Catching Hell: A Hot Contemporary Romance Read online

  “I wouldn’t want you to.” And that was the truth. A Zach Ormond who would concede to her just because they’d slept together wasn’t the Zach Ormond she’d dreamed about for the past fifteen years. He wasn’t the leader the Rockets had come to depend on. He wasn’t the man she knew.

  Besides, if he gave in, he’d be giving her permission to send him away, to banish him to Texas. She’d lose him in a heartbeat, watch him instantly become just another man on another team her Rockets had to beat.

  She’d be better off drawing things out. Negotiating contract clauses with him here in Raleigh.

  It was a mess. A knot that she had no idea how to untangle.

  But as she shifted on his lap, she became aware of one thing. Zach’s body was responding to her, even if his mind was grappling with the truth. There. She felt him twitch again, and she couldn’t miss the sharp intake of his breath.

  He started to shake his head, but she stopped him, catching her fingers in his curls. His lips were warm when she leaned down to kiss him, and she tasted coffee and cream and raspberry jam.

  She wasn’t sure which of them stood first. And she wasn’t certain who led the way over to the bed. She wasn’t clear on who opened the nightstand, fumbling for a condom. Not one of those details mattered as Zach set about proving that the night before had not been some bizarre, unexpected, utterly mistaken fluke.

  CHAPTER 6

  Anna glanced at her phone as Gregory Small slid into his seat at the conference table. “You’re late,” she said flatly.

  He looked surprised. “I was on the phone with Texas,” he said.

  Of course he was on the phone with Texas. It was his job to be on the phone with Texas. “And?” Anna prompted.

  Small looked around the table, including the other meeting attendees in his answer. “It’s getting more complicated. St. Louis wants the kid, too.”

  She wasn’t surprised. Any idiot could look at team standings and rosters and see that St. Louis would want Tyler Brock’s bat. Give it another week, and LA would be in the hunt, too.

  She settled back in her leather chair, listening to the men start their dissection of the situation. Her fingers flew across the pad of her laptop, automatically taking notes even as her mind wandered.

  She’d nearly been late to the meeting herself. That was the cost of lingering over a blueberry cornbread muffin at Club Joe, watching Zach drink a second cup of coffee. In the end, they’d spent all of Sunday in her apartment. They’d microwaved the remnants of breakfast after letting themselves get distracted in her bed, and then they’d settled down to watch the Rockets’ afternoon game. Together.

  She’d been surprised by how different it felt to watch the coverage with a player by her side. She was used to viewing games in the owner’s suite, to the constant stream of comments from Small, from Gramps, from the wide variety of guests.

  But watching the game with Zach was a revelation. Sure, he commented on how a batter was going to take a pitch, how an outfielder was going to play close to the line on a particular at-bat. But Zach’s commentary went further than that. He watched the game like a chess master, predicting actions two, three, sometimes four times down the line.

  Over and over again, he called plays—a tricky hit-and-run in the bottom of the fourth, a stolen base in the sixth. He watched with a quiet intensity, a focused joy that reminded her of nothing more than his passion in bed. He gave himself over to the game entirely, without concern for how he looked when he cheered a particularly good play, for how he sounded when he cursed a boneheaded attempt to stretch a double into a triple.

  Quite simply, the man lived the game.

  Zach groaned in disappointment when the Rockets gave up the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. His hands clenched between his knees, as if he longed to be in the dugout, commiserating with his teammates, heading back to the clubhouse and the airport and the journey to the next city on the out-of-town stretch.

  They’d ordered in Chinese and reviewed the game, taking nearly as long to discuss what had happened as the actual play had taken. And, inevitably, they’d ended up back in bed.

  “Don’t you agree, Anna?”

  She shook her head, looking up from her computer screen as if something had captivated her among those pixels. Something businesslike and professional and utterly appropriate for public consumption. “I’m sorry, Gregory. Agree with what?”

