Scrimmage Gone South (Crimson Romance) (2 page)

“Coach, do you know Miss Tolly?”

“Oh,
yeah
, Seven. I know Miss Tolly.” Nathan employed the tactic they’d both used since his arrival in town last January. Though they often found themselves in social situations together, they never spoke one word directly to each other. They both liked it that way, so why wouldn’t he let go of her? She tried again, and failed, to break away. What the hell? Clearly, he didn’t want her to get away, but why? All they had done since landing in the same town was walk away from each other. Crap almighty, she should have never moved to Merritt after graduating law school, and she wouldn’t have if there had been any indication that Nathan would ever return to his hometown. But Missy was from here, and Harris had followed her. Four years later, she had followed Harris to practice with him. And here she was.

No one ever noticed the iciness between her and Nathan because they spoke
at
and
around
each other and no one, not even Harris, had any idea they had ever met before Nathan moved back to Merritt. Last summer, when they’d been goaded into dancing together at Luke and Lanie Avery’s wedding, they’d brought down the house but they’d not broken the icy crystal silence. And that’s how Tolly liked it.

Tolly drew Kirby into her gaze and smiled and nodded.

“I’ll be at practice this afternoon, Coach,” Kirby said.

“Yeah?” At least Nathan had the good grace to frown a little. “Is that what you want to do?”

Kirby looked across the room to where his aunt had launched herself into the arms of one of the kitchen ladies.

“Yes, sir. That’s what I want.”

Nathan’s brown eyes followed the path that Kirby’s had blazed and then looked back at Kirby. “All right, then.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You need anything, Seven? Anything I can do for you? Short of committing murder, that is.” Nathan glanced at the aunt again.

“No, sir.” A little smile played with Kirby’s mouth.

“Then we are going to go now.” Nathan increased the pressure on Tolly’s arm, just in case she didn’t know what
we
meant.

“Kirby, honey,” Tolly said, “call me if you need anything. Or if you just want to talk. I mean it. Call me at the office or at home.”

“Yes, ma’am. I appreciate it.”

“Bye, Seven.”

And before Tolly could speak another word, Nathan propelled her in front of him and drove her through the crowd like she was a trolling motor on a bass boat.

Once on the front porch, she spoke the first words she’d said to him in over a decade — thirteen years to be exact, almost to the day.

“Nathan, let me go!”

And for the first time in as many years, he answered her. “Townshend, you are coming with me.”

Townshend
. She’d almost forgotten that he used to call her by her real name, not the baby name that four-year-old Harris had christened her with because he couldn’t say Townshend. No one, not even teachers, had ever called her anything but Tolly — no one but Nathan. He had called her that because that was how she’d introduced herself that night so long ago when she’d wanted to be daring and do something unexpected, instead of being the eternal good girl.

“Where do you think you’re taking me?” she demanded.

“I don’t
think
anything. I
know
we’re going to sit in my truck and have a little chat.” He pulled her down the steps, none too slow and none too gently. She stumbled and he caught her.

“Hey. Stilettos here,” she said through gritted teeth.

“That’ll teach you to wear shoes that won’t take you where you need to go.”

“I don’t
need
to go anywhere with you.”

He stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. “The day is done when I care what you need. What you are going to do is march yourself over to my pickup truck and climb in. I’ve got some things to say to you.” He pointed down the block to where his big black truck was parked.

So, finally, after all this time. She had half expected this when he had first moved back here to replace the recently fired Merritt High head football coach. But he’d remained silent and she’d relaxed — apparently too soon.

“My car is closer,” she offered.

“So it is.” He made to move her toward his truck but she planted her feet.

She could refuse. A carload of Methodists had just pulled up and were unloading casserole dishes. Dr. Carlyle was emerging from the house. They would save her, even though she was Episcopalian. She was sure of it.

“Townshend,” Nathan said. It was only then that she noticed just how far beyond angry he was — he was shaking livid. “Get your butt down that street and into my truck or I will make a scene that will get me fired and land us both in jail. I swear I will do it.”

