style="font-size:15px;"> God, it was so small-town, so Wichita. So incredibly minor league. “I’ll bet everyone had a real good time.”
She nodded and then her smile faded on another sigh. “Until Tom collapsed.”
Oh shit. He should have seen it coming. The nod followed by the sigh was the tip-off. He couldn’t offer apologies again. He just couldn’t. He’d choke to death if he even tried. “So,” he ventured, then cleared his throat as subtly as he could. “How are the Warriors doing these days?”
“Well,” she drawled, “that depends on your perspective, I suppose.”
Uh-oh. Evasion was never a good sign. She was working up to something. The something that had brought her halfway across the country. And odds were it wasn’t to hit him up for a memorial contribution. “You’re a month into the season. What’s the win-loss record?”
“Two wins, ten losses,” she supplied with a little grimace.
Bad. Really bad. “Why are they losing?”
“I wish I could tell you, Mr. Dupree, but I don’t know anything about hockey.”
Gee, there was a surprise. “What are your GM and coaching staff saying?” he pressed.
She seemed to chew the inside of her cheek as she stared off over the water. “That it’s not their fault,” she finally answered. “That Tom didn’t spend enough to get the talent necessary to win.”
Yeah, it was usually someone else’s fault. And dead guys made perfect scapegoats. “Is it true?”
“Looking at the books,” she replied, still staring off, “I’d have to say that he spent all that he could. And then some.”
And then some? There it was. The Warriors were in financial trouble and as the club’s poster boy for Big Dreams, he was the logical choice for White Knight, too. “Let’s cut to the chase, Ms. Talbott,” he said firmly. “Why are you here? What do you want from me? A bailout?”
Her gaze came back to his with a snap and a blink. “Well, yes. In a—”
“How much to take the ink from red to black?” he demanded, not caring that he sounded irritated. He was irritated.
“I don’t want your money, Mr. Dupree,” she challenged as she squared her shoulders and her blue eyes flashed icy fire. “I want your talent. And I’m willing to pay you for it.”
She couldn’t afford to pay him so much as a nickel on his NHL dollars. “My talent at what?”
“I’ve had two offers for the franchise. Both of them reasonable and fair considering the shape it’s in.”
How had they gone from him bailing out the team to her selling it? Talk about conversational whiplash. “You should signal left turns before you make them,” he growled.
Another sigh. “I know. I’m bad about that.” Another little heave of her shoulders. Another pointless effort to tuck her curls behind her ears. “Here’s my thinking on it all,” she said, holding her hands in front of her like a balance scale. “I could sell tomorrow and walk away with a lot more than I have now. But if I did, I’d be selling out Tom’s hopes and expectations. I have a problem with that on a personal level. I’d feel much better about it if I could improve the franchise before I let it go. Tom couldn’t be disappointed then. Does that make sense?”
It did. But in the most dangerous sort of way. If that was the full scope of her reasoning, the woman was playing a high-stakes game listening to her heart, not her head. And that was a guaranteed way to fail. He looked away from the big blue eyes that were so earnestly searching his. “Do you have experience in running any kind of business?”
“I’ve organized several successful charity events.”
He waited for her to toss out the next item on her résumé. All he got were the sounds of the marina. “That’s it?”
“I have a master’s degree in Sociology,” she offered brightly. “And I’m an expert in robbing Peter to pay Paul. No one does it better.”
What the hell had Tom been thinking? Millie, even with her marbles rattling loose, could do a better job than this little socialite. Had Tom lost it, too? “Let’s go back,” Logan said tightly. “What do you want from me?”
“I understand that you’re something of a legend in the minor leagues.”
Yeah, he was a legend there. In the majors, too. But not for the reason he wanted. In two years the only memory of him was going to be the moment when his eye tumbled out of its socket on national television. “Nail the point, Ms. Talbott. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to coach the Warriors this season.”
He gripped the arms of his chair, trying to keep himself from falling out. Step back twenty years? Start all over from nowhere? He’d never in his life wanted to coach. “You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not.”
She certainly seemed sane. And sober. “Give up kicking back in the Florida sun and surf,” he posed dryly, “to spend the winter riding a broken-down bus across the windswept, frozen prairie with a bunch of third-rate hockey players. Would you go for an offer like that?”
“Actually,” she said, with a fleeting, weak smile, “if you don’t, I’m going to have to.”
“Come again?” he asked, stunned and even more appalled. “You know nothing about hockey but you think you can coach?”
“The sea of red ink is deep. Really deep,” she explained, her eyes darkening. “I’ve already let John Ingram—the GM—go and taken over his responsibilities. The office staff has been pared down to one. Looking at the team’s record so far, I figure no one can do worse than Carl Spady when it comes to coaching. I’ll promote the current assistant coach and play his second for no pay. And when we get back into black, I’ll leave the bench and hire the best I can to replace me.”
His head pounded. “You’re nuts.”
“Maybe,” she allowed. “Mostly, I’m determined.”
“The men won’t play for a woman.”
“They’re not men. They’re boys,” she calmly countered. “The average age is twenty-three. And their choice is to play for the Warriors or go home. I may not know much, but I do know that we’re the bottom rung of the professional hockey ladder.”
With her at the helm and on the bench…? The publicity would be incredible. The minors’ first female coach of a men’s team. The tickets to the freak show would go like hotcakes. She’d make money out of it. Hand over fist. But the players… God, being relegated to an unaffiliated team in the Central Hockey League was humiliation enough for them. Adding professional pity to it… Thank God it wasn’t his problem. His smile was grim and tight and he both knew it and didn’t care. “You have a lot to learn, Ms. Talbott. You might want to start with a copy of Hockey for Dummies.”
“I’ve read it from cover to cover. Twice,” she assured him. “And I bought myself some books on
