Bigger Than Beckham

by V. K. Sykes

  BIGGER THAN BECKHAM

  V.K. SYKES

  Copyright © 2012 by V.K. Sykes

  http://www.vksykes.com/

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover Art © Kimberly Killion of HotDamn Designs

  http://www.hotdamndesigns.com/

  Formatted by Jessica Lewis

  http://www.authorslifesaver.com/

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  An Excerpt from Fastball

  An Excerpt from Hardball

  About the Authors

  CHAPTER ONE

  Martha Winston jerked her gaze away from the celebration on the field, sick at the sight of the jubilant Dallas players piling on top of each other near the Jacksonville Thunder’s goal. A sea of green and white bodies rushed to bury the striker who had just sent a left-footed rocket into the net, giving his team a 2-1 lead with barely a minute remaining in the match. As the frustrated Jacksonville fans let loose a chorus of boos with a force that belied their tiny number, Martha managed to stifle the groan that forced its way up from the depths of her competitive soul.

  Uncle Geoffrey showed no such restraint as he slammed his glass down onto the counter hard enough to make Martha jump backwards to evade the shower of cold Heineken that cascaded over the rim of the beer glass. Geoffrey Winston, fifty pounds overweight and slow as a box turtle, barely moved his bulk as amber liquid splashed onto his wrinkled gray slacks.

  Martha scowled at her uncle as she swept up her purse and tossed it onto the sofa at the opposite end of the suite that overlooked JaxBank Stadium. Beer had dripped down onto the soft sides of the expensive Coach bag, but that was the least of her worries. Not when her underachieving players had just blown the opportunity to salvage a draw.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, relax,” her uncle muttered. “Hell, for once we were finally competitive, and then that jackass Kavanagh sends it all down the drain with two miserable minutes left. What a bunch of overpaid losers!”

  Rosaria, their sweet young stadium attendant, grabbed a roll of paper towels and rushed over to clean up the mess at Geoffrey’s feet. As she knelt, Geoffrey leaned forward and poked her in the shoulder. “Just leave the damn mess until you’ve fetched me another beer. And hop to it.”

  The young woman flinched, sucking in an audible breath. She struggled to school her features, then stood back up and hurried across the room to the bar fridge.

  Martha pushed her sunglasses back over her forehead and glared into her uncle’s pinched face. “I’ve told you before that you need to show more respect for our staff,” she said in a stern voice. Not that her idiot of an uncle would listen, but she’d be damned if she didn’t call him on it. “That kind of petulant discourtesy is unacceptable. Yes, you own part of this team, but you’re a guest in my suite. I suggest you remember that.”

  “How could I not?” he snorted. “You never let me forget my place, do you?”

  Kieran McLeod, the team’s general manager, had kept a grim-faced silence during both the wrenching goal and Geoffrey’s brief tantrum. The sixty-five year-old, silver-haired Scot clearly suffered under the crackling tension that filled the room. Still, his calm demeanor made a stark contrast with that of Martha’s volcanic relative. McLeod shook his head in a tight arc. “I’m afraid this team somehow manages to find new ways not to win.”

  “You’re absolutely right, because all we’ve got is a bunch of lazy half-wits and quitters,” Geoffrey sneered. “They make me embarrassed to own this team.” Without even a nod of thanks, he snatched the bottle of Heineken that Rosaria extended to him.

  Martha’s forbearance with her uncle sank to the bottom of the tank. “You should only be twenty percent embarrassed.” Geoffrey seemed to need constant reminders that she owned the other eighty percent of the team.

  Her uncle glared at her. “You always have to rub it in, don’t you, darling?”

  Darling.

  The last thing Martha would ever be was Geoffrey Winston’s darling. Cool and distant when she was growing up, he had deeply resented her since the moment she took over majority ownership of the team. She had so little regard for the pompous jerk that she’d have kept their interaction to an exchange of Christmas cards if she’d had a choice. But, for now at least, their co-ownership of a woeful soccer squad bound them together and she had her father to thank for that particular misery. He’d bequeathed Martha his controlling share of the team, almost giving his brother a heart attack in the process. And in classic fashion, her daddy had kept his intentions secret through the months of his dying, only bringing her into the picture a few short weeks before the cancer finished its slow death march though his body. Geoffrey had found out only when the estate lawyer disclosed the terms of the will.

  Her uncle had been as nasty as a starving gator ever since that day, despite the obvious logic that should have told him Will Winston would leave his estate to his only child. Martha had been forced to conclude that, against the odds, her uncle must have expected to inherit the team. But that made no sense, since his brother had known full well that Geoffrey lacked both the business acumen and the self-discipline to be in charge of anything other than picking up beer at the supermarket.

  Hoping to ratchet down the tension, Martha forced a small smile. “Not at all, Geoffrey. But, after all, I’m the one with the most to lose here. Not you.”

