Blindsided Read online

  He tore his gaze from hers and practically attacked his steak. “Only until you can find a decent replacement. When were you planning to tell me that you’d fired Carl Spady?”

  An honest, direct question. Which required the same kid of answer. “Never. I figured that if I did, you’d see it as a form of blackmail.”

  “You figured right.”

  God, it was hard to breathe. And something was wrong with the heater in Hero’s; the place was like an oven. She was dizzy. Queasy, too. And a little voice in the back of her head whined to go home. Another little voice suggested that she tell him to pack up his suspicions and go to hell. She opted for middle ground. “Then don’t sign on. No one’s twisting your arm. I can handle it perfectly well without you.”

  He looked up just long enough to growl, “Yeah, right.”

  Cat laid her fork down, her appetite gone. “I don’t want you coaching my boys thinking that you’ve been boxed into doing it,” she said while she tucked her napkin under the rim of the salad bowl. “They deserve a coach who’s taking them on for the right reasons. They deserve someone who believes their dreams are worth something. If you don’t, then you’re not the right man for the job.”

  “What time is practice and where?”

  Did he believe in them or had he not heard a word she’d said? Or had he heard and just not given a damn? Did it matter which right this minute? She was past tired; she was flat wrung out. If she had to go at it all again… No, not tonight. Tomorrow. She’d be sharper tomorrow, after she’d had some sleep. “Practice is at the rink, 6:00 a.m.”

  “What rink? The Coliseum?”

  Yeah, like she could afford arena ice for practice. In his dreams. “The city ice rink,” she answered. A bit more testily than she’d intended.

  His hands stopped and his gaze came up from his plate. He studied her for a long moment. The edge of his anger seemed to dull a bit. “They didn’t have one the last time I was here. Where is it?”

  “Just west of McLean on Maple. Across the street from the baseball stadium.”

  “How long is practice?”

  “An hour and a half.”

  He cocked a brow. “Get us double that until I tell you otherwise.”

  Who’s paying for the extra time? she silently demanded. You want me to rob a bank on my way home?

  “Who unlocks?”

  “I do,” she answered tightly. “At five.”

  “It’s going to be a short night,” he announced as he laid down his silverware. He glanced over at her barely eaten salad, at her napkin beside it, and apparently came to the conclusion that she was as done as he was. He rose to his feet, saying, “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  It crossed her mind to tell him that she was perfectly capable of finding it on her own, but she bit the words back as he stepped to her chair and put his hand under her elbow to help her rise. Damn him and his timing. She slung her purse over her shoulder as he tossed two twenties on the table. Just when she had a really zingy comeback, he got chivalrous. It took all the righteousness out of the being snarky.

  “Pack it in, gentlemen,” she heard him say from behind her as she headed toward the door. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long, hard day.”

  Yes, it was, Cat admitted to herself as they moved toward their cars. Her agenda had been full before she’d fired Carl, before Logan Dupree had shown up out of the blue. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to wait until daylight to make sure things were set straight. Sleeping on problems never helped; they just made the bed lumpy. She fished the car keys out of her purse and tried to think of what to say, of what questions she needed to ask, what answers she needed to collect. And if they were the wrong answers… Geez Louise, how did you fire someone you hadn’t really hired? How did you question motives and tell someone they weren’t as perfect as you’d thought?

  She stopped at the back of the Jeep, took a deep breath to steady herself and looked up at him. “Look, Logan. I—”

  He shook his head, took the car keys out her hand and walked up the side of the Jeep. She watched him, her jaw dropped. No one had ever unlocked a car door for her. Not ever. Good God. He really was a gentleman. She’d always thought of them as being right up there in the Real Department with the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. But against all the odds, one had—

  She started and winced as he opened the driver’s side door. The sprung door whose front edge popped the front quarter panel every time it swung open or closed. And not quietly, either. The sound made climbing in and out an acutely public declaration of poverty. On good days she could smile about it and tell herself that a car wasn’t anything more than a way to get from one place to another, that the Mom-mobile ran and it was paid for. On bad days, though… The Junkmobile was rolling, clattering, baling-wired proof of just how badly she’d failed at life.

