Carly didn't know what Tracy and her father discussed, nor did she ask. Coach had come by several times, his extreme gentleness with Tracy touching Carly deeply. He and Felicity were seeing each other on a regular basis now, though Felicity still maintained that theirs was simply a friendly relationship. A friendly relationship that had her mother smiling more often than she frowned these days, in spite of her genuine concern for her granddaughter.
For his part, Gianfraceo seemed younger to Carly every time she saw him. His pride in his coaching protégé seemed boundless, as was his pride in the Wolves. Even if they lost the last game and missed out on a bowl bid, the team had done what Bradenton had needed it to do. The TV money from the Jacks game and the revenue from the concession stands, combined with the money raised from the ticket sales and Marca's other promotions, had given them enough leverage to convince the bank to refinance the note.
The media had taken to calling Mitch a coaching phenomenon, using phrases like "a natural," "a born leader" and "master strategist." Carly was almost used to the sight of dozens of cameramen and women bunched around him during the games. Because of the publicity, enrollment applications had already increased by one-third, and the Trustees were falling all over one another to take the credit. Carly knew that she should be ecstatic. Instead, she was finding it harder and harder to find reasons to smile.
"So, is it okay if I sit with you and Aunt Marca on Saturday?" Tracy asked, nervously pushing back her hair.
"You bet it's okay. In fact, it's terrific. Aunt Marca and I have been yelling our heads off for eleven games now. It's about time we had some help." She picked up her tools and gestured toward the house. "How about we see if we can filch some more of that gingerbread before dinner?"
Tracy's dimples flashed. "Okay, but if we get caught, I'm going to tell Tilly it was your idea."
"Brat," Carly said, swatting her lightly.
"Ouch!" Tracy cried, feigning injury, and they both laughed as they walked side by side toward the house.
* * *
"Ohmigosh, Marca! Did you see that footwork?" Carly jumped to her feet, her presidential dignity forgotten. She and Tracy were sitting with Marca in the end zone, surrounded by students waving pennants and screaming nonstop.
Like nearly everyone else, Carly was wearing a bright orange Bradenton sweatshirt and slacks. Marca was wearing her old cheerleading sweater and jeans. Tracy looked far more formal in a wool shirt and hand-knit fisherman's sweater.
The storm had passed, and, as was usually the case with Oregon storms, the sun had come out and the temperature had risen a good ten degrees to the high sixties, with just enough wind to keep the flags at the top of the stadium fluttering against a deep blue sky. It was perfect football weather.
"Hey, that's my back you're pounding!" Marca exclaimed, cringing away.
"Stop complaining. Do you believe it? The bad news Wolves have finally had a winning season."
On the field, time out had been called, and the teams were huddling on the sidelines. "I'm going to get a soda and a hot dog," Tracy leaned over to announce. "Do either of you want anything?"
"Diet soda," Marca said immediately.
"Nothing for me, thanks," Carly told her, reaching for her purse.
"I'll get it, Mom." Tracy shouldered her outsize bag and slipped past the two students to her right into the aisle.
"She's almost like her old self," Marca said.
"I was afraid she'd be upset, seeing Ian again, even from a distance, but so far she's handling it just fine."
The referee blew the whistle, and the action began again. It was a pass play, and Carly could feel tension sweep through the crowd as Ian took the ball from the center and fell back, looking left.
Suddenly he uncorked a long pass to the right, catching the defenders going the other way. Ecstatic, Carly shot to her feet along with just about everyone else in the stands.
"All right!" she shouted as the ball settled into the running back's hands for a thirty-four-yard gain. The Wolves' bench emptied, and the crowd whistled and stomped and did all the things a college football crowd was supposed to do when their team was winning. Carly tried to find Mitch in the crowd of orange-and-blue jerseys, but he was too far away.
"Maybe you should follow Tracy's example," Marca suggested as they settled back into their seats.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Marca shot her an impatient look. "When was the last time you had a good night's sleep? Or really laughed, instead of faking it the way you've been doing today?"
