“I told you, nothing.”
“You’re a shitty liar, Holly. Spill it.”
“I snooped and read your chart.”
He just gave her a long look.
“I wanted to make sure you were really okay. You were sleeping so heavily and I was worried.”
“Concern or a reporter’s cutthroat curiosity?”
“It was concern,” she said tightly. “And your curmud geonly cynicism is really getting old. Pace—”
“Just tell me. I’m dying, right?”
“No. You’re—”
His doctor entered. “Look at you, awake and alert. Perfect.” He looked at Holly. “I need a moment with the patient, please.”
Holly gave Pace an indecipherable look and left the room.
And for a guy who prized his alone time, who craved it like some craved water, he experienced the oddest sense of loneliness he’d ever felt.
And fear. Let’s not forget the fear, because there was plenty of that, too. “So. What’s up, Doc?”
Chapter 20
Strikeouts are boring—besides that, they’re fascist.
Throw some ground balls. More democratic.
—Crash Davis in Bull Durham
Pace’s surgeon didn’t answer right away, waiting until the hospital room door shut behind Holly, until he’d opened Pace’s chart. “How are you feeling?”
“A little uptight, actually, which is ruining my happy drug buzz. What’s going on?”
“Good news and bad news. Are you in pain?”
Pace turned his head and looked at the door that Holly had just left through, thinking that when it came to her he felt plenty of pain. She made him ache like hell. “I’m fine. Tell me the bad.”
“No. Good first. You didn’t have a tear to the rotator cuff. You had an inflamed bursa.”
“A what?”
“Yeah, it’s almost impossible to see on an MRI in the position you were in. You have 160 bursae in your body, located adjacent to the tendons near large joints, such as your shoulder. You had one become inflamed from an injury, in this case probably your strained rotator cuff, and it got infected. I removed the fluid, cleaned it all up a bit. You should be good now. Relatively simple fix, at least compared to a torn rotator cuff.”
Relief made his head swim. “Jesus, really?”
“Really. I know those suckers are a bitch on pain but the recovery is going to be a hell of a lot easier than a repaired tear would have been, and you can cut the down time in half—maybe three weeks instead of two months.”
Pace felt the rush of emotion clog his throat. “Okay, now the bad.”
“Yeah. That’s not going to be as easy.” The doctor sat back on his little round stool and eyed Pace.
It was the same expression Holly had been wearing, and he braced himself. “I wish people would stop looking at me like that.”
“Yesterday you had the standard operating procedure presurgery lab work done. Per the request of your commissioner, and with your permission, you had your drug testing done at the same time.”
“Yes.”
“You tested positive for stimulants.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I’m afraid it’s fact. And I’ve got to report it.”
“There’s been a mistake. Test me again. I don’t use.”
“Look, you’ll need three weeks off anyway for recovery, which should cover a good part of your discipline, which I believe can be a twenty-five game suspension.”
“No.” No fucking way. “You have to retest.”
The doctor rose. “You’ll be released in a few hours. I’ve prescribed pain meds to take you through the next seven days, after which I’ll need to see you for stitches removal.”
His doctor didn’t believe him. Hell, who would? “I want a retest. I’m within my rights to request one.”
“Pace—”
“And I want my lawyer and agent, too.” And for some reason, Holly. He wanted Holly.
Holly drove a virtually silent Pace home from the hospital. He was dressed in his warm-up sweats, sitting very still in the passenger seat next to her, his long legs stretched out, his right arm held to his chest by a complicated sling and sprint, both covered in a huge ice pack. She knew he was still fuming over the drug-test results and the backlash that was liable to hit him over that. His agent and attorney had come to the hospital and they’d talked, which had included a conference call with Gage, but she had no idea the outcome other than they’d demanded a retest.
Pace hadn’t said one word to her when he’d gotten off the phone with Gage or when his agent and attorney had left. In fact, he’d called a cab, but she’d sent the cab off and had put him into his car, which she was enjoying the hell out of.
He sat in the passenger seat, head back, eyes covered in his mirrored Oakleys, giving nothing away. She even revved the engine to try to get a rise out of him. Nothing. He was silent and pale, and after a few minutes, also a little green, so she slowed down. “The doctor said nausea was normal after anesthesia.”
