Scoring

by Kristin Hardy

  “You got to go where the jobs are in this business.” Stan swallowed. “Speaking of which, I hear there’s an opening for a batting coach at the Trenton club.”

  “New Jersey?” Mace hooked a peanut from a bag Stan handed him. “That’s the double A team, right?”

  “Yep. If you like what you’re doing, you oughtta put your name in the hat.”

  Mace cracked open the goober shell and popped a peanut into his mouth. “Oh yeah, I’ve always wanted to live in Jersey for half the year.”

  “As long as you’re in a ballpark, who cares where it is? Don’t be such a prima donna.” Stan crumpled up his hot dog wrapper. “Anyway, we can talk about all this later. Let’s watch the game and get dinner after. You up for it?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Becka replied.

  THEY SAT at a table in the bar of a local microbrewery that featured mid-1960s space-age decor in the form of tall, flowing room dividers, tables in swooping abstract shapes, and a freeform bar that Austin Powers would have found shagadelic. It was too hip for Becka’s taste, but it was one of the few places still serving dinner.

  The detritus of dinner had been cleared away, leaving only beer samplers, half-full cups of cappuccino, and dessert plates on the table.

  “So it’s about time you got yourself a woman, Duvall.” Stan leaned toward Becka. “For years, we used to have to read about the ladykiller, here, bagging all the babes.”

  “You can stop any time, Stan,” Mace said with a frown.

  “You kidding? I haven’t even gotten started yet. We see him on the news, all over the papers, Mr. Heartbreaker. And you know what? He’s doing nothing to earn it, nothing,” he said in disgust, one eye on Mace to gauge the effect of his razzing. “I was the one doing the hard work, going out to the parties and stuff. All Duvall did was work out and watch game tapes, but the minute he did a walk-on at a charity auction, they’d have him engaged to some gorgeous model or something.”

  Becka raised an eyebrow at Mace, who gave her an innocent shrug. “And here I was congratulating myself for trapping the playboy of western civilization,” she said in mock chagrin.

  Stan broke into laughter. “Him? He’s just got a good press agent. I’m the one you want, sweetie pie.”

  “Stop horning in on my date, you bandit.” Mace rose. “I’ll be back in a minute, and you’d better not have run off with her while I’m gone.”

  Becka watched him walk toward the rest rooms.

  “I don’t know, Becka, what do you think? You want to run off to Bermuda with me?”

  “Gee, Stan, what’s today?” She pretended to think. “Nope, can’t do it. I’ve got to wash my hair later,” she said, shaking her head in regret.

  “Just my luck, when Duvall finally gets involved he steals my one true love right out from under my nose.”

  “Or maybe he saved you from the wrong woman so that when Ms. Right comes along you’ll be available.”

  Stan squinted at her. “You think?”

  Becka nodded, fighting a smile.

  “Yeah, that Duvall, he’s one of the good ones,” Stan said, tapping his fingers to a rhythm only he could hear. “He came up about two years before I retired. He’s…I don’t know, he’s wired right. Solid. I really think he can go all the way with this coaching thing. He sees what’s going on under the surface with guys, understands how they work.”

  “He’s doing really well as a batting coach, Stan. Do you think he’ll try for the New Jersey job?” She struggled not to dwell on the fact that Trenton was five or six hours away from Lowell. It wasn’t like they had a future together. It wasn’t like they’d even seriously talked about the idea. Still, she couldn’t help worrying at the notion in her mind.

  “The Jersey job would be something permanent, and it’s a step up the ladder.” Stan shrugged. “Tough to say. I hope he at least thinks about it.”

  He looked up at the same time as Becka to see Mace walking out of the bathrooms and past the boomerang-like point of the space-age bar.

  Becka watched him come across the room. God, he was a beautiful man. It was no wonder the rumors flew about him, whether he’d earned the reputation or not. Certainly if Stan was to be believed, he hadn’t. Maybe what he’d told her all along was true, Becka thought.

