Sydney grinned at her. “I want the whole story when I come back.”

HALF AN HOUR later, Sydney returned to Kendall’s office with a couple of bakery bags and spread the booty over her desk. “Okay. Two sandwiches. Yours is marked. Here’s your drink, and here’s your M&M’s. I got some too.” She pulled one of the chairs that sat in front of Kendall’s desk to the edge and sat down. “So, start at the beginning.”

“Do we need to talk about the circle of trust?” Kendall joked. “This has to remain a secret.”

“Of course it does, because I’d like to keep working here. What happened?” Sydney pulled a veggie wrap out of butcher paper and uncapped her Izze. “Don’t leave anything out.”

Kendall would be leaving plenty out, but she wasn’t going to admit that. “Two nights before the Miners played the Sharks, I left my hotel room to go buy a book.”

“You read books on your e-reader.”

“Yes, I know. I needed to get out and stretch my legs.”

“In a rainstorm?”

“I didn’t know it was that bad before I went out there.”

“Kendall, I would have called the bookstore and asked them to send something over—”

“I know you would have. I just needed a walk.”

“Wasn’t that the same day Jack Phillips went absolutely ape shit over the fact that you changed the free agents marketing brochure?”

“Yes, it was.” Kendall shook her head. “There was a bookstore about a block and a half from the hotel. I needed to get out for a few minutes, and there was a presentation by the author of Carl Sagan’s latest biography.”

Sydney looked a bit confused.

“Very famous astrophysicist. My dad used to watch his show when I was younger. I knew Dad would love the book, so I sat down to hear what the guy had to say. He didn’t show up, but I grabbed a book anyway for my dad. Drew McCoy was the only other person in the audience.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“He had this big slouchy knit hat over his hair and he was dressed in casual clothes—”

“He’s on TV ten times a day!”

“I don’t watch much TV,” Kendall said. Sydney grinned at her and shook her head. “He asked me if I wanted to have a cup of coffee with him, and I said yes. We went to the coffee shop next door, we had something to drink, and he decided he wanted to walk me back to the hotel.”

Sydney’s eyes narrowed. “How did he get back home?”

“Took a cab.”

“So the whole time you were talking with him, you didn’t recognize him, and then he was nice enough to walk you back to the hotel in a driving rain and seventy mile an hour winds?”

“It didn’t really get bad until we were back at the hotel—” Kendall blurted out, and then she wished she could bite her own tongue off.

“Back at the hotel, hmm?” Sydney was giving her the raised eyebrow again. Kendall would give her own story the raised eyebrow if someone else was telling it to her.

“He walked me back there. He had to dry off before he could go home.”

Sydney stared at her. She reached out for the M&M’s bag, ripped it open, and held it out to Kendall. “I should have gotten a bottle of tequila, a lime, and a couple of shot glasses.” She tossed a handful of candies into her mouth, chewed, swallowed, and said, “He had your phone, didn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“And he flew to San Jose to bring it back to you.”

Kendall reached out for another handful of M&M’s.

“I take it that’s a yes,” Sydney said. “I’m guessing he didn’t bring the phone to your house and run back to the airport the same night, either.” She picked up her Izze and took a swig. “Are you going to see him again?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” Kendall pushed her half sandwich around with one fingertip on the butcher paper it came in.

Sydney picked up her wrap, took a bite, and chewed. Kendall had lost her appetite. Well, she’d lost her appetite for anything besides chocolate. She grabbed a few more from the bag and popped them into her mouth.

“He’s interested, isn’t he?”

Kendall’s voice dropped. She leaned forward. “Yes. I already told him that being involved with him couldn’t happen. He’d get cut or traded if anyone found out, and I’d be in serious trouble as well around here.”

“The team wants to go after him in free agency.”

“Yes.”

“Does he want to play for the Miners?”

“You have to promise me you will not tell anyone this—”

“I promise,” Sydney said.

Kendall shook her head. Sydney’s eyes got huge again.

“Jack Phillips is going to lose it completely when he finds this out,” Sydney said. “He wants him BAD.”

“I know.”

“Are you going to tell them?”

“No. If I did, I’d be in trouble I couldn’t get out of. He said the only way he’d consider it is if the team threw what he calls ‘stupid money’ at him.”

“Do you plan on doing that?”

“No. He identified several issues the team’s already having that could be fixed with the money we’d have to pay him to leave Seattle.”

Sydney stared at her. “I think that’s crazier than the fact you had the discussion.”

“He’s fair,” Kendall said.

Actually, Drew was generous. She knew the problems with the current team. They’d been over it multiple times already with Jack Phillips, who insisted the players in question were simply “lazy” and “unmotivated.” She knew from talking with those players’ agents that they’d had it with the head coach and were looking for a way out of San Francisco as quickly as possible.

“So eat something. You’re meeting with the equipment guys a little later, and then we’ll be prepping for tomorrow morning’s agenda,” Sydney said.

More meetings. More decisions. The guys who were gunning for her job were probably rubbing their hands together with glee. She had never wanted the GM job to begin with, but she’d do her best while she had it.

The next several days were a whirlwind. The Miners were playing at home, which meant she wasn’t required to travel to an away game with the team. Kendall also did her best to stop thinking about Drew. It wasn’t working. She’d sent him some junior-high quality text the other day about missing him, and he didn’t text in response. In other words, she needed to get over it and keep her mind on her work.

She was finishing up some e-mails at seven PM on Friday evening when Sydney walked into her office.

“What are you doing here?” Kendall said. “You were out of here an hour ago. You have homework.”

“It’s Friday night, and I can do the homework tomorrow or Sunday. You should have been out of here an hour ago too. It will all wait until Monday morning.” Sydney reached out to shove Kendall’s office door closed. “Have you heard from him?”

They both knew who “him” was.

“No. Maybe it’s better that way.”

“Your meetings on Monday don’t start until noon.”

“I thought there was some kind of breakfast thing.”

“No,” Sydney said. She handed Kendall her tablet; flight times between San Francisco and Seattle were already on it. “Throw a few things in a bag and I’ll tell everyone you have an appointment.”

“Why are you doing this for me?”

Sydney grinned at her. “You and this job are getting me through undergrad. It’s the least I can do.”

Chapter Eleven

THERE WAS A reason for that old cliché about houseguests and fish starting to stink after three days. Neil McCoy wasn’t exactly a houseguest, but he’d been slowly driving Drew insane for the past several days while camping out at his house. Drew would be staying overnight at the team hotel this evening in preparation for tomorrow’s game. He could pack his garment bag in his sleep, but he was worried about what mischief his dad could get into while he was gone. He’d already asked Owen, to make something meat-and-potatoey for his dad’s dinner tonight. If Drew was lucky (and Neil wasn’t bored) he would stay home and order an action-adventure movie on pay-per-view or something.