Hoops (2 page)

She winced inwardly. The two of them had started arguing the issue as soon as the board had proposed that Ashton move to Division I basketball, with its scholarships, bigger budget and top-level schedule. In Carolyn’s memory they’d never disagreed before on what course Ashton should follow.

“But the administration and the faculty,” he said with emphasis, “have an obligation to honor that decision and to nurture these students.”

“They’re here because they can bounce a round ball. Why should we pretend otherwise?”

“Whatever the reason, they
are
here. That’s the point. You wouldn’t deny these young men an education
because
they play basketball, would you?”

That wasn’t fair. He knew she couldn’t resist such an appeal to one of her most basic values.

“What do you expect me to do, Stewart?” She aimed for a dignified tone, but wasn’t sure she achieved it.

“I want you to teach them the best way you know how.”

She gave him a skeptical look, despite the flow of warmth at his confidence.

“You won’t be in a classroom situation. You’ll be overseeing the players’ overall class load, helping them find specific help if they need it, guiding them on study habits, advising them on next semester’s schedule. It will mean dealing with a very wide range of backgrounds, abilities and interests. Coach Draper recommends—”

“Wait a minute. Who’s Draper? Didn’t the board hire someone else last year? I met him. Didn’t I?”

Stewart sighed heavily. “Coach Roberts quit last April, just before you left for England. Don’t you remember?”

She was no absentminded professor, but she did save her memory for things that counted. Basketball coaches didn’t fall into that category.

“His alma mater hired him,” Stewart reminded her. “I can’t blame him. It’s one of the top programs in the country, but it left us in rather a difficult position.”

“Why? Anyone with sense should be honored to come to Ashton. This is an excellent university.”

Admiration and exasperation mingled in his face. “Your loyalty is wonderful, Carolyn, but sometimes I fear we shut you in this ivory tower when you were much too young. Maybe we were wrong to bring you here—”

“Nonsense.” He’d fretted about that more and more in the past few years—and so unnecessarily. She’d become what she was meant to be. If her parents had been alive, she wouldn’t have spent six years on her grandparents’ farm before Stewart and Elizabeth brought her back; she would have spent all her formative years at Ashton. It was what her parents would have wanted. Carolyn spread the fingers of her right hand on the leather arm of her chair and gripped it. “This is where I belong. You and Elizabeth saw that, and I will always be grateful to you.”

Stewart gave another deep sigh, then returned to the subject. “However fine an academic institution this is, Ashton isn’t an athletic powerhouse. I know you don’t think that’s important, but I, for one, enjoy sports.”

He sounded so defiant that she had to smile.

“I liked playing them and I like watching them. Oh, I know some programs get out of hand—very much out of hand. But there are schools that maintain high academic standards
and
field competitive teams. I want Ashton to be one. I want our students to have opportunities for all the good things a university can offer, and sports is one of them.”

She’d liked sports, too, especially her years in competitive swimming. But following her parents’ footsteps had required eliminating distractions, and sports was one. “With so fervent a champion, I think any coach would jump at the opportunity to come here,” Carolyn said dryly.

“I’m afraid I don’t offset the drawbacks. In the basketball conference we’ve joined, we’re the smallest school among state schools that have five times as many students. That makes recruiting difficult. Our academic standards make it even more difficult—”

“There! You just admitted it: high academic standards are a drawback when you field a Division I basketball team.”

Stewart frowned at her, but doggedly continued, “We don’t pay the salary a coach can command elsewhere. With the gym needing repairs, we don’t even have enough in the budget for a real assistant coach until next season—only Dolph Reems when he’s not running the athletic department and a couple of student team managers. We were extremely fortunate to get C.J. Draper.”

“Why?” She laced the bald question with her doubt that getting any coach warranted the label
fortunate.

“He was a standout in college and led his team to the national tournament Final Four two years in a row. Then he had four good years as a professional. Experts were touting him as the next big star—until he hurt his knee. He came back when nobody thought he could, but he never played quite as well. He hung on for a couple of years, going from team to team. Then he played a year in an Italian league. A couple of years ago he signed on as assistant coach with one of his old pro teams.”

