careful to watch his every move, he didnât want to chance it.
âI want to know the man, not the player, Hunter. Talking will do,â she said.
âYouâre right, Iâm happy to do that but in return you will do something with me.â
âFootball?â she asked. The dread in her voice amused him.
âItâs not like Iâm asking you to outrun zombies.â
âI think Iâd prefer that,â she said. âIâm going to level with you. I never liked football and I know itâs because my dad loved it more than anythingâand anyoneâelse.â
Hunter put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently. âMy dad is that way about the land.â
âThe land?â
âOur family has a ranch that is generations old and when other families left and went to Dallas or moved on to oil, we kept cattle. Itâs the only thing that Dad really understands. Football is okay for a man to watch on the weekends but to make a living at it, well, in his mind, thatâs a lazy manâs path.â
âFootball is at the crux of both our lives,â she said.
âSee, weâre not so different after all,â he said, but they were different. Heâd made his peace with his father. Heâd always gone home in the off-season when heâd still been playing, and more frequently now. He did the early morning chores with his father. Theyâd gotten past the differences from their past. Ferrin hadnât found that yet with Coach. Could Hunter do that for her? Mend that relationship?
Why did he want to?
Because he wanted her and was going to use her anyway, he thought. He needed to justify his actions to himself. To somehow make it seem as though it was okay for him to use her, to take her and the information he needed.
âOkay.â
âOkay?â
âYou can look through Dadâs files. But... Iâll go through them with you,â she said.
Score.
But it didnât feel like a touchdown. He felt as if heâd gotten the points due to something sly. A cheat.
âWhen youâre ready,â he said. âI still want to teach you to catch and spend the day with you.â
She gave him a long look from those gorgeous eyes of hers. And he realized there was much more to her than heâd noticed before.
âWaiting isnât going to make me think you want to be with me more than you want to see the files,â she said.
âI know. But it will make me feel better that you are letting me see them,â he said.
âFor a badass thatâs not really a tough attitude.â
âThe last time I put football before a woman it ended badly, Ferrin, but I need to make sure my conscience is clean on this.â
âAre you talking about Stacia? I want to know more about that. But I know it must be hard for you to talk about it,â she said.
Ferrin was right; he didnât want to tell her the painful memories of Staciaâs death, how heâd broken up with her the very night she was murdered and had felt guilty about it ever since. But he knew he was going to have to. Only by talking about the past could he believe that she would understand why those files were so important.
âDefinitely,â he said. âBut not today. Today is about the present.â
She gave him another look, and to his guilty soul it seemed she read the truth buried beneath what he hoped was charm. âFine. But you know itâs hard to move forward when you are carrying the weight of the past.â
He rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. âIâm very well acquainted with that fact.â
âItâs okay. This is only our second date. I was just trying to be helpful,â she said. âOccupational hazard, I guess.â
âRight, psychology professor. Why teach instead of practice?â he asked.
âTeaching suits me. My parents are teachers.â
âI guess coaching is teaching,