The End Zone: SPORTS ROMANCE (Contemporary Sport Bad Boy Alpha Male American Football Romance) (New Adult Second Chance Women’s Fiction Romance Short Stories)

by Jenna Payne

  She read the book throughout the night, last looking at her watch at 2:45 in the morning. She fell asleep on the overstuffed porch couch sometime near 4:00, cradling the book in her arms.

  The sound of a school bus woke her up just before 9:00 A.M. She only had a few hours to prepare some questions for the interview with Paul and then get ready for work. She made herself some tea and toast and looked over the prepared questions in the press packet given to them by the author’s press office. The questions were for overstressed news people who didn’t have time to read the book, but Casey had read it. She wanted to write her own questions, and she suddenly found that she was making this interview the focal point of her day.

  She wanted to probe this man’s mind. She imagined him sailing across the sea, reading his wife’s heartfelt words, lamenting his lost love and then finally, lamenting his lost boat as it sank with a heaving sigh into the Atlantic. He’d been rescued by a passing container ship after he made a mayday call and was lucky to be alive.

  This guy was awesome, Casey thought. She hadn’t met many men who were both courageous and sensitive. His bio in the back of the book alluded to an interesting life. He had grown up in London, lived all over the world, and worked some interesting jobs while he was trying to get published—as a cab driver in New York City, a drug runner in the Caribbean, and a sailboat captain who did charters on the island of St. Thomas.

  She found herself taking extra care when she got dressed and spent extra time on her makeup. She looked at herself in the mirror. She wasn’t classically beautiful, she thought, but she was attractive. Her straight brown hair rested in a blunt cut on her shoulders, and a light sprinkling of freckles crossed her nose and spread across her cheeks. Her best feature, she’d always been told, were her beautiful blue eyes, which were teardrop shaped and a touch too big for her face. They were the eyes of a sensitive and inquisitive woman.

  She threw on a black blazer over her preppy button down shirt and chose black heels to go with her skirt, making her a few inches taller than her usual 5’4”. This was the best she was going to do this morning, she thought, but infinitely better than the average day in the newsroom.

  “Okay, Mr. Neal,” she said to herself as she walked down the driveway with her shoulder bag. “I’m ready for you.”

  *****

  “You look like you might have had an interview at ABC this morning,” Mark teased her when she walked in to the newsroom at noon.

  “They keep begging me to take their job offer,” she answered as she settled into her desk. “But how could I ever leave you?”

  She took the book from her bag and dropped it on her desk with a thud.

  “This book kept me up all night. It was fantastic.”

  “What was it about?” Mark asked, only half there as he typed on his computer.

  “Um, handsome man sails across the ocean to forget a lost love. Boat sinks. Man is saved. He writes a book.”

  “Sounds intriguing,” Mark answered. “It’s going to be kind of slow around here today. Not much going on. Just keep an eye on that hurricane off the coast of Florida. It looks like it might be bypassing the south and heading north. And oh, get ahold of one of our state reps and quiz him about the new fishing regulations. This could turn into a big story here.”

  “Got it,” Casey said, paging through the copy Mark had been writing all morning so she could get caught up on what was trending. Her first newscast was at 1:00 that afternoon and she had an hour to prepare for it. She decided she needed to hunt for some fresh news.

  Julie was the front desk receptionist, and when she called Casey at 1:45 to tell her that Paul Neal had arrived, Casey was buried in work. She was trying to edit sound bites from some phone interviews she’d done and get the 2:00 on the air. She’d have to go live on the hour rather than tape it beforehand and she’d be a few minutes late for the interview with Paul.

  “You know what, Julie? Send him back here,” she said. “He can hang out here with me for a few minutes.”

  A few moments later, Paul Neal walked into the newsroom holding a folder and a few copies of his books. He was wearing jeans, a polo shirt, and a pair of loafers. He was a tad bit scruffy-looking in a sophisticated way, but his dark brown eyes were penetrating. He was a questioner, Casey decided, someone who thought and felt deeply about everything. He was a writer inside and out and he looked like one.