“So when he could no longer do, he decided to teach. Is that it?” She knew Stewart had recognized the bite in her words. She’d gone too far.

With his crossed forearms resting on the desk, Stewart leaned forward. “Professor Trent, C.J. Draper is Ashton University’s basketball coach. As such, he’s a member of this university and will be accorded the same respect every other member receives.”

Carolyn said nothing.

“I believe C.J. Draper is a good coach, a good
teacher,”
Stewart continued. “And the fact that he’s requested an academic adviser for his players shows me that he has their educational good at heart. That should be encouraged. Don’t you agree?”

“By all means, Stewart.”

He nodded, apparently satisfied with her neutral tone. Carolyn knew Stewart was too accomplished an administrator to expect more than acquiescence at this point.

He pushed the intercom button. “Marsha, please send Coach Draper in.”

Carolyn couldn’t sit still. She went to the window again. The sky-gazing couple was gone. The broken clouds seemed to have dropped closer to the chapel’s bell tower. Walkers pulled sweaters and jackets more tightly around them and hurried their steps. A shiver ran up her spine as she heard the double doors from the outer office open and shut.

“Afternoon, Stewart. How are you?”

She grimaced out the window at the newcomer’s casualness. She should have guessed his words would be delivered in that gravelly drawl.

Perhaps she
had
guessed. Somehow it fit that the man who’d made her feel so uncomfortable outside was both the prominent figure in the new basketball program she’d fought and the instigator of this job she didn’t want.

“Very well, thank you. How are you, C.J.?”

“Fine. Just fine.”

She heard the words of greeting, but held her position. As long as she could, she’d delay facing this.

“C.J., I’d like you to meet Professor Carolyn Trent. Carolyn, this is Coach C.J. Draper.”

She turned, prepared for a cool exchange across the expanse of the office. But she should have known Coach Draper wouldn’t wait for such formalities. With hand extended, he stood in front of her, new Ashton sweatshirt, worn jeans, white athletic shoes, lopsided grin and all.

“Pleased to meet you, Professor Trent.” His grin cut grooves in his cheek, deeper by his mouth, then shallowing as they rippled higher.

She had no choice; dignity demanded she meet his handshake firmly. A kind of disquiet pushed her heartbeat faster for an instant as her hand disappeared in his large grasp. His palm, slightly roughened with calluses, encompassed her cold fingers like a scratchy woolen blanket. He returned her grip solidly.

He was even taller than he’d appeared at first, at least a foot over her five foot six, and lean to the point of lankiness. But his shoulders were broad enough to block her view of the room, and his handshake promised strength. The sun through the window picked out streaks of gold and bronze and even a strand or two of gray in the straight sandy brown mop of hair that fell across his forehead, ending just above his eyes—the brightest, bluest eyes she’d ever seen.

Their corners crinkled. “And here I thought you might be a student out there in the waiting room,” he said.

Almost gratefully she felt anger sweep away the disquiet.
He’d
thought
she
was a student? Him, with his sweatshirt and sneakers? At least she wore a suit, an outfit appropriate to the office of the president of Ashton University.

“I don’t know, Stewart.” C.J. addressed the university president, but his grinning gaze was focused on Carolyn. “She looks awfully young. You think she’ll be able to handle my guys?”

* * * *

C.J. had known who she was right away. He’d had an appointment with Stewart Barron to talk about an academic adviser, and she’d been called in to the president’s office before him. It didn’t take much skill to come up with the right solution to that equation.

Besides, he’d remembered her from his first visit to the school. Dolph Reems, the athletic director, had been showing him around the compact campus, and C.J. had spotted her.

He had stopped Dolph right in the middle of explaining his dream plans for a new arena. Dolph didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he’d been nearly as loquacious extolling the attributes of Professor Carolyn Trent as he had of his mirage arena.

C.J. half suspected the older man knew he’d been talking a pipe dream—this school wasn’t likely to ever reach the big time. Settled into the fertile hills of southern Wisconsin, it was about a two-hour drive from Milwaukee and not much more from Chicago—if you measured in miles per hour. Otherwise, it was a world apart. Still, it just might turn out to be his ticket to the big time.

