The Winning Defense

The Winning DefenseJamie Bennett Copyright © 2023 Jamie BennettAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except as used in a book review. Please contact the author at [email protected] is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.Book cover by Angela Haddon Book Cover Designs. If She follows her rules, Chloe is guaranteed a win—but now she’s not sure what she’s playing for.Chloe Carpenter has developed a system. After a life that has been anything but easy, she has a plan to get what she wants, and what she wants is justice. She’s on offense to make up for the wrongs done to her and punish those responsible.They’re going down.So she worked hard, very hard, and maybe she lied a little (and maybe she didn’t), but it’ll be worth it in the end. She has a set of Rules to live by, like #6 (don’t give them a chance to say no) and #10 (know when to cut your losses). It’s #12 (ignore your emotions: ruthlessness is key) that starts giving her some trouble, and that happens right around the time that she runs into #77.No, that’s not a rule—that’s the jersey number of pro-football player Ray Bishop, and he’s a muscular, talented, tall, gorgeous…a-hole. Everyone knows it (even him). But there is something about Ray, something beyond the way he irritates people by parking his car on a sidewalk, beyond the way he fights with his coaches, beyond the way he seems to see through Chloe and all her carefully laid plans.Those plans are falling by the wayside and Chloe’s trying to hold it together, but she’s also falling. The woman who lives by the Rule to be ruthless is falling in love, and suddenly?There’s no defense at all. Chapter 1Kids made me nervous. They were always up to something, weren’t they? They were up to sneaky things, because they were underhanded and crafty. Anyway, that was how I’d been when I was young (but in my case, it had been necessary). You had to keep your eyes on them for sure (people should have kept their eyes on me for sure), because you never knew what they’d do next. I personally had done a whole lot, and most of it wasn’t good.That was why I was watching the little boy in the orange jersey walk to the middle of the tent. He could have been anywhere from two to twelve, because I wasn’t great with the ages of those younger than I was. And it was easy to make a mistake and think someone was significantly older if he or she was exceptionally tall, for example, like when adults had thought that I was a teachers’ aide, or that I shouldn’t have been in the playground meant for children ages ten and under, or that I had a license so I was legal to drive the car whose wheel I sat behind, stuff like that.There were people everywhere—because of the rain, we’d had to move everything under giant canopies and smash the tables and booths closer together—but the kid of unknown age had managed to find an open spot for himself. His head turned from side to side, eyes big and kind of awed, which was gratifying. It had taken an army of workers to pull off this event and hours of toil, so good, I was glad that he was impressed. All the attendees should have been.Thunder rumbled in the distance and I scowled toward the sky through the top of the tent. The bad weather was just one of the problems of today. Another had been that my car hadn’t started that morning, which had led to me running through the puddles to try to find someone in my apartment building who was awake and had jumper cables. But to call it an “apartment building” was a stretch. There were three occupied units where I lived, which was an old, one-story motel that had been loosely converted into longer-term living. There was me, the guy who argued with birds in the parking lot, and the family with the six dogs that barked all the time. None of them were helpful in any way with my car problem. The people, I meant, not the six loud dogs.And then there had been an issue with these tents, because they had apparently been taken over by rampaging spiders while in storage but the crew from Facilities and Maintenance hadn’t noticed any problems at all until arachnids started divebombing from above, leading to a lot of screaming and running by most of the people who I worked with. Ok, fine, I’d done the screaming too, and now I had a persistent feeling that there was something in my hair. I scratched my head again and shook my ponytail, because I swore that there were eight hairy feet…Anyway, it had been problem after problem, but when the guards had opened the gates, everything had seemed to go well. I wasn’t in charge, just another low-level staffer in the Woodsmen Football Community Relations department, but I’d felt a sense of pride and accomplishment as I saw the hordes of people roll in for the team’s Fan Day. Everyone was dripping wet but also smiling and excited to see the facility, to watch the Woodsmen cheerleaders perform, and of course and most especially, to meet the football players.They were the real draw. The guys were at tables greeting their supporters, signing all kinds of stuff, talking, and taking pictures. Fan Day was a chance to really connect with people who might not get an opportunity to come to the games. That was what Kaori, my temporary boss,