Protecting The Quarterback. Kristina Knight

next paycheck on it.”

      Jonas paused at the door. “Maybe I should just give it up.” He rubbed his shoulder, and while the touch didn’t hurt, it still felt off. “I gave it a good run. I’ve got more money in the bank than I can ever spend. I don’t want to be one of those old players who can’t walk because of bad knees or who can’t shower themselves because of shoulder pain.”

      Earl was quiet for so long that Jonas had to turn around. The coach stared at him for a long minute. “Is that what you really want?” His voice was quiet in the room, but Jonas could still hear the censure.

      “No.” God help him, he wanted more than to live off the millions in his bank account. Wanted more than to be an asterisk in some football trivia book.

      “What is it that you want?”

      “I want the championships.”

      “Because you want more headlines? More fluff stories about the fabulous life of Jonas Nash?”

      Jonas shook his head. “Because I want to leave a legacy. I don’t want to be the asterisk.” Earl had made him great in college. Maybe the coach could work that magic again in the pros.

      “I can’t make the legacy thing happen, you have to do that. It starts on the field, but what you do off the field is just as important.”

      * * *

      “WHY ARE YOU doing this?”

      Brooks wasn’t one to look a proverbial gift horse in the mouth, but she was still caught up on the why of this whole arrangement. Especially after Jonas let her cameraman, Kent, shoot him from every possible angle, but refused to be hooked up with a mic for even a quick “this is what we do here” interview. Instead he pawned her off on the head groundskeeper and a scintillating ten-minute interview about the benefits of field turf.

      Most of the athletes Brooks had come in contact with couldn’t wait to crow about who they helped and why. Most because they were so excited to give back to the communities that raised them; a few because of the status their charities offered.

      Jonas looked along the football field at the vinyl-covered Styrofoam numbers marking the yard lines on the grass. He studied the area they’d been walking for a long moment. Finally she was going to get a real answer. Brooks’s fingers itched for her notebook and pen. The same notebook and pen Jonas insisted she leave in the truck along with every other piece of equipment save the actual camera and a single tape.

      “Well, from four o’clock this afternoon through noon next Friday, we’ll have fifty ten-and eleven-year-olds on this field. If the work isn’t finished this morning, I have to do it in the afternoon heat. We princes melt in ninety-degree weather,” he added with a waggle to his brows and laughter in his voice.

      “You’re no prince,” Brooks muttered.

      “And you’re no princess, Princess,” Jonas retorted.

      “Because I don’t wave my pom-poms in your face?”

      “I wouldn’t mind your pom-poms in my face, come to think of it.”

      Brooks blushed, glad Kent had taken the camera back to the truck a few minutes before. “Why do you keep bringing up princess movies? I thought boys were all about SpongeBob and Transformers and things.”

      He watched her for a long moment. “You don’t remind me of a square yellow sponge, and your curves are way more enticing than even the sleekest of metal robots,” he said, and the expression in his deep brown eyes made her swallow. Hard.

      There was a bit too much honesty in his gaze for her to shrug this off as another attempt to keep her off balance.

      “Besides, I like old movies.” Jonas shrugged. “The westerns, the romantic comedies, animated stuff. I’ve watched it all at one time or another.”

      “A connoisseur of film?”

      He half smiled, but she had a feeling the expression was more self-deprecating than fond memory. “Something like that.”

      “My dad and I used to watch old football films—not the game-tape variety.” She followed him down the line as he adjusted first one and then another line marker, seeming to ignore her. “I think my favorite was Knute Rockne-All American.”

      “And I’m the Gipp to your Rockne? I’m not dead or dying, Princess,” he said, his voice flat. But his spine was straight and sparks of anger flew from his gaze.

      Brooks blinked. That wasn’t what she’d meant at all. She just liked the movie. Mostly she liked that she’d watched it eating popcorn and drinking soda with her father on a sultry summer night when she was too young to really understand why Gipp was sick and what that meant. “No, I—” she took a breath “—I just like the movie, watching it with my dad. You like movies, and—”

      “And you thought we’d bond over an old black-and-white about a dying football player? Dream on, Princess.” He turned his back on her to adjust another line marker. Brooks hurried to keep up with him.

      “If you don’t want me here why did you invite me?”

      “I didn’t, remember?”

      “You didn’t object.” He raised an eyebrow. “Too much. You didn’t have to go along, but you did. Why?” she asked, hating the fact that she needed to know the answer so badly. Hating even more the fear that he would say he didn’t want her here because he didn’t like her. Physical reactions couldn’t be faked, but people were physically attracted all the time and couldn’t stand the people they were attracted to.

      “Why are you so focused on ruining...never mind,” he said as he adjusted the last marker. Jonas positioned it just so in the grass, still not looking at her.

      “You think I’m here to ruin your little side project?”

      “The thought crossed my mind,” he said and the flatness of his voice was like the scrape of fingernails over a chalkboard. She would never hurt a child, and she had a feeling Jonas knew that and was needling her. Trying to make her walk out so he’d be alone. Well, damned if she would do that.

      “It was your coach who came up with this idea. All I wanted was an interview.”

      “So you could report on what big, bad Jonas got up to during the off-season.”

      “So I could ask big, bad Jonas if he completely dislocated his shoulder on that last play. And, if he did dislocate it, did that lead to a complete labral tear or only a partial?”

      Jonas whirled on the field. “Who told you I dislocated my shoulder?”

      “I watched the video tape. Even we princesses know how to operate Play and Rewind on our own. Also, the team held a press conference, which you didn’t attend, and the old coach mentioned surgery.”

      “Yeah, well, he was mad about being replaced by Highland.”

      “He didn’t lie, though, did he?” She put her hand on his arm, ignoring the flare of heat that coursed along her fingertips as she did so. “Fifteen million people saw you get hit. At least ten football analysts have gone on record with shoulder dislocation as the reason for your surgery. I’m one more, but I’m not just asking about the injury. I want to know what happens next.”

      “And if I don’t know?” Was it her imagination or was there a rawness to his voice?

      “A lot of people don’t know what happens next.”

      “You seem to have that all mapped out. Weren’t you in the spotlight a month or so ago because of your relationship with a steroid supplier?” Imagination, she decided, because his Texas drawl was decidedly pompous.

      Brooks blushed. “No, I broke the story of steroid abuse at a program.”

      “A program that was headed up by an ex-boyfriend.”

      “Wrong. But I can see you’ve been