Hoops

by Patricia McLinn

  This last one must be Frank Gordon; no one else was left. He was certainly tall enough to play major college basketball; he had to be nearly seven feet. Other than that, he wasn’t at all what she’d anticipated. This was no rough troublemaker. With close-cropped brown hair and wide brown eyes, he seemed a sweet-faced boy. And he obviously felt ill at ease at being caught even at the periphery of the attention that Brad Spencer was now basking in like a cat in sunshine. While Brad exchanged good-natured gibes with the others, Frank slipped into a desk at the back of the group as unobtrusively as someone his size could.

  She’d expected Bill Sikes and in walked an overgrown Oliver Twist. Chalk up another surprise from C.J. Draper.

  Carolyn leaned back against the desk with a hand at either side of her and drew in a breath. “Good morning. I’m Carolyn Trent. I’m a professor of English literature....” Her introduction trailed off as ten faces shifted from her to the doorway.

  “Morning, Professor,” C.J. greeted her. He sauntered in with his hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans, pulling them even tighter around his lean hips. “Thought I’d sit in on this first session.”

  Think again, Mr. C.J. Draper, she silently advised him with one raised eyebrow. She had no intention of sharing this forum with him. From the start she wanted it clear that to her these ten young men were students. His presence could only remind them of basketball.

  The grooves in his cheek deepened as he met her look, but his lips didn’t betray the smile she was certain he’d suppressed. He started past the front desk, then stopped to look at her more closely.

  She didn’t flinch. Not even when he shook his head and said that now that he’d seen her again, he had to admit toffee wasn’t quite right. Not even when the players chuckled a little, amused without knowing what he meant.

  She wouldn’t let C.J. Draper get to her. She watched him fold into a desk chair with difficulty but without awkwardness. If he succeeded in getting a rise out of her in front of the players, she would lose a lot of ground she might never make up. He would get no rise out of her.

  “Before you leave, Mr. Draper,” she said with emphasis, “would you like to say something to your—” she wouldn’t call them his team; she wouldn’t fall into that mentality “—to the students?”

  He met her steady gaze with a faintly quizzical air, then he seemed to bow to her determination. He nodded in apparent acquiescence. “Well, if you don’t want me around . . .” His slightly plaintive murmur drew chuckles. She caught several quick glances from the students, and the chuckles abruptly died.

  Slowly he unwound his legs. Slower still he levered his long body out of the chair. Apparently in no hurry to get there, he walked to the front of the room to stand right in front of Carolyn.

  She looked him squarely in the eyes and waited. If he thought he’d intimidate her with some body language, he was wrong. She’d taken her stance carefully to show her authority; she wouldn’t relegate herself to the side of the room to leave him in charge.

  The corner of his mouth twitched as he looked down at her, but other than that he remained solemn. He turned around and lowered himself onto the edge of the desk, his hip missing Carolyn’s hand by no more than an inch. It took all her self-control not to snatch her hand away. She would hold that position if he talked until doomsday.

  “You guys know why you’re here. You know you gotta have the grades to play ball. I want you to be able to play. You want to be able to play. So you gotta have the grades. Professor Trent here is going to keep an eye on you to see that you have them.” He paused and looked from face to face.

  With a teacher’s experienced eye, Carolyn classified them as not quite bored but prepared to lapse into that state the moment the situation warranted it.

  C.J.’s conversational manner never varied. “The way I figure it, it’s pretty simple. You can be here at Ashton and have a whale of a time—party every night, play a little ball, spend time with the guys, maybe go after the women. And you can stay here one semester.” He paused again. “Or you can have a little less fun, work hard and stay eight semesters. It’s up to you.”

  He pushed off from his perch slowly until he towered above Carolyn, then stretched out a hand. “Thank you, Professor,” he said, shaking her uncooperative hand. Then he added, as if it had been his intention all along, “Guess I better be getting along now.” He headed out the door. “See you, guys.”

