He was exactly where they’d left him, still staring up at the blinking lights. Had he moved at all?
She laid her hand on his forearm. “Greg?”
He started. “Let’s go.”
She wrangled Greg’s sports car through Phoenix traffic and, 45 minutes later, they sat side by side in a hospital waiting room. Greg was still not speaking to her—or anyone else, for that matter—but he held her hand. His fingers were warm and heavy atop hers, giving her some comfort.
It was relief she probably didn’t deserve. As Greg had pointed out, the home run derby had been her idea. Of course, she hadn’t instigated the rivalry between him and his father. She’d only noticed it. Capitalized on it.
Used it to your advantage.
Not to her advantage. The derby raised money for the Bartlesby Foundation. She’d done it for Greg and his father. And the thousands of underprivileged kids the Foundation helped.
Suddenly, Greg squeezed her fingers. “You okay, Jenn?”
She pasted on a smile. “I should be asking you that, don’t you think?”
“You were a million miles away.”
“You mean where you’ve been the last hour? Welcome back.”
His lips lifted in a half smile. “I’ve been a little…preoccupied.”
“Can’t say I blame you.” She searched his eyes. No anger or accusation in their depths now. Maybe playful Greg was back? She could only hope. The other guy was pretty insufferable, mainly because what he said was truer than she was ready to admit.
He didn’t say anything more, but Jenn’s heart was lighter. Her mood improved again when a nurse bustled up to them, a smile brightening her face.
“Mr. Bartlesby? Your father’s asking for you.”
Greg jumped up, but she remained in her seat. He held out his hand. “Aren’t you coming?”
“I figured you wanted some time alone with Jake. But if you want me to come with you—”
“I do. You’re mine for the rest of the day. Remember?”
She remembered their talk before breakfast. She just didn’t think he would. After the day’s events, he had other, much more important, things on his mind. She rose to her feet and they both followed the nurse to Jake’s room.
Through the glass in the door, she glimpsed him. The big man looked smaller somehow, propped up in a hospital bed with an IV snaking from his arm. His eyes were closed, but they fluttered open when the door swung into the room.
Beside her, Greg froze. His voice was a mere whisper. “Jenn, I can’t deal with this.”
“You can.” She squeezed his hand and nudged him forward. “You have to.”
Jake’s alert eyes bounced from her to his son to their joined hands. His face brightened. “That’s the lay of the land, is it?”
Greg’s chin raised a notch. “Yeah, Dad. It is.”
Jake looked at her, seemingly searching for something. “Two, I need a minute alone with Jenn.”
“I thought you wanted to talk to me.”
His untethered hand slashed the air. “In a minute. Now I want to speak with the young lady.”
Greg left the room, grumbling something that sounded like “crazy old goat,” and Jake chuckled. “Crazy like a fox, maybe.” Then he turned shrewd blue eyes on her. “Let me get right down to it: My son didn’t pressure you into anything, did he?”
“Of course not!” That he even had to ask made Jenn jumpy. Yet she hadn’t seen any sex crimes on Greg’s rap sheet. She’d remember that. “Does he have a habit of that sort of thing?”
Jake sighed. “I didn’t think so. But the intern who used to work for us thought differently.”
Suddenly, so much made sense. Jake’s reaction when he found them kissing in the gym… Greg’s careful deference and odd avoidance tactics in the office… She sank into the vacant chair beside the bed and patted Jake’s hand. “Your son has been nothing but professional with me during the workday.”
After hours was something else altogether, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Good, good.” He smiled. “I like you, Jenn.”
“I like you, too.”
“I think you’re good for Two.”
Jenn cringed. “He hates it when you call him that, you know.”
“I know. And he knows what he has to do to get me to stop.”
“Mind enlightening me?”
“A straight-shooter, huh?” Jake chuckled again. “Not at all. He has to grow up.”
“That’s all?” She bit down on a smile. To her, it sounded simple.