  She glanced over at the shiny black Lexus Logan had rented and then back to her Jeep. Today had been lousy pretty much all the way around. She’d had enough. So the bed was lumpy. She couldn’t remember the last time it hadn’t been.

  Cat went up the side of the car, accepted the keys from him and slipped into the driver’s seat with a “Thank you,” that sounded every bit as exhausted as she felt.

  It wasn’t until she’d cranked the engine over that he said, “I’ll see you at the rink at five sharp,” closed the door with a huge pop and walked off toward his own car.

  Tired, embarrassed, and not at all certain whether Logan agreeing to coach was good news or bad, Cat backed out of the space and headed for the street. A quick check in the rearview mirror relieved her conscience. His headlights were on and his car was moving; he wasn’t stranded. She turned west and checked the rearview again as she stopped for the red light at Emporia. No Lexus headlights, no Logan behind her. Just a battered old pickup truck. Good. She was so ready to be alone.

  The light turned green and she pressed the accelerator. The Jeep went nowhere. With a sigh, Cat slammed it into Park and turned the ignition off and then on again. The engine roared back to life, the choke wide open. She closed her eyes, clenched her teeth and tried to kick the revs back down into the normal range. As always, it didn’t work. The pickup truck driver honked his horn. The tires of the Jeep squealed as she put it in drive and shot forward. They squealed again as she took the corner at Douglas and Main and headed for the highway.

  And again when she careened into the empty parking lot of the downtown library. The brake pedal mashed all the way to the floor, the Jeep came to a sliding, engine-roaring halt. With trembling hands, Cat cut off the engine and then collapsed back into the seat. Ten minutes. In ten minutes she could go on and everything would be just fine. And while she waited, she’d calm down and think. Try to figure out why Logan Dupree had taken the job and why he was angry with her about it. Or maybe not, she admitted as the tears welled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

  Chapter Four

  N ope. The man looking back from the mirror didn’t have a clue either. Logan sighed, dumped the contents of his pockets onto the hotel room bureau and then sat on the side of the bed. The man in the mirror didn’t look stupid.

  “Appearances don’t mean shit,” Logan growled, falling back onto the mattress. His head cradled in his hands, he stared up at the ceiling. It was all just a blur. One minute he’d been thinking about how well Cat was handling the divorce thing and then—wham!—he was the coach of her team.

  It wasn’t like he’d been boarded, though. Not if he was being fair about it. There had been warning signs; he just hadn’t paid any attention to them. Hyerstrom standing there… God, his mom would have said the kid looked like a new copper penny. All that hope. And then Cat… Smooth as silk and saying she’d get someone to coach who they’d like even better than him.

  Better. Yep, that’s where the edge had gone out from under him. There’d been a flash behind his eyes, a little voice in the back of his head snarling, Who’s better than me? and then it was a done deal. He’d committed himself. He�
�d come to town just for a quick glimpse into the fiery lakes of hell and ended up buying property. On the water’s edge.

  He should have his head examined. A good shrink could probably get him out of it. So could a good airline pilot. All he had to do was get on a plane. Let his answering service screen his calls. Eventually Cat would quit calling.

  Logan frowned. Cat wouldn’t call. She’d die before she picked up the phone and even so much as asked him about the weather. Begging him to come back… No way. Threatening him with a breach of contract suit… Never. Even if she had the money to hire a rottweiler in a three-piece suit. Which she didn’t. She didn’t have enough to make a payment on a no frills little car. Naw, she wouldn’t track his ass back to Tampa and make him feel guilty. She’d just lift that little chin of hers, sniffle in a quiet, ladylike way, try to tuck her hair behind her ears and then put on a smile and do a cheer for the team. She’d go on doing her best to make it all come right. And not even come close.