He didn’t respond.
“He also said you’d feel like crap for a few days, but that you’d be fine in a month.”
“Two weeks.”
“Ah, I forgot. You’re Superman.”
He didn’t respond, but it didn’t take a psychic to sense the irritation level, which was rising, possibly due to the fact that his phone kept beeping from some mysterious depth in one of his pockets. “You want me to play secretary for you?”
“No.”
He wasn’t just hurting, he was angry. Vibrating with it. “Are you mad at the doctor, or the lab, or—”
“Pretty much everyone, thank you,” he said with silky ire.
“Including your driver, I’m guessing.”
“You snooped and read my chart.”
“Out of concern.”
“The test results are wrong,” he said flatly. “So I’d better not be reading about this in your next article.”
“Ah, so we’re back to the mistrust.” She sighed. “I’m going to cut you some slack since you’re hurting.”
“I’m not hurting. High as a kite, but not hurting.”
Okay, then. Good to know where she stood with him.
Or didn’t.
His phone rang again and he swore roughly, making her realize it was in his right pants pocket. With his arm freshly cut open and sewn shut and completely protected, he had no way of getting to it. She pulled over to the side of the highway and put her hand on his thigh.
“Fine,” he said, unhooking his seat belt and taking off his sunglasses. “Angry sex works for me. But you’re going to have to do all the work.”
“Shut up, Pace.” She frisked him for the phone, indeed finding it in his right pants pocket.
“A little to the left.”
A little to the left and she’d be wrapping her fingers around something else entirely. She slid him a look.
“Hey, I’m drugged up nice and good,” he said. “Go ahead, take advantage of me. I’ll suffer through it.” His voice was low and hoarse, not with passion but pain. The ass. She wanted to hug him.
Or smack him. “I prefer my men willing and able.”
“Move your hand over a little and you’ll see I’m both.”
She pulled out the phone, and then because she couldn’t help herself, glanced to the left of his zipper. He was hard. Her eyes met his glazed but amused ones. “Seriously?”
“Apparently you have the touch.”
His phone rang again and she eyed the ID. “It’s Wade.”
“Tell him I can’t talk right now, I’m in your hands.” He laughed at his own joke.
Rolling her eyes, she opened the phone and assured Pace’s best friend that he was okay. Or as okay as he could be under the circumstances of having just tested positive for stimulants. Then she handed the phone to Pace, and listened to him proceed to tell Wade that he hadn’t had a rotator cuff tear after all, that he’d be good to go in a few
weeks. He shut the phone and acknowledged her soft gasp of surprise. “Guess you didn’t read far enough.”
“Oh, Pace,” she breathed. “That’s amazing. I’m so happy and relieved for you.”
He looked at her, clearly saw the emotion in her eyes, and closed his. “Thanks.”
When she got them back on the road and pulled up to Pace’s house, there were flowers on his doorstep. “From Tia,” she said, reading the card. “Yours, forever.”
“Good to know some things don’t change. I’m good,” he added when she followed him in.
Meaning don’t follow him in.
She didn’t listen. His house was huge and sparsely but decently furnished with big, soft, comfy-looking furniture, a plasma TV the size of an entire wall, a bunch of sports equipment everywhere, and the sense that this place was a real home, not just an MTV Cribs showcase. “Let me help you into bed, make sure you have food—”
He turned to face her, revealing that he was pale, and also now sweating. There was pain in his dark gaze, and plenty of other things to go with it. “I’m good,” he repeated, so tough and strong, so utterly alone and vulnerable that he broke her heart.
“Pace.” She shook her head and took a stand. “I’m not leaving you.”
The doorbell rang, and then Tucker poked his head in. “Hey. Dad wanted me to check on you.” He dropped a duffel bag to the foyer floor near a heap of other duffel bags, the only distinction between his and the others being that his had a tear in the bottom corner. “Looks like maybe you’re already being well taken care of.” Tucker smiled at Holly before turning back to Pace, who’d sunk to the bench right there in the foyer. “You need anything? Anything at all?”
“Better drugs.”
