Читать книгу Blindsided - Leslie LaFoy - Страница 12

All right, he was a fair man; he could admit a mistake when he made one. He’d been wrong about Wichita’s nightlife being the same now as twenty years ago. In the old days, downtown after dark had belonged to raggy winos and the homeless with their shopping carts. These days the drunks were younger and much better dressed. And the Safeway-mobiles had been replaced by Beemers and Infinitis. Yes, downtown had definitely gone upscale.

Which meant that Catherine Talbott’s very old Jeep stuck out like sore thumb. Logan stood in the public parking lot and considered it. God, what year was that thing? White and boxy, it had to be from the early nineties. It was missing a strip of door trim on the driver’s side. There was piece of duct tape holding the driver’s mirror in place. And the fact that she was walking around to lock each of the doors by hand told him that the automatic controls didn’t work anymore.

The engine apparently ran well, though. She’d flown down the highway, powered through half a dozen ramp curves like a NASCAR driver, and sailed through downtown with green lights all the way. She’d hit the brakes only twice—to slow down just enough to keep it on four wheels as she made the turn in to the parking lot and then to stop the charging beast after she’d whipped it into the tiny spot between a late model Yukon and a Suburban with a temporary tag. Did she drive like a bat out of hell all the time? Or had she been driving off her “Come To Jesus” Talk with Spady?

He’d made a mistake about her, too, he admitted while she locked the back hatch with the key. Well, sorta, anyway. Yeah, she wasn’t a model, super or otherwise. He’d gotten that part right. But she wasn’t a kid sister, either. Especially when she stuffed her hands into the hip pockets of her jeans. Lord, what her too big shirts had hidden up until that moment. Like the fact that Catherine Talbott had curves. Really nice curves. In all the right places. The kind of curves that made for perfect handholds. And handfuls.

She dropped her keys into her purse, slung the saddlebag-looking thing over her shoulder, and came toward him with an easy smile. Logan smiled back and asked, “Who taught you to drive? One of the Andrettis?”

“The choke sticks,” she answered as he fell in beside her and they headed up Mosley Street. “It’s either pull off the road and shut it down for ten minutes, or hang on tight.”

“Why don’t you get it fixed?”

“Because mechanics don’t take rubber checks.”

Good reason. “You have a brake light out, too. Left side.”

“Always,” she said with a groan. She looked over—and up—at him to add, “Thanks. I’ll put a replacement bulb on the parts list. Maybe Santa will be good to me this year.”

She owned a semi-pro team. Why didn’t she have a company vehicle? Something that wasn’t falling apart. Was the franchise that poor? A coach’s five-figure salary would buy a new car. A nice one. Maybe he should take the job but not the paycheck. No, he corrected as they turned off the brick paved street and headed toward the door of the bar. He was going to get on the plane in the morning. With a totally clear conscience. He’d already given Catherine Talbott some free advice. Excellent free advice. He’d give her some more over dinner, and all of it combined would be contribution enough. He didn’t owe her—or Tom—any more than that.

He took a half step to get out in front of her, to make sure he got his hand on the door pull before she did. She looked up at him, obviously shocked by the courtesy. For about a half second. Then she grinned her thanks as she slipped past him. Nobody’s eyes could be that naturally blue, he thought as he let the door close behind him. She had to be wearing colored contacts. And God Almighty, whatever perfume she was wearing smelled good. Eat-me-up-with-a-spoon good.

“Two,” she said to the hostess at the podium and over the low roar of a packed house.

Logan half watched the hostess make her notes and then snag a couple menus. As long as he was in a mood to admit mistakes… Catherine wasn’t quite as short as he’d thought, either. He was used to moving around in a world of giants; hockey players under six feet were few and far between and the women who crossed his path came close to that mark more often than not. But compared to the hostess who led them to a table, Catherine wasn’t any midget. Maybe five-five, five-six, he guessed as he held the chair for her and she smiled her thanks up at him again.

The smile, though…he’d been right on about her smile. Logan sat down across the table from her and hid behind his menu, determined not to let himself get dazzled again by wide and bright and completely genuine. So she didn’t seem to have one coy little bone in her curvy body; it wasn’t as if he was going to stick around long enough to enjoy the novelty.

“Iced tea, please.”

Logan looked up from the menu to his blind side. Yep, a waitress stood there, pad and pencil in hand. “Molson,” he said when the server met his gaze. She shook her head and he made a second guess. “Labatt’s?” She nodded and walked off, writing it down. He glanced after her. The wiggle in her walk wasn’t nearly as sexy as the one he’d followed to the table. Inviting, yes. But with a deliberate effort that didn’t make for appealing.

He considered his menu. “What do you recommend?”

“Everything. It’s all good.”

Big help. “What are you having?”

