Page 9 of Ruff and Tumble

“It’s him. It’s Cole Bennett.”

“He pulled the doors open. Did you see that? He’s like Superman.”

“Cole, how does it feel to save the day? How does this compare to the possibility of finally making it to the Kickoff Cup?”

Cole didn’t bother answering either of these questions. With a jump and a crawl that caused his shoulder to burn even hotter, he pulled himself out of the elevator. “I need someone to get me some water, blankets, and a veterinarian,” he said. “And step on it. We’ve got some newborn puppies and a pregnant dog in distress.”

“Oh wow. He delivers babies too. Is it your dog? Did you pull the puppies out by yourself?”

Cole forced his lips into the smile that had earned him so much in this lifetime: money, women, a following of determined photographers. Hopefully, it would also get him the thing he wanted most right now: a way out of football for good.

“Are you kidding?” he asked. Unable to help himself, he smiled wider and added, “You can’t just reach in there and start yanking puppies out. It’s not a clogged drain.”

Chapter 3

“So you didn’t actually get her to agree to the plan.”

Cole winced as his sister wound a bandage around his shoulder. It was heavy and thick and had frozen bags of vegetables interspersed throughout. The peas and the corn were fine, but the okra was starting to poke in several places.

“It’s not my fault. We were busy with other things.” He paused and lifted his arm so she could wind the bandage around his rib cage. Regina wasn’t the most qualified person to provide first aid, but she was the most discreet. “Besides, I did the important part.”

“Which is?”

“I laid the groundwork. Greased the wheels. Wooed her with my strength and ability to single-handedly pull open elevator doors.”

Regina snorted and secured the bandage. She stepped back to view her handiwork, if you could call it that. He looked—and felt—like he’d been run over by a Jolly Green Giant delivery truck. “I thought you said she gave you football pointers.”

“She did.Verydetailed ones…the kind you couldn’t give unless you’ve been paying close attention. Besides, she was carrying my jersey in her bag. I think she might have a crush on me.”

His sister sighed and started to roll up the remaining bandages. Ever since his surgery two years ago, she’d been buying the things in bulk. “I don’t know why you won’t just let me go to the network directly. They’d be all over it. Cole Bennett takes on the Puppy Cup. An attractive, single man dedicates his free time to the welfare and adoption of animals. I can almost smell the hormones from here.”

Yes, he was well aware of that. A man didn’t reach his level of success in a professional football career without learning a little bit about the way the world worked. If he sent Regina into the television network in full sports-manager mode, she’d emerge with a huge contract and all the puppies he could ask for.

That was the problem. He didn’t want a huge contract. He didn’t wantanycontracts—not television ones, not Puppy Cup ones, and definitely not football ones. To admit as much out loud, however, would be to ruin any and all chances the Lumberjacks had of breaking the curse. An announcement of Cole Bennett’s retirement would hit his team hard enough as it was. If he did it while the curse lingered overhead—while the mystical hands of fate or fairies or whatever nonsense was responsible for keeping the Lumberjacks from the Kickoff Cup held sway—there was a good chance the team would give up hope altogether.

“It’ll be better this way,” he said, striving for nonchalance. Remembering what he’d said to Jasmine yesterday, he added, “A real human-interest story.”

Regina wasn’t buying it. She lifted one of her perfectly arched brows. “Since when does the world consider youhuman?”

“Since the day I was born one?” Cole gave his shoulder a few tentative rotations. It hurt, but not nearly as much as it had after the elevator stunt yesterday. He met his sister’s bright-blue eyes—so much like his own—and sighed. “I know you don’t like this, Reggie, but it’s the best way. If something happens to me—”

“It won’t.”

“If something happens to me,” he repeated with careful deliberation, “the entire team is going to lose their shit—and their momentum. You know how much stock they put in this stupid curse.”

“It’s not stupid.”

“It’s pretty stupid.” Cole knew it went against all the rules of sports history and fandoms to say so, butcome on. “If I can get this Hailey woman to rub some of her puppy luck off on me—publicly, I mean—then the guys will feel more secure going into the final few games. Who knows? We might even have an actual shot at winning this year. It won’t matter as much if I’m sidelined then.”

Or if I leave the team.

His sister struggled to find an appropriate response. Even though she wouldn’t admit it, this whole thing had been her idea to begin with. No one was more connected when it came to all things Seattle and football. If there was someone within a five-hundred-mile radius who could give Cole the competitive advantage, Regina had already found them, cataloged them, and run a full background check. Hailey Lincoln was no exception. She might not seem like the most obvious choice to break a twenty-year superstition, but she’d been working on the Puppy Cup for the exact same number of years that he’d been playing for the Lumberjacks.

Onlyherteam never lost.

“Your shoulder is fine, Cole. I know it is. You just have to stop forcing open elevator doors.”

He smiled at Regina’s naive optimism. To the outside world, his sister was a ruthless sports manager, a woman who painted her fingernails bloodred to hide the stains of battle whenever she emerged from a contract negotiation. Cole knew better. If anyone realized how much she worried over things—overhim—they’d destroy her. She might be older than him by two years and forged of steel, but she wasn’t unbreakable.