Fast Courting (5 page)

“It’s not necessarily true, at any rate. On the road, with midnight flights and periodic jet lag, your sleep schedule gets pretty messed up. The fellows often doze on the plane and take naps before games. But even though the schedule may be grueling for the players, it’s not necessarily hectic. There’s a good deal of free time at every stop. That can be frustrating in itself.”

“Free time? Is there?” she asked, unaware that her mask of detachment had slipped again to reveal her own past personal involvement.

“Sure.” He scrutinized her sharply as he spoke in a low, even pitch. “Most games are played at night. During the day there may be a practice or a team meeting or a film of the team we’ll be playing that night. But all told, there are hours at a stretch when each man is on his own.”

Nia chewed the inside of her lip and frowned. That wasn’t exactly the picture David had painted over the years. He had spoken of the nonstop life, the sheer exhaustion of the team, its sportswriter included. She had always assumed…but she knew better now. David’s fatigue had been only in part a consequence of his work.

A sudden movement jarred her. Looking up quickly, she saw that Daniel had risen from his desk and approached her. Her eyes held the question he brusquely answered.

“Let’s go. Interview’s over.” He seemed abruptly and inexplicably stern, as though his patience with the media had come to a sudden end. She half expected him to clamp his fingers around her arm and forcibly lead her from the room. It was a surprise when he gently took her coat from her lap and held it for her.

Slowly, she recovered, stood, and slid her arms carefully into the sleeves of the reefer. She was acutely aware of Daniel’s tall presence behind her. His hands rested fleetingly on her shoulders before he stepped back.

Nia sent him a sheepish grin. “So I’m being kicked out?” She felt a light hand at her back and went with the movement toward the door.

“I’m hungry.”

“What?”

“It’s nearly one-thirty. Aren’t
you
hungry?”

“Uh…I—I hadn’t really thought about it,” she stammered. She hadn’t. If her stomach had growled, she’d been too engrossed in coping with Daniel Strahan to notice. “But I really should be getting back to the office.”

Daniel guided her down the hallway, retracing the path she had taken earlier. “Then you won’t have lunch with me?”

“Lunch?” Her gaze snapped sideways and up, focusing on the strong features of her escort.

“I do believe that’s what we were discussing.”

“We were discussing the demise of this interview.”

“Let’s discuss it over lunch.”

“You mean,” she asked, more hopeful in an instant, “that there’s a chance you’ll change your mind?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

They had reached the straightaway that led to the exit. Daniel paced his stride to more comfortably match hers, yet Nia still felt winded. Perhaps it was hunger, after all.

“Then what’s the purpose of lunch?”

“I’m hungry.” He held the door for her to pass.

“I don’t think you need
me
to deal with
that
,” she taunted as she moved by, too late catching the double entendre. A hand on her arm halted her.

His voice was deeper, different. “I’d argue with you on that score if you weren’t one of
them
. But I like to keep the press under my thumb, not in my bed. It’s much safer that way.”

For the first time Nia was aware of this man solely as a sexual being. As such, he was dangerous, dark and powerful. And his implication infuriated her. Throwing caution to the winds, she took the offense. “You take a lot for granted!” she seethed. “What makes you think I would jump into bed with you? Are you propositioned that often?”

His jaw tensed. “It has happened.”

“Well,” she said with a glare, “
I
don’t work that way! I don’t proposition men, for one thing. And, for another, you could no more get me near the game of basketball again than you could coax me into a pit of rattlers. I didn’t want this assignment to begin with!”

From somewhere deep within she found the strength to pull her arm free of his grip. Driven by anger—at Daniel for having provoked her, at herself for having been provoked, and at Bill for having put her in the situation at all—she wheeled away and headed for her car at a fast clip. The March wind whipped at her hair, catching the edges of her coat and flaring them out to the sides. She had reached the car and was fumbling with the lock when the brass ring was taken from her fingers and those same fingers were enclosed in the pervading warmth of Daniel’s hand.

