Tennessee Touch, Sisters of Spirit #6 (24 page)

Football? What had that to do with this?

"And...well...I'm a quarterback." By now he was overly apologetic about it. "For the Skippers."

 
Football!
She took a step backward, her face accurately mirroring her dismay and disbelief.

"At Green Bay. Ken's my wide receiver." His voice fell flat as he saw how stunned she was. "I knew you wouldn't jump for joy, but could you at least not look so terribly disappointed?"

She felt totally deceived and stared blankly at the ground.
Why the big secrecy?
"Josh Logan!" Her tone wasn't complimentary, she felt tricked and almost betrayed.
Football!

At the sound of his name, spat out so harshly, he jerked his head up sharply. "So Chantal did tell you."

"In a way," she grumbled. "Chantal was trying to convince me that you were on TV last night and I refused to believe her. I can't refuse to believe you, that'd be stupid, but why didn't you tell me before—" She shook her head in chagrin.

"Before what?"

"You know what," she accused him, hurt, disgusted, disappointed, all part of a mishmash of confused emotion. "Before, earlier." Each word was accompanied with a wide swing of her hand as if to encompass all his misdeeds. "When we first met. Why the big secret?" She snapped out the words, hard, fighting back a desire to cry.

She wasn't going to say, "...before I fell in love with you." She held back the words in self-defense.

"You said you didn't like football; anyone who played it was stupid. I figured you wouldn't see me at all if you knew."

"Oh, but—" He was right there. She would’ve sent him packing. Yet, if he had told her, earlier, things could have been a lot easier. Maybe.

"I had to give you some time to get to know me. Most women—they think a player is a super stud—or they think we've got a Neanderthal mind and an animal's body. I didn't want to take that chance with you. I had to let you get to know me as a person before telling you my job.”

"But why... why wait so long?"

"I wanted you to at least give me a hearing, yet not be so deeply involved you couldn't back out and say good-bye with either of us getting hurt." He was wrong there, she was already much too involved, but she refrained from saying it.

"What made you choose me...when you knew from the start I hated football?" It was almost an accusation on her part. "Was I just a challenge?"

He hastily discounted that. "Oh, no...although part of your attraction was that you didn't chase me—I get plenty of that—and you don't talk football."

No problem there. But that wasn't enough to build a relationship on and she told him so.

"I know. But on my part,
I
had to know
you,”
he pointed at himself, then her,
“
before I said anything."

"Why?"

"You know that beauty won't last, so you're looking for someone who sees beyond your body; and that's the right thing to do. Well, I know my pro football career won't last either—even as long as your beauty—so I'm looking for someone who sees beyond that. I need a woman who can handle a brief shot in the light and then go on to obscurity. It's a tough adjustment. Some wives can't make it up the ladder and then back down again. You seem to be a person who can."

She heard the words, had to concentrate on the meaning. He was talking about wives; marriage. Did she want to consider it with him?

Yes, she did, and strongly. Evidently he had given it a lot of thought; he wasn't just jumping into it. Yet by holding out on her, by keeping his identity a secret, he had prevented her from getting to know him. He might think she could handle being the wife of a pro football player, but she hadn't even had a chance to consider it.

His next words didn't help. "It's a crazy job filled with crazy people. Like the practical jokes...one time two of the guys stripped a rookie and left him tied up to a water cooler. The jokes are a way of releasing nervous energy—or just killing time, but they can get out of hand, and cause a lot of embarrassment sometimes."

He was trying to explain it to her, persuade her, talking as rapidly as possible in that Tennessee drawl of his, more pronounced now than ever. She felt and looked bewildered, suddenly plunged into something she had no experience with.

"Football players all seem a little crazy at times. It's the tension. We each have our own way of getting up for a game and relaxing before or after a game. Me, I don't want anybody around starting Saturday evening. I sort of hibernate, build up intensity...let it all out in the game.

“Afterwards I'm exhausted, want to be by myself to replay it all in my mind. By the time I go to sleep, I've accepted the game, win or lose. I clear out everything except the few points I want to work on over the week. Tuesday—or Wednesday if we have a Monday night game—I do something that's as far away from football as I can get.

“By Wednesday afternoon I'm ready to start looking at films and get ready for next week's game. Then I'm relaxed. That's when I like to goof around a little...play a few jokes on my own.”

Too much...it was too much to take in all at once. If she hadn't been in love with him, if she could have listened without being emotionally involved, it might have been easier to grasp. What did a wife do when married to a pro athlete? What was so dangerous to the marriage?

He was telling her and yet he was not telling her. Not the right things. Or was he? He should know better than she. She tried to concentrate on what he was saying, feeling bewildered. How could she judge?

"I try to keep my private life private. I avoid interviews when I can...how many ways can you answer a stupid question like, "How did you feel when you did such and such?" I like to be able to go shopping or walk down a street or eat at a restaurant and not get mobbed by fans looking for autographs."

