Double Play, Page 32

  Pace looked like maybe he wanted to shove him back over the fence, but then yet another camera guy came running down the aisle and stuck out another microphone. “What’s this about retirement?”

  Pace shook his head. “Okay, all of you, back up. I need a second.” He turned back to Holly. “I’m trying to propose here.”

  “Propose?” she gasped.

  “Yeah. I—oomph,” he let out as she flung herself into his arms.

  He smelled like the dust and dirt and sweat that was all over him, and she couldn’t get enough. “Oh, Pace. I don’t need a proposal.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I just need you.”

  He let out a slow, heartbreaking smile. “You were right before, you know.”

  “When?” she asked, liking to be right, about anything.

  “When you said baseball was everything to me. It was, until you. Now you’re my everything.”

  “Love the sound of that.” She melted against him and put her mouth to his ear. “I also loved your pitching tonight. It turned me on.”

  His eyes heated. His hands tightened on her. They might have been alone as he dropped his forehead to hers. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She put her mouth back to his ear. “Now get me out of here, because you have another perfect game coming. This one private.”

  He tossed his head back and laughed out loud as the flashes went off all around them. And that was the shot of him that made it into all the papers the next day, and later into many books on the sport.

  And only Holly knew that the special light in his eyes at that moment wasn’t for the game the Heat had just won, but all for her . . .

  Turn the page for a preview of the next novel by Jill Shalvis Perfect Game Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!

  She’d read somewhere that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, but Samantha McNead knew better than that—in certain men the stomach was aiming just a bit too high.

  Wade O’Riley was one of them.

  One of the most celebrated catchers in Major League Baseball, he had women lining up to meet him wherever he went.

  And it wasn’t home cooking that they wanted to give him either.

  Not that Wade minded. Nope, even with all the constraints that went with the new big, fat contract he’d just signed with Santa Barbara’s expansion team, the Heat, the guy seemed oblivious to pressure. Laid-back and easygoing, he took everything as it came, with a grain of salt and a slow, knowing smile that let everyone in on the joke.

  Because life was one big funny to Wade.

  She appreciated that, she just didn’t live it the way he did. Didn’t know how. As the publicist for the Heat and the lone female in a man’s world, Samantha’s life tended to be more work than fun lately. Hence her mission today.

  The limo pulled up in front of Wade’s big beach-cottage-style house, which was perched on a bluff over the ocean. From the backseat she could see the ocean froth and pitch.

  The motion matched what her stomach was doing.

  In the work aspect of her life, she was extremely comfortable. That was a given. She’d been raised by men: her father, her uncle, her brother, and her cousins were all tough, implacable, unforgiving alpha males. Failure had never been an option, which translated to Sam being very good at whatever she tackled. Unfortunately, all she’d tackled lately was her job.

  Maybe one of these days a guy would sweep her off her feet and then into bed, but it wouldn’t be today and it wouldn’t be with the guy she’d been tasked with babysitting.

  The Heat had played last night. It was the first week of April, and it’d been an exhibition game, a prelude to their season opener on Sunday. They’d played the Padres, and it’d turned out to be surprisingly down and dirty. Wade had hit a homer in the second inning then been beaned in the third when the pitcher had hit him in the thigh with a throw-away pitch. The game had gone two extra innings and way past midnight before the Heat had finally won on Wade’s double, so Sam expected him to be exhausted and probably sore as hell. Maybe she’d even have to pull him out of bed.

  The thought brought concern and a secret tingle to parts of her body that had been neglected for far too long.

  Nice to know they still worked.

  As she started to exit the limo to go get him, his front door opened. Six feet of rugged, leanly muscled male stepped out in Levi’s and an untucked blue-and-white-striped button-down. A gust of wind molded his clothes against the body that tended to make her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth, and he stopped to slide on his sunglasses and take in the ocean, the picture of a California surfer.

  He’d been a rock star in another life, she was convinced. She purposely let out a breath and leaned back, reminding herself he was just a guy. A flawed guy at that, though certainly none of his flaws happened to be showing at the moment.

  He walked across the lawn with an unhurried, easy stride in all his scruffy gorgeousness and opened the limo door, letting in the chilly April afternoon air. With one hand on the roof, the other on the door, he bent down, peering in through his Prada sunglasses, merely arching a brow when he saw her.

  Couldn’t blame him. They weren’t exactly on speaking terms.

