One Night with a Quarterback

by Jeanette Murray

He sighed. “I didn’t know—”

  “About me, yes, I understand. I’m just saying, there are two sides to every story.”

  Ken nodded shortly. “Fine. The point is, from now on . . . no lies. No deceptions. I’ve been looking into your background, and from what I can tell you’re a woman with her head on her shoulders. Good job, active volunteer work, no trouble with the law. No major scandals brewing.”

  Cassie blinked. Odd, to hear her life summed up in a succinct bullet point list. And sort of . . . boring.

  Ken leaned back again, his gaze wandering to a wall of photographs to the left of his desk. Cassie’s eyes followed. Several frames held moments from his own NFL days, playing for the Lions, then the Patriots. And more recent ones of his coaching days with the Bobcats.

  But the one that made her breath catch was smack dab in the center of the photo cluster. Ken, with his arms around a pretty blonde grinning up at him, and two young girls—maybe eight and ten—standing in front of them smiling at the camera. They all had flowery leis and Ken wore an obnoxious Hawaiian-print shirt.

  His family. Her . . . family? Could she really call them that when they’d never met?

  Oh, she wanted to. She wanted that so badly her fists clenched together in her lap.

  “My wife, Tabitha.” His voice was low. “Love of my life.”

  The pain was dull, more like an ache. But it surprised her to feel it at all, as he spoke about a woman who wasn’t her mother.

  “She’s an amazing woman. And our daughters, Irene and Mellie. They’re sixteen and fourteen now.”

  Her sisters. Half sisters, technically. But it was all she could do to stop from reaching out and touching the photograph.

  The family she’d desperately wanted growing up.

  The tightness in her throat came back and she coughed a little to mask it.

  Sensing her inability to speak, he went on. “That photo’s from their first trip to Hawaii, several years ago. Visiting some extended family on my side.” He looked at her then, brows furrowing. “Your side, too.”

  That’s right. Making her . . . well, as mixed-ancestry as anyone else in America. She tried another cough, “Fourteen and sixteen, huh? That’s gonna be hell when they start dating, if they haven’t already.”

  His scowl deepened. “Dating? Hell no. They’re too young for that. Irene barely started driving. Give a man a minute to recover.”

  She chuckled a little at that, the sound breaking on a jagged edge. God, she had to pull herself together. “So I’m in town for awhile. I know the timing isn’t the greatest, with your, uh, you call it a pre-season, I think? But it’s the only opening my company had for me to take a semi-leave of absence. I’m still doing some small jobs via telecommute but I’m ninety percent free. So I hope—”

  “It’s fine,” he cut in. “You’re mine. I want to get to know you, no matter what time of the year it is. It’s just that the season brings some . . . interesting complications.” He glanced once more at the photo, then leaned forward. “My family is an active part of my work. My wife comes to all the home games; the girls too, if they’re available. They do interviews, when appropriate, media blips, that sort of thing. We sponsor several charities that hinge on our good name and long-standing pristine reputation in the Santa Fe community. I’ve got a rep for being a family man, and all three of my girls are used to the local media. I’m not going to lie about who you are. You’ve heard where I stand on lies. So that means eventually, we’re going to be explaining your relationship to me.”

  Media attention. Here it came. She took a big breath and nodded, waiting for it.

  “I want you to get to know my daughters. Your sisters,” he added, as if he’d just put that together himself, looking a little surprised by it. For a man who appeared in control, it was the first hint he was still processing the news himself. “But I’m not going to put up with a poor reflection on my family, or a bad influence on my teenage daughters. I agreed to you coming out here because thus far, you’ve appeared to be a smart, head-on-straight young woman. Please don’t prove me wrong.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” Not that she had any plans to turn all Miley Cyrus–crazy anytime soon. But as much as she wanted to get to know her father, she wasn’t going to kill her social life and wear an Amish bonnet either.

