Bigger Than Beckham (12 page)

“Like the time you socked that other owner at
a press conference?” she asked dryly.

“The bastard had it coming,” he replied in a
hard voice. “He called one of my guys out for deliberately injuring
his star striker, which was a load of slanderous crap. Then he
called me an upstart and a disgrace to the game of football. I’m
not thin-skinned, but that was too much.”

“I’d have slugged him, too,” she said,
getting outraged on his behalf. That kind of vile snobbery had no
place in sports.

“It cost me more than a quid or two in fines,
I’ll tell you that. But I’m not sorry about it, and I’ll do it
again if I have to.” He leaned forward slightly, his gaze dark and
intent as it captured hers. “I take care of my own, Martha, and
I’ll never apologize for that.”

She had absolutely no doubt that Tony Branch
took care of his own, and God help anyone who got in his way.

* * *

While Martha was getting dressed, she wracked
her brains trying to come up with an appropriate restaurant. The
menu didn’t matter, the price didn’t matter, the atmosphere didn’t
matter. She cared about one thing and one thing only—that no one in
the restaurant would see her with Tony Branch and put two and two
together about the future of the Thunder. Being seen with him in
public was insane, and she knew it. As she raced through a quick
change into a pair of skinny black jeans and a pink silk shirt, she
still couldn’t believe she’d agreed to it.

But she
had
agreed to it because she
wanted to go to dinner with Tony. Truthfully, she’d wanted it since
the moment they met in England, and it had bothered her more than
she cared to admit that he hadn’t followed up. But the wheel had
now come full circle. The man had shown up at her door with an
armload of flowers—a grand gesture if there ever was one—and a
promise not to harangue her about buying the Thunder. Maybe this
was all about stealing the team out from under her, but maybe it
wasn’t.

As she fussed with her hair and touched up
her makeup, the rational part of her brain lectured her that she
was being naïve. Maybe, but there was only one way to find out. Her
instinctive response to Tony came not from her brain but from
somewhere far down inside her. Over the years, and especially after
the death of her mother forced her to depend on her own judgment,
Martha had learned to trust what came from that deep, quiet
place.

Brushing aside Tony’s compliments on her
attire—although she couldn’t help noticing the appreciative gleam
in his eyes as his gaze flicked over her body—she hustled him out
to her car. When they reached the restaurant a few minutes later, a
little hole in the wall with amazingly good Chinese food, she was
relieved to find it three-quarters empty. Even better, the waiters
obviously didn’t recognize them. That hardly surprised her, since
she was far from a recognizable figure to most folks in
Jacksonville. Her picture had appeared in the sports pages of the
Times-Union
a few times, but who in this city of more than a
million paid attention to anything about the Thunder other than a
few thousand die-hard soccer fans? And while Tony Branch was an
A-list celebrity in England, most people here wouldn’t recognize
him from their lawn guy.

Tony picked up the little paper sleeve that
contained a pair of fragile-looking wooden chopsticks. “Classy,” he
said. “I love it.”

“Now, don’t you be getting all snooty like
some English lord of the manor,” Martha said, wagging her finger at
him. “I told you we’d have to go someplace where I’d be comfortable
that we wouldn’t be recognized.”

“Well, I think you definitely accomplished
that. Anyway, as long as everything doesn’t come to the table
covered in some neon-colored sauce, I’m sure it will be more than
fine.” He tore open the package and slipped out the sticks.

“The décor isn’t much, but the food’s really
good here,” Martha said. “Though I admit I’ve only eaten it out of
paper cartons to this point. But you’re a working class guy—you’re
not much into fine dining, are you?”

He leaned back in the basic metal and vinyl
chair and smiled at her. “My idea of fine dining is a fat sausage
with mustard at the stadium, and a pint of Guinness afterward.”

“Amen to that, brother,” she sighed, thinking
longingly of the wonderful sausage sandwiches she’d periodically
indulged in when she’d lived near the Little Italy neighborhood in
South Philadelphia.

The waiter brought them each a Tsingtao beer.
After Tony suggested she order the dishes, Martha quickly reeled
off a list of her three favorites.

As she finished, Tony said, “Speaking of the
stadium—”

“Which we weren’t,” Martha interrupted with a
warning scowl.

“…Rex and I are definitely going to take in
your match with Nashville tomorrow,” he finished, ignoring her
salvo.

When she glared at him, he held up his hand.
“Yes, I know I’m breaking our rule tonight, but I did want you to
know that. Since you’re not a fan of surprises, I thought I’d give
you a heads-up.”

Martha hadn’t given the remotest thought to
the possibility that he might want to attend a game while he was in
town. Of course, it made perfect sense. But the last thing she
wanted was Tony Branch sniffing around her team.

“Well, uh, fine, I guess,” she said
lamely.

His mouth went flat in a disapproving gesture
she was beginning to recognize.

Don’t be rude, Sugar,”
her father’s
voice whispered in her ear.

She dredged up a smile. “Actually, I’ll be
interested in your opinions, if you care to share. God knows I can
use all the help I can get.” And that made sense too, come to think
of it. If she had to ask someone for advice or insights, she
couldn’t pick anyone better than him.

He smiled at her recovery. “I hope you’ll get
a better crowd than in recent matches,” he said, sounding genuinely
concerned.

She waggled her hand in a
maybe/maybe
not
gesture. “Advance sales aren’t great, but there’s usually a
good-sized walkup on the night,” she said with as much perkiness as
she could manage.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Another thought occurred to her, one that had
her wincing. “You’ll have to forgive me, Tony, my manners have
truly gone begging. You’re not going to sit in the stands tomorrow
night. No way. I simply insist that you and Rex be my guests in my
owner’s suite.” She let out an awkward laugh, fidgeting with her
chopsticks. “I’m sure you wouldn’t make me sit down in a grandstand
at Blackhampton, now would you?”

