Blindsided Page 10

  “How do you know so much about them?”

  It wasn’t going to help her argument to admit that the only real world contact she’d had with the type was driving past them on the fringes of seedy neighborhoods. She took the discussion to the ridiculous instead. “After you go to bed at night, I read encyclopedias.”

  “That is so lame, Mom.”

  “Lame is my middle name. I thought you knew.”

  “That’s not what pimp means anymore.”

  “As you’ve already explained. It doesn’t make any difference. Please don’t use it.”

  “Aunt Millie…” Kyle whined.

  Her hands folded in her lap, Millie smiled and continued to look out the windshield. “I’m afraid that I must agree with your mother on this one, Kyle. In my day, one didn’t say the word aloud.”

  “So what did you call them?”

  “Well-raised young men and women didn’t talk about such subjects. I don’t recall even knowing there were such people in the world until your Uncle Tom took me to New Orleans in August of 1973 and I happened to admire one’s hat and inquired as to where he’d purchased it. Tom, when he could finally manage to get a word out, was horrified that I’d struck up a conversation with the man. Since I didn’t have the slightest idea of why he was so upset over it all, he was forced to broaden my horizons. It was all very shocking, to say the least.”

  “Did he tell you? The hat guy? Where he got it?”

  “He was most helpful. No doubt he was one of the nice but desperate young men your mother was talking about.”

  “Did you end up getting the hat?”

  Millie laughed. “I did. Despite your Uncle Tom’s sputtering and muttering the entire time. It’s in a box up in the attic. We’ll have to get it down someday so you can see it.”

  “When we get home?” Kyle asked as Cat eased onto the off-ramp at Maize Road.

  “You’re going straight to bed when we get home,” she announced, turning the corner and heading north. “It’s way past bedtime. We’ll haul it down tomorrow night.”

  “But I want to visit with Logan.”

  “We’re going to be talking business. And it’s a school night. You’re going to bed.”

  A heavy sigh. “I never get to have any fun.”

  Says the kid who’s been taken to the hockey game tonight, been bought posters and is having them personally autographed. But since reason tended to be confrontational when applied to twelve-year-olds, Cat again opted for the ridiculous. “I know. It’s my job as a parent to make sure that you’re as miserable as possible.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “I’m going for a spot in the Ogre Mom Hall of Fame.” She turned in to the drive and hit a button on the visor to open the garage door. “Things are looking pretty good so far. I figure by the time you’re eighteen, I should be a shoo-in. I hear they do bronze busts of the inductees.”

  “You’re wearing it out, Mom.”

  “I’m enjoying myself,” she countered as she shifted into Park and the car doors were flung open. “Roll with it, kid, and cut me some slack. It’s been a long day and there’s miles of road left to go.”

  “I’m sorry, Catherine,” her sister-in-law offered as they trooped up the steps and into the kitchen. “I didn’t think before I invited Logan by the house. I should have considered the day you’ve put in already and not added to it.”

  Cat hit the wall button to close the garage door. “There’s no need to apologize,” she assured Millie as Kyle turned on the lights in the family room. “I’m fine. And you’re right. It won’t take long for Logan and I to get decisions made.”

  Kyle turned on the television. Knowing that the next step in the process was to throw his body onto the sofa in front of it, she called out, “Shower and bed, buddy. Get moving.”

  He huffed and made a major production of heading for the rear of the house, but he went.

  “Catherine?”

  She plopped her purse down on the end of the serving bar. “Yes?”

  “I’ve forgotten why Logan’s coming by the house.”

  Not unexpectedly. The later in the day it got, the wiffier Millie’s memory became. That she’d held it together this far had been unusual. “So you can give him the pictures of Tom and him. And so he and I can talk about trading some players.”

  “Oh, yes. I’ll go find them.”

  Millie started off and Cat headed toward the sink, saying, “I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”

  “He’s still a very handsome young man, isn’t he?”