“That’s it. Greg’s a good kid, but that’s all he is. An overgrown, twenty-five-year-old kid, still spending too much time screwing around and getting in trouble.” Jake sighed. “I want him to be the man I know he can be—before I’m no longer here to see it.”
“About that…how is your health?”
“I’m here in the hospital. How do you think it is?”
Worse than she thought, apparently. “I’m sorry if the derby had anything to do with—”
“It didn’t.” Jake cut her off. “The doctors handed me a death sentence long before you came to me with the idea.”
Death sentence? Her heart plummeted. A man as strong and vital as Greg’s father couldn’t be dying, could he?
As if he sensed her dismay, Jake covered her hand with his. His voice was gentle. “Guide Greg into adulthood, darlin’. He’ll need you more than ever when I’m gone.”
The endearment that had grated so much the first time she’d met Jake now sounded bittersweet. Tears sprang to her eyes. “I’ll try, Jake.”
With that, she leapt up. She had to escape before he saw her weakness, because if he saw her cry, he’d know she was in no way capable of helping his son grow up. And, for some reason, she wanted him to believe in her. In Greg.
She pushed out of the room and brushed past a startled Greg, who was pacing the hallway. Before she fled for the safety of the ladies’ room, she managed to choke out, “Your father’s ready for you now.”
****
Why was Jenn running as if she were trying to beat the third baseman’s throw to home? Greg narrowed his eyes at Big Jake’s door. When he stormed into the room, his father sat up straight. The old man shot him a wide grin. He didn’t look at all like someone who’d just collapsed in a heap at home plate.
“What did you say to her?” he demanded.
His father waved. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Two.”
“I beg to differ. You make Jenn cry and you answer to me.”
Approval flashed in Big Jake’s eyes. But he still appeared unconcerned. “She got choked up when I told her I was dying. That’s all.”
Great. Between his asshole behavior at the diamond earlier and his dad’s revelation, Jenn would probably never want to see him again—let alone sleep with him. And that’d be a damn shame, because they had unfinished business. “You couldn’t have kept that info to yourself?”
“You don’t keep secrets from family, Son.”
“She’s not family.”
“Yet.”
Whoa. Wait a minute. He tried to stop Big Jake’s runaway imagination. “Jenn and I are just having fun.”
“If you believe that, you’re a bigger fool than I thought.”
Uh-oh. “Did she say anything to you?”
“About wanting to marry you and start having Bartlesby babies?” His father snorted. “Hardly. But one look at her and you know that girl’s in it for the long haul. She’s not the ‘have a little fun’ type.”
Greg doubted that. “Did you forget where I met her?”
“If she’s a stripper, I’m the pope.”
He dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “Nice to meet you, Your Holiness.”
“Open your damn eyes, Two.” Big Jake scowled. “Before it’s too late.”
As it often did where his father was concerned, Greg’s temper rose. He rocketed to his feet and then dropped into the seat beside the hospital bed. “I could say t
he same thing to you, Dad. You knew this damn derby would be too much for you. You should have begged off.”
“I just let myself get dehydrated. I should have been slugging electrolytes between rounds, but I was too damn grateful to be back in the game.” His voice softened. “It felt good, Greg. Real good.”
“Right up until you passed out.”
“Hey, now. I never lost consciousness.”
“Might as well have.” He fisted his hands. “Shit. Do you know how scared I was with you just sitting there, not answering me? Looking at me like you didn’t recognize me?”
“I’m sorry you were frightened. But you know what? There were times I didn’t recognize you. You looked good.” His lips curved. “You reminded me of me out there.”
“Getting addled in your old age, are you?”
Big Jake’s hand clamped over his forearm. “All joking aside, kid, it’s your time. You’re ready for the big league.”
Had his father sensed impending defeat and faked a collapse just to keep Greg from beating him? The strength in his grip certainly seemed to suggest it.
