Stopping Short: A Hot Baseball Romance Read online

  “I wouldn’t go down to the bar. Anyone who saw us is going to expect you to be occupied for a while. Ten minutes at the very least.”

  “Hey!” Her estimation of his prowess stung.

  “I’m just saying they aren’t idiots. Best case, if you head down there right now, they’ll think I wasn’t interested in getting any. Worst case, they’ll decide you’re a horndog who can’t keep it in his pants, even with his fiancée sitting upstairs.”

  “I was just going to sit in the bar, Jessica. Drink a beer. Talk to the guys.”

  “And if some fans stop by? Some female fans? Spilling out of their Tshirts, wearing short shorts and high-heel sandals despite the fact that it’s actually the middle of winter?”

  He really hadn’t been thinking about picking up women. It wasn’t like he could do anything with them, even if he closed the deal. He couldn’t exactly bring anyone up to his room, not with Sister Mary Superior sitting here. “You’re not giving me enough credit,” he complained.

  “I’m just telling you what things look like from this chair. From Ross Parker’s seat too, I’m willing to bet. That reminds me. We need to figure out where we met. And what I was doing while you were checking out Kaley Armistead’s ID.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I’ll get right on that.” He collapsed onto the edge of the bed. “So what do you want to do? Order up a movie?”

  “Me? I’m going to work.”

  “Work?” He glanced at the bedside clock. “It’s nine fifteen!”

  “Chip gave me two weeks. That means we don’t have a second to lose.” As if to prove her point, she turned back to her computer.

  He stifled a sigh. “Fine, then. What do you want me to do?”

  Amazingly, that won him a quick smile, tossed over her shoulder. “Whatever you want. Watch a movie. Read a book. Just pretend that I’m not here.”

  Right. Like there’s a chance of that.

  He fished for the TV remote and started flipping through channels. In between false starts, he glanced toward Jessica. She seemed completely engrossed in whatever she was reading. She leaned toward her computer, her hands poised on the keyboard, her entire body wired to the websites she studied.

  Her entire body. Better not go there. Not with a five-second clock ticking on every lip-lock. Not with the rules firmly in place.

  Shit. She better get his Sympathy Index up where it needed to be, and fast. Because he wasn’t sure how long he could take this goddamn game Sartain had gotten him into. And he wasn’t doing himself any favors, glancing over at his studious new roommate every other minute. No. He’d better focus on TV. On whatever shoot-em-up he’d landed on. On manly men, being men, joined in manly destiny to fight the face of manly evil.