  She turned her eyes back toward the field. Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the window, prompting her to push the sunglasses down onto her nose. Most of the two thousand or so fans were already filing out of the stadium. As hot, muggy air shimmered up from the pitch, she watched the slick-passing Dallas team play keep-away, their precise passes in mid-field running out the mere seconds remaining in the match.

  “Kieran, I can hardly blame the fans for booing like that,” she said, glancing at her GM. “Not after seven home losses in a row. Hell, I’m starting to think that if this losing streak keeps going, we might need armed guards and Kevlar vests to get out of the stadium alive,” she finished, trying to make a joke out of the gloomy situation.

  Sweating profusely despite the air conditioning, Kieran wiped perspiration from his brow. Martha knew he felt the heavy weight of responsibility for the team’s dreadful record, and she knew how much it ate away at him.

  “God, you may not be far wrong, lass. And I’m getting too old to outrun them.” Kieran grimaced. “The lads play well enough in spur
ts, but they can’t manage to keep it up for the full ninety minutes. Too many mental lapses and not enough leadership on the field. And not enough heart, either.”

  Geoffrey shook his head in vigorous agreement. “Damn right, McLeod. No heart. No bloody heart at all.”

  Compared to Kieran, Martha was a soccer novice, but it didn’t take any kind of expert to know the truth of his sober assessment. “It’s frustrating, for sure. As management, we’ve been doing a decent job, what with all the new promo, the upgraded entertainment, the fan giveaways.” One of Martha’s first acts as the new CEO had been to almost double spending on promotion in a desperate attempt to raise the team’s profile in a tough market dominated by pro football, along with college football and hoops. But an early small spike in attendance had been quickly followed by another vicious slide as the latest losing streak took hold like a deadly virus.

  She studied her weary GM, squashing the impulse to pull her punches. In the end, it was the general manager who had to assume responsibility for the players he’d signed. “But all the promo in the world isn’t going to get more butts into seats, Kieran, unless the guys down there on the field start scoring some damn goals.”

  “You have such a talent for stating the obvious,” Geoffrey scoffed, propping his beer on his round belly.

  Martha ignored him, determined to avoid a scene in front of staff. “We’ve just about run out of time, Kieran. The good old U.S.A. isn’t England or Scotland or Italy. Fans in those countries are so loyal that they’ll spend their whole lives supporting losing teams through thick and thin. But it’s not even remotely like that over here. Not many people in this town or anywhere else in the country will quietly suffer losers for long.” She managed a half-hearted smile. “Other than the Chicago Cubs, of course.”

  “The Jaguars are rebuilding again,” McLeod said weakly.

  Martha exhaled a deep sigh. “We’re not the Jags, and this isn’t football. Soccer is so far down the totem pole of popular sports that I get vertigo just thinking about it. High school football draws more fans—way more.”

  “That’s the pity, isn’t it?” McLeod said, sounding more gloomy Scots by the second. The man had never hidden his dismay with the sometimes fickle nature of North American fans and their seemingly endless resistance to embracing the game that captivated nearly every other country on Earth.

  “More like a catastrophe.” Martha sighed. “We’re hemorrhaging both money and credibility.”

  She looked back at the soccer pitch as the referee blew his whistle to end the match. While most of the Thunder players began to exchange desultory handshakes with their Dallas foes, some simply turned and trudged toward their clubhouse. Martha’s anger ignited when her highest-paid player, Derek Kavanagh, ignored half a dozen fans thrusting programs toward him in hopes for an autograph. He and his buddy, Diego Flores, strolled side-by-side, locked in conversation, too arrogant or dense to interact in the most basic way with the people that ultimately paid their salaries. Kavanagh had been ticketed by her father to be the talented and sexy star that could draw fans in droves—especially female fans—to Thunder games in the way David Beckham had done in Los Angeles. Instead, his lackadaisical play and obvious detachment had become a continuing embarrassment.

  “Look at Kavanagh and Flores,” she snapped. “Have y’all ever seen bigger dimwits? Those two slackers could teach a hell of a course in how to alienate fans.”

  McLeod’s face flushed with embarrassment.

  “The fans aren’t going to stand for it if we don’t make some moves, Kieran,” Martha added into the uncomfortable silence.

  “I’ve been saying that for weeks,” Geoffrey huffed. “Of course we have to take some action.” He gave an exaggerated shrug that jiggled the beer still propped on his belly. “But, realistically, it’s probably too late to save the team.”

  Martha’s instinct was to snap back, but she schooled her features into a calm, concerned expression—the one her father would have adopted in this situation.

  “You know how much I’d love to ship Kavanagh and Flores out of here. But we can’t get anybody interested in making us an offer for either of those guys unless we’re prepared to eat most of their salaries.” She swallowed against the tightening in her throat. “And we all know we can’t afford to do that.”

  McLeod nodded while Geoffrey simply gave her a sarcastic eye roll.

  She sighed. There was no point rehashing what they couldn’t do. Her wonderful but sometimes overly optimistic father had saddled the team with two over-priced superstars who played as if coming to America was the equivalent of the third circle of hell. “So, what can we do? We’d better come up with some new ideas, and fast.”

