Skin in the Game (2 page)

Which did make her wonder whether the rumors of a dependence on prescription painkillers—rumors she’d discounted—might be true, because she could see no visible reason he shouldn’t be staging his comeback on the football field instead of killing time in the back corner of a rinky-dink coffee shop in Harper Falls.

“Oh, slow but steady. These things sometimes take longer than we expect,” he said with a lazy shrug of his broad shoulders.

“Well, you look fine to me,” she blurted, then felt herself turn ketchup-red as she realized how that must sound. She hadn’t said it with the emphasis on fine, but she might as well have.

Because Cade Reynolds was fine in every way.

His brown eyes twinkled with amusement. “I’m glad you think so. Maybe you could get the message to my physician?”

She breathed a small sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to make her feel like a stupid, tongue-tied adolescent fan girl, even though he could have.

“I’m not sure he’d take my word for it.”

“He’s a she, but you’re probably right.” Cade gestured again toward the chair. “Sit down and talk a while? I’d like to get to know you better.” The husky timbre of his voice said better meant something a lot more intimate than talking.

Not that she was complaining about his intentions. She didn’t do one-night-stands or casual flings and never had, even before she’d become a high school teacher in a small town where everyone knew everyone else’s business and discretion was unheard of. But for Cade Reynolds, she was willing to make an exception. She’d wanted him for almost half her life, mostly from afar. Now that he was here in Harper Falls and, surreal as it seemed, might want her in return, she wasn’t about to turn and walk away.

With a nod, she slid onto the straight-backed wooden chair. “I’d like that, too.”

He sank into his own seat and stretched his legs out in front of him. Angie resisted the urge to fan herself as she involuntarily conjured the image of him doing the same thing…sans jeans.

Hot.

“So, you teach math?” he asked.

She stopped examining his thighs—okay, to be honest, his crotch—and looked at him in surprise. “How’d you know that?”

“I overheard you talking with the barista.”

She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Was I that loud?” Her voice had a tendency to carry, which was useful in the classroom and during football practice but a nuisance pretty much everywhere else.

“No, not at all. Actually, technically, I didn’t so much overhear as try really hard to eavesdrop.”

Her cheeks flushed, this time with pleasure. That should probably seem more stalkerish than flattering, but it didn’t. At least not coming from him.

“So, Miss Peterson, do you have a first name? And can I use it?”

Oh, God. Her name.

He hadn’t recognized her yet, but once he heard her name, he might recall a clumsy, four-eyed freshman girl named Angie Peterson. When he did, he’d react like all the other men she’d known in high school did. Like Erik Larson, who remarked at their ten-year reunion—which Cade, blissfully, had missed due to training camp—that, wow, she wasn’t coyote-ugly anymore and he’d do her in a heartbeat. Yeah, that had been charming. Or like Matthew Thibodeaux, whom she’d dated for a few months before he dropped his guard and admitted his friends couldn’t believe he was shagging the girl they all used to joke about paper-bagging so they could stand to screw her.

Ugh. Her stomach churned at that memory.

Cade had seemed like a nice guy in high school, though, particularly considering he’d been not only captain of the football team but also homecoming king. She really didn’t want her memories of the few conversations they’d shared tarnished by the knowledge that he was just like the rest of them. And she didn’t want him to think of her as the pathetic, lonely creature she’d been in high school.

But then the voice of reason—and good old-fashioned arithmetic—jumped in to save the day. There must be a dozen Angela Petersons in the Twin Cities area alone, the voice argued.

Why would he jump to the conclusion that she was that Angela Peterson, especially when she looked nothing like she had as a teenager?

All right, then. Tell the truth and take your chances.

“It’s Angela,” she said and took a sip of her latte to cover her nerves.

“Angela, huh?” His gaze swept over her, sharp and assessing. Her pulse stuttered to a virtual halt. Just when she was sure he had recognized her and all was lost, he said, “I like it. It suits you.”

The breath she’d been holding shuddered out of her lungs. She only wished she knew whether relief or disappointment had forced the air from her chest. Although she truly hadn’t wanted him to realize who she was, a part of her wished their short-lived friendship had meant half as much to him as it had to her.