"I'm sleeping fine, and I can't help it if you don't like the way I laugh."
"Mitch and I had lunch the other day."
"Bully for you," she said, before she could stop herself. The sudden glint in Marca's eyes had her cursing her tired brain.
"Don't be mad at me," Marca said. "I tried to hate him, really worked hard at it, but I just can't hate a man who hates himself the way he does."
Carly stared down at the field, her stomach slowly twisting itself into a knot. "That's not what I wanted, Marca."
"He's had offers from a couple of NFL teams for next year. Of course, his contract with Bradenton has another year to run, but, as I told him, a sharp lawyer could probably find a loophole."
Carly slowly turned to look at her. "What did he say?"
Marca shrugged. "He laughed and said that he just happened to know the best lawyer in California, and maybe he'd better find out if that same lawyer was licensed to practice in Oregon."
* * *
The building housing the athletic department was quiet. The last class had been over for more than an hour, and the maintenance staff was already swabbing down the floor outside Mitch's office.
Holding the phone to his ear, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. "Hey, I really feel sorry for you, old buddy," he growled into the phone when Dante paused to take a breath. "I sure would hate to find out my wife was carrying twin girls instead of just one. Hell, who wants three daughters, anyway?"
Dante bit off an obscenity, and Mitch laughed. "C'mon, Jess. Tell the truth. You're damn near busting your buttons, you're so proud of yourself."
"I'm also scared." His tone was dead serious, and Mitch frowned.
"Is Hazel okay?"
"So far, but she's also forty-four-years old. Having Tyler was hard on her. Now twins." Dante's sigh was ragged. "I can't lose her, Mitch."
"You won't, Jess. She's strong, and she's taking good care of herself. If I know you, you're damn near smothering her in attention."
"When she lets me, which isn't as often as I'd like," Dante groused.
Mitch winced as a cramp knotted his left thigh. Clamping the phone against his shoulder, he used both hands to massage it away. "Tell her I said to humor you. She's crazy about me, you know."
Dante's laugh was tinged with warning. "Like a brother."
"Sure, that's what I said."
There was a pause, and then Dante asked soberly, "Have you seen your lady?"
Just as it was starting to back off, the cramp seized hold again, worse this time, and he had to suck in hard to keep from groaning.
"Only from a distance. She came to all the games." And looked adorably huggable in her bright orange sweatshirt—and also totally out of reach. His reach, anyway. He dug his fingers more forcefully into the knotted muscle and winced.
"Are you still planning to spend the next few weeks in Sacramento?" Dante asked, changing the subject.
"Yeah. I should be able to get away from here by the end of the week. How's Jeannie doing?" Instead of hiring an outsider, Mitch had followed his gut and promoted Jeannie to manager. After a shaky start, she had taken to running things like the champ he knew she was.
"She was doing great, last time I checked. Has the place running like a Swiss watch."
"Maybe I should give her a raise." The cramp finally eased off, and he slumped against the chair. He needed to drag his tired bones home so he could get out of his braces and int
o a hot bath. And then he was going to sleep for a week.
"Hey, don't give away all the profits, partner."
"Don't worry, Pop. You'll still have enough to keep those twin cuties in diapers."
Dante chuckled. "Speaking of which, I hope you're prepared to be godfather to two instead of one."
Mitch felt a rush of emotions too complex to name. "Is that an official invitation?"
"Sure is. Any objections?"
Mitch swallowed hard. "Can't think of a one."
"Better not. You know Hazel when she's got her mind set on something."
Mitch heard the shimmer of love in Dante's rough voice and tried not to envy his old friend too much. "Give her a kiss for me and tell her I'm honored."
"I'll give her a kiss from me and tell her you'll see her next week. And, Mitch? Hang in there. It gets better."
"Sure it does," he said, before saying goodbye and hanging up.
