The Man For Me

by Gemma Bruce

  And she was sure Skinny hadn’t known that Tommy was in Gilbeytown. If he had, he would have sent a more seasoned reporter.

  She was sure his absence wasn’t drug related. Tommy was outspoken about his feelings on recreational drugs as well as on performance-enhancing steroids. Personal reasons could mean family reasons. And she did know that Tommy had grown up in Gilbeytown.

  She knew every recorded fact about his life, every stat of his career, every physical description ever written. Six-two, one hundred eighty-five pounds, blond hair, brown eyes. Affable, unflappable, and polite, he’d been compared to Mickey Mantle.

  He’d been her idol since she was in grammar school. She just hadn’t expected to see him here. This opportunity may have fallen into her lap, but she’d get a scoop that would make Skinny eat his words.

  J.T. didn’t like the idea of deceiving Tommy. She’d make it right before the night was over. But in the meantime…

  They stopped at a new model Beemer. Tommy beeped the doors open, but he hesitated before opening the passenger door for her.

  He leaned into her and she got a jolt of more than journalistic excitement. It started in her throat and went right down to her toes, hitting every good spot on the way. Oh yeah.

  She shivered.

  “Cold?” Tommy’s hand moved from J.T.’s back to her shoulders. He pulled her close. Her nipples, already hard from their brief encounter at the bar, hardened even more.

  She turned into him. She was playing with fire, but like the proverbial moth, she drew even closer, snuggled into him, and wriggled just enough to let him know she was interested.

  And boy was she interested. Never in her wildest dreams—

  His face moved close to hers.

  Too fast, she thought. She needed time to figure out how she was going to tell him she was a reporter, before it got too complicated.

  Tommy must have sensed her indecision. He moved away, reached across her to open the door, and managed to skim her breasts with his arm.

  Smooth move, she thought as her nipples tingled in response. Desire shot through her and heated the flesh between her legs.

  Well, she’d been thinking of having a light flirtation. And she couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather have it with. Even if she wasn’t being completely honest with him.

  Don’t worry about it. She’d stop before it got out of hand.

  It was too bizarre. She’d been innocently doing her job and gotten plastered across the front page of The Buzz. Now she was about to let Tommy B. seduce her and there wasn’t a cameraman in sight.

  Life was looking up.

  He helped her into the car, closed the door, and ran around to the driver’s side. He put the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it. Instead he leaned over and kissed her.

  It was quick, decisive, and sure, just like his pitching. Before she realized what was happening, she was kissing him back.

  His mouth was firm, warm. She parted her lips; his tongue slipped in and he changed the angle of his head to deepen the kiss.

  They were leaning across the car’s console. It was awkward, but J.T. hardly noticed. She just wanted to get closer, before she ended it. And it had to end…in a minute…or two.

  She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she took advantage of him. But his arm moved around her and his hand slid down her shoulders to her back. She leaned into him, raised her palm to his cheek, traced the edge of his jaw, the edge of his cheekbone, moved to his hair. She knew it was blond, but not how soft it would feel.

  They came up for air. Smiled into each other’s mouth, and went back in for more. His hand caressed her back, her side, then her ribs, setting her on fire.

  His mouth moved to her neck. His hand cupped her breast while his tongue licked across her collarbone and her fingers tangled in his hair.

  His fingers dipped inside the top of her T-shirt, pulled down the edge so he could nibble on the fullness there.

  “Jess,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she whispered back on a laugh.

  Tommy’s hands abruptly left her breast and found the hem of her shirt. He yanked it up and pressed his hand against her skin. His tongue played the edge of her lace bra and she began to rub against him. J.T. kissed the top of his head, the only part of him she could reach. His hand pushed her bra over her breast and closed around the weight of her.

  Her brothers always kidded her about her barely B cup, but none of her few lovers had complained. And it seemed to be enough for Tommy.

  His hand held the fullness of her breast while he bit lightly on the nipple. He groaned into her skin, and she moaned in response.

  In a minute, she reminded herself. Just a minute more. But his hand was roving again. Down her front, around to her hips, over her thighs, between her legs.

  He fumbled with the button at the top of her low riders. Pulled the zipper down.

  She shifted to give him more room and his fingers dipped beneath the elastic band of her thong. She closed her eyes and lifted her pelvis to meet his touch. His finger slid between the wet folds, perfectly, deliciously. She gasped as the pad of his finger brushed over the hard nub and waves of pleasure radiated to every nerve ending.

  His finger slid inside her and his mouth took hers again. This time demanding and unrelenting.

  She found the bulge of his erection and pressed her palm against the fabric of his chinos. He moaned into her mouth.

  And she knew she’d gone too far.

  She pulled her hand away, pulled his from her jeans. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t—I can’t. Not like this.” She pushed him away, grabbed her purse, and fumbled with the door handle until the door swung open.

