“Nothing else?”
He shrugged and lied. “Nope.”
Richard Anthony was sixty-three and still a formidable man. If the truth be told, Reese and his brothers were still half afraid of the old man, who back in the day busted chops as a defensive lineman for the Chicago Bears before retiring and founding his trucking firm. When the three of them were young, they did their best not to cross their father. They loved him as much as he loved them, but nobody wanted to go to the woodshed with Pops. Nobody.
Reese put his bag in the backseat. Once they were ready, Pops drove out of the structure and headed for the freeway. Merging into the traffic, he said easily, “Carl Carlyle called me this morning.”
“Oh really?” Reese said, hoping he sounded nonchalant and that Carl hadn’t told his father about the cherries. But when he saw the amusement on Pops’s face, he knew he was busted.
“Sent her cherries, huh, son? Okay, spill it. You know I live vicariously through the three of you.”
Reese wiped his hands across his face, then smiled. “I’m going to shoot him.”
“Funny. Same thing Carl said about you. Three in the morning?”
“Yeah.”
“She must have been something.” It was a statement, not a question.
JT’s face rose and filled Reese’s mind’s eye. For a moment he drifted back, then turned to his father and asked, “Do you believe in love at first sight?”
“Sure. First time I saw your mother, I knew she was the one. Didn’t matter to me that she was the daughter of some elite Chicago doctor and I was a poor kid from Detroit at Illinois on a football scholarship. The moment she walked by, I told my boys, ‘That’s the one.’ They laughed at me, but I wasn’t playing.”
Over the years, Pops had told many stories about the past, but Reese had never heard this one before. “Had your nose open, huh?”
Pops’s eyes twinkled. “Wide enough for the proverbial train to roll through. If I hadn’t had to go to football practice all day every day, I would have followed that girl around campus like a lovesick puppy. My boys thought I was pitiful enough as it was.”
Reese laughed. “I’m nowhere near that but I might like to see her again.”
“Might?”
“No.
Would
like to see her again. Soon.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Why?”
“You’re getting old, boy. Time for some sons. Only way I’ll get any grandsons from Pinky and the Brain is if they build them. You’re my only hope.”
Reese laughed so hard he thought he was going to hurt himself. “Pops, you’re crazy.”
“No. I’m serious.”
Shaking his head, Reese chuckled the rest of the way home.
Reese slept until late afternoon. At dinner he told his father and brothers about the new job offer.
His father said, “Change of pace might be good for you.”
He was glad for the support. “I think so too. Been feeling hemmed in lately. This is only temporary, for now. We’ll see how it goes.”
Bryce, with his dreads and the movie star good looks inherited from their mother, Veronica, asked, “That means you’d get tickets for games?”
“Probably.”
Jamal raised his fork. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
Talk of tickets and games made Reese think about JT. He wondered if she’d gotten the cherries.
Jamal asked, “So who’s the honey you sent the cherries to?”
Reese checked out the smiling faces around the table and replied, “Does everybody know my business?”
Bryce made a show of thinking for a moment, then replied, “Just about.”
Pops chuckled.
Jamal asked, “Is she tall? Short?
Bryce added, “Fine? Butt ugly?”
Reese cut them a look.
“Just asking,” they said in unison.
“Her name’s JT Blake.”
Jamal froze.
Bryce froze too.
The pleased smile on Pops’s face was sunny and bright.
A satisfied Reese eyed his speechless siblings and drawled drolly, “Thought that might shut you up.”
Bryce and Jamal shared a look of wonder, then Bryce asked with whispered awe, “
The
JT Blake? The sports agent?”
Reese nodded, adding, “Could be tight when I meet her again, though. She thinks I’m a truck driver.”
Pops looked confused. “But you are.”
“I know, but not really. She just assumed I drove for a living, and we were having such a good time, I thought telling her the truth might crush the vibe. She is an agent, after all. Not sure how she’d react to me being tied to the commissioner’s office.”
“So you didn’t tell her you’re joint owner of a multinational corporation and that you’re the head legal beagle either?” Bryce asked.
“No, Bryce. I didn’t.”
“That was probably a good move.”
“I thought so too, but I’m glad to get the approval of the Einstein playa.”
Bryce nodded regally in response. “Always here to help an old guy.”
“Watch it,” Reese warned, amusement lifting his lips.
Jamal said, “Never known you to worry about what a woman thinks or to send cherries at three in the morning. She must be special.”
Reese nodded. Again her face shimmered in his mind’s eye. “She is.”
The other men around the table shared a look, then Jamal raised his glass of red Kool-Aid. “To tickets to the NBA Finals!”