  “Mr. Neal,” she said, stretching out her hand. “It’s so wonderful to meet you. You kept me up all night with your book. I loved it.”

  He seemed pleased that she’d read it and he smiled as he took her hand. “Thank you so much,” he said. “I’m really glad that you read it and liked it.”

  “I’m going to be a few minutes here,” she said, grabbing her copy from her desk. “Please have a seat. I’m going to do the news live and then I’ll have time for our interview. Make yourself comfortable.”

  She trotted off to the sound booth and closed the door. She could see him from the picture window looking back at her. She put on her headphones and waited for the news jingle to cue her up.

  During the commercial break, she turned around and looked at Paul through the window. He was staring right back at her. They smiled at one another.

  When her newscast was over, she walked back into the newsroom and threw her copy on her desk.

  “You have a tremendous voice,” he said. “It was great to see you doing your thing in there.”

  “Years of smoking,” she said with a laugh, not afraid to tell the truth now that she’d quit. “But yes, I definitely have a deep, gravelly voice. Follow me,” she said after she’d gotten two waters from the refrigerator from the hallway. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  They settled into the interview room and Casey got the mikes turned on and positioned on opposite sides of the counter. She cued up the tapes, got her notes in order and didn’t say much as she focused on her tasks.

  He was watching her as she did a mike check. He liked to see women in their place of work, in control of their environment, commanding the moment. He thought she was sexy, and she was definitely very confident—something he liked.

  She nodded to him to let him know she was recording and then sat down to begin the interview.

  “I’m here with Paul Neal,” she said, “the author of Sea Dreams. It’s a memoir about a man who crosses the sea in a wooden sailboat alone. He finds his wife’s diaries along the way, and as he’s coming to terms with his failed relationship, he finds his beloved boat is taking on water in the middle of the Atlantic. Let’s hear more about this intriguing story from the sea captain himself. Welcome, Mr. Neal.”

  “Thank you,” Paul said into his microphone, a bit too softly. He cleared his throat and continued. “It’s great to be here with you.”

  “So,” Casey continued, “before we hear about this incredible adventure of yours, let’s talk a little more about you first. Your book jacket said you’ve been a taxi driver, a drug runner and a boat captain. Tell us more about that.”

  Paul laughed. “Well, like a lot of writers, I’ve done a lot of things other than writing. We’re all waiting for that first novel to be published and we do what we have to do in the meantime.”

  “But a drug runner?’ Casey asked with a laugh. “What was that all about?”

  “Well, I was a charter boat captain in the Caribbean for many years, and you know, someone asked me to make a delivery to another island one day and I needed the money. That was a short-lived career but yes, I don’t hide it on my resume.”

  Casey laughed and looked admiringly at Paul. He was handsome in an interesting sort of way—an intelligent sort of handsome. He had a short beard and brown wavy hair that he tucked behind his ears. His was slight and slim but definitely on the sexy side. He looked like he could find his way around a boat.

  “So, you grew up in London,” Casey said, “and have lived in quite a few countries. Tell us more about your childhood. I want to know what childhood memorie
s inspire a man to sail a boat across the ocean alone.”

  “Independence,” he answered, “is kind of my moniker. I wear it proudly. I guess anyone who would sail a boat long distances alone would have to have an independent streak, be comfortable with himself and his abilities. I grew up in London, although I’m American born. My father was a diplomat. I had an interesting life. We traveled a lot as a family and spent summers in Mallorca. The independence probably came about as a result of my parents. They were every bit the socialites and weren’t around much. I guess you could say they were part of the martini set so prevalent in the lives of diplomats back in the 1950s and 60s. My sister and I kind of raised ourselves in some respects, but always in a beautiful or interesting setting.”

