Bigger Than Beckham (39 page)

“Good, Martha. Thanks for taking my
call.”

“Anytime.” She’d known Grange for years, even
before moving to Jacksonville. They’d met while they covered
women’s tennis events in Florida. It didn’t surprise her that he
was the first to call, and she knew he wouldn’t be the last. “You
said something to my assistant about a pending sale? What are you
hearing, Rick?”

“Hey, I thought I was supposed to be asking
the questions,” Grange joked. “But, okay, since it’s you. My source
says you’ve been in talks with both Steam Train Breweries and that
English soccer mogul, Tony Branch. Apparently, we should expect a
deal to get done in a couple of days, or possibly even less.”

Martha had been a reporter long enough to
know how rumors could go viral unless squelched convincingly at the
outset. But as much as she wished she could give Grange a flat-out
denial, she had to believe there was a high probability Malone
would confirm the rumors. And that would make her out to be a liar.
and would put her in an impossible position. Tony would be getting
calls too, though she doubted that he’d let himself get drawn into
the media fray. At least she hoped not.

Though her room to maneuver had shrunk to
about pea-size, she nevertheless decided to try to skate a bit.
“Rick, let’s just say there have been some inquiries about a
possible sale and leave it at that.”

“Come on, Martha,” Grange scoffed. “Can you
at least confirm that there have been talks with Steam Train and
Branch? I mean, both those options are going to sound damn
interesting to the fans at this point, aren’t they?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call them
talks
,
Rick,” Martha said, firming up her voice. She certainly didn’t view
what had transpired with either Malone or Tony as “talks” in the
sense of even mildly serious negotiations. “It’s true that they’ve
both expressed considerable interest in the team.”

“That doesn’t exactly accord with what my
source says, Martha,” Grange said with obvious skepticism. “Will
you be holding more talks with both, or zeroing in on one?”

Martha shifted her shoulders to try to ease
her growing tension. “All I can tell you, my friend, is that I’m
not picking up the phone. I can’t predict what Steam Train or Tony
Branch might do, so you’ll have to ask them about that.”

“You bet I will. But I’m picking up that you
might actually still think you can hold on. Isn’t that pretty much
wishful thinking in light of the current situation?”

Oh, yeah, my friend, and getting more so by
the moment.

Martha’s stomach roiled at the thought of
having to endure this type of conversation a dozen more times as
other reporters latched onto the story. “Rick, you and I go back a
ways, so I promise you’ll be the first call I make if and when
anything happens. But that’s all I’ve got to say right now, pal.
You say hi to your gorgeous wife, for me, okay? Bye for now.” She
hung up before Grange could get in another word.

She headed straight out to Jane’s desk where
Kieran was standing close by. “If anybody else calls about the
so-called pending sale, hon, please just take messages.”

Jane’s eyebrows arched. “
If?
Are you
kidding? I’ve had four more calls since you went into your office.
I figure any minute now TV and radio crews are going to start
showing up at the door.”

Martha knew Jane had that right, so she
should probably pull herself together and hold a media scrum to
tell everybody that showed up the same innocuous stuff she’d just
told Grange. But the very thought made her legs rubbery—not from
fear of being confronted by a gaggle of reporters, but from having
to put a brave face on what had become an impossible, gut-wrenching
situation. Though that reaction made her feel cowardly, she needed
to get away for a while. To settle down and figure out what she
could do. What she really
wanted
to do. And that would be a
lot more productive use of her time than engaging in a useless
verbal two-step with a slew of reporters who would press her for
answers she either didn’t have or wasn’t prepared to give.

“You’re right,” she said, “but I won’t be
here when they arrive. What I’ll do is call you in around an half
hour. I’ll dictate a statement that you can hand out to anybody who
shows up. After that, you should go ahead and release it to all the
media outlets.”

“You got it,” Jane said resolutely.

“Don’t worry, you guys,” she said to both
Jane and Kieran. “I’ll figure this out. I just need a little quiet
time to think.”

“Absolutely. Go. Get out of here,” Kieran
said with a bracing smile.

Martha grabbed her bag from her office and
headed for the elevators, making sure to hold her head as high as
she could. Maybe such a confident posture would make it look just a
little less like she was abandoning ship.

* * *

Tony subtracted five hours to calculate the
current time in Jacksonville. He’d been in his office all day,
trying to work but pretty much just drinking coffee and thinking
about Martha and her meeting with the money men. Rex, Molly and the
rest of his staff had departed for the day, leaving him alone in
the silence of the empty suite of offices in Fenton Park.

For some reason the place felt lonely to him,
even though he was used to working late and alone. He blamed the
unfamiliar feeling on Martha and the brief time she’d spent with
him on his home turf. For good or bad she’d infiltrated every
corner of his life, sneaking in and taking hold before he’d been
fully aware of it.

Since it was after lunchtime in the States,
the decisive meeting would be over by now. Should he call Martha?
Would that send a positive signal that he cared about her, or a
negative one that he was predatory, anxiously waiting for news of
her team’s pending demise so he could make his next move? Part of
him honestly hoped she’d be able to hold on longer, because he knew
how devastated she’d be to lose the team. But he couldn’t deny his
full readiness to scoop up the Thunder if the bank forced Martha
into a corner so tight that she had to sell. He’d done all he could
to convince her of his commitment to do right by the team. And he
figured that when it came down to a choice between him and Steam
Train, she’d see him—a true football man—as the one best able to
carry on the work the Winstons had started.

