Play for Keeps

by Maggie Wells

  Exhausted by the ramblings of his own thoughts, Ty heaved a sigh he dredged up from his toes and gave up the struggle. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable last night.”

  “Well, I can tell you I’m probably not going to take up breaking and entering as a hobby. I don’t have the right footwear for a life of crime.”

  Amused by her dry reply, he pitched his voice low and stern. “For God’s sake, save the shoes.”

  “One must have one’s priorities in line,” she answered with a prim, little sniff.

  “Millie, I—”

  “If you’re going to apologize for kissing my socks off, you can save your sorrys.”

  Pleased, he smiled for the first time since he woke up not-quite-dead. “You weren’t wearing socks.”

  She snorted. “How would you know? You can’t remember your own name at the moment.”

  “I remember kissing you,” he retorted. “I remember every second.”

  Truth. He did remember, despite the cotton wool filling in his head. He remembered every second of it all too well. The slide of her lips. Her taut, little body pressed against his. She had small breasts and boyish hips. Her arms were toned, the muscles long and subtly cut. And they’d been bare. Silky, soft, and supple.

  She wore her hair short and changed colors so often, he’d stopped being shocked by the alteration. Brusque and sharp-tongued, he’d seen her dismantle reporters piece by piece, all the while smiling as if she were having the time of her life. Taken individually, not one of these attributes should have turned him on, but wrapped up in Millie, the package worked for him.

  He cleared his throat. “So you don’t want me to apologize?”

  “Not for kissing me, but you might consider an apology for ignoring my instructions about not talking to reporters,” she answered in her brisk, efficient manner. “And you might consider groveling when or if Greg Chambers calls.”

  Ty scowled as he searched his memory, but he couldn’t quite bring anything non-Millie-related into focus. Dread welled in his gut. He hated the National Sports Network’s golden boy and his smug smirk, but Ty couldn’t for the life of him remember what he’d done to owe the man an apology. “Chambers? Why? Did I talk to Greg Chambers?”

  He heard her exhale long and slow. “No, but you talked to Jim Davenport from the Sentinel last night.”

  Jim Davenport. Greg Chambers. Millie. A montage of clips from the night before flashed through his brain. Finally, he zoomed in on Davenport. The slimy, sad wuss of a sports reporter worked for both the local television station and the newspaper. Old Jim used to date Kate Snyder, Wolcott’s women’s basketball coach. Until Danny McMillan came to town and swept Kate right out from under Davenport’s nose. Good thing too. Kate was miles too good for a jackass like Davenport.

  But as a result, their once-staunch supporter had turned against the university. In the weeks since Kate and Danny had gotten hitched at the courthouse, old Jim seemed to have developed an agenda. One that included a hard-on for anything having to do with Warrior basketball. Ty’s troubles with Mari had made him an easy target. It took a second for him to connect the dots in his head, but by the time the last line was in place, the dread in his stomach liquefied into thick, bitter bile and started to rise.

  “I talked to Jim last night,” he confessed.

  “Yes, you did.” Now Millie was using her patient kindergarten teacher voice, which was not a good sign. Millie wasn’t known for her patience and, as far as he knew, had never stepped foot in a kindergarten classroom. “He called me bright and early this morning. Told me that while you were talking to him, you apparently cast some rather…offensive aspersions on Mr. Chambers’s athletic prowess as well as his manhood. You also said you’d had him banned from the Wolcott University campus.” She paused. “That is why Mr. Davenport ended up calling me. He was kind enough to ask me to verify the quote about the ban on Mr. Chambers.” She paused to let the information sink in before going for the kill. “I’ve tried to reach you by phone a number of times this morning. I was about to come over to see if you’d put on your concrete shoes and jumped in the pool. I’m glad you didn’t.”

  Feeling like ten thousand kinds of a fool, he wedged the phone against his ear and pressed the heels of his hands to his eye sockets. “I was angry. I didn’t want to say, ‘No comment.’ I wanted to comment, to say…something.”