Odd that he’d picked her out right away like that. Not really his type at all. “Women gotta be feisty, flashy and fiery. What’s the fun if there isn’t some sizzle?” That was what Rake used to say when they roomed together. C.J. hadn’t followed the pattern as closely, or as often, as Rake, but looking back he could see he’d tended toward women who moved on a lot. Or was he the one always moving on?

Well, one way or another, it didn’t last.

But this Carolyn Trent was a different kind entirely. Cool and smooth, like marble. Standing at the window in Stewart Barron’s office staring out like that, she looked like a statue he’d seen in Italy.

The image pleased him. As he crossed the room to meet her, he admired the unruffled sweep of her straight shoulder-length hair, as if newly sculpted from some warm golden-brown stone by a meticulous craftsman. Her face was gently rounded with a bone structure Michelangelo might have created. Not beautiful, maybe, by some standards. Her nose was a little too long, her mouth a little too wide. But she was elegant.

That realization made it easier to understand why his eye had been drawn to her all those months ago. Her kind of elegance wasn’t a common commodity in his world. No wonder he’d noted it.

On the other hand, close up she seemed about as warm as one of those marble statues. He watched her stiffen when she turned to him, and sensed the reserve that settled over her. She had the kind of nose designed for looking down—long, straight and narrow. He was just glad nature fixed it so she’d have to look up before looking down on him.

He didn’t usually let a haughty attitude get to him; why it did with her, he didn’t know. Maybe he’d forgotten how it felt because he’d gotten past all that after five months at Ashton. Maybe he was just tired.

When he held his hand out to her, he wondered if he only imagined a moment of uncertainty beneath that surface, just as he’d thought he’d seen out in the waiting room. Both times it disappeared so quickly that he couldn’t be sure. Just as before, a disapproving coolness dimmed the glimmer of light in her eyes. Then she placed her hand in his, and her eyes—the same distinctive color as her hair—flared with temper for an instant at his comment. He revised his image.

Marble had no spark like that... and it certainly didn’t stir him the way she did.

Chapter Two

How dare he think her too young? How dare he question her ability? Carolyn fumed as they left Stewart’s office. As for “handling his guys,” she could teach, and teach she would, even if she didn’t have a classroom. C.J. Draper or no C.J. Draper.

“I suggest, since Stewart has left the details to us…” To her irritation she hesitated over the common pronoun, drawing a grin from her companion. That stiffened her back, and her voice. He found her amusing, did he? “I suggest we go to my office and discuss this program. It would be best if we both knew exactly where we stand.”

“Sure,” he agreed. He followed her out of the Administration Building’s main door and down the shallow granite steps. But there he stopped. “If you want to know about the guys’ courses and grades and all, we’ll have to go to my office first.”

Carolyn held in her impatience with determination. Why couldn’t he have said that in the first place?

They fell into step along a path that led across campus, then up the slope to the ridge where the Physical Education Building sat. It irritated her to realize he was shortening his long, easy stride to accommodate her smaller steps. It irritated her further that besides the disadvantage of a foot in height, she had to contend with a restrictive straight skirt and mid-heel pumps while he swung along completely comfortable in jeans and sneakers.

“It would be helpful, Mr. Draper, if you came to our next meeting prepared.”

“Why, Professor Trent, I came prepared to this one—all prepared to meet you. And that’s what I did,” he said, his drawl seeming to slow along with his pace.

She looked up. “Meet me?”

“Of course. I wanted to meet the guys’ academic adviser.”

“You might have considered what would happen after you met me.”

Carolyn lengthened her stride until it stretched the material of her skirt taut. His pace automatically and effortlessly adjusted.

“I guess I just didn’t count on you being such a gym rat.”

“I beg your pardon?” She heard the tone in her voice that said if C.J. Draper were smart, he’d start begging her pardon. She sounded like someone she hardly recognized—and didn’t particularly like. That didn’t matter, she decided grimly, if her attitude helped make it clear from the start that she would brook no impairment of Ashton’s academic reputation. Ashton was too much a part of her, her history, her heritage, to not defend what it had always stood for.