Cynthia Thomason - His Most Important Win

“I know one other thing. I’m not going to wait another fifteen years before I kiss you again.”

His mouth settled on hers. His lips were soft and warm and inviting. As sweet as a first kiss. But then everything changed and the boy in her mind became a fully grown version of the person she’d loved. His mouth ravaged hers, exploring, igniting a young girl’s passion into a woman’s need. The sensation of being devoured by that hot, hungry kiss tingled through her body and she answered it with equal passion. It was like coming home and finding a treasure she’d thought she’d lost.

He planted a swift kiss on her temple.

“By the way,” he said. “I’ll be sleeping here from tomorrow night on. Just in case you get some ideas in the middle of the night that can’t wait.”

She already had one, and she was pretty sure he knew what it was.

Dear Reader,

What a thrill it is to write this first reader letter as a Mills & Boon ®author. I am so grateful to my agent, Kevan Lyon, and my editor, Charles Griemsman, for making this happen. I have always wanted to write a book about high school teachers and coaches, and now this dream is a reality. I was once a high school English teacher like Rosalie, the heroine of this book. Perhaps my involvement with teens and sports explains why I’ve always had a bit of a love affair with football coaches. There is something about the caged energy they display on the sidelines—a tense expectation that can translate in a second to fist-pumping jubilation. How rewarding it must be to guide young men into adulthood.

This book also explores my first attempt at writing a teenager as the secret baby my heroine raised. I hope you enjoy Danny. It’s easy to love a cute little baby, but a teenager with all that angst and willfulness—if you’ve had one, you know.

Welcome to Whistler Creek, Georgia. Enjoy your stay.

Cynthia

I love to hear from readers. Please send me your reaction to His Most Important Win at Cynthoma@aol.com. Or visit my website, cynthiathomason.com.

CYNTHIA THOMASONwrites contemporary and historical romances and dabbles in mysteries. She has won a National Reader’s Choice Award and the 2008 Golden Quill. When she’s not writing, she works as a licensed auctioneer for the auction company she and her husband own. As an estate buyer for the auction, she has come across unusual items, many of which have found their way into her books. She has one son, an entertainment reporter. Cynthia dreams of perching on a mountaintop in North Carolina every autumn to watch the leaves turn. You can read more about her at her website, www.cynthiathomason.com.

His Most

Important Win

Cynthia Thomason

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to the memory of my loving parents, Barbara and Bert Brackett, who never missed a high school football game under the “Friday night lights” of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

Rosalie pulled into one of the last remaining spots in the parking lot, got out of her car and checked her watch. “Three minutes,” she grumbled. “I’ll just make it if I run.” She still had no idea why the high school principal had called this emergency meeting. His secretary had said he wanted as many of his faculty members who were in town to attend, so Rosalie had missed a lasagna dinner with her mother and her son to be here.

“Hey, Rosalie, wait up.”

Spotting her friend and fellow teacher coming across the pavement, Rosalie motioned for Shelby to hustle. “At least there’s someone who’s even later than I am,” she said when Shelby had fallen into step beside her. “Do you know what this is about?”

“No clue,” Shelby said. “But I’d rather be anywhere but here. The last thing I want to think about in July is school.”

Rosalie held the door open to the three-story brick building and let Shelby go in ahead of her. “I hope Canfield’s not expecting us to volunteer for landscaping duty this summer,” she said. “I’m working more hours at Mom’s produce stand, and I’ve increased my hours at the Brighter Day Center.”

“Why’s that? Have there been any deaths in town recently that I haven’t heard about?”

“No, but grief is an ongoing thing. The more we volunteers can counsel grieving kids at the center, the faster they can get on with their lives.”

Shelby frowned. “I wonder if being around all that sadness is really good for you, Rosalie.”

“It’s been sixteen years since my brother died, Shel.”

“Okay, message received. Forget I said anything.”

They approached the media center at the end of the school’s main hallway. The doors were open. Rosalie caught the subtle aroma of old books, always a welcoming scent to English teachers or anyone who spent a good part of their childhood nestled in a corner of a library. Once they entered the room, the delicious mustiness would be combined with the even subtler smell of modern-day plastic coming from the bank of computers taking up an entire wall.

The media center was buzzing with activity. Apparently Principal Canfield’s calling tree system had worked. Rosalie estimated that nearly three-quarters of the faculty were present along with dozens of booster parents and prominent citizens.

Dexter Canfield, dressed in tan pants and a golf shirt, stood behind the media director’s desk chatting with a group of Whistler Creek’s most influential citizens including Roland Benton, owner of the town’s largest employer, Benton Farms. When Canfield pounded a gavel, the hundred or so attendees stared up at him. Rosalie and Shelby spoke quick greetings to fellow faculty members and took seats in the back.

