks as she slipped past him. Nobody’s eyes could be that naturally blue, he thought as he let the door close behind him. She had to be wearing colored contacts. And God Almighty, whatever perfume she was wearing smelled good. Eat-me-up-with-a-spoon good.

“Two,” she said to the hostess at the podium and over the low roar of a packed house.

Logan half watched the hostess make her notes and then snag a couple menus. As long as he was in a mood to admit mistakes… Catherine wasn’t quite as short as he’d thought, either. He was used to moving around in a world of giants; hockey players under six feet were few and far between and the women who crossed his path came close to that mark more often than not. But compared to the hostess who led them to a table, Catherine wasn’t any midget. Maybe five-five, five-six, he guessed as he held the chair for her and she smiled her thanks up at him again.

The smile, though…he’d been right on about her smile. Logan sat down across the table from her and hid behind his menu, determined not to let himself get dazzled again by wide and bright and completely genuine. So she didn’t seem to have one coy little bone in her curvy body; it wasn’t as if he was going to stick around long enough to enjoy the novelty.

“Iced tea, please.”

Logan looked up from the menu to his blind side. Yep, a waitress stood there, pad and pencil in hand. “Molson,” he said when the server met his gaze. She shook her head and he made a second guess. “Labatt’s?” She nodded and walked off, writing it down. He glanced after her. The wiggle in her walk wasn’t nearly as sexy as the one he’d followed to the table. Inviting, yes. But with a deliberate effort that didn’t make for appealing.

He considered his menu. “What do you recommend?”

“Everything. It’s all good.”

Big help. “What are you having?”

“My usual, the Cobb salad. Caesar. Hold the croutons and tomatoes.” She folded her menu closed and laid it aside as she smiled at him and added, “I avoid unnecessary carbs whenever possible.”

She was one of those Protein People? Why? He stared blankly at the plastic covered folder in his hands. It couldn’t be to lose weight. She wouldn’t blow away in a stiff wind, but there was something to be said for having some meat on the bones. Better healthy-looking than looking like some junkie. He still hadn’t figured out her purpose when the waitress returned, set their drinks on the table in front of them, and asked if they were ready to order.

Logan laid his menu aside. He had a usual, too. “The lady will have the Cobb salad.”

The waitress glanced over at Catherine and asked, “Caesar and hold the carbs?”

“Please,” Logan said with a nod. “I’ll have the large K.C. Strip, medium rare, baked potato, blue cheese, load her carbs onto mine, and I get the check.”

“He does not,” Catherine protested as she sat up straighter. “I get it.”

The waitress looked between them. Logan smiled and met the blue-eyed gaze across the table. “Wanna arm wrestle me for it?”

“No.” She looked up at the server. “We’ll work it out before the time comes and let you know.”

The waitress gave him a quick nod that told him her bet was on him and then walked off. Logan snagged his beer, leaned back in his chair and settled in.

“We had a deal and it was that I buy your dinner,” Catherine reminded him.

“Put what you’re saving tonight into the new car account,” he countered. “And the other part of the deal was the story of why Tom left you the team.” He angled the mouth of the beer bottle in her direction and winked. “I will hold you to that offer.”

She had promised. Cat reached for her tea and wished she could get away with a simple “because he knew I needed it.” But, as stories went, it wasn’t much of one and certainly not worth any ten bucks. No, she had to pour out the whole thing. It was only fair. “Tom was actually my half brother,” she began, setting down her glass. “Same father, different moms. And twenty-four years apart. No surprise that we weren’t really all that close when I was a kid. But Dad died when I was twenty-eight and Tom and I sorta connected at the funeral.”

The waitress arrived at the table and set a salad plate down in front of Logan. He started—ever so slightly—and reached for his napkin wrapped silverware in an obvious and not-so-successful effort to hide the fact that he hadn’t known the server was there.

Cat picked up her silverware, as well. His right eye was the blind one, she recalled. As she laid her napkin in her lap, she quickly closed her right eye and checked her field of vision. And understood how things coming from that side could be such a surprise for him. Poor man. The least she could do was give him some sort of sign that something was coming at him so he didn’t spend his dinner getting blindsided time after time.

