Skin in the Game (3 page)

He tried to conjure an image of her and got thick glasses, long hair of an uncertain shade, and little else. Certainly not her name. He was sure he’d known it back then—something with a “j” sound in it; Julie or Jenny, maybe? He’d never been good with names, though, and sixteen years was a long time. Still, he felt a twinge of guilt that he couldn’t recall more about her. In a lot of ways, she’d been as responsible for their winning the state championship that year as either he or Lund.

All right, maybe a woman as a football coach wasn’t completely insane.

“Well, what do you have to say?” Stu prodded.

“Nothing,” Cade answered firmly, although he felt a twinge of regret as he said it. He wanted to play again. Badly. He just hadn’t expected an opportunity to come this soon…or in this way. “We’ll just have to pass on this opportunity, Stu. It’s not like there won’t be others.

And besides, I don’t want to get a reputation as an itinerant ‘gun for hire’ who goes back to being a benchwarmer the minute the anointed starter recovers.” I am the anointed starter. And at this point in his life, he’d rather retire than settle for less. He didn’t need the money. Hell, Stu didn’t need it, either; Cade’s success, both on the football field and through endorsement contracts, had lined his agent’s pockets nearly as well as his own.

If this turned out to be his one and only opportunity to get back on the field, he would miss the game like hell. But he couldn’t believe it would be his only chance, and he also wasn’t going to back out on his promise to the man who’d practically raised him. This was just the first crumb being thrown at his feet. The Vikings were a team on the rebound, and Cade wasn’t interested in being their first date.

Stu sighed. “You couldn’t be there by noon?” His voice held a pleading note, and Cade knew this was more about salvaging his credibility after making a promise than any hope that Cade would actually take the job—if it were even offered.

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Noon might actually be doable. Coach Lund had asked him to come by between nine and ten in the morning to fill out the necessary paperwork for the district’s mandatory background check and for a primer on the team’s roster, strengths, and weaknesses. That would take an hour at most, but Cade wouldn’t be able to take over coaching the team until the background checks were completed and the district signed off all the approvals—apparently, it was harder to get approval to volunteer at a school these days than to get a job at one—and that would take a day or two.

So, what harm could it do? None, really. Going to the try-out wasn’t a commitment from him any more than asking him to come was a commitment of an offer from the team. Even if one was forthcoming, he could say no. And in the long run, he had a better chance of getting the kind of offer he was looking for if he could demonstrate other teams’ interest in him than if he had no nibbles at all.

Those were all the rational reasons to agree, but the real reason he did was the hollow feeling in the center of his chest when he imagined a future without football.

***

Angie came home to find her father sitting in his favorite armchair, its tattered upholstery protected by a quilt her mother had made years before, with the football game blaring from the TV. This came as no surprise, of course. He’d never done anything else on Sunday afternoons from August through February for as long as she could remember.

Of course, she had all those afternoons to thank for her encyclopedic knowledge of the game, since she’d spent nearly every one of them either on her father’s lap or at his knee, listening in fascination as he explained every formation, every play call, every stratagem. What had begun purely as an attempt by the only girl in a houseful of boys to monopolize a small portion of her father’s attention had grown into both a passion and a calling. Thanks to her father’s tutelage and her uncanny ability to analyze spatial patterns and mathematical probabilities, she’d worked her way from the strange girl who liked football way too much into a position as assistant coach—and for the next few weeks, anyway, head coach.

She walked into the living room and greeted her dad with a peck on his stubbled cheek.

“Hey, chickadee,” he said. “How was Pirates today?”

Angie grinned at the joke. He knew perfectly well it was called Pilates, but he couldn’t resist poking fun at the name. “Good. We said ‘Ar’ the whole time.”

“Then we have something in common, because I’ve been saying ‘Ar’—and worse—at this all afternoon.” He nodded toward the TV.

A quick glance at the screen told her why he was annoyed: the Vikings were down by four touchdowns in the fourth quarter. And their backup quarterback—who didn’t even look old enough to shave, let alone play in the NFL—was taking the snaps.