  Geoffrey swiped a hand across his wet lips. “How many times do I have to tell you two? We should have fired that idiot Brockton long ago. Everybody knows that if you can’t get rid of the players, you sack the damn manager. You should know that, Martha, what with all those years you spent writing about sports.”

  This time, she did glare at her uncle. Geoffrey would never let her forget that she came into ownership of the team with not a whit of business experience. In her uncle’s eyes, his elder brother had committed a travesty by entrusting the Thunder to his daughter’s obviously incompetent female hands.

  Martha savored the impulse to order Geoffrey out of her suite right now, and even banish him permanently. The idea tempted her now more than ever given the frazzled state of her nerves. These past few months she’d been riding on the edge, hardly recognizing herself. The good humor and sang-froid that came naturally to her were fraying fast under the heavy weight of the unwanted responsibility for her father’s beloved team.

  “I have to disagree. Sam Brockton is a first class manager and we’re lucky to have him,” Kieran interjected in a brusque voice. “He’s got a lifetime winning record, and he turns teams into winners. Sam’s doing a good job, but he can’t score goals himself.”

  “He can’t motivate his players to do it, either.” Geoffrey directed a contemptuous glance at Martha. “As you correctly pointed out, darling, the fans and the media want action. They don’t want an owner who sits up here in her air-conditioned suite wringing her hands while her team goes into meltdown.” He slammed his beer bottle onto the counter. “It’s time you started facing facts. If you can’t run this team, then maybe the time has come to sell it to someone who can.”

  Unfortunately, Geoffrey wasn’t saying anything Martha hadn’t already thrashed around in her own head a thousand times. Yes, she was totally green when it came to pro soccer, and to business in general for that matter. And she might even be in over her head with a team that was spiraling downward faster than rainwater in a storm sewer. But Daddy had known her limitations even better than she did herself, and still he’d entrusted her with control of his beloved Thunder.

  She worked her jaw, trying to get it to relax as she glanced toward the bar at the back of the modestly appointed suite. “Rosaria, you can go now. And thanks very much for all your help today.”

  Even though Martha was confident she could rely on the attendant’s discretion, she didn’t want to take even the slightest chance. The ongoing family warfare hadn’t yet become fodder for the media and she was determined to keep it that way. So far Geoffrey had kept his mouth shut in public, but that sure wasn’t something Martha could take to the bank in future.

  Rosaria gave her a grateful smile, then quickly gathered her things and slipped out.

  When the door clicked shut, Martha wheeled on her uncle, bracing her hands on her hips as she stared at him. “Geoffrey, do you really have the gall to tell me I should sell the team when you know that’s exactly what my father made me promise not to do?”

  She stopped, physically biting her tongue. Her father, the kindest man on the planet, had loved and tried to take care of Geoffrey, despite the jerk’s combative nature. She knew the last thing he would want was a rupture between his only daughter and his only sibling.

&nbs
p; “Is that really what you want, Uncle?” Martha softened her voice. “You want me to throw up my hands and slink back to Philadelphia after only four months?”

  Geoffrey hauled himself to his feet. His eyes were two inches below Martha’s even though he puffed himself up. “Darling, what I really wish for is an angel to descend from the heavens and deliver us a couple of strikers who can score, and a midfielder or two who can get the ball to them.” He shot her a disdainful look as he buttoned his sports jacket. “But that’s more your modus operandi, isn’t it? Wishing instead of acting.”

  Biting back the harsh words on the tip of her tongue, Martha tried again. “Geoffrey, please. Enough with the sarcasm. Just answer the question. Are you really saying you want to give up and sell, and to hell with Daddy’s wishes?”

  Geoffrey strolled to the door of the box before deigning to answer. “Martha, my brother left us with a Jesus mess, and you’ve only managed to make it even worse. I’m not sure we’ve any other choice but to sell, especially as long as you remain in charge.”

  Giving her a nasty little smile, he maneuvered his bulk through the door and thumped it shut behind him.

  McLeod let out a disdainful snort. “Good riddance if you ask me.”

  Casting him a weary smile, Martha flopped down on one of the two leather sofas and grabbed her bag, giving it a quick inspection for damage. Kieran grabbed his beer from the counter that ran underneath the windows of the box and then sat down heavily on the other sofa. They stared at each other across the ninety-degree angle, each apparently reluctant to break the fragile peace.

  What had begun as a relatively civil evening with her uncle had deteriorated into yet another disaster. The team was at sea, the owners were floundering, and no one had a formula for righting the ship. Not the field manager, not the general manager, and not Martha, who saw it as a damn chicken and egg situation. The team wouldn’t survive without making more money, and making more money meant selling a lot more tickets. But selling more tickets meant winning games, and winning games meant fielding a better team. Bringing it full circle, fielding a better team meant spending more money. Lots of it. Especially if she couldn’t dump the high-paid underperformers.