Snap Decision
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright © 2018 by Cedrona Enterprises
Blurb
Dedication
Author’s Note
Chapter 1—What Goes Up
Chapter 2—Must Come Down
Chapter 3—Animal Attraction
Chapter 4—The Cat’s out of the Bag
Chapter 5—Tripped Up
Chapter 6—Third-Down Conversion
Chapter 7—Autograph Party
Chapter 8—Goal-Line Stand
Chapter 9—Standing in the Pocket
Chapter 10—Left of Center
Chapter 11—Holding Penalty
Chapter 12—In the Shotgun
Chapter 13—Pushed Back
Chapter 14—Broken Tackle
Chapter 15—Stripped of the Ball
Chapter 16—Picked Off
Chapter 17—Fumbled Return
Chapter 18—Naked Screen
Chapter 19—Kicking it Away
Chapter 20—Turned over on Downs
Chapter 21—Third-Down Conversion
Chapter 22—Blown Coverage
Chapter 23—Block in the Back
Chapter 24—Protecting the Blind Side
Chapter 25—The End Run
Chapter 26—Clashing Helmets
Chapter 27—Red Zone
Chapter 28—Final Seconds
Author’s Note
Complete Booklist
About the Author
Snap Decision
A Seattle Steelheads Football Classic
By Jami Davenport
Copyright © 2018 by Cedrona Enterprises
Copyright © 2012 by Cedrona Enterprises as Forward Passes
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Jami Davenport. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
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The Seattle Sockeyes®, Seattle Steelheads™, and Seattle Skookums™ are fictional sports teams. Game On in Seattle™ is a series of sports romance novels The names and logos are created for the sole use of the owner and covered under protection of trademark.
This book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Blurb
Bad boy quarterback Tyler Harris plays ball for a living and breaks hearts for a hobby.
With two championships in as many years, Tyler is the best quarterback in the league. Gorgeous and rich, he's at the top of his game. Women love him. Men want to be him. Only Tyler's not feeling the love. In fact, he's not feeling anything at all. Licking his wounds after a scandal and a breakup with his longtime girlfriend, he retreats to a run-down mansion on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest. Once there, Tyler is blindsided by the sassy redhead next door. He knows that he's met his match and possibly his soul mate. There's one problem. She doesn’t feel the same way.
Lavender Mead has a good reason to dislike jocks, namely an absentee father who deserted the family to coach college football. By all accounts, her new neighbor is everything she deplores in a man. But Tyler's not the shallow superstar she expected, and she's reluctantly drawn to football’s unabashed bad boy. Once she gives in to his considerable charms, the two are so hot together, they're combustible.
As the clock ticks down, can they commit to each other forever? Or will they both fall short of the goal at the last minute?
Dedication
To all those children from broken homes who were made to feel disloyal because they wanted a relationship with both parents. Guilt is a powerful thing, but love and forgiveness conquers all.
Author’s Note
This book was previously published under the title Forward Passes as part of my Seattle Lumberjacks series. It has been rewritten and republished as Snap Decision and has been rolled into the Seattle Steelheads series. The events in this story take place seven years prior to Blindsided.
Chapter 1—What Goes Up
A man about to win his second Super Bowl should be a lot more excited about it.
Like a well-programmed robot, Tyler Harris zeroed in on his receiver, instinctively calculated the distance, and hurled the ball into the air. The second the football left his hands he knew it’d be a touchdown catch.
His cousin, and the Seattle Steelheads’ top wide receiver, Derek Ramsey, blazed into the end zone with his lightning speed, spun around at the exact right moment, and caught the ball.
Ty waited for the smugness, the confidence, the satisfaction to surge through him. He waited for the greatest natural high on earth to engulf him, a high better than the best sex—and that was pretty damn fucking good.
Usually.
But nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.
Two more minutes to glory. The defense took the field and held the Bruins. The clock ticked off the last seconds until the scoreboard displayed 00:00.
The stands erupted. Confetti blinded Tyler in a snowstorm of red, white, and blue. The stuff swirled through the air and stuck to his sweat-soaked uniform. Teammates slapped his back. Coaches hugged him. The roar of the fans deafened him. Sportscasters crammed microphones in his face and barked questions at him. Rabid reporters yanked on his Number Eleven jersey and fought for his attention.
He stood frozen in place, staring at the scoreboard. He felt more like a shell-shocked soldier than a conquering field general who’d led his troops to victory in the final battle and won the war.
Except he wasn’t a general. He wasn’t a fucking hero. He’d never risked his life to save others. He’d never tramped through the desert or the jungle not knowing if his next step would be his last. He’d never sacrificed so others could have a better life—or even have a life. He was just a guy gifted with an athletic body and a no-quit attitude.
