a while, and you’re not!”
“Who says?”
“I…well, I volunteer here. I’m Molly French.”
“Yeah? I work here. I live here. Guess you’ll have to find someplace else for your vehicle from here on in, won’t you? That spot is mine now.”
He had the pleasure of seeing her jaw drop as he picked up the ball that had fallen at center court. “Okay, here’s how we’re going to do this,” he said to the kids. “Let me show you how you’re supposed to play basketball, not that sissy thing you were doing a minute ago.”
He heard the woman make a choked sound of outrage behind him. Danny grinned to himself, and this time he didn’t wipe the reflex away.
His new life was starting to look interesting.
Chapter 2
Who did he think he was?
Molly stared after the guy as he started snapping out directives to the kids. Her kids. For the most part, they were ogling him, just as she was.
“Sure, this’ll work,” she murmured aloud.
Already Lester had that evil gleam in his eye. She gave five-to-one odds that he’d be tripping Mr. Basketball with one of his big booted feet within the next two or three minutes. He was generally the one who protected the kids’ turf from hostile adults. Jerome just shrugged and went to sit down at the edge of the court—he was the most easy-going of the lot and didn’t get worked up about much. As for Bobby…well, Bobby J. rarely showed much reaction to anything, Molly thought. Beneath his bristle-shaved hair, his brown eyes were as watchful as his expression was neutral. He stood at the edge of the court, so painfully thin it hurt her. Bobby rarely spoke to anyone. When he showed up at the center, he was just…there. It was anybody’s guess why he bothered to come by at all.
The coach-nobody-wanted was in Fisk’s face now, talking to him urgently. Molly took in his clothes—really bad-fitting jeans and a rain-dampened blue chambray shirt that was at least one, if not two, sizes too small. Who was he? she wondered again. And where had he come from?
In another thirty seconds, Molly had had enough.
She stalked over to him, reaching for the basketball. “Give me that.”
He went up on his toes, his arm extended, the ball balanced on his hand. He was tall. It was well out of her reach. With a quick little thrust of his wrist, he sent the ball sailing, then it dropped neatly through the hoop. He was all male grace and flexing muscle. It was quite a sight, Molly admitted, swallowing carefully. Something tickled her pulse.
“Nothing but net.” He turned and grinned at her. “You were saying?”
“I—” Molly began, then her mind went blank.
He kept watching her with the kind of smile that spelled trouble…and the trouble was an invitation. Come play with me and get burned. Some women were crazy for his type, and Molly discovered in that moment that she could definitely be one of them.
Unfortunately, they didn’t go crazy for her.
Molly planted her hands on her hips. A lock of her hair fell into her eyes and she blew it back. “Okay. That was pretty.”
“Thank you.”
“And it was a total waste of effort.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. We’re dealing with a bunch of aimless teenagers here, not the Houston Rockets.”
He feigned a look of utter awe. “You know about the Rockets?”
“Knock it off,” she growled.
“Come on, come on, you’re on a roll here. I’ll help you. They’re a basketball team. They actually play by certain rules. They get paid for it. Five-on-five competition in four quarters. Man-to-man defense, twenty-four-second clock to shoot. Does all that sound familiar?”
“Basketball isn’t the issue here.” She ground the words out and realized her jaw was tight.
“Tell that to Ron Glover.”
Ron Glover was the director of the rec center. Molly frowned. What had he said earlier? I work here. “Ron hired you to play basketball? We don’t have that kind of budget!”
“You’re telling me. The pay stinks.” He sauntered away from her to go after the basketball. None of the kids had made an effort to touch it. They were all gathered under the opposite net now, watching them.
This, she thought, was incredible. “He didn’t tell me he was hiring anyone.”
“Ron reports to you?”
“No, of course not. But he…we just…we pool our efforts around here. And he never mentioned this.”
He shot another basket unperturbed. “Don’t take it so hard. It all just came together on Friday.”
Molly went after him as he moved to catch the ball again. “Why? Why would he do something like this?”
“We had a meeting of the minds.” He started dribbling the ball in circles around her.
“What kind of meeting?”
“The kind that says that if we put together a team that’s even halfway good, if we teach these kids the basics, some of them might land on their high school team. One of them might get noticed by a college scout.” He stopped and pinned her with intense dark eyes. “Granted, that would require some raw and unconventional talent, but one of them could get out of here to someplace better, someplace where they might have a chance.”
Molly opened her mouth one more time and shut it again. She couldn’t argue with that.
She wanted the same thing for her kids. It was what she had been trying to do here herself these past two years, why she volunteered her time to the center—though her methods were different. She wanted each and every one of them to get out of the poverty, the drugs, the petty crime that could lead to treacherously bigger things.
Still, she felt she had a certain stake in being contrary, if only because he looked so good with that ball in his hands…and he knew it. “What do the rest of the kids get in this grand scheme of yours?”
“They get something to do for a few hours a day instead of hanging, on the streets.”
This time when he sent the ball swishing through the net, Molly lunged for it and caught it as it bounced to the floor. She gathered it against her chest. “They’re off the streets—sometimes—even without organized basketball. I keep them off the streets. I help them.”
“And how do you do that, pretty Molly French?”
Pretty? Her heart chugged even as she refused to react. “I get them jobs and I get state assistance for their families. I listen when they talk.”
“Admirable.” He started circling her again, clearly looking for a way