“Let’s take my car,” he said with a firmness that brooked no argument and a gentleness that precluded protest. To her astonishment Nia found herself being led toward, then tucked into, the front seat of a sporty Datsun 280Z. Not knowing quite what to say, she remained silent while Daniel circled the car and slid behind the wheel. His grace was an extension of the coordination she’d witnessed on the court earlier.

The purr of the motor was far smoother than her shaky mood. Staring out at the empty parking lot, she brooded. The self-satisfied, sexist overtone of his comment had rankled her, though she had to admit that her reaction had been unusually strong. What was it about Daniel Strahan that inspired such fire? Perhaps she felt threatened, she mused grudgingly; after all, he was more of a man than she’d come across in ages. Or was it the air of mystery about him?

They were on a back road headed west before Nia forced herself to speak. “Where are we going?”

“There’s a small place not far from here where we can get something to eat. Italian. OK?” He spared a mere second to dart a glance at her, otherwise keeping his eyes glued to the road, and missed Nia’s shrug.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, calmed by the steady motion of the car and the passage of luxuriant greenery by the roadside.

“Taking you to lunch?” He paused. “I owe you.”

Her head swung around. “For what?”

In profile, there was an angularity about him, from the even plane of his forehead beneath its brush of dark hair and the straight line of his nose to the firm set of his lips and the squared-off angle of his chin. “For failing to return your calls all week and causing you to make an unnecessary stop out here today. The least I can do is to feed you.”

“Anything to keep the press happy, is that it?” she snapped, clinging to the last of her dissipating anger with something akin to survival instinct.

Again, he shot her a fast glance. “No. Actually, this is more person to person.”

Better that than man to woman, she thought. “But aren’t you afraid,” she couldn’t resist a jibe, “that in the course of a lunch you might inadvertently spill some little private tidbit that I’ll greedily snatch up?”

“I trust you.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t. I may be with
Eastern Edge
as an editor, but first and foremost I’m a writer. A reporter, if you will. Don’t you know that reporters are slimy creatures who will seize upon anything for the sake of a story?”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re with
Eastern Edge
, for one thing. That magazine doesn’t print ‘tidbits’; it only goes in for complete, well-planned and skillfully executed articles.”

“If you believe that, why won’t you agree to my interview?”

He showed no emotion. “Because I have nothing to say.”

“God, are you stubborn!”

“No more so than you,” he stated as fact.

“Then why in the world are we here?” Nia bristled. He had turned off the road and was now pulling up to a small group of stores, one of which was a charmingly sleepy-looking restaurant. “I didn’t ask to be taken to lunch. You can easily turn around and take me back to my car.”

Daniel angled the Datsun into a space, stilled its motor and uncoiled himself to step outside. When he reached Nia’s side, opened her door and offered his hand, she took it. They were in the restaurant and seated opposite one another at a quiet booth before she was able to speak.

“I have no idea why I do it.” She spoke half to herself, shaking her head in slow dismay. Her violet eyes clouded as they sought a solution.

Daniel frowned. “Do what?”

“Go right along with you…against my better judgment. It’s happened three times now in the span of an hour.” Her lips thinned. “I must be a masochist when it comes to men and basketball.”

“Either that,” his brown eyes warmed, “or you’re as hungry as I am.”

“
That
doesn’t deserve an answer,” she scolded softly, recalling all too vividly the problem they’d run into with double meanings earlier. Now she simply stared, awaiting Daniel’s next move. If he wouldn’t talk personally and she wouldn’t talk shop, what was left?

The silence didn’t bother him in the least. He studied her face for agonizingly long seconds before turning to gesture toward the waitress for two of something. It had been an hour of surprises for Nia; why not another? Dutifully, she refrained from asking what he’d ordered, pandering instead to more professional curiosity.

“Why
didn’t
you return any of my calls?”

He glanced toward the ceiling. “Do you have any idea how many similar ones I get each week?”

“Do you ignore
all
of them?”

