Theo Wilson clinches state championship for the Warriors, and sets new record in the 400 meter dash.
Just then, the door to the front office creaked as Theo himself opened it and stepped inside.
“Ms. Anderson?” he said, his tone professional but cool.
“You went to high school here!” Maddie blurted out, causing Theo to actually crack a smile.
“Indeed I did,” he said, without further comment. “You wanted to speak to me?”
Maddie nodded and jumped to her feet, feeling suddenly flustered. She’d noticed at the game Wednesday night that Theo wasn’t bad looking, but here in the light of day she was realizing that he was downright handsome. And tall. He must have been at least six and half feet. Maddie wasn’t sure how she’d missed that at the game. Luckily, Theo didn’t seem to notice that she was feeling a bit disconcerted. He held the door open and motioned toward the hallway.
“Come on, then,” he said.
Maddie nodded and made her way into the hallway. The way he was holding the door forced her to walk under his outstretched arm to get out of the office, and she caught a whiff of his aftershave as she passed by. The scent gave her a little thrill, and she quickly chided herself. She was here to work, not to flirt.
Theo started walking down the long hallway without another word, and Maddie struggled to keep up. His long legs meant that his normal walking pace was nearly twice as fast as hers. She did her best to match his pace without actually breaking into a run—and to ignore the strange looks that several of the people they passed in the hallway gave her. Theo slipped into his office just as the school’s bell rang, signaling a change of periods. Maddie silently thanked her lucky stars that they hadn’t been in the hallway when the teens were all switching classes. She got the feeling she wasn’t welcome here.
“So,” Theo said, sitting in his chair and leaning back, propping his feet up on his desk. “What can I do for you?”
Maddie took a deep breath and looked around. His office was wallpapered with newspaper clippings from games his teams had won. She knew he’d been at Persimmons Springs High for about three years, but, from the looks of it, he’d been coaching for quite a bit longer than that.
“I was hoping you might reconsider giving me a quote for the Gazette,” Maddie said, looking over at Theo with what she hoped was a confident expression.
“I had a feeling that’s why you were here,” Theo said, smiling as though he had just won some sort of bet with himself. “Steve is pretty persistent, isn’t he.”
“Yeah. You could say that,” Maddie said warily. She didn’t want to badmouth her boss to a man she barely knew, but she could read the underlying disdain in Theo’s voice when he said Steve’s name. The two men obviously hated each other.
“I’m not going to give you a quote, Maddie. It’s nothing against you. You seem like a nice enough girl, which is surprising, since usually the women Steve hires are bitches. But every time I give a quote, no matter how tame my words, Steve finds a way to make it sound like I’m an evil jerk who hates humanity and wants to see babies dying in fires or something, know what I mean?”
Maddie didn’t know. All she knew right now was that this town was weird, and that she wished she hadn’t been forced to take this stupid job. At least Theo was gorgeous. That sort of lessened the pain of having to sit here and beg him to just freaking say his team did a good job.
“Why are you here, anyway?” Theo asked. “You’re not a Texan. Your accent is…east coast somewhere?”
“Yeah. I’m from Connecticut,” Maddie said. “And trust me, I’d love to be working back on the east coast. I had an internship in New York and had a grand old journalism career mapped out. Then the economy crashed and literally the only job I could find was this gig for the Gazette. Texas is the last place I want to be. Especially a country town in Texas. I’m more of a city girl. Dallas or Houston or something would have been at least bearable.”
Theo didn’t even try to hide the amusement in his eyes. “Dallas is only a two hour drive from here, you know.”
“I know. And that’s two hours too far. I want to live somewhere that stuff is actually happening. Not be two hours away from it. How do you people survive out here? It’s boring as shit.”
Maddie knew that criticizing what was apparently Theo’s hometown wasn’t the smartest way to convince him to give her a quote, but she couldn’t help herself. To her surprise, Theo didn’t seem offended at all. In fact, he laughed. His hearty, booming chuckle sounded almost musical, and Maddie almost cracked a smile just from the sound of it.
“We make our own fun,” Theo said. “You’d be surprised.”
“Right, well. Since I’m stuck here working for a man who has already made it clear he hates my guts, can you please take some pity on me and give me a quote?”
Theo leaned back in his chair and stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Steve’s too big for his britches, you know that? He runs this sorry excuse for a newspaper, and somehow thinks that entitles him to respect here in Persimmon Springs. But he can’t even keep the newspaper running on a consistent schedule. He says it’s a weekly paper, but sometimes it comes out every other week or several days late. The guy has no real work ethic. His paper is a joke. The only reason he hasn’t gone bankrupt is because he inherited a bunch of oil money from his dad.”
Maddie sat in silence, but she was intrigued by Theo’s story. She’d gotten the impression that the townspeople didn’t like Steve that much, but she hadn’t known exactly why. Theo seemed more than happy to share.
“The guy is insufferable, and unbelievably full of himself. People put up with him because he’s so rich, so they think they couldn’t survive without his tax money. But I doubt he even pays that much in taxes. He’s pretty slimy, and knows how to game the system.”
Theo looked over at Maddie expectantly, waiting for her to say something.
