He whirled around as she called out his name. His face contorted with a depth of emotion she had never seen, and she leapt into his arms.
"Phoebe! Thank G.o.d! Oh, thank G.o.d, Phoebe ..." Over and over he muttered her name as he held her tight against his chest.
The sideline minicam zeroed in on them, while in the owner"s skybox, Ron shot to his feet and ran for the door. Meanwhile in the broadcasting booth, the announcers were stumbling all over each other trying to explain why the Stars" owner was embracing the coach who had spent the past two quarters of the game cold-bloodedly leading her team into disaster.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. He returned the kiss and hugged her so tightly she could barely breathe.
"Can you still win?" she whispered.
"As long as you"re safe, it doesn"t matter. Nothing matters." His voice was gruff with emotion, and she drew back far enough to see that his eyes were filled with tears. "I thought I"d lost you," he said. "I love you so much. Oh, G.o.d, I love you."
She locked the words away like a treasure to be drawn out later. For now, she could only think of him and what he"d done for her.
"I want you to win. You"ve worked so hard."
"It"s not important"
"Yes. Yes, it is." She realized she was crying.
He hugged her hard. "Don"t cry, honey. Let"s just be happy you"re alive."
She realized he thought she wanted this for herself. "You don"t understand. I don"t want you to win for me! I want you to do it for yourself!"
"We"re behind by ten, honey. There are less than three minutes on the clock."
"Then you"d better get to work."
He smoothed her hair back from her face, and his eyes were so full of love that all the doubts she"d had about his feelings evaporated.
"We"d have to score two touchdowns to win, and right now the men hate my guts."
"I"ll talk to them."
"Phoebe ..."
She cupped his cheek. "I love you, Coach. Now get to work. That"s an order."
Leaving his arms took all her willpower, but she pulled away while he still looked dazed from her declaration. She"d barely taken two steps before Bobby Tom and Jim were at her side.
"Are you all right?" Bobby Tom"s face was pale with concern. "d.a.m.n, Phoebe, you had us so scared."
"I"m fine." She grabbed their arms. "I want to win this game. I want Dan to be able to win it."
"If we had more time-"
Phoebe cut Jim off. "I don"t care about that. I can"t let this happen to him. Not to any of you."
She turned away and raced toward Darnell. Somehow she had to restore the players" faith in their coach, but she had so little time. He looked alarmed as he saw the state she was in, and he took a quick step forward.
"Phoebe, what happened to you?"
As quickly as possible, she explained. Attempting to catch her breath at the end, she said, "Dan was only trying to protect me. Tell the other linemen that. We"re going to win this game."
Before he could question her, the players who were not on the field began to surround her, and she repeated her story. As they pelted her with questions, the Sabers punted.
Dan had his headset back on and was shouting instructions. Jim slapped his shoulder and dashed onto the field with the offense.
The two-minute warning sounded.
Dan hunched forward, his hands splayed on his thighs. The Stars were playing without a huddle. Phoebe dug her fingernails into her palms as the action on the field began to unfold.
Jim drilled a pa.s.s to his tight end for a completion. On the next play he just missed the tailback on a screen pa.s.s. And then on third down, he threw incomplete.
The Stars" trainer appeared at her side and began to wrap her wrists in gauze. Word of what had happened had spread through the team, and Webster Greer came up next to her like a bodyguard.
Jim connected for a first down at the thirty-eight yard line, and the dome reverberated with cheers.
The Sabers" defense was slow to adjust to the no-huddle pa.s.sing attack. Dry-mouthed, Phoebe watched her team move to the seventeen.
1:10.
Biederot connected with Collier Davis. Phoebe screamed as Davis took it in for the touchdown.
The fans went wild.
On the sideline Dan was huddled with the kickoff team and special teams" coordinator.
The Stars made the extra point. Sabers 27, Stars 24. Sabers 27, Stars 24.
0:58.
As the Stars" kickoff team lined up, the crowd antic.i.p.ated the onside kick, knowing the Stars had to regain possession of the ball. The onside kick was a maneuver Dan had forced the players to practice hundreds of times during the season, until they could perform it flawlessly. But this wasn"t a practice, and the other team knew that short, potentially lethal kick was coming.
Phoebe glanced over at Dan. He looked fierce and wonderful.
The ball rotated with a crazy spin as it came off the side of the kicker"s foot. It barely traveled the required ten yards before it hit the hands of a Sabers" halfback. He tried to hold onto it, but couldn"t. Elvis Crenshaw blasted him.
It was anybody"s ball, and twenty-two men dived for it. Helmets cracked and the men"s snarls were audible on the sidelines even through the screams of the crowd.
The whistle blew and the refs began pulling off players. Phoebe dug her fingers into Webster"s arm.
One by one the men got up-Stars, Sabers-until there were only two players left on the ground, one in a sky blue jersey and one wearing crimson.
Dan gave a jubilant yell.
The Sabers" player staggered up, leaving only Darnell Pruitt clasping the football.
The crowd noise was deafening. Darnell jumped up and threw his arms in the air. The Stars had recovered the ball on their own forty-eight yard line.
0:44.
Dan slapped Biederot on the back as he ran onto the field. On the first play, Jim completed a pa.s.s to the forty-two.
0:38.
The Sabers" defense, antic.i.p.ating that the pa.s.sing attack would continue, set up deep to protect against the bomb. Instead, they were suckered in by one of the sweetest running plays Dan had ever called. First and ten on the twenty-two.
0:25.
The Stars" next two pa.s.ses were incomplete, and Phoebe tried to prepare herself for defeat.
0:14.