  The air came out of her lungs in a slow exhalation. He’d left without a fight. More than that. She’d prepared to battle him for the players’ attention. But the faces that turned toward her told her there would be no battle, not even a skirmish. At least not here, not yet.

  Most of these players had chosen Ashton because of its academics in the first place. But the others—the ones recruited by C.J.—had heard his message loud and clear. As if they’d spoken aloud, their expressions said that his words had struck a chord.

  She would have appealed to their thirst for knowledge; he went straight to common sense. His way worked. She gave him credit for that.

  She smiled. “The first thing is the schedule that Mr. Draper and I have agreed on. I don’t imagine it will surprise any of you much to know you have no say in the matter.”

  They smiled back at her.

  Chapter Three

  The irregular rhythm of ten sets of lungs trying to replenish depleted oxygen stores grated into C.J.’s consciousness. The players lagged, made mistakes because their bodies didn’t obey the right commands. He knew the law of diminishing returns as well as any economist. There was just so damn much left to accomplish. If only the human body didn’t cause so much trouble.

  “Okay. Listen up.” The gymnasium instantly stilled. “Gordon, Manfred, Spencer stay. The rest of you take off.” The emancipated shuffled toward the locker room without a backward glance. “Same time tomorrow. Be ready to work.”

  The admonition drew groans. After working Frank, Ellis and Brad another hour, C.J. acknowledged they had cause to groan.

  He knew he pushed them hard. He had to. Especially these three. They formed the core of his team this season and next, the core of his program at Ashton.

  At his gesture they flopped down at midcourt. He sat facing them, elbows hooked around bent knees. “We’ve got to be a team that outsmarts opponents. There aren’t a lot of teams we can beat on pure physical ability.”

  They nodded, acknowledging the kind of soaring, sprinting and leaping that set the stars apart from the likes of them.

  “We’ve got to always use our heads. Mental and physical. Together. The two of them together, times the ten of you on the team, can stand up to almost anybody.”

  He looked directly into Ellis Manfred’s serious dark eyes. “You’re my brain out there, Manfred. You’ve got to know what I want in a situation as well as I do because the situation changes on a basketball court in a split second. You’ve got to adjust and make the right decision.”

  Ellis nodded.

  “If you don’t shoot, you can’t win. But only about five minutes each game is shooting. Most often it’s the other thirty-five minutes that determine whether you win or not. Okay. Back to work.”

  C.J. stifled a grimace of pain as he stood up, but he refused to favor his aching left knee. What was the good of the damn brace if it didn’t let him practice for a couple of hours?

  “I have to go, Coach,” objected Ellis. “I have a hundred page reading assignment due tomorrow.”

  His expression didn’t change under C.J.’s glare. “Okay.” What else could a coach say? Especially with an academic watchdog on the case. An image of Carolyn Trent’s face appeared before his eyes. Oddly his scowl lightened. “How about you, Brad?”

  “Sure, I’ll stay.”

  A gym rat, C.J. thought. The cheerfulness gave him away.

  “Frank?”

  Frank looked after Ellis’s retreating back as if for support, then back. “I’ll stay.”

  When C.J. dismissed them forty minutes
later, Frank left practically before he’d said the words. Brad lingered, trailing him to the office and talking. C.J. recognized the heavily casual questions as an effort to pump him about his playing days. There had been a time he’d encountered it often. These days it was a rarity.

  “I saw you in Chicago the next year,” Brad said after one anecdote of the Tornadoes’ championship season. “I’ll never forget the way you drove the lane like nothing in the world could keep you from that basket. You dished off to Rake Johnson, and he got the slam. It was so smooth. I’ve never seen anything so smooth. I went home and practiced that move for months. I never did get it.” He paused, a wave of embarrassment at his own enthusiasm abruptly stopping his flow. “I mean, I was just a kid then.”

  “Hey,” C.J. objected. “I’m not that old. My last season with the Tornadoes didn’t happen during the Dark Ages.”

  He glanced at the photo on his desk. My last season.