  “Excuse me, are you by any chance Mace Duvall, the baseball player?” A woman stepped away from the bar to stop Mace a few feet away from their table.

  “What do you need?” he asked briefly.

  The woman unloaded a dazzlingly white smile. “I’m Amber. Amber Stewart.” She tossed her spill of long blond hair over one shoulder and put out her hand. Her dress was gold, one of those short, skimpy dresses that had always made Becka’s tomboy nature simultaneously envious and impatient.

  “Becka,” Stan said softly. “Ignore it. It doesn’t even register with him. I’ve seen it happen a hundred times. He just pats them on the head and sends them on their way.”

  She paid no heed to Stan, straining to hear what the woman said to Mace.

  “I thought it was you. I read that article about you last year in People. You’ve had a pretty interesting life.” Her smile invited him to tell her more.

  “It hasn’t been dull. Look, it was nice meeting you, but I need to get back to my friends.”

  “Wait,” she said a little desperately. “Are you in town for a visit? I can show you around. Just give me a call. We can go out for a drink.” With a bold stare, she licked her lips and tucked a slip of paper into his pocket.

  “Watch what happens now,” Stan said softly.

  Mace pulled the scrap of paper out of his pocket. “Amber, is it?”

  “Yes,” she said eagerly.

  “That’s a nice name. Thanks for the invitation, but I’m going to have to pass on it.” He handed her the paper. “Have a good night, now.” He touched her on the shoulder and gave her a smile that had her melting, then he walked away without a backward glance.

  Becka let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

  “Perfect technique, Duvall,” Stan said as Mace sat back down. “You poleax her and still leave her thinking you’re the nicest guy around. How do you do that, anyway?”

  “It’s a gift, Stan,” Mace said blandly. “It’s a gift.”

  SHE THOUGHT ABOUT IT the rest of the evening, waited to ask him about it until they were on the highway headed for home. “Those newspaper stories about you being involved with the beautiful people,” she said without preamble, “they’re really not true, are they?”

  Mace raised a hand in the air. “Hallelujah, brothers and sisters, she’s seen the light.”

  Becka made a face. “You don’t have to get smart about it.”

  “Hey, I’m just amazed, is all. You’re a hard one to convince.”

  “Cut me some slack, here. You know your reputation. It can’t be all that much of a shock to you that people believe it.”

  “No, but it’s kind of nice when my lover doesn’t.” The brightly lit Charles River Bridge was a fairyland tracery of gleaming cables on their left. Mace rested his hand on her thigh.

  Becka turned in her seat to see him. “So how did it happen? I mean, the rumors had to start somewhere.”

  He stared at the road, the highway lights strobing over his face. “It’s kind of a long story.”

  “We’ve got an hour’s drive. Tell me.”

  He reached out to adjust the air-conditioning and sighed. “Well, I went into the minors straight out of high school, and moved up pretty quick my first season. My parents were still farming, and my twin sisters were about twelve. Next year, I got invited to show up at spring training for the Atlanta club. They still started me out in the minors, at the triple A team in Richmond, but it meant they were taking a good, hard look at me. That was the season the major league club was having its worst year ever. I figured if I kept playing well, I might get a chance to get sent up to Atlanta at the end of the season, since they were so far out of contention.
<
br />   “Then I got a call one afternoon telling me about my dad.”

  Becka put a hand to his shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, searching to see his face in the shadows. “I know you still miss him.”

  Mace squeezed her thigh. “Yes, I do,” he said simply. “It kills me that he never saw me play. I’d have given anything for him to see me in the majors, just once. All the times he found a way to practice with me or to send me to baseball camps…” his voice trailed off. “I’d never have gone so far so fast without him.”

  “So what happened when you found out?”

  “I drove home. The team gave me a week off so I could help sort things out.” It was etched in his brain, that week. He’d faced merciless pitchers and batters who wanted to drill the ball right through his chest, but nothing had ever prepared him for the wild grief in his mother’s eyes, or for the news that the farm was in debt so deep that selling it would still leave them in the hole. Sitting in their attorney’s office, he had grown up in a matter of hours.