He quickly dismissed the notion. Big Jake was way too competitive to give up.
Wasn’t he?
“No, I didn’t fake it,” his father snapped. He gestured to the IV bag hanging over the bed. “You think I’d be in this damn hospital bed with a needle stuck in my arm if I was faking?”
“How did you—”
He rolled his eyes. “You’re not hard to read. Did you forget I was up by three runs?”
“Not for long, old man.” Greg smiled. It felt good to slip back into their customary pattern of antagonism. Comfortable. It was a relief not to be scared shitless. “I was about to annihilate you.”
“Keep dreamin’, kid. I’d have smoked you.”
“You wish.” He paused, let the testosterone filling the room simmer down. “Dad, did you mean it? You really think I’m ready?”
His father nodded. “If you can keep your nose clean.”
Not that again. His misguided past haunted him with alarming frequency. Greg gritted his teeth. “I can.”
“You know, I think you’re right. With Jenn on your team, you can do anything.”
His father’s laugh was the same warm rumble it had always been. Hard to believe he was dying. But today’s collapse didn’t lie. If Big Jake were healthy, he would have finished the derby—and probably kicked his ass.
Knowing he’d been headed for defeat and admitting it out loud were two different things, though. And he hoped to God his father never guessed the doubt he harbored about his ability to win.
“I’m an adult. I can keep my nose clean all by myself.”
Big Jake nodded again. “Sure you can. But wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to?” His father gripped his wrist. “Your mother saved me. She’s the one who convinced me to sober up. She encouraged me to use my name and money to help others. And she gave me you, Two. You’re the best part of me. And her.”
Greg’s throat swelled. He swallowed against the lump. “Dad, I—”
“That’s why it kills me to see you wasting time in the minors. Let me make some calls. Put a few feet to the fire. Let me see you in a Major League uniform before I die.”
His conscience piped up. What would it hurt?
What would it hurt? It’d be a blow to his sense of self-worth. Strike at the very core of his personality. At every step of his career, he’d tried to make a name for himself—independent of his father. That was why he’d started playing ball in high school as Greg Bartlesby rather than Jake Junior. Why he played first base and not third. Why he—stupidly—tried cocaine instead of just drinking hard. Thank God his arrest put an end to that moronic experiment.
If he let Dad start fighting his battles for him now, he’d be the entitled kid he’d always fought not to be. Riding his father’s coattails to fame and glory.
It killed him to deny what could well be a dying man’s last wish, but he just couldn’t let his father call in any favors with his career on the line. Not if he wanted to face himself in the mirror. He shook his head “no.”
Big Jake’s eyes fluttered closed and he sagged back against the pillows. Suddenly he looked much older than his 47 years. “I wish you’d let me help you.”
Tears welled up in Greg’s eyes, too. He raised his face to the ceiling and blinked to hold them at bay. When he could speak without losing his composure, he replied. “Better watch it, old man. If you make a habit of reducing all your visitors to tears, you’ll die alone.”
At that moment, as if some puppet-master with a sick sense of humor wanted to prove him wrong, the door whooshed open. A big-breasted redhead tottered into the room on too-high heels. A purple skirt barely covered her rear end, and her boobs threatened to spill out of her bright pink tank top.
“Jake, I just heard the news. Are you okay?”
Maree. His “stepmother,” who was barely old enough to be his older sister, deserved some credit. She at least looked concerned.
He pushed himself out of the chair, less in a sign of respect than to escape the sickeningly strong floral scent of her perfume. “Dad, I’ll leave you two alone. I want to go find Jenn.”
Maree waggled her fingers at him. “Bye-bye.”
He managed to wait until he left the room to roll his eyes. How could his father claim to love his mother and then marry that woman?
Jenn met him at the nurse’s station. Her eyebrows lifted. “Who was that?”
“My stepmother.”
“Jake’s married to her?”
