Stopping Short: A Hot Baseball Romance Read online

  She nodded, and he could feel the gears shift forward a notch in her brain. “Blue,” she said, indicating herself. “Not navy. Something lighter. Cornflower.”

  Whatever the hell that is.

  “Favorite drink?”

  “Beer.”

  “Not specific enough.” Her lips thinned into a tight line. “Lager? IPA? Porter? Stout?”

  “Whatever’s cold and on tap. Let me guess,” he said, pointing at her. “Something extra sweet, with an umbrella and lots of fruit. Sex on the Beach.”

  She rolled her eyes, but at least she got that he was teasing her. “Ketel One martini,” she said. “Extra olives.”

  She went on, then, firing off a dozen more questions—his favorite foods, favorite subject in school, favorite teacher, favorite family vacation. He took careful notes on her responses, but he couldn’t imagine ever needing one of those details. “Favorite childhood pet,” she said.

  “Never had one.” She raised her eyebrows, and he shrugged. “We moved around too much. What about you?”

  “A blue Siamese fighting fish named Spock.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “What? I’m allergic to cats and dogs. Well, go ahead. Write that down.”

  “I’ll remember. Spock. Fish. Allergies.”

  She warned, “I’ll quiz you on this later.”

  “I can’t wait,” he said dryly. With any other woman, he’d have tried to turn her quiz into a bet. A little money could make her game interesting. So would a few rounds of Strip Trivia.

  Who was he kidding? She’d have him down to his shorts in three rounds.

  “Okay,” she said, pushing herself away from the edge of the desk. “One last thing. Let’s get our ground rules straight.”

  “Ground rules?” He sounded like he’d never heard of the concept. But he didn’t think she meant tracing the perimeter of the ballpark, pointing out the stadium’s quirks about whether a particular ball was in play or a home run.

  “One: We’ll hold hands whenever we walk through the lobby together, and whenever we leave or approach the hotel, but not at any other time. Two: We’ll kiss in public once each morning and once each evening, on the lips, in full view of at least two reporters, kiss not to last for longer than five seconds. Three: No nicknames or endearments, because they always sound fake and overdone. Four: We’ll trade off, night by night, who sleeps in the bed and who puts a bedroll on the floor.”

  He couldn’t keep from laughing—a chuckle at first that grew to a full-blown guffaw when he saw the outrage on her face. Shaking his head, he started to count off his response. “One: I’ll do my best to drop your hand the second we’re out of sight of the hotel, but I might be off by a second or two. Two: I’ll try to keep my sweet loving to your time limits, but you should step on my foot if I lose count. Three: I’ll try to remember, Hot Stuff, but nicknames are a real turn-on for me. And four: There’s no way in hell you’re sleeping on the floor. You’ve got the bed, tonight and every night, until we get my Sympathy Index to where your boss says it needs to be, or when the press figures out we’re chickenshit liars, whichever happens first.”

  “But—”

  “Nope. Not going to listen.”

  “But—”

  “Mark Williamson’s been my agent for five years, and he’s never steered me wrong before. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on you and Image Masters and this whole plan to help me make the team. But you didn’t ask for Sartain to fu—excuse me, to screw up—your game plan. And you definitely didn’t fly down from New York to sleep on crappy hotel carpet with a crappy hotel blanket and crappy hotel pillows.”

  “But—”

  No wonder that guy on the phone had cut her off every time she tried to say something during their phone conversation. She was a headstrong pain in the ass. “I’m serious,” he said, and he suddenly realized he was. “I got myself into this trouble, and I appreciate your trying to get me out. But we have to play by my rules, too, at least about the bed. If you don’t agree, I’ll march down to the lobby and tell every reporter there that Sartain’s a smartass liar, and I never met you before today. You can put your sweet ass on the next plane back to New York City, job or no job, and I’ll take my chances against Ordonez.”

  She swallowed another protest. Her eyes narrowed as she measured every one of his words, and her chin tilted as she obviously weighed whether she could wrangle a single additional concession. In the end, she extended her hand for a cool, professional handshake.

