Down By Contact

By JT Therrien

After Dawson Drake gets hurt while quarterbacking the winning play that puts the Giants in the playoffs, he is surprised to learn that the new team owner Miriame Maxwell, the young and brash heiress, has no sympathy for an injured veteran. As annoying as her faithless actions are, if he doesn't help her to soon see the light, he might end up doing something foolish, like fall in love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JT Therrien
• Release date: Jan 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9780921473091

JT Therrien

Fine Form Press is a boutique publisher committed to working with a limited number of authors such as JT Therrien. We publish some of JT's novellas and novels in a variety of genres, including: commercial; YA; paranormal; romances; and, love stories. Along with JT's art-themed and cancer-themed fiction, Fine Form Press also publishes some of his inspirational, Catholic-themed, fiction.

Book preview

FINE FORM PRESS

Down by Contact

ISBN: 978-0-921473-09-1

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Copyright (c) 2023 JT Therrien

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Table of Contents

Down By Contact

Dr. Farkas Preview

The Betrothal Preview

Down By Contact: There's life, there's love . . . and then there's football!

Blurb

After Dawson Drake gets hurt while quarterbacking the winning play that puts the Giants in the playoffs, he is surprised to learn that the new team owner Miriame Maxwell, the young and brash heiress, has no sympathy for an injured veteran. As annoying as her faithless actions are, if he doesn't help her to soon see the light, he might end up doing something foolish, like fall in love.

Down By Contact

By JT Therrien

On a cloudy, below-freezing, Sunday afternoon two days after Christmas, it seemed as if all of New York City was focused on the Giants' last regular season football game.

Lying on his back, Dawson Drake gasped for breath as he extended a hand toward his left guard. Rick, the three-hundred and fifty pound behemoth pulled him to his feet. The quarterback stole a glance at the Jumbotron: 28 to 27.

The Giants trailed.

After two quick busted plays, a quarterback sack, followed by a penalty for an illegal forward pass, the Cardinals had backed up the Giants to their own one-yard line. Only fifteen seconds remained in the game. Standing in the end zone, his cleats crunching in the frozen turf, Dawson tried to ignore the seventy thousand frenzied fans raining invectives at the two exhausted teams on the field.

Huddle up. Hurry! Dawson ordered his teammates. He stared into the faces of the men, huffing and puffing, physically worn down by the cold and the opponent's relentless attacks.

Let's do this, Double D. We're counting on you, Zack Dewey wheezed.

You guys know that fifteen seconds is tons of time, Dawson rasped. But we have to be careful. We can't take a knee in our end zone and I can't get sacked again, otherwise it's game over and we lose. So listen up . . . . None of the players needed to be told this, but Dawson counted on his hoarse voice to settle jittery nerves and get his tired teammates to focus on their task. The next play would be their last chance to get a win.

He cupped his hands on each side of his helmet to block out the crowd and listened to Coach Malone's play, coming in through the headphones.

I right, thirty-two iso, the static voice repeated.

A running play? What was the coach thinking? Well, maybe the Cardinals would expect a deep pass, so they might get caught off guard by a simple handoff to the running back, Cedric James. Nothing fancy. Fine, then. The Giants would execute their bread-and-butter play and hope James could break a couple of tackles and run down the field as he had done so many times during the season.

I right thirty-two iso, Dawson announced the formation to his teammates.

No running play's gonna win this game, the players grumbled.

Cedric shook his head. Not gonna work, man. They've stacked the line on every run all game long. And my ankle's torn up bad. Someone stepped on it. I can't even run ten yards on it.

"Hey, Coach Malone called this play. So let's all just shut up and execute!"

The weary men clapped raw, muddied hands together before breaking the huddle and jogging to their positions on the line of scrimmage. The fans redoubled their shouts and the noise reaching the players on the field seemed almost palpable.

Two stocky running backs lined up behind Dawson: a decoy/blocker and Cedric James ready to take the handoff and cut through the line to the right, where the blockers were expected to open up a hole for him. Dawson positioned himself behind the center and shouted out a series of numbers and words, all phony plays, in a last-ditch attempt to draw the Cardinals offside for an easy five-yard penalty. If the ploy worked—a big if—the Giants would have a bit more room to maneuver and minimize the threat of being subjected to a nail-in-the-coffin safety.

Dawson looked over the defense and scowled at the blitz formation lined up on the other side of the ball. He could feel their eagerness to take him down.

They're running! Run! It's a run! The Cardinals defense warned each other after seeing the Giants at the line. They shifted their formation and stacked the line on the right, exactly where Cedric was expected to run.

Ten seconds. The play clock continued to wind down.

Cedric was right. They weren't falling for the fake-outs and the coach's play that he'd just called in the huddle wouldn't work against the blitz. Cedric wouldn't have a chance to get out of the end zone, much less escape and rush a hundred yards for the touchdown. The game, and the season, would be over. Dawson couldn't let that happen.

The play clock ticked off more precious time: eight seconds and counting.

Dawson only had a handful of seconds left