“Well, uh, that doesn’t sound good. But if I don’t get a quote he’s going to fire me. Can’t you just throw me a bone here?”
Theo grinned over at her, flashing his perfect white teeth that were impossibly straight. “Tell you what. I’ll give you a quote if you agree to go on a date with me.”
Maddie’s eyes widened, and she felt her stomach do an excited flip-flop. The fact that a guy like Theo was interested in her was flattering. But before she could get too excited and say yes, her rational side got in the way. She wasn’t planning to stay here in Persimmon Springs any longer than necessary. There was no sense getting into a relationship with someone. And, besides, wasn’t it a conflict of interest to exchange a date for a quote? That didn’t seem like honest journalism. Maddie stood indignantly, mustering up as disgusted of a face as she could manage.
“I am a professional, Mr. Wilson,” she said. “And that would be a highly unprofessional thing to do. Good afternoon.”
With that, she forced herself to open the door of his office and storm out. She knew she was jeopardizing her job by failing to get a quote, but she couldn’t sit around here staring into Theo’s piercing green eyes for another minute.
She was pretty sure she would rather lose her job than her heart.
Chapter Three
Theo stepped into the smoky honky-tonk bar and instantly felt himself relax. Thank god it was finally Friday. What a week it had been. At the beginning of the week, he’d been under so much pressure to win the semifinals. He’d thought once the game was won that he’d have a little bit of a breather, at least. But he should have known better. It didn’t matter that history had already been made by winning the semifinals. Theo was never satisfied with anything less than absolute first place. Unless his team won the state championship, Theo would consider the season a failure. He’d tried to relax for a day and give his boys a moment to rest with an easier practice. He knew the importance of recovery time. But on the inside, he was already raring to go. The championship was so close he could taste it.
“Theo! We’ve been waiting for you,” called
a voice from across the room. Theo’s eyes shifted to the back booth, where his brother Zane was waving him over. His brother Drake was there as well, smirking at him the same way he had when they were younger and Drake knew Theo was in trouble with Ma.
“Hey Z. Hey Drake. Sorry I’m late. What’s with the smug faces?”
“Oh, nothing,” Zane said. “I was just wondering if you could teach me how to have fun.”
His brothers burst out laughing, and Theo raised an eyebrow as he sat down across from them in the booth. He was the oldest of the three. Zane was the middle kid, and Drake was the youngest. Growing up, they frequently ganged up on him. Somehow, they always saw it as their mission to take down the eldest.
“Do either of you monkeys want to explain what’s so funny?” Theo asked with a sigh.
“We’re not monkeys, we’re dragons,” Zane corrected him.
“Then start acting like one,” Theo shot back. He gave Cassie, their good friend and the girl who always waited on their table, a thumbs-up after she mouthed “The usual?” in his direction from across the room.
Zane picked up a copy of the Gazette that was sitting on the table, and started reading.
“One would think that Theo Wilson, head coach to the Warriors, would know enough after three seasons to take his job seriously—especially with a win in the semifinals. But all he has to say about his team when asked about their work ethic is ‘we make our own fun.’ It seems that fun trumps actual work and practice for this careless coach. He’s been lucky thus far this season. For the sake of the Warriors Varsity Football team, let’s hope his lucky streak continues.”
Zane, who never took the Gazette seriously no matter how inflammatory its articles about Theo were, set down the paper and started laughing.
“Give me that,” Theo snapped, grabbing the paper and scanning the article. He tried to avoid reading the Gazette, because all it ever did was make him angry. But when his brothers brought up the articles, he couldn’t resist taking a look. As Theo started scanning the piece on the Warriors’ semifinal win, Cassie set down a pint of his favorite lager in front of him. Theo nodded appreciatively at her, then took a long sip to try to calm his nerves.
So much for Maddie not being a bitch. The article was scathing, talking endlessly about what a joke of a coach Theo was.
“Joke of a newspaper is more like it,” Theo said, throwing the paper across the table and hitting Drake in the face.
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” Drake said. “I’m not the one who wrote the article.”
“Yeah but you two are the ones who brought that trash to beer night. Are you guys determined to ruin my night or something? Where’s Max? I need a friend, since my brothers aren’t acting very friendly.”
Zane laughed merrily despite Theo’s sour expression. “Max is running late, as usual. And I don’t know why you let Steve’s joke of a paper get to you so much. He’s the only one around here who actually thinks that rubbish counts as journalism.”
Theo scowled and took another long sip of his beer. His brother was right, of course, which only made him angrier. Theo didn’t know exactly why he let Steve get to him so much. It just bugged him that someone could act the way Steve did and get away with it, solely because he had money. And, as much as he hated to admit it, Theo was upset that Maddie had turned out to be such a sellout. He didn’t think she really thought all the awful things about him that she’d written in the article. But she had still written them, just to keep her job. In his mind, someone who would write untrue stuff like that about another human just to keep her job wasn’t exactly a shining example of great character. And character was important to Theo.