“Anyway, because I was in Dallas and Tom was here,” she went on, “we had a distant, three-four times a year ‘hey-what-you-been-doing’ kind of thing for the next ten years. But he was there for me when the big stuff happened. He and Millie came to my wedding and they set up a college savings fund for Kyle when he was born.”

The man across the table cocked a brow. “Kyle’s your son.”

Cat nodded. “Tom was always my big brother. But Millie really got into being the doting aunt for Kyle. She’s always spoiled him absolutely rotten.”

He swallowed a bite of salad. “And then?”

She adjusted the alignment of the forks beside her imaginary plate and forced herself to take a breath, made herself meet the gorgeous brown gaze square on. “And then my husband had a massive midlife crisis.”

“He left you.”

“High and dry,” she admitted, grateful that Logan Dupree hadn’t let her flounder around in the telling. To the point. That was Logan’s style. But gently. Kindly. That was nice of him. “I thought I was doing real well with the coping,” she explained. “I climbed on the back of the Harley. I didn’t say anything when he traded his Town Car for the roadster. I didn’t laugh when he had the hair transplants or when the face lift made him look kinda Chinese. I took the scuba diving lessons and I packed my bags for a ‘second honeymoon’ on the Mexican Riviera.” She sighed and put on a smile that she hoped didn’t look as strained as it felt. “Unfortunately, he decided to take his administrative assistant on the honeymoon instead.”

“Shit.”

Bless Logan for the wince. “Yeah,” she agreed. “It was a late afternoon flight. I spent the morning double-checking the babysitter and getting all that kind of stuff set. He spent it selling his Harley and the roadster and cleaning out the bank accounts. Which was the last of the liquidating as it turned out. The week before he’d cashed out both our IRAs and 401(k)s.”

Across the table, Logan snapped his jaw closed and then frowned. “That’s illegal. Your accounts are yours, not his.”

“That’s what my attorney said and the divorce judge agreed with him. But having a judgment and enforcing it are two different things. It’s like Ben’s disappeared off the planet.”

“Ben’s the ex?”

She nodded, tucked her hair behind her ears, and continued with the story. “I put on a big act for Kyle, of course. Told him that everything would be all right. That Mom could hold it all together. I was three weeks into the private oh-my-God-where-am-I-going-to get-money-for-groceries part of it all when Tom called for one of his regular check-ins. I lost it big time on the phone. I mean, I just blubbered.”

“Understandably.”

Oh, yeah, right. Like he would have sobbed and gone incoherent on his big brother. “Tom and Millie drove down that same night,” Cat went on. “They begged me to move up here. Tom offered me an administrative job with the team. And yes, it was generous of him and it would have been a smart thing to do, but I couldn’t do it to Kyle. His dad had left him, too. I couldn’t upend what was left of his world. I couldn’t haul him away from his friends, his school, the only house he’d ever lived in. I just couldn’t.”

“So you stuck it out in Dallas,” he summarized as he pushed away his half-eaten salad.

She shrugged. “Ben was the dean of students at a private tech college. As the dean’s wife, I took care of the social schmoozing that goes with the job. All volunteer, of course. But I had connections from the years I spent in the trenches. I pulled myself together and called in the chips. A friend of a friend hired me to help plan charity events. It wasn’t big money, but it was enough to keep us going.”

He lifted his bottle in a salute of sorts and said, “You get points for grit.”

“Thanks.” Grit points were a small consolation. They didn’t offset the tally on the big scoreboard. Not only had she been dumped for a twinkie half her age and ripped off in the process, she hadn’t seen it coming. Hadn’t even suspected. Naive and stupid and old. Yeah, earning a bit of respect from Logan Dupree was nice, but it didn’t make the reality hurt any less.

“Do you still have the house in Dallas or have you sold it already?”

And he got points for his effort to keep the conversation going, to keep her from the usual slide into the same ol’ wallow. Bless the man for that, too. “A month before he liquidated the retirement accounts, Ben borrowed against the equity. To the point where it would have taken another ten years of appreciation to break even. I didn’t have much choice except to give the keys to the bank and walk away.”

“Ouch.”

Aw, he seemed genuinely pained by it all. What a sweetheart. At the edge of her vision she caught sight of the waitress coming toward them with their dinners. Cat deliberately turned her head that way and smiled in satisfaction as Logan Dupree did the same.