“Sadly, yes. Before you ask me why, let me assure you I have no idea.” To circumvent any more discussion, he wrapped his arms around Jenn and buried his face in her neck. He breathed deeply of her spicy, citrus scent. It swept away Maree’s cloying floral perfume and the hospital’s antiseptic stink.
The scent made him long to find someplace private—someplace they could go to escape the day’s stresses. To outrun the reality that his father was, indeed, unwell. He wasn’t equipped to face that yet. Or ever. “Want to get out of here?”
“Will your father be okay?” She tipped her head up, her eyes scanning his face.
“She won’t off him, if that’s what you’re asking.” He sighed. “Strange as it might seem, I believe they really do love each other. I don’t know how or why, especially if you saw how she compares to my mom, but their relationship works. Doesn’t mean I have to like it—or her.”
“I can’t blame you. She dresses like a hooker.”
“Or a stripper.”
Jenn’s eyes clouded. “About that—”
He pressed his finger to her lips. “Don’t ever compare yourself to Maree.”
“But—”
Unwilling to hear her disparage herself, especially when she was a thousand times classier than his stepmother could even dream of being, he captured her lips for a kiss. Their mouths met and became one. With each stroke of his tongue, her body melted further into him. Afraid she might dissolve in a puddle on the floor, he pulled away. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Eleven
Numbly, Jenn nodded. As she followed Greg to the elevator, she struggled to remember what, exactly, she’d been trying to say before he’d distracted her with his wicked, wicked tongue.
Right. The stripper thing. She was a coward for not telling him the truth.
So why was it that she wanted to keep up the charade?
That was easy—she was having too much fun. Pretending to be her less-inhibited sister was allowing her to become more at home with herself. If that made any sense. The argument wouldn’t hold up in court, of course, but it didn’t have to. She believed, and that was all that mattered.
Besides, the tail end of an emotionally charged day that culminated in Jake’s hospitalization wasn’t a good time for full disclosure. A few more days or weeks wouldn’t hurt. A month, tops.
Chicken.
Pressure on her hand drew her attention away from her thoughts.
She started. “I’m sorry. Did you ask me something?”
“I’m flattered to have such an effect on you.” He grinned. “But I can do even better in private. So tell me where you parked my car so we can get back to my place.”
Even as she wondered how he could be thinking about anything but his father, his promise set her insides aquiver. “Garage.” She checked the note she’d made on her smartphone. “Level 4, Section B.”
Soon they were back in Greg’s living room. And, just like last night, he pulled out his phone. “I’m calling out for that pizza tonight. We’ll both need the energy for what I have in mind.”
Her mouth went dry, and she had to swallow a couple of times before she could choke out a reply. “Um…okay. But—”
“What?”
“Your dad is in the hospital.” Dying. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to entertain me.”
His features shuttered. “Dad’s fine.”
“He’s not fine, Greg. He’s terminal.” If he was trying to use her as a distraction, she could live with that.
“He’s not going anywhere soon. He’s dehydrated is all. Be right as rain in the morning. That’s straight from the horse’s mouth.”
Denial at its finest—from both of them. Apple, tree. Greg sounded like his father, talking in clichés like that. She bit back a smile. “You calling your father a horse?”
“Stubborn old mule is more like it. He’s too ornery to die.” Greg trailed his fingers along her arm, from her shoulder down. “You’re the only bright spot in what turned out to be a pretty crappy day.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that when you beat Matt.”
“Barely.” His hand stilled at her wrist, his thumb on her fluttering pulse. “And I couldn’t beat Dad, which was the whole point.”
She had to remind herself to breathe. “I thought the point was raising money for the Foundation.”
“That too.” His soft chuckle filled her heart with the same warmth his touch stirred in the rest of her. “But kicking my father’s ass would have been sweet.”
The words were confident, the look in his eyes anything but. She looked away so he didn’t realize she’d seen his doubt. “Sure it would have.”
Sliding Into Home Page 9