The All-Star Antes Up (Wager of Hearts #2) (27 page)

Chapter 24

“Jesus H. Christ! Get rid of the ball!” Luke smacked his fist against the Gatorade dispenser as Brandon Pitch got sacked for the third time.

The rookie climbed to his feet and shook his head as though dazed, but went straight into the huddle.

“At least he gets right back in the saddle,” Luke muttered to himself.

“Archer!” The head coach beckoned him over. Junius slipped off his headphones and lifted his clipboard to cover his mouth. “Pitch is falling apart. At halftime, I want you to grab him and settle him down before he gets hurt so bad he can’t stay on the field.”

Luke nodded.

“Rookies.” Junius stalked off to consult with one of his assistants.

Luke had worked with the young quarterback on the field and off for the last two days. They had reviewed film, discussed strategy, rated opposing players, and done everything else Luke could think of to prepare Pitch to play with confidence. He’d driven the kid hard, because it kept his mind off Miranda. Mostly.

Pitch had major athletic talent, and he had field vision. He’d played college ball in the pressure cooker of Alabama, so he had experience. But the NFL was a whole different level of tough, and the kid was folding like a cheap suit.

He watched the rookie take up his position behind the center. What could he say that would give Pitch the balls he needed to win this game?

An idea struck him, and he strolled over to Dyson “Dice” Fredericks, another former Alabama player. “Hey, Dice, you know anything about Pitch’s family?”

“Like what kind of anything?” the defensive tackle asked.

“Like has he got brothers and sisters, and where does he fall in the lineup?”

“Seriously, man? What you want to know that for?”

“Psychology,” Luke said.

Dice slanted Luke a look. “You mean, so he gets his act together and wins this game?”

Luke nodded.

“Nah, I don’t know that stuff, but Devell would. He and Pitch hang out sometimes.”

Luke waited a minute before he moved to stand beside the veteran Derrick Devell. He made it look casual, because Luke never knew when the television cameras would focus on him and the announcers would start speculating on what was happening on the sideline. Luke asked Devell the same question.

“He’s got three brothers and a sister. He’s the baby, apple of his mama’s eye,” Devell said. “Not spoiled, though. Good kid. Doesn’t expect to be given anything.” The man turned away from the field to look Luke in the eye. “You going to get his mind right?”

“Do my best.”

When the whistle blew for halftime, the Empire were down by seventeen points. Luke gave Pitch credit: the quarterback walked off the field with his head held high and confidence in his stride. You’d never guess he was bombing.

However, as soon as the team filed into the locker room, where cameras were forbidden, the kid’s shoulders curled inward, and he sagged onto the bench. Luke walked over, tapped him on the back, and nodded toward an unoccupied office.

Resignation was written in every line of Brandon Pitch’s body as he walked ahead of Luke. As soon as Luke closed the office door, the younger man turned. “You’d be playing better injured than I am in top condition.”

“Not what I was going to say.” Luke leaned his hip against the metal desk. “Is any of your family here?”

“What? Yeah, my parents and my brothers and sister are all watching me screw up.” He smacked the wall with his hand.

Luke wanted to tell him to treat the tools of his trade with more respect, but he needed the kid to focus. “You’re the youngest, so you’ve got something to prove. I want you to forget about everyone else in the stadium—your teammates, your opponents, the fans, the coach, me—and picture your family and what they will take away from this game. You want to give your mom a win to bring home and brag to all her friends about. You want to make your dad’s friends buy him a drink in celebration of his son’s first victory in the NFL. You want your brothers to sit up and say, ‘Damn, Brandon is really something.’”

Because that’s what he’d wanted from his family.

He watched Pitch as he spoke every sentence, testing to see what would flip the switch in the younger man’s brain. The kid’s shoulders were squaring up again, and his hands were closing into fists, but it was the last sentence that lit a spark of steely determination in Pitch’s gray eyes. Sibling rivalry was a powerful motivator, as Luke could attest.

