The Philly crowd booed.
“Jesus, did you see that curveball?” someone on Holly’s left said in disbelief. “It must have curved a foot and a half!”
Holly had no idea how low it really curved, because she couldn’t take her eyes off Pace. He went on to pitch a textbook no-hitter, and if he felt any of the pain she’d sensed the other day, he didn’t let it show. In fact, he let nothing show. He was a solid, tough rock of determination from the start to the seventh inning, when Gage pulled him to save his arm for the next series.
Ty went in, allowing several runs, but still holding their lead, and the Heat won eight to four.
The informal after party was set in one of the bars of the hotel, free drinks on management. Holly found herself with a lingering headache, probably from the hot sun, not to mention the cheering she’d done. She thought about escaping to her room to work on her next article, which she’d decided would be about the public’s view of baseball, from past to present, focusing on kids and how much the game and the players meant to them.
But looking around at the growing crowd, she decided to stay a few more minutes in case she heard anything interesting.
Which was really just an excuse.
She wanted to see Pace. Knowing it, she made her way through the gang to the open bar and tried to get the attention of one of the two pretty, young bartenders, one blonde, one brunette, spending more time looking at the players than making drinks. She waited.
And waited.
“You don’t have a penis, so I’d give up.” Samantha smiled at her and opened her purse to pull out a flask. “It’s Scotch. I carry it when I fly because I’m such a wuss. Take it.”
“Oh, no, I—”
But Sam had moved on. Holly shook her head and tried once more in vain to get a much lighter drink from either of the bartenders. “I’m invisible,” she finally decided.
“Aw. Not to me, darlin’.” Wade nudged her shoulder with his as he worked his way in next to her, all three-day scruff and Prada sunglasses.
She’d learned several things about the Heat’s star catcher. For one, he was a world-class flirt and yet somehow, when he looked into her eyes, he made her feel like the only woman on the planet.
That he looked like a surfer didn’t hurt. Nope, all that sun-kissed beauty from head to toe really worked for him. Like the others, he was gorgeously built, but beneath that laid-back exterior was a sharp mind, a quick wit, and a fierce loyalty to those he cared about, making him about as easy to crack open as a brick wall. He was both cocky and discreet, a paradox she’d learned while trying to ask him some hard-hitting questions; she’d gotten nowhere. Nope, those deep sea green eyes of his had gone from sparkling to closed up tighter than a drum in a single heartbeat.
The entire team had that in common—tight lips.
“What can I get you to drink?” Wade asked her now.
“A wine cooler, if you can get it, thanks.”
He gestured to the closest bartender, the cute little blonde one, who ran over to him so fast she nearly killed her coworker.
Holly had been a bartender in college. Actually, she’d been a lot of things in college, since it had taken many, many jobs to pay her way. But she’d served quickly and efficiently, with a nice but distant smile, ensuring that she’d get tips but not hit on. The tactic hadn’t always worked. Sometimes she’d gotten stiffed, sometimes she’d gotten hit on in spite of her distance, and sometimes she’d gotten both stiffed and hit on, which had always pissed her off.
Wade winked at the blonde as he gave their order, then grinned at Holly as the woman rushed to get the drinks. “They like us here. We tip well.”
“I bet.”
He studied her while reaching for the bowl of mixed nuts on the bar. “You know, I didn’t peg you for a pansy-ass drinker. I’d have guessed you’d drink beer. Maybe a Scotch. Something tough anyway.”
She thought of Sam’s Scotch in her purse. Maybe she should have stuck with that. “You think I’m tough?”
“Well, not as tough as me, but close. Hey, Skipper,” he said to Gage as the manager bellied up to the bar with smooth ease, gesturing with a nod of his chin to the brunette bartender.
Gage was built like his players. Plus, he had the rugged dark looks of his Latino heritage going for him, along with a smile that could slice an ump—or charm a reporter. Holly should know. He’d charmed her at the continental breakfast that morning, where she’d gotten almost nothing out of him except stats and a detailed account of how much volunteer work the guys did with their 4 The Kids charity.
“You getting lucky tonight?” Wade asked him.
“I already did with the win,” he said as the pretty bartender brought him a beer and a smile as he turned to Holly, gesturing to the makeup-covered bruise on her forehead. “How’s that bump Pace got you?”
“Better, thank you. Speaking of Pace, where is he tonight?”
Look at her, all casually working that into the conversation.
But Gage saw right through her as he took a pull of his drink, and offered an easy smile. “Oh, around, I imagine.” With a friendly clap on Wade’s shoulder, he moved off, heading for a pretty woman waving at him from across the room.