“Actually, it was a relief to have the six ton gorilla off my back,” she assured him after the server left and they’d taken their first bites. “And we were ready to move on, anyway. When Millie began slipping, Kyle and I started making regular trips up here to help out with her team social functions. Wichita had become a second home to us, so after Tom passed away… Well, moving wasn’t the awful thing it would have been right after Ben took off.”

“It was nice of you to help Millie out like that.”

“It was the least I could do. If they hadn’t anchored me when I desperately needed to be, Kyle and I would be living in a Maytag box under some overpass.”

“I doubt that.”

“Seriously. I was a mess for a long time.”

“You seem okay now.”

“Yeah, I think I’m over the worst of it. My fantasy life has gotten fairly tame in the past year, anyway. That has to be a good sign.” At his cocked brow, she explained, “Oh, the standard thing. The bimbo-ette gaining a hundred and fifty pounds overnight. Ben’s transplants failing and his face sagging back to real. That sort of stuff.”

He grinned. “You’re so vicious.”

Yeah, her attorney had pointed that out, too. But not so kindly, and certainly not with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes. “He is Kyle’s dad.”

“If he walked through the door right now, would you take him back?”

“Not on a bet,” she answered firmly even as her gaze instinctively darted to Hero’s front door. Just in time to see the last of six of the Warriors come through it. She reached for her tea and desperately tried to wash the panic down. God, they had to know she’d fired Carl. He wouldn’t have kept quiet about it. If they saw her and came over to talk about it… Damn, damn, damn.

“Tom didn’t exactly leave you a gold mine, you know.”

Her heart racing faster than the engine on her Jeep, she swallowed hard, begged fate for one huge favor, and replied, “The Warriors have potential. You said so yourself.”

“When?” he demanded, a bite of steak frozen halfway to his mouth.

“In the parking lot behind the Coliseum. Not quite an hour ago.”

He popped the bit into his mouth, chewed and shook his head. He swallowed and picked up his beer. “That wasn’t exactly what I said.”

Relieved that the players had moved straight to the bar without a glance in her and Logan’s direction, she countered blithely, “Doesn’t matter. It’s what I heard and what I believe.”

He lowered his chin and leaned slightly forward. “Well, the guys have to believe it, too. And they don’t. They put on smiles for you, but they don’t for a minute think they have a prayer of ever being any better than they are.”

Yeah, but… She stabbed a chunk of hard-boiled egg. “Carl’s done a number on them, that’s all.”

“It’s frickin’ genetic,” he said as he sagged back into his chair with a half stunned, half amused look on his face.

God, he was handsome. And especially when he smiled in that lopsided way of his. The dimple in his cheek was positively darling. “What is?” she asked, kinda stunned herself.

“Your I-can-fix-anything approach to things,” he said as he rolled his eyes and went back to his steak. “Tom was the exact same way. His theme song should have been ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.’”

It had been. Millie had had it played at the funeral. Along with a whole bunch of other Motown hits. It had definitely been an odd service, but everyone had left with a little spring in their step, so all in all… But Logan didn’t need to know about any of that. There was a larger point to be made and she wasn’t about to pass up the chance to make it. “How’d you wind up in Wichita, playing for Tom?”

His gaze snapped up to meet hers and she saw his mental wheels whir. “I ended up here,” he said slowly and oh-so-grudgingly, “because no one else wanted me.”

She had him and they both knew it. “But Tom believed in you, in what you could do. And he was right, wasn’t he?”

“I’m the exception, not the rule,” he countered. “And besides, the game’s way different now than it was when I went in. Twenty years ago, you didn’t have to fight the Europeans for a chance in the majors. Now you do, and they’re damn good.”

His appraisal was hard and all but growled, Gotcha. Like that was going to slow her down. “So, because the chances of making it to the big leagues are slim, every minor leaguer should pack up their dreams and quit trying? They should just accept that they can’t ever improve? That they can’t be any more than they are today?”

He looked away and sighed. “It’d be the rational thing to do.”

“But?” Cat pressed.

He chuckled softly. “Hockey players aren’t hardwired to be rational. The whole game’s based on the fact that you have to be a few sandwiches shy of a picnic to play it.”

Goal to Catherine Talbott. But she could be gracious. “I think the same could be said for owning a minor league team.”