  Small pursed his lips, conveying an entire lecture on dissatisfaction. “It’s time to turn up the heat on Ormond.”

  Anna was carefully neutral. “We have to do something.”

  Small slapped a stack of papers onto the table. “I say we start with this. Bills from his nutritionist for the past quarter.”

  Nutritionist. That person would probably disapprove of a dinner of pork fried rice. And crispy sesame chicken. And sodium-laden wonton soup. All washed down with a couple of beers, depleting the supply in her fridge. But surely Zach could redeem himself by cataloging all the physical exercise he’d gotten, before and after the meal…

  Before Anna could fashion a reply that was suitable for the boardroom, one of the scouts shook his head. “We’ve always let the guys choose their own nutritionists. Just like their doctors.”

  Small produced another pile of papers. “Exactly. But they’ve all signed contracts. We’ve got it here in black and white. They acknowledge we have no obligation to pay any medical specialist outside the experts specifically hired by the team. We’ve processed everyone’s payments so far, as a courtesy. As a perk. But we’re not required to continue doing so, and I strongly advise that we put our foot down now.”

  Anna’s belly turned over slowly, and she wished she’d held off on that last can of soda. “For everyone, you mean. For all our players.”

  Small shook his head. “For Ormond. If anyone else becomes a troublemaker, we’ll add him to the list. But there’s nothing that says we have to give special treatment to everyone.”

  The scout growled, “Just everyone except the one guy you’ve targeted.”

  Small’s voice was perfectly level. “I’m doing this for the team. We all agree that we need to replace Cody Tucker’s bat. We’ve asked Zach nicely. It’s time to raise the temperature a little.”

  The scout shook his head. “All I’m saying is, this isn’t the Rockets’ way of doing things. Ask Mr. Benson, before you single out his most loyal player.”

  Anna would love to pass the buck to her grandfather. She’d be thrilled to know that she wasn’t responsible, that this decision was out of her hands.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. Gramps’ doctors had specifically told him he needed less stress in his life. He’d been grooming her for years to make decisions like this—that was why he’d invested in four years of tuition at the University of Michigan. That was why he’d given her the title of Special Assistant to the Principal Managing Owner.

  She cleared her throat and was immediately the focus of every person sitting at the table. “There’s no need to bring my grandfather into this. I’m authorized to speak for him.”

  The words were so easy to say. They slipped from her lips as if she weren’t twisting a knife into Zach’s chest. She held her voice even as she turned to Gregory Small. “Go ahead and call his agent today. Tell Zach Ormond that the team will no longer pay for unnecessary luxuries like a nutritionist and a private doctor. He’s welcome to work with the team experts, to whatever extent he needs medical assistance.”

  Small sat back in his chair, a pleased smile curling his lips. Anna took no satisfaction in knowing she was doing what was best for the team. She was even less pleased at the prospect of facing Zach and telling him directly about her decision.

  But she didn’t have a choice. If the intimacy of the past weekend was going to have a chance at survival, she needed to let Zach know before he found out from his agent.

  To guarantee that, she tossed an off-hand comment to Small as she powered down her laptop. “Do me a favor, though, Gregory.
Wait until tomorrow to give Epson the news.”

  The scouts made noises of surprise, of blossoming disagreement. Small, though, nodded. “Good thinking,” he said. “No reason to give them extra ammunition. It’ll be just a little tougher for them to scramble around a reply, with Ormond flying out to Pittsburgh in the morning.”

  That’s right. The suspension would be lifted by Tuesday night. That left Anna a single day to prove to Zach that she really wasn’t trying to sabotage his entire career. Just the part that dealt with the Rockets. And their need to stay in contention for the post-season.

  * * *

  Zach took the pencil from behind his ear and carefully marked the length of the plank he had suspended across the sawhorses. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the left sleeve of his T-shirt. This was turning out to be a hotter and thirstier job than he’d expected, when he’d started replacing the rotten boards on the back porch. He’d be pushing it to get things done by tomorrow morning, by the time he had to hop a plane for Pittsburgh.