“Hear! Hear!” They shouted, and all Reese could do was shake his head in response to the antics of his crazy family.
Later that evening, as he sat in his bedroom watching the Pistons whip the Bulls, he pulled out his phone. With JT’s card in hand, he keyed in her number and listened as it rang. He wanted to hear her voice and tell her the truth about himself.
JT was shutting down the office for the day when the phone rang. Carole had already left for home, so she grabbed it. “This is JT.”
“Hey.”
She melted at the sound of Reese’s voice. “Hey yourself. How are you?” She sat down on the sofa, swung her feet up and got comfortable.
“I’m okay. Did you get the cherries?”
“I did, and the beautiful lilies. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Just wanted to check. How was your day?”
“Fine. Yours?”
“Not bad. The 6
A.M.
flight almost killed me, but I’m home.”
“In Michigan?”
“Yeah. Where are you?”
“Office, getting ready to head out.” She conjured up his face, noting that she’d gone all gooey inside from just the low timbre of his voice.
“I’d like to see you again.”
Her heart pounded. “Like to see you too.”
“So how do we make it happen?”
“Will you be back in California any time soon?” JT turned over on her belly.
“Next week probably, and there’s something I need to tell you.”
Before she could ask what that meant, her phone beeped, alerting her to an incoming call. “Hold on a minute. I have another call.”
JT clicked over, and when she clicked back to Reese a short while later, she wasn’t happy. “One of my clients just choked his coach.”
“What?” he said, and chuckled, unable to help himself.
“Not funny.” She rose from the couch and walked angrily back to her desk. “I have to catch the next flight to Philly and hope I can keep his dumb butt out of jail. I’m sorry. Can I call you back?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.” She sighed over the lost opportunity, adding genuinely, “Thanks again for the cherries and the lilies.”
“You’re welcome.”
She ended the call, then shouted, “Reason number 216 why I don’t have a man!”
In Michigan, Reese, smiling, set the phone aside. What a job she had. Being a sports fan, he couldn’t help but wonder who the player and the choked coach might be. Being a man, he was disappointed they hadn’t talked longer. Her sultry Texas voice made him realize how much he was looking forward to knowing all there was to know about her. Telling her the truth about his identity would have to wait, but doing it face-to-face might work out better in the long run.
Still thinking about her, he raised the volume with the remote and settled in to watch the rest of the game. Jamal was right about him. Since divorcing his first wife, Suzanne, he hadn’t let himself get emotionally involved with any woman. When he and Suzanne met as students at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, he was twenty years old and the biggest baller on campus. They’d married eighteen months later, but when he tore up his knee senior year and the media hype and accolades died, his potential to be her personal cash cow turned to dust. She stayed with him long enough to realize that being the wife of a policeman wasn’t her calling, so when she presented him with divorce papers, he’d signed them. Last he heard, she was married to a land developer with enough money to keep her in the style she wanted to become accustomed to, and he wished her well.
Since the divorce, he’d kept his feelings on lockdown because he never wanted to be torn up that way again. Men didn’t like pain, especially pain of the heart, and he was no exception. To keep that from happening again, he made a point of staying emotionally aloof. With his looks and money, the ladies came easy, and over the years he’d been with some fine ones, but none were fine enough or interesting enough to make him change his M.O. Until now. It was his hope that her choking client wasn’t an athlete in the league he’d just agreed to work for. Meeting her again for the first time in his new role as head of security was not going to go well, and he didn’t need Bryce’s big brain to figure that out.
The fates were against him, however. At eleven o clock that evening he received a call from his old buddy the commissioner. One of the players had choked a coach. He needed to be in Philadelphia by noon.
It was midnight eastern time when JT stepped off the plane in Philly. The usually bustling airport was all but empty of travelers and many of the shops were closed. When she reached the baggage claim, one of her clients, Turo Rodriguez, an all-star cornerback for Philadelphia’s World League of Football team was there signing an autograph for an airline employee. Looking up, he greeted JT with a smile and handed the signed piece of paper back to the employee. “Hey, Lady B.”
“Hey Turo. Thanks for meeting me.”
“Any time.”
They shared a hug, he grabbed her luggage, and they walked out to his car. The silver Porsche was new and shone like a star beneath the lights of the parking structure. He opened the door and helped her in. After putting her bags in the trunk, he got in, secured his seat belt, and drove toward her downtown hotel.
“So what happened,” she asked.
Turo, built like Machu Picchu and with a face as beautifully chiseled as an Inca god, shrugged and grinned. “I’m not sure. I think Quise just snapped. Took three of us to pull him off. He was shaking coach like a rot with a rat.”