“My usual, the Cobb salad. Caesar. Hold the croutons and tomatoes.” She folded her menu closed and laid it aside as she smiled at him and added, “I avoid unnecessary carbs whenever possible.”

She was one of those Protein People? Why? He stared blankly at the plastic covered folder in his hands. It couldn’t be to lose weight. She wouldn’t blow away in a stiff wind, but there was something to be said for having some meat on the bones. Better healthy-looking than looking like some junkie. He still hadn’t figured out her purpose when the waitress returned, set their drinks on the table in front of them, and asked if they were ready to order.

Logan laid his menu aside. He had a usual, too. “The lady will have the Cobb salad.”

The waitress glanced over at Catherine and asked, “Caesar and hold the carbs?”

“Please,” Logan said with a nod. “I’ll have the large K.C. Strip, medium rare, baked potato, blue cheese, load her carbs onto mine, and I get the check.”

“He does not,” Catherine protested as she sat up straighter. “I get it.”

The waitress looked between them. Logan smiled and met the blue-eyed gaze across the table. “Wanna arm wrestle me for it?”

“No.” She looked up at the server. “We’ll work it out before the time comes and let you know.”

The waitress gave him a quick nod that told him her bet was on him and then walked off. Logan snagged his beer, leaned back in his chair and settled in.

“We had a deal and it was that I buy your dinner,” Catherine reminded him.

“Put what you’re saving tonight into the new car account,” he countered. “And the other part of the deal was the story of why Tom left you the team.” He angled the mouth of the beer bottle in her direction and winked. “I will hold you to that offer.”

She had promised. Cat reached for her tea and wished she could get away with a simple “because he knew I needed it.” But, as stories went, it wasn’t much of one and certainly not worth any ten bucks. No, she had to pour out the whole thing. It was only fair. “Tom was actually my half brother,” she began, setting down her glass. “Same father, different moms. And twenty-four years apart. No surprise that we weren’t really all that close when I was a kid. But Dad died when I was twenty-eight and Tom and I sorta connected at the funeral.”

The waitress arrived at the table and set a salad plate down in front of Logan. He started—ever so slightly—and reached for his napkin wrapped silverware in an obvious and not-so-successful effort to hide the fact that he hadn’t known the server was there.

Cat picked up her silverware, as well. His right eye was the blind one, she recalled. As she laid her napkin in her lap, she quickly closed her right eye and checked her field of vision. And understood how things coming from that side could be such a surprise for him. Poor man. The least she could do was give him some sort of sign that something was coming at him so he didn’t spend his dinner getting blindsided time after time.

“Anyway, because I was in Dallas and Tom was here,” she went on, “we had a distant, three-four times a year ‘hey-what-you-been-doing’ kind of thing for the next ten years. But he was there for me when the big stuff happened. He and Millie came to my wedding and they set up a college savings fund for Kyle when he was born.”

The man across the table cocked a brow. “Kyle’s your son.”

Cat nodded. “Tom was always my big brother. But Millie really got into being the doting aunt for Kyle. She’s always spoiled him absolutely rotten.”

He swallowed a bite of salad. “And then?”

She adjusted the alignment of the forks beside her imaginary plate and forced herself to take a breath, made herself meet the gorgeous brown gaze square on. “And then my husband had a massive midlife crisis.”

“He left you.”

“High and dry,” she admitted, grateful that Logan Dupree hadn’t let her flounder around in the telling. To the point. That was Logan’s style. But gently. Kindly. That was nice of him. “I thought I was doing real well with the coping,” she explained. “I climbed on the back of the Harley. I didn’t say anything when he traded his Town Car for the roadster. I didn’t laugh when he had the hair transplants or when the face lift made him look kinda Chinese. I took the scuba diving lessons and I packed my bags for a ‘second honeymoon’ on the Mexican Riviera.” She sighed and put on a smile that she hoped didn’t look as strained as it felt. “Unfortunately, he decided to take his administrative assistant on the honeymoon instead.”

“Shit.”

Bless Logan for the wince. “Yeah,” she agreed. “It was a late afternoon flight. I spent the morning double-checking the babysitter and getting all that kind of stuff set. He spent it selling his Harley and the roadster and cleaning out the bank accounts. Which was the last of the liquidating as it turned out. The week before he’d cashed out both our IRAs and 401(k)s.”

Across the table, Logan snapped his jaw closed and then frowned. “That’s illegal. Your accounts are yours, not his.”

“That’s what my attorney said and the divorce judge agreed with him. But having a judgment and enforcing it are two different things. It’s like Ben’s disappeared off the planet.”

“Ben’s the ex?”