An hour later Mitch was locking his desk drawer when he heard footsteps approaching. Glancing up, he saw Carly standing in the doorway, looking pale and determined and so lovely it stopped his heart. One smile, even a hint of longing in those green eyes instead of that maddening calm, and he would beg. Instead, he managed a decent enough smile and gestured her to the seat next to his desk.
She came toward him, bringing the scent of late fall with her. She'd put on weight, and it suited her. "I just came by to thank you in person for all you've done. And to bring you this."
When he didn't reach out to take it, she put the manila envelope she'd been carrying on the desk in front of him. "What's that?"
"The contract you signed, and a notarized affidavit releasing you from any and all future obligations to the college without penalty."
He'd taken a hit once that had cracked his ribs. He hadn't felt the pain at first, only a stunned jolt. "You're firing me?"
She frowned. "No, we're declining to hold you to your contract."
"You didn't like the job I did?"
She looked annoyed. "Of course we did! The entire campus is like a different place now. Everyone's talking about the Wolves."
"So you're canning me because we didn't make it into postseason play?"
"Scanlon, we are trying to do you a favor here. Why are you making it so difficult?"
He lifted his eyebrows. "I must be pretty damn dense, Carly, because I can't for the life of me figure out how losing my job comes out to be a favor."
"Marca told me that you'd received some offers from the pros, so naturally…" She shrugged.
"So naturally you assumed I would try to break my contract with you." His voice was silky.
"With Bradenton, you mean."
"Same thing." Mitch held back the anger that threatened to spill out in spite of his good intentions.
"All right, I'm releasing you from your contract. With my very deepest gratitude for all you've done."
He hooked a finger under the flap and extracted the contract. The attached cover letter on top was short and to the point and in essence said exactly what she'd just told him. With one addition—a buyout bonus. It felt like the crudest kind of insult, as though she thought he'd sweated bullets for six months simply for money.
Carly watched his face as he read. Other than a single muscle pulling at the side of his jaw, he seemed completely at ease. Apparently finished with the letter she'd agonized over for two solid days, he tossed the contract aside. Still relaxed, he angled a glance at her and smiled only a little.
"Does that mean you want me to go?" His gaze was locked on hers. His thoughts, however, were hidden.
"I want you to have what's most important to you. If returning to the NFL is what you want, then, yes, I want you to go—"
Then she turned and fled before she compromised her pride and asked him to stay.
* * *
It was black as ink outside, with no moon and no stars. The overcast had come in around six and thickened steadily. Fog was rising from the ground, swirling around the security lights like the last heart-wrenching scene in Casablanca.
It wasn't quite midnight. Carly had gone home after she'd left Mitch's office. She'd even gone to bed. She just hadn't been able to close her eyes for more than a few seconds at a time. Whenever she did, the dry burn of grief seared the insides of her lids.
So she'd pulled on a pair of jeans and an old shirt and driven to the office. Bessie had finally given up, and the Otis people were in the process of replacing the old elevator with a shiny new one. Seeing Bessie so broken and sad had torn the remaining pieces of her heart into confetti.
Housekeeping was in the building somewhere. Every so often she could hear the whir of a floor polisher or the hum of a vacuum, but in every way that counted she was totally alone.
She'd worked steadily until the top of her desk was bare and her Out basket was piled high. She'd dusted then—the desk, her books, every knickknack and lamp. Finished with that, she'd decided to tackle her filing cabinet. Working from the bottom up, she'd gotten halfway through the top drawer when the campanile rang midnight.
"And all's well because Bradenton is solvent again. Right, guys?" she muttered, glancing at her paternal lineage framed for posterity on the wall before jerking another folder from the drawer. Inside she found three copies of a speech she'd given almost two years earlier and wondered what had possessed her to save three identical copies of the same speech. Because you're compulsive, she raged, throwing all three copies into the trash. And rigid and unforgiving and stupid, she added, pulling out another bulging folder. Snapping it open, she stared at the contents and realized she couldn't read a word. Everything was blurred. When a tear plopped onto the top document, she stared in disbelief.
