There was some grumbling over this, but a look from ‘the Goddess’ quieted it instantly. “I just wanted to tell you all that I’ve been proud, damn proud, to be associated with each and every one of you. You’re a helluva team, and I wish you nothing but good luck and smooth sailing wherever your careers take you. Thanks for taking me on this trip with you.”
As one, the team stood and began to chant Dylan’s name. Even though they hadn’t won, champagne corks popped and they were soon dousing one another with the bubbly liquid, laughing and cheering as if they’d taken the whole thing.
Cat joined in the laughter as she watched her lover use her much vaunted defensive skills to stay, for the moment, out of the fracas. She was right, Cat thought with a sense of surprise. That jerk could keep us from winning, but he could never make us lose.
And with her spirits thusly buoyed, she waded into the fray, a freshly popped champagne bottle ready for dumping on the most beautiful woman she knew, inside and out. Screw you, Johnson, and screw you basketball. There’s finally something in my heart more important than the both of you could ever be.
And then, she pounced.
The END
EPILOGUE
“Dylan?”
“Mmn?”
Grinning, Cat fanned herself with her open copy of “Alabama Coaches Monthly”. Lowering her sunglasses just slightly, she turned her head to fully take in the view of the woman beside her. Lying on her belly in a seaside lounge chair, Dylan Lambert was the posterchild for clean living. Toned almost black by the constant sun, the white thong part of her bathing suit left nothing to the imagination, and Cat spent a good few minutes mapping every curve and valley of the long body stretched out before her. The tiny straps that held her top—what there was of it—up were, of course, untied to permit even tanning, and Cat found herself half-hoping that a loud noise or something would startle her somnolent lover enough to have her come up from her position.
Then she looked over that the small groups of men and women who continued to dart looks her dark lover’s way and nixed that hope for good and all. Mine, she thought to herself. Allll mine.
Turning her head toward Cat, Dylan cracked her sun sensitive eyes just the slightest bit open. “Did you need something?”
Cat smirked. “Oh, the many ways I could answer that particular question. However, since we’re in public right now, I just was wanting to tell you that I saw an ad here for a coach over at St. Catherine’s Girl’s High. The candidate has to have a teaching degree too. I think they want them doing the Health classes or something.”
Dylan chuckled. “Your mom will think she’s died and gone to heaven. You…teaching. In a Catholic girl’s school even.”
“Mm. You have a point there.”
“Is it something you’re considering?”
“I don’t know. Guess it’s good to keep my options open.”
“True.”
As Dylan’s eyes slipped closed, Cat thought back on the past three weeks of her life. True to her lover’s prediction, no more than two days had passed since the championship game when her phone began ringing off the hook. Seemed that every single coach and owner in the league wanted to talk to her. She’d even been surprised by the number of calls coming from outside the United States. Teams from Spain, France, Germany and Japan were hustling to beat the band. She was, it seemed, a very hot commodity.
Thus far, Horace Johnson had managed to keep his word. She received the letters releasing her from her contract, and there was, as Haley Locke put it, no muss and no fuss to go with them. The team’s owner—he hadn’t sold yet—refused to be interviewed in the aftermath of the last game of the season. Of course, it had helped that he’d just been released from the hospital after an attack of angina, and the press wasn’t all that inclined to push.
More surprisingly, he’d let Dylan go just as quietly as he’d let Cat, and most of the other Badgers go as well. Cat often wondered just what it was that Dylan dangled over his head, but realized that in this case, some secrets were best kept behind locked lips. At least until she’d determined her life’s path and couldn’t be hurt by them anymore.
Dylan had fielded more than her fair share of calls—she was the Goddess, after all, and number one in anybody’s eyes, be it as a player, a coach, or a combination of the two. She’d turned them all down with class and aplomb, leaving her many callers feeling better than any right to feel, considering she’d said ‘no’ to their offers.
Finally, when neither of them could take anymore, Dylan suggested a vacation on Antigua. Cat had jumped at the suggestion before it had even fully left her partner’s lips, kissing her soundly for her good judgment, then rushing off to pack. They’d both left their cell phones at home, and their destination with Mac, who was under orders not to breathe a word of it to anyone under penalty of a severe hurting. He’d gotten the message loud and clear.
So why, she mused, was Carlos, the admittedly hunky cabana boy, coming toward them with a tray in his hand? A tray that bore something that looked suspiciously like a phone atop its silvery elegance?
As he approached, Carlos flashed a toothy grin at them both while bowing at the waist. “Good afternoon to you Ms Cat and Ms Dylan,” he began in his lightly accented voice.
“That’d better not be a phone in your hand,” Dylan muttered from her place on the lounge.
The young man’s smile faltered slightly, then regained previous wattage as he bowed again. “Yes, Ms. Dylan, it is a phone.”
“I’m gonna kill Mac,” she grumbled, pressing her top to herself in deference to Cat, and reaching for the phone.
“No, Ma’am, it is not a Mac. He says his name is a….Thad Carter?”
Dylan and Cat exchanged glances. Thad Carter was the head coach of the Dallas Mavs, the men’s pro basketball team. Pressing the phone to her ear, Dylan said, “Thad? That you?”
“Dylan! Thank God. I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
“I’m on vacation, Thad.” Cat could see her lover’s jaws clamp hard on the invective that was just begging to come out.
“Oh.”
“So, what was so urgent that you had to call halfway around the world to speak to me? Is the sky falling? Stock market crash? Horace Johnson finally bit the big one while screwing his admin? What?”
Thad chuckled. “No, no, nothing like that. It’s just that…well….I…..”
“Spit it out, Thad. I’m beginning to tan unevenly here.”
Cat smothered her laughter with a hand to her mouth. Dylan turned and tipped her a wink.
“I’m waiting, Thad.”
“Ok, listen, it’s like this. You probably haven’t heard the news, being on vacation and all, but I’ve been named the Head Coach of the USA Women’s Basketball team for this year’s Olympics. And, well, I’d like you and Catherine to consider playing for my team. Now I know that you’re both semi-retired, but you’re also the best female players in the damn world, and I want you and your talents on my side of the court. We’ll win the gold if you’re there, sure as shit sticks to a sheep’s ass.”
“Charming, Thad. Utterly charming.”
She could almost feel the man’s blush on the other end of the line. “Sorry. It’s just….”
“I know what it’s just, Thad.” She sighed, rolling over to one side so that she was facing Cat, who looked to be ready to go into convulsions unless she found out what they were talking about, and soon, too. “Listen, you’re right. We’re both semi-retired, and we took this vacation to get away from all the hounds and freaks and assorted other nutjobs wanting a piece of us. So I can’t give you our answer right now. We’ll have to discuss it between us.”
“I understand,” he replied quickly. “I am a little pressed for time, though. This was kinda sprung on me the last minute too.”
“Spreading the wealth around. I like that about you, Thad. But the fact is, we’ll take all the time we need to come to a decision. Neither of us is in the mood to be pushed right now. If that is too tough on you, go ahead and get someone else.”