  His unruly sun-kissed light brown hair was either styled messy today on purpose or he hadn’t bothered with a comb. His face was scruffy with at least a day-old beard so she was going with the no-comb theory. He should have looked sloppy and unkempt but nothing about him ever looked like anything less than God’s gift. She’d seen him in uniform, in designer suits, in work-out gear, in all sorts of things, including absolutely nothing, and he always looked perfect.

  Especially in the nothing.

  “Hey,” he said in that low, slightly raspy voice of his, the one that never failed to immediately put her back up.

  And/or turn her on.

  “Hey yourself.” He wasn’t limping, and he sure as hell didn’t look exhausted. The opposite, she thought a little breathlessly as his deceptively lazy gaze raked over her from head to toe. Deceptively, because behind that beach-bum facade of his lay a sharp-as-hell wit.

  Given their . . . tense relationship at the moment, she didn’t smile.

  And though he usually smiled at anything female, neither did he.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Always. How about you, Princess? You ready to do this?”

  She’d asked him a million times not to call her that. It drove her crazy, which was of course why he did it. “We need to talk.”

  “Sorry,” he said with mock regret. “But we don’t talk. We fight. And I’m not in the mood.”

  He hadn’t been “in the mood” since what she called the Mishap.

  The Mishap Never to Be Talked About.

  Except . . . except Wade got along with the entire world, and she had to admit it was disturbing that they didn’t. Couldn’t. Fact was, the two of them rubbed each other the wrong way, always had, and there was nothing to be done about that now.

  Nothing.

  She had a job to do. They had a job to do. So she swallowed the little ball of nerves in her throat, reminding herself that as the estrogen quota in a world of testosterone, she’d made her place by being cool, calm, and implacable, just as her father had taught her.

  Tough and composed.

  No weaknesses.

  None. And on the whole, it worked for her.

  Ninety-nine percent of the time.

  At least until that rare occasion when she had to deal with this one player, this one guy who had the singular, most annoying ability to get beneath her skin and make himself right at home. It wasn’t even his fault. He simply threw her off by just being. He made it so she couldn’t be professional, and that more than anything was worrisome.

  Aka terrifying.

  “I realize you probably don’t want to go over the plan,” she said. “But I think we should.”

  “I know the plan,” he said. “One of the corporations endorsing the Heat has
a new conservative CEO who has high ‘family values’ and is upset about our PR troubles—”

  “Your recent PR troubles,” she corrected.

  He let out a tight breath. “Whatever. The fact is that you, the manager, the owner, hell, everyone but me, believes that the world cares about one more ridiculous baseball scandal, and they think that scandal is going to be me simply because some woman claims I’ve gotten her pregnant. I never slept with her.”

  “You can’t blame people for thinking it. You do have a bit of a playboy reputation, and she had pictures of you and her on the beach by your house.”

  He just looked at her, clearly standing by his claim that this wasn’t his fault.

  “See,” she pointed out. “This is why we have to talk about it.”

  “Look, I get what the powers that be want from me. From us. We pretend to be a couple in the eyes of the press so our endorsements won’t be pulled. How hard can it be?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied cautiously. “How hard?”

  He gave her a look. The look. And heat seared through her belly. “You know what I mean,” she mumbled.

  “The plan is that I have to behave. And you’re supposed to make me.” He shot her the look again. “I’m looking forward to the ‘make me’ part.”

  Oh, God. “Okay, this isn’t going to work,” she said stiffly. She was fun. Lighthearted. Why the hell he made her sound so uptight and stuffy, she had no idea.

  Wait. She did have an idea. An exact idea.

  She’d slept with him.

  Once.

  On the one single night in her entire life she’d had too much to drink. Except there’d been no sleeping involved. To make matters worse, it’d been one of the hottest, best nights of her life. “Listen, I realize we’ve had our differences, but—”

  “Differences?” He laughed, then shook his head, still amused. “I’m going to let you get away with that, Princess, because I’m in a hurry.”

  A friend of his was getting married. A close friend who just happened to be a big-time Hollywood producer, and Wade was one of the groomsmen. The wedding was an entire weekend extravaganza where there was sure to be tons of press. If he was going to attract any of it—and just by being Wade, he most definitely was—he needed to attract good press.