“In Wichita, for sure,” he agreed. “Have any of the prospective buyers mentioned the possibility of moving the franchise somewhere else?”

Interesting that he remembered that bit of conversation from yesterday. And that he apparently hadn’t accepted her reasons to hold off the sale. “We didn’t get that far in the discussions. I’ve given it some thought, though. Not that I have any idea of where that somewhere else might be.”

“Anywhere would be better than here.” He looked up to meet her gaze as he added, “Selling the franchise now would be an even better idea.”

“Maybe down the road,” she half promised as a movement on her left sent her heart into sudden overdrive again. “But not right now.” Right now, Matt Hyerstrom’s about to ruin everything. She reached for her tea and wished she’d ordered a margarita instead.

“Hi, Mizz Talbott.”

“Hi, Matt. I’d’ve thought you’d be too worn out from the game to even think about going out on the town.”

The young man’s grin was as sheepish as his shrug. “There’s more than one way to work out the aches, ma’am, and…well…” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His gaze slid to the other side of the table as he squared his shoulders, stuck out his hand, and said, “Mr. Dupree, my name is Matt Hyerstrom. I’m left wing, third line.”

Logan took the offered hand and gave it what looked—to Cat, anyway—like a solid, sincere shake. “Nice to meet you, Matt.”

“I can’t…” Matt looked over his shoulder toward the bar and then back. “All of us can’t tell you how great it is to know that we’ve got a real coach now. To be honest, we thought Mizz Talbott was nuts for firin’ Carl tonight, but now… We’ll do anything you ask us to. Anything.”

She’d never known that brown eyes could look icy and sharp; icicles had nothing on Logan Dupree in that moment. Jesus. Amiable and pleasant to ugly and lethal in a second flat. And without giving her a chance to explain. She reached out, touched the young man’s arm and brought his attention to her. “I’m afraid that there’s been a misunderstanding, Matt. Mr. Dupree is here strictly as a consultant. I don’t have a replacement for Carl yet.”

“Oh.” His shoulders slumped and he gave both her and Logan a weak smile as he edged backward and his face turned a bright red. “Well, it was a nice idea while it lasted. Sorry I broke into your dinner.”

“It’s all right, Matt. Really. I’ll find someone else you’ll be just as pleased with.” His nod was weak, but it would have to do. She turned back to Logan. “I’m sor—” The rest of the apology died on her tongue. Ice had gone to fire. Raging, barely controlled fire. What did he have to be mad about? She’d nipped it. Beautifully. Smoothly.

“Hyerstrom!” he barked, his gaze locked with hers.

“Yes, sir?”

Cat heard hope in the young voice, could see him frozen at the edge of her vision. She held Logan’s gaze and silently promised him Holy Salad Throwing Hell if he crushed the kid.

“The team needs to have new laces tomorrow morning,” he said calmly, crisply. “Pass the word.”

“Yes, sir!”

Cat frowned, repeated the words over in her mind, and considered them along with the pulsing jaw of the man glaring at her. The conclusion seemed reasonable. And impossible, too. “Did you just agree to coach my boys?”

He tore his gaze from hers and practically attacked his steak. “Only until you can find a decent replacement. When were you planning to tell me that you’d fired Carl Spady?”

An honest, direct question. Which required the same kid of answer. “Never. I figured that if I did, you’d see it as a form of blackmail.”

“You figured right.”

God, it was hard to breathe. And something was wrong with the heater in Hero’s; the place was like an oven. She was dizzy. Queasy, too. And a little voice in the back of her head whined to go home. Another little voice suggested that she tell him to pack up his suspicions and go to hell. She opted for middle ground. “Then don’t sign on. No one’s twisting your arm. I can handle it perfectly well without you.”

He looked up just long enough to growl, “Yeah, right.”

Cat laid her fork down, her appetite gone. “I don’t want you coaching my boys thinking that you’ve been boxed into doing it,” she said while she tucked her napkin under the rim of the salad bowl. “They deserve a coach who’s taking them on for the right reasons. They deserve someone who believes their dreams are worth something. If you don’t, then you’re not the right man for the job.”

“What time is practice and where?”

