Blindsided

“Come again?” he asked, stunned and even more appalled. “You know nothing about hockey but you think you can coach?”

“The sea of red ink is deep. Really deep,” she explained, her eyes darkening. “I’ve already let John Ingram—the GM—go and taken over his responsibilities. The office staff has been pared down to one. Looking at the team’s record so far, I figure no one can do worse than Carl Spady when it comes to coaching. I’ll promote the current assistant coach and play his second for no pay. And when we get back into black, I’ll leave the bench and hire the best I can to replace me.”

His head pounded. “You’re nuts.”

“Maybe,” she allowed. “Mostly, I’m determined.”

“The men won’t play for a woman.”

“They’re not men. They’re boys,” she calmly countered. “The average age is twenty-three. And their choice is to play for the Warriors or go home. I may not know much, but I do know that we’re the bottom rung of the professional hockey ladder.”

With her at the helm and on the bench…? The publicity would be incredible. The minors’ first female coach of a men’s team. The tickets to the freak show would go like hotcakes. She’d make money out of it. Hand over fist. But the players… God, being relegated to an unaffiliated team in the Central Hockey League was humiliation enough for them. Adding professional pity to it… Thank God it wasn’t his problem. His smile was grim and tight and he both knew it and didn’t care. “You have a lot to learn, Ms. Talbott. You might want to start with a copy of Hockey for Dummies.”

“I’ve read it from cover to cover. Twice,” she assured him. “And I bought myself some books on practice drills, too. They don’t make all that much sense at this point, but they will eventually.”

He’d bet the boat that she’d never even laced up a pair of skates. The poor bastards. All the Warriors wanted was to make a living playing a game they loved. It wasn’t much of a living and as dreams went it was a long shot at best, but… Jesus F. Christ. Did they have any idea of what was coming down the ice at them?

“Carl Spady pulls down a hefty five-figure salary,” she said, interrupting his nightmare. “I’d rather pay it to you.”

And he’d rather give up his good eye. “I’m making a solid seven-figure one sitting right here in this deck chair.”

“So I’ve heard.”

She’d said it softly, but there was an edge to her tone that made it ring like an insult. He held his breath and tamped down the instinct to charge squarely into the challenge. It took a of couple seconds and a conscious effort to unclench his teeth, but he eventually managed a fairly even, “Oh?”

She didn’t reply. Instead, she leaned down and flipped open the leather bag at her feet. “Here’s my card,” she said in the next second, straightening to hand him a fuzzy-edged card. “Please consider the offer and let me know what you decide.”

He looked down at the business card. Pink. With some fancy, feminine font. Pink! “There’s no thinking to be done, Ms. Talbott,” he declared as he tossed the card on the table beside his drink. “The answer’s ‘no thank you.’ I’m not even remotely interested.”

“Well, if you’re sure…” she said while she rose to her feet.

Logan gained his own, reached down, snagged the handle of her briefcase, and held it out to her saying, “I am.”

She had to tilt her head way back to meet his gaze. For a long second she seemed to be considering him, chewing on the inside of her cheek as her eyes darkened. Then the boat shifted slightly beneath them and she rocked back, unbalanced. Even as he reached out to steady her, she righted herself with a tight smile and turned away.

His arms fell back to his sides as she put the briefcase on the seat of the chair and opened it again. From it she drew a thick, brown expansion folder. Handing it to him with both hands, she explained, “Tom built this file over the years. Since there’s no reason for me to keep it, I think he’d probably want you to have it.”

He looked down to see his name scrawled across the front flap in black magic marker. The thing was stuffed to the gills and weighed a ton.

“Mr. Dupree?” She waited until he looked up. “If you change your mind…”

“Not going to happen,” he assured her blandly, plunking the file down on the table.

“Just the same,” she went on as she closed her case and took it in hand. “I’m on my way to the airport. My son has a ‘Hockey in Focus’ class tonight and I promised to have locker room treats for everyone afterwards.” She moved toward the walkway, adding as she went, “You can reach me on my cell after six. I’ll either be at home, making brownies, or at the rink, handing them out.”

Brownies. Probably with little pink sprinkles on top. Did she make them for the Warriors, too? Did she send them out on the road with little care packages tied up with pink ribbons? She probably put notes inside reminding them to eat sensibly and to remember to brush their teeth.

“May I ask you a personal question, Mr. Dupree?”

He brought his attention back to the marina. She stood on the floating dock, shading her eyes with her hand again. He shrugged his permission and refrained from mentioning that he considered an answer optional.

“My son is twelve. The first time he ever set foot in an ice rink was the day after Tom’s funeral. The hockey bug seems to have bitten him just as he stepped inside the door. As a man who played the game, can you give me some idea of what the odds are that it might be nothing more than a passing interest?”

Twelve? If he was remembering right, that made the boy a Pee Wee. The second year kids were allowed to check. Having to learn to skate while getting hammered into the boards meant that the kid was either a masochist or had found a passion. Given that his mother was an obvious loony tune… He decided to give the kid a break and yank Mama’s chain. “I hope Tom left you some stock in CCM.”