She nodded, tucked her hair behind her ears, and continued with the story. “I put on a big act for Kyle, of course. Told him that everything would be all right. That Mom could hold it all together. I was three weeks into the private oh-my-God-where-am-I-going-to get-money-for-groceries part of it all when Tom called for one of his regular check-ins. I lost it big time on the phone. I mean, I just blubbered.”

“Understandably.”

Oh, yeah, right. Like he would have sobbed and gone incoherent on his big brother. “Tom and Millie drove down that same night,” Cat went on. “They begged me to move up here. Tom offered me an administrative job with the team. And yes, it was generous of him and it would have been a smart thing to do, but I couldn’t do it to Kyle. His dad had left him, too. I couldn’t upend what was left of his world. I couldn’t haul him away from his friends, his school, the only house he’d ever lived in. I just couldn’t.”

“So you stuck it out in Dallas,” he summarized as he pushed away his half-eaten salad.

She shrugged. “Ben was the dean of students at a private tech college. As the dean’s wife, I took care of the social schmoozing that goes with the job. All volunteer, of course. But I had connections from the years I spent in the trenches. I pulled myself together and called in the chips. A friend of a friend hired me to help plan charity events. It wasn’t big money, but it was enough to keep us going.”

He lifted his bottle in a salute of sorts and said, “You get points for grit.”

“Thanks.” Grit points were a small consolation. They didn’t offset the tally on the big scoreboard. Not only had she been dumped for a twinkie half her age and ripped off in the process, she hadn’t seen it coming. Hadn’t even suspected. Naive and stupid and old. Yeah, earning a bit of respect from Logan Dupree was nice, but it didn’t make the reality hurt any less.

“Do you still have the house in Dallas or have you sold it already?”

And he got points for his effort to keep the conversation going, to keep her from the usual slide into the same ol’ wallow. Bless the man for that, too. “A month before he liquidated the retirement accounts, Ben borrowed against the equity. To the point where it would have taken another ten years of appreciation to break even. I didn’t have much choice except to give the keys to the bank and walk away.”

“Ouch.”

Aw, he seemed genuinely pained by it all. What a sweetheart. At the edge of her vision she caught sight of the waitress coming toward them with their dinners. Cat deliberately turned her head that way and smiled in satisfaction as Logan Dupree did the same.

“Actually, it was a relief to have the six ton gorilla off my back,” she assured him after the server left and they’d taken their first bites. “And we were ready to move on, anyway. When Millie began slipping, Kyle and I started making regular trips up here to help out with her team social functions. Wichita had become a second home to us, so after Tom passed away… Well, moving wasn’t the awful thing it would have been right after Ben took off.”

“It was nice of you to help Millie out like that.”

“It was the least I could do. If they hadn’t anchored me when I desperately needed to be, Kyle and I would be living in a Maytag box under some overpass.”

“I doubt that.”

“Seriously. I was a mess for a long time.”

“You seem okay now.”

“Yeah, I think I’m over the worst of it. My fantasy life has gotten fairly tame in the past year, anyway. That has to be a good sign.” At his cocked brow, she explained, “Oh, the standard thing. The bimbo-ette gaining a hundred and fifty pounds overnight. Ben’s transplants failing and his face sagging back to real. That sort of stuff.”

He grinned. “You’re so vicious.”

Yeah, her attorney had pointed that out, too. But not so kindly, and certainly not with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes. “He is Kyle’s dad.”

“If he walked through the door right now, would you take him back?”

“Not on a bet,” she answered firmly even as her gaze instinctively darted to Hero’s front door. Just in time to see the last of six of the Warriors come through it. She reached for her tea and desperately tried to wash the panic down. God, they had to know she’d fired Carl. He wouldn’t have kept quiet about it. If they saw her and came over to talk about it… Damn, damn, damn.

“Tom didn’t exactly leave you a gold mine, you know.”

Her heart racing faster than the engine on her Jeep, she swallowed hard, begged fate for one huge favor, and replied, “The Warriors have potential. You said so yourself.”

“When?” he demanded, a bite of steak frozen halfway to his mouth.

“In the parking lot behind the Coliseum. Not quite an hour ago.”

He popped the bit into his mouth, chewed and shook his head. He swallowed and picked up his beer. “That wasn’t exactly what I said.”

Relieved that the players had moved straight to the bar without a glance in her and Logan’s direction, she countered blithely, “Doesn’t matter. It’s what I heard and what I believe.”

He lowered his chin and leaned slightly forward. “Well, the guys have to believe it, too. And they don’t. They put on smiles for you, but they don’t for a minute think they have a prayer of ever being any better than they are.”

Yeah, but… She stabbed a chunk of hard-boiled egg. “Carl’s done a number on them, that’s all.”

“It’s frickin’ genetic,” he said as he sagged back into his chair with a half stunned, half amused look on his face.