  “There are rules. The first, is that you’re going to keep a low profile until we’re ready to make a statement. You’ll have a little media training, you’ll do select interviews, and you’ll follow the script we set out for you. I’ve already spoken to the PR rep for the team, discretely, about how to manage this situation. His opinion is we should get ahead of it. Control the story. Make it a non-issue so the media follows suit and the story is over before it even begins. Introduce you to them rather than waiting for them to find you, as if you were a secret.”

  Made sense. There was no way she could figure out how to navigate the media herself. Cassie nodded her acceptance.

  Her father mimicked the nod, approval at her agreement. “Rule two, we—Tabitha and I—want you to move into the pool house on our property. It’s a self-sufficient home, more like a guest cottage, with a small kitchenette. But we want you nearby.”

  To watch over? Or to make it easier to bond? She wasn’t about to argue.

  “Last rule . . . no men.”

  She blinked at that. Exactly what . . .

  He sighed and rubbed at his temples. “I won’t lie, Tabitha threw that one in, but I agree. We’ve got two teenagers in the house. The last thing I want them seeing is a revolving door to the pool house. Or even a door opening at three in the morning with a man, period. Who you date when you’re back in Atlanta is your business, but for now, just keep it off the table.”

  “Uh, right. Sure. No dating.” Was her face as red as it felt? She brushed the backs of her fingers over her cheek, relieved to find it still cool to the touch. The way this conversation was going, she wouldn’t have been shocked to find them in flames.

  “And from there . . . just behave. I expect it of my teenagers, so I will give you the same guidelines. The media watches the Jordan family, locally anyway. And you better believe if something major happened to my children, national media would be all over it. You are, by extension, a part of that family now. But I find out you’re lying, or doing something to tarnish the name or cause stress for my family—the three women I love most in this world—then we’ll have to cut this reunion short. I have two young girls to think about.”

  It was a hard line, but one she had expected. Which was exactly why she’d taken the last night out to get the jitters out of her system.

  No, no thinking about Trey. Her breasts tingled a little just remembering his touch from the night before. And how much she was going to be thinking about it for the long, well-behaved season ahead. She battled a flush as she looked her father in the eyes. “Sure thing, Ken.”

  His brows rose a little at that. Was he surprised at her easy acceptance, or the name? Damn if she was going to call her father Mr. Jordan. But she also wasn’t about to call him Dad.

  That was a position he’d have to earn . . . just like she’d earn her way into the family she’d always dreamed of.

  * * *

  Trey walked into the conference room and settled down next to the assistant head coach, Burt Talbin, and blinked back the fuzzy haze that crept in the edges of his vision.

  A night wasted. Or, more specifically, the last dredges of a night and the dawn wasted. Picking Stephen up from the drunk tank and taking him home to babysit was not how he wanted to spend the rest of the evening. His plan to return to Cassie’s room an hour later had been squashed. And this morning, when he called the hotel to be connected to her room, the phone had rang without answer.

  With a full day of meetings and a workout scheduled, he couldn’t afford to call again until that evening. He could only hope she was back in her room by then. Or that she hadn’t checked out and was gone.

  To his left, running
back Josiah Walker slid a to-go cup of coffee in front of him. “Need a hit?”

  “Nah. I’m good, thanks man.” He smiled with gratitude to his best connection.

  “That stuff is poison,” Burt warned under his breath.

  “My body is a temple,” both Trey and Josiah said together in monotone.

  “Jackwipes,” Burt said with a smile. “Both of you.”

  “You love us,” Josiah crooned in his country-butter-rich voice. “You really loooooove us.”

  “Holy trinity knows why.” Ken Jordan, Bobcats head coach of five years, stalked in the door and shut it with a snap behind him. “Can we start with business or do you two have to finish a karaoke set first?”

  Josiah cleared his throat and wiped the smile off his face with the back of his hand. “Sorry, Coach.”

  Trey just smirked. Ken blew more hot air than a heater in Maine. He wanted to be a hardass, but could never quite pull it off. At least not with people who knew him enough to see through the act. He was strict, but not quite the callous coach he wanted to portray. The burly chested Hawaiian—whose real first name was Keolamauloa, but had shortened it to Ken to spare everyone the pain of pronunciation—was a marshmallow inside. Loving husband, devoted daddy to two young girls who had him wrapped around their pinkies.