  Measure twice, cut once. Corny advice, but it worked. He flexed his wrist before he picked up the circular saw. The tool screamed as he triggered the power, and the tone climbed as he forced the blade through the two by four.

  The end fell onto the ground with a satisfying chunk, and Zach swung the trimmed plank onto his shoulder. Before he could walk around to the back of the farmhouse, though, he looked toward the main road. A cloud of dust rose from the long gravel drive, moving closer to the house.

  He had visitors.

  Make that visitor, he corrected, as a cobalt-blue Mini Cooper swung into view. He knew the car, of course. Noticed it every time he arrived at the ballpark, every time he pulled into the players’ lot.

  And now that he thought about it, he knew the driver pretty well too. He let himself stare as Anna climbed out of the car, flashing a long, lean leg before she pulled herself upright. He had to believe she was fully aware of the effect she had on him—and anyone else with a Y chromosome who might be watching—as she leaned inside the car to retrieve a tote bag.

  He balanced the fresh-cut pine board against the sawhorse and crossed his arms over his chest. Trying to make his voice gruff, he asked, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Not a pleasure,” she said, darting only the swiftest of glances at his face.

  Shit. He’d hoped the team would give them a little more time. No surprise, though. Anyone who read the paper knew St. Louis would make an offer for the kid. Time for the Rockets to make his life more difficult.

  “Sounds serious,” he said, purposely keeping his voice mild. “Maybe we should go inside?”

  Huh. He hadn’t expected to see that. He hadn’t thought Anna Benson could feel fear, much less that she’d let it pinch her face that way.

  “Relax,” he said. “I don’t bite. Unless you want me to.”

  She recognized her own words thrown back at her, and she actually laughed. Good. Then things weren’t totally desperate. Yet.

  He gestured for her to lead the way up the three steps to the porch, and he held the door for her to step into the living room. Following her into the dim interior of the house, he dipped his head toward his pit, caught a whiff of hard-earned sweat from his labor.

  “Have a seat,” he said, already tugging his T-shirt out of the band of his jeans. Once he gained the relative privacy of the bedroom, he used the damp cotton to wipe away the worst of the sawdust from his face before tossing it into the corner of his closet. He ducked into the bathroom for a few strategic splashes of water and then he peeled a clean shirt from the stack in the top drawer of his dresser.

  Anna was still standing in the center of the living room when he returned. She looked like a child in a museum as she studied the framed photographs on the mantle. He moved behind her, purposely stepping close enough to make her shoulders tense. She didn’t step away, though. The bastards must not have found the way to shove him all the way out the door. Yet.

  “That’s Mama and Daddy, the day they bought this house.” He pointed to the black-and-white photograph of his smiling parents, younger and happier than he could possibly remember them. “Those are the girls.” His sisters were arrayed in identical Easter dresses on the front steps, looking like four stepping stones, with their identical tangles of curls, their identical smiles. “And my brother and me.” He nodded at the pair of them, sporting matching gingham shirts and crisp blue jeans, fresh from the county fair one perfect summer day.

  “You all look so happy.”

  “We were.” He smiled. “We are.”

  Anna looked around the room. “This place is lovely.”

  He tried to see it through her eyes. The quilts folded over the sofa had been sewn by his mother and his aunts. His grandmother had made the doily under the lamp, and his father had made the cedar chest that served as a coffee table. Everything was old, the rough edges smoothed out by the passage of time and the hard application of elbow grease. There was a place for everything in the farmhouse, and he was only truly at peace when everything was in its place.

  Just about the opposite of the cluttered mess in Anna’s apartment.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” he said, because he wanted to delay the real reason for her visit.

  “That would be great.” Her smile was fraying now, failing to reach her eyes. She followed him into the traditional kitchen, with its whitewashed cabinets and dark metal trim.

