Time of Possession (Seattle Lumberjacks #5)
Read Time of Possession (Seattle Lumberjacks #5) Online
Authors: Jami Davenport
Tags: #romance, #erotic, #love, #friendship, #pets, #seattle, #brothers, #sports, #football, #sweet, #best friends, #veterans, #soldier, #high society, #broken engagement, #nfl, #team, #friends to lovers, #quarterback, #super bowl, #hot hero, #male bonding, #animal lovers, #lumberjacks, #seattle lumberjacks, #boroughs publishing group, #son and dad, #backup, #seattle football team, #boroughs
Jami Davenport
Copyright 2014 Pamela D. Bowerman
Smashwords Edition
Supposedly undersized for the NFL,
quarterback Brett Gunnels went off to do a stint in the U.S. Army
right out of high school. Returning damaged yet stronger—and more
determined than ever to prove himself—he was the last pick in the
draft. Mr. Irrelevant, they called him. But he’s a starter and a
winner, no matter his past few years as a backup. Now he’s going to
prove it.
Estelle Harris is engaged to a man she
doesn’t love, working in the wrong job, and fooling everyone
including herself in the process. Her love of animals is the only
thing that gives her purpose. As she shares that love with the
Lumberjacks’ reclusive quarterback, and much, much more, it’s only
a matter of time until their friendship turns that final, hot, dark
and forbidden corner. There’ll be no going back. True love is like
football. It’s not always how long you have the ball. It’s what you
do when you get it.
TIME OF POSSESSION
www.BOROUGHSPUBLISHINGGROUP.com
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual events, locales, business establishments or persons,
living or dead, is coincidental. Boroughs Publishing Group does not
have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author
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TIME OF POSSESSION
Copyright © 2014 Pamela D. Bowerman
All rights reserved. Unless specifically
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Digital edition created by Maureen
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www.gopublished.com
ISBN 978-1-941260-27-2
To my husband, SportsGuy as all my Facebook followers know him,
a former Army Special Forces weapons sergeant who lives with PTSD
every day, compartmentalizes it, and pretends it doesn’t exist. But
we both know it does.
To all the dedicated doctors, mental health
professionals, and staff at the American Lake VA in Lakewood, WA,
and VA facilities across the nation who could make more money
elsewhere, deal with less red tape, and have a smaller patient load
but chose to work with soldiers and veterans because they believe
in what they do. Your caring and concern has helped heal my
husband, and we owe you debt of gratitude for that.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A special thank-you to Tracy for naming Brett
Gunnels. I couldn’t have come up with a better name myself.
Chapter 6 Illegal Use of the Hands
Chapter 10 Ineligible Receiver
Chapter 11 Laid out on the Field
Chapter 12 Threading the Needle
Chapter 1
Brett Gunnels had fostered an intimate
relationship with his clipboard over the past several football
seasons.
After all, as the backup quarterback, he
played his game on that clipboard, not out on the football field.
Every Sunday during the season he stood on the sidelines making
endless notes. One day he’d get his chance, a chance to prove that
Mr. Irrelevant—the title bestowed on the last player picked each
year in the NFL draft—was anything but.
Today, like any game day, Brett roamed the
sidelines, clipboard in hand. Every once in a while, he stopped,
cupped his hands to his mouth, and called out warnings or advice to
the Seattle Lumberjacks’ starting quarterback. Not that Tyler
Harris heard him or would listen even if he did. Harris did his own
thing, and to hell with anyone else, even his teammates and
coaches.
A couple penalties set the Jacks back to San
Francisco’s forty yard line, and the offense was looking at third
and twenty-five with fifteen seconds on the clock.
Harris took the ball from center and stepped
back, staying in the pocket with the coolness and finesse of the
elite quarterback he was. A second later, the pocket collapsed
around him and he scrambled, running for his life while looking for
an open receiver. Every one of them was covered.
Harris never saw the streak of pure muscle
and brawn coming from his blindside. Brett cringed as the
linebacker slammed into Harris with a vicious hit, falling on him
in the process. Harris was known for his toughness, but from
Brett’s point of view, knees didn’t bend like that.
As the offense returned to the huddle, a
couple of them looked toward Harris, as if expecting him to bounce
to his feet. He always did. But not this time.
Sprawled on his back, the two-time
championship quarterback didn’t move. Not even an eyelash.
A hush came over the crowd, eerie in its
silence, while a cold wind of fear blew through the stadium.