  His palm enveloped hers, and he tightened his fingers just enough to feel her strength. Before he let her go, he said, “Relax, Sweet Cheeks. Think of this as practice for the lobby.”

  He laughed as she pulled her hand away in annoyance, content that he’d won one this round in the battle of the rules. He suspected he wasn’t going to take many others.

  ~~~

  Jessica sank against the padded restaurant booth, exhaling a deep breath and trying to unpin the tension that had soldered her shoulder blades into a single rigid bar. The Beach Shack was only a mile from the hotel; it should have been an easy walk in the cool evening light. But she’d been uncomfortably conscious of every single step—of the walk through the lobby, of her fingers intertwined with Drew’s, of the stroll down the elongated circular drive as they remained in full view of every ballplayer and reporter who’d stepped outside for a breath of night air. She’d known they were talking about her, about them; she’d imagined how the social media sites were lighting up with fresh news. Even dropping Drew’s hand the moment they turned onto the sidewalk hadn’t made her feel any better, any more secure.

  When they’d entered the ramshackle hut that would never pass a health inspection in New York City, Jessica had immediately realized she wasn’t getting a Ketel One martini. Budweiser or Coca-Cola, those were her options. Drew had assured her, though, that the fish and chips were the best on the entire Gulf Coast.

  She just wasn’t expecting four massive pieces of cod. And an entire farm’s worth of potatoes. And a bucket of coleslaw that would have fed her for a month back home. “Can I get you anything else?” the waitress asked as she slipped twin baskets onto the table.

  “No, thank you,” Jessica said. She was grateful she’d locked herself in the bathroom to change clothes before they’d left the safety of their hotel room. Her jeans and polo shirt might have been a little too crisp, a little too new for the venue, but they beat her courtroom suit by a mile. By a country mile—how appropriate. Jessica grinned and dipped a hand-cut French fry into a lake of ketchup.

  “What?” Drew asked.

  “What what?” she responded, after she’d chewed and swallowed.

  “That was the first time I’ve seen you smile.”

  It would be stupid to tell him what she’d been thinking. Jokes were never funny when you tried to explain them. She deflected by nodding to the food. “This really is good.”

  “Would I ever lead you astray?” He took a long pull from his beer before he said, “Don’t answer that.”

  She glanced around the restaurant. Most of the patrons were gathered around the bar, eating peanuts and dropping the shells on the floor. A couple of other diners had booths on the far side of the room, but no one was within earshot. “Let’s get back to work,” she said. Before he could protest, she added, “Tell me about baseball.”

  “What about it?”

  “I don’t know anything about the game.”

  “Nothing?”

  His disbelief raised color in her cheeks. She took a sip of her own beer to regain her balance. It was cold and sharp, and it complemented the fried food perfectly. She recited: “There are two teams of ten guys each. You score with a home run, worth four points, one for each base. The team with the most points after seven innings wins.”

  “Wow,” he said.

  “I got it right?” She felt a little proud—she hadn’t been certain about the number of innings.

  “Not exactly. Y
ou grew up in Ames, Iowa? That’s part of the heartland, right? What happened to baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie?”

  “Hot dogs are made from parts of animals I don’t even want to think about. And I’m more of a chocolate girl, myself.” Not that she ever ate dessert. Who could afford the calories?

  “Okay,” he said, and he began moving things around on the table. “My beer is home plate. The salt shaker is first. Your beer is second. The ketchup is third. The pepper is the pitching mound.”

  She nodded as he started to explain the game. She felt stupid for not knowing more about the sport. But her gym classes in school had always focused on indoor sports—volleyball and basketball and things that could be done inside during the long, harsh winter.

  Nevertheless, Drew was a good teacher. He explained how he’d come up as a second baseman, but the team had moved him to shortstop when they had a hole to fill.

  “Was it hard to make the adjustment?” she asked.

  “Not when the alternative was being traded to another team.” He leaned back on his own side of the booth, apparently giving up on finishing the massive pile of food in his basket. “Despite my piss-poor showing this afternoon, my hitting is fine. Good, even. But I’ve only been at short for two seasons, and I still make too many errors.”