  “Well, you sure did,” she said snidely.

  He groaned again. “You left the party to check on me last night, and I kissed you.”

  “Yes, well, I didn’t say I wasn’t well rewarded.”

  “And now you’re having to babysit me again. Millie, I’m sorry.” Letting one hand fall to the floor, he took hold of the phone once more. “What story did Davenport run?”

  “Well, I managed to squash the bit about the ban,” she announced. “But since the rest were direct quotes and opinions you willing gave to a member of the press…”

  He didn’t need to see her to know she was using the universal hand signal for “I can’t fix stupid.” He ran his hand over his face again, as if he could scrub the cobwebs from his brain. “Oh shit.”

  “The Sentinel doesn’t have a wide circulation, and we are talking Wolcott men’s basketball, so not a headline grabber.”

  The dismissive commentary didn’t offend him. Everyone knew the Warriors were the whipping boys of the mighty Mid-Continental Conference. Two factors allowed the school to play with the big boys—tradition and the law of averages. Wolcott’s student athletes were better known for putting up impressive grade point numbers, even if their stats lacked in athletic endeavors. As a founding member, Wolcott would have to willingly sever ties with the conference. And why would they do that when the school got a piece of the conference media pie?

  “Unfortunately, one of the wire guys picked up a few of your choice comments, and word has filtered back to NSN.”

  Ty imagined Greg Chambers’s fat head exploding on a live feed. He smiled, then groaned as the pull of facial muscles reminded him he still had his own aching head to contend with. Part of him couldn’t help but wonder if cranial explosion might not be a relief. Quick, maybe somewhat messy, but painless. Not such a bad end. Had to beat the slow agony he was enduring. “You got some of those cement shoes?” he asked, his voice low and raspy.

  Millie laughed, and the sharp edges of her disapproval melted away in the warmth of the sound. “You didn’t say anything we haven’t all thought.”

  “Yes, but I said them out loud. To a reporter. One with a growing vendetta to feed,” he added as if she didn’t already know about Jim Davenport’s bruised feelings.

  “Yes, you did.”

  Ty stared at the ceiling. For months now, he’d been spinning like a top. One whirling a little off-kilter. Now his life was careening out of control. He needed divine intervention. And he had it. He had Millie on his side.

  “What do I need to do?”

  She blew out a breath as if she’d been hanging out in the deep end, waiting for him to come to his senses. “First, you call Greg and apologize. It won’t be enough, but it’s a start. I’ll sort out the rest of that mess later,” she assured him, all brisk efficiency. “Then, we talk to the rest of the media.”

  He heard the tap-tap-tap of her fingernail and knew she was typing notes one-fingered into her ever-present tablet. He wished he could see her. Seeing Millie spring into action was something to behold. She was a force of nature. One of the wonders of the world. Heaven help anyone who dared to get in her way.

  “So far, all the chatter has been about Mari and Dante and the morons speculating. It’s time for us to step up and take control of the message.”

  Though he knew she was right, it still pinched to agree to the plan. After all, no guy wants to be the schmuck whose wife left him for another man. A younger man. One with the future of his choosing all stretched out in front
of him. How was he supposed to make getting dumped look good?

  “Ty?”

  Millie’s gentle prod pulled him out of his thoughts and back into the present.

  And gave him the answer he needed. Millie would know how to spin this mess so he came out looking like a champion. He trusted her. Which seemed odd given what the last woman in his life had done to him. But Millie wasn’t anything like Mari. He knew that right down to his bones. The two women couldn’t have been more different.

  Besides, what choice did he have? He was the one who had married a woman over a decade younger than he was. He’d ignored the dollar signs in Mari’s eyes, hauled her off to Vegas, and tied the knot before either of them could think better of the plan. Then, when his idiocy exploded in his face, he was the fool who had holed up in his monstrosity of a house swilling scotch and spilling his guts to some reporter with an ax to grind.

