Skin in the Game (7 page)

A great convenience for women doing the walk of shame.

Except she was anything but ashamed. For once, she’d done something impulsive solely to please herself, and she felt not one iota of regret or embarrassment about that. If anything, she was proud of herself for tossing caution to the wind and finally having the one thing she’d always wanted.

And she had to admit, the very idea that Cade wanted her, too, had already gone to her head. She was going to be on an emotional high for days.

The only problem with what had happened tonight was that it could go from her head to her heart. Which was why, after retrieving her handbag from the couch and slinging it over her shoulder, she tiptoed out into the hallway without even leaving a note. Because if he hated her for sneaking out without saying good-bye, he’d never have a chance to break her heart.

By the time Cade pulled his rental car into the driveway of Harvey Lund’s red-and-white brick house, he’d managed to talk himself down from stone-cold anger to cool irritation. Or so he thought, until he looked at his hands gripping the steering wheel and realized his knuckles were white.

He let go and flexed his hands, trying to get the blood back into his fingers. If he held onto a football like that this afternoon, his audition for the Vikings would be a complete disaster.

They’d think Cade Reynolds had lost his touch and word would get around. Fast.

Let it go. She was just a woman. So what if, despite her claims that she didn’t have one-night stands, he’d really been just another notch on her belt? So what if she’d left without so much as a “Good-bye and thanks for all the sex”? It was his own stupid fault for imagining she might actually be interested in more than that. There was just something about her… Damn it, but he’d really bought her Minnesota-girl-next-door act. Maybe that was why he was so pissed off. He knew he’d been had.

He took a deep breath and got out of the car. When he reached the front porch, the door opened before he had time to knock.

“Heard you pull in,” his former coach explained from behind the screen door.

Cade tried to conceal his shock at the older man’s appearance as he followed him into the house. Although they’d kept in touch by phone and later e-mail, it had been more than a decade and a half since they’d laid eyes on each other. Cade had expected the other man to age, of course, but this version of Harvey Lund barely resembled the hale, hearty man of Cade’s memories. Dressed in pajama pants and a shabby bathrobe, Lund was still tall and stocky, but between the stoop of his shoulders and the tubes in his nose, he seemed pale and shrunken somehow. As he showed Cade into the house, he moved across the floor with a shuffling gait, dragging an oxygen tank behind him.

As if sensing Cade’s discomfort, Lund said, “Besides the damn ticker, I came down with pneumonia. Have to be on the oxygen for another week or two, just to be safe.” He plopped down on a tan leather La-Z-Boy directly across from the TV. On the end table beside it was an assortment of pill bottles, a half-empty glass of water, a box of tissues, and one of those home blood pressure monitors.

A sudden, crushing sense of guilt punched Cade in the gut as, for the first time, the seriousness of the situation hit him. Harvey had come damned close to dying. How had Cade managed to let fifteen years pass without even once coming to visit this man who’d been coach, mentor, and father figure to him all through high school? Would it have been that hard to make the time?

No, it wouldn’t have been hard at all. So why hadn’t he?

But he knew why. He hadn’t because he’d been too busy living the high life and enjoying his fame and fortune to give any thought to the possibility that the man to whom he owed a lot of his success was getting older and, yes, would one day no longer be around.

Lund gestured toward the couch. “Have a seat, son.”

Despite a recent upholstery job, the sofa was clearly the same one he’d sat on numerous times as a teenager. The cushions hadn’t improved with age. “Thanks.”

He swallowed, wondering how to broach the question that was foremost in his mind.

Lund had said it would be a few weeks until he’d be ready to return to coaching. Seeing him now, Cade wasn’t so sure that was either possible or prudent.

“You thirsty? I can get you a glass of water. Or coffee.” Lund started to stand, but Cade quickly shook his head.

“No, no, don’t get up. I’m fine. And if I need anything, I can get it for myself.”

“Ah, I see,” Lund said with a chuckle. “Afraid I’m about to keel over, eh?”

“Well, to be honest, Coach, you’re not exactly the picture of health.”

