Not So Snow White (28 page)

Gaby tapped her toes, then stalked to the net. "It was in. You have to come check the mark."

The umpire merely stared her down. "Please. Resume play."

Gaby stared back, then finally turned away. Max breathed a sigh of relief, but it came a moment too soon. She was stalking back to the baseline when her racket went flying to the ground, hitting the spot where she'd stood to make her last serve. The crowd collectively inhaled, not happy with her tantrum. Gaby swore under her breath, but not quietly enough, as it turned out.

"The chair assesses Miss Fontaine a warning. Another will cost you a code v
iolation and the point. Please r
esume play."

Gaby appeared to consider pushing her case, but the fans, the majority of whom had been surprisingly on her side against the popular higher seed, grew more restless the longer the game was delayed. Some of them began whistling, a fan form of jeering.

"Come on, Gabs, back to the line," Max murmured. "Keep your head in."

"She's fine. She needs to blow off steam. Settle down a bit. Trust me." She looked at Max and grinned. "Besides, the ball was clearly on the line. Watch the replay later.
I'
ll put money on it. She was right to bark. It will serve her well later in the match. They've been put on notice; they'll watch more carefully."

Max didn't engage her on that particular debate. Too many times he'd watched players lose thei
r
cool, his sister included, then lose the game because they were so distracted by whatever injustice they perceived—wrongly or rightly—had been inflicted against them, their focus was no longer where it was supposed to be: on the court, on the next point to be played.

Gaby finally scooped up her racket and stepped back to the line. Then, after taking her sweet time readying
herself, she lofted the ball…
and delivered a blistering ace to regain the advantage. Tess smirked beside him as Gaby shot the umpire a sharp smile, then glanced up at their box before moving to take her next serve. Two minutes later, the game was called in her favor. She was one away from taking the set.

Unfortunately, Inge served well and held her game relatively easily, sending the players into a tiebreaker. It was a tense rally, with both players doing well. Gaby was obviously still upset, if the grunts she was making on every ball strike were any indication. But in no other way did her little meltdown adversely affe
c
t her game. In fact, she was playing more fiercely, more aggressively
…
and in the end, triumphed to take the first set.

With a mighty fist pump and a huge shout, Gaby turned to look up at them, a fierce look of determination on her young face.

Max
gave he
r
a thumbs-up, then applauded as she stalked over to her chair for a brief changeover befo
r
e beginning the second set.

"I told you," Tess crowed as she leaned forward and applauded, too. She settled back in her seat and turned to him, smug smile curving her lips. "She is so on, baby. Game is on."

It shouldn't have been so infectious, her confidence, her enthusiasm, considering she was all but heckling him. Maybe it was her unshakable belief in Gaby that drew him in when he wanted to maintain his distance the most. "She's given herself some room," he allowed. "Now all she needs to do is keep her composure. Inge isn't going to fold and quietly go away."

Tess snorted. "Which is exactly why Gaby needs to keep the fires burning. It works for her, like it worked for me."

"So you'r
e saying that giving in to your temper out there, slamming rackets around, haranguing the lines people, the chair umpire, never cost you your concentration? Never lost you the match?"

"A game, maybe. A match? Never." She didn't even pretend she had to think about it. Of course, to be fair, she'd likely been asked that same question numerous times. Understandable, given her fiery nature on the court. The phrase "a female McEnroe" had been used more than once.

Which brought him to
his next point. "McEnroe self-
destructed all the time when his temper got the better of him. What's to say it won't for Gaby?"

"You call it 'temper,' I call it 'passion for the game.' John was
a phenomenal player, and sure, he could be petulant and at times definitely got too focused on what he perceived as personal slights and lost his game. But that was because it mattered so much. The game mattered, points mattered. Every single one. I'd wager more often than not, it was those outbursts that allowed him to keep going in such a dazzling manner If he'd kept it all bottled up inside, he'd have lost more often." She patted him on the knee. "I know it's hard, having a sister who is so opposite your calm, cool, supremely collected self. But as much as you want her to be like you, she's not. If you want to help her, Max, focus on helping her improve her game. But stop trying to stifle her passion. She knows what she needs out there."

So, she thought he was cool, calm, collected. Ha. If she only knew. Calm? His stomach was currently in a knot of nerves as he watched Gaby play the biggest match of her life thus far. Cool? Quite the opposite. His entire body had gone on full alert even at Tess's casual to
uch of his knee. And collected?
His head
…
hell, he didn't know where that was at.

Which probably explained why, when she went to take her hand away and turn back to the match, he impulsively covered it with his, keeping it right where it was.

Surprised, she looked first at their hands, then at him. "What?"

Good question, really. "No signaling from the stands. She'll get called for coaching."

"I wasn't sending her any signals. I wouldn't risk that."

Now Max smiled. "You? You'd risk anything if you thought it would get you the win."

"I'm not the one out there playing."

"Are you sure about that?"

She snatched her hand away then, and turned back to the game. When he just kept staring at her, she said, "Shut up and watch your sister return serve.''

He'd intended his remark to be a teasing one. Hell, he hadn't known what he'd intended really. Regardless, it had clearly backfired. The thing about Tess that he admired was that, while she could dish it out, she took it just as well. Her verbal volleying skills were as sharp and well timed as her on-court volleys. She respected you more if you could hit a clean return winner.

Obviously he'd just sliced one down the line that had managed to cut too close to something.