She scrounged in her purse for a tissue. When it was sodden, she searched for another. The tears just kept coming, running steadily down her cheeks and dripping from her chin. She used the last tissue, but she couldn't seem to stop the tears. Sniffing and sobbing, she hurried out of her office and headed down the hall to the rest room—and stopped short.
Mitch was leaning against the wall at the top of the stairs, his face beet red and his shirt damp with sweat. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing in audible gasps.
"Mitch?"
At the sound of his name, he opened his eyes and glared at her. "You might as well make me a bed right here," he said between gasps, "because there's no way in hell I'm going to make it down three flights of stairs tonight."
Her heart was in her throat as she walked toward him. "What I want to know is why you climbed them in the first place."
He straightened, wincing visibly. He pulled free of one crutch and propped it next to him, then pulled the folded contract from his back pocket. "I came to give you this."
"Thank you." She took it without looking at it.
"I was on the way to the mansion, but, when I was driving by, I saw the light on in your ivory tower. Just my luck the elevator has gone belly-up." He looked angry and frustrated and endearingly mussed.
"Why didn't you just messenger the signed copies over to me tomorrow?"
"Because I'm not signing the damned thing, that's why."
She blinked, and the tears she'd forgotten splashed her cheeks. "You're not?"
He'd never seen her cry before. Seeing those tear-stained cheeks had his throat raw and his belly filled with acid.
"I'll admit there are a lot of things about myself that I have to change," he told her with total conviction, "but I'm not a quitter, and I'm not leaving here until you can find it in your heart to forgive me."
"You're not?" There was an odd little catch in her voice.
"Damn straight I'm not. Even it takes a lifetime, I'm hanging in here until you know in your heart that I'm sorry. And then we'll work on arranging a second chance so I can show you how much I love you."
She stared at him, certain she had somehow made up this entire scenario. If she blinked hard enough, the very determined, very disheveled man with tortured eyes would simply disappea
r.
"Aw, hell. You want me to crawl, right?" His mouth twisted. "To turn myself inside out telling you how I'd die before I'd ever hurt you again." He ran his hand through his hair, his eyes narrowing. "Okay, I'm so sorry, I'm sick with it," he all but shouted at her. "I go to bed at night and wake up after a couple hours in a cold sweat because I keep seeing your face looking up at me, those big eyes pleading with me." His voice choked, and he dropped his head. "Carly, I swear if you asked me to stop, it didn't get through." He shook his head, then lifted his gaze to hers. "But that's not an excuse. What happened was my fault, all my fault. I'm supposed to tell you all this in a letter, but—"
She stiffened. "A letter? What kind of letter?"
He felt his face getting hot. "It's in the nature of an assignment for this sort of class I'm taking." He saw a strange look come into her eyes, but he was too whipped to even attempt to define it. As it was, he was lucky he hadn't already keeled over at her feet.
"The same 'class' Ian is taking?" she asked in a quiet voice that had him backing down hard on the sliver of hope he'd nurtured while he'd dragged himself up three endless flights.
"Yeah." He dropped his gaze. "He's a good kid, Carly. I know that's hard for you to believe."
"I don't want to talk about Ian. I want to talk about you."
He brought his gaze up slowly, and she saw him quickly brace his shoulders. And then he waited, his eyes steady and dark with shadows. "Whatever you want."
"First, I want a handkerchief, if you have one."
He drew his eyebrows together, but he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded handkerchief.
"Thanks," she murmured before using it to wipe her cheeks and blow her nose. "I never cry, you know," she said. "It's so self-indulgent."
He looked puzzled, and then a little gleam came into his eyes. "Why do I think that's a quote from your mother?"
"Because it is." She moved closer, and her scent enveloped him, leaving him raw and needy. "Can we go back to the first part of this conversation?" she asked solemnly, her hand toying with the middle button of his shirt.
"Uh, which part?"
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