Quise was Marquise Chambers—star wide receiver and star of the choking incident. Coach was second-year head coach Scott Walker, aka the chokee. “Did Walker say something, do something?”
“Nope. Just being the dickhead he always is. There’s not a person on the team who didn’t want to choke him, but Quise actually did it. After the dust settled, they took coach to the E.R. and the GM sent Quise home.”
A grim JT shook her head. This was not Quise’s first incident. He’d had a few DUIs, babymama drama that hit the papers when he was picked up by Dade County for nonsupport, and now this. His temper was infamous, but in her eyes it was more a show of how spoiled and pampered he was. She took out her phone and called him. “I’m on my way, and yes I know what time it is. Do you?”
He gave her some guff about being asleep, but she wasn’t having any. “Be up when I get there. Get rid of the hos and start drinking coffee because if you’re drunk I’m going right back to L.A. and you can handle the commish’s office on your own.”
She snapped the phone closed and met Turo’s sparkling eyes. “I’m through playing with him.”
“Glad it’s not me.”
“Just drive.”
The size of Quise’s place was indicative of the million-dollar contracts she’d been negotiating on his behalf. The palatial estate had enough bedrooms and bathrooms to house a team of players. Also on the property were two guest houses, a garage filled with a fleet of expensive pimped-out rides, and a swimming pool that doubled as a skating rink in winter. As she got out of Turo’s car and strode up the long, winding, coachlight-lined walk, she decided that someone else would have to do the negotiating next time. She was done representing him. Marquise Chambers brought way more drama into her life than she needed.
“Why do I have to apologize?” grumbled Marquise
Chambers to JT as they sat in the backseat of the car she’d hired to take them to their meeting with the commissioner. “The man’s whack.”
“He’s your boss, Marquise. We went over this last night. Whack or not, you can’t put your hands on him. You know that.” She could feel a headache coming on. It had taken her most of the morning just to convince him to wear a suit and tie. Now, all he wanted to do was whine.
“But he dissed me.” The catalyst for the confrontation had been Marquise’s late arrival for a 2
P.M.
practice. He claimed to have overslept.
“You were late for your job. What was he supposed to do, clap?”
In response he mumbled something unintelligible then stated, “He can’t be dissing me. He did the same thing last week.”
That she hadn’t heard before. “You were late last week too?”
“Yeah. I told him I had car trouble.”
She threw up her hands. “You have what, nine cars? That’s a sorry ass excuse, Quise. Real sorry.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what he said too. He tried to make me run laps, but I told him I’d file a grievance and he backed off.”
She didn’t believe this. Of the fifty athletes she represented, Marquise was the biggest pain in the butt. She couldn’t wait to walk away. “Expect a fine and a suspension.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” she asked in incredulous tones. “You choked your coach! And you’d better hope he’s been talked out of pressing charges.”
Again he mumbled, but she ignored him.
The meeting was to be held in a conference suite at one of the city’s swankier hotels. When she and Marquise entered the fancy lobby with its crystal chandeliers and blue-uniformed bellmen, she was pleased to see no signs of the press. Her hope was to get in and out of the meeting without being detected, but as soon as they stepped off the elevator they were swarmed by a microphone-wielding horde. A din of questions were shouted at them, but because she’d told Marquise to keep his mouth shut, he didn’t respond. On the other hand, she must have called out “No comment” a hundred times on the walk to the door of the suite; a walk that took an inordinate amount of time because of the crush of cameras and scribes.
Inside, the silence was a blessing. The new commissioner, Taylor McNair, flanked by two men in suits turned at her entrance. He was of medium height and had just a touch of gray in his hair. She’d never met him before, but knew his face from the bio the league sent around after he was hired, and from subsequent newspaper articles written about him. According to the bio, he was in his mid-forties. A confident JT stepped forward and extended a manicured hand. “Commissioner McNair, I’m JT Blake. Pleased to meet you.”
Smiling, he shook her hand. “Ms. Blake. Thanks for coming. Marquise.”
The surly-faced Quise nodded, but McNair didn’t seem bothered by the athlete’s mood. Instead he took a moment to introduce her to the other two men in the room. League lawyers.
JT was just about to start the standard chitchat that always preceded meetings of this sort when out of a back room walked Reese Anthony. She blinked.
What the hell?
The face was the same but gone were the cutoff T-shirt and the snug-fitting jeans. This Reese had on a dark GQ suit over an equally expensive looking turtleneck, and damn if he didn’t look good enough to eat. Maybe better. The dark powerful eyes she remembered most were subdued, but she swore she saw a sparkle of humor hidden there.
