Ninja Soccer Moms

We were at a standoff. Both of us were stubborn as hell and putting our respective clients first. Janie might not be an actual client, but it was important to me to help her. It was important to me to make a difference in Lake Elsinore. “Tell me what's up with Dara first.”

His gaze stayed on me. Cars whipped by. Blow-dryers turned on and off. Female chatter floated out the door. And Gabe didn't move. “You can't do it without me, babe.”

“Is that a challenge?” I hated that Gabe didn't trust me enough to just tell me. He expected me to trust him that much.

His face hardened. “It's a fact. Go ahead, Sam. Try to solve this without my help.” He turned and headed for his truck.

I glared at his back. “I will!” I didn't want to acknowledge the anger and fear rocketing through my blood. Once Gabe had fought to save me; now it seemed he was off saving another woman.

He wrenched open the cab door, then looked back at me. “You can try, sugar.”

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Table of Contents

The seed of the idea for
Ninja Soccer Moms
came from a story on the news about a parent stealing from a soccer league in another state. I was outraged by the story. I was a soccer mom myself for many years and that experience gave me a new respect for the hardworking parents who generously donated their time and money to give kids an opportunity to play organized sports. The soccer league I created in this book is fictional, as are all the characters. But to all the real soccer moms I have met over the years—a huge thank you. No matter how tired I was, you always made me laugh!

 

To my brother, Tom Roper, for sharing his knowledge about insurance agencies and trust funds. Thank you, Tom, for all your invaluable help, and for being my big brother. And to my sister-in-law, Bonnie Roper, for years of believing in me and loving the books!

 

Thanks to my incomparable editor, Kate Duffy. You have a brilliant mind, a quick wit, and you always “get it.” You're the best.

T
he thing about revenge is that it takes a woman who is well and truly pissed to get it right.

That woman sat across from me in my cramped cubicle, wearing no-name jeans with an elastic waistband, and a pink Hanes sweatshirt. Janie Tuggle had yanked her gray-streaked brown hair into a ruthless ponytail. No makeup softened the lines on her face.

Right away, I knew that Janie wasn't here to sign up for a dating package at Heart Mates, my beloved and struggling dating service. But one look at Janie's determined hazel eyes, and my disappointment about not signing a new client was overshadowed by curiosity.

Besides, nothing else was going on this morning. It was Wednesday, and we hadn't had a new client all week. Quickly I stuffed the romance novel I had been reading to write a review for
Romance Rocks
magazine into the top drawer of my desk. I wrote several reviews a month under my own name, Samantha Shaw, but it didn't provide much income. Reviewing romances was my hobby. I loved the feisty, never-say-die heroines in those books.

Shutting my desk drawer, I gave my full attention to Janie. We had known each other for years through soccer.

Ugh, I tried not to think about soccer. While I adored my two sons, I hated soccer. I'd spent years hiding from my marital problems by immersing myself in soccer and the PTA. I folded my hands and put on my best businesswoman smile. “So Janie, what can I do for you?”

She shifted in her seat across from my desk and brushed a piece of lint off her pink sweatshirt. “I need your help, Sam. I'll pay you. I know you do some private investigating.”

“Uh, occasionally.” Mostly when I trip over trouble. Then there's that whole not-being-licensed-to-investigate problem that I get around by having a hot, sexy boyfriend who is a licensed PI. “But Heart Mates is my career. You know, Janie, maybe it's time to think about dating again. It's been a year since your divorce and we really have some lovely dating packages.”
Smile,
I told myself.

Janie looked down at her left hand resting on her jean-clad thigh and picked at the cuticle of her bare ring finger. “Dating is the last thing on my mind.”

Well, I tried. “What is on your mind, Janie?”

She left off the cuticle and looked up at me with her hazel eyes. “Revenge.”

I perked up. “Revenge?”

Her mouth tightened. “Damn right.”

Good grief, I don't think I'd ever heard Janie swear. I'd seen her do the books for the soccer club, run the fund-raising candy sales, and deal with the irrational parents and temperamental coaches, all with a smile. Janie had always been the kind of easygoing woman who stayed in the background, while her more flamboyant soccer coach husband demanded attention. When Chad had dumped Janie for a younger model, the town promptly forgot her. This was getting more interesting than my romance novel. I leaned forward, putting my elbows on my desk. “Why don't you tell me what you mean by revenge?”

She clutched her hands tightly in her lap. “I mean I want to expose Chad for the petty thief that he is. He's stealing from SCOLE and I want you to prove it.”