  Casey guided Paul into his story and spent a lot of time having him describe his rescue and what it was like to watch his beloved boat disappear into the waters of the Atlantic as he motored away on the container ship that had picked him up.

  “Did it cross your mind that you might not make it?” she asked him. “I mean, don’t you think it was sheer luck a boat was in the vicinity to pick you up? What was Plan B?”

  Paul laughed again and scratched his chin.

  “You know, it took a while for the boat to sink. It didn’t happen in fifteen minutes. It actually took hours. It was a slow leak and I kept trying to patch it until it became apparent that it was a losing battle. I had plenty of time to radio a distress call. I knew my bearings and I was in a high traffic lane on the Atlantic. I guess you could say I knew it wasn’t my time to go just yet. I planned to survive on my life raft until someone came along to get me, but yeah, my mayday call went out early as the boat began to sink. I’m not sure if that’s luck, but I’m certainly grateful that I’m here today to tell the story.”

  By the time Casey wrapped up the interview, they were feeling very comfortable with one another. She liked this man even better than she did when she was reading his book, and it came through in the interview.

  “That was really terrific,” she told him when she turned off the tape.

  “You are really terrific,” he said, a bit of flirtatiousness evident in his voice. He’d noticed she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, although he’d spotted a picture of her daughters on her desk.

  They talked for a bit, feeling friendly and enjoying one another’s company.

  “Hey, I’m staying with my aunt in Falmouth,” he said. “She’s got plans for this evening, so I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me tonight.”

  Casey paused for a moment, a bit incredulous. Besides work and raising her girls, nothing very interesting had happened in her life in a long while. She wasn’t accustomed to pleasant surprises.

  “Why not?” she said. “I live in North Falmouth, so yeah, let’s get together. I can be ready around 8:00.”

  She gave him her address and walked him to the door of the newsroom.

  “You know,” he said as he turned to walk out the door, “I’m really looking forward to this.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  When Mark called later to relay some things he needed done for the next morning’s newscasts, he’d asked how the interview had gone.

  “Very interesting,” Casey answered. “He’s a very interesting man.”

  ‘But the real question is,” Mark asked, “can he score you a job in New York?”

  “No,” Casey teased back. “But if I ever decide to become a drug runner, that’s a different story.”

  *****

  When Paul Neal arrived in his rental car at 8:10, she was waiting for him upstairs. She yelled out to him through the open screen on the front porch and told him to come up the stairs.

  “What an interesting place,” he said as he walked in. “It has serious beach-y charm.”

  He looked up at the high ceilings and the long railing upstairs that overlooked the first floor. Casey’s books took up an entire side of the room, stacked in ceiling-height bookshelves.

  “Ah,” he said. “I see you’re a reader. I like that in a woman.”

  He strolled over to the shelves and surveyed her titles. “And you have good taste in authors,” he said.

  She poured him a glass of wine and they sat on the porch, looking out at the trees. He spotted some sailboats in the harbor in the distance and rattled off the types of boats he saw.

  “You know,” she said. “You’re really the perfect combination of salty and well-read, but you’ve also got a touch of Indiana Jones in you. I like that.”

  He smiled, admiring the spray of freckles across her nose, afraid to look at her too long because it was easy to get lost in her big blue eyes.

  She’d made reservations at the Chart House, an ocean-side restaurant that looked like a well-heeled yacht on the inside.

  It was a beautiful July night and the side of the restaurant facing the ocean was open so that the tables spilled out onto the patio. They ordered mussels in a white wine sauce with garlic and chopped tomatoes and big crusts of chunky bread. The candlelight lit their faces.

  He ordered them a bottle of crisp Chardonnay and they toasted their interview together.

  “I hope everyone who listens runs out to buy your book,” she said.

  “Thanks to you, they probably will,” he said. “You’re good at that…interviewing people. You are remarkably bright.”