Lund waved a hand. “I’m nowhere near death’s door. The heart attack was mild. If it weren’t for the damned pneumonia I picked up in the hospital, I’d have been back to work in a few days.” He covered his mouth and coughed wetly.

Cade wasn’t sure his friend’s doctor would have approved of that plan, but he was slightly reassured. If it was pneumonia and not the heart attack that made him look so frail, Lund would probably recover relatively quickly.

“So, three weeks is going to be enough?”

“My doctor says I should be fit as a fiddle by early October. Just have to keep on the beta blockers and cut down on the salt and cholesterol. And finish the antibiotics, of course.”

Cade nodded. “All right, then. I’m yours for the next three weeks. But you have to fill me in on why you need me. Don’t you trust your assistant coach run the team in your absence?”

“Oh, it’s not that I don’t trust Angie! She’s a genius when it comes to drawing up plays, and the kids worship the ground she walks on.” Lund let out a wheezy laugh. “And what teenage boy in his right mind wouldn’t? She looks more like a supermodel than a math teacher, let alone a football coach. In fact, I think every boy in school is taking calculus now, just to spend his senior year mooning over her.”

As Lund rambled through his explanation, Cade felt everything in his brain shifting and snapping together like the parts of Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit. Angie. Click. Supermodel. Click.

Math teacher. Click. Calculus. Click.

He closed his eyes and flopped back against the couch, stunned and a little amused.

Angela Petersen—the woman who’d rocked his world last night and then given him the coyote ugly treatment—was the assistant coach of the football team. And Harvey Lund wanted Cade to take over the team and be her boss.

Irony was a beautiful thing. He’d been ready to let the whole incident go, even though he’d known it would be easy enough to find her. He just hadn’t seen the point in pursuing her when it was obvious she didn’t want to be pursued.

But now…now he was looking forward to just a little taste of revenge. Not that he’d abuse his position of authority, of course. He had no intention of treating her badly or sabotaging her with the team. He just couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when she realized she hadn’t gotten rid of him so easily.

“It’s not her I have the problem with,” Lund finished.

Cade dragged his attention back to his old friend. “Then I don’t understand why you want me to fill in for you as head coach. If you have so much faith in her…”

The older man heaved a breath and shook his head. “It’s Chuck Donnelly, the other assistant coach. He may be twenty years younger than me, but he’s still old school. When I passed him over and put her in charge of running practices and calling plays, he was furious.

Told me I was an idiot to put a woman in that position and insinuated I must be—how’d he put it?—‘banging’ her.” He looked down at himself pointedly and gave a derisive chuckle. “As if, right?”

“If he doesn’t agree with your decisions as head coach, why don’t you fire him?”

“It’s not as easy in high school football as it is in the NFL. Donnelly isn’t my employee; he’s an employee of the school district. I can’t fire him any more than he can fire me. All I can do is assign my staff the roles I think they’re best suited to. Angie was best suited to the lead assistant position, hands-down. But that’s the reason I need someone like you to fill in as head coach.” Lund gave Cade an imploring look. “We have our first real shot at winning the state championship since your senior year, Cade, and it’s mostly because of Angie’s brilliant play-making and play-calling. I can’t take the chance that Donnelly will ruin that because he thinks he should have her job.”

Cade was beginning to appreciate the older man’s dilemma. “So, how do I come into this? What can I do to help?”

“Just be a figurehead. To be honest, I’m not much more than that these days, anyway. Let Angie run practice and call plays like she normally does and make sure Donnelly doesn’t constantly interfere or try to sabotage her.”

“Okay. I do have a question, though.”

“Shoot.”

“Why isn’t she here? Shouldn’t she know what you’re doing?”

“That’s two questions, son,” Lund pointed out.

“Related, though.”

“True.” At that moment, his coach was overtaken by a coughing fit. Lund reached for his glass of water, but his arm was so unsteady that he only managed to knock it over.

Cade leaped to his feet to help, taking the glass to the kitchen to refill it while simultaneously grabbing a towel from the rack to dry up the spill. Once there, he couldn’t help noticing the sink piled high with dirty dishes and the filthy counters and stovetop. Not to mention the empty pizza and Chinese take-out boxes.