  Logan closed his eyes and groaned. Damn his ego. Damn his pride. And while he was at it, damn his good sense for not having saved him from the other two. He was stuck. In Wichita. For the next five months. Six if they made the conference playoffs. If they actually managed to play for the title it would be—

  “A damned miracle,” he grumbled as he sat up. He sighed. Five months was doable. No one could honestly expect him to pound the Warriors into a play-off caliber team. Not at this point. Yeah, if he’d had them since last fall, or even the end of the last season, it would be a different story. But he hadn’t, and just getting them to the final season buzzer with a win average above fifty percent would impress the hell out of anyone who’d seen them play at the start of it.

  Five months. Logan considered the carpet between his feet. There was so much to do…. He checked his watch and added an hour for the time difference as he pulled his cell-phone out of the holster. Okay, so it was after one in the morning back in Tampa. On a weekday. He scrolled to the number and hit the button. He owed Dominic Parisi a middle of the night phone call. Several, actually.

  It took five rings before a groggy-heading-toward-pissed voice snarled, “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Yeah,” Logan answered, grinning, “sure do.”

  A grunt of recognition. “You sound too happy to need bail money, Dupree.”

  He sounded happy? Well, yeah. At the moment. “Consider this payback for San Diego.”

  “What about Edmonton?”

  Ah, Nic was smiling; Logan could hear it. “It’s down the road yet. So are New York and St. Louis.”

  The rustle of sheets. “God,” his friend groused on a strained breath. The click of a light switch. “It’s a bitch getting old.”

  “Like that’s news,” Logan countered, chuckling and stripping off his tie. “I need a big favor, pal.”

  “Like at one o’clock in the morning that’s news. What’s up?”

  “I need you to go over to the apartment first thing in the morning,” Logan explained, opening the collar of his shirt, “pack up my gear and some of my winter clothes and ship it to me.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line. Logan could well imagine the look on Nic’s face, the way his dark brows were drawn together at the bridge of his nose. The nose that had been broken half a dozen times and never straightened because Dominic Parisi was absolutely convinced that women found it irresistible.

  “Okay,” Nic finally said, “I’m paying attention now. Where the hell are you?”

  Logan laughed and looked out the hotel room window at the prairie night, at the flat blanket of lights and the sea of black that surrounded it. “The middle of fricking nowhere.”

  “Must be ice there or you wouldn’t need your gear. And where there’s ice, there’s a rink twink.”

  Catherine Talbott a rink twink? Shirley Temple in spandex and sleeping her way through the team? “There’s no twinkie,” he assured his friend.

  “Hey, I’m already awake. The least you can do is make it worth it. Is she a blonde or a brunette?”

  Logan reminded himself that that was just the way Nic was. One track off ice. One track on. “It’s not that kind of a deal. You’ll just have to believe me. And whether you do or not, I need you to ship my crap to…” He frowned and yanked open the nightstand drawer. “Hold on, let me find the address.”

  “You don’t know where you are?”

  With the phone cradled between his ear and shoulder, he pulled out the phone book and tossed it down on the bed. “I don’t know the address of the team office,” he said as he flipped through the yellow pages.

  “What team?” H. H-O. Hockey. “I kinda got roped into something and…” Wichita Warriors. Interesting. The Warriors’ office was at the ice rink. Same address for both. And the only two listings. “You ready to write?”

  “Yeah. Roped into what?”

  Logan read him the address slowly and made him read it back because he liked his skates and didn’t want them to end up in Timbuktu. It took forever to break in a new pair.

  “Wichita,” Nic said. “You’re in Wichita?”

  “Yeah. And you don’t have any idea of where it is, do you, Mr. Big City?”

  “It’s somewhere in flyover country and that’s as much as I want to know. What have you gotten yourself into?”

  “I’m coaching my old farm club team,” Logan supplied. “Except they’re not affiliated anymore. The job came up and there’s no one else to do it and…” He shrugged. “Ah, hell, I’m not doing anything else, so why not.”