“I can do that.”
“Jesus.” Pace let out a mirthless laugh and leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed. “Don’t say another word in front of the reporter who doesn’t know that you’re kidding. I’m fine, really. I just want to be alone.” He opened his eyes and shot Holly a long look.
Tucker nodded. “Understood. But since everyone’s in Baltimore, how about I go meet up with some friends for a couple of hours and then come back here and crash on the couch tonight in case you need anything later. Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
When Tucker walked out the door, Pace eyed Holly.
She eyed him back.
“Don’t make me call 9-1-1 on you,” he said.
“You didn’t call the police on Tia and her flowers, so you’re not going to call on me. Besides, I still have your cell phone.” She pulled it from her pocket, held it up for him to see, then slipped it back into her pocket.
“Give that back.”
“Tell you what. You take it from me and I’ll leave.”
His gaze dropped to her jeans pocket, and he gritted his teeth.
“Go ahead, Pace. Prove you’re fine enough to be alone. Wrestle me down and take the phone.”
“If I wrestle you down, I’m going to do something other than take my phone back.”
“Promises, promises.”
With a growl, he stood up and took a step toward her, then wavered on his feet and clutched the wall, letting out a tight breath. “Fuck.”
“Okay, that’s it.” She slid her shoulder beneath his good arm to take his weight and led him out to the living room. “Which way?”
“To?”
“Your bed.”
“What’s wrong with right here?”
“Shut up, Pace. Which way?”
He sighed. “Down the hall.”
His bedroom was as supersized as the rest of his house. The masculine oak furniture included a huge four-poster bed piled with sheets and blankets all askance from what looked like a restless night.
“I want a shower,” he said, kicking a pile of clothes aside.
She looked at his complicated sling. “I think it’s going to have to be a bath.”
“Whichever.” He headed into the bathroom, which was nearly as big as his bedroom. She flipped on the water in his Jacuzzi tub, then looked at him. “Do you really think I’d write about your test results?”
He toed off his shoes.
“Or that I’d expose you before the results were made public?”
“It’s as good as public now. Gage’s going to try to keep it quiet until I’m retested, but I don’t know if he can.” He leaned against the wall. “A stimulant isn’t as bad as steroids. I’ll probably only get a wrist slap, but if they retest and I show positive again, I’ll get a twenty-five game suspension.” His good hand went to the tie on his sweats, which was knotted, thwarting his best attempts.
She watched him struggle a minute before she stepped close. Holding his gaze, she untied the sweats and then nudged them down. His sweatshirt zipped and was easy enough to get off him, leaving him standing there in navy blue knit boxers and a sling and nothing else, which gave her an upfront and personal view of his torso and shoulder, already black-and-blue and hugely swollen. He had three incision sites: one where the microscopic camera had gone in and two where they’d done the actual work, and the abuse he’d taken today went straight to her heart. “Oh, Pace.”
“I’m guessing that wasn’t an ‘Oh, Pace, you’re so sexy, take me.’ ”
Throat tight, she put a hand over his heart. “You really don’t need any pain meds?”
“Oh, on top of all the shit Tucker’s supplying me with, you mean?”
“Pace.”
“The tests were wrong, Holly.” He said this in a low, tense voice. “I didn’t take anything. Be sure to put that in your article.”
She stared at him, hard. “First of all, I happen to believe you. And second of all, if you weren’t already hurt, I’d hurt you myself. You know—dammit, you’d better know—that I wouldn’t report you’re on stimulants when it hasn’t been proven.”
“You saw my results. Proof. Which means you have me with my pants down.” His smile didn’t meet his eyes. “Literally.”
She could scarcely speak past the lump in her throat. “Believe it or not, my personal morals mean something to me. Honesty means something to me, especially after how I grew up. I thought you knew that about me by now. And the fact that all along you’ve expected me to leak the story about your shoulder, and now the drug test, pisses me off. I’m damn tired of proving myself to you, Pace, and I’m . . .” Afraid to give any more of herself away than she already had, she simply turned and headed to the door.
“Holly.”
She kept going.
“Holly, I’m—Please look at me.”
When she turned back, he was just standing there in those knit