Skin in the Game (12 page)

But then, in the end, she’d had to concede that Harvey was right. You didn’t take out your best, most consistent players just to make a single play operate better. Especially not when the potential for it to go wrong in a big way—in this case, with an interception that could easily come back for a touchdown—was so high. So it only made sense she was saying what Harvey had; she agreed with it. Even if she had designed the play with Tyler’s arm strength in mind.

Cade gave her an appraising, narrow-eyed look. “Is that Angie Peterson talking or Harvey Lund?”

She blinked in surprise. How had he known?

Before she could answer one way or the other, he nodded. “Right. Harvey, then.”

“Yes, but once Harvey explained his logic for keeping Jake in, I couldn’t disagree. And even if I had disagreed, he’s my boss. His opinions carry more weight than mine.”

“But now I’m your boss, as you reminded me a few minutes ago. I think we should have Johnson in at quarterback on this play, and if the players agree, that’s the way we’re going to run it.”

Angie wasn’t sure what the team would think, but she knew what she really thought. The play would be better with Tyler at quarterback. But more than that, she was grudgingly impressed that, after watching practices for less than a week, Cade had seen Tyler’s potential and honed in on the best way to exploit it.

“All right, on to the next one,” Cade said, turning to the next page he’d marked with a sticky note.

It was an off-tackle run designed to break left. Angie didn’t need to wait for him to speak to know what he was going to say. “You think I should swap the tight ends—put Goff on the left and Zelinski on the right.”

Cade arched an eyebrow. “If you know that, why don’t you do it? Wait, don’t tell me.

Harvey again?”

“Yes, but he’s right,” she snapped, stung by the implication that she just let Harvey roll right over her. “Every team in our division knows Goff is our best blocking tight end. If we shift him left, they’ll sniff out the run left before we even snap the ball.”

“Then swap Goff and Zelinski for some of the pass plays, too,” Cade answered with a shrug. “It’s not rocket science.”

Angie’s mouth dropped open. The glow of his earlier praise flickered out like a candle flame drowned in its own wax. He might as well have slapped her. On the other hand, perhaps he’d knocked some sense into her as well. She’d been that close to believing she could trust him, that he actually respected her abilities.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

“You’re right, it isn’t rocket science,” she said, sliding her chair from the table. “I’m sure your other suggestions are just as clever as the first two. We’ll float them to the boys on Monday and let them decide. Meanwhile, I really do need that shower.” To wash away the humiliation of having it pointed out to me that I’m an idiot.

Cade’s expression sobered instantly. As if he’d just realized what he’d said. What he’d done. Too late.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. “I meant Harvey should have seen that.”

“And so should I. Maybe I’m not as good at this as I thought.” She stood up.

Cade got to his feet, too, “Damn it, Angie, that’s not what I meant.” His tone was fierce rather than pleading. She could appreciate that even if she wasn’t moved by it.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have said it.”

But then, he’d have thought it anyway, and what was the difference? That her feelings wouldn’t have been hurt? At least now she knew what he really thought.

Of course he felt entitled to take the job that should have been hers. He thought she was a good strategist, but too timid or weak to take risks. Maybe he was right. If she was as good at this as she thought she was, if she deserved the head coaching job when Harvey retired, then she ought to act like the head coach when given the opportunity. Do what she thought was best for the team and the players.

But she hadn’t. She’d kept to the playbook Harvey had approved because…well, because Harvey had approved it. Not to put too fine a point on it, but she’d acted like a girl.

Well, enough of that. It was time to prove—to Cade and everyone else in Harper Falls—that Angela Peterson had the balls, figuratively if not literally, to be the Eagles’ next head coach.

Fortunately, she knew just how and when to do it.

***

Damn it, he’d done it again.

Cade watched as Angie left the table, having assured him of her confidence in his ability to show himself out. She headed for the stairs, her hips swaying vigorously, although he doubted she was consciously aware of that. He’d noticed that the angrier she got, the more her backside swished from side to side. Judging from the current angle and pitch, she was royally pissed.