The commissioner did the introductions. “Ms. Blake, I’d like you to meet Reese Anthony, new head of the league’s investigative unit. Reese, JT Blake.”
JT nodded coolly. “Mr. Anthony.”
“Ms. Blake.”
She felt like she’d been played, but she’d deal with that and Mr. Investigative Unit later. At the moment she had a job to do. “Shall we get started, gentlemen?”
After everyone was seated, JT opened her navy snakeskin briefcase and withdrew some papers. “This is the apology Marquise will read to the press after we’re done here. Note that he accepts full responsibility for his actions. Hopefully, it meets with your approval.”
While the men around the table took a few moments to scan the statement, JT forced herself not to look at Reese. There were nine hundred questions screaming in her head, but she beat them down. Add to that the fact that he was so damn distracting, and she was doing good remembering why she was even in the room.
Reese, on the other hand, couldn’t take his eyes off her. He read the statement, but she was his main focus. She was as gorgeous as he remembered, even more so dressed in a navy power suit, a silky camisole that drew a man’s eyes to the tasteful but feminine neckline, and a pair of killer heels that matched the exotic briefcase. His mind floated back to the cherry-stained mouth while he discreetly assessed that same mouth now. The tastefully applied gloss made it appear even more lush. It came to him that he had to have this woman or die trying.
McNair finished reading the statement then set it down. “This is fine, Ms. Blake. I’ve talked to Coach Walker and he’s agreed not to initiate any court action as long as Marquise is suspended and takes anger management classes.”
JT sensed Marquise tighten beside her, so she placed a warning hand on his arm. “Just hold up. How many games?”
“Ten,” Reese stated, entering the conversation for the first time.
Marquise exploded to his feet. “That’s bullshit!”
JT snapped, “Sit down!” Her flashing eyes dared him to keep standing.
For a moment they battled silently, then he sat. “I’m not doing ten games. Y’all can kiss my ass.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Reese replied tightly. “The new commissioner has zero tolerance for violence. First-time offenders, ten games. Second time, twenty.”
“This is my livelihood!” Quise yelled angrily.
“You should have thought about that before you laid hands on your coach,” Reese tossed out, then sat back and folded his arms.
Quise shot him a look of fury.
JT offered, “How about we cut it to seven and call it a deal?”
Reese shook his head. “No deal on this one, Ms. Blake. Ten games or your client can take his chances with Walker’s lawyers and a jury.”
“You’re really going to play hardball?” she asked, meeting the eyes of the man who a couple of nights ago had been someone else, or so she thought.
“On instances like this, always.”
She knew she didn’t have a leg to stand on. Were this Quise’s first run-in, she might have some wiggle room, but because of his past sins, there was no getting around the suspension. Finally turning away from Reese, she said to Quise. “Take the deal.”
“But—”
“Take it.” Marquise wouldn’t fare well if this went to trial. Trouble-causing highly paid athletes weren’t well liked by Mr. and Mrs. Middle America. For choking his coach, a jury would send a man like Marquise Chambers to the Bastille given half a chance.
Quise wasn’t happy. “You’re my agent, Lady B. Fix this.”
She gave him a look but didn’t respond verbally because she’d told him last night there’d be consequences to pay, and that more than likely his past behavior would earn him way more than a quick slap on the wrist. There’d be no fixing this. “Commissioner McNair, do you have something drawn up that we can sign, or will you be faxing it to me later?”
Reese took a document out of the folder lying in front of him and held it out for her. When she took it, their hands accidentally brushed and the spark affected them both, though neither gave any indication that it had.
He and the others waited silently while she read. Reese’s assumption that he’d have some explaining to do when they met again was more accurate than he could have imagined. Meeting her this way was going to make it extremely difficult to reconnect.
Purposefully ignoring Reese, JT looked up into the commissioner’s face. “This is fine.” She turned to Quise and handed him a pen. His eyes battled hers for a long moment, then he took the pen. Snarling, he signed in the places the lawyers indicated, then angrily pushed the agreement back across the table. “Bet Bobby G3 woulda done something to fix this.”
She held onto her temper. She’d never called out a client in front of the enemy, but Quise was tap dancing on her last nerve by bringing Bobby Garrett’s name into this mess. “Are we done here, gentlemen?”
They nodded.
Still avoiding Reese’s eyes, JT gathered up her personal effects and rose to her feet. She nodded at her opponents. “Thank you.”
McNair said, “Nice meeting you, Ms. Blake.”
“Same here.” Only then did she face Reese. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Anthony.”
“You too.”
“Let’s go, Quise.” Handing him the prepared statement he was to read to the press, she led him from the room without a look back.