  He lost track of the movie ten minutes in. But he didn’t bother changing the channel.

  ~~~

  The following morning, they executed Jessica’s battle plan. Drew woke first and kicked his makeshift bedroll—a glorified excuse for the room’s spare blanket and some sheets they’d stolen from the housekeepers’ closet at the end of the hall—over to the wall, making room for his morning exercises. Jessica pretended not to notice his athletic body—not that chest, not those arms, not those thighs—as she headed into the bathroom to shower and apply her makeup and dry her hair and dress in khakis and a light blue camp shirt. He followed suit, pulling on jeans and a T-shirt in the safety of the bathroom. They compared notes, reviewed facts and figures, then headed down to breakfast together, hand in hand per Rule One.

  Drew attacked the buffet, putting together whatever combination of protein and carbs his trainers recommended. She filled a plate with fresh fruit and topped it off with raspberry yogurt. They sat at a table for two, making small talk, pretending like they were catching up on a million things, all the while broadcasting their true, undying love for each other.

  After a few minutes, Ross Parker pulled up a chair. Bingo. Just like she had planned.

  “Morning,” the writer said, taking out his notebook and a well-chewed ball-point pen. “Mind if I ask a few questions?”

  Jessica had researched the man the night before. He’d been with the News & Observer for nearly twenty years, starting as an investigative reporter. After burning out covering a low-income housing scandal, he’d shifted over to Sports. He’d reported on everything—football, basketball, hockey—but his first love had always been baseball. Eight years ago, he’d traded in his strict reporter credentials and sleeping in a different city every night for the relative luxury of being a columnist. He was paid to offer up opinions, expected to take sides, all with the deadly instincts of an investigative reporter. He’d be hard to throw off the scent, but she knew she was up for the challenge.

  “Shoot,” Drew said, looking like he wanted to draw his own firearm.

  “I’ve been trying to get a handle on when you two met. I talked to the beat guys back home, and no one remembers seeing you at the park, Jessica. We couldn’t find you in any photos, in any of the team’s publicity materials. What am I missing here?”

  “I told you we’d be busted,” Drew said to her, his honey eyes laughing as if they were sharing an old joke even though they’d only written the punchline that morning.

  Her pulse picked up, but she knew no one could see her nerves. After all, she told lies for a living. She smiled tolerantly and said, “And I told you we should have been more public weeks ago.” She turned to Parker. “You don’t have any photos because I’ve never gone to one of Drew’s games.”

  “Is there a reason for that?” She gave the journalist points for keeping his tone perfectly neutral.

  “Surely you’ve done better research than that,” she said. “My first husband died a year ago. Drew and I only met last October, after the end of last baseball season.”

  It felt like a betrayal of Kevin to talk about him so glibly. Four months ago, in her real life, she hadn’t dreamed of looking at another man. But she’d finally worked through her mourning enough to return to work, to return to making up stories. She caught herself twisting her watch band, and she ordered herself to stop, to pay attention.

  Parker persisted. “Exactly how did you two meet?”

  Drew picked up their prepared story. “My agent is friends with Jessica’s boss. They’ve both got places in the Hamptons. We met at a private dinner party hosted by Chip Patterson.”

  A private party was simple—no other guests to be interviewed. No one to call them liars.

  Parker made a quick note on his pad. She was willing to bet he’d be calling every caterer on Long Island before the day was over. He’d be out of luck, though. Chip’s wife loved to cook. She could have made an amazing feast, if she and her husband had wanted to play matchmaker.

  “So what made you decide to go public now?”

  Jessica allowed herself to roll her eyes. “Isn’t the answer rather obvious, Mr. Parker? Kaley Armistead changed everything. You and your journalistic colleagues have spent years making a target out of my fiancé, but the outcry over that poor, confused girl was the last straw. I couldn’t let that go on. It’s my job to protect him, to help him turn around his image. After all, I could hardly refuse to share my expertise with the man I love, could I?”

  “Even though the man you love went to the Starfish Motel with another woman?”

  She forced the bright sort of smile a betrayed fiancée might spare when faced with a difficult question. “You know as well as I do that Kaley’s sister recanted that testimony. There’s no proof whatsoever that Kaley was with Drew when he signed into that room. How many newspapers have you sold on innuendo and exaggeration, Mr. Parker?”

  “At least as many as I’ve sold on old-fashioned investigative reporting.”

  “Why, it sounds like you’re throwing down a gauntlet.”

  “If the shoe fits…”