“Chad? A thief?” Stunned, I almost knocked over my cup of coffee. Grabbing the heart-stamped mug, I tried to grasp the idea of self-assured, athletic Chad Tuggle stealing from the Soccer Club of Lake Elsinore, or SCOLE as the locals called it. He'd been the head coach of the organization for years, so the idea of him embezzling sounded crazy. “Janie, what makes you think he's stealing from the soccer funds?”

“I know he is,” she said quietly.

Her simple assurance had credibility, since Janie used to do the books for SCOLE. That had been taken away from her during the divorce by the soccer board. I tried to think this out. “Have you taken a look at the books?”

Her lips thinned. “They won't let me anywhere near those books. Ever since Chad left me for that belly-button-ringed tramp, the town took his side. He's the hero coach who led SCOLE to three consecutive championships. I'm the bad wife who deserved to be dumped.”

It was true. Small towns took their team sports seriously. Our small Southern California town of Lake Elsinore didn't really have a lot going for it. An unstable lake that sparked huge fights to try to stop the rapid evaporation, but no real solutions, didn't attract big business or upscale residents. The average medium income hovered around the macaroni-and-cheese level. The neighboring towns of Temecula and Murrieta thrived and spawned stellar sports teams. Beating them became a source of town pride.

And the coach that led the team to victory became the town hero.

Now his ex-wife thinks the hero coach is embezzling from the team.

Janie wasn't going to get anyone to take her seriously without hard-core evidence. Business sense told me to run from this case. I desperately wanted to make Heart Mates a success in Lake Elsinore. But the wronged wife in me, the one I thought I'd buried under the madeover businesswoman, reared up. If it was true that Chad was embezzling, I wanted to help Janie show the town they were wrong to judge her the way they had. “What is it you want me to do?”

Janie leaned forward, her voice hopeful. “Chad's been keeping the books at his office ever since the divorce. If you could go in and convince him to let you have a look—”

I cut her off. “How would I do that? I'm not in soccer anymore. And even if I did get him to let me look, I wouldn't know what to look for.” Given that I had bought Heart Mates without having the books audited, I probably wasn't the best woman for the job.

Janie picked up her Styrofoam cup of coffee and examined the contents. “Chad will let you look, Sam. When you started, you know,
improving
yourself, he talked about how hot you looked—” She broke off, leaning back in her chair and slumping her shoulders. “You know how men are.”

Sure, I knew. And I knew that all the soccer moms and PTA folks who were supposed to be my friends never told me my husband was a cheating pig. But after my husband died and I'd found evidence of his cheating, I had done the unthinkable—I had my breasts enhanced. The shocked gossip that rippled through the soccer and PTA world was bigger than my new size C bra. At least Janie was honest. “Even if I can get him to let me look at the books, then what?”

She glanced up from her cup of coffee. “Send him on an errand or something and get me a copy.”

“I can't just take the whole book to the copy machine and duplicate it. I'm pretty sure Chad would notice that.” My charms didn't go that far. I'd be lucky to get him to let me look at the books at all.

Janie flashed me her first real smile since she walked into my office this morning. “He keeps the books on his computer. All you have to do is copy them to a disk. It'll only take a minute or two. Ask him to go to the doughnut shop and buy you a Coke. Something like that. Trust me, Chad's brain heads south around women.”

“Oh.” Now I felt stupid. I had been picturing an old-fashioned ledger book. We used a Peach Tree program for Heart Mates. Chad probably used something like that.

Janie sat forward in the chair. “Sam, please, I need you to take this case. I know Chad's a hero in town, but he's not who you think he is. This weekend was the last straw. He told the kids that he's hiring a private soccer coach for Mark, and sending Kelly to cheerleading camp next summer. Yet I just found out the health insurance on the kids was cancelled because he didn't pay the premiums. Never mind that Chad still hasn't paid me off on the house in the divorce settlement and pays hardly any child support.”

God, I could see myself in Janie. The scared woman with two kids trying to survive and succeed. While married to Chad, Janie might have spotted a thing or two in the books that looked suspicious, but either Chad explained it away, or Janie let it go because she knew no one would listen to her. Then after the divorce, Janie had been just trying to survive. But now Chad had pushed her too far. Trying to prove he was the hero dad by giving the kids private soccer coaches and cheerleading camp, but he didn't pay for the basics. Hell, I knew Janie and the kids were living in a run-down little mobile home while Chad had the big two-story house.

Janie was ready for revenge. Justice. The truth.

Sort of made me feel like Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to save the poor. Or in this case, stealing from cheating, embezzling ex-husbands to rectify the wrongs done to the ex-wives.