He didn’t deserve this. The adulation, the money, the fame…none of it.
But since when did he give a shit if it was deserved or not?
What the fuck was wrong with him?
Every football player lived for this moment from the first second he gripped a football. It should’ve been the happiest time of his life, a defining moment in a career of defining moments. Two Super Bowls under his belt and a sure MVP of the game. He was a future Hall of Famer with a lot of gas left in his tank, still in his prime, not even thirty years old. The press touted him as the hottest QB in the league.
Nowhere to go from here b
ut…down.
Nothing had been the same since Tyler and his cousin had befriended a sick and lonely teenage football player who’d been abandoned. Ryan had been fighting cancer, and it was too much for his alcoholic mother to handle. The team embraced Ryan and took responsibility for his well-being. Ever cheerful and optimistic, the teenager lost his valiant battle a week before the Super Bowl.
Tyler busted his ass, as did his teammates, to win the championship for Ryan. After that, everything changed. Try as he might, Tyler couldn’t resurrect his passion for the game, for life, for anything. Hell, not even for sex.
Like a disembodied spirit, he observed the scene, detached and way too fucking melancholy in the midst of the celebratory mayhem engulfing him. Jostled around by the crowd, he barely felt them. He stood in the middle of the crowd, numb, apathetic, and alone. The emptiness smothered him, gnawed at his gut, consumed him.
Regardless of his apathy, he wouldn’t rain on his teammates’ parade.
Forcing a grin he didn’t feel and adopting his cocky façade, he faced the television cameras and gave them what they’d come to expect from him, an arrogant yet entertaining recap of his performance. Then he stood on the podium and made one of his typical fist-pumping speeches laced with wry humor. After which he did every post-game interview with his usual brash panache. No one noticed his mechanical movements or the dead smile.
Was this all there was?
What had happened to his legendary enthusiasm for the game, his penchant for living life on the edge? He’d lost himself somewhere between college jock and superstar athlete, though it hadn’t mattered before. He’d lived in blissful ignorance until that fateful night when Ryan died.
If all the hype and his public image was stripped away, he didn’t have a fucking clue who lived underneath.
All this deep shit rattling around in his brain was way too much introspection for him. He shook off this momentary lapse into deep thought, took a deep breath, and squared his shoulders. In a week, he’d start the relentless pursuit of winning all over again because losing, for Tyler, had never been an option.
Glancing at his watch, he followed his teammates out of the locker room via a back door, down the long hallway leading to buses waiting to take them to the airport. A couple hours and a few glasses of champagne later the team plane touched down in Seattle. Security hustled them past the large crowds to waiting limos.
Waving and grinning, he acknowledged the hordes of fans crammed into every spare inch of terminal space. He paused and breathed in the crisp Seattle air. His teammates shouted to each other, planning parties that would last well into the morning.
Cass, his longtime fiancée and even longer-time girlfriend, would expect to attend every one of them. She’d already texted him with her location at a teammate’s home on Lake Washington. The Vegas line against them ever getting married had once topped out at fifty-to-one and dipped to fifteen-to-one after he’d set a date for two weeks from today.
Claustrophobia set in, smothering him. He was trapped, trapped in a career he no longer had a hunger for. His self-created bad-boy image pigeonholed him in a role he wasn’t sure he wanted to play. His upcoming wedding in two weeks weighed him down with doubt. Cass and he were fire and ice. Hot as hell one moment and barely speaking to each other the next.
He needed to escape, clear his head, gain some clarity.
Tyler slid behind the wheel of his sports car and accelerated out of the underground parking garage. His wheels spun on the rain-slickened streets as he turned a corner too quickly. Instead of heading toward I-5 and Mercer Island for a night of celebration, he turned in the opposite direction, dodging in and out of cars on the four-lane street. The light ahead turned yellow; Tyler punched the gas.
And slammed right into the back of a police car.
Chapter 2—Must Come Down
Lavender Mead sniffled and rubbed her puffy eyes. They burned like hell from crying most of the night and into the morning. Hugging herself tight, she blinked back more tears.
All around her, fellow islanders hunched their shoulders against the incessant February rain as they gathered in clusters near the shore of Outlaw Bay. The protected bay had been named for all the smugglers, rumrunners, and various other criminals who’d sought refuge there, not to mention the Harris family of the 1920s, renowned for their bootlegging, among other things.
Behind her, Art Harris’s decrepit mansion clung to the slope above the rotting marina like a stubborn old lady refusing to surrender to the ravages of time.
Dang, but Lavender was going to miss the old bachelor.