Once she left, Tay McNair let out an awed, “Wow!”
“No kidding,” Reese agreed. His eyes still on the closed door and his previous memory of that familiar feline walk.
“I’d heard a lot about her,” Tay said, “but she was way more than I expected. Damn!”
“The Lady Blake is all that.” And would probably never speak to him again, given the choice, Reese guessed by her iciness. “I’ll touch base with her in a couple days and make sure Marquise is signed up for the classes.” The call would be a legitimate way to approach her again, and serve to get her to talk to him, whether she wanted to or not.
“Sounds good,” Tay replied. “Now, let’s talk about the Pennington killing.”
Reese cleared his mind of the tall sultry JT Blake to concentrate on the job at hand. “Police find anything new?”
“A little. They’re pretty sure he was shot in the executive wing of the team’s offices. Forensics turned up traces of blood and cocaine on the floor and a tabletop in one of the conference rooms.”
“Cocaine?”
Tay nodded.
Reese’s instincts told him there was more to this than a simple robbery. “Was there coke in Pennington’s system?”
“No. Autopsy said he was clean. So my question is, how’d the coke get in the offices and how was Pennington connected, if at all?”
“If the autopsy said he was clean, then he wasn’t using. Maybe he was with some folks who were. Nephew, grandson, maybe? A fight started over something or other?”
Tay shrugged.
“I take it there were no answers on the surveillance tapes?”
“System had been down all week for maintenance,” one of the lawyers explained.
“Sounds pretty convenient.”
“According to the GM, they take it off line twice a year for service.”
“How many people knew that?”
“No idea,” Tay replied, “but I told the LAPD captain handling the case that you’d make contact tomorrow. I had the secretaries book you into a hotel near the airport and arrange for a car rental. Your flight’s at five this evening.”
Reese could feel the cop inside himself coming to life. It had been a long time since he’d done an investigation, but in truth he was looking forward to getting back into the saddle. “Okay. I’ll touch base with my Detroit office, let them know I’m going on to L.A., and I’ll call you as soon as I get in.”
Tay nodded. The meeting wrapped up an hour later, and at five o’clock Reese was on a nonstop flight bound for LAX.
JT stayed in Philly just long enough to tell Marquise Chambers to find another agent and for her to make it to the airport. An hour later she was on a plane back to the West Coast. Sitting in first class, she gazed out of the window beside her at the fluffy white clouds and the gorgeous blue sky and tried to let go of what had been a piss poor day.
Marquise Chamber’s dumb behind was no longer her problem, and she was glad of that. Mr. Reese Anthony was another matter. The word
shocked
failed to describe how she felt seeing him at the meeting, of all places. Since the two of them were together only a few days ago, she assumed he’d been a member of the commissioner’s team then. He hadn’t volunteered that information, even after learning her identity. She was still trying to decide if she was mad, and if so, how mad? Truthfully, one part of her didn’t care about the inner debate and was glad just to see him again, to hell with the circumstances; but on another level she felt like a fool for having fallen for the whole blue collar, let me buy you some gas, truck driver persona. She was mad about that for sure.
The smiling stewardess interrupted her reverie to hand her a small bag of peanuts. This being first class, the peanuts came with a bonus, an even smaller bag of pretzels. JT took them both, thanked the woman, then resumed her vigil at the window.
Upon landing, she grabbed her baggage, retrieved her rental car from the lot, and headed to the office. It was late afternoon, plenty of time left to pull out Quise’s files and get them ready to fax over to his new agent. Once that was done, she’d be free of him at last.
The look on her tightly set face as she entered the office prompted Carole to ask, “Bad flight?”
“No, bad day.” Only then did JT see the flowers on the counter behind Carole’s desk. Tulips. Purple. Beautiful.
Carole grinned, “Guess who these are from?”
“Who?” JT asked suspiciously.” And you’d better not say Reese.”
“Okay I won’t, but I’d be lying.” Carole scanned her boss and friend. “Arrived about an hour ago.”
“I’m going to smack him,” JT gritted out. Pointedly attempting to ignore the gorgeous tulips and failing badly, she walked over to the vase and snatched free the small florist card. She read:
Sincerely, Reese.
She didn’t know whether to melt or curse.
A confused Carole watched her closely. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”
“How about Reese the Fine works for the World League commissioner.”
“What?”
JT told her the tale, and when she finished, Carole’s brown eyes were sparkling with mirth. “When do tickets go on sale? I want a front row seat, you hear me?”
“Shut up,” JT tossed back, smiling.
“I’m not joking. He’s with the commissioner’s office? Doesn’t he know you can’t hang with the enemy?”