Tony gave her another smile, one so warm and
engaging that it made her head go a bit wooly. Well, maybe that was
the beer on top of the bourbon she’d imbibed back at the house, but
she didn’t think so. That would be
much
too easy an
answer.

“No worries about that, Martha. You’ve got a
standing offer to join me in my suite at Fenton Park, and I hope
you’ll take me up on it soon. I’d love to show you around London. I
mean that.”

His eyes went dark and smoky, like they had
after she’d teased him about being a working class bloke. This
time, though, she didn’t think he was annoyed.

She slowly nodded. “You never know.”

London, one of her favorite cities and
sometime home of first-class asshole Colton Butler. He’d been in
retreat there since his fall from grace last year.

As the waiter began bringing the food, she
watched Tony from under her eyelashes, trying to gauge his true
intent. Interviewing one of the world’s biggest golf stars by day
and being squired around London by Tony Branch by night—now that
sounded like a big slice of hog heaven, and a mighty powerful
temptation to a lonely southern girl.

Martha watched her latest Big Problem
demolish his plate of Lo Mein as if he hadn’t eaten for a week.
“Food’s not too bad, huh, Tony?” she teased.

And wasn’t his first name just starting to
slide off her tongue as smooth as silk? It surprised her how easy
he was to be around, even though the man was trying to snatch her
team.

“Bloody good, I’d call it,” Tony said, adding
yet another spoonful to his plate. “It reminds me of a little spot
my family used to go to when I was a young lad. The owner could
barely speak a word of English, but he treated everybody like
royalty no matter if you were a ditch digger or a banker. And the
food was as good as this.”

Martha pushed her plate to the side and
rested her elbows on the table, chin propped in the palms of her
hands. God, he was one handsome dude. She had a sudden, ridiculous
urge to run her fingers through that wavy hair, and let her hand
drift over the masculine stubble on his chin. Not exactly standard
business behavior on her part, but she was as red-blooded as any
healthy American female when it came to hot guys.

“What did your father do?” she asked, curious
to know more about him. “I seem to recall reading he was a coal
miner?”

Tony threw her a sharp, assessing glance.
“No, Dad worked on the docks his entire life, from the time he was
fifteen. But it’s true that we come from miner stock. In fact, he
was the only one of his brothers not to work in the mines. Dad made
it his life’s mission to make sure his sons never went underground,
thank God.”

“Is he still alive?” she asked softly. Given
how wrenching her own father’s death had been, she didn’t want to
probe too deeply.

Tony gave a snort. “Oh, hell, yeah. He’s a
tough old bastard. Seventy-eight next month.”

The sarcastic, almost harsh inflection in his
voice prompted Martha to drop that particular subject. “What about
your mother?”

“She’s in a care facility.”

He lowered his head as he took another
mouthful of food, eating as if he was on auto-pilot. He also fell
silent, sending out waves of
back off
. The change startled
her, since he’d been both charming and talkative before now,
telling one funny story after another about his trials and
tribulations in the soccer world.

Martha knew she should mind her own beeswax,
but her curiosity about his life—his personal life—got the better
of her. “Brothers and sisters?”

Another sharp glance up from his plate. “Four
of each, but one of my brothers is dead.”

“Oh, dear…I, I’m sorry,” she stammered. “So
young?”

“He committed suicide.”

His voice was low and flat and his expression
rigid, but Martha could read the pain in every hard line of his
body. “I’m so very sorry, Tony. Truly I am.”

He shrugged, his eyes again fixed on his
plate. “It happened a long time ago.”

She suspected it was still brutally fresh for
him, though, but it would be the height of cruelty to press for
details. Still, she wanted more and more to get to know him, to
understand the real man behind the uber-confident façade. “You
don’t like talking about your family, do you?”

“Yeah, I guess it wasn’t hard to pick up on
that,” he replied in a self-mocking tone.

Although she envied his big family, something
was clearly wrong in his private world. There seemed to be pain
behind every word he spoke.

“I was an only child,” she said, forcing a
smile. “I always envied people with lots of brothers and sisters,
but I’m sure those kinds of families carry their own sets of
problems.”

“I know you lost both your parents—your dad
just a few months ago,” he said in a much softer voice. “I’m really
sorry, Martha. And I should have said that much earlier—as soon as
we met, really. Forgive me.”

He reached a hand across the plastic table
cloth and skimmed it over hers. Martha managed to stifle the gasp
that rose to her lips, but barely. The grazing touch of his big
rough hand and the warmth in his gaze seemed much too intimate for
her emotions to handle.

She gave a casual wave, like a royal goodbye.
“Absolutely nothing to forgive, Tony, but I appreciate your saying
that.” She had to clear her throat. “Gosh, we’ve started to do a
good job depressing each other, haven’t we?” she said with a forced
chuckle.

“Maybe we could talk about politics for a
while,” he said. “That’s always good for a laugh or two.”

His dry tone actually did make her laugh.
“Okay, you’re going to think I’m a prying old hag, but I do want to
ask you something else. I hope you don’t mind my curiosity.”

He put his chopsticks down, staring at her in
disbelief. “You will never be an old hag, Martha Winston, not if
you live to be a hundred twenty. But what exactly are you talking
about?”

Actually, she was curious about a lot of
things. Like why he’d reacted so strongly to her questions about
his family. Like why he’d never been married, or apparently hadn’t
even kept a girlfriend for more than a few months. But she wasn’t
going to go anywhere near such dangerous personal territory. Not
tonight, anyway.