She’d met Art eight years ago, shortly after moving next door to Twin Cedars, his run-down estate. At nineteen she’d just dropped out of college. She’d had no future plans, an island-sized chip on her shoulder, and a fondness for self-destruction. Madrona Island was one of Washington’s San Juan Islands, nestled between the Olympic Peninsula and Vancouver Island and a fitting refuge for someone who wanted to disappear for a while. With only a few thousand full-time residents, Madrona was home to billionaires, artists, recluses, and nature lovers.
The crotchety old man had chewed her ass for feeding his fat cat, who was on a diet. How the heck was she to know? The cat had bitched at her door, and she’d assumed he was a stray—a very fat stray. Art’s cantankerous attitude hadn’t fazed Lavender in the least. Impressed he couldn’t intimidate her, he’d invited her to sit on the marina bulkhead with him and fish. They never caught anything, but they talked a lot.
The next day, Lavender had cooked her five-alarm chili and carried it over to him. One bite and two glasses of water later, he declared it the best damn chili ever. From that point on, they’d forged a lasting friendship, a lonely old man and a lonely young woman. Art filled a hole left by a dad who chose football over his daughter. In exchange, she became his family. At least, the only family who gave a shit about him.
Now her one port in the storm was gone.
Another sob welled up in her throat. Funerals were supposed to give closure, help people move on.
Not working so far.
She yanked a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. Mrs. Malacotty handed her another tissue and patted her arm. Lavender managed a weak smile, but nothing eased the ache inside her.
Art died in a nursing home. Alone. She should’ve been there. Instead she’d stayed on the island, kidding herself he’d recover enough to come back home. No amount of praying and singing gave a person closure on that kind of guilt.
A gusty wind blew in off the water, pelting Lavender’s face with rain. The big, fat drops mixed with her tears and left salty trails down her cheeks. Good thing she hadn’t bothered with makeup. She pulled up the hood on her raincoat and hunkered down, teeth chattering. In front of her, the minister droned on like a stubborn mosquito buzzing in her ear. His bright yellow raincoat squeaked every time he shifted his fat body. Lavender hiccupped and covered her mouth with her hand.
Meanwhile, Art’s only nephew stood at the head of the marina dock, not appearing the least bit grief-stricken, most likely counting the hours until the reading of the will.
In all the years she’d been Art’s neighbor, never once had his nieces or nephew visited him, which branded them as despicable people in her book. Senior citizens deserved to be surrounded by family and friends in their golden years, not discarded and forgotten.
Even worse, the nephew happened to be Tyler Harris, a jock to rival all jocks and an entitled asshole.
Tyler stood to one side of the preacher and surveyed the crowd with stony indifference. Dark circles settled in the hollows of his cheekbones, giving him a haggard look. She’d bet he’d been dragged out of some party at three a.m. and hauled to the island.
Tyler’s detached gaze settled on Lavender. Turquoise eyes drilled into her until she squirmed. She’d never seen eyes that color before. Like a South Pacific lagoon, but not nearly as inviting. Regardless, she couldn’t look away, couldn’t shake the spell he’d cast on
her with one hot, unnerving gaze.
Several locks of dark, wet hair fell across his high forehead. His brows drew together as he squinted through the rain. A day’s growth of stubble darkened his cheeks and strong jaw. One corner of his mouth lifted in a halfhearted bad-boy smile. Her heart, already woozy from grief, flopped over and begged for mercy.
She mentally slapped herself for admiring a piece of eye candy during Art’s funeral. What kind of sorry soul did that? Even if it had been a while. Everything had a proper place and time, and this wasn’t it. Wrenching her gaze away, she faked complete attention to the service, all the while fidgeting under Tyler’s shameless scrutiny.
The preacher stumbled through his eulogy as raindrops smudged the ink on his handwritten notes. Finally finished, he nodded to a group of Art’s cronies who’d christened themselves as the Island Yankee Brotherhood. They shuffled forward in their military uniforms, buttons bursting and fabric straining around their shoulders. Except for big Ed. He’d draped his too-small uniform jacket over his shoulders.
Homer, the leader of the brotherhood, lifted a trumpet to his lips and blew out the first notes of what had to be “Taps.” The brothers stood at attention while the other guests held their hands over their hearts. Even Tyler Harris placed one big hand over his chest, most likely to call attention to the Super Bowl ring on his finger. The diamonds on the gaudy thing cut through the gloom like a light in a lighthouse.
Halfway through “Taps,” Homer hesitated. His eyes glazed over. He repeated da-ta-da once, twice, three times, over and over like a broken record stuck in one spot. The brothers didn’t budge one muscle, while the rest of the guests glanced at one another. Finally, Jim Miller elbowed Homer in the ribs. He woke from his stupor after one last earsplitting, off-key note and lowered the trumpet.