Which didn’t make the effect any less seductive.

What was it about Angela Peterson that made him so eager to gnaw on his feet? He wasn’t normally an idiot when it came to women. Rarely did he insult them, either accidentally or on purpose, and he certainly never acted like a sexist pig. Something about Angie had thrown him off his stride, and it wasn’t just that she kept shutting him down on the sex front. Granted, he wasn’t accustomed to being turned down, but he could handle a little rejection. Especially since he knew the reason she was rejecting him wasn’t that she didn’t want him. She just didn’t want the man he was pretending to be.

Except right now, it was damned hard to be sure he was pretending because stupid crap he didn’t mean kept slipping out of his mouth at the most inopportune and unintentional moments. He’d been trying to win her over this morning, to show her he wasn’t the bad guy but genuinely interested in her success and in the team’s performance. To get her to see him as an ally rather than an enemy.

But then she’d had to go and catch him off-guard with her observation that if she shifted the tight ends for that one play, she’d be signaling her intentions to the defense. She was, of course, one hundred percent right. And he hadn’t seen that problem with his idea until she pointed it out. So he’d popped off, because he’d felt called out.

Okay, and also because seeing her mussed and sleepy and clutching her bathrobe had reminded him forcibly of what he’d missed when she’d walked out on him in the middle of the night. Of everything he still wanted to do to her, with her. Things her darkened eyes and flushed cheeks and uneven breathing told him she wanted just as much as he did, even though her mouth kept shutting him down. She made him feel hungry and alive and unbelievably frustrated, which was undoubtedly why he kept tasting his own toes instead of her…well, all of her.

Great job, asshole.

The irony was that he’d stayed up until two in the morning last night, poring over her playbooks, looking for something—anything—to criticize so he could win his bet with her and stay with the team long enough to expose Donnelly, not to mention keep his promise to Harvey.

And it had been hard. He hadn’t been out to flatter her when he told her she could get a job as an offensive coordinator for a college. He’d meant it. She was that good.

“Did you finish your conversation?”

Cade all but jumped out of his skin. He looked over his shoulder to find Angie’s father standing a few feet from him. When had the other man come back into the house? How much had he overhead?

“More or less,” Cade answered grimly. “I was just leaving.”

“Ah,” Peterson said, inclining his head in a way that suggested he’d read more into Cade’s response than Cade had intended. “Tell me, Reynolds, what exactly are your intentions toward my daughter?”

Well, that was sure as hell direct, which was not very Minnesotan at all. It was also a little retro. But then, this was Harper Falls, and even now it felt a little like a town stuck in the 1950s. He wondered idly if Daryl Peterson kept a shotgun in the hall closet and decided the odds were pretty high. Probably best to keep the sexier aspects of his relationship with Angie—if it could even be called a relationship at this point—to himself.

“I’m her boss until Harvey gets better. That’s all.”

Peterson’s lips flattened into a line that said he didn’t believe a word of this, but he didn’t call Cade on the lie. Instead, he said, “Any truth to the rumor you’re in the running for the quarterback position with the Vikings?”

It was such an abrupt change of topic, Cade felt unbalanced. “No,” he said. Then amended, “I went and talked to them about it a few days ago, but they haven’t made an offer, and if they did, I’d turn it down.”

“That’s too bad. You could step right into Harris’s shoes without missing a beat. The team would be as good with you at quarterback as they are with him.”

“Which is why I won’t take the job,” Cade answered steadily. “Warren is a good friend, and I won’t be the one to stand in his way when he’s ready to come back to the game.”

“Admirable,” Peterson said with a curt nod. “Pity you can’t show my daughter the same courtesy. That team, those boys, her job…they mean the world to her. Just like I reckon being a big league quarterback means everything to you and to Warren Harris. Maybe you ought to take that under consideration. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do have something to take care of in the garage.” With those words, Peterson ambled back out the door between the kitchen and the garage.

Well, damn. Put in his place by not one, but two Petersons in the same morning.