  She delivered her best Image-Masters-unflappable-associate stare, summoning every ounce of the pride that would be burning if she actually did love Drew, if sh
e’d actually needed to project dignity in the face of his faithless antics off the field, especially when he’d been proven innocent this one time.

  It took nearly a minute, but Parker was the first to blink. He flipped through his notepad while she smiled icily, and then she said, “If you don’t mind, Mr. Parker. Our coffee is getting cold.”

  “Of course,” he said, climbing to his feet. “Thank you for your time. This conversation has been very … enlightening.”

  “For all three of us, I’m sure.”

  She watched him walk away. That was it. Their entire game plan: Unable to tolerate the press’s dirty tactics any longer, she’d come to rescue the man she loved. She’d followed the Image Masters Bible to the word, telling the truth every single time she could, keeping her lies as simple as possible.

  Drew stared at her as she sipped her coffee. Ugh. She’d been telling the truth there, too. Her drink was cold. “What?” she asked.

  “Remind me never to piss you off.”

  She smiled. “I don’t think you’ll forget that any time soon. Now kiss my cheek before you go back to get more food.” She saw people around the room notice the gesture, and she tried to calculate the boost to his Sympathy Index. She added another full point when Drew returned with a cup of hot coffee, just for her.

  CHAPTER 3

  Jessica rolled over in bed, putting a pillow over her head to drown out the sound of the shower running in the bathroom. She understood that Drew was an elite athlete. He had no choice but to keep in shape, starting each day with his established regimen of crunches and pushups and whatever other exercises he did, of yoga poses designed to give him strength and flexibility on the field.

  And it was only reasonable that he’d want to shower after he was done, before he headed downstairs for breakfast. Almost two weeks into their charade of an engagement, she was comfortable letting him go to breakfast without her, letting him eat with the rest of the team. That way, the guys could talk about strategy. They could figure out what the coach—no, the manager—was going to have them work on that day, complain about what the referees—no, the umpires—had called wrong the day before.

  It all made sense. But that didn’t mean she had to appreciate being awakened by his exercise every single morning…even if she’d gotten used to sneaking glances while he was working out. Like this morning—she’d slitted her eyes open, barely letting herself watch the long muscles in his arms. She’d snuggled lower beneath her sheets, scarcely leaving a clear view of his thighs, of the six-pack abs made visible when his T-shirt rode up.

  And the worst part was, she was pretty sure he knew she was awake.

  That was the only explanation she could think of for his choosing that particular spot to stand in the admittedly-cozy hotel room. For his stretching for quite so long. For his passing so close to the bed before he strode into the bathroom, before he closed the door and turned on the hot, steamy shower…

  The water cut off just as her phone buzzed against the nightstand. She fumbled for the cell and cleared her throat, sitting up against the headboard. Glancing at the number, she swallowed hard.

  “Good morning, Chip!” She tried to sound wide awake, as if she were dressed in her best charcoal grey suit and her most conservative pumps as she took her seat at the Image Masters conference table. Which she would have been doing in precisely five minutes, if she’d actually been in New York.

  Even as she harnessed her most professional voice, she started to pull together her arguments. This was only her thirteenth morning in Florida. She had until tomorrow to win her gambit, to see Drew’s Sympathy Index hit the necessary notch. Chip had given her two weeks, and she wasn’t giving back a minute without a fight.

  “You win.”

  “Excuse me?” She sat up even straighter.

  “I just looked at the weekend numbers. I’m not sure what you’re doing down there, but it’s working. I’ll be honest with you. I thought you’d be booking a flight home tomorrow. But Mr. Marshall’s numbers started trending up last Wednesday, and they’ve stayed even for the past twenty-four hours.”

  Even. She was a little miffed. She’d worked hard to elevate them last night, meeting Drew at the ballpark, hanging out with all the other players’ wives and girlfriends, doing her best to fit in whenever a camera was remotely visible. She’d even let Drew stop by the bar before they’d headed up to their room. She’d sipped a cosmo to cement her image as his adoring fiancée. Her preferred martini might have made her look overly sophisticated, too judgmental, and that would have sapped points from Drew.

  Nevertheless even was good enough. Better, actually, because it gave Drew a chance to increase his numbers as she proceeded to Phase Two of his image reformation.

  She schooled her voice to nonchalance when she finally answered Chip. “I told you I’d get everything in hand down here.”