  Millie was right, as usual. The time had come to set things straight. He’d apologize to Chambers, let the press poke and prod at him a little, then he’d head back to Nevada to get divorced not quite as quickly as he’d gotten hitched. The wait would be shorter there, and he wouldn’t have to prove anything more than irreconcilable differences. Since Mari had a kid with a multimillion-dollar contract under his belt, she was in as much of a rush as he was.

  “Ty, are you still there? Snore or something if you’ve passed out.”

  “I’m here.”

  “You can do this. All we need is a plan.”

  “A plan like what?”

  “Well, you could start with a shower.”

  Her suggestion was so on target it hurt. “Right. Shower. Getting up.”

  “Exactly what you need to do, Ty,” she said gently. “Get up, get out, and get on with your life. I’ll help you.”

  He huffed a little laugh, then gave in. “Okay,” he said into the phone. “Let’s do this thing.”

  Chapter 3

  Millie clicked her pen and pushed away from her desk with a decisive nod. “Excellent.” She flashed a stiff smile at her assistant as she snagged her tablet from the corner of the desk and rose. “Call the chancellor’s office and give them the update. I’m going to run by the AD’s office to get my travel lined out, drop the new press kits by the bull pen, then circle back around before I head home to pack.”

  “You want me to send the releases about the coaching changes in the baseball program?” Cassie asked as she stood too.

  “Yes. And I’m sending you a picture Kate sent me from the island. If she asks, I’m claiming someone hacked my cell, but could you sort of…” She made a circling motion with her hand.

  “Leak the photo on every social media outlet I can find?”

  Millie grinned. As far as assistants went, Cassie was worth her weight in free media coverage. “Make whatever pithy caption you come up with more football related than basketball. We want to shift the focus away from all talk of basketball, so for now, Kate will have to be Mrs. Gridiron.” She smirked as she pulled her phone from her pocket. “Serves her right for looking so damn good in a bikini.”

  “Yeah!” Cassie chirped.

  Millie paused in the doorway. “Okay, maybe don’t leak the photo.”

  “But we can still hate her for looking so awesome?” Cassie asked hopefully.

  “Yes, but we have to store it deep down inside.”

  “Got it,” her assistant chirped.

  Millie held for another moment to be certain she hadn’t forgotten anything. After a quick rundown of her mental checklist, she nodded and sprang into motion again. “If Chancellor Martin decides he wants to talk to me, I’ve moved to Mozambique.”

  “Do you even know where Mozambique is?” Cassie called after her, but Millie didn’t break stride.

  She knew exactly where Mozambique was on the map. She knew lots of things. And coastal Africa seemed as good a place to hide as any. One of the baseball coaches jumped out of her way as she swung around the corner at full speed. She smiled but didn’t stop. Not when she was this close to escaping campus.

  The morning after Davenport’s story broke, she’d appeased the gaggle camped outside Ty’s front door by sending him out to recite a brief but seemingly heartfelt statement wishing his soon-to-be-ex-wife well. Getting something slightly better than nothing worked for the majority of them. Most just wanted something to put in their sidebars. Unfortunately, the one who didn’t bite was the biggest thorn in her side.

  Slowing her pace, she focused on regulating her breathing before she reached the athletic director’s office. The past few months had been rough on Mike Samlin. She needed to appear calm and collected. The thought made Millie smile. Not because she disliked the man, but she fancied herself the Joker to Mike’s Bruce Wayne each time they stood side by side. He was everything cool, crisp, and conservative, while she liked a pop of color. Or ten. And colorful or not, she wanted to be taken seriously.

  Mike landed at Wolcott in the nick of time, in Millie’s opinion. The university was becoming a tad too comfortable in its role as Mid-Continental Conference’s patsy, and influential alumni were getting restless. Intercollegiate athletics generated an astronomical amount of money.

  Kate Snyder’s unparalleled success in women’s basketball was certainly a huge feather in the university’s cap, but it wasn’t enough. They needed to build their men’s programs and fast. That’s why Mike had hired Danny McMillan to revive the football program and Ty Ransom to bring men’s basketball up to speed. And Ty was starting to have some success. Dante Harris was the first marquee player to come out of the men’s basketball program in more than two decades. His defection was a stunning blow beyond the scandal surrounding his departure.