  “My sisters were still in junior high. My mom had never had a career beyond working on the farm. I figured I had to find a way to support us all.”

  “What did you do?”

  He blew out a breath. “Put the farm on the block. Got them in a house in town. Took draws on my credit cards and crossed my fingers that I’d get into the majors before the collectors came looking for me. Spent a lot of nights staring at the ceiling.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “The worst part was, I couldn’t really be there for them, you know? I had to play, at that point I had to, or we’d all have been sunk.”

  “What then?”

  “I got really lucky was what happened. They sent me up to the majors early in the season, right around the time I’d maxed out my credit cards. I even talked my agent into giving me a loan.”

  “And the happy ending?”

  He shook his head. “It still wasn’t enough. I had to pay for their place, my place. I could barely cover the interest on the farm debt.” He slowed down to take the interchange ramp onto the highway that ringed Boston. “I called Wally, my agent, and told him I needed a way to double or triple what I was making, and I needed it soon. He said it was easy—play my butt off, make rookie of the year, and he’d get me endorsements.”

  “Piece of cake,” she said dryly.

  Mace gave a short laugh. “Yeah.”

  “So what did you do?”

  She could see the gleam of his teeth as he grinned. “Played my ass off, made rookie of the year and went after the endorsements. Wally said I needed to be a household name, so when the off-season hit, he started setting me up as a walker. I remember the first one, some B-list starlet that I’ve never heard of since. Man, I’d never seen so many flashbulbs go off, not even when we won the Series that year. I guess agents liked the idea of their clients being seen with an athlete on their arm—looks good, but no competition, you know? So I started doing it a lot.”

  “And the reputation was born,” she said slowly.

  “Oh yeah. It wasn’t an accident. I worked for that tag,” he offered. “At least for a couple of years,” he added and lapsed into silence.

  “Why’d you stop?”

  “Huh? Oh, nothing much.” He shrugged. “Just one of those relationship things that told me I was way out of my league. By that time, I was on a new contract and I didn’t need the money anymore.”

  “But you’d created a monster.”

  “Yeah, but you know, I put a roof over the heads of my mom and my sisters. That was the important thing. What the papers say about me rolls off my back. My family knows not to believe it. The people that are important to me know not to believe it. Except you.”

  She flushed.

  “You were a damned hard sell. I wanted you from the moment I saw you, but every time I turned around, you were throwing headlines at me.”

  “How was I supposed to know? I figured you were just looking to stay in practice while you were in Lowell.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” He flicked on his blinker to change lanes. “I suppose you could have asked.”

  “Well, I’m asking now.”

  “What?”

  “Am I just the flavor of the month?”

  The corner of his mouth curved up. “You are pretty tasty, now that you mention it.”

  Becka punched him in the shoulder.

  “Hey, don’t take it so seriously.” He rubbed his shoulder as he drove. “I told you a couple of weeks ago, you’re the only woman I’m seeing. I like it that way. I like you.” He reached out to take her hand and held it in his lap.

  After a few moments, Becka stirred. “Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is?”

  “What, another bet?”

  “No.” Becka laughed. “Are you going to be around next Sunday?”

  “Unofficially, yeah. I get back that day. Why?”

  “A very dear friend of mine is getting married. I’m her maid of honor and I need an escort.”

  “And?”

  “And I figured with all your experience escorting the stars, you’d fit the bill.”

  He gave her a quick, sidelong glance. “Well, I’ll do it, but there is a price, you know. I don’t take on walker duties for free these days.”

  “Well, I’m a little strapped for cash,” Becka said, sliding her hand up his denimed thigh. “I don’t suppose you’d consider taking it out in trade, would you?” Her fingers danced up to unbuckle his belt.

  “Depends on what you have in mind.”

  She unbuttoned his jeans and found him already hard. “I thought an oral I.O.U. might do the trick,” she murmured as she bent over him.