  None of which meant he wasn’t a force to reckon with on the gridiron. His chessboard–like ability to anticipate plays three downs ahead made him a football genius.

  Ken tossed a clipboard and notepad on the table and sat across from them. “Sorry I’m a few minutes late. Got caught up with Simon. The man loves to talk.”

  Simon Poehler, Bobcats head PR man. A chatterbox in the best of times. At worst, you could be cornered for an hour listening to him rant about the evils of reality TV and how it was destroying true media. Trey avoided him at all costs.

  “Boys, we’re in for quite the year. We need to get our heads on straight. I wanted to run a few things by you first, and then we’ll be bringing them to the team. But as captains, you know the drill. You need to be on top of this information.”

  As Ken continued with the same speech Trey had been listening to since his first year with the Bobcats, his mind drifted a little. Apparently a little too much. At one point, his eyes caught movement out the side window and he would have sworn he saw . . .

  Cassie? A woman in a dark blazer with long dark hair pulled back was walking out of the large outer office and into the hallway. He blinked repeatedly then focused again. But the woman was gone.

  Jesus, was he that tired he was projecting his fantasies in real life now?

  Burt nudged him in the shoulder. “Pay attention,” he muttered under his breath while scribbling in his notebook.

  Right. His job. He concentrated again on Ken’s voice. The smooth, dark tones almost lulling him into a coma.

  “Are we boring you, Owens?”

  He blinked again, and realized his head was not upright, as he’d slumped over and pillowed his head on his arms. Shit.

  “Nice nap, Trey?” Josiah asked with a shit-eating grin.

  “Bite me,” he snapped, then rolled his neck and sat up. “Sorry, Coach. Long night.”

  Ken opened his mouth like he was going to lay one out, then paused to reconsider. “Problem?”

  He debated saying something, anything, about Stephen’s little mishap. Maybe an ass chewing from the head coach would straighten him out like Trey had yet to do. But he couldn’t throw his best friend under the bus. He wasn’t ready yet to take it that far. “No problem. Just . . . lost track of time.”

  Ken scowled at that. It sounded irresponsible, but it was the best he could come up with. “Head in the game, Owens.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  And that was the end of that.

  Trey listened through the rest of the meeting, which wasn’t so much information, more so a pre-cursor to the full team meeting they would have on the field later. But Ken believed in having the captains as well versed in team knowledge as the coaches. Leaders on the field, leaders off, the Bobcats way. Then he sent them out, much earlier than expected, saying something about “shit to do today.” Whatever that meant. Didn’t they all have shit to do?

  Trey stood up, but Burt settled a meaty hand on his shoulder and pushed back down.

  “I assume this has something to do with Stephen. How bad?”

  Trey couldn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Just the drunk tank. No damages, no fights, just some rowdiness and a trip downtown in a black-and-white taxi.” At least, that’s how he’d left it early that morning when he’d been confident Stephen wouldn’t choke on vomit and he could race to the office for the meeting.

  Burt shook his head, then pressed his thumbs to his eyes in a gesture both Trey and Josiah recognized. They slid glances at each other, silently daring each other to be the first to say something.

  Burt leaned back in his chair and grunted before saying, “How bad are we talking? Counseling once a week bad, or in-patient rehab bad?”

  Trey debated a moment. “Probably the former, but I’m not a shrink. And frankly, I think you’ll be hard-pressed to get him to go to rehab.”

  “If he wants to play, he’s gotta change something. He can’t play from the inside of a cell, and it sounds like that’s the direction he’s heading,” Burt pointed out.

  Trey didn’t disagree.

  “Ken will lose his shit if he finds out there’s been trouble.” The coach’s dark eyes watched Trey warily, then said, “Fix it.”

  The minute Trey walked out the door, Josiah put a hand on his shoulder to slow him down.

  “Where’s the fire?”