  He was still looking at it when he added, “My old high school coach used to say, ‘Drive the lane like the Indy 500. Go all out, but put on the brakes before you crash into a wall.’ The one time I didn’t put on the brakes, I crashed in flames. Remember that when you practice that move.” He gestured with his clipboard. “Now get outta here. Hit the showers. I’ve got work. And you’ve got books to crack.”

  Half an hour later, when Brad came past and said goodnight, C.J. looked up from his notes for the first time. The interruption reminded him he was hungry. Packing up six game tapes to review that night, he headed to the apartment he called home.

  When he got there, he swallowed the last of a half gallon of milk while he flipped through his mail. Then he crunched through an apple while he read the only thing that interested him: a letter from his mother full of the small news of a peaceful life. He heated leftover pizza as he set up the VCR.

  Videotapes, clipboards and notebooks were the only accessories in the minimalist decorating scheme of his furnished apartment. As long as the functioning parts met his needs, he was happy. The couch stretched long and firm, so he ignored the raucous paisley cover that even clashed with white. The end table showed a dent and two burn marks, but it had a drawer for pens and clipboards and a shelf underneath for videotapes.

  He knew it was ugly, and when he really looked at it, he winced. But he wasn’t here much, and even when he was, he seldom really looked.

  There had been a woman when he played for the Tornadoes who had wanted to decorate his place in Chicago. Kim had said he should think of his image. The way things had been going, he probably would have let her redecorate eventually. Then the injury.

  He gave her credit, though. She didn’t disappear when his knee—and his career—shattered. But seven months into the rehabilitation she’d told him she couldn’t compete any longer with machines, exercises and strength tests. It was just as well it had ended there; it never would have survived his swing through the league, to Italy, then back. And if by some miracle she’d still been around, the relationship surely would have withered at Ashton.

  The thing was, he knew himself well enough to recognize that the challenge here affected him much the way the challenge of rehabilitation had. He hadn’t really minded when Kim had left. To be honest, he’d barely noticed. He’d had a mission.

  Now the mission was to give Ashton a decent basketball program and give himself a shot at the big time. For five months he’d been going practically nonstop. He’d looked at every player, every highlight tape that had come his way, hoping to find the remaining recruiting nuggets the swarms of prospecting coaches had somehow missed. He’d studied tapes until he’d known each twist and turn.

  Sometimes, like tonight, he felt permanently attached to a VCR. He rubbed his eyes as he pulled a tape out. He wouldn’t have minded it so much if his eyes would just stop superimposing an image over the screen—a smooth sweep of amber-brown hair surrounding a serious face. Carolyn Trent could develop into a real thorn in his side if he let her.

  This morning he’d thought his presence might show the guys how seriously he took the adviser program. But she’d made it damn obvious she didn’t want him around.

  The toffee? Just a little friendly joke. A little teasing to see if she’d come out from behind that marble facade.

  And that moment in his office yesterday when he’d stood close enough to smell the hint of spice and flower in her hair? Or when his arm had absorbed the slight contact with the swell of her breast like a branding iron?

  The memory tightened his body.

  C.J. cursed emphatically and shoved the next tape into the machine. Definitely a thorn.

  * * * *

  Doing her Homecoming duty wasn’t so bad. Being outdoors in the brisk sparkle of an autumn afternoon was nice, and the colors and noise swirling around the football field and stands were wonderful. Oh, the level of play fell below what television audiences would expect, but that suited her fine. This was the way college sports were supposed to be.

  Carolyn just wished that doing her duty didn’t include sitting on these bleachers in front of C.J. Draper. Not when his long legs—the only ones clad in jeans in the entire presidential party—put his shins within tempting reach of providing the backrest her body craved. She shifted for the third time in two minutes.

  “See, that’s the problem with football games,” C.J. said, leaning over from the row behind her to speak directly into her ear. “No backs on the seats.”

  “There are no backs on the seats at basketball games, either, Mr. Draper.”

  Turning to confront him was a mistake. His eyes were so close that she felt wrapped in blue. Against the brisk air the touch of his breath was warm on her cheek. His lips slanted into a grin inches from hers, showing strong white teeth. She turned back to the field, fighting the disturbing sensation that a feather had lodged in her throat.

