She walked across the marble floor of the lobby of the Freedom Building, past the tall potted plants and the glass-enclosed business rosters on the walls. She nodded at another security guard seated at a desk and unlocked the employee elevator. Her ascent to the third floor was swift and noiseless.
Outside her office, Dolores, her secretary, handed her a stack of mail and coffee in a plastic foam cup. “Bradley Youngson at nine,” Dolores reminded her, wearing a mischievous smile.
“Why the Cheshire Cat grin, Dolores?” Jennifer said, depositing her purse and the correspondence on her desk.
Dolores paused in the doorway, her smile widening. “You’ll know when you see him. He was here last week when you were in Chicago.” She rolled her eyes. “Sexy as hell.”
“Thank you, Dolores, for that capsule assessment,” Jennifer said dryly. “I only hope he can read.”
Jennifer was the publicity director for the Philadelphia Freedom football team and was responsible for the contracted promotional appearances the players made on behalf of the club. In her previous dealings with the athletes she had found quite a few of them, to put it charitably, something less than bright.
“When you look like him” Dolores said, “it doesn’t matter if you can read, write, or even think. The world will beat a path to your door.”
Jennifer gave Dolores a look that sent her scuttling back to her typewriter. Dolores had an unfortunate tendency to moon over the more attractive players. She was otherwise an excellent secretary, but her sophomoric hero worship made Jennifer feel like the den mother at a sorority house. She was always sending Dolores off on a manufactured errand to prevent her staring, thunderstruck, at some gloriously healthy young quarterback who had arrived to sign papers. Judging by this preview, Jennifer might have to give her a one-way ticket to the Ozarks while Youngson was around.
Jennifer sat and sipped her coffee, reviewing the material on Youngson. He was an American Indian, raised on a reservation in Montana, whose athletic prowess in the school there won him a scholarship to Cornell. He had been a star halfback in college and had signed with the Green Bay Packers upon graduation. He had had a magnificent career since, at the top of the league in yardage gained and passes received wherever he had played. He had been brought to the Freedom with the publicity of an astronaut returning from Jupiter. His salary could feed the population of China for a decade, and that did not include the perks—the cars, the clothes, the residuals from advertisements. The man was loaded. Jennifer always found herself resenting the amount these players were paid, but Youngson was in a class by himself. And all for playing a children’s game.
Jennifer was not impressed. She knew the type, all brawn and no brains. She had been married to one of them for three years. College degrees meant nothing in this business. Athletes were supplied with free tutoring in order to pass the most basic courses. And there had been more than one scandal about grade fixing and credit given for classes never attended, so that the starting lineup would be eligible to play. Jennifer had met some of the products of this system: college graduates who were functional illiterates, reading on a fourth or fifth-grade level, unable to decipher the material she handed them. She knew that quite a few of the faces she saw grinning from the sports pages couldn’t read the stories written about them. It had a tendency to dim the brightness of their accomplishments on the field.
When Dolores buzzed her at 8:58, she was prepared for more of the same. At least he was on time.
“Mr. Youngson is here,” Dolores said breathlessly into the intercom.
I hope she doesn’t have a heart attack, Jennifer thought, sighing to herself. I need her for the rest of the day. “Send him in,” she said.
The door opened, Bradley Youngson entered, and Jennifer felt her customary composure desert her.
He was tall and broad shouldered, but hadn’t the massive, hulking physique she had come to expect in football players. He appeared to be of average weight for his height, but his narrow waist and hips gave him a deceptive appearance of slimness. His body was perfectly proportioned, elegant, with the pleasing symmetry of Grecian art.
Jennifer realized that she was staring and quickly dropped her eyes.
But he had caught her puzzled examination of him. “What’s the matter, Ms. Gardiner?” he asked in a low, resonant voice. “Am I not what you expected?”
“I thought you would be…heavier,” she blurted, and then closed her mouth, amazed at her loss of composure. What on earth was wrong with her? This was just another Saturday hero, another side of prime beef paid to entertain the masses with the bashing of heads. A modem gladiator in a twentieth century arena, a member of an expensive sideshow, no more. She sat up straighter and regarded him levelly, taking a breath.
“I’m a pass receiver, Ms. Gardiner,” he said with a trace of sarcasm. “I run around a lot.”
She could believe that he received a lot of passes. Also that he ran around a lot.
His large, dark eyes studied her with faintly amused detachment. “You must be accustomed to dealing with linemen. They usually resemble Mack trucks.”
He remained standing in front of her desk. Dolores was right Sexy as hell. It wasn’t so much his looks, though he was certainly handsome in a craggy, strong-featured way, but more a presence, a physical confidence and awareness that attracted like a magnet Jennifer felt the pull and consciously decided to resist it.
Their eyes locked. His dusky skin had been made even browner by the sun of a hundred football fields and had an underlying coppery tinge that bespoke his heritage. His brows and lashes were jet black, like his hair, which was beautiful, thick and straight and as glossy as a thoroughbred’s coat He stood easily, watching her, his lips slightly parted to reveal a glimpse of very white teeth.
“Please be seated, Mr. Youngson,” she said stiffly.
“Call me Lee,” he said, dropping gracefully into the chair across from her, stretching his long legs in front of him. He was wearing tight jeans with moccasins and a yellow V-necked sweater that clung to the muscles in his arms and shoulders and revealed the clean, supple line of his throat. He knows how to pick his colors, Jennifer thought The bright material of his sweater was in striking contrast to his ebony eyes and hair.
Jennifer noticed that he was looking her over, too, and wondered what he thought of her. But his black gaze revealed nothing.
There was a knock at the door. Dolores opened it, simpering at Youngson.
“I just wondered if Mr. Youngson would like some coffee,” she said kittenishly.
His indulgent smile suggested that Youngson was used to such fawning attention. He nodded. “Black No sugar.”
Dolores all but purred as she went out. Jennifer made a silent resolve to kill her as soon as Youngson left.
“Shall we begin?” she said pointedly to Youngson.
He raised his brows. “Please.”
Jennifer handed him his copy of the typed sheets. He followed as she read the list of public appearances he was to make and explained the details involved. She took care to use the simplest language and went over each point twice.
She finished the first page. “Is there anything you would like me to explain again?” she said.
“It is not necessary to speak in words of one syllable, Ms. Gardiner,” he answered quietly. “I understand.”
Somewhat disconcerted, she went on. When they got to a paragraph written in legal jargon, she paused to interpret it.
He gazed at her directly across the cream bond pages in his hand. “I said I get the picture, ma’am,” he said, a little more sharply.
Jennifer felt a twinge of anger. He had no right to be miffed. She was only doing her job.
“I apologize if my explanations are boring you, Mr. Youngson,” she said sweetly. “I have found in the past that clearly establishing the facts saves time and effort later. While many of our clients are college graduates, they frequently went to school on athletic scholarships and...”