Protecting The Quarterback. Kristina Knight

he wrote with his right hand. His left didn’t get the message. The letters were crooked and sloped unevenly across the board instead of following the imaginary line Jonas intended to follow.

      “When you can write your name the same with your left as you do with your right, we’ll talk about throwing left.”

      “Next week.”

      “Go home, Jonas. Keep rotating ice and heat. I’ll see you in here tomorrow.” Tom left the workout room. Jonas studied the two boards. The letters on the left could have been a four-year-old’s attempt. He Frisbee’d the boards across the room and then, elbows on his knees, put his head in his hands.

      He could figure out a new career path. Could find joy and even meaning in something else. But the something else wouldn’t have the shine that football had. When he was on the field, there was an order.

      He stalked over to the treadmill, pulled up a workout program and started to run.

      While the incline increased and decreased and the treadmill sped on to nowhere, Jonas focused on his plan. If it started with writing, he would write. It would be better than mindlessly flipping through TV channels, anyway. Less likely he’d run across another commentator talking about his chances of coming back from the injury.

      He would get football back, even if he had to change the way he played the game.

      * * *

      THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Brooks sat in an overstuffed chair outside the network offices. Although the network and the affiliate she worked for were housed in the same building, she had never actually been to the fifteenth floor. Had never rubbed elbows with the network heads.

      Heck, she’d never gotten so much as an email from them, much less the terse voicemail she’d listened to at least ten times already this morning requesting she meet with Gary Jacobs.

      She glanced at the clock on the wall. Two minutes past the last time she’d checked the chrome-fitted clock. The well-heeled receptionist studiously avoided her gaze, concentrating instead on the magazine she was leafing through.

      She sat back against the butter-soft leather of the chair, willing herself to stop thinking the worst about why she’d been summoned. She hoped he wouldn’t pass along another not-so-veiled insinuation that she had used a man to get a story, never mind the fact she’d barely known said man. Or that said man now faced criminal charges. The receptionist picked up the phone near her elbow, said something Brooks couldn’t hear and then stood, her willowy frame towering over Brooks’s substantial five feet nine inches in height. She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, hoping the rest of her usual ponytail was still in place.

      “You can go in now,” the receptionist said, motioning her through the thick, mahogany door to the left of her large desk. “Mr. Jacobs, Miss Smith,” she said as she closed the door, leaving Brooks alone with the head of sports programming for the network.

      Gary Jacobs tapped a few computer keys as he motioned her to the chairs before his desk. “Hope I’m not dragging you away from another investigation, Miss Smith,” he said, his gaze still focused on the computer screen.

      “Not at all, we’ll be following up on the scandal for a few more days. What can I do for you?” Brooks sat in another cool leather chair, crossed her legs at the ankle as her proper, Southern mother had taught her when she was little and clasped her hands in her lap.

      “You can pack your bags for your next assignment. Louisville—”

      “Pack my bags?” Brooks shook her head. She had to be hearing things, right? The professional baseball season was in full swing, college teams were still in conference play. She didn’t cover basketball, and football players wouldn’t start reporting for training camps for a few more weeks. “We’re still covering all of the bases on the steroid—”

      The network exec cut her off. “We’re starting a new pilot program, and we’d like our rising network star to be part of it.” When she didn’t say anything—couldn’t say anything, if she were honest with herself—he said, “The rising star would be you.” Brooks nodded, still not trusting her voice. “One reporter will be assigned to each of the professional football teams as full-fledged beat reporters. News of the day, of course, but we’re also looking for human interest, behind-the-scenes kind of stuff.” He barely paused before launching into more detail about the new program the network wanted to implement, and Brooks’s heart beat faster.

      “The local affiliates usually cover that kind of thing.” Those were the kinds of stories she’d been covering for the past eight years. Her heart started to race.

      “We’re launching a football-only network this summer, and to do it right we need more than local affiliate reporting. There will be daily shows, special programming, too, but we have too much time to fill for the locals to help.” Jacobs cleared his throat. “You’d be working directly for the network—not for the affiliate in Louisville—but we would need a year’s commitment.”

      “I’m not sure what to say.”

      “Frankly speaking, you should say yes, and before I call the next name on my list.”

      He waited a beat, picked up a pen and began tapping it against the desk blotter. “You have good instincts and you understand the game and the players better than anyone who hasn’t played a down. Women like you because you don’t wear evening gowns and high heels on the sidelines. Men like you because—” he eyed her for a moment and Brooks’s cheeks began to burn “—well, you were voted Hottest Female Sportscaster for a reason. As a network, we like that you draw evenly from both demographics, that you know how to tell a story and that you’re passionate about the game. The only question is do you want this?”

      “Y-yes, I want it.” She did want it. She wanted football to be part of her life. So badly. She knew football. Believed in it. Waited on pins and needles every spring to see who was drafted and at what pick. During the season she lived on the highlights, dissecting each play and player to learn more about what made them work. A few bad apples like Bobby McCord couldn’t kill her love for the sport or her love for reporting on it.

      “Are you willing to put in the extra time? To follow up on leads like you did on the steroid scandal? To put any personal relationships aside to break a story?”

      “Of course.” And she already had her first scoop in mind.

      “Then what do you say? And whatever the answer is, I would highly advise it not include the words ‘think’ or ‘about it.’” Gary Jacobs’s voice took on a stern edge as he spoke, making Brooks sit up straighter in the chair.

      “When and where do I report?”

      They talked a few more minutes about contracts and equipment, what station she would co-op space from and when her photographer would arrive. Brooks surreptitiously pinched her hand several times, hoping that if this was a dream she wouldn’t wake herself up. But when she walked out of the office, she was still on the fifteenth floor. Still wearing her favorite leopard ballet flats, still tucking that same wayward strand of hair behind her ear.

      This was real.

      She was going back to Louisville. Brooks swallowed. And she knew exactly what her next story would be: Jonas Nash and his future in football.

      * * *

      “BOOBS ON THE FLOOR, boys,” a gruff voice called out from around the corner.

      Jonas splashed his way out of the icy whirlpool bath and to his locker. Grabbed a too-short white towel and secured it around his waist. There were only a couple of other guys in this early in the summer. All of them stood there oblivious that their junk was now on display. More likely they just didn’t care. Jonas had no issue showing off his body, but he was in no hurry to show off to someone outside the organization the surgical scar he’d acquired after the season or answer the questions sure to come with it. He couldn’t keep the rotator cuff surgery a complete secret, but only his circle knew the extent of the tear that happened when a defender laid him out on the last play of last season.