  Ah, the pictures had been forgotten again. Millie was sitting on one of the bar stools. “I don’t know that I’d call him young anymore,” Cat observed, “but yes, he’s most definitely still handsome.”

  “He’s never been married. And he hasn’t had a steady girlfriend in over three years.”

  Uh-oh. She suspected she knew the answer, but it was always better to be sure. “And how do we know this?”

  “I asked him and he told me. While we were waiting for you to join us in the parking lot.”

  All right. If she looked at it calmly, it was all a positive. Logan knew Millie was trying to put them together. As long as she made it clear that it was only Millie interested in the possibility, everything would be cool. No cause for mortification. No reason to feel even the least bit awkward around him.

  “You were going to find the pictures for Logan.”

  “Oh, yes. I’ll be right back. I know exactly where they are.”

  Cat smiled weakly. Millie knowing where to find them was one thing, not being distracted along the way to and from was entirely another. They’d been really lucky so far. Millie hadn’t started the oven or the stove and then spaced out. And she hadn’t noticed that all the candles in the house had disappeared. But they were on borrowed time and Cat knew it. Yeah, she’d suspected that finding a live-in elder care specialist wasn’t going to be easy, but geez, she hadn’t expected to have to add “non-Nazi personality” to the selection criteria. The storm trooper orthopedic shoes had been the warning sign on the first candidate for the job. The second one had looked like American Gothic on steroids. Cat shuddered at the memories.

  And then suddenly straightened. Age! Age was the factor! Both of the candidates the agency had sent over were older women, closer to being Millie’s age than her own. She needed someone younger, someone less interested in imposing control and more inclined to be a caring, sympathetic friend.

  And the place to find such wonders were the universities! There were three in town. Surely Wichita State, being the biggest and the public one, had a social work or a nursing or a gerontology degree program. She’d check. And she’d check out Kansas Newman, the Catholic university, too. And Friends, the Quaker college. Surely Quakers didn’t tolerate Nazi behaviors and attitudes. The placement offices were where she needed to go. The people who ran the jobs centers often found part-time work for students. If anyone knew a nice little coed who would jump at the chance of free room and board and a weekly paycheck, it would be the placement people.

  “Where has my brain been?” she asked as she grabbed the phone book. She flipped to the back of the yellow pages. Her jaw dropped. Good God, apparently every college and university in the state had a satellite campus in Wichita. “Who’d a thunk?” she whispered, grinning. “Oh, Lakisha, honey, do I have a job for you tomorrow morning.”

  The coffeepot sputtered and hissed the last of the water into the filter basket. Cat closed the phone book and got a cup from the cupboard. She had just started to pour when the doorbell rang.

  The frantic thud of feet served as a warning to stand clear and as permission to take her time answering it. Cup in hand, she went to the corner where the kitchen met both the family room and the hallway that led past the formal living and dining rooms to the front foyer. From there she could see the glass storm door opening and Logan stepping fast to keep from being swept off the front porch.

  Logan teetered on the brick edge of the porch, balance
d on the balls of his feet, aware that if the kid got any more en thusiastic, he was going to end up in the front bushes. He took the door in hand, both to steady himself and take control of it.

  “Hi, Logan! C’mon in!”

  “Hi, yourself,” he said, crossing the threshold. He handed Kyle the roll of posters in his hand. “It’s a school night. Why aren’t you in bed already?”

  From down the hall, Cat laughed. “Thank you. Say good-night, Kyle, and get going. Have you brushed your teeth?”

  “Yes,” the boy answered as he unrolled the posters and studied the signatures on the lower corners.

  “I’ll check the toothbrush, you know.”

  Kyle looked up at him and muttered, “Mothers.”

  “Would you rather she didn’t care? Consider yourself really lucky that she does and go brush your teeth.”

  The posters snapped back into a tube shape. “You’re a disappointment to men everywhere.”

  “Oh, well,” Logan laughed. “Good night.”