  They chatted over heaping plates of fried clams and tartar sauce and she was struck by how open he was about everything. He told her about finding his ex-wife’s diaries on the boat as he sailed across the ocean and how heartbreaking it had been to learn her true feelings.

  “I can be extremely selfish,” he said, “and I saw that in her journals—how it had affected her. It was hard coming to terms with the part of myself that isn’t very nice. I had a lot of time to contemplate it.”

  He asked her about herself next, how she’d come to live on Cape Cod.

  “I basically married Cape Cod,” she said, explaining how she’d fallen in love in college with a man from the Cape. “He made it clear from day one that he was never going to live anywhere else.”

  “You don’t sound as if you’re happy here,” he said.

  “No, not really,” Casey answered. “Once Robert and I divorced, I realized how limiting the Cape could be, especially for a single woman. There’s not a lot of options for a roving reporter. I’m here for my daughters. They deserve to be close to their father. They didn’t ask for this divorce.”

  “Can I ask what happened to your marriage?”

  “He’s a functioning workaholic,” Casey explained. “He owns a chain of restaurants here and spends a lot of time at them, understandably. The thing is, his eateries are really successful, so it’s hard for him to admit that he has a problem setting his priorities.”

  They each ordered a slice of key lime pie and watched as the sun set in the west. Casey was enjoying herself. It had been a long time since she’d been out on a date, but this man was extraordinary. She didn’t run into a lot of men who had such varied and interesting backgrounds.

  He reached across the table as they enjoyed one last glass of wine. He took her hand and looked into her eyes.

  “You know,” he said, “I’m really enjoying your company.”

  “Me too,” she responded, a small smile and the tilt of her head revealing her shyness.

  “I’m here for a few days doing book signings. I’d love to see you again,” he said.

  “Okay, Captain,” Casey responded. “I’m on board with that.”

  *****

  When Casey walked into the newsroom the next morning, her steps were a little lighter. She seemed to be off in her own little world from the minute she sat at her desk.

  “Why the big smile this morning?” Mark asked.

  “No reason,” Casey responded, looking through a stack of news copy. “Or…it might have something to do with the big date I had last night.”

  “Dish,” Mark said, hoping to hear the details.

/>   “That book author I interviewed yesterday asked me out to dinner last night. We went to the Chart House.”

  “Well, it’s nice to see you joining the human race,” Mark said smiling. “You’re all work and no play most of the time. Are you going to see him again? If you do, you better make plans soon because it looks like Hurricane Betsy is coming up the coast. Take a look at the forecast.”

  He plopped the marine forecast down on her desk, showing the eye of the storm heading right for the Cape.

  “It’s going to be a mess around here for weeks if that storm hits,” Mark said with a big sigh. “Plan to live in the newsroom for at least a week.”

  Casey read the forecast and saw that the first winds of the storm were due to hit on Saturday or Sunday—tomorrow or the next day.

  Mark agreed he’d cover the first few days and that Casey could come in on Tuesday to work the cleanup efforts. She’d be off until then.

  After the 4:00 news was finished, Janette beeped in on the intercom to tell her that Paul Neal was on the phone. Her heart fluttered a bit as she picked up the call.

  “This is Casey Larson,” she said out of habit.

  “The invincible Casey Larson,” Paul said, happy to hear her voice. “Do we still have plans for tomorrow?”

  “Yes, I’m looking forward to it,” she said. “What did you have in mind?”

  “It’s a surprise,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at noon tomorrow.”

  Casey called Robert to let him know about the hurricane forecast and explained she’d have to stay at the radio station for a few days if the storm hit. Robert agreed that the girls would stay with him. He’d probably be closing down the restaurants anyway if it looked like Hurricane Betsy was going to make landfall in the next few days.

  As Casey drove home, she noticed people were beginning to make preparations. The marinas were bringing boats in from their moors and people were boarding up the windows in the front of their homes. She remembered that Paul was due to fly out of Boston on Sunday and she made a mental note to tell him to come up with another plan just in case.