Damn it, had no one in Harper Falls realized that Harvey needed help? The man might have been divorced for more than twenty years, but he’d just had a heart attack complicated by pneumonia. He couldn’t take care of himself, for God’s sake.

Before returning to the living room, Cade resolved to hire someone to cook and clean for Lund, at least until he was back on his feet. The pneumonia might not kill him, but his coronary problems weren’t going to get any better if he ate nothing but pizza and Chinese takeout.

After he’d taken a few sips of water, Lund’s coughing eased, and Cade returned to his position on the couch.

“Angie’s not here because if she knew what I was doing, she’d refuse to let me do it.

First, she’d be determined to handle it by herself. Second, she’d be angry with me for not trusting her to be able to. And third, even if she would allow this, if she isn’t hostile toward you, Donnelly will be onto you in a minute. He’ll only believe you’re really in charge if Angie believes you’re really in charge.” He covered his mouth as he coughed again, this time more gently. “Well, if you knew her, you’d understand.”

Cade smiled to himself. He did know her. Intimately.

“Come to think of it, though,” Lund continued, scratching his stubbly chin, “maybe you do know her. If I remember right, she was a freshman when you were a senior.”

The final piece of the puzzle fell into place. The sensation that he knew her from somewhere—it hadn’t been his imagination. He did know her. Angie Petersen was the name of the tall, gawky girl with the thick glasses and long hair who’d told him they’d never win with only twelve plays. The girl who, over a few simple conversations that year, had been as responsible for making his career as anyone.

And she hadn’t told him who she was. Had actually, now that he thought of it, flat-out lied when he’d asked.

Why hadn’t she told him? Was she insulted because he hadn’t remembered on his own?

It was the sort of pettiness he could imagine a lot of beautiful women engaging in, given past experience, but it didn’t seem to fit in Angela’s case. Partly because she didn’t seem aware of just how beautiful she was, and that made sense now, too. She hadn’t been beautiful at fourteen, and she hadn’t adjusted yet to the fact that she was nothing short of a knockout now.

He shook his head. Women! They made no sense at all. He didn’t understand why she’d pretended they didn’t know each other, and he didn’t understand why she’d left without a word.

But now, at least, he was damned sure he was going to find out.

###

Whether it was because his shoulder was healing better than he thought or because he was looking forward to getting to the bottom of the mystery of Angie Peterson—and maybe even to the bottom of her again—Cade’s “audition” with the Vikings that afternoon went exceptionally well. The GM gushed with enthusiasm over the fact that Cade hadn’t lost his touch despite the long recovery, and the head coach had been impressed with his range and accuracy as well as his ability to read defenses and fit into their existing offensive system without advance preparation.

When the interview was over, Cade was fairly confident that they’d offer him the position, and with trade conditions favorable enough that the Texans might want to do the deal.

Cade could refuse to accept the trade, of course, but getting back on the field today had been such a rush, he was rethinking his opposition to the whole “hired gun” thing. But before he could even consider accepting an offer, there was someone he had to talk to first.

He stopped at a liquor store for a six-pack of beer and then headed to Regions Hospital in St. Paul. Getting to Warren’s room took a little doing, since the hospital had him parked in a private room in a private wing with access only granted to family and the close personal friends on the list Warren had provided. Cade’s name was not, as it happened, on the list, but the security guard immediately recognized him and let him in without question. Giving the guy his autograph probably hadn’t hurt, either.

Warren was in Room 426, an IV line poking out of his arm and one leg in a cast all the way up to his hip and suspended from one of those slings hanging from the ceiling. Cade winced at the sight of that immobilized leg as well as the stitched and butterflied cut above Warren’s right eye. His accident and injuries were obviously a lot worse than the Vikings’ publicists had let on.

“Hey,” he said from the doorway, holding up the six-pack of Warren’s favorite Minnesota microbrew, “you allowed to have a drink or are you getting it all intravenously?”

Warren cracked a grin. “Nah, this is just blood-thinners, not painkillers,” he said, tugging on the IV line for emphasis. “They’re afraid I might throw a clot. I seem to recall I’m not supposed to drink alcohol while I’m on them, but I’m sure I can get the nurse to approve one bottle of beer.”