She believed him. And a scene was the last thing she wanted. Airing her dirty linen in public — especially this dirty linen — would be the worst thing in Bad City. If the people of Merritt found out what she’d done, what she had cost their hometown hero, life here would be over.

But why the confrontation now? Until today, he’d seemed as eager as she to keep their past a secret. And why was he, all of a sudden, so mad? He’d been mad thirteen years ago, sure. But since, there had only been cold distance. Maybe it was the ham she’d brought that set him off. Maybe he thought pot roast was a more appropriate bereavement food. That made as much sense as anything.

She let him guide her down the street. He slowed down, though whether it was in deference to her high heels or because of his bad knee, she couldn’t say.

Nathan jerked the truck door open, picked up a playbook and knee brace from the passenger side, and threw them behind the seat. It was a long way to the running board and Tolly was not a tall woman. She pulled up her pencil skirt and started to climb. After she slipped twice, Nathan scowled at her and picked her up and threw her in. He wasn’t rough about it but he was resolved.

He launched himself behind the wheel and turned on her all in one furious motion.

“Keep your hands off my QB-One,” he said.

What? Tolly literally felt her eyes glaze over. She was expecting a rant on her past sins but what was this?

Nathan must have noted her perplexed expression. “Don’t even try that with me, Townshend. You can pretend to be stupid with everyone else. For reasons I cannot fathom, even Harris seems to believe you have no knowledge of football terminology. But just in case you have had a lobotomy that I am unaware of, I will be clear. Keep your hands off my first string quarterback. Seven. Kirby Lawson. Do not touch him. Ever again.”

Now she was really confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nathan.”

“Do not touch him. If you still need for somebody to think you’re the cutest little thing north of a bow on a pig’s tail, go sell yourself somewhere else. I’m sure you’d have plenty of buyers. But it’s not going to be my quarterback.”

As comprehension finally set in, heat and ice formed in her stomach and radiated outward to her heart, her hands, and finally her tongue. The ice that she always depended on to keep her emotions in check abandoned her.

“Oh, my
God
! Kirby is a boy. A
child
. He
works
for me. What kind of person do you think I am?”

Nathan raised his shaking hands in front of him and closed his eyes. “I think,” he said between clenched teeth as he gripped the steering wheel. “I think you are the kind of person who will lie, deceive, and pretend. I think you are the kind of person who will do whatever it takes to get attention. I think you play with people. I think they don’t come much lower than you, Townshend Harris Lee, of the Calhoun County Harrises and Lees.”

Calm. Cool. She lived by it. “You do know,” she said slowly, giving the ice time to chase the fire away, “that
lie, deceive
, and
pretend
, all mean basically the same thing. You have, therefore, been redundant in your speech.”

Nathan hit the steering wheel with his fist. “You know plenty about all three.”

“I was not flirting with that child.”

“I saw you. I saw you holding his hand, hugging him, and smiling like he was the best thing on Earth — doing whatever it took to make him think you are the most amazing thing to ever priss her expensive ass across a courtroom floor.” Nathan’s voice then turned to a mocking falsetto that might have been funny under different circumstances. “‘Kirby, honey, call me if you need anything. Or if you just want to talk. I mean it.’”

There was anger beneath the frozen calm but Tolly no longer felt it. “What you saw, was me — an adult woman — offering comfort to a devastated boy who has lost the only stable person in his life.”

“Adult, huh? Is that what you are these days?”

“You know very well I was not flirting with Kirby.”

“I am an authority, maybe even
the
authority on what Townshend Lee will and will not do. If there was a journal called
Townshend Harris Lee and her Lying Cheating Scheming Debutante Ways
, they would hire me to be the editor. I would be the keynote speaker at every conference. I would lead panel discussions.”

“Nathan, I was sixteen years old.” Tolly’s voice was quiet.

“And therein was the problem, wasn’t it?”

