That was when he saw her. Seated in the press section of the bleachers, Izzie looked beautiful in a soft blue dress, her hair loose around her shoulders.
She was fumbling—with her purse, with her notebook, looking anywhere but at the Warriors’ bench. He clenched his hands at his sides. He’d gone into the station to find her on Monday only to be told she was in the Caribbean for a long weekend with her sister.
Her gaze flicked to him now, as if she couldn’t help herself, as if she knew he was watching her. She had stayed away from every practice he’d been around for. Avoided him completely. And she didn’t look good. Didn’t look rested. She looked pale and thinner than he’d ever seen her.
Carter nudged him. “They’re ready for the coin toss.”
He nodded. Dragged his gaze away.
“You know she was the one who told me to call you.”
“Who?”
“Izzie.”
“Izzie?”
Carter nodded. “She asked me not to say anything. But I’m thinkin’ you might want to know that.”
His heart flipped over with an emotion he hadn’t felt in many, many years. She had known he needed this. Needed football back in his life. And he wondered how he could ever have let the most courageous woman he knew go.
Carter nudged him. “We gotta go.”
He put his head down and walked to the center of the field.
* * *
Izzie had been on edge the entire game, but with the Warriors down by one point with three seconds left, she was practically hyperventilating. The Warriors kicker lined up for the field goal, the lights glinting off his dark hair. If he made it, the Warriors went to state. If he missed it, they were out.
After spending weeks working on this story, getting to know each one of these players’ personal histories—what they’d gone through—she needed for them to win.
Her gaze flicked to Alex, standing motionless on the sidelines. His feet were spread wide, his eyes glued to the kicker as one of the special teams players placed the ball on the tee. To see him in his element, to see how alive his face was, made her heart throb in her chest.
The kicker backed up, eyed the ball, then ran forward and sent it flying through the air. She craned her neck, tracking the ball as it soared through the glare of the lights and headed for the uprights. It had the height, but it was veering to the right. Her breath caught in her throat. She angled her body to the left, willing it to straighten out. And almost as if it was obeying her command, the ball scraped through the upright by inches.
The crowd erupted. Somehow this bedraggled, courageous team had done the impossible.
The bench emptied as the clock ran out, the players heaping themselves on top of one another in a tangle of red jerseys at midfield. Alex remained where he was, hands planted on his hips, a solitary figure among the mayhem. The lump in her throat grew to gargantuan proportions. And something inside her became unhinged.
If only she hadn’t been so stupid.
Nick, her cameraman, stood and nodded toward the scrum of reporters forming around Alex.
“Ready?”
No. But she forced herself to nod and follow Nick down to the field. “Start with Alex?” he suggested.
She shook her head. “Let’s start with Danny.”
She managed to force half a dozen wooden questions out of her mouth, which the beaming young quarterback attempted to answer around his teammates’ whoops and back slaps. The fact that Alex was giving an interview to a Times reporter a couple of yards away didn’t help. The ache in her chest increased until she felt that her heart would throb out of it. She took a step backward, wrapped her arms around herself and declared the interview done.
Nick started to move toward Alex.
“No.”
He stared at her as she pulled her microphone off. “What do you mean no? We need a sound bite from Alex.”
“I can’t do it.”
“What happened to the most courageous woman I know? You can’t ask me a few questions?”
She spun around at the sound of Alex’s deep, rich voice. His gaze burned into her, all hot blue intensity. “I’m ready.”
“Awesome, let’s do it.” Nick moved forward and refastened her mic with a let’s-get-this-over-with look on his face. She took a deep breath, willing some air into her lungs. What was Alex doing?
Nick secured a mic to Alex’s shirt and stepped back to turn the camera on. The other reporters watched from the sidelines, waiting for their turn. Izzie’s tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth, her brain incapable of constructing a question.
“How did it feel out there tonight?” Nick hissed from behind her.
She blurted the question out.
Alex smiled, his relaxed half smile that made her toes curl. “It felt great. Really really great. I’d forgotten how much I love this game.”
Silence.
“What did you think of the team tonight?” Nick prompted.
Izzie asked the question.
“They were everything I knew they could be. The talent was there, they just needed to believe in themselves.”
“You’re a former quarterback,” she said, her brain kicking in. “What did you think of Danny out there?”
Anyone else would have missed the flicker of emotion in that dark blue gaze. The pain he couldn’t quite hide. “He’s going to be a force to be reckoned with. He directed that team tonight like a true leader. I could see him playing pro ball someday.”
“And what do you think about your chances at state?”
“I think we’ll take it one day at a time.”
And that was a perfect ending. “Well, that’s great,” she concluded, plastering a smile across her face. “Congratulations and thank you v—”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what lessons I’ve learned?”
Her heart skipped a beat. No—no she wasn’t. She reached for her mic, but Alex kept talking, his gaze pinning her to the spot. “I’ve learned from this team that the past is the past and at some point we all have to move on. That trust is imperative, yet even when we know that, sometimes we still manage to screw up.”
This wasn’t about football. “Alex...”
“I’m not done.”
Two dozen sets of eyes latched onto them, the press scrum clueing in to a whole other story entirely. She yanked off her mic. “I think we are.”
“I know you didn’t mean to hand over those notes, Iz.”
She froze, mic in hand. He took a step closer, until they were only inches apart. “James told me what happened. I’m so sorry. Here I was preaching trust, when I wasn’t trusting you at all.”
Confusion rained down over her, making her head spin. He believed her? She flicked a glance at the reporters surrounding them. “I’m not sure this is the time or pl—”
“I don’t give a crap where we are,” he growled. “I want to know what happened.”
She pulled in a breath. “The night I filled in as the weekday anchor, I was stressed—it was so last-minute. I owed Bart some notes, so I took the file over to him, but I was so distracted, I forgot about my backup notes from Taylor’s interview.” The ache in her throat had her swallowing hard. “It was a mistake. I— I swear to God I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know.” He pulled off his mic and handed it to Nick. “I was so angry at first, I couldn’t see straight. Having my past splashed across the nation, thinking you’d betrayed me. It was too much. Then, later when my mind cleared, none of it made any sense. Why would you give up the story if you were going to betray me? If it was all about your ambition...”