Portland Devils

Rosalind James brings her sports-romance chops to three tales of football, family, and fantasy of the steamy variety. There’s more than one way to play the game, and there’s definitely more than one way to win. Meet a bossy retired quarterback with a bad knee, a coveralls-wearing, house-painting stained-glass artist who’s nobody’s pushover, a lawyer who schedules her own breakdown, a single mom who knows the cheapest cut of every meat, prize bull Marble Hill Ranch No. 11, and more.

Blake Orbison's pro football career with the Portland Devils may have come crashing to an end, but not calling the signals anymore just gives him more time to devote to his business enterprises, including the latest and greatest: the opening of the Wild Horse Resort in scenic north Idaho. And that other one, too. Blake's on the marriage track now, and he's got a game plan.

Beth Schaefer isn't just on the partnership track at her Portland law firm, she's in the lead. Unfortunately, she's about to fall at the finish line. When she makes a list of breakdown destinations, she can't even manage to choose between them. Which means she has to come home to Wild Horse, Idaho, for her breakdown. She has exactly 18.5 days of accumulated vacation time to devote to it.

Harlan Kristiansen may not be good at many things, but he can sure catch a pass. He’s an All-Pro at charming a room, too, and then there’s that Norse God thing. He can even figure out how to tackle a woman and save her from a charging bison. On skis. What happens when you drop that game-winning pass, though, and your house is too big, too weird, and too empty? When your dad’s a mean drunk, your mom took off a long time ago and stayed gone, and all your money can’t keep your little sister safe? You fall back on what you know, that’s what.

Even princesses have problems. That line doesn’t exactly invite sympathy, does it? I was a fairly ersatz princess anyway, although you should try convincing my mother of that. And when I ran away from my family, my tech-bro groom, my almost-Stanford degree, and our fabulous future and right back to my trailer-living, hard-hatted life? Even I couldn’t explain it to anybody’s satisfaction.

Running for your life is never easy. Doing it at age 16, after losing your family, your friends, and your home, with three-quarters of a priceless emerald parure sewn into the sleeves of a battered old Army greatcoat and your beloved city in flames behind you, is harder still. Why did I do it? Because I had no choice. The Red Army was knocking at Dresden’s door, and the Jewish family hiding in our cellars had been marked for transportation to the camps.

I was a German princess sailing across the Atlantic to join my American-GI husband. My Jewish GI husband. And I was Catholic. And eighteen years old. And an independent woman. In 1947. And his parents didn’t know yet. What could possibly go wrong?