The big problem, of course, was Steam Train.
Though the brewery was looking to grab the Thunder on the cheap,
they had the resources to clobber him in any bidding war. Plus, who
knew what the people of Jacksonville would think of it all? If a
bandwagon got rolling against him, painting him as some kind of
marauding British upstart, his bid would be dead on arrival. The
bad blood flowing from a sale under such circumstances would make
it too hard for him to succeed in building a solid, committed fan
base.

His mobile vibrated inside his jacket pocket.
The call display came up as Andy Barton, a sports reporter and a
bloke he’d known for years.

“Andy, what can I do for you, mate?” he said
with forced joviality.

“Hi, Tony. Look, mate, I just got an
intriguing call from one of our sister papers—in Jacksonville,
Florida, of all places. In any event, the chap said he’d been
trying to reach you at your office, but kept getting the answering
machine. He wanted your mobile number, but I said not sodding
likely. At least not until I had a chance to talk to you
first.”

What the hell?

Tony jerked upright in his chair. “What’s
going on, Andy?”

“It seems the media over there are in a flap
because of an alleged battle going on between some American brewery
and your organization over buying the Jacksonville football club.
Is this story for real? You know my readers are going to be bloody
interested in something like that. Tony Branch heading for
America?” Barton laughed. “I can see the headline already.”

Shit, shit, shit.

Tony hadn’t seen this coming, at least sure
as hell not so soon. Someone had obviously leaked like a
sieve—either Steam Train management or Geoffrey Winston. Certainly
not Martha. Especially not after she’d made it clear that she was
keeping his offer secret from everyone except her uncle.

He figured the likeliest source was that
pompous idiot uncle of Martha’s, since Steam Train wouldn’t want to
pimp out another possible bidder. And that put poor Martha in a
hell of a bind, sod it—exposing her hand before she was ready to
deal.

He struggled to contain his conflicting
emotions so he could focus on the immediate issue. If he was going
to fight for the Thunder, he’d have to get his head fully in the
game and right now.

“All I can tell you, Andy, is that I’ve
indicated to the Thunder ownership that I’d be very interested in
pursuing such an opportunity
if
it ever arose,” he said.

Barton gave a skeptical snort. “Ah, would
that be the ownership that you squired to the last Lions match? The
ownership I saw you with in that interesting photo in the Sunday
papers? One Martha Winston, to be precise?”

“Easy, mate,” Tony growled as his protective
instincts kicked into gear.

“Just doing my job,” Barton countered. “Since
you’re apparently on very good terms with the lady, would you say
you’ve got a leg up in your bid?”

Tony forced himself to ignore the juvenile
gibe since responding wouldn’t help Martha or him. “Listen
carefully, Andy. There’s nothing else I can tell you right now. Ms.
Winston is well aware of my interest. But where it might go from
here, if anywhere, I can’t say.”

That was nothing but the truth. Tony had
rarely felt less in control of anything, and that was something he
had a very hard time abiding.

“
Won’t
say, more like,” Barton
countered. “Apparently the team is up to its arse in debt, and the
bank said they’re cutting off all credit. I have to say I’m a
little surprised you’d want to dive into that kind of mess.”

That was the lead-in Tony was waiting for.
“Actually, it’s a great opportunity for a turnaround, Andy. And you
know how much I like turning losers into winners.”

“Well, good luck with that, mate,” Barton
responded dryly. “All right, one last question, but it’s a big
one.”

“Fire when ready.”

“My question is why, Tony? What sparked your
interest in an American side in the first place? Even though
Beckham’s had some success in the States, it’s still a damn hard
sell over there for our version of football, isn’t it?”

Tony leaned back in his chair and smiled.
This one he had down pat. “I don’t agree, mate. Do you have any
idea how many people in the States are playing what they call
soccer?
Playing
, not watching?”

“Not a clue, but I’m sure you’ll enlighten
me.”

“Close to twenty million people. And most of
them are under the age of eighteen. Those kids are growing up
loving the game, and I’ll wager they’ll be buying tickets to ASL
matches for decades to come. Soccer’s already the fourth
most-watched sport in America. Sure, a few ASL teams have poor
attendance records, and some in the other league do, too. And, yes,
Jacksonville is by far the worst at this point. But the best
franchises are doing very nicely, and it’s only going to get
better.”

“Maybe, but if you do get the Jacksonville
outfit, isn’t that likely to spread you a little thin?” Barton said
skeptically. “You’re a hands-on bloke, so won’t you be spending a
lot of time over there, to the detriment of the Lions and your
other sides?”

That was true enough, although he didn’t say
those words out loud. It
was
a problem he worried about, and
it made it all the more imperative that he find the right general
manager and field manager for the Thunder.

But Andy Barton had one thing dead right. If
Tony got the team, he
did
plan on spending a good deal of
time in America.

Especially if he had his way when it came to
Martha Winston.

By scurrying out of the parking garage before
the media invaded the building, Martha had easily made it across
the river to her home before any press scribes or satellite trucks
showed up. But she had little doubt they’d be out in force soon
enough. The Thunder played only third string at best when it came
to sports coverage in the city, but any news involving the possible
sale of a pro franchise was big news everywhere. Hell, she figured
it would be all over SportsNet by now, and ESPN wouldn’t be long
picking it up if they hadn’t already.

She hurried into the house, tossing her purse
on the kitchen counter as she hustled to put on a pot of coffee.
Her head was pounding with a crappy headache and she desperately
needed a clear head to pull together a coherent press release. She
was going to have to choose her words with special care, knowing
they’d be repeated endlessly during at least a twenty-four hour
news cycle.