Protecting The Quarterback. Kristina Knight

I have very strict rules about that. But, we did go to dinner. Twice, with mutual friends.”

      “And now you’re here in Kentucky looking for your next big scoop?”

      “I’m in Kentucky because this is the assignment the network offered, and it’s a good one. Don’t think I haven’t thanked my lucky stars—”

      “And your father’s connections—”

      Brooks crossed her arms over her chest. “His connections are less than you’d imagine, but yes, I am the daughter of a Kentucky football legend. I grew up on a football field, remember? I’ve probably attended more games than you’ve played in, wrapped my share of jacked-up ankles and wrists and was seriously considering a degree in sports medicine before the journalism bug bit me.” She took a breath. “I just want to tell your story. Your way.”

      “You wanted to be a trainer?” Jonas laughed as he said the words.

      Brooks straightened, stepped closer to him and jabbed her index finger at his chest. “I’d have been a kick-ass sports doc. If I could have just passed the fainting test.”

      “Fainting test?”

      “Me, blood. Don’t mix so much.” Saying those words aloud, to Jonas Nash who had probably never failed at anything, rankled.

      Laughter shot from his mouth, but seemed to come from all over his body. He doubled over at the waist and the smile splitting his face was a mile wide. “You were going to be a sports doc and you don’t like blood?”

      “Has nothing to with not liking blood. Has to do with fainting at the sight of blood,” she said. “Give me bulging ankles, torn hamstrings, even a dislocated finger and I’m fine. One bone protruding from a leg and I’m going to be flat on the ground with the injured player.” He kept laughing. No, no, howling was more like it. Brooks shook her head. “There, I told you something embarrassing about me. Now, you, and it doesn’t even have to be embarrassing. Why do I need to show up here every day for the next couple of weeks before you’ll sit down with me? Your story, remember? I just want to be the one to tell it.”

      “You wouldn’t understand,” he said. “Even though you’re the daughter of a football legend.” Jonas turned toward the track, crossed it and picked up a couple of orange cones. He began setting them up along the cinder track. Brooks hurried to catch up.

      “I’m giving your charity much-needed publicity.”

      “In exchange for open access to me,” he put in.

      “And I’ve been nothing but nice to you since the day we met, while you’ve spent countless hours thinking up ways to avoid even having a phone conversation with me.”

      “So you kept calling for personal reasons.” He put down a cone and, before Brooks could back away, drew his finger down the side of her face. Her skin tingled under his touch and she was frozen by the look in his eyes. Little flecks of gold stood out from the brown and her heart began to pound. He wanted her. Not on this field and definitely not in an interview, but Jonas Nash wanted little Brooks Smith. She swallowed, hard. “All you had to do was tell me that.”

      “I-it wasn’t personal,” she said, wondering why it was so hard to concentrate while he touched her.

      Jonas twisted his mouth as if disappointed and dropped his hand from the side of her face. “That’s too bad. Because I’m real good at personal,” he said.

      “Is the injury why your hands trembled when you picked up the trophy at the awards show?” She had to get this conversation back where she understood what was happening. She didn’t date football players, didn’t even find most of them attractive. Yet with this man all she felt was attraction. Attraction and excitement and maybe just a little hint of danger.

      “My shoulder is fine,” he said. “How are your ankles?”

      Brooks looked down, dumbfounded by the question. “Okay?”

      “I thought it would be polite to ask since, you know, you have so many problems staying upright. Might want to invest in some orthopedic shoes if that imbalance keeps up.”

      How dare he? She’d slipped on a marble floor in four-inch heels. Even if every other presenter seemed to have no problem with the stage, this was so not the time to bring that up. This was the time to...to...do something else.

      “My ankles are just fine.”

      “You’re sure?”

      “Positive.”

      “Good to know, maybe it’s just me that keeps throwing you off balance, Brook.” He walked away and this time Brooks let him because if she didn’t she’d...

      Well, she might just scratch his eyes out. The man was impossible. Yes, she was a reporter with a job to do, but that job wasn’t to ruin his life.

      She flexed her fingers.

      “And it isn’t Brook, it’s Brooks,” she emphasized the s, but he didn’t look back. She raised her voice. “B-R-O-O-K-S, which every other person in the sports world seems to know, but which you can’t seem to remember.”

      Who was she kidding? She didn’t really want to scratch his eyes out. As obstinate and annoying as he was, Jonas was also satisfyingly distracting. He slipped inside the field house, taking his yummy gluteus maximus out of her view. Distracting and energizing and...

      She’d rather rake her fingernails down his spine than scratch out his eyes, and that was bad. Very, very bad. Because she was a journalist with a story to tell.

      Jonas Nash needed to stay off-limits.

CHAPTER FOUR

      JONAS LAY ON his bed at the farm he’d bought the previous year, staring out the window. What if this didn’t go well? What if the kids didn’t want anything to do with a washed-up quarterback? He grimaced. Washed-up was probably a little strong. The boys had seemed excited enough the previous afternoon, but that could have been from just getting off the buses that brought them in and not enthusiasm about two weeks of football.

      He sat up and, with his elbows on his knees, put his head in his hands. He’d never really spent time at the Building Blocks of Football Camp before. Sure, he would show up on opening day and give a ten-minute pep talk, but then he’d be back in his car going to whatever vacation or party was on the agenda, and he’d fooled himself that he was doing it for the team. When he was photographed, the team was photographed. Fooled himself into thinking a bunch of party-hard football players could become a winning team when really it meant they were tired on game day. Unreliable to one another and to the fans.

      The worst case of entitlement I’ve seen on the football field, ever. Wasn’t that what Walt Zeigler, their former coach, said before walking away from the press conference podium—and football—in February?

      And it was Jonas’s fault. He’d led his college team to a National Championship. He didn’t lead the Kentuckians anywhere except to a bar or a beach.

      Obsessing on the past wouldn’t change it, though. Action might change the future of the team. Action that included hard work, and it might as well start with a football camp for kids from around the region.

      Within a half hour he was showered and dressed and on the highway, heading to the camp. He ate a protein bar in the truck but stayed in the cab, staring at the banner hanging over the field entryway.

      Character. Courage. Commitment.

      The camp banner. His camp banner. His idea. And not for a photo opportunity, but because he believed it. He grabbed his bag from the passenger seat and slung it over his shoulder. All those years ago, football had given him direction; it would do it again, for him and for the boys coming to the camp. He was through failing.

      “Hey, Muscles,” said Brooks from behind him. “I thought we might get to the field before