Sinners Football 01- Goals for a Sinner (24 page)

Connor, dressed in his black game shirt with the red 80 on the back, drank chocolate milk from a small bottle, got a brown milk mustache, and was wiping his lips on a napkin when Stevie came through the door preceded by a tiny woman not much bigger than a child. Joe Dean watched Connor glance over the delicate lady and lock with Stevie’s gaze. She raised her camera and clicked. That Stevie, camera always in hand to catch the moment.

No woman had ever given him the kind of loving look she shared with Connor.

The small woman continued on and positioned herself in front of the players. Joe Dean swiveled in his seat. He didn’t know how she got in here, but everyone in the room knew what she wanted. Even the cute, spiky-haired blonde with the dragon tattoo who brought in the refreshments had signed his fabled book and hinted she would be around after the game. He gave this petite woman with the big, dark eyes a dazzling grin and pulled the black book from his pocket.

Standing on the steps, Stevie eyed Connor again and sighed. Joe Dean knew what she was thinking.

Billodeaux is a sex addict—but he’d stayed celibate for the entire season, more than Connor could say.

“Here you go, sugar. What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asked as he picked up one of the felt-tipped pens used to autograph the footballs.

“Nellwyn Abbott,” she replied, returning his attention with a cordial smile.

“Abbott. Why you go right to the top of my list, Nellie. You just beat out Lacey Abshire for first place with Joe Dean Billodeaux.”

Coming up beside Stevie, Margaret Stutes glared at him from the entry. Joe Dean ignored her and concentrated on the fine, delicate lady before him. Not his type as he was usually seen with bigger women all away around, but Joe denied no female the chance to leave her name. Behind him, the Rev cleared his throat loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

Was that going to stop him? No. He continued with the seductive business at hand. “Now, how can I get in touch with you after the game? You live here in town?”

“No. No, I don’t. We came in from New Orleans.

I’m a Sinners fan, too, of course, but—”

“Even better, sugar. I can get to you soon as we get back to the state with our trophy. That would be area code 504, right?”

“Yes, but—”

The Rev’s voice attempting to interrupt grew louder. He was going into preacher mode. Connor laughed so hard, he had lowered his head on to his arms. The Rev blasted out as if he were standing at his father’s pulpit, “Joe Dean, you hitting on the Wish Lady.”

Joe blinked. Tiny fingers tipped with pale, pink-polished nails laid a business card on the well-filled

“A” page of his little black book. It read, “Nellwyn Abbott, Volunteer, Louisiana Wish Kidz Foundation.”

On the landing, Margaret mouthed, “I’m first” to the stunned Joe Dean. Behind her stood a group of parents and children—a frail little boy in a wheelchair, a black child whose joints were bigger than the limbs surrounding them, a pale girl bespeckled with freckles. The last child wore a black Sinner’s bandanna twisted around her bald head like a gang member. The intent was to look tough but came across more like a piece of a pirate costume. Blue-coated disability service team members flanked the children.

Stevie clicked her camera and captured Joe’s slack-jawed look on film along with the small, serene smile of the Wish Lady, her hand on the black book, and Joe Dean’s total humiliation. Damn that Stevie Dowd.

Connor, always quick with a recovery, pushed a note pad toward the quarterback. “Let’s sign a few autographs for our guests, Joe.”

“Sure, sure. Wish Lady, Miss Abbott, Nellie, how would you like your autograph to read?” Joe Dean did have the basic decency to be embarrassed.

“To Nell, not Nellie,” she laughed softly. “I will never forget this moment.”

That’s exactly how the autograph came out, “To Nell—not Nellie—I will never forget this moment.

Joe Dean Billodeaux, Sinner.” He drew a line under his name ending with a devil’s tail looping around to form a heart. Inside the heart, he wrote his phone number.

Grinning again, he said as he handed the paper over to Nellwyn Abbott, “But give it some thought.”