  “Jess. Wait a minute.”

  She’d used her minute. And more.

  “I didn’t mean to go so fast.”

  She shook her head. She didn’t dare look at him. “Sorry.” She practically fell from the car, fumbled with her jeans, and before he could stop her, she was running across the road to the safety of the Night n Day.

  Chapter 3

  Tommy got out of the car and watched Jess run across the road. Man, what had happened to him? He never picked up women in bars. He didn’t feel up women in his front seat. Not in a long time, anyway. It was so low class.

  He hadn’t really meant to pick her up, just buy her a drink.

  Liar. If you’re thinking about condoms, you’re thinking of having sex.

  Instead what had he done? Mr. hot-stud-baseball-star had tried a little flirting and ended up making a total ass of himself.

  There was probably some clinical term for it. Regressive behavior. Sure. That’s what it was. An aberration. He was about to make a huge life change and his subconscious was rejecting it.

  Not good mental health, but what a hell of a few minutes.

  And he’d scared her.

  His brain suddenly focused on something else. She was going to the Night n Day. Jesus. Either she was a hooker or one of the player’s girlfriends, or worse, a wife. Those were the only reasons she’d be staying at the Night n Day.

  He dismissed the hooker theory. She was too high class for the Night n Day. And a hooker wouldn’t have stopped with a few kisses and a little heavy petting. Though it might have been better if she were a professional, because he’d almost poached on someone else’s territory.

  Almost? Hell, he had poached. He could only hope that he got called back to Portland before he had to face her. Or before she confessed to whoever she was living with. That’s all he needed.

  What was wrong with these baseball women? Never satisfied. Always on the lookout for someone better. Richer. More fun.

  Whoa. He wasn’t being fair. Not all the wives were like Cheryl Lynn. Just because he’d picked a real bloodsucker didn’t mean they all were.

  Well, he’d learned his lesson. And had a refresher course tonight. If he ever considered settling down again, he’d choose someone who had nothing to do with baseball, who had no ambition but to be a good wif
e and who wanted to stay home and raise the kids.

  Still. He couldn’t help but envy the lucky bastard who’d snagged Jess. Except, maybe he wasn’t so lucky. She’d let Tommy pick her up. She’d been wet and slick and ready. He could smell her on his fingers.

  He wiped them off on his slacks, got back in the car, and drove home.

  Most of the lights were out in the houses on Melrose Street. The porch light was on at his mother’s house. That meant they were either expecting him to drop in or Grace’s husband, Billy, had to work the night shift again. But Tommy drove past and found a parking space halfway down the block in front of the house he’d inherited from his grandfather.

  He’d tried to convince Grace and Billy to live there with the boys, but they’d refused. And instead chose to live with his mother until Billy finished his civil servant course and they could afford a house of their own. He’d offered his family everything from mansions to world cruises. But the Bainbridges were a stubborn lot. They didn’t take handouts, even from one of their own.

  He walked up the dark sidewalk to his front porch. He always expected to see Gran at the door even though she’d moved in with his mother years ago. She wanted him to have his own place when he visited. He could have bought a dozen places, but he thought he understood why she insisted that the house was his. She didn’t want to live there alone, but she didn’t want to lose it to someone who wasn’t a Bainbridge.

  So he would keep it. Always.

  And wasn’t he just the life of the party tonight?

  At least he was no longer thinking about his screw-up with the girl in the bar. He went inside, tossed his jacket over the old chintz easy chair, and climbed the stairs to bed.

  J.T. sat on the end of the bed, trying to ignore the less than savory brown shag carpet, the faded floral bedspread, and the semi-matching drapes. She was castigating herself for giving in to lust, for not being upfront with Tommy, for breaking it off too soon, for not even getting a scoop out of it.

  Her cheeks were tender from Tommy’s afternoon beard. Her lips were swollen, her underwear was uncomfortably damp, and she was alone in a fleabag motel.

  She could be rolling around in bed with Tommy B. right now, instead of looking at herself in a warped cloudy mirror. She could kick herself for her damn integrity.

  Well, she thought philosophically, if she couldn’t get laid, at least she might be able to get a story out of it. Not about the way Tommy B. kissed, but why he was here in the first place.

  She pushed herself off the bed, set up her laptop on the Formica desk, and hooked it up to the printer she always traveled with. She loved hard copy. She should have been born in the early days of printing.

  Harriett had said they were connected to the Internet, but J.T. didn’t have a cable. Fortunately, the bars of her Internet connection lit up. Someone close by had a wireless system.

  She began to surf the net for news of Tommy B.

  An hour later, she heard the players return to their rooms. Cars drove into the parking lot and cut their engines, and soon the motel was quiet and dark. The team was under curfew, but J.T. stayed up late into the night. She’d missed a lot of news on her three-day drive north.