God, he was handsome. And especially when he smiled in that lopsided way of his. The dimple in his cheek was positively darling. “What is?” she asked, kinda stunned herself.

“Your I-can-fix-anything approach to things,” he said as he rolled his eyes and went back to his steak. “Tom was the exact same way. His theme song should have been ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.’”

It had been. Millie had had it played at the funeral. Along with a whole bunch of other Motown hits. It had definitely been an odd service, but everyone had left with a little spring in their step, so all in all… But Logan didn’t need to know about any of that. There was a larger point to be made and she wasn’t about to pass up the chance to make it. “How’d you wind up in Wichita, playing for Tom?”

His gaze snapped up to meet hers and she saw his mental wheels whir. “I ended up here,” he said slowly and oh-so-grudgingly, “because no one else wanted me.”

She had him and they both knew it. “But Tom believed in you, in what you could do. And he was right, wasn’t he?”

“I’m the exception, not the rule,” he countered. “And besides, the game’s way different now than it was when I went in. Twenty years ago, you didn’t have to fight the Europeans for a chance in the majors. Now you do, and they’re damn good.”

His appraisal was hard and all but growled, Gotcha. Like that was going to slow her down. “So, because the chances of making it to the big leagues are slim, every minor leaguer should pack up their dreams and quit trying? They should just accept that they can’t ever improve? That they can’t be any more than they are today?”

He looked away and sighed. “It’d be the rational thing to do.”

“But?” Cat pressed.

He chuckled softly. “Hockey players aren’t hardwired to be rational. The whole game’s based on the fact that you have to be a few sandwiches shy of a picnic to play it.”

Goal to Catherine Talbott. But she could be gracious. “I think the same could be said for owning a minor league team.”

“In Wichita, for sure,” he agreed. “Have any of the prospective buyers mentioned the possibility of moving the franchise somewhere else?”

Interesting that he remembered that bit of conversation from yesterday. And that he apparently hadn’t accepted her reasons to hold off the sale. “We didn’t get that far in the discussions. I’ve given it some thought, though. Not that I have any idea of where that somewhere else might be.”

“Anywhere would be better than here.” He looked up to meet her gaze as he added, “Selling the franchise now would be an even better idea.”

“Maybe down the road,” she half promised as a movement on her left sent her heart into sudden overdrive again. “But not right now.” Right now, Matt Hyerstrom’s about to ruin everything. She reached for her tea and wished she’d ordered a margarita instead.

“Hi, Mizz Talbott.”

“Hi, Matt. I’d’ve thought you’d be too worn out from the game to even think about going out on the town.”

The young man’s grin was as sheepish as his shrug. “There’s more than one way to work out the aches, ma’am, and…well…” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His gaze slid to the other side of the table as he squared his shoulders, stuck out his hand, and said, “Mr. Dupree, my name is Matt Hyerstrom. I’m left wing, third line.”

Logan took the offered hand and gave it what looked—to Cat, anyway—like a solid, sincere shake. “Nice to meet you, Matt.”

“I can’t…” Matt looked over his shoulder toward the bar and then back. “All of us can’t tell you how great it is to know that we’ve got a real coach now. To be honest, we thought Mizz Talbott was nuts for firin’ Carl tonight, but now… We’ll do anything you ask us to. Anything.”

She’d never known that brown eyes could look icy and sharp; icicles had nothing on Logan Dupree in that moment. Jesus. Amiable and pleasant to ugly and lethal in a second flat. And without giving her a chance to explain. She reached out, touched the young man’s arm and brought his attention to her. “I’m afraid that there’s been a misunderstanding, Matt. Mr. Dupree is here strictly as a consultant. I don’t have a replacement for Carl yet.”

“Oh.” His shoulders slumped and he gave both her and Logan a weak smile as he edged backward and his face turned a bright red. “Well, it was a nice idea while it lasted. Sorry I broke into your dinner.”

“It’s all right, Matt. Really. I’ll find someone else you’ll be just as pleased with.” His nod was weak, but it would have to do. She turned back to Logan. “I’m sor—” The rest of the apology died on her tongue. Ice had gone to fire. Raging, barely controlled fire. What did he have to be mad about? She’d nipped it. Beautifully. Smoothly.

“Hyerstrom!” he barked, his gaze locked with hers.

“Yes, sir?”

Cat heard hope in the young voice, could see him frozen at the edge of her vision. She held Logan’s gaze and silently promised him Holy Salad Throwing Hell if he crushed the kid.

“The team needs to have new laces tomorrow morning,” he said calmly, crisply. “Pass the word.”

“Yes, sir!”

Cat frowned, repeated the words over in her mind, and considered them along with the pulsing jaw of the man glaring at her. The conclusion seemed reasonable. And impossible, too. “Did you just agree to coach my boys?”

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.