“I am sure most women would be honored, but I’m here for the children. Let me introduce you.” Seeing that the wheelchair might be a problem, Joe Dean rose and went to shake hands with his audience. Connor and the Rev followed, still snickering like brothers who caught a sibling making out with his girlfriend.

“This is Patrick Maguire and Willie Jones and Cassie Thomas,” Nell introduced. “Each one picked their favorite player to meet.”

“I guess I’m yours,” Joe Dean said to the girl who looked to be about thirteen. He was doomed to be embarrassed again.

“Oh, no! Mr. Connor is mine. He’s so beautiful,” she sighed. “Not that you aren’t sexy Mr. Joe, but I want a man who will pine for his one true love like he did for Stevie Dowd. Say, did you just hit on Miss Nellwyn?”

“We often call her Sassy,” said Nellwyn Abbott.

Behind Cassie, her flustered mother fluttered her hands. “I don’t know where she gets these ideas.”

“From that newspaper you always buy at the grocery store, Mom. Didn’t you see it a couple of weeks ago when we were picking our favorite players? The headline said
 
Sweetheart StevieReturns, Riley Rises.
 
“

“Oh good Lord! I’ll never buy that rag again. I’m so sorry, Mr. Riley,” Mrs. Thomas blurted. It was easy to see where Cassie had gotten her freckles and probably red hair and a quick blush, too, when she was well.

“I can’t complain if it’s true,” Connor answered graciously.

“So, who gets me?” asked Joe Dean turning the conversation back to himself.

“I do,” the wheelchair-bound child said eagerly.

Joe Dean pulled off his jersey and put it over the boy’s extended arms. “This is for you. We have an autographed football, too. How about I get you out of this chair and carry you down by the front window so we can scope out the field and have some eats.

They tell me the Sinners have donated this box for y’all and your families.”

Patrick Maguire’s thin and worried mother gasped as if her son might shatter during transport, but the boy with the huge jersey pooling around his hips held up his arms again and gave Joe a smile full of hero worship. Joe Dean lifted the child who was so light his bones seemed to be filled with air and carried him with ease to a regular seat.

The Rev turned to Willie. “You must be mine, son. Climb on my back, we all going for a ride.” The black child, who looked like a starving refugee from Africa, put his arms around the big man’s neck and his toothpick legs around his waist.

Connor gallantly offered his arm to Cassie who accepted, too shameless with adoration to match her mother’s blush. The procession moved toward the food tables. Stevie snapped the heart-warming pictures that would be in the paper and on the Sinners’ web site the next day. Really, nothing was wrong with heart-warming.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Game day, Stevie wandered, filling her cameras with pictures of pre-game preparations. The dome was closed against the weather, but she found the real grass comforting. Connor had told her a grass field meant fewer injuries. This year’s theme ran towards country/western patriotic. Some big star would yodel out the national anthem. A live eagle was scheduled to be released for a flight back to its trainer’s hand. Celebrities filled the stands if they wanted to be seen and the luxury suites if they did not. Stevie found the sameness to last year’s event unnerving. She kept her mind off of it by doing her job. Before the action started, she stopped by the Riley family box and exchanged fervent hugs with Kris Riley that only the two women truly understood. Keith Riley was there being a good grandfather. He had taken the older children over to the NFL Experience earlier and now plied everyone with hot dogs to settle them down. Kevin bickered with Merrilee about her breast-feeding nine-month old Courtney right there under a Sinners blanket.

“For God’s sake, Merrilee, the child is walking and has teeth. Give it up.”

“You know I always breast-feed for at least a year, Kevin, sometimes until the age of two. It’s good for the baby. What do you think, Stevie?” Stevie threw up her hands. “No opinion. No opinion whatsoever, but I’ll take a mother/daughter picture if you like,” and she did, making her escape back to the field soon afterwards where the tension seemed more bearable.

“Stefania,
 
bella
 
Stefania, over here.” Marcello, of course. Marcello had to be here to make things perfect. He had his arm around the model, Amber.

“I like the American football very much last year. So much more dangerous than soccer games.