  And she was startled by the image that phrase called to mind. She hadn’t had any of Drew in hand, not that way. Despite the stirrings of her imagination, she’d carefully held herself to the most appropriate of public gestures—her fingers wrapped around his, her palm on his biceps, one brief moment when she’d let her hands tangle in his hair for the last two seconds of their morning kiss in the lobby.

  But she couldn’t lie to herself. She’d thought about how it would feel to skim her palms over his back. How his muscles would ripple beneath her palms as she traced the intriguing line of hair from his navel to the elastic band of his shorts.

  As if Chip could read her mind, he said, “You’ve got the Sympathy Index where you want it, but I can’t endorse your methods.”

  “Aren’t you the one who says, “If the image shifts, track it?’ Sartain set us up for this, and it’s working.”

  She could picture Chip’s frown, the way his chin would tighten as he objected to her using his own words against him. Sure enough, she heard classic Chip Cool when he responded. “I can’t help but feel like your pimp, Jessica.”

  A blade of embarrassment carved through her belly. Sure, she was going above and beyond with this prolonged field assignment. But was it really any different from when she’d worked as a classroom aide, bolstering the reputation of her first Image Masters client, the academically deficient Rosewood School? And who was to say that hanging out with the Rockets was any sleazier than slipping through opening night galas for the Manhattan Philharmonic, pretending to be a big donor so that other benefactors leaped on board?

  She hardened her voice and said, “It’s not like that, and you know it. I haven’t compromised my principles or those of the firm.”

  “If I thought you had, I’d have you back at your desk before lunch. You’re playing with fire, though. Have you figured out your exit plan?”

  “Not exactly. I thought we’d agreed the Sympathy Index was Priority One.”

  “We did. But don’t lose sight of the endgame. This is a complex project, and you need to start mapping your exit now.”

  She knew he was right—the longer she and Drew stayed “engaged” the harder it would be to keep his image clean when they broke up. For now, though, she took an aggressive lead. “You’re right. This is complex. And I’ll work on breaking things off soon. But for now we’re ready to move on to Drew’s Competence Index.”

  “Competence Index is mostly under his control; we can’t do anything if Mr. Marshall doesn’t field better than Mr. Ordonez.”

  “Precisely. That’s why it’s important for us to merge our strategies. To combine our focus on both the Competence Index and the Charisma Index and push them to peak at the same time.”

  “And I’m sure you have a plan for that,” Chip said.

  “I do.”

  It was typical of Chip’s management style that he didn’t ask her to outline that plan. That was just as well. She could set up spreadsheets and flowcharts all she wanted, implement communications channels and hone distribution networks, but completing the project would require split-second shifts, instantaneous responses to wha
tever little things went wrong along the way.

  “You can deliver your report in person a week from today.”

  She could have sworn she was experiencing deja vu. “I need more time than that.”

  “You? The wonder associate who jacks up a Sympathy Index in two weeks?”

  She closed her eyes, fighting for the perfect tone of cajoling and outrage. “Don’t punish me because I’m good. I need till the end of the month.”

  “That’s not possible. The team will set its roster on March 31. If your tactics don’t work, we’ll need extra time to recover. You have three weeks. No argument, or I’ll send Caden down there to relieve you today.”

  She could picture Chip sitting at his desk, looking out at Manhattan, his face calm as he tapped his Montblanc pen against a pad of paper. Once he’d made up his mind, he never changed it. She managed to swallow half a dozen additional protests before she said, “Three weeks.”

  At least he didn’t gloat. “Good luck,” he said. “I’ll have my assistant forward minutes from this morning’s meeting.”

  She hung up and leaned back against the carved wooden headboard. Three weeks, to complete a task that would take any sane person three months to do. Well, no one had ever said she was sane.

  “Bad phone call?” She was startled by Drew’s voice, quieter than she expected, and closer, too. She hadn’t heard him open the bathroom door. She had no idea how much of her phone call he’d overheard, standing there in his jeans and a clean T-shirt.

  She brightened her voice and said, “No, good news, actually. My boss is satisfied with your Sympathy Index. We’re reaching the right quadrants of the marketplace.”

  “Congratulations, I guess.”

  “We’re cleared for the next two stages—Competence Index and Charisma Index combined, results to be completely disseminated in three weeks.”

  “I take it that’s a tall order.”

  She shrugged. “We’ll get it done. Your goal is to play the best ball you can. I’ll work with the press to get the story out. Maybe offer them an exclusive from your fiancée about the importance of spring training to you, something like that.”