  “Night.” He headed down the hall, paused to kiss Cat’s cheek, said “Night, Mom,” and then turned off to the right and disappeared.

  “Sweet dreams,” his mother called after him. “And don’t forget to tell Aunt Millie good-night on your way past.” Cat turned her attention back to him and lifted her cup. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “Thanks. Black, please.”

  And then she was gone, too. He stood there a second, smiling, and wondering how long it would take her to come back and invite him past the foyer. Probably forever, he decided. The last month had proven that Cat was every bit as stubborn as he was. For the sake of the team, one of them had to give ground. And since there was coffee on hers…

  Logan wandered into the kitchen. “He seems like a really good kid.”

  “He’s a typical twelve-year-old,” she replied, setting a steaming cup of coffee on the counter. “Lately we’ve been pushing the boundaries. Mostly, I think, just to see how firm they are. But, bottom line, he’s a joy to have around.”

  Logan sat on the bar stool and picked up the cup. It was hot, and the brew was good. “Speaking of bottom lines…” he began.

  She arched a brow and took a sip before she said, “How’s the team’s financial one and what can we afford to buy in the player department?”

  “Yep.”

  Standing on the other side of the bar, she leaned down, put her elbows on the counter, and cradled the cup between her hands. “Your best hope is either someone desperate and hungry or consumed with a burning, lifelong desire to live in Wichita.”

  He forced his mind off the desire to touch the breasts under her nicely fitted knit top. He stared down into his cup to make it easier. “That good, huh?”

  “Hey, it’s a whole lot better than it was two months ago. Even one month ago. The bank balance may be low, but at least the ink is black for a change.”

  “Have you put my paychecks back in? And Nic’s?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t Nic tell you to do that?”

  “Yes, he did. I refuse to do so. You’re working, you get paid. I think there’s probably a law about that somewhere. I’m not taking any chances.”

  Damn that stubborn streak of hers. He looked up again, being real careful to bring his attention straight up to her eyes. “Call what we do volunteering, then. We don’t need the money. You do.”

  She took another sip. “Let’s agree to disagree on that for the moment, okay? What’s important is who you want to trade and how much his replacement is going to cost. Who do you have in mind to let go? And please tell me it’s Wheatley.”

  Whoa, he hadn’t expected that turn. “Why?”

  “He’s the only who’s blown off his volunteering. Yeah, he signed up. At Rainbows to work with handicapped kids. But he’s yet to darken their doors.”

  Yeah, well, that was no surprise. Wheatley wasn’t a team player. But Cat’s thinking on the matter was kinda interesting. Enough that he was willing to play devil’s advocate just to see more of it. “He’s the leading scorer. He put up two of the four goals tonight.”

  “Big woo.”

  “Winning matters, Cat. And you have to put the puck in the net to do it.”

  “If you have a decent defense, you can get by with fewer goals.”

  What a difference a month made. He grinned. “You’ve been reading your Hockey for Dummies again, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve been reading a lot of books,” she countered, her smile dazzling. “Am I right or wrong on the importance of a good defense?”

  “You’re right. To a certain extent. There’s the fan factor to consider, though. They tend to like goals.”

  “Maybe other places, but not here,” she shot back. “Wichita is different. You’ve got too many things on your mind at the games to watch the crowds, Logan. I don’t, so I have been. And they come to watch their friends, the boys, play. For the new fans, winning doesn’t matter all that much. They just want to be able to talk about it all the next time they see them. At the school, the Y, the hospital. They buy tickets and sit in the stands because they have a personal connection.

  “And Wheatley is the only one who hasn’t brought a single solitary new fan into the Coliseum. I don’t know what he’s like to coach, or how the other boys get along with him, but to me his refusal to haul his own freight in the sales department makes him my vote for adios, vaya con Wayne Gretzky.”

  “That was a pretty impassioned little speech. Have you been practicing it long?”

  “Right off the cuff,” she said, laughing. “And I’m not even warmed up yet. Tell me you want to trade Tiny or Matt and we’re going to go to Fist City.”