  “How many is too many?”

  His laugh lacked any amusement. “One more than Rafael Ordonez. He’s a kid, finishing up his third year in the minors, never went to college. He’s one of the top ten defensive shortstops in the league, but he can’t hit to save his life.”

  “So what’s going to happen?”

  “That’s what we’re down here to find out. Spring training lets managers test different players, try out a bunch of different combinations. Skip’ll put me in when there’s a pitcher who throws hard sinkers, when a lot of balls will probably be hit on the ground to short. He’ll put Ordonez in against lefties to see if the kid can figure out how to get his bat on the ball.”

  “So it’s like an audition.”

  He clinked the neck of his bottle against hers. “Exactly. For six more weeks. Of course, I might come out ahead when we get to the Backwards Run.”

  “The Backwards Run?” She felt that iron bar settle across her shoulder blades again. She’d never even heard of the Backwards Run. Sure, she’d boasted to Chip that she’d get this job under control, that she’d have Drew’s Sympathy Index in the black within two weeks. But in the privacy of her own mind, she knew she’d be pushing it. She’d be lucky to get any message out to the press beyond this idiotic fake engagement. And her hands were totally tied if she didn’t even have the basic vocabulary to discuss her job. “What’s the Backwards Run?” she asked, hoping she was masking her own trepidation.

  “In home games played in your division,” he said.

  Each team plays in one of two leagues, she mentally recited, drawing on Drew’s earlier instruction. Each league has three divisions.

  “If your pitcher has a perfect game going into the seventh,” Drew continued.

  Twenty-one batters to the plate. Twenty-one batters sent away, without walking anyone, without anyone getting a hit.

  “And if you’ve got the top of your batting order ready to go at the bottom of the inning,” Drew said.

  Your first batter is the one most likely to get on base, the guy with the best combination of hitting the ball and walking on bad pitches.

  Drew concluded, “If the guy at the plate gets a hit, he has to run backwards to first.”

  He was staring at her, golden eyes as wide as the coasters on the scratched wood table. His blond hair caught the light from the lamp that swung between them, looking like a halo against the dark leather and wood of the ancient booth. He raised his hand to scratch behind his ear absent-mindedly, with the air of a bad habit.

  And that’s when she realized he was pulling her leg. “You’re terrible!” she cried, and she tossed one of her fries at him.

  “Had you going there.”

  “You did not!”

  “Do we have to add another rule?” he challenged. “Rule Five: No lying.”

  “You’re the one who lied!” She tried to sound indignant, but she couldn’t get the wounded words past the curve of her lips.

  “I was testing you,” he said, with the sort of sincerity most men reserved for their priests. “I’m pleased to say, you passed.”

  She harrumphed, but she drowned her outrage in the last swig of her beer.

  “Want another?” he asked, turning to find their waitress.

  “I shouldn’t.” She glanced at her watch. “I need to get back to the hotel. I’ve still got work to do tonight.”

  He shrugged and took out his wallet. “Have it your way.”

  “I’ve got this,” she said, reaching for her own money.

  “I’m not about to let my fiancée pay for dinner.”

  “Your fiancée is submitting all of her receipts back to the office. It’s not me who’s paying. It’s your agent.”

  “Oh, if that’s the case…” He grinned and held out his hands, yielding the battlefield.

  “Besides,” she said, as she caught the waitress’ eye and scribbled in the air to mime getting the check. “Your fiancée is a hell of a lot more liberated than you thought she was when you first started dating. You’ve learned a thing or two about free-spirited women since you got engaged.”

  “You’re right,” he said, just as the waitress approached. “I have.”

  She lowered her face to her wallet and focused on pulling out her credit card, hoping no one would notice the flames on her cheeks. They might not need Rule Five for lying. But it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to put in a Rule Five forbidding flirting.

  But she was surprised to discover she didn’t want to add any more restrictions to the game plan. Even though she knew Drew Marshall was a player, even though she knew exactly why she was in town, precisely what she had to accomplish. Damn if the man wasn’t swaying her good judgment. Well, that type of charm was going to be invaluable once they got to Step Five—boosting his Charisma Index. She just had to stay focused till then.