  Millie drew to a halt and blew out a long breath, a technique she’d picked up at one of those god-awful yoga retreats her friend Avery insisted she and Kate attend semiannually. As much as Millie hated to admit buying into any part of Avery’s new age crap, the breathing thing worked.

  While blowing out a single measured breath, she wiped her mental slate clean. These days, her job was less about spinning Mari Ransom’s infidelity and more about Ty’s big mouth. Damage control had been bumped to priority one in the aftermath of Jim Davenport’s scoop, and Millie hit the ground running. Ty’s contract would be up in a couple of years, and the last thing Millie wanted was to give the scandal-shy university reason to look elsewhere for a basketball coach.

  For nearly a week, she’d paraded Ty around to various print, web, and television outlets. As expected, interest started to wane when he opened his mouth and started speaking rationally and without rancor. He’d taken every poke, prod, and outright jab like a man…so far.

  Taking it on the chin was not an easy task for a guy like Ty. He’d been born a winner. Trained to be a champion. Labeled a disappointment when he went pro. And now, after years of building his reputation as a coach and rebuilding his ego, this mess.

  Their dog and pony show had kept them booked solid all week, but the next day, they’d tackle their biggest hurdle yet—the only person who hadn’t succumbed to Ty’s charm, NSN lead anchor, Greg Chambers.

  She nodded a greeting to the grad student who acted as Mike’s assistant. The girl smiled and motioned for her to go on into the inner sanctum, but she paused anyway. Millie wasn’t one to open a closed door without at least tapping first. That was how a person stumbled onto unwelcome surprises.

  Then again, for Millie, there was no such thing as a welcome surprise. The secret to her success was knowing exactly what cards she held versus who might possibly be hiding an ace up their sleeve. Rolling her shoulders back, she imagined an invisible string pulling the top of her head up until she stood straight and tall, then she raised her hand to knock.

  The AD called for her to come in, and after making a mental note to burn Avery’s newest Birkenstocks for implanting the whole string out of the top of her head
thing, she twisted the knob and entered, bravado firmly in hand.

  “So I have calls in to Today as well as LIVE, but word is Kelly Ripa is pretty much off the jock bandwagon since Michael Strahan jumped ship. They’re both long shots, but you don’t get what you don’t ask—” She stopped on a dime when she spotted Ty sitting in the chair opposite the athletic director. “Oh. You’re here.”

  Ty craned his neck to look at her. From this distance, his eyes looked like they were simply light brown. She knew they were so much more than the color of mud. Up close, she’d spotted flecks of gold and burnt caramel, sort of like a tortoiseshell. They were sheltered by thick slashes of black brows so severe they almost balanced out the lush sensuality of his full lips. Almost, but not quite. Taken as they were, the combination was arresting. Against the backdrop of his flawless, tawny skin, the individual assets packed the punch of one of those sneaky umbrella cocktails. Pretty and seemingly innocuous at first glance, but potent enough to land a woman flat on her back.

  Oblivious to the turmoil clapping eyes on him stirred, he bobbed his head in a casual greeting. “Hey, Millie.”

  A bitter laugh rose in her throat, but she swallowed the tickle. Her brain cried a silent, Surprise! She wasn’t supposed to see him until they left for New York. She wasn’t expecting to see him. Or prepared. Damn him.

  It really burned her biscuits that he had such an implacable game face. He’d kissed her, then tried to apologize for it. She didn’t want an apology, but she needed at least a little time to psych herself up to be near him.

  Not that she didn’t want to be. On the contrary. She wanted to be near enough to him to feel his warm, damp breath on her cheek. What she wouldn’t give to feel those big, broad palms slide down her back and cup her ass again. Would he pull her close and hold her so tight she might forget where he started and she ended? Or would he be more reserved in the cold, sober light of day?