Play for Keeps
Love Games #2
Maggie Wells
Pub
Date: April 3, 2018
Genre:
Contemporary
Mixing
business and pleasure is a dangerous game…
Tyrell
Ransom, the new men’s basketball coach, is ready to whip his team into shape
and start winning some games. But when compromising photos of his
soon-to-be-ex-wife with one of his players go viral, everything comes crashing
down. With reporters thick on the ground, Ty and his team need some serious
damage control—now.
When public relations guru Millie Jenkins arrives in her
leopard-print cape to save the day, things really heat up... Soon
they’re going to have to work double time to keep their white-hot chemistry out
of the headlines.
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Clean-shaven, minty fresh,
and unable to stand waiting a second longer, he snatched up the phone and
padded into the condo’s master bedroom. The furnishings were comfortable if not
a bit generic. The bed was a standard king, which meant he slept diagonally
most nights, but the pillows were firm and plentiful. Hitting the recall button
with his thumb, he propped a couple against the headboard, then dropped onto
the bed. The knot at his waist loosened a bit but held the ends of the towel
together enough to keep him decent.
“Hi, Ty.”
The throaty rasp of her
greeting did things to him. Stirred thoughts and urges he’d bank for later. For
now, he had to set the jumble aside and form coherent sentences. “Hey, sorry I
missed your call.”
His lack of explanation
might have been a bit of payback. Millie never gave excuses for why she would
need to call him back or accounted for her time in any way, so he followed her
lead. He didn’t want her thinking he counted down the hours until he could talk
to her again. Even if he did.
Playing by the unwritten
conversational rules, he opened with an inane yet remarkably telling question. “How
was your day?”
She sighed. “Boring. I
hate summer session. Campus is like a ghost town in the afternoons. Kate has
banned me from her office because I told her I was tempted to release the
bikini picture from her honeymoon. I have no idea why she’s being such a pill.
If I were built like her, I’d dance a bikini-clad flamenco on top of every
swimsuit edition in the athletic department’s secret archive.”
Ty wasn’t sure how he was
supposed to respond, so he stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed one
ankle over the other, and started in what seemed like the safest place. “Secret
archive?”
She guffawed. “Don’t play
innocent. I know what’s in the file cabinet at the back of the bullpen.”
He smiled, the image of
Millie rifling through the battered metal drawers in search of contraband
forming in his mind’s eye. She wasn’t wrong. When the university’s human resources
director cracked down on “potentially offensive” materials displayed in the
workplace, the warren of cubicles housing the coaching assistants was hardest
hit. All calendars, posters, and, yes, a nearly exhaustive collection of Sports Illustrated
swimsuit editions were deemed too dangerous for public display. But instead of
taking the stuff home, some smarty-pants locked all the loot in a filing
cabinet no one bothered to use once departmental records became computerized. A
limited number of duplicate keys were made, and being awarded one had become a
departmental rite of passage.
At least now Ty had a
pretty good idea who’d planted a copy of Burt Reynolds’s Cosmopolitan centerfold in the mix.
“Are you the one who keeps slipping issues of GQ
and Esquire in?”
“Not me,” she said in a
singsong voice. “But I can tell you people really are crazy about a
sharp-dressed fella.”
“Sadly, I don’t think they’re
having any impact on Mack or Beau’s wardrobe choices,” he said gravely.
Mack and Beau were the
elder statesmen of the Warrior coaching staff. They were known for their love
of polyester shorts, snow-white athletic shoes, and, in Beau’s case, striped
tube socks color coordinated with whichever polo-collared shirt his wife of
over forty years had pressed for him. They were also two of the handful of
coaches who’d willingly relinquished their keys to the cabinet. As far as Ty
knew, the head coaches declined their copies. He knew far better ways to get
shit-canned in professional coaching than ogling two-dimensional versions of scantily
clad women. The three-dimensional ones caused enough trouble.
“I’d run away with Mr.
Beau if he’d ditch that hussy.”
“Watch yourself. She may
look all sweet and charming, but I’m pretty sure Mrs. Beau would claw your eyes
out if you put the moves on her man.”
Millie heaved a heavy
sigh. “No use. I can’t get the guy to look twice at me anyhow.”
“I have fifty that says he’s
looked more than twice.”
Her delighted laugh made
the prospect of coughing up fifty bucks on a bet he couldn’t prove one way or another
totally worthwhile. “You’re so good for my ego.”
By day, Maggie Wells is buried in spreadsheets.
At night she pens tales of people tangling up the sheets. The product of a
charming rogue and a shameless flirt, you only have to scratch the surface of
this mild-mannered married lady to find a naughty streak a mile wide. She has a
passion for college football, processed cheese foods, and happy endings. Not
necessarily in that order. She lives in Arkansas.
Thanks for featuring Play for Keeps!
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