Page 22 of The House of Wolves

“Same,” I said, and grinned. “I’ll be watching games from where I always have, the seats I bought for myself on the forty before I ever thought about running this team. That way I’m not tempted to listen to the announcers explaining football to me. A long time ago, I used to watch in my father’s suite. But I grew out of it.”

“How do we know you’re not just acting this way to make a good first impression?” Sadowski, a giant, ham-faced young guy out of Iowa, said.

“Not that guy,” I said. “If you don’t know it yet, you will.”

I looked up at the clock on top of the scoreboard at the other end of the field. I only had a few more minutes.

I saw Ted Skyler in back, standing behind his offensive linemen. Or hiding behind them. Gave him a good long look. We both knew that he’d tried to sell me out with Seth Dowd. It was why I hadn’t taken any of his calls since the Horseshoe Tavern. But I wasn’t going to call him out in front of the team. I had no standing to do that, not after a few minutes. And he was still our quarterback.

At least for the time being.

Quindlen Moore, the Wolves’ All-Pro left tackle, the guy known as the blind-side tackle, called out to me from where he was standing in front of my ex-husband.

“Tell us why we should trust you.”

We were getting to it now.

“I can’t.”

“Say what?”

“Nothing I say today is ever going to convince you of that. So here’s the deal: I earn your trust, and you earn mine.”

“Talk’s cheap,” Quindlen said.

I smiled at him.

“But you’re not.”

I heard some chuckles from his teammates.

“Never had me a woman boss,” he said.

“Neither did LeBron before he got to the Lakers.”

I waved him up to where I was standing. He slowly made his way through his teammates. When he got to me, so tall and so wide I felt as if he were blocking out the sun, I simply reached up and bumped him some fist.

I knew I hadn’t won them over today. Might never win them over. But I hadn’t expected to. And hoped it hadn’t seemed as if I were trying too hard to sound like one of the boys. It was a start—nothing more. I hadn’t made a fool out of myself or looked weak. Joe Wolf had always taught us that weakness isn’t a condition; it’s a choice. It was one of the things he was right about.

My heart had been pounding like a jackhammer the entire time I was standing in front of them. But it was getting back to normal as I walked toward the tunnel.

That was when I yelled at the Wolves over my shoulder, knowing they were all still watching me.

“One more thing?”

I stopped then and turned to face them.

“You guys want to make a good impression onme? Win on Sunday. That will impress the holy hell out of me.”

Fifteen

DANNY WATCHED FROM HISwindow, wanting to punch a fist through it as he sawherfist-bump Quindlen Moore. Then she said something to them before she left the field, and Danny could see them nodding, almost in approval.

She’s going to ruin everything.

He had everything lined up.Theyhad everything lined up. His father was dead, so Danny Wolf no longer hadhimlooking over his shoulder, the way he had been for Danny’s whole life, second-guessing everything he did. Danny didn’t have him constantly in his ear, even after he’d sworn up and down that he was going to be hands-off with the football operation, that it was Danny’s show now.

Same as he told Jack he could run the newspaper any way he wanted to.