  They had a two hour car trip ahead of them, and by the time it was over and they got out of the limo at the resort, they needed to be in sync and looking like lovers. Willing to do her part, she smiled, the smile that usually got her exactly what she wanted, and in this case, what she wanted was Wade’s cooperation. Thing was, he didn’t often feel the need to cooperate, which she knew all too well. “You’re right, let’s just get going, we can finish this on the way.”

  He looked at her for a long beat, all big and built and completely inscrutable, during which time she held her breath. For as laid-back as he was, he was also tough as steel. He had to be. Catchers had what was arguably the hardest position in baseball. They had to command the respect of all the players, as it was the catcher making the calls. He had to have good sequences in those calls, and the ability to change it up and keep hitters off balance. Which meant he had to be smart, sharp, and strong in both mind and body.

  Wade was all of those things and more. Including quick to come to a decision. He tossed his overnight bag into the limo and followed it in. Leaning back, he stretched out his long, long legs and looked around. “So. We have any food in here?”

  “No. Are you hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  He was always starving. Probably because he burned God knew how many calories a day between five mile runs, weight training, and the game itself. “We can stop and get something to go. Rosa’s?” she asked, naming the closest café. Look at that, she was getting the hang of taking care of him already.

  “DQ is good.”

  She’d never met a grown man with such a love for fast food before. But whatever he wanted, she’d get. It would make him happy, and a happy Wade was hopefully a compliant one. With a nod from her, the driver started the engine, and they began their trek, heading through town.

  Santa Barbara was a colorful blend of history and up-scale Southern California living. Wade was looking out the window, taking it in, giving her his profile as they turned onto Highway 1, heading south. The sparkling Pacific was on their right, the green, craggily Santa Ynez peaks on their left, both breathtaking.

  They made a stop at Dairy Queen and got back on the road. Wade was quiet as he ate, watching as they left the affluent homes and ranches, and headed into the outlying county and the far-less privileged area. She knew he’d come from an underprivileged neighborhood himself. In fact, despite his many faults, he was surprisingly humble and quick to laugh at himself, and often joked he’d grown up so far from the proverbial tracks that he hadn’t even been able to see them.

  And her?

  Well, she’d grown up with a silver spoon in her mouth, and everyone knew it. It was certainly all Wade knew about her, because it’d been the only thing she’d ever let him see. He had no idea that the two of them had a hell of a lot more in common that he’d ever guess.

  He polished off two burgers and went to work on a bag of fries. “So . . .” His green eyes were relaxed but assessing as they met hers. “When are you going to tell me they want us to do this boyfriend/girlfriend thing for a whole month?”

  “You heard?” she asked in surprise. She thought she was supposed to talk him into it.

  “I work with a bunch of women. They tell all.”

  “Wade, you work with a group of professional athletes.”

  “Who gossip like women. Pace told me. He’d heard it from Henry, who’d overheard Gage talking to you.”

  Pace being Wade’s best friend and the Heat’s ace pitcher. Henry was their shortstop. Gage, their team manager. And yes, the supposedly professional clubhouse really was similar in nature to a high school locker room.

  Wade was still looking at her. He was sprawled out, relaxed. She took a careful breath. “A month shows stability. It’s more impressive than just a weekend wedding fling.”

  His brow shot up so far into his thick and unruly hair it vanished. “So you’re okay with being joined at the hip for a month?”

  “If you are.”

  “Are there benefits?”

  “No!”

  He sighed.

  “Hey, it’s not that bad. I’m fun, you know.”

  He just looked at her, which burned. “I am! And I just realized, there are benefits.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Seemed she’d managed to surprise him after all. “Maybe it’ll be fun.”

  “How?”

  “Well . . .” She wracked her brain. “I can be a pretty convincing bitch when I want to be.”

  “Nooo,” he said with mock shock.

  She ignored that. “I can scare all the crazy women that chase you around and thereby give you a break, and in return, you can just relax knowing you won’t have to take care of me like your usual hanger-on, clingy type who bores you within the span of one date.”

  He slid her a look.

  “Hey, just calling ’em like I see ’em.”

  He didn’t say anything to that as he finished the fries, then tossed all the trash back into the bag and set it aside. He rubbed a hand over his jaw and said another entire boatload of nothing.

  “It’s just a role, Wade. And it could have been worse. We could have lost the endorsement entirely, or they could have traded you.”

  “They’re that desperate for good press.” He shook his head in disbelief.

  “Hey, baseball isn’t exactly showing its best foot to the public lately. We need this. The Heat needs this.”