  “How’s the woman come into all of this?”

  God Almighty. “Listen to me, Nic. There is no woman.”

  “Oh, c’mon, Logan. There’s always a woman. Is this one a redhead?”

  “Just send me my gear and my stuff,” Logan replied. “And, hey, leave Mrs. Brands a note on the fridge, will ya? Tell her that I’m going to be gone for the season and that she can have any of the stuff in the kitchen that she wants to haul out of there.”

  “Okay, man. You got it. You want it all overnight, right?”

  “I want it yesterday, but the next flight in will have to do.” He glanced down at the yellow pages. “Apparently the rink has a pro shop. If it’s a decent one, I may be all right for a day. If not, I’ll be coaching from the damn box.”

  “I had a coach one time who did that. Turned out he couldn’t skate.”

  “Could he coach?” Logan asked, closing the phone book and pitching it back into the drawer.

  “I thought so at the time, but then I was only six, so you know…” Nic paused and Logan could practically see him shrug. “This team of yours… They any good?”

  “There’s some potential.”

  “Oooh, code for they suck.”

  “Pretty much,” Logan agreed. “It’s gonna be a long season.”

  “She must—”

  “Give it up, Nic. I’m not doing this for any woman.”

  “So why are you doing it? I distinctly remember you say ing that you’d skate in hell before you stood behind the bench. What’s changed?”

  The man was a damn pit bull. Digging in the corner for a puck, it was a good quality, but outside of that… “I looked back, okay?”

  “Huh?”

  He could probably explain it, but only if there were rubber hoses, hot lights and an electric chair involved. “If you’d get that stuff on its way, I’ll send you a Kansas shot glass for your collection. A couple of them.”

  “Not doing shot glasses anymore.”

  Logan cocked a brow. “Oh, yeah? Did you hit a magic number or something?”

  “Five-twenty-two. But that’s not it. Last girlfriend took ’em as souvenirs.”

  “All of them?” he asked, stunned. “How the hell did—”

  “She was pissed and I was out of town,” Nic supplied blithely. “I’m collecting Porsches now.”

  Logan could so see where this was going. “How many you got so far?” Logan asked, playing along.


  “Yours’ll be the first. Feel honored?”

  Logan laughed and shook his head. “Don’t hold your breath, pal.”

  Nic laughed, too. “I’ll take care of this end for you. You take care of that one.”

  “Will do, Nic. Thanks for everything.”

  “Until, man.”

  Logan punched the end button and closed the phone. He had his gear and a basic wardrobe on the way. Two things off the list. The two most important. Someplace to sack out that didn’t have a Gideon Bible in the nightstand was next, but that would have to wait until daylight and regular business hours. Dominic Parisi was one thing, a Realtor picked from the phone book was another. In the meantime…

  Logan checked his watch again. Just under four hours before he had to be at the rink. He could try to catch a few hours of sleep. He could turn on the TV and see what crisis was now threatening the survival of mankind. Unfortunately, short sleeps that rejuvenated some people only made him surly and there was nothing he could do about saving the world.

  He shoved himself off the bed, went to the desk and pulled out the hotel stationery and the complimentary cheap pen. Dropping down into the chair, he allowed himself one hard sigh, and then began to list the names of the players. His players. His team.

  Not Cat’s. She owned the team, she wrote the checks, yeah, but that was the extent of it. Regardless of what Nic thought, this wasn’t about getting a curly-haired blonde with an hourglass figure, perky smile and totally groundless optimism into bed. Or even making her happy while standing upright and fully clothed out on some public sidewalk. No, this was all about paying back debts. He owed Tom. He owed it to The Dream and to The Game. The fate of the world was out of his hands, but the Warriors’ wasn’t. By God, they were going to play decent hockey or go home.

  And if Catherine Talbott, Mother Hen and Team Cheerleader, accused him of being a big, bad meanie and tried to step in…. Logan moved the Realtor down a notch on the to-do list. First things needed to go first.