Your fella, the man I see you with, he is good to play, eh? I gotta big bet on the Sinners. The Amberello Agency, she is doing good. I pay for my tickets this year. And hey, see this. We make our own little football.”

Marcello pulled the ever elegant Amber from her seat and turned her sideways. He patted her round, tight tawny belly with its protruding navel poking out between low-slung jeans and a snug red midriff-baring top.

“Oh, you two have gotten married since I saw you in Italy! Congratulations,” Stevie shouted up at them.

“No, no, marriage is for peasants. We are business partners. We make a beautiful baby. She will be a model like her mother. Maybe we name her Stefania.”

Amber’s beautiful almond-shaped eyes narrowed. She pulled her top down and her pants up from where they rested on her narrow hips. Her navel still protruded. “We are naming her Gabriella,” she spit. “And if I have one stretch mark you will be forever sorry.”

“Yes, yes, I will be,
 
cara mia
.” Marcello soothed her with words, but his expression said he already was. “Good luck to you two, then.” Stevie waved and moved on. At least the baby was not Joe Dean’s offspring. She would tell him about his fortunate escape after the game. Might make him think harder about using all the names in his little black book.

She was hailed from another section of the stands with a whistle and a loud yell.

“Baby doll! Up here!” Jackie Haile leaned over a railing. “I told that ass, Joe Dean, I could afford my own tickets, but I’m rooting for him anyhow.”

“Great to see you, Jackie. Is that your father with you?”

“Ah, yes. We reconciled. Isn’t it great?” Jackie poked her father in the ribs with an elbow.

The stocky, gray-haired man who looked like an old version of Jackie said, “Our reconciliation was long overdue. I love my girl.” He added an impromptu hug.

“Jackie, thanks. I wouldn’t be here today if you hadn’t talked to me back in Vegas,” Stevie shouted through cupped hands.

“Yeah, well. You can name your firstborn after me,” the golfer replied a little uncomfortably.

“That’s a promise,” Stevie vowed.

She turned and bumped into Dexter Sykes.

Since she had been covering the playoff games, he seemed to dog her steps. Dex tweaked her about giving up the New Orleans studio. “I guess as a lowly photographer I didn’t make enough bucks to keep us together,” he had the nerve to say.

“I guess as a lowly photographer, you didn’t have enough integrity to keep us together, Dex. I haven’t forgiven you for selling those shots of me to
 
Sports Illustrated
 
last year.”

“Baby, you signed the model’s release. Those pictures opened up a whole new field for me, too.

Guess who gets to work on the swimsuit issue next year?”

“Dexter Sykes, naturally.” Stevie rolled her eyes.

“Dexter Sykes on an island with the world’s most beautiful women and you made it all possible, Stevie girl. Tell that hulk you’re living with if he wants any more copies, they’re on the house.” She had nothing more to say to or about Dexter Sykes. She would never collaborate with him again.

Except at the publicity events going on all week long, the one person she had seen little of was Connor Riley. Sequestered in their team hotel at night, phone calls had been their only private contact. Connor seemed distracted, his mind on the game and coping with any fears he might have. She could listen if he wanted to talk, but that was all.

She would be here on the field dealing with her own fears, little enough to offer to him.

Missing from this year’s lineup—Connor’s nemesis, Damon Suggs. Joe Dean had told her in a quick aside at the Wish Kidz meeting that Suggs had been traded away to a lesser team. The Patriots played tough, but they disliked Suggs’ attitude.

Some had talked about banning him from the league after the spearing incident, but the difficulty lay in proving the move was intentional and not simply an over-eager attempt to tackle by a novice player.

Intimidating men like Suggs had their value, especially to teams without a strong defense.

Fans who had paid over a thousand dollars for a ticket to this event watched two teams so evenly matched the game went scoreless well into the second quarter. Both quarterbacks suffered sacks handed out by ferocious defensive lines. They battled for feet, not yards. Joe Dean was unable to reach any of his wide receivers whether they played two or three in the backfield. Stevie trolled the sidelines attempting to get some exciting snaps, but nothing much turned up.