"Yes!" she suddenly shouted, pumping her fist
…
and dragging his attention back where it should have been all along.

Gaby had just earned a break point against Inge's opening serve of the second set. He shifted in his seat, attention riveted on the court
…
and yet simultaneously hyperaware of every inch of the woman seated next to him. He really had to do something about that.

Inge's first serve pulled wide, so Gaby moved inside the baseline, anticipating a slower second serve.

"Return deep and come in," Tess said under her breath.

And, like they were somehow mentally linked, that's exactly what Gaby did.

"Yes," Tess hissed, fist pumping against her knee as Gaby sliced a sharp angle crosscourt, cau
sing Inge to dive to her left…
and miss.

Max applauded and found himself turning to Tess, sharing a celebratory grin and a quick high five. She smacked palms with him, then turned back to the match as Gaby prepared to serve. It took Max a second longer to do the same.

Gaby held her service game with relative ease. She had a powerful serve, but wasn't always consistent with placement, and had a tendency to go for too much on the second serve, which had earned her more than a few double faults. But she was in her zone out there today and everything she hit, no matter the
angle, just seemed, to find that sliver of space right inside the line.

"Man, it sucks to be Hilstrom right about now," Tess said with surprising sincerity.

Max glanced at
her. "Compassion for the enemy
?"

Instead of getting prickly like she had last time, she smiled easily. That was more the Tess he knew. And it struck him then. He did know Tess Hamilton
…
and somewhere along the line, she'd ceased to be the spoiled, rebellious party girl and had become something far more complex. And interesting. And more than a little intriguing.

"My opponent was never the enemy. She's just out there trying to do the same thing I am. The game is the enemy. Every ball, every point, you have a chance to do something, to use your skill to control the game. Sometimes your opponent is better at it than you are, is able to influence the outcome more than you can, but I never confused the two. Because opponents change. The game is always the game."

Max just stared at her, felt the smile spread across his face.

Her own lips quirked. "What? You afraid I'll teach Gaby to play the game and not her opponent?"

He didn't say anything, just shook his head slightly and turned his attention back to the court.

"People say you're enigmatic," she said, her tone teasing, "I think you just like jerking people's chains."

He could see her staring at him from the co
rn
er of his eye. So, she thought he was enigmatic, did she? His smile grew a little and he nudged her knee with his own. "Watch the point, Gaby's serving again."

He felt her gaze linger on him for another moment, then finally return to the game.

The match grew more intense as Inge renewed her determination and held on to her serve, then went on to break Gaby's, putting her squarely back into the match.

"Oh, dear," Aurora said, leaning forward to look at both Tess and Max. "She'll come back. You watch."

Max had almost forgotten about the godmothers, he'd been so caught up in his back and forth with Tess.

Vivian snapped her fan ope
n and flicked it almost dismis
sively. "Hilstrom doesn't stand a chance. And honestly, she really should reconsider that hair color." She nudged Aurora. "We should talk with Valerie about working up something with the women's tour for next year during the grass-court season."

"I believe I mentioned that almost a month ago. Of course, you want it to be your idea and, honestly, I don't care, but I've already spoken to Mercy about it and she's working up the figures. If you want to take all the credit, however, far be it for me to steal your beloved spotlight." Aurora gave a dismissive, albeit somewhat wounded little sniff.

Vivian merely rolled her eyes. "Drama queen."

"Spotlight stealer."

Tess nudged Max's knee and the two of them shared dry smiles while the godmothers bickered.

Fifteen minutes later, the second set was tied at six games all and once again they were in a tiebreaker. All eyes were riveted on the match.

Gaby won the first point, then Inge went up two on her serve. Back and forth it went like that, neither player able to get a break to widen the margin to the necessary two points. At ten points all, Gaby finally found a corner shot that Inge couldn't reach, earning her a break point and her first chance to not only serve for the set, but for the match
…
and her place in the final four.

Tess grabbed Aurora's hand with her right and Max's hand with her left, and squeezed. "Come on, Gaby!"

Max squeezed back.

Gaby's first serve appeared to be right on the center line, but was called wide. Rather than regroup and hit her second serve, Gaby immediately contested the call.

"No, no, stay focused," Tess murmured,

Max shot her a quick glance. "What? Wasn't it you who just said—"

She shushed him. "Not now."

He wasn't sure if she meant him, or Gaby.

Inge stayed on the baseline and out of the ensuing argument.

The crowd, solidly with Gaby now, began to grow a little restless and a few catcalls and whistles began to start up. The Brits loved their underdogs, but they had little tolerance for histrionics.

"It was clearly on the line," Gaby insisted. "Do you need a new prescription for those glasses or what?"

She made a dramatic gesture with her racket hand and Max thought for sure she was going to fling it. Which would have resulted in her losing the point and sending them back to the tiebreaker and, most important, giving Inge a renewed sense of purpose, along with the emotional edge.

"Come on, Gabs, don't let it get to you now," he murmured. "One point, one point is all it will take."

The chair umpire held his cool and remained impassive in the face of Gaby's glare, but she finally backed down and sauntered back to the baseline. She took extra time, asked for different balls from the ball girl, then carefully selected the one she wanted.

"That's right," Tess urged quietly, "get your head together. Kill the ball, not the umpire."

As tense as the moment was, Max found himself fighting a smile. "You teach her that particular maxim
?"