I reached across my desk and took Janie's hand. “Tell you what. I'll go over to Chad's office and see if I can copy the SCOLE books onto a disk. Then we'll see what we can find.” I walked Janie out of my office to where my assistant, Blaine, was busy reading a car magazine.

Janie stopped in the reception area and looked around. I followed her gaze over the metal folding chairs for waiting clients against one wall, the wafer-thin industrial gray carpet, and up to the water-stained ceiling tiles. Heart Mates was a work in progress.

Then Janie looked at me. “I'm going to have a place like this one day.”

Cautiously, I said, “What do you mean?” I was pretty sure she wasn't lusting after the mold growing in the walls.

A shy smile carved years off her face. “I'm going back to school to finish my bookkeeping certificate. I sold my wedding rings and cashed in a bond my aunt had left me years ago. I never told Chad about that bond, but I hung on to it for an emergency. That's how I can afford to hire you. In a year or so, I'll be a businesswoman just like you.” Janie went out the door.

Blaine said, “God help us.”

I turned and looked at my assistant. He was munching on a hash brown patty from McDonald's. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Blaine closed his car magazine and brushed crumbs off his blue work shirt that was reminiscent of his days as a mechanic. “Two of
you
in a town the size of Lake Elsinore? Next thing you know, we'll have more dead bodies than Chicago and LA combined.”

I made a face at him. “Very funny.” Okay, maybe I'd sort of tripped over a murder or two. I knew Blaine had heard every word Janie and I had said since my office was basically half of the front office divided by a cubicle wall that Blaine had installed. So he was making fun of my little side career of private investigating. “There won't be any dead bodies with this case.”

Blaine leaned back in his chair. “Famous last words.”

 

 

I drove my 1957 Thunderbird across town to the Stater Bros. shopping center. Chad Tuggle had his independent insurance office squished between the Stater Bros. grocery store and Rapid Dry Cleaners. As I got out of my car, I looked down at my short black skirt that covered most of my thighs. Over my silk black camisole I had on a man's white shirt tied at the waist. My calf-high black suede boots added a little fun to the outfit.

It had been a long time since I'd seen Chad. I was going on what Janie told me about him. Before I could think myself out of it, I walked up to the glass-fronted suite and pulled open the door.

Sophie, Chad's part-time secretary, was not at her small desk facing the door, so she had to be off today. Chad's big cherry wood desk took up the right half of the office. It was a three-sided unit, like a rectangle with one end left open. The big desk faced out to see people coming in the door. Chad's computer sat on the small part of the desk lined up against a partition wall that separated the front and back of the office suite. Then against the far right wall was a credenza that had fancy office machines on the left side. The right side of the credenza had a bunch of soccer trophies. The three huge gold cups on fat bases took center stage—the championship trophies.

I didn't recognize the set of stone bookends that had been cut and painted to resemble soccer balls. Those must be new, probably a gift from his latest championship team.

The wall over the credenza had pictures of Chad with his teams, winning and appreciation plaques, and framed newspaper articles. The championship-winning hero coach was not necessarily a humble coach.

And where was the not-so-humble coach?

“Sam—that you? I didn't know anyone was out here. What brings you by?”

The loud voice yanked me from my thoughts. I'd forgotten about Chad's tendency to talk loud. The years of yelling directions to kids in a soccer game over screaming, insane parents had left its mark. He came out from behind the divider wall carrying an “Everybody Loves the Coach” mug. Obviously Chad had been in the back getting some coffee in the little kitchenette behind the partition. “Chad, how are you? I just stopped by to chat about insurance if you're not busy.”

“I'm never too busy for you, Sam. Come sit down and we'll catch up. Then we'll talk insurance.”

Chad walked around his desk with an easy, athletic grace. He wore dark gray slacks, and a light blue short-sleeved button-down shirt and tie. His forearms were muscled and tanned. Lots of time outdoors. Instead of fighting premature balding, he cut what hair he had into a buzz. With his light green eyes, he didn't need hair. Hovering on the back end of his thirties, he kept himself in good shape.

Chad set down his coffee cup on his desk blotter then said, “Hey, how about some coffee? I just made it.”

Sitting in the barrel chair facing the desk, I slid my purse to the ground and crossed my legs. My black skirt slid up. “Uh, not right now, thanks.” I flashed him a smile, only to find him staring at my thighs.

Finally, his gaze climbed to my face. “So, Sam, how's business at the dating service?”

“Well,” I took a deep breath and pulled the tied ends of my white blouse down. “It takes time to build a client base. Word of mouth is helping us grow. In fact, I'm looking at getting a new computer program for bookkeeping.”