“No,” he answered patiently, then lowered his head in an attitude of near mischief. “It just takes time to get around to returning them. I’ve found that the less interested ones lose interest after a week or two. They stop calling. That saves some of the dirty work.”

“The dirty work being calling them back and refusing their requests?” she asked, feeling strangely defensive, almost guilty.

“Often.”

Nia thought back to what he’d said earlier. “What about all that free time you mentioned? I would think you’d welcome the diversion, as a time-filler, if nothing else. It must be ego-boosting to grant a bevy of interviews.”

“Ah,” he breathed facetiously, “the professional athlete as an insufferable prima donna.”

“Am I that far off-base?” She smiled in a challenge that Daniel Strahan met one-on-one.

“About me…yes. About some in the league…no. The game has changed dramatically over the last few years.”

“Oh?” It was shaky ground for Nia, but she was hesitant to cut him off. There was always the possibility that, if she proved herself to be an innocuous, even pleasant companion, he might actually agree to her interview.

Daniel’s explanation took the form of a pair of terse words. “Big money.” His expression held a shadow of disdain.

“It’s really changed things all that much?”

“Oh, yes,” he drawled.

“How?”

As his gaze grew pensive, his fingers flexed, then intertwined. Nia looked down at them, noting both their length and latent strength. They were beautifully formed, begging to be explored and admired, one by one. Catching her breath at the thought, she forced her eyes up just in time to note Daniel’s glimmer of awareness before it disappeared behind a mask of detachment.

He spoke quietly. “In the old days—”

“—when
you
played?” she teased him gently.

As though in punishment—or was it reward?—he grinned that honest to goodness grin of his, a grin that melted her own sense of detachment and left her struggling to recall the time and place. “Up until my last few playing years the pay was low and the benefits poor. Then the green came, mostly as a result of television.” He leaned back when the waitress delivered a carafe of white wine and two crisp salads, then waited until she left to fill their glasses, one of which he raised in toast.

“To your stubborn streak.”

Nia mimed his action with a grin. “To yours.”

Both sipped before she prodded him on. “You were talking about television….”

He nodded. “Do you know that, under league regulations, there must be at least two time-outs called in each period?” When she raised her eyebrows in question, he explained. “Commercials. The name of the game. And a source of millions. The team gets paid a hefty sum for the rights to televise its games. In turn, the players are treated as entertainers. Money. First-class accommodations. Numerous fringe benefits. Not to mention endorsements.”

“Has the game itself suffered?” she asked, idly poking at her salad with a fork.

Daniel took a bite before answering. “I can’t quite say that it has ‘suffered.’ ‘Changed’ is more accurate. Before the team functioned as a team; now the coaches find themselves with a group of individuals who have to be taught— and constantly reminded—to work together. There are many more rivalries and grudges, based solely on the fact that one player may be getting more money for doing a job another thinks is inferior to his own.”

“Sounds touchy.”

A deep laugh burst from the back of his throat. “It is. The modern coach is as much a diplomat as anything else.”

“Do you enjoy it—coaching?”

He shrugged. “It puts bread on the table.”

“Oh, come on,” Nia charged lightly. “You have to feel more for it than
that
. In order to be good at what you do, you have to
love
it.”

As if on cue, a basket of sliced Italian bread appeared. Daniel offered it to Nia, who shook her head in refusal, then helped himself to a slice and proceeded to butter it. She watched and waited, expecting some word on the extent of his emotional commitment. But he remained silent and all she saw was a self-confident man wise to her crafty conversational tactics. Acting on years of practice, he tossed the ball downcourt, straight toward the opposite basket.

“Do you love
your
work?” he asked, eyeing her over the rim of his wineglass.

“Uh-huh.”

“Tell me about this feature.”

“Yours?” Her eyes held pure innocence.

“No, Antonia,” he chided with a smile. “The one you had
hoped
to snag me for.”

Nia suddenly realized that she had no wish to tell him about the feature. She had too many doubts about it herself. Not to mention embarrassment. “Oh,” she crinkled her nose, “you don’t really want to hear about it. After all, if you’re not interested in being part of it—”