Angie frowned. “Where’s Harris? Are they just protecting him since there was no chance of a comeback or was he injured earlier in the game?”

Her father’s eyes flew wide open. “Neither. Didn’t you hear? He was in a car accident on the I-35E this morning. Ten car pile-up.”

Angie’s stomach did a nosedive. “Oh God, he’s not—?”

“No, no, nothing that serious. But the news reports say he has a broken leg—or maybe an ankle—although the team hasn’t confirmed anything yet. Anyway, he obviously couldn’t play today after being banged up like that.”

Her insides relaxed a bit. “Well, that’s a relief. Still, they’ll have to get someone else to play quarterback.”

Her dad snorted. “If they don’t, I’m going to become a Packers fan.”

Angie pressed her hand to her heart and pretended she was about to swoon. “You wouldn’t.”

“You’re right. I’ll become a Cowboys fan, instead.”

“Oh, now you’re hitting below the belt.” If there was one team that every member of the Peterson family had agreed to hate, it was the Dallas Cowboys. With the Packers, it was rivalry, but the Cowboys they all despised on principle alone.

Her dad chuckled. “So, what’s for dinner tonight?”

A pang of guilt stabbed her in the stomach. She rarely missed a Sunday dinner with her father, and she never did so at the drop of a hat. Although her mother had died four years ago now, Angie hadn’t quite shaken her fear of losing her father, too. Making sure he remained healthy and didn’t sink into depression due to loneliness was the reason she continued to live in the “apartment” over the garage instead of getting a place of her own.

So why hadn’t she thought of that before she’d accepted Cade’s invitation tonight? The truth was, she hadn’t because the day of the week had completely slipped her mind. If she’d remembered it was Sunday, she would have said no.

Maybe.

She swallowed her remorse and said, a little too quickly, “I have a date tonight.”

Her dad leaned forward, instantly intrigued. A little too intrigued. “A date? With whom?”

She knew his interest was neither prying nor jealous. He’d made it clear for some time now that he thought she should date, that he wasn’t an invalid and could handle a few nights alone. Angie knew this was true, but what was the point of dating when she couldn’t do anything more than that? She sure as heck wasn’t going to move a boyfriend or husband into her father’s house, but she couldn’t move out and leave him all alone, either.

The more immediate problem was that she couldn’t tell him who she was going out with tonight, because her father would be absolutely giddy with excitement if he discovered she had a date with Cade Reynolds. He’d be envisioning wedding bells and a passel of football-playing grandkids in two seconds flat.

She swallowed her remorse and lied through her teeth. “It’s not a date date, just a get-together with some friends, Dad.”

A flicker of disappointment crossed her father’s face, and for the life of her, she wasn’t sure if it was because he was sorry she wasn’t going on a real date or because he knew she was lying to him. He always could see right through her.

Fearing he’d call her on it, she rushed ahead. “There’s plenty of the stroganoff we had last night still left in the fridge. I’ll be home late, so don’t wait up.”

Already feeling as if she was doing the walk of shame, she turned and headed upstairs to her room to figure out what on earth to wear on her date with Cade Reynolds. She wasn’t sure she had a single thing in her closet that would be appropriate for the occasion.

On the other hand, maybe she didn’t need to worry. Brutal honesty compelled her to admit that they might never leave his hotel room. After all, he had given her the room number rather than asking her to meet him in the lobby or the hotel bar. That pretty well indicated what he had in mind for their “date.”

But since it was also what she had in mind, she couldn’t take offense. After all, she’d wanted to get into Cade Reynolds’s pants since the first time she’d seen him take a snap. True, he probably thought she was some easy groupie-type chick who was only interested in him because he was rich and famous. Not to mention drop-dead gorgeous. He couldn’t know she’d lusted after him in high school, and she honestly didn’t want him to. Not merely because she didn’t want to be remembered as the pathetic, geeky girl with the head for math and football, but because she didn’t want him to think she had aspirations of something more than a hot, sweaty roll in the sheets.

Because she didn’t. She couldn’t.