Biederot called for their remaining time-out and raced over to Dan on the sideline. They engaged in a furious dialogue. Jim ran back out.
The atmosphere in the dome was electric. As the teams lined up, Phoebe looked at the scoreboard. It was third down and they were twenty-two yards away.
Jim threw another incomplete pa.s.s.
0:08.
Dan signaled wildly as the players rushed back into formation. But instead of the field goal that could bring them a tie and put them into sudden death, the Stars were going for a touchdown. Fourth down and twenty-two yards away.
Jim took the long snap from shotgun formation and searched for his favorite target, Phoebe"s sweet-footed, nimble-fingered $8-million wide-out from Telarosa, Texas.
Bobby Tom made a sharp cut at the seven to lose his man. The ball spiraled toward him. He leapt up and s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of the air in a gesture so graceful it was almost feminine.
Defenders lunged for him.
He spun toward the goal line. He stumbled. Just as he righted himself, he got hit from the side. Once more he spun free.
But Brewer Gates, the Sabers" star safety, was barreling toward him.
Bobby Tom knew he was going to get hit, but he left his body unprotected as he stretched the ball out in front of him and threw himself at the goal line.
With bared teeth and a bone crusher"s roar, Gates lunged to meet him at the two yard line.
And was blasted straight into the air by Darnell Pruitt.
Bobby Tom hit the ground hard, every muscle in his lean runner"s body extended. His head was ringing and he tried to clear his vision.
0:01.
Through his face mask, he followed the line of his arms to his hands. They cradled the ball directly on top of the goal line.
The ref"s arms shot up in the air, signaling the touchdown. The screams of the crowd shook the curved walls of the dome.
Phoebe was laughing and crying. Webster hugged her, then Elvis Crenshaw. Pandemonium broke out on the field and in the stands as the final gun sounded.
She tried to get to Dan, but she couldn"t move through the sea of blue jerseys that surrounded her. She scrambled up onto the bench and spotted him pushing through the men to reach her. His face was split by a huge grin and their eyes locked. She threw one arm up into the air and laughed. Behind him, she saw several of the players approaching with an enormous green plastic container held high. She laughed harder as they emptied it over his head.
A shower of Gatorade and ice sloshed over him. He hunched his shoulders and yelled as he received the victory baptism.
Some members of the crowd booed. They had no knowledge of the drama that had taken place behind the scenes, and they still wanted Dan"s blood for forcing the game into such a desperate finish.
He shook his head, sending droplets flying everywhere as he cleared his eyes enough so that he could see Phoebe again.
Bobby Tom threw his arm around Dan"s shoulder and shoved the game ball at him. "This one"s for you, pardner."
The men hugged. Dan clutched the ball to his chest and once again turned toward Phoebe.
He swiped at his face with one dry cuff and saw that she was still standing on the bench. She looked like a G.o.ddess rising above the sea of swirling blue jerseys, her blond hair glittering in the lights. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, and he loved her with all his heart. The strength of his feelings no longer frightened him. Having come so close to losing her, he would not take that risk again.
The men were getting ready to lift him to their shoulders, but he didn"t want to go anywhere without her. He turned toward her as the players swept him off his feet and began to carry him through the crowd. She was laughing. He laughed back. And then everything inside him grew alert as something in the stands behind her caught his attention.
In a sea of screaming, shifting fans, Ray Hardesty stood in eerie stillness. Every muscle in his body was rigid with hatred as he glared at Dan from the front row. Dan saw the glint of a gun in his hand even before he lifted his arm.
Everything happened in a matter of seconds, but each fragment of time became a still photograph, an image of horror that would be frozen forever in his mind. Dan, bobbing high on the players" shoulders, had become an open target, but Hardesty, with a madman"s insight, had found a better way to destroy the man he hated. Strobes flashed, reporters shouted questions at him, and Dan watched in impotent horror as Hardesty adjusted his aim so that the gun was pointed directly at the back of Phoebe"s head.
A ma.s.s of security guards swarmed toward Hardesty. Those in the front saw his gun, but they couldn"t use their own weapons in the middle of the teeming crowd.
In the foreground, Phoebe, unaware of the peril she was in, still laughed. Dan had no weapon, nothing to protect the woman he loved with all his heart. Nothing except the game ball cradled against his chest.
He was part of an exclusive fraternity of great quarterbacks, but as his hand closed around the football, he was no longer in his prime. Instinctively, his fingertips settled into the position that felt more familiar to him than the contours of his own face.
The names of the immortals flashed through his mind: Bart Starr, Len Dawson, Namath and Montana, the great Johnny U. himself. None of them had ever had this much at stake.
He drew back his arm and fired the ball. It shot above the heads of the crowd, low and hard, a fierce spiral, as perfectly thrown as any ball in the history of professional sports.
In the front row of the stands, Hardesty spun sideways as the ball slammed him in the shoulder. The force sent him sprawling into the seats, and the gun flew from his hand.
Phoebe, who had finally realized something was wrong, whirled around just in time to see a bevy of security guards converging directly behind her in the stands. Before she could see what had happened, Bobby Tom and Webster had grabbed her and she, too, was being carried toward the field tunnel.
25.
Ron met Phoebe just inside the door of the locker room, and after a.s.suring himself that she was unharmed, led her toward the small platform set up for the television cameras to record the postgame interviews and trophy presentation.
"I"ve spoken with the police," he said over the pandemonium surrounding them. "They"ll talk with you as soon as the ceremonies are over. I"ve never been so frightened in my life."
"Is Molly all right?" The players were shaking up champagne bottles, and Phoebe ducked a frothy shower.
"She was upset, but she"s fine now."