  He kept his face bland and took the speed-walk down to a stroll. “No fire. Just anxious to check on a few things.”

  Josiah’s face sobered a little. “You heading right over to talk to Stephen?”

  “Not quite yet. Frankly, I doubt he’d be awake anyway.” And they both needed a little time to let the ramifications of his teammate’s actions to sink in. “I’ve just got a few things to get done before the meeting.”

  His friend nodded and veered off at an intersecting hallway. “See ya later then. I’m off to go charm April out of a cookie or two.” April was the team’s social media director, and she always had a stash of sweets in her desk.

  It was on the tip of his tongue to mock his friend for sweets while in training, but then his mind drifted back to a damn good plate of pancakes and some delicious company. Wisely, he waved in good-bye, waited several seconds, then kicked it up a notch to bolt out the building. He barely managed a “See ya later, Kristen,” to the front desk assistant before stepping into the muggy morning air. It was the opposite of a fish out of water. Suddenly, his lungs felt like they were drowning.

  He fought the urge to gasp for fast breath and controlled his intake to slow, steady breaths. God, after a handful of years, you’d think he’d have acclimated by now. But it almost always caught him off guard. But then again, coming from Minnesota, this was about as far out of his comfort range weather-wise as you could get and still be in the US.

  His phone was out of his pocket while he walked, head down, toward the parking garage. He found the hotel number, dialed, and gave them Cassie’s room number. After five rings, he muttered a curse and hung up.

  Okay, so she was out shopping with her friend. Or doing . . . whatever it was she was in town to do. He’d try again in a few hours. Maybe again after practice. If that didn’t work, he might just happen to be in the area again that evening.

  And was this how stalking started? He reached into his pocket for keys, preparing for the cool shade of the parking garage just steps away when he heard the telltale shriek.

  Damn.

  He summoned up a wide grin and turned as several girls, college age maybe, rushed him. One’s shopping bag smacked hard against his knee. Oh, God. Shoebox. Definitely a shoebox . . . with bricks in it.

  “Hi there, ladies.”

  Autographs were begged for, photos
with phones taken. One asked if he’d tweet from her account to her followers, which he did without a problem. Why not? But it was another fifteen minutes before he could extract himself from the semi-circle of fandom and get to his car.

  His head hit the headrest with a soft thunk. He never got used to that. The attention and terrifying hero-worship that came along with the jersey.

  How was Cassie going to react when he told her the truth? The same fanatic hero-worship he’d just encountered? Or would it not even blip her radar?

  Or is she going to be annoyed you lied from the start and wore a disguise, not even admitting who you were once you’d slept with her?

  Only one way to find out.

  Chapter Five

  Cassie folded the last outfit and placed it in her suitcase, zipping the top and setting it to the side. Other than her pajamas, she was done packing. Though, she’d only brought a small amount of clothing with her to begin with. If things had worked out, Anya promised to mail her some more clothes from her closet. Properly coordinated, of course.

  Not gone three hours, and she already missed her friend desperately. Anya had been a hardcore good sport on the long drive out from Atlanta, for what amounted to a lot of sitting in a hotel room waiting on Cassie. But she’d done it, because that’s what they did for each other. And now Anya was in the air, halfway back to Hartsfield-Jackson. Halfway back home.

  She had one more night by herself, and in the morning, she’ll be meeting her sisters and . . . Tabitha. Okay, stepmother was just too weird of a title. It implied a familial relationship that wasn’t there. Yet. But her sisters, she couldn’t wait to meet.

  Someone knocked at the door, and she grabbed her phone to make sure it wasn’t Anya. It would be just her friend’s luck to have the flight cancelled and have to take a taxi back to the hotel. But her messages were empty. So a wrong room, since it wouldn’t be housekeeping. That’s what the “do not disturb” sign was for.

  The knock became a bang, and a muffled voice called her name. A deep voice.

  “Trey?” She sprinted for the door, catching herself just before she yanked it open in excitement. Chill, chill . . . try to act like a mature adult. With a deep breath, she opened the door slowly and smiled. “Hey.”