Unlike Cade Reynolds, she was tied to Harper Falls. Not just by her teaching and coaching jobs, but by her father. It had been almost five years since her mother’s death—the cancer had moved quickly and mercilessly, and Sharon Peterson was gone a mere six weeks after her diagnosis. Though they’d all come home as soon as the prognosis was known—Angie and all four of her older brothers—when it was over, they’d all had to go back to their lives.

All except for Angie, who had known that if she left her father alone in the house, he’d be dead himself within six months. Daryl Peterson had never lived alone a day in his life. He’d gone from the farm to the military to marriage. Without someone to keep him company, he would be utterly bereft, but there was also no way they’d ever talk him into senior housing. He’d always said old folks’ homes were for people who were either sick or senile, and he was neither. Instinct told her that if she left him alone, he’d be like the widowers she often heard about—dead within a year of their wives.

And so, Angie was still here, living at the age of twenty-nine in the house she’d grown up in. For the first three months, she’d had to commute to her teaching job in St. Cloud. But somehow, fate had smiled on her. The cantankerous old math teacher at Harper Falls High, Mr.

Lovgren, who’d taught every one of her classes from algebra through calculus, retired.

Miraculously, the principal offered Angie the job with little more than a glance at her resume. In the four and a half years since, she’d not only increased the percentage of students passing the AP calculus exam but had also managed to work her way into the position as Harvey Lund’s assistant coach, with results anyone had to admit were impressive. For the first time since she’d been a freshman in high school, the Eagles might get another shot at the state championship and no one could deny that Angie’s creative play calling was the difference.

In short, she was happy with her life just the way it was—and was going to be. She needed a man like Cade Reynolds to sweep her off her feet and carry her away like she needed an athletic supporter.

One night with Cade Reynolds would have to be enough to last her the rest of her life.

Because that was all she had to spare.

###

Angie pulled one dress after another from the closet, examined it, then tossed it onto the bed in disgust.

Too plain. Too busy. Too schoolmarmish. Too downright ugly. What had possessed her to buy that hideous thing in the first place?

One thing was for certain. If you could judge a woman’s social life by her wardrobe, Angie’s was pathetic.

She glanced at the clock beside her bed. Almost five. She’d never make it to the mall and back before seven.

Despair seized her. Maybe this was the universe’s way of telling her she shouldn’t go out with him. It was certainly one clearer bit of evidence that she didn’t fit in his world any more than he’d fit in hers.

She was halfway to dragging her cell phone from her pocket to call Chateau Le Croix and leave a message canceling the date when it chirped of its own volition. The display lit up with Rachel Lindsey’s name. Angie clicked the answer button and held the handset up to her ear.

Her best friend, a nurse and physical therapist with a specialty in sports medicine, didn’t even wait for a hello. “Oh my God, Angie, you’ll never guess who’s in town!”

Angie smirked to herself. “Cade Reynolds,” she said flatly.

“What? How did you know?”

“He was at Café du Coeur when I went in to get my latte.”

“Damn. I knew I should have gone with you! But why didn’t you call and tell me?”

“No caffeine for you after three p.m. or you don’t sleep, remember? And I didn’t call and tell you because…” Here Angie faltered.

Why hadn’t she called Rachel? It should have been the first thing she’d done after she left the coffee shop. She never kept secrets from her friend, yet for some reason, she’d really wanted to keep Cade Reynolds all to herself.

Selfish.

“Because he asked me out on a date tonight and I wanted to wait until after it was over to tell you what happened.” Although she wasn’t one hundred percent sure she would have told Rachel about it tomorrow, either. Or ever.

“You’re going on a date with Cade Reynolds? Get out!”

Angie sighed. “I didn’t actually say I was going.”

“The hell you’re not going.” Rachel sounded downright offended. “Oh my God, Ange, he’s Cade Reynolds. Any woman would give her eye teeth and her eyes to go out with him.”

I would, too. “I know, but I don’t have anything to wear. He’s staying at Chateau Le Croix; you know what those places are like. I don’t own a single outfit that’s dressy enough for it.”

“Then have room service delivered,” Rachel said, and Angie could hear the sly wink in her friend’s voice.