But that was then. This was now, and she was going to enjoy the heck out of the fact that the tables had turned—or at least equalized.

“I guess I won’t change it to Agatha, then,” she said lightly.

He coughed to avoid choking on his coffee. “God, no. Why, were you thinking of doing that?”

“Well, you have to admit, it would be a lot more memorable.”

“Any man who could forget you needs his eyes examined.”

She held back a gust of harsh laughter. He’d probably used that line—or variations of it—to great effect on any number of women in the past. It wasn’t his fault that it was the worst possible thing he could have said to her. And for that reason, she wasn’t going to hold it against him.

“Now you’re just trying to flatter me so I’ll go out with you.” Or sleep with you.

“You’re right. Is it working?” he asked, his eyes puppy-dog wide and hopeful. The effect was hilarious…and irresistible.

“Maybe.”

“Good. Pick you up at your place at, say, six o’clock?”

Her place? Crap. That was an idea that had the words “epic” and “disaster” written all over it in capital letters.

“No, I’d rather meet you,” she said hastily. “Where are you staying?”

He named a luxury resort hotel five miles down the river on the Wisconsin side and gave a room number on the top floor. Probably an extravagant suite with a killer view of the falls. The kind of place she couldn’t afford to stay for even one night if she saved up for a year.

“Six thirty, then?” His smoky-lashed eyes swept over her with possessive heat, lingering on her mouth, her throat, the swell of her breasts. She wondered again what he’d think if he realized who she was.

God, he was so out of her league. In every possible way. They might have grown up in the same small town, but they had nothing in common anymore. Cade had become rich, famous, and worldly. In addition to his Texas ranch, which was probably twice the size of downtown Harper Falls, he owned a mansion in Houston as well as a chateau in the French Alps. Over the years since he’d hit the big time, he had dated supermodels, actresses, and heiresses. Angie, by contrast, taught math to wisecracking teenagers, still lived with her father in the modest three-bedroom house she’d grown up in, and counted herself lucky if she could get a date at all.

She wouldn’t lie to herself. There was no future here. This could only turn out one way—badly.

And she couldn’t bring herself to give a damn.

Fourteen, fifteen, sixt…

Cade’s arms trembled and strained. Gritting his teeth against the fiery pain in his shoulder, he lowered the barbell back into place and let loose a string of vivid curse words.

Fortunately, he was alone in the gym at the Chateau Le Croix so there was no one to object to his vain taking of the Lord’s name and any other violations of their virgin ears.

Disgusted, he sat up and wiped the towel around the back of his neck to soak up the sweat trickling from his hair. Damn it! Six months of rehab and training, and he still couldn’t do more than fifteen reps at two hundred pounds. He’d never get back into the NFL before the end of the season at this rate. He could throw as far and accurately as ever, but no one would believe he was durable enough to take a solid hit if he couldn’t bench at least his own body weight.

He rolled his shoulder and winced. He could almost hear the clanging of metal against metal; with all the screws and plates holding his bones together in there, he had more hardware than a Home Depot. Despite the surgeon’s assurance that the pain would fade and his full strength would return with time and rigorous physical therapy, Cade was no longer certain he believed it. He was no longer certain anyone believed it.

His cell phone jangled loudly from its position atop the rack of dumbbells on the other side of the room. He grimaced. The ring tone—Pink Floyd’s “Money”—told him it was his agent. Perfect timing.

He rose from the bench and reached the phone before the third ring. “Hey, Stu. What’s up?”

“Interest in you, that’s what.”

Cade pulled the towel from around his neck and stared blankly in the mirror. When he’d left Houston yesterday, there hadn’t been a single team willing even to give him a look, much less talk dollars and cents. “What happened?”

“Haven’t you seen any of the games today?”

“No.” He’d deliberately avoided it, in fact. Watching football when he couldn’t play—or at least have a hand in the outcome—was a form of torture.

“Got a TV handy?”

Cade glanced up at the flat-screen mounted to the wall across from the treadmill and the stationary bike. “Yeah, hang on.” He crossed the floor and retrieved the remote from the tray mounted to the treadmill’s instrument panel. He hit the power button. “ESPN?” he guessed.