Harris’s cousin and the Jacks’ top wide receiver, Derek Ramsey,
knelt beside the immobile quarterback, as the coaches and trainers
hurried onto the field. The offensive line huddled nearby,
pretending not to stare but doing so anyway, worry etched on the
big guys’ beefy faces.
Brett might not like Harris much—not many
guys did—but his grudging respect for the guy’s talent and work
ethic overrode any personal issues he might have. Besides, no one
wanted to see a teammate laid out on the field like that, or anyone
else for that matter.
An icy shiver radiated up Brett’s spine as
his brain transported him to another time where sand stretched as
far as the eye could see, another body down and not moving.
Nothing. Just like Harris was now.
A cold sweat trickled down Brett’s forehead,
and he dropped his clipboard and scrubbed his face with his hands,
forcing those memories back into the compartment where he kept them
tightly locked up.
This wasn’t a war zone—well, not exactly—and
his teammate was known for his dramatics. He was probably taking a
two-minute siesta at the expense of everyone’s nerves. Any second,
he’d hop to his feet and chastise them for being such
pansy-asses.
Only Harris didn’t move. Brett couldn’t stay
on the sidelines and do nothing. He ran onto the field to join his
teammates standing in concerned clusters. Harris’s chalky face
looked like death. Brett swallowed back the fear and bolstered his
courage. He’d be okay. He had to be. He was too mean and too tough
to be seriously injured.
After several tense minutes, Harris sat up
and shook his head. The team breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Groggily, he accepted assistance to his feet, only to have his knee
buckle. He went down again, clutching his leg, pain carved into his
usually stoic face as he rolled back and forth on the turf. A few
seconds later, two linemen helped him onto a cart, and they zipped
him off the field and down the tunnel.
Only then did Bret realize the coach was
yelling at him.
“Gun, get your helmet on and get your ass
out there on that field.”
Standing on the fifty yard line, the guys in
the huddle gawked at him, waiting for him to assume control.
Frantic, he looked for his helmet but couldn’t find it. Zach
Murphy, their All-Pro linebacker, shoved it in his hands. Strapping
it on as he ran, Brett got to the huddle, only to find the mic in
his helmet wasn’t working. After tapping on the helmet a few times,
he took several deep breaths and squelched the growing panic inside
him. He could do this. He would do this. He
had
to do this.
The team was counting on him.
Brett turned to the guys gathered around
him, his gaze determined. He knew exactly what play to call in this
situation, having rehearsed it over and over in his mind and on the
practice field. He called for a quick out-pass to Derek, hoping to
catch the defense expecting a run because of the quarterback
change. He took the snap from center, pedaled backwards, and tossed
an easy lob to Derek, who collided with a defensive end as they
both went for the ball. The end batted the ball into the air, and a
San Francisco linebacker in the right place at the right time
scooped it up before it hit the ground and ran it back for a
touchdown.
Game over.
At first his stunned teammates stared at the
end zone as if they couldn’t believe their bad luck. Then one by
one, guys patted him on the back amid murmurs of “good try,” “tough
break,” and “we did the best we could.” Regardless, Brett blamed
himself because that’s what a good quarterback did. A great one
carried the whole team on his shoulders and found a way to win.
Just not today.
Sighing, Brett jogged for the showers and
let the warm water wash away some of his frustration and
disappointment. One play in an NFL regular season game, and it
ended with the other team scoring.
Damn it.
Coach announced in the locker room that
Harris was staying overnight in the hospital for observation. He’d
damaged his knee, and he’d be in surgery within the next day or so
after arriving back in Seattle. A collective sigh circulated the
locker room, as the men slumped on the benches in weary
disbelief.
The plane trip back was quiet, no obnoxious
Harris harassing the rookies or singing old rock tunes in his
amazingly good voice. Brett actually missed the jerk, but there was
work to be done, and it started now. Brett buried his head in the
playbook, going over and over what he could’ve done differently for
a better outcome. He came back to the same answer. Run that play a
hundred times and ninety-nine outcomes would go as expected. Leave
it to him to have that one-out-of-a-hundred result, he thought with
wry humor.
Brett looked up as Coach took the empty seat
next to him. Hubert Jackson, or HughJack as everyone called him,
studied him with assessing eyes. Brett closed the playbook he’d
been studying and faced the coach head on.
“What’s up?” He attempted to keep it light
even though the situation was anything but.
HughJack didn’t crack a smile. Instead he
rubbed a spot between his eyes and blew out a breath. “This is your
team now, Gun.”