  Oh, shit. The fun part was over. “Well…”

  Her smile disappeared. “Which one?” she demanded. “Why?”

  “Both,” he admitted. “And Tyler Vanderossen. Tiny because he’s too slow, Hyerstrom because he’s not big enough, and Vanderossen because he just can’t keep his focus. I think it’s his marriage. He spends more time looking up in the stands for his wife than he spends looking down the ice.”

  She paced back and forth alongside the bar, her hands shoved in her hip pockets. He tried not to think about the nice curves—both front and rear—and couldn’t.

  “No one’s going to want to trade us faster and bigger and laser-focused for slow and small and distracted.”

  He knew all about distracted. He stared back down at his coffee. “Probably not.”

  “So what you’re basically saying is that you’re going to tell them it’s time to pack up and go home.”

  How women could manage to sound both mad and on the verge of tears at the same time… Eyes. Keep it on the eyes. He took a deep breath and looked up again. “I’ll do it with compassion,” he assured her. “I’m not a heartless monster. Hell, if anyone knows what it is like to be asked to turn in your sweater, it’s me.”

  She stopped and grabbed the edge of the counter with both hands. “Can’t you get Tiny to go faster? Isn’t there some way for Matt to compensate for his size? I’ll have a ‘come to Jesus’ talk with Tyler’s wife. I’ve met her before. She’s a twit. I can scare her.”

  She couldn’t scare a mouse. “I’ve tried on the first two, Cat. I’ve honestly tried. And if you want a winning team, they’re the deficits that have to be fixed. I’m sorry.”

  “While Wheatley goes blithely on his merry little way.”

  At least the tears weren’t there anymore. Now she was just mad. “I’ll give you that Wheatley’s a major pain in the ass. He’s no coach’s dream. If I can find someone with his skills and a better attitude, I’d gladly send him on down the road.”

  “The rest of the players don’t like him very much, do they?”

  Uh-oh. He knew the sound of a setup when he heard one. “There’s some friction there.”

  “I have a proposition.”

  Oh, God. Here it was. “I’m listening.”

  “Trade Wheatley and see if the othe
rs improve with the new guy on board. It may be a simple matter of chemistry. I’ll still have the talk with Sherry Vanderossen.”

  Aw, shit. It wasn’t going to make any difference. He knew that. But she didn’t and wasn’t about to take his word on it. He could kick himself now or later. Right now, he didn’t feel like dealing with the wrath of Attila the Hen. “How long are you willing to wait for this miracle?”

  “You’ll do it?”

  God save him from perky and big blue eyes. “How long?”

  “Two weeks,” she offered, practically dancing. “If Tiny and Matt and Tyler can’t get it together in two weeks, I won’t say another word and you can do whatever you think needs to be done.”

  Oh, yeah, like he’d lay money down on that one. He scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair. Two weeks wasn’t long enough, but then two years wouldn’t be either. There weren’t going to be any miracles where Tiny, Matt and Vanderossen were concerned. Ever. The sooner the two weeks started ticking, the better. “What are your plans for this Friday night?”

  She got the coffeepot and topped off their cups as she answered, “Popcorn and a DVD from Wally World. It’s Kyle’s pick this week. Which means it’ll be short on plot, lousy on dialogue and long on loud, fiery explosions. Why?”

  “If you think changing the chemistry is the answer, then you get to pick Wheatley’s replacement. That way I don’t get blamed when it doesn’t work.”

  “That sounds fair enough.” She slid the pot back on the warming pad. “What does that have to do with Friday night?”

  “Nic says the Scorps have made some noises about being open to trades. Their center isn’t bad. You need to take a look at him, see if he’s what you have in mind to be Mr. Magic.”

  She tuned and leaned back against the counter by the sink, her arms crossed over her midriff. Her nice, trim midriff. “I can’t leave Millie and Kyle here alone.”