Luke straightened away from the desk and rested one hand on the other man’s shoulder pad. “You’ve got all the tools, kid. Now make your family proud.”

Pitch nodded before he gave Luke a tight smile. “Aren’t you going to tell me I gotta have heart?”

Luke liked the kid’s sense of humor. “Nah. I saw you get up after that third sack. You’ve got the heart covered.”

Pitch strode out of the office with his head up. Luke hung back so the other players could get a good look at their quarterback’s new attitude. Junius wound up his halftime speech, and with a slap of pads and a clack of cleats, the players readied themselves to head back out on the field.

As Luke joined the procession, Junius came up beside him. “Think you turned him around?”

Luke shrugged. “We won’t know until he runs the next play.”

“I’ve been around long enough to know how a winner walks out on the field.” Junius swung his gaze from Pitch to Luke. “You could have a real future as a coach.”

“Thanks.” Junius’s comment was not something to dismiss lightly, but all Luke could think about was the Series 7 study guide he’d hurled into the trash after Miranda walked out two nights ago.

After the evening milking, Miranda fumbled off her filthy rubber boots in the mudroom. Slumping onto the hard wooden bench, she braced her elbows on her knees, hanging her head in exhaustion and indecision. She needed a shower, but she wasn’t sure she could make it up the stairs just now.

Despite her physical fatigue, she was having a hard time sleeping. The wrench of her parting with Luke dropped like weight onto her heart and mind at night. Now she could add the anxiety of joblessness.

The sound of cheering drifted down the hall from the family room, and Miranda realized that someone was watching the Empire football game.

Did she want to see Luke on the wide-screen television, or would it hurt too much?

“Miranda? Is that you?” Patty’s voice echoed down the hallway as her silhouette appeared against the light. “Can I get you some tea or coffee?”

She needed comfort, not caffeine. “How about hot chocolate?”

“You got it,” Patty said. “Go on in and watch the game. I’ll bring it to you.”

Miranda knew she should offer to make it herself. Patty had pitched in at the barn until she needed to go check on Dennis and Theo.

The prospect of getting up and doing it all over again in the morning wrenched a groan from her throat.

Patty stuck her head into the mudroom. “You okay?”

“Just thinking I should go to the gym more often.”

“Farming’s hard work, especially if you’re not used to it. You’re doing an amazing job for a city slicker.”

Miranda managed to chuckle before she shoved up off the bench and staggered into the kitchen to wash her face and hands. “How are Theo and Dennis?”

Patty had banished her from the sickrooms, saying they couldn’t afford to lose their only healthy farmhand.

“Theo’s temperature broke an hour ago. I had to change every stitch on him and his bed because they were drenched.” Miranda could see tears of relief standing in Patty’s eyes. “Dennis is still up at 102 degrees, but we know that’s the way this flu runs. They both wanted to watch the game, so I let Theo join his dad in our bed.”

“You should be up there with them,” Miranda said, coming over to the stove, where her sister-in-law stirred the warming milk.

Patty gave her a wry smile and kept whisking. “I needed a break.”

Miranda nodded her understanding.

“The Empire’s backup quarterback isn’t doing so great.” Patty poured the steaming hot chocolate into the crockery mug she’d set beside the stove. “I wish your friend Archer wasn’t injured.”

“He wasn’t happy about being benched,” Miranda said without thinking.

“He told you that?” Patty handed Miranda the mug with her eyebrows raised.

Miranda brought the chocolate to her lips to give herself time to think. She took a tiny sip of the hot liquid. “I must have heard it on the radio.”

Patty was still watching her. “Luke Archer never questions his coach’s decisions in public.”

“I guess he told me, then.”

There was a moment’s silence before Patty took the pan to the sink and ran water into it. “Let’s go watch the second half of the game.”

Miranda cursed herself for being indiscreet. She was so tired she couldn’t think straight.

Following her sister-in-law into the family room, she curled up in one corner of the green-and-blue plaid sofa, dragging a knitted afghan over her lap.