In his most impressive baritone, the voice Canfield reserved for public address announcements and greetings at halftime sporting events, he thanked everyone for coming and assured the crowd they would not be disappointed. Wasting no time, he proclaimed that a stroke of unbelievable good fortune had befallen the town of Whistler Creek.

“We all regret the recent retirement of Bucky Lowell,” he said. Heads nodded. The revered football coach had been an institution at Whistler Creek High for as long as Rosalie could remember. At the end of the last school year, on the advice of his doctor, the seventy-three-year-old Bucky had stowed away his whistle and closed his game book for the last time. Since then speculations had run wild about who the board would hire to replace him. The man had never had a losing season, a record no other Georgia high school coach had achieved.

“Well, hang on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen,” Canfield said, “because Bucky’s replacement is waiting to come into the room. He signed a contract yesterday, and I think you’ll all agree that the Wildcats couldn’t have made a better pick if we’d ordered his credentials from the Almighty.”

Rosalie studied the expressions of those around her. Some faculty members chuckled. Others shook their heads in bewilderment. A few mumbled guesses about who could possibly fill the shoes of the great Bucky. And then the wait was over. Canfield went to the door of a storage room, opened it wide and in stepped one of Whistler Creek’s native sons and former honored gridiron star. He was also the heir to Benton Farms, the area’s largest agribusiness and supplier of produce to much of the U.S. Southeast.

When recognition dawned among the old-timers, enthusiastic applause broke out. And Rosalie couldn’t seem to draw a breath. It couldn’t be. It was. Bryce Benton, wearing a Texas Tech Athletic T-shirt and ball cap, strode to the desk and stood with his hands clasped in front of him waiting for Dexter Canfield to say something.

Rosalie hadn’t spoken to Bryce in over fifteen years. She’d only spotted him in town a couple times since he’d left for college, and she’d always turned the other way. But looking at him now, exuding a casual confidence that came with pedigree, adulation and just the right amount of sun-weathered texture to his skin, she felt the years melt away. She swallowed. For all her efforts to move on with her life, she could have been seventeen again.

She’d never dreamed Bryce would give up his career at Texas Tech. But here he was. For some inexplicable reason, he’d apparently chosen to abandon his upward climb at the university to come home and coach at little old Whistler Creek High. Bryce was the onetime all-state wide receiver of the Whistler Creek Wildcats, the future agribusiness magnate and, most important, devastating to Rosalie on so many levels, he was her son Danny’s biological father.

Shelby snickered. “What the hell is Canfield doing? Looks like he’s bringing his prize stallion into the show ring for all to admire.” She nudged Rosalie in her ribs. “And he definitely is a prize!”

Somehow Rosalie found her voice. “You don’t know Bryce, do you?”

Shelby, who’d come to Whistler Creek only three years before, grinned. “Not yet. Is he single?”

“Divorced.” Whistler Creek was a small town, and over the years the most important details of Bryce’s life had filtered down to Rosalie. Not that she’d asked to hear them.

She stared at the tabletop in front of her. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t stand to watch that ruggedly handsome face turn smug with the praise of a public that had obviously forgotten all the details of Bryce’s background. Forgotten or forgiven.

Thinking back to when she was a gullible teenager, she felt a flush of shame heat her cheeks. She had once believed she was in love with Bryce Benton, the very same guy who’d just allowed himself to be paraded into the limelight of his expectant hometown crowd as if he were Dexter Canfield’s gift to the people of Whistler Creek.

Some mistakes could never be lived down. And some just hurt forever.

Standing in front of people he’d never met before as well as old friends he hadn’t seen in years, Bryce felt like a damn fool. Canfield had told him to wait in the wings until he’d made the announcement just so he could pique the interest of the crowd. Bryce had argued that such a plan was ridiculous, but in the end, he’d let Canfield have his way thinking maybe it was better that Dexter prepared the crowd for the return of a prodigal son. Bryce had only come home to Whistler Creek a couple dozen times in the last fifteen years. Now, with something like one hundred pairs of eyes drilling into him, he knew he’d been manipulated into being the featured sideshow event for Canfield’s three-ring circus.

He shook his head, raised his hands palms up in an effort to stop the flow of excited chatter that filled the room. When he’d been offered the job to replace Bucky, he’d jumped at the chance. Coaching at Whistler Creek was what he wanted. His goal since college had always been to mentor and guide high school kids on the verge of manhood and possible greatness. Despite the tragedy that would always haunt him, coming home to the town and school that had nurtured him through the years had been the fulfillment of a dream. Now he felt like a trick pony waiting to be led through his paces.

Beaming at Bryce, Canfield said, “I coaxed him away from Texas Tech, and I wanted all of you to share in this victory for the Whistler Creek High Athletic Department.”

Coaxed him away , Bryce thought. He’d taken a ten thousand a year pay cut to be here, and still signed on the bottom line without a moment’s hesitation. Most people would say he should have his head examined.