Was this why he dodged crowds? That was silly, who would recognize him out here? Would she be plunged into this type of situation also; she with her wall of reserve suddenly expected to put up with autograph seekers and practical jokers?

"Being a football wife—or the wife of any pro athlete—is hard. I've played for five teams so far; that means four different moves after I made it to the pros. You've got to have iron skin, or else never read the sports page. And it helps if you're deaf so you don't hear the fans when they're after blood. It's hard on the families—I think even harder on them than on the players—when the fans or the press heap abuse on a player."

"The fans always want the quarterback who isn't playing. The pressure is tremendous. If they're behind you, they can lift you up so you can't do anything wrong. But if they're against you, they can tear you apart with the things they say."

"And the press?" It sounded terrible, frightening.

"The press can tear you up. Call you a bum, suggest your timing is off or that your arm is gone, or worse, your nerve; and if you read it, after awhile you start believing it."

He was telling her all the bad things; not very encouraging at all. "And you think I could handle all that?" She knew she couldn't.

"Yes."

"Thanks, but I doubt myself. How can you tell?"

"Hopefully by personality. You're level headed—a lot like some of the wives that have made it. You’re stubborn and you’re a fighter. You’ll be able to stand up for yourself.

“I'm looking for a marriage that lasts, too. You aren't the only one afraid of divorce. It's all too common an occurrence. Nobody wins."

 He took her hand and they walked together over the bright green fields, talking, trying to build a future.

"Are the fans really that bad? On your own team?"

"Sometimes. It depends on what kind of game you're having. Everyone has off days. The fans are fickle. When a player's on the field, they think someone else could do a better job—and when he's out, injured or whatever, they want him back in again. They're never pleased, except in that rare moment when he does something outstanding and wins for them. Even the coaches. They'll praise a player one minute and trade him the next.

"A coach doesn't want you...or maybe he does, but his style of playing and yours are opposite. One year I wasn't getting any protection. I was blitzed so often I felt like I was a metal duck on a firing range. I was beginning to get gun-shy, seeing those big linebackers coming out of the corner of my eye. That takes your mind off your receiver, so you lose him in the crowd. I didn’t do well and got traded.

"It's not a gentle world, pro football, and I've been hesitant about taking a wife for that reason. But I'm going to be out of it in a few years and I'm not getting any younger. And—" he hesitated, stopped walking.

She stopped with him, turned and looked into his eyes. "And what?"

"And then I met you." He leaned forward, his warm lips touching hers in gentle salute. "That decided me; I've waited long enough."

She caught her breath. "Are you sure?"

He answered her with one of his mother's quotes. “‘A worthy woman, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.’ I've been trying to find...you...for a long time. There aren't too many of you around. I hope I'm smart enough to hang onto what I've found."

His hand reached out to lift her troubled face to him, the thumb stroking gently along her jawline. "Will you marry me, my dear?"

She shook her head sharply sideways. "No. I'm sorry." And again, "No." At his stricken look, she added swiftly, "At least not yet. Please, Logan, try to see it from my side. I don't know anything about this life you lead or how well I'd do in it."

"You'd do fine."

"So you say, but I must know for myself. It frightens me. I need time to adjust; to study this out and come to grips with it myself. And I can't give you an answer until I know you better. I won't marry anyone I don't feel I know well enough. I have my own pet proverb: ‘Marry in haste, repent in leisure.’"

"But would you consider me?"

"Yes. Of course."

He let out a large groan of relief. "Good." Then seeming to have some doubts remaining, he questioned cautiously, "Football and all?"

"Yes," she agreed reluctantly. "I guess I can learn a little bit about football. Maybe enough to know what you're talking about. But you paint a grim picture."

With a quick grin he picked her up and swung her around, promising not to talk football to her. "I leave it behind on the field. And the other wives...they support each other. They'll help you."

A sudden thought made her look quizzically at him. "If you only play once a week, why couldn't you come see me more often? And why only on Tuesdays?" Then apologized for the questions, as it struck her as prying.

"No, that's okay. If you don't ask, you don't find out. And I'll answer your questions. No more mystery. Just let me know when you've heard enough. When I first saw you, in August, it was before the season started. We were having practice games...Thursdays and Fridays. We had a game against Seattle and I stayed over to see something of the city before flying back to Green Bay. During the regular season, our games are on Sundays—with the exception of a Monday or a Thursday night game. We didn't get any of those last year...and just one this year against Boston."

"No Saturday games?"

"That's when the colleges play. After their season gets over, some of the pro teams have Saturday games."

"I see."

She listened interestedly as he gave a run-down of the week, motioning him to continue when he would have stopped, afraid of boring her. Some of this she needed to know.