Tolly picked up her bag from the floorboard. “I’m getting out of this truck, Nathan, and I am going to get in my car and go back to work.” Just to show she was in control, she removed a lipstick from her purse and took her time reapplying it. Then she carefully blotted her mouth with a tissue. “You know very well I have no unsavory intentions toward Kirby. If he thinks well of me, it’s not because of my scheming ways, as you so eloquently put it. It’s because I’ve been good to him. It’s because I pay him more than it’s worth to put up my Christmas decorations and because I invented a dozen odd jobs last spring so he’d have money for the prom. Your implications are not only insulting but preposterous. Though I wouldn’t expect you to care about either one. If you ever feel the need to have a reasonable conversation with me about our past, I will do that. But I will never again sit still and let you accuse me of something like this.”

“Stay away from my quarterback. I’ll be watching you.”

Without acknowledging that Nathan had spoken again, Tolly hiked up her skirt, jumped down from the monstrous truck, and clicked on her high heels all the way back to her Mercedes. She never looked back once.

And that was hard.

• • •

Nathan parked his truck in his reserved space between the stadium and the field house. Before getting out, he picked up the vanilla milkshake he’d bought at Dari-Delish and fished his knee brace from behind the seat. He was going to need both. After that spectacular row, he didn’t feel like eating but he knew better than to take ibuprofen on an empty stomach — and he definitely needed that. As he unlocked his office door, he couldn’t decide which throbbed more, his head or his knee. After changing into his Merritt High Bobcat shorts, he strapped on the brace and settled into his chair. The Coke can sized bottle of ibuprofen was in his bottom desk drawer. Four ought to do it.

He had some prescription pain killers, but they made him sleepy so he seldom used them. In fact, he hadn’t taken any since last June after that wedding where Luke Avery’s mother had walked Townshend up to him and told them to go dance. No one, least of all Gail Avery, knew of their history and it had been impossible to say no without publically humiliating Townshend and drawing attention to them both. He had known when he walked on that dance floor that he would pay for it, but his pride wouldn’t let him take it easy. He had to prove to Townshend that he was the same man he’d been the few times they’d danced before. And he’d done that. He hadn’t spoken to her, but he had danced. Then he’d swallowed those pills and slept sixteen hours.

He didn’t live in constant pain, but close enough. The doctor had warned him of that the morning after his first surgery thirteen years ago. He could still remember how he couldn’t look at the doctor because he knew what he was going to say. Instead, he had focused on the wall of balloons, flowers, and signs, arranged under a huge crimson banner that said,
Fly Back To Us Soon, Angel!

The Angel.
A female sideline reporter had christened him that during his freshman season because, according to her, he had the face of an angel, and no one without wings should have been able to leap so high with such precision. The name had stuck, but he had never liked it or what came with it — the fans in the stands wearing halos and wings, the jersey clad Christmas tree toppers in his likeness, the band playing Aerosmith’s
“Angel”
when he ran on the field. But never had he hated it more than the morning after his career ending injury when all the sports headlines read,
Fallen Angel
. Of course, by then he hated everything.

He’d learned that day how to master his emotions. The key was absolute control. And damn it all to hell, he’d forgotten that today and had all but accused Townshend of being a child molester. He was ashamed of that. Truth be told, watching her with Kirby had reminded him of how sweet she’d been to him before he found out what a lying scheming spoiled brat she was. And there was no doubt she was those things, but that didn’t make her a child molester.

And what had made him threaten Townshend with the thing he hated more than anything else — a scene? Dear God, there was nothing worse. He’d learned a long time ago to keep private things private. Don’t give a sports reporter anything to punish you with. Don’t let an irate parent rattle you. Don’t respond to smack talk.

Don’t get into a pubic argument with Townshend Lee.
Yet he had — or close enough — and he’d threatened her with worse. The look on her pretty little face told the tale of just how much she didn’t want that. They were apparently alike in that regard. Might be the only way.

What scared him was it had not been a threat. If she had not gone willingly to his truck, he would have said everything he had to say to her right there on that sidewalk in front of everybody who had come to mourn Seven’s grandmother — not to mention the boy himself.