The Empire had just returned to the field, and she found herself scanning the sideline for Luke’s golden head. She found him in an instant, despite the baseball cap he wore. She could recognize him just by the set of his shoulders and the shape of his legs, even with the pads distorting their long, muscular lines. He and the coach were conferring as the rookie quarterback, Brandon Pitch, ran onto the field.

“Let’s hope Archer gave Pitch what for at halftime,” Patty muttered.

Miranda realized she hadn’t even looked at the score. She cringed when she saw the Empire’s seventeen-point deficit.

“What do you think veteran quarterback Luke Archer said to rookie Brandon Pitch in the locker room?” the announcer asked his sidekick, in an echo of Patty’s comment.

“Archer doesn’t make long speeches, so I’m figuring something like ‘Get your act together and win this game,’” the sidekick responded with a chuckle.

“I think I’d use stronger language than that, after Pitch got sacked three times,” the announcer said.

The camera cut back to the sideline and zoomed in on Luke, so close that Miranda could see the cold, focused blue of his eyes in the shadow of the cap’s bill. She sucked in a sharp breath at the painful beauty of the face that she would never touch again.

“Miranda, is something going on between you and Luke Archer?” Patty asked.

“What? No.” She tried to give her sister-in-law a look of bland innocence. But the ache of loss walloped her in the chest and she choked on a sob. “Not anymore.”

“Sweetie, what happened?” Patty put down the bowl of popcorn and scooted over next to Miranda.

“I was an unrealistic fool,” Miranda said, clenching her hands around the mug to keep the tears at bay. “I knew he would go back to playing football, but I let myself get involved with him anyway.”

“How involved?”

Miranda stared down into the dark, rich chocolate. She’d spent the last two days telling herself it had just been amazing sex and that was what she missed so much. When she was out with the cows, she could even convince herself of that. But now, seeing him again, the yearning reached far deeper than that. “It sounds ridiculous, but I think I fell in love with him.”

“Oh, honey.” Patty put her arm around Miranda’s shoulders. “Every woman on the planet fantasizes about Luke Archer, so it’s no wonder you’re dazzled by that brilliant glow that surrounds him.”

Miranda shook her head. “I’ve met a lot of celebrities. I’m not that easy to dazzle anymore.” She met Patty’s gaze. “He’s so different from what you see on television and in the magazines.”

Her sister-in-law said nothing.

“He loves his brother, Trevor, and gets hurt by Trevor’s resentment. He’s insecure about what he doesn’t know because he’s been so focused on football all his life, but he knows more than he thinks. He’s an incredibly generous”—she’d been about to say
lover
but stopped herself—“person.”

Patty gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. “That may be true, but since you hang out with the rich and famous, you know they’re not like us. They’re used to getting what they want without considering the consequences.”

Miranda looked away. “I knew the rules. He doesn’t have relationships during the football season.”

“So why did he break his own rules?”

“He had some bad bruising, so the coach made him take the week off. He’s fine now,” Miranda hastened to add. “The coach just wanted to give Pitch a chance to play.”

“Wrong decision,” Patty muttered before she returned to Miranda’s love life. “I hate to say this, but it sounds like you were just his entertainment for the week.”

Her comment drilled into Miranda. No matter how often she’d told herself the same thing, hearing someone else put it into words made it sound sordid. And true. Miranda winced. “I told you I was a fool.”

“That doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

Patty’s sympathy broke the tenuous hold Miranda had on her tears. They streaked down her cheeks and clogged her throat. Her sister-in-law took the mug out of Miranda’s grip and pulled her into a hug. “Go ahead and cry, honey. You’ll feel better.”

Miranda dropped her head onto Patty’s shoulder and let all the tension of the week escape with her sobs. It wasn’t just Luke she cried for, but her worry about Theo and Dennis, the loss of her job, and her responsibility for the family finances. She let the tears spill out until her body felt wrung dry.