He deserved it, too. Why hadn’t he seen before now that what he was doing to Angie was no different from what had been done to him, what he’d consciously decided he wouldn’t do to Warren?

Because he’d arrogantly imagined her job couldn’t possibly matter as much to her as his did to him.

Suddenly, with a clarity that surprised him, Cade knew what he had to do. And he knew just how and when to do it.

Angie waited until Monday afternoon to put her plan into action. She leaned against the wall outside the boys’ locker room, arms folded across her chest, trying not to think about what Cade had done during this afternoon’s practice. Although the boys had voted to implement all of Cade’s changes to the playbook, he had told them everything he suggested had originally been her idea and he was simply approving them when Harvey hadn’t. In other words, he’d sacrificed his own credibility with them to raise hers.

She wasn’t fooled, though. Cade was no different than Donnelly. And she couldn’t allow herself to forget it.

Because if she did, she might start to feel guilty about what she was going to do.

As if to underscore her unease, Jake Hanssen, her star quarterback and the lynchpin in her plans, chose that moment to exit the boys’ locker room. Freshly showered, with his stuffed backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder and dressed in his green and white letterman’s jacket, he reminded her more than a little of the young Cade Reynolds.

Do not go there.

Jake caught sight of her and stopped, hitching the backpack up on his shoulder as he did.

“Hey, Coach Pete. What’s going on?”

Angie smiled at the nickname. It made her feel like they considered her one of their own despite her gender.

“I need your help with something,” she said.

Jake’s youthfully smooth brow furrowed. “My help? Really?” When Angie nodded, his expression brightened with pleasure. “Sure, Coach. Anything.”

Anything was good. Because this was going to be a doozy for a teenager.

“I need you to convince the rest of the first string offense to come to my house before school for an extra practice for the next week or so.”

“Um, okay,” he agreed dubiously. “How come?”

“I’ve drawn up a new play I’d like to test out. But I don’t want the rest of the team or Coach Donnelly to know about it.”

“Why not?”

Like any quarterback worth his salt, Jake wasn’t dumb. None of her players were, of course, but even so, she might have done better starting with one of the offensive tackles, who were automatically on board with almost anything that involved the possibility of shoving people around.

But Jake was the leader of the offense, and the rest of the players rallied around him. If he said they should do something, they’d do it, whether it made sense or not.

Loyalty was like that.

With a fortifying breath, she took the gamble and told the truth. “Because I need to prove to the school board that I can be the head coach of this team when Coach Lund retires in a few years.”

Jake gave her a quizzical look. “Well, duh. Everyone knows that.”

His support warmed Angie’s heart but then, she’d always known the players had faith in her. It was the adults she had to worry about.

“Then why did Coach Lund ask Mr. Reynolds to be the head coach until he gets back?”

The boy gave her a baffled look and shrugged. “I guess we just assumed it was like he said—Coach thought we’d get a big morale boost from having an NFL player around for a few weeks. And he is pretty awesome. He showed me a cool technique for throwing off the wrong foot the other day.”

Angie frowned. There were some things Cade could do for the players—and for the team—that she couldn’t. This was one of them. And she hated the fact that Jake had to remind her.

“Did I do something wrong?” Jake asked nervously.

“No, not at all. Ca—Mr. Reynolds has a lot of practical experience as a quarterback. I’m sure anything he shows you is something you can benefit from.” Much as she hated to admit it.

Damn him.

The young man breathed a sigh of relief. “So, what’s the problem, then?”

“The problem is that the school board will think Mr. Reynolds is the reason we’re winning games while Coach Lund is gone. And maybe he is helping us, but if they think we couldn’t have done it without him, it’s going to be hard for me to convince them when the time comes that I’m capable of taking over the head-coaching job. They might decide Coach Donnelly would make a better choice.”

Jake shook his head. “But that would be wrong. You’re way better at designing plays and calling them and stuff.”

“I appreciate that you think so, Jake, but the school board doesn’t have any way to know that.”

“Well, all the players and I would come out to support you.”