  “I guess not, but I’ve never sat through a basketball game. I’ve always played.” She couldn’t detect even a note of bragging. “You think maybe that’s why people are jumping up all the time at these games? It’s not so much that they get excited, as they just can’t stand to sit still?”

  Before she could answer, Stewart, seated to her left, spoke up. “Don’t forget about the dinner-dance tonight at the Ashton Club, C.J. It’s one of the best parties at Ashton. Isn’t it, Helene?”

  Helene, sitting on the other side of Stewart, agreed with a laugh. “I guess I think all parties are good, but the dinner-dance and the cocktail party at Mrs. Dawton’s beforehand are something special. She has the most wonderful house up on the Heights with a marvelous view. And she always has such elegant hors d’oeuvres.”

  “Do you have the directions, C.J.?” Stewart asked.

  “I’ve got the address. I’ll find my way.”

  Stewart looked concerned. More concerned than the situation called for, Carolyn thought. He’s up to something.

  She shifted for a better view of his face.

  “It can be very difficult to find. It’s very confusing up there on the Heights. What might work best—” Carolyn became fully alert when she heard the calculated blandness in Stewart’s voice —is if you and Carolyn drove up together.”

  “That’s an excellent idea, Stewart,” Helene seconded quickly, confirming Carolyn’s suspicion. This was a setup.

  “I’m sure Mr. Draper will have no difficulty finding it, Stewart. He has, after all, traveled extensively.”

  “Carolyn,” objected Helene, “you know how confusing it is up there with all those streets twisting and turning on themselves. Why, I’ve been there hundreds of times, and I still get lost, so imagine how hard it would be for someone new.”

  “I do have a tendency to get lost,” murmured C.J.

  Carolyn shot him a dark look under frowning brows. He returned one of utter innocence.

  Stewart took the cue. “Then, of course, it certainly would be better—”

  “But I’m sure Mr. Draper has a guest he’s bringing tonight. I don’t want to intrude—”
/>
  “Nope. No guest,” he contradicted cheerfully.

  “There. It’s all settled.” Satisfaction suffused Helene’s face.

  “No, it’s not settled,” Carolyn said. “I think I should go with you and Stewart as planned.”

  “If you’re concerned about driving with C.J. up those roads, Carolyn, I can assure you, I’ve ridden with him, and he’s an excellent driver,” Stewart said.

  Carolyn opened her mouth for another attempt at escape, but C.J.’s drawl intruded. “I don’t think it’s the driving that’s worrying the professor. I think it’s the arriving. You see,” he explained, “if we arrive together, people might think we’re together and that could be awkward for the professor.”

  Stewart and Helene turned questioning eyes to her, and Carolyn felt her shoulders sink under the hopelessness of extricating herself.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want people to think they were together; she was just uncomfortable with him. She hadn’t worked out yet in her own mind why—an oddity in itself. But she knew she definitely didn’t want it brought up now. How he’d stumbled so close to the truth, she didn’t know. But since he had, she could only deny it.

  “Not at all, Mr. Draper,” she said, looking away quickly from the laughter in his blue eyes before she lost her temper. “Of course I’ll drive with you. Heaven knows we wouldn’t want to risk our new basketball coach driving off a cliff, would we?”

  * * * *

  Graciousness and stoicism are the keys to getting through this with dignity, Carolyn told herself as she smoothed the taffeta skirt of her new dress. She’d put the black sheath on first. But she’d seen herself looking staid and boring in too many mirrors. In the end she’d flung the sheath on the bed and pulled on the teal dress with a tingling—and unaccustomed—sense of daring.

  The color added glow to her hair and heightened the natural pink blush of her fair skin. The tight bodice molded to the curves of her breasts and the narrowness of her waist. The skirt crackled around her with whispering touches against her silk-hosed legs. She felt the headiness of a woman who knew she looked good. But it didn’t prevent a surge of nerves at the sound of her doorbell.