She understood his yearning even if she couldn't understand his passion for football. How could this sweet, gentle man have such an unhealthy obsession?
She nodded her head toward the papers he was carrying. "You want me to sign those, don't you?"
He came closer, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "All I can do is advise you, but I think this team has an exciting future. Dan's temperamental and demanding. Sometimes he's too hard on the players, but he's still a great coach, and we have a lot of young talent. I know these contracts represent a fortune, but in football, championships make money. I think it's a good long-term investment."
She snatched the papers from him and quickly scrawled her name in the places he indicated. When she was done, she felt dizzy knowing that she had just given away millions of dollars. Still, it would ultimately be Reed's problem, so why should she worry?
The door opened and Dan came in. He saw the pen in her hand as she returned the contracts to Ron, who gave him a brief affirming nod.
Dan seemed to visibly relax. "Why don't you take those back to Steve now, Ronald?"
Ron nodded and left the room before she could stop him. The office felt measurably smaller as the door once again closed and they were alone. She had felt safe with Ron, but now something dangerous sizzled in the air.
As Dan walked behind the desk and took a seat, she realized this was his office. Unlike other parts of this building, this room had no ego-inflating wall of commendations and photographs. Utilitarian steel bookcases and file cabinets stood on one side opposite a well-worn couch. The desk and the credenza behind it were cluttered, but not disorganized. A television occupied the far corner along with a VCR. She averted her eyes from an ugly hole in the wallboard that looked as if it might have been made with a fist.
She waited for him to start pulling empty beer cans out of the drawers and crushing them in his fists, but he nodded toward one of the blue and chrome side chairs. She took a seat on the couch instead because it was farther away.
The chair squeaked as he leaned back. "I already had lunch, so you don't need to look so scared. I'm not going to eat you up."
She lifted her chin and gave him a smoky smile. "That's too bad, Coach. I was hoping you were hungry."
He smiled. "I'm glad I met you when I was thirty-seven instead of seventeen."
"Why is that?"
"Because I'm a lot smarter now than I was then, and you're exactly the kind of female my mama warned me about."
"Smart mama."
"You been a man-killer all your life, or is it something that happened recently?"
"I bagged my first one when I was only eight. A Cub scout named Kenny."
"Eight years old." He gave an admiring whistle. "I don't even want to contemplate what you were doing to the male population by the time you were seventeen."
"It wasn't a pretty sight." Playing games with this man was nerve-racking, and she searched for a way to change the subject. Remembering the empty practice fields, she nodded toward the window.
"Why aren't the players practicing? I thought you were losing."
"It's Tuesday. That's the only day of the week players have off. A lot of them use it to make community appearances, speak at luncheons, that sort of thing. The coaches do, too. Last Tuesday, for example, I spent the afternoon taping a public service announcement for United Way at a nursery school the county operates."
"I see."
The bantering had disappeared, and he was all business as he slid a manila file folder across the desk toward her. "These are resumes of the three men Steve Kovak and I think are best qualified for the general manager's job, along with our comments. Why don't you look this over tonight? You can let us make the final decision, or you might want to talk with Reed."
"As long as I'm the owner, Coach, I'll be making my own decisions."
"Fine. But you need to move quickly."
She picked up the folder. "What about the current general manager? Has he been fired?"
"Not yet."
When he didn't say anything more, her stomach sank. She couldn't imagine anything worse than firing someone, even a person she didn't know. "I'm not firing him! I like my men alive and kicking."
"Normally it'd be the owner's job, but I figured you'd feel that way so I asked Steve to take care of it for you. He's probably talking to him now."
Phoebe gave a sigh of relief.
Dan insisted on showing her around the facilities, and their tour of the two-story, L-shaped building took much of the next hour. She was surprised by the number of classrooms she saw and mentioned this to Dan.
"Meetings and watching film make up part of most practice days," he explained. "Players have to learn the game plan. They get critiqued and hear scouting reports. Football's more than sweat."
"I'll take your word for it."
The coaches' conference room had a chalkboard at one end, which was scrawled with words like King, Joker, Jay-hawk, as well as some diagrams. The weight room smelled like rubber and had an elephant-sized Toledo scale, while the tiny video lab held floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with expensive, high-tech equipment.
"Why do you need so much film equipment?"
"A lot of coaching involves watching films. We have our own camera crew, and they shoot every game from three different angles. In the NFL, each team has to send their last three game films to their next opponent exactly one week before they play."
She looked through a set of windows into the training room, the only truly orderly area she'd seen on her tour. The walls were lined with cabinets. There were padded benches, several stainless steel whirlpools, a Gatorade dispenser, a red plastic barrel marked "Infectious Waste," and a table that held dozens of rolls of tape in foot-high stacks.
She pointed toward them. "Why so much?"
"The players have to be taped before each practice, usually twice a day. We use a lot."
"That must take a long time."
"We have five tapers at training camp, three during the season."
They moved on. She noticed that the few women they met visibly perked up when they spotted Dan, while the men greeted him with varying degrees of deference. She remembered what Ron had told her about the boys' club and realized that Dan was its president.
In the veterans' locker room, the open lockers were piled with shoes, socks, T-shirts, and pads. Some of the players had taped family snapshots to their lockers. There was a soft drink-dispensing machine at one end, along with several telephones and wooden pigeonholes stuffed with fan mail.
After she promised him she would report back by ten the next morning, Dan left her in the lobby. She was so relieved to have gotten away from him without suffering any major injuries that she had already pulled the keys Annette Miles had given her to Bert's Cadillac from her purse before she remembered that she hadn't thanked Ron for helping her today. She also wanted to ask his advice on choosing the new general manager.
As she headed toward the wing that held the Stars' management, a stocky man carrying camera equipment came toward her.
"Excuse me. Where can I find Ron's office?"
"Ron?" He looked puzzled.
"Ron McDermitt."
"Oh, you mean Ronald. Last door at the end."
She walked down the corridor, but when she reached the end, she decided she'd gotten the instructions wrong because this door held a brass placard marked "General Manager." Puzzled, she stared at it.
And then her heart gave a sickening thud. She flew into a small antechamber, which held a secretary's desk and some chairs. The phone was ringing with all buttons flashing, but no one was there. She experienced a few mad seconds of hope that Ron was some kind of assistant, but that hope died when she rushed over to the doorway of the inner office.
Ron sat at the desk, his chair turned away from the door toward the window behind him. He was in his shirtsleeves, elbows propped on the arms of the chair.