She arched a brow. “CCM?”

God, she really was beyond clueless. “It’s a company that makes hockey gear,” he supplied. “Along with others like Easton, Bauer, and Itech. Just to name a few. Didn’t you notice the names when you bought him his equipment?”

“I didn’t buy it. The Warriors outfitted him with their old stuff and hauled him out onto the ice. I was too busy worrying about broken bones to pay any attention to the labels.”

What a typical mom. Logan chuckled and shook his head. “Hockey players will do anything to bring another guy into the fold. Does the kid nag you about getting to the rink on time?”

The look on her face was answer enough. His own mother had often worn the very same exasperated expression. “He starts in two hours before we have to leave the house.”

“It sounds to me like he’s been pretty well bitten. Brace yourself,” he warned, grinning. “It’s a long, hard, expensive haul.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, rolling her eyes as she turned away.

The question came out of the blue and tumbled off his tongue before he could even think to stop it. “Why did Tom leave you the team?”

She paused and looked over her shoulder to meet his gaze. “I normally charge ten bucks for the story,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “But if you’ll take the job, I’ll tell you for free.”

Damn, she was cute. In a pink, fuzzy, kid sister sort of way. The cameras would love her behind the bench. Is that what Tom had been thinking? “I can live with the mystery,” he countered, knowing that he wasn’t being completely honest about it.

With a quiet laugh, she walked off, waving and calling back, “Have a good one, Mr. Dupree. Talk to you soon.”

Hopefully she had enough good sense to stop holding her breath before she passed out and went face-first into a bowl of brownie mix. Shaking his head, Logan watched her make her way along the floating dock and up the steps to the parking lot. As she climbed into the driver’s seat of a bright red Taurus, he smiled and turned back to the chair and his now watery scotch. She had a nice swing. Not that he wanted it in his backyard, of course. And she did have killer legs—especially considering how short they were.

Logan polished off his drink in one quick swallow. Rolling the empty glass between the palms of his hands, he eyed the expansion folder she’d handed him. There was no reason to open it up and go through it; he knew what was inside. Tom had kept a file on every one of his players. On “his boys.”

With a bittersweet smile, Logan wandered his memories. The Warriors had been Tom’s family, their accomplishments his greatest source of pride. Every morning ten copies of the Wichita Eagle had been delivered to the front office and Tom would cull the sports page, carefully cutting out the articles. One copy was always stapled to the bulletin board by the ticket counter. Another copy went into the individual files. Another was always mailed to the player’s parents with a note from Tom about how pleased he was for the opportunity to know such an outstanding young man, such an outstanding human being.

Being a good person had been important to Tom. Being a good hockey player hadn’t mattered nearly as much to him. He’d insisted that every man on the squad pick a social cause or a community organization and give it at least ten hours a week of volunteer time. It had been part of the playing contract and Tom had made the rounds, checking to make sure the players were where they said they’d be and when. No one had ever gotten away with shirking their charitable commitments. For Tom, giving back had been important.

And when the local paper mentioned the good works, Tom had posted, filed and sent those clippings home, too. Logan’s mother had saved them all. He and his sisters had found them in a box in the bedroom closet after her funeral. Along with them had been cards from her bridge club ladies congratulating her on having raised such a good, caring, talented man.

Logan swallowed down the lump in his throat and rose from the chair. He needed another drink, he told himself as he headed for the liquor cabinet below deck. He didn’t need to feel guilty or the least bit obligated about a damn thing.

Chapter Two

There was the good, the bad and the ugly. And then there was the Wichita Warriors. They had exclusive claim to the deepest pit of god-awful that Logan had ever seen. He gazed out over the sparse crowd, mentally calculating the gross. Unless the concession contract was a good one, Catherine Talbott was going to be paying expenses out of her own pocket this week. What did it cost her per game to rent the Kansas Coliseum these days? Public venues seating nine thousand didn’t come cheap. It had cost a fortune when he’d played here and odds were the rent hadn’t gone down in the past twenty years.

Arena rent, office rent and overhead, hockey equipment, insurance, travel expenses… Add in the player salaries. Minor leaguers—especially those in the west—didn’t make huge amounts of money, but considering the Warriors’ performance in tonight’s game, hell, if they were pulling down five bucks an hour they were being overpaid.

The ref brought the puck to the face-off circle in the Warriors’ own end and Logan watched the players slide into position. Wheatley, the center and a left-hand shooter, stood at the dot with his back to the goal. Vanderrossen and Stover fell in on either side of him and opposite the Austin Ice Bats’ wingers. Andrews and Roth, the Warriors’ defensemen, slipped in behind their teammates, checking over their shoulders to make sure they weren’t blocking their goalie’s view. Rivera nodded and set himself at the outside edge of his crease.

The ref did his quick visual check with the linesmen, and Logan drew a breath and held it. The puck dropped. It was still in midair when Vanderrossen flung his stick and gloves to the ice and himself at the opposing winger. Stover did the same on the other side. The whistle came in the next second—but about a half second after the puck ricocheted off Andrews’s shin guard and wobbled through Rivera’s wide open five hole.