“Nah, just turn on the NFC game. Where you are, you’ll get the right one.”

The Vikings game, then. Cade flipped through the stations until he found it. The first thing he noticed was the score. The Vikings, who’d looked invincible during the preseason and were considered by the pundits to be a serious contender for the Super Bowl this year, were down by four touchdowns in the third quarter to a team they should have been trouncing by the same margin. Then, he noticed something even odder. Warren Harris, the Vikings’s star quarterback, his archrival, and—not entirely paradoxically—his best friend, wasn’t taking the snaps. Instead, the second-string quarterback, who didn’t even look old enough to drive, was running the offense. Badly.

A sick feeling came over him. The kind of sick feeling that was accompanied by a tinge of hope. And he hated himself for it.

“Where’s Warren?”

“He was in a minor car accident on the way to the stadium this morning. Broken leg, apparently.” Stu’s tone was a little too gleeful for Cade’s liking.

“What’s this got to do with me?”

“What hasn’t it got to do with you? You know as well as I do Harris is going to be out weeks—if not for the rest of the season—and his backup is barely out of diapers. They need a solid, experienced replacement…pronto.”

“And they want me?” Cade was dubious. There must be half a dozen quarterbacks warming the benches of other teams who looked better on paper than he did.

“Well,” Stu hedged, “they want to take a look at you. And I told them they’re in luck…you’re just up the road. Said you’d drive over there tomorrow and—”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah. It’s a fabulous stroke of luck that you’re in Minnesota already. You’re first in line for the job. Once they see you can still chuck a ball sixty yards and with accuracy, they won’t want anyone else. Just be there at ten a.m. sharp and—”

“I can’t do it,” Cade said quietly.

“What do you mean you can’t do it? Of course you can. You’re dying to get back in the game, and you’re more than ready. No more dilaudid, right?”

Cade grimaced at the reminder. He’d holed up in his Texas ranch last month to kick the painkiller habit. There was no way he was going to check into one of those plush Betty Ford–style facilities. He knew there were rumors—there always were in these kinds of situations—but he refused to air his dirty laundry in public. It had been the most wretched week of his life, but despite the fact that he now felt every twinge of pain like a knife wound, he wasn’t about to backslide.

“No more dilaudid, but that has nothing to do with it. I have plans.” Plans that he hoped would include eating breakfast in bed with a certain gorgeous blonde after keeping her awake most of the night. He shifted to find a more comfortable position as his cock gave a happy little jerk at the thought. Although the delectable Angela Peterson was far from the only conflict on his schedule.

“Cancel them, postpone them, whatever. I told Grimshaw you’d be there, and you can’t make a liar out of me.” When Stu didn’t get his way, his voice had a tendency to veer into petulance.

“Sorry, Stu, I really can’t do it. Not tomorrow. Not for at least the next three weeks.”

Cade thought he actually heard Stu’s jaw drop open. “You’re not serious. I can’t believe you’re going to pass up a chance to get back in the league to coach your high school football team for three weeks. Getting a favorable trade and the starter’s job somewhere is all you’ve talked about since training camp opened. Now you’ve got the chance and you’re about to blow it to play with the pee-wees? You’re out of your mind.”

And hurting your wallet.

Cade sighed. Maybe he was out of his mind, but it didn’t feel like it. He’d promised Coach Lund that he’d see the team through the next few weeks, since the assistant coach quite literally didn’t have the balls for the job. Cade still couldn’t imagine a woman coaching football, even as an assistant. It had to be obvious to anyone that she’d never played the game, but Lund swore this woman was a flat-out genius when it came to strategy and play calling. Still, a genius at strategy and play calling wasn’t necessarily a genius at coaching, and Cade had to assume that this was what why Lund wanted his help.

A vague memory tickled at the back of his brain of a girl he’d met in his senior year in high school. One with a remarkable grasp of football. She’d been the one to tell him, after they lost the first game of the season, that the team would never win a game so long as they only had twelve offensive plays. He remembered staring at her in awe, because that was exactly how many plays they had, but the only way she could have figured it out was to have counted them while they were playing. And not even the most fanatical football fans did that.