  17

  THERE WAS SOMETHING magical about an outdoor wedding, Becka thought as she and Mace looked out at the grounds where Ryan and Cade’s vows would be held. A stately baroque palace lay nestled in the midst of immaculate formal gardens where flowers bloomed in a rainbow of colors to accent emerald green lawns and hedges. In the distance lay the skyline of Boston.

  “What is this place?” Mace asked.

  Becka turned to get her garment bag out of the Bronco. “It’s a private museum. The wedding’s in a sculpture garden out back. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” The sun shone benevolently out of an impossibly blue sky, dotted with puffs of clouds. Long pastel ribbons streamed from the line of tall stakes that led to the wedding area, evoking a feel of pageantry. “It’s perfect, everything’s perfect.” She leaned in to press an exuberant kiss on Mace. For long moments the grounds receded and she was only aware of his mouth on hers.

  Finally, she pulled away. “I’ve got to go in and find Ryan. Can you grab the cooler?”

  “Tell your friend she really did a nice job,” Mace said as they walked toward the museum building. “It looks great.”

  Becka nodded. “I’m sure her mother wishes it were a church wedding, but she’s learned to let it go. Mine, now, mine would be pitching a fit like you would not believe.” Becka rolled her eyes to the sky. “She drove my sister nuts when they were planning her wedding.” Their feet crunched in the gravel of the parking lot.

  “That explains it,” Mace said, nodding to himself.

  Becka gave him a suspicious glance. “Are you by any chance trying to say I’m a control freak?”

  “Not at all. It’s just that you have a certain very pronounced reaction to anyone else trying to call the shots.”

  “Well, when you grow up with it, it gets kind of old. Not that I don’t love my mom, but she can be like a velvet-covered tank. You’ll meet her today, you’ll see.”

  “Maybe she’s just trying to look out for what’s best for you,” he said reasonably. “Mothers do that, you know.” They stepped onto the walkway that led to the entrance.

  “I’m sure she means well, but I’m an adult now. If I don’t want to do something, I usually have a good reason.”

  Mace reached out an arm to scoop her in close. “A person could observe that you don’t a
lways know what’s best for you,” he said casually, nipping at her lower lip.

  “A person could, but if they valued their health, they might avoid it.” She pushed to get away from him.

  “A person could demonstrate it,” he countered, pulling her closer to press soft kisses on her temple.

  Becka squirmed against him and laughed. “Quit it or you’ll wrinkle my dress,” she said, holding the garment bag away from her. Mace didn’t respond, just nibbled his way across her jaw and under her chin. “I need to go inside,” she said with less conviction, but he merely continued. “I need…mmm,” she broke off, letting the magic of his touch take her away.

  “What was it you were going to say?” Mace asked, sucking on her earlobe.

  “Kiss me,” she sighed, curving her free hand around his neck. Pleasure seeped into her bones as he pressed his mouth on hers. What was she going to do when he left? She hadn’t a clue. His touch had become something she needed to live, like food, like water. Like air. For long minutes, her world was bounded by the pressure of his lips, the feel of his body, the clean crispness of his scent.

  “Becka?”

  The voice came from behind them. Becka jumped and turned to see Cade Douglas walking toward them.

  “Sorry to interrupt you, but could you go up and see Ryan? I think she’s a little nervous.”

  Actually, it was Cade who looked a wee bit nervous to Becka’s eagle eye as he bounced restlessly on his toes. Dressed in his tux, boutonniere blooming on his lapel, he looked like a model in some GQ spread on grooms.

  “Cade, this is Mace Duvall. Mace, this is Cade Douglas, the groom.” If Cade was GQ, Mace was more Esquire in cream linen slacks and a soft blue silk shirt under a wheat-colored jacket. Not as polished, Becka thought, but just her type.

  The two men shook hands. “You’re the baseball player, right?” Cade asked. “A buddy of mine is into fantasy baseball. He used to love having you on his team.”

  Mace grinned. “Happy to please.”