He’d been upset at first that she’d declined his flirtatious offer for a date in exchange for a quote. She was gorgeous, and it had been a long time since a woman had caught his eye. His last relationship had ended poorly, partially because he hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell his girlfriend he was a dragon. But now, Theo was glad Maddie hadn’t agreed on a date. No amount of beauty could make up for a lack of character. Seems she’d found her own way to get a quote from him, anyway. Theo shook his head in disgust. Taking a remark he’d made off the record, and completely changing the context of it, was a pretty low move in his opinion. His green eyes flashed in anger, and he took another sip from his beer.
In his younger days, he would have gone out to one of the empty fields near town and shifted into a dragon so he could burn some shit up. But he was older and wiser now, and he recognized that getting caught shifting wasn’t worth the hour of fun he would have blowing off steam. Theo could only imagine the headlines Steve would come up with if he knew Theo was a dragon. Then Theo chuckled. At least if he was outed, he could go shift in front of Steve and scare the shit out of him, quite literally.
But no. The revelation that there were shifters here in Persimmon Springs would rock this little town to its very core. And Theo didn’t want to cause some sort of rift or divide among the close-knit community. He would hold back from burning Steve to a crisp, for their sake.
As Theo took another swig of his beer, he heard the front door of the bar creaking open. He turned in his seat to look, hoping it was Max. Theo loved his best friend dearly, but the man had no sense of time. He was perpetually late. But when the door opened fully, it wasn’t Max standing there. It was Maddie.
Her face was pale, and her long blonde hair was pulled up into a haphazard bun. She looked tired, and the makeup she was wearing didn’t do much to hide the dark circles under her eyes. Theo’s face darkened with anger just as Maddie’s scanning eyes caught his.
Her face went even more pale than it had been, and her eyes widened slightly before she quickly turned to go back outside, pulling the door shut behind her with a bang.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Theo said, standing and making a beeline for the door. “You’re not getting away with this that easily.”
Theo stormed out of the bar just in time to see Maddie hopping into a small black car.
“Maddie, wait!” he yelled. She ignored him and started the engine, so he jumped up to sit on the hood of the car. He crossed his arms and looked directly in her eyes, which were wide with disbelief. Theo didn’t know Maddie that well, but he was betting she wasn’t the kind of person who would drive off with someone sitting on her car. She’d be too afraid of hurting him.
She sat there for a moment, looking shell-shocked, then she rolled down her window and leaned her head out the window.
“Get off my car!” she yelled.
“Not until you agree to talk to me,” Theo said, his eyes sparkling with amusement. She was getting angry, and flustered, and he liked the way her cheeks were turning red.
With an exaggerated sigh, she killed her engine and stepped out of the vehicle.
“What?” she asked, standing next to the vehicle with her arms crossed.
Theo grinned and uncrossed his own arms before sliding off the car’s hood. His boots landed with a thud on the dusty, gravel parking lot.
“I think you know what,” he said, exaggerating his Texas drawl for effect. Her honey brown eyes were searching his face, looking wary but defiant all at the same time. She seemed to consider his words, and then let out a long sigh.
“I didn’t write that article,” she said.
“Your name’s on the byline.”
“I know, but that’s not the article I wrote. I turned in something completely different. Much more positive and upbeat. Steve told me he was going to make a few editorial changes, and I agreed, of course. That’s normal. But he didn’t just edit the piece. He completely rewrote it. The only part he left in was the quote, which, as you know, he took out of a context and twisted to mean something completely different.”
“Steve twisted my words around?” Theo said with a gasp, feigning shock. “You don’t say!”
Maddie looked sheepishly down at her feet, and started tracing a tiny, imaginary circle in the gravel with the toes of her right foot.
She was wearing expensive-looking black leather flats, and they were getting dusty, but she didn’t seem to notice or care.
“I’m sorry,” she said, finally looking back up at him. “I see now what you mean about not wanting to give quotes. I honestly had no idea he was this bad.”
“And yet you’re still working for him,” Theo said flatly.
“I just found out about the article thirty minutes ago,” Maddie said defensively. “I was shocked, and I didn’t know how to react. I came out here to have a drink and try to clear my head, but then I saw you as soon as I walked in. I knew you were going to react like this, so I turned around to leave. You’re not easy to get rid of, though.”
Theo laughed. “No, I’m not.”
He relaxed a little bit and hopped back up to sit on the hood of the car again, letting his legs dangle over the side. The car was so small, and his legs so long, that his feet nearly touched the ground. He squinted at Maddie, who was looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to say something else. He could tell she was uncomfortable, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. He wasn’t going to break the awkward silence until he was sure, so he chewed on his bottom lip and looked over at her thoughtfully.
Truth be told, he was relieved to find that she hadn’t exactly been the one to write the article. He hadn’t misjudged her too badly, after all. She wasn’t a bitch. Just naïve. Everyone she worked with during her internship in New York probably operated with a certain level of professionalism. Sure, they might have been cutthroat—but they kept their shenanigans within certain professional boundaries. Out here, the rules were different. People had their alliances, and they valued loyalty to those alliances above all else.
Steve’s only alliance was to himself. And his primary goal with his newspaper seemed to be to discredit Theo.
Lone Star Dragon (Shifters in the Heart of Texas Book 1) Page 2