The first bartender was finally back with their drinks. Holly’s came without a backward glance. Wade’s came on a napkin with a phone number on it. He pocketed the napkin and winked at Holly, who rolled her eyes and turned to eye the crowd, which had doubled, filling with locals and fans who wanted to see the players.
And still no sight of Pace. She really should go to her room and take some Advil. Sleep. Write . . .
Ty and Joe pressed in close to the bar near Wade and Holly, trying to get a drink, but both bartenders were now at the other end, even more slammed than before. Since the drinks were free, Holly simply moved around the bar and filled their order, to their eternal gratitude.
“You’re handy,” Wade noted.
“I really am.” With an easy camaraderie, they sat there and people-watched, and there was a lot of watching to be had. The women were everywhere, in all shapes and sizes—big and petite, sexy and cute, beautiful and not—and they all had one thing in common: they wanted to be with the players, wanted to see them, meet them, talk to them.
Sleep with them.
Several, in fact, were eyeing Wade as if he were sin on a stick. “Am I cramping your style?” she asked.
“Nah.” He shot her an easy smile. “I’m taking a break.”
“Aw. You get your heart hurt, Wade?”
That caused a deep chuckle to rumble from his chest, as if the idea was utterly laughable. “I meant I’m taking a break for the next hour or so.” His gaze snagged on one of the women staring at him with naked desire all over her face. “Maybe half an hour.”
She shook her head, then her own gaze caught on Pace as he finally walked in. He was looking rough and tumble, ready for anything, and from across the crowd and above all the noise, their eyes met.
A little shiver of thrill went through her. Actually, a big shiver.
Like the other players, he was dressed nice, wearing a jacket fitted to his athletic body as if it’d been made for him, and it probably had. He looked expensive, cultured, gorgeous, and on top of his world—which by all accounts, he was.
And he headed right for them.
Wade gestured to the cute blonde bartender for a drink for Pace, then said when he got close, “I was getting worried I was going to have to fly solo, no wingman.”
Pace smirked and shook his head. “Like you need a wingman.”
Wade grinned. “Remember our first time at one of these things? New York, right? The place was loaded with beautiful women. Good times.”
Pace nodded. “For you especially. You had two homers that night.”
Wade shrugged modestly. “Possibly.”
“After the game, we walked into the hotel bar,” Pace told Holly, “which was packed with fans. One of the women dancing with us asks Wade if he’s ga
y. Wade says no, and then she asks if his contract is really multimillions, and since it’s public knowledge, he says yes. And then she hooks her arm in his and pulls him away. And that was the last I saw of him that night.” Pace shook his head and took Wade’s beer with an ease that said just how comfortable these two were with each other, but after a swallow, he lowered the bottle and took a second, longer look at her.
Her pulse had bumped up the minute he’d appeared, but now it went into cardiac-arrest territory. “What?”
Reaching out, he ran a surprisingly gentle finger over her forehead. “Still hurting?”
She’d cultivated a lifelong habit of being stoic and sucking it up, and she’d gotten damn good at keeping people out of her head. But somehow he kept leaping right in. By all accounts, he should have been nothing more than a big, sexy jock. Someone she needed to interview. But every time she looked into his steady gaze, that same heart-stopping sensation hit her. Even odder, everything else faded away, as if they were completely alone. She struggled to ignore the flare of heat in all her good spots, but since he didn’t even try to hide the matching heat in his gaze, it was all but impossible.
Leaning in, he put his mouth to her ear. “Advil?”
She felt his warm breath on her skin, and she drew a shaky one of her own. He was so close for privacy’s sake, not intimacy. She knew this, but her brain didn’t seem to process the memo and instead sent her body an overload of pleasure waves. Bad brain. “I’m fine, thanks.” Especially if he stayed right there . . .
He looked as though maybe he planned on doing exactly that, but Red came up behind him and clasped a hand on his shoulder. “There you are, son. My God, you were a sight out there tonight. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He grinned with sheer joy, his eyes crinkling, his face tanned and leathered from long years on the field beneath the harsh sun. “This is the year, all the way to the pennant. I can feel it.” He laughed, which made him cough, deep and hard.
Pace reached for him. “Where’s your inhaler?”
“I don’t need it.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I’m fine!”
But he clearly wasn’t, and because Holly was looking right into Pace’s deep, dark eyes, she saw the love, the affection, there.
The worry.
Unlike her, he had strings on his heart, lots of them, whether he liked it or not. And she wished, just a little, that she’d cultivated more strings in her life. She was a grown-up now, she reminded herself, not a scared little kid. She could make her own choices. She could make strings if she wanted.
It wasn’t too late.
Question was, did she want Pace to be a string . . .
Chapter 8
A baseball game is simply a nervous breakdown divided into nine innings.