Did he believe in them or had he not heard a word she’d said? Or had he heard and just not given a damn? Did it matter which right this minute? She was past tired; she was flat wrung out. If she had to go at it all again… No, not tonight. Tomorrow. She’d be sharper tomorrow, after she’d had some sleep. “Practice is at the rink, 6:00 a.m.”

“What rink? The Coliseum?”

Yeah, like she could afford arena ice for practice. In his dreams. “The city ice rink,” she answered. A bit more testily than she’d intended.

His hands stopped and his gaze came up from his plate. He studied her for a long moment. The edge of his anger seemed to dull a bit. “They didn’t have one the last time I was here. Where is it?”

“Just west of McLean on Maple. Across the street from the baseball stadium.”

“How long is practice?”

“An hour and a half.”

He cocked a brow. “Get us double that until I tell you otherwise.”

Who’s paying for the extra time? she silently demanded. You want me to rob a bank on my way home?

“Who unlocks?”

“I do,” she answered tightly. “At five.”

“It’s going to be a short night,” he announced as he laid down his silverware. He glanced over at her barely eaten salad, at her napkin beside it, and apparently came to the conclusion that she was as done as he was. He rose to his feet, saying, “I’ll walk you to your car.”

It crossed her mind to tell him that she was perfectly capable of finding it on her own, but she bit the words back as he stepped to her chair and put his hand under her elbow to help her rise. Damn him and his timing. She slung her purse over her shoulder as he tossed two twenties on the table. Just when she had a really zingy comeback, he got chivalrous. It took all the righteousness out of the being snarky.

“Pack it in, gentlemen,” she heard him say from behind her as she headed toward the door. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long, hard day.”

Yes, it was, Cat admitted to herself as they moved toward their cars. Her agenda had been full before she’d fired Carl, before Logan Dupree had shown up out of the blue. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to wait until daylight to make sure things were set straight. Sleeping on problems never helped; they just made the bed lumpy. She fished the car keys out of her purse and tried to think of what to say, of what questions she needed to ask, what answers she needed to collect. And if they were the wrong answers… Geez Louise, how did you fire someone you hadn’t really hired? How did you question motives and tell someone they weren’t as perfect as you’d thought?

She stopped at the back of the Jeep, took a deep breath to steady herself and looked up at him. “Look, Logan. I—”

He shook his head, took the car keys out her hand and walked up the side of the Jeep. She watched him, her jaw dropped. No one had ever unlocked a car door for her. Not ever. Good God. He really was a gentleman. She’d always thought of them as being right up there in the Real Department with the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. But against all the odds, one had—

She started and winced as he opened the driver’s side door. The sprung door whose front edge popped the front quarter panel every time it swung open or closed. And not quietly, either. The sound made climbing in and out an acutely public declaration of poverty. On good days she could smile about it and tell herself that a car wasn’t anything more than a way to get from one place to another, that the Mom-mobile ran and it was paid for. On bad days, though… The Junkmobile was rolling, clattering, baling-wired proof of just how badly she’d failed at life.

She glanced over at the shiny black Lexus Logan had rented and then back to her Jeep. Today had been lousy pretty much all the way around. She’d had enough. So the bed was lumpy. She couldn’t remember the last time it hadn’t been.

Cat went up the side of the car, accepted the keys from him and slipped into the driver’s seat with a “Thank you,” that sounded every bit as exhausted as she felt.

It wasn’t until she’d cranked the engine over that he said, “I’ll see you at the rink at five sharp,” closed the door with a huge pop and walked off toward his own car.

Tired, embarrassed, and not at all certain whether Logan agreeing to coach was good news or bad, Cat backed out of the space and headed for the street. A quick check in the rearview mirror relieved her conscience. His headlights were on and his car was moving; he wasn’t stranded. She turned west and checked the rearview again as she stopped for the red light at Emporia. No Lexus headlights, no Logan behind her. Just a battered old pickup truck. Good. She was so ready to be alone.

The light turned green and she pressed the accelerator. The Jeep went nowhere. With a sigh, Cat slammed it into Park and turned the ignition off and then on again. The engine roared back to life, the choke wide open. She closed her eyes, clenched her teeth and tried to kick the revs back down into the normal range. As always, it didn’t work. The pickup truck driver honked his horn. The tires of the Jeep squealed as she put it in drive and shot forward. They squealed again as she took the corner at Douglas and Main and headed for the highway.

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