Well, three publishers, three different titles, and two years later (long story)
I hope readers will enjoy the first in a series of sports-related romance novellas to be released from Fine Form Press.
There's life, there's love... and then there's football!
After Dawson Drake gets hurt while quarterbacking the winning play that puts the Giants in the playoffs, he is surprised to learn that the new team owner Miriame Maxwell, the young and brash heiress, has no sympathy for an injured veteran. As annoying as her faithless actions are, if he doesn't help her to soon see the light, he might end up doing something foolish, like fall in love.
The locker room buzzed with a mix of testosterone-fueled cheer and loud rock music. The euphoric players celebrated their hard-won victory in the age-old tradition of shaking over-sized bottles of cheap champagne and dousing each other—and the chagrined news crews covering the event—with the stinging bubbly.
Dawson winced as he slowly removed his uniform, being careful not to bump his damaged hand on any hard surface. Once undressed, and needing to get the sour smell of sweat, mud, and Champagne off his skin, he joined some of his teammates already in the showers. He didn't waste a lot of time beneath the hot spray of water, wishing the long day would soon end so he could go home and relax. Gingerly washed and shampooed, he rinsed and got out of the shower. He grabbed a couple of towels from a nearby stack, draping one around his waist and using the other to dry his hair as he walked back to his spot on the long wooden bench. He pushed the sweat-soaked discarded gear off to the side, wincing again as the simple action caused an eruption of pain his hand.
A balding trainer arrived and knelt beside him, a look of worry etched on the journeyman's face. Dawson took a few more swipes at his hair and removed the towel just as someone muted the blaring rock music of Green Day and a heavy silence descended on the room.
"Owner in the locker room!" bellowed the same team assistant who'd handed him the phone on the sidelines. Some of the men, partially undressed and reliving the game's highlights, quieted down and stood.
Dawson got to his feet and faced the locker room door, where his eyes traced the movements of a petite brunette striding to the center of the room. She nodded brusquely to the coaches and players. A cortege of reporters and massive athletes dwarfed her. Although she looked like a college co-ed, everyone treated Miriame Maxwell with the grudging respect they would have given any other team owner in the league. And even though it wasn't expected of them—after all, they were in their environment, their locker room, for crying out loud—most of the men wrapped towels around their midsections.
She backhanded the reporters' microphones away from her face, as if dispersing a swarm of annoying black flies, before approaching the table on which sat the Division Winner trophy. Miriame grinned as she stroked the brass sculpture with a manicured hand.
After a few more shots for the cameramen, she hefted the piece of hardware high above her shoulders and shouted, "Congratulations, men! Good game! I'm real proud of what you guys did out there today!"
The team let out a raucous cry.
She handed the heavy trophy to an assistant who took it and moved aside. Miriame scanned the room, making eye contact with all the players before somberly adding, "Dad, too, would've been proud of you. You played with heart, and he would've loved and appreciated that. A lot of people think that because we're a New York team, we're cold and heartless, but today you proved every one of those skeptics wrong."
Another round of cheers resounded throughout the locker room.
Her iridescent green eyes sparkled and she took a deep breath. "So let's win the next one for him, too!" She pumped her small fist into the air above her head.
The players' cheers rang in Dawson's ears.
The owner ignored the newsmen as she made her way to Dawson's cubby hole. The players quickly dispersed and returned to the interrupted routine of removing their equipment and preparing to take showers, get dressed, and then meet the press for more post-game interviews.
A scrum of reporters hoping for a candid quip, or a sound bite, followed on the owner's heels. She spun around. "Scram! Go interview someone else," Miriame told them, clipping her words like a Vassar graduate. "There're sixty guys here who'll be more than happy to tell you how they won the game and what it means to them." She stared down the reporters' objections and soon they left her alone with Dawson.
"You, sit," Miriame pointed to the quarterback.
He sat down and massaged his right hand. She sat beside him and he moved away.
"That could be wet there," he warned her.
"You knew Peter, my dad, didn't you?"
"Yeah, of course. I met him five years ago, when the crazy man traded a handful of draft choices to bring me to New York." He smiled at the memory.
She looked up at him, curiosity playing in her green eyes. "You think my dad was crazy to trade those guys for you?"
He rubbed his hand as he considered her question. Eventually, Dawson shrugged. "All I know is, he sure had a lot of faith in me, ma'am. I wish he could've seen the team win today."
A moment passed in silence. "I'm sure he saw it. Maybe he even engineered that miracle pass of yours that won us the game," she grinned.
"I'd like to think so, ma'am."
Dawson had only met Miriame once, at her father's funeral months earlier, on a muggy, overcast summer day. Along with the rest of the team, the quarterback had queued up to shake her cold hand and to pay his respects. The weeks following Peter Maxwell's death, the players had followed the rampant media speculation on social media and television. It seemed that everyone in the sports world had an opinion about what would now happen to the franchise: move it elsewhere, sell it to one of various interested parties. The best case scenario to emerge from the speculation: the Giants would be sold to an upstate New York dairy consortium, rumored to be very motivated to expand their business interests into the field of professional sports. When the players were subsequently informed that the tycoon's daughter would be taking over the reins and running the team as owner and CEO, the players wondered what new torments they were in for, owned by a twenty-eight year old woman.
I hope readers will enjoy this fun, inspirational romance.
Good luck in the giveaway! Winners will be announced sometime before the SuperBowl (February 2, 2014).