  ~~~

  Looking up and seeing the lights from the hotel, Drew was surprised by the disappointment that hit him in his solar plexus. He’d enjoyed dinner at the Beach Shack—teasing Jessica, watching her fight back. Now, they were being dumped back into the circus, into the show that Williamson and Image Masters and, yes, Jessica too, were staging.

  Ross Parker was waiting for them, just inside the lobby door. The guy had changed out of his plaid shorts into jeans, a concession to the February evening. But he still held his pad of paper. Still had his pen at the ready. Still had that butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth grin that made Drew want to ask him outside for a round or ten.

  Jessica saw him too. Drew felt her stiffen by his side, felt the tension in her fingers as she pulled away by instinct, then remembered her role. “Look!” she said, before Parker could slither his way in for a question. “What’s that?”

  That was some sort of glass case, up against the wall of the lobby. It had an old map and a corroded cannon ball, a tangle of net that looked like it had rolled in on the last tide, along with a wooden chest reinforced with heavy iron bands. Jessica tugged him close to her side and read the sign inside the case. “Pirates regularly hid out along the Gulf coast, taking advantage of a series of small caves where the Beach Shack now stands.” She turned to him, her eyes huge in the dim evening light. “Isn’t that romantic?”

  “Um, I guess,” he said, proving he was an idiot.

  No, he proved he was an idiot when he just stood there, completely surprised by the way Jessica slipped her hands around his waist. By the way she leaned into him. By the way she turned her face up to his and raised a hand to his neck and pulled his head down for a kiss.

  Okay, he wasn’t a complete fool. He spread his left hand against the small of her back and used the other to cup the soft line of her jaw. His cock twitched, and h
e started to pull away, embarrassed, but she shifted her hips to frame him and curled her lips beneath his.

  One, Mississippi. Two, Mississippi. Three, Mississippi. Four, Mississippi. Five.

  She stepped back just as he was about to trace the line of her lips with his tongue, just as he was about to explore the sweet heat she’d offered so willingly.

  Rule Two, he could practically hear her recite.

  She laughed, loud enough for Parker to hear, and then she laced her fingers with his. She tugged him toward the elevator, looking exactly like a woman who hadn’t seen her man in far too long. She leaned against him after she pushed the button, resting her head on his shoulder.

  The bell rang, and the door opened. Mercifully, no one was inside. No one could accidentally look down and see exactly how turned on he was, exactly how much he’d been into that interrupted kiss. As if Jessica had no idea, she leaned across him to press the button for their floor.

  The second the doors closed, she dropped his hand and turned on her heel, facing the door like she was heading to her office in some New York office building. Her eyes stared straight ahead; her arms crossed over her chest, and she graced each chimed floor with the slightest of nods.

  As soon as the door opened, she stepped into the corridor. Her sandals were silent on the carpeted floor as she strode down to their room, and he wasn’t at all surprised to see she’d already retrieved her key from her pocket.

  Feeling a little like a kept man, he followed her into the room. She snapped on the light the instant she crossed over the threshold, and she headed straight toward the desk where she’d left her laptop. As she started skating her fingers over the keyboard, he just shook his head and stared.

  “Thanks for dinner,” he finally said, putting his hand on the doorknob. He could head downstairs to the bar. Most of the guys hung out there in the evenings, at least after they’d called their wives or girlfriends back home. They could talk about the afternoon game, go over the plays they’d made, pick apart the ones they’d missed.

  “I wouldn’t,” she said.

  “Wouldn’t what?” He heard the defensiveness in his tone and resisted the urge to swear.