  “Lemonade or sweet tea,” he said. “Or water. I don’t have any Coke.”

  “Sweet tea would be fine.”

  He took his time taking down two glasses, filling them with ice. They both knew he wasn’t going to be happy with whatever she had to say. The longer he could take to get their drinks, the longer they could pretend she had just stopped by on a social visit.

  She barely touched her lips to the rim of the glass before she set it on the counter. “Zach,” she said, and then she trailed off.

  Of course, this was a different woman from the Anna he’d seen in bed. And this was a different woman from the Anna he’d seen in the hospital as well, from the professional businesswoman driven by stress to distraction.

  Today’s Anna wasn’t overwhelmed by the emotion of the moment. She wasn’t giving in to tears in a split second of weakness.

  Instead, she was the determined creature he’d watched grow up in the Raleigh Rockets’ front office. She was a business executive with a job she temporarily hated, an unpleasant task that was snagged at the top of her to do list, keeping her from moving on with the real business of owning the team.

  “Spit it out,” he said. “It’s not going to get any easier if you stand there till the ice melts.”

  * * *

  He was right, of course. Nothing was going to make this any easier. She made herself raise her chin as she fished Gregory Small’s memo out of her tote bag. She placed the paper between them, carefully lining it up with the edge of the counter. “I’m delivering official notice from the team. You won’t be allowed to use your own nutritionist any more. Or see your own doctor. Any consultations with them will have to be paid out of your own pocket.”

  He laughed.

  She’d expected anger. Disgust, maybe. Possibly, just barely possibly, a sigh of resignation. But he was standing in front of her, laughing from the very pit of his belly, shaking his head as if she’d just told him a hilarious dirty joke. “That’s it?” he finally asked.

  “Zachary Ormond, I spent every minute of the drive out here trying to figure out how to break the news to you.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that. You should have called Jeremy Epson. Let him be the bearer of bad news.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to you.” She felt like she was confessing something to him, a terrible secret, something so shameful she’d never shared it with anyone before.

  She hadn’t realized she was avoiding his eyes until his hand closed over hers, on top of the hated paper. “Anna,” he said, and she had to look at him then. “T
his isn’t a surprise.”

  “I know it’s going to be difficult for you to change things mid-season, and it totally sucks that you’re heading out on a road trip now. I—I wanted you to be able to shift money in your bank accounts before you hit the road. I wanted…” She trailed off, unsure of what exactly she’d wanted.

  “We have these newfangled things called computers,” he said, and she heard the amusement that coated his voice. “We can shift money with the click of a few keys. When it’s necessary.”

  “I know—” she started to retort, stung that he wasn’t accepting her explanation, the closest she could get to an apology.

  “It’s not about the money,” he interrupted.

  “But the team has always picked up your costs in the past. And we’re still going to pay for the other players; they can see whoever they want—”

  “Until you’re ready to shove them out the door,” he said evenly.

  “How can you be so calm about this?” she demanded.

  “What other choice do I have?” He took a long draft from his tea. The ice cubes crashed against each other when he set his glass on the counter. “Anna, your grandfather taught you a hell of a lot about owning a baseball team. I’m sure you learned even more at Michigan—wrote papers and analyzed case studies and all that shit. But it’s time to roll up your sleeves now. It’s time to see how everything plays out in the real world. And I have to warn you, none of it is going to be pretty and neat and wrapped up in a bow.”

  “You’re going to hate me.” Where the hell did those words come from? She hadn’t planned on saying them. Hadn’t planned on admitting them, even to herself.

  “Never.” His denial sliced through her like a frozen sword, solid and sharp enough that she actually gasped.

  “What?” she asked because she had to say something, had to move forward instead of dwelling on all the thoughts that suddenly swirled through her head. “You’re just going to accept whatever I say, and never get upset with me for saying it? You must have had a better time on Saturday night than I ever expected.”