—Earl Wilson
The Heat took the Phillies two out of three and then flew straight to Atlanta. As usual, the players gathered in the guest clubhouse five to seven hours before the game, where they ate, hung out, played video games, and practiced.
The sounds of Advil being shaken into hands and athletic tape being ripped into strips filled the air, as did the scent of muscle cream, along with the commotion from the support crowd, which included a horde of press and the GM’s family, who’d flown in for his birthday.
Pace sat in front of his locker absently rubbing his shoulder as he watched Holly work the group with ease, taking pictures with her ever-present Canon. She did that, made things look easy. Charming the guys, charming the staff, having fun. Making herself at home in his world . . .
There was no reason to care, except he did.
He cared that he not allow her to make herself at home in his head, because for some reason he didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand, he knew that she could.
She’d put out another article—still not about him. Apparently she’d given up, which relieved him. This entry had been a thought-provoking piece about the youngest fans of baseball, the kids, and how they worshipped the players, emulating their behaviors and actions. Those behaviors and actions were mostly honorable, she’d written, but since the athletes were only human, they were susceptible to the same downfalls as everyone else, and when they screwed up, kids also screwed up. She’d concluded with the pressures on the athletes today as if she really got it, with a nice little section detailing the Heat’s volunteer work with 4 The Kids, and how they were doing their part to try to remain positive role models.
The entire blog had gotten picked up by several ESPN sports shows, and also highlighted in the Santa Barbara local press, and—
Henry’s sweatband hit Pace in the chest. “Wake up, man. You’re pitching in an hour. What planet are you on tonight anyway?”
Planet Holly. Pace simply held up the sweatband, nearly passing out at the smell. “You could clear out the entire stadium with this thing. Open a new pack.”
“Can’t. It’s my good-luck charm. You might be having a hot season, but some of us are cold.”
Pace grabbed a water bottle. It wasn’t his, and he didn’t care because as he drank, he heard Holly laugh, and he turned back to his locker, telling himself he had other stuff to be thinking about than how contagious her laugh was. Tonight’s game, for one.
Or how she looked all careful and pretty in her daisy yellow sundress and white cropped jacket . . .
Next to him, Red stood talking to another of their pitching coaches. “In that game against the Rockies,” he was saying, “he struck out twelve and walked one. Come on, who does that consistently?”
He did. He did that consistently.
Gage was on his other side talking animatedly with the third-base coach. “Last time we were here, he was hit on the upper right leg by a line drive for a single in the first inning. I don’t want that happening again.”
More of him. Jesus, he was really tired of himself.
“It’s the only reason we lost,” Gage said. “He was hurting too bad to throw.”
Not true. Well, he had been hurting, but that’s not why they lost. He’d been pitching like shit before the hit. It happened.
Hopefully it wouldn’t happen tonight.
“Hey, that’s mine.” Wade snagged the water from Pace’s hand and tipped it up to his mouth, but it was empty. With a shake of his head, he tossed it aside as the crowd in the visitors’ clubhouse began to thin out. Joe and Henry were nearby, getting ready to go back out for the pregame field practice. Across from them were Mike and Kyle, now flirting with Holly, who looked good enough to gobble up whole. Pace opened his mouth to remind them to get their asses out for warm-up, but he gritted his teeth instead. None of your business, he reminded himself, and bent to tie his shoes-
And split the zipper on his grey away-game uniform pants. His third this season. “Shit.”
Wade turned, took in Pace’s opened fly, and shook his head. “You know, I’ve never seen a guy with less body fat go through more zippers. Maybe you ought to ask for Magnum-sized pants.”
“It’s not the pants.”
“You wish.”
Pace considered Wade’s smug smile. “Have you ever burst your zipper?”
The guys around them cracked up, and Wade rounded on them until they shut up.
“Holly can fix it,” Ty said. “Hey, Holly. Emergency here.”
“What are you doing?” Pace asked him incredulously.
“She used to be a seamstress. Hol, look. Our poor pitcher’s sail is broken at half-mast. Think you can help?”
Holly slid Pace a look, her gaze curiously dropping down the front of him to figure out what Ty was talking about. He knew the exact moment she caught on because her brows shot straight up so far they vanished into her hair.
“That looks . . . problematic,” she ventured.
Ty laughed. “Nationally televised game in one hour? You think?”
“I have an extra pair.” Pace pulled open the locker. “Probably—”
“I can fix it.” Holly pulled her purse off her sho
ulder and began digging through its mysterious depths with one hand while gesturing to Pace for the pants with her other.
“Seriously,” he said. “I can just . . .” But he trailed off as she came up with a small sewing kit. “You sew?”
“Uh-huh. And I can also own property and vote. Want your pants