Protecting The Quarterback. Kristina Knight

into the lockers any time. Finding someone who will talk to you, that’s a whole other subject.”

      “Jonas.” Earl’s gravelly voice held a hint of warning this time. Jonas shrugged his shoulders and turned his gaze back to the corner. “What we are suggesting is an exclusive. You come to the camp for a couple of hours each day, and at the end of camp you can have your all-access interview with Jonas. Location of your choice, no topic off the table.”

      Brooks’s heart beat a little faster. All-access was good. All-access was what she needed to really make a splash in this program. “Is there a reason you want to delay this all-access interview for a couple of weeks?” She caught the look that passed between coach and player and her belly clenched. Yes, there was most definitely more to the Jonas Nash injury than the Kentuckians had reported up to this point. Neither man said a word, though. “My focus still has to be the whole team.”

      “Of course, of course.” Earl laid on the charm, leaning across the desk and clasping his hands. “Several of the players, coaching staff and trainers will be in and out for the duration of the camp. A woman with your background has to know how important youth sports are to the healthy development of our kids. Physical fitness, sure, but we’re talking about social responsibility, team building, leadership. All of which can be taught on the football field.”

      “My father believes the traits learned on the football field translate into the lives athletes lead off the field,” Brooks offered. “After reporting on professional sports for the past few years, I’m not sure I agree, but I’ll say that I think the football camp you’re talking about is a step in the right direction.”

      “Why don’t you drive out there with Jonas this morning? He’s putting the finishing touches on the field and the first of the kids will arrive this afternoon.”

      “Thursday is when we start really working with the kids—”

      “Today is good, actually,” Brooks interrupted before Jonas could come up with a reason to keep her off the field and out of the locker room. “And I’ll have full access to Jonas at the end of the camp, correct?”

      “Interview, mic him during practice, whatever you need.”

      “Great.” Brooks picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “I’ll meet you in the parking lot in five. I’ll bring my cameraman.”

      “I’ll bring repellant.”

      “No need, you do just fine with that all by yourself,” Brooks said, putting as much sugar into her voice as she could.

      * * *

      JONAS PACED AROUND the small office, stealing a look at Earl from time to time. Since Brooks had walked out two minutes before, he’d been trying to put into words exactly how many ways this plan was wrong.

      All he’d come up with was throwing the small coffee table against the wall and somehow, while it might succinctly tell Earl just how much he didn’t want this project, he didn’t think it would change the outcome. Earl would still expect him to be downstairs in—he checked his watch—one hundred and eighty seconds.

      “You about done wearing a hole in this fine carpet?”

      “The carpet’s crap. Just like this assignment is crap.”

      Earl just looked at him for a long moment. “You’d rather sit through twenty minutes of ‘how’s the shoulder’ and ‘where will you be playing next season?’ Because I thought we were trying to A) correct your image problems and B) keep the press off your shoulder radar for a couple more weeks.”

      “I just...why her? Why this reporter?”

      “Because she’s the one sniffing around and I don’t think she’s got her eyes set on becoming the next Miss Thang Dating Jonas. This girl could not give a fig about what you have to offer off the field, but you’ve got the chance to make her care.”

      “I don’t want to make her care.” Jonas folded his arms over his chest as he leaned his good shoulder against the wall. He didn’t, he insisted to himself. What Brook Smith thought of him was completely and totally beside the point. She was after a story, his story, and he hadn’t told anyone his story since Earl sat him down more than ten years ago and asked what he wanted out of life.

      Jonas had wanted the hell out of Texas, that was what he wanted. Away from constantly falling short of what his mother expected of him. Away from the boring prep-school life he’d been leading. To be anyone and anything other than Jonas Nash, son of renowned particle physicist Beverly Nash. The woman who did everything absolutely right: she chose the paper-perfect candidate to be his father, she swore off caffeine and alcohol and even chocolate while she was pregnant and didn’t even inhale if someone had fish nearby. She vaccinated him according to the rules, never did the baby-talk thing and enrolled him in a fancy preschool by the time he was two. She didn’t cuddle. She read to him from her textbooks.

      Only to find out before he even hit the fourth grade that he would never be a scientist. His brain didn’t work that way. Build a replica of New York City from LEGO bricks? No problem. Set him up to discover the secrets of string theory or dark matter and his brain shut down.

      Named for a brilliant scientist, she would tell him, and you can’t even get the dosage for Tylenol right.

      At seventeen, he’d been a wreck drinking Maalox by the carton diagnosed with his second bleeding ulcer. On a whim he followed the other guys in his class to the football field where he met Earl. From the moment he stepped onto the field he’d felt calm. As if football was something he could control, maybe even excel at. He’d excelled, all right, straight into the headlines of everything from fashion magazines to sports weeklies. Now his shoulder was a visit to the doctor away from junk, and the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about wanted the story that could ruin the one thing that made sense in his life.

      God, his life was so freaking messed up right now.

      “I don’t want her here. Not on campus and not with the kids, I just want all of this to go away.”

      Earl was quiet for a long moment and when he finally spoke, Jonas knew he understood. “It’s this way or have her digging through every last second of your life. Do you remember what I told you that day at the college clinic?”

      Jonas shook his head. One more lie couldn’t hurt anything.

      “Bullshit. I told you that you have the tools. You can be great with the talents you’ve been given or you can wreck your whole life trying to be something you’re not.”

      “And I chose football—my talent—and look where it landed me.”

      “Boy, you’re more hardheaded than a mule.” Earl shook his head and threw his pen down on the desk. “You let all the cameras and girls and fluff stories about how hot you are change your focus. You got an agent talking you up to Hollywood instead of figuring out a decent football slot, and a handful of teammates who want to ride your coattails to the next Sexiest Athlete Alive cover story. Women break into your house on a weekly basis because they’re convinced you’re the bad boy their momma always warned them about.” Earl took a breath. “And until I got here three weeks ago, the Kentuckians’ management were so wrapped up in your college legend that they kept drafting for defense, thinking your ability to see and run the field will win them games. We can fix the football, and I’ve seen the X-rays. Your shoulder will come back. But, buddy, if you want the whole package, your image is the next item up for bid.”

      His image. Jonas snorted. His image was parties in the Caribbean, mansions in Dallas and Los Angeles and anything else superficial that kept people at a distance. Until five months ago, he had been mostly content with the image. Sure, it chafed now and then, but what image didn’t? Now, though, it felt as if he was wearing shoes that were two sizes too small. “I don’t like people poking around in my business.”

      “Didn’t say you had to like it. Said you had to run with it.”

      Run with it. Jonas sighed. Hadn’t he tried that?