  When she went to sleep sometime after midnight, she was loaded with news bulletins, conjectures, rumors, and down right gossip. The spokesman for the Galaxies may have denied that Tommy’s leave had anything to do with the contract negotiations with Daituri Isotori, but the press had been busy.

  The news was rife with speculation. The Galaxies wanted the Japanese pitcher. There was conjecture that they might be replacing Tommy B. on the starting lineup. No one knew his whereabouts. His agent had asked the press to respect his privacy. The team kept to its sound bite. It was a personal matter and Tommy would tell them what he wanted to when he returned.

  As far as J.T. knew, there were no other reporters in Gilbeytown. And the three messages Skinny had left on her cell hadn’t mentioned that he knew Tommy was here.

  She wouldn’t tell him, or anyone else, until she had the story. Whatever it was.

  Surely Tommy’s position on the team wasn’t in jeopardy. He’d injured his shoulder two seasons ago and underwent surgery. He missed the first part of last season, but he’d come back in spades during the last half. His fast ball wasn’t quite up to his old speed. That was only natural. Recovery took time. But he was accurate. And his curve was on the money.

  He must be pretty confident of his position on the team, if he could take a few days off. Or was Tommy B. really on his way out? There’d been some unsubstantiated rumors that this season would be Tommy B.’s swan song. But J.T. wouldn’t believe it.

  He was getting old; he’d turned thirty-six last November. But he had a few good years left. And he wouldn’t be looking to be traded now, would he?

  Hell, suddenly a standard contract negotiation took on all sorts of new dimensions. Talk about your in-depth human interest. Skinny would kill for a story like this.

  She was going to give it to him. Let him eat that for breakfast.

  So she would stay in this rundown fleabag, follow the un-drafted and the has-beens until it led her to Tommy’s real reason for being back in Gilbeytown. If it was some kind of family emergency, then she’d leave him in peace with it. But if it had anything to do with his contract, she’d weasel it out of him if she had to follow him into the shower to get the story.

  The picture that thought evoked gave her a thrill that she hadn’t even considered when she interviewed the two guys that ended up on the front page with her. She’d grown up in locker rooms, was practically one of the boys. She thought of the players like an extended family of big brothers. And they regarded her in the same way. That was the only reason they’d allowed her in for an interview. It had been totally innocent. And they’d all been bitten in the ass with it.

  Tommy B. was something else altogether. Definitely not a big brother. His touch had sent her over to the wild side. But there would be no more of that. If she got too close to him, she might forget that he could be her meal ticket back to the “show.”

  J.T. closed her laptop and climbed into bed. At least the mattress was firm. Small favors. She snuggled under the covers vowing not to dream about Tommy Bainbridge. Tomorrow she’d hit Gilbey Field. Ask questions. Then she’d nose out Tommy’s whereabouts. And, she thought, kicking off the scratchy bedspread, she’d go to the mall and buy a new comforter.

  She smiled. She’d missed what she knew in her heart would have been a memorable night with Tommy B. But she had something better. A story. She was jumped. She was jazzed. She was going for the jugular. Two minutes later she was fast asleep.

  J.T. awoke to the sound of cars pulling out of the parking lot. She’d forgotten to set her alarm. It was after nine. She jumped in the shower, dressed, grabbed her Yankees jacket, and was in the car headed back toward town by nine fifteen.

  She stopped at the 7-Eleven for coffee and a package of Ding Dongs and asked directions.

  On the far side of downtown she found the ballpark.

  So much for men and directions. The kid at the 7-Eleven had said it would be on her left. It was on the right.

  It had several fields, state-of-the-art night-lights, a clubhouse, and a row of buildings that looked like concession stands. The whole complex was brand spanking new.

  Pretty impressive.

  Then she saw the sign. Gilbeytown Little League.

  Wow. If the kids’ fields looked like this, she couldn’t imagine what the professional park looked like. With this kind of money, she was surprised that they weren’t carrying a double-or triple-A team instead of an indie named the Beavers.

  A block past the little league field, the town turned into a warren of narrow streets and cramped houses, all sitting in the shadow of a giant brick building. The windows were boarded over. Four unused smokestacks rose from behind a shallow roof.

  The abandoned steel mill. Which explained the derelict look of the town but not the fancy little leagu
e fields. The people who lived in these houses couldn’t afford those kind of taxes.

  The money must be coming from the influx of the commuters who lived in the planned communities at the edge of town. Because the rest of Gilbeytown looked like it was on its last legs.

  And then she saw it. On her left where it was supposed to be. An octagonal wooden baseball stadium, not even on its last legs, but sort of squatting on a cracked and potholed parking lot.

  An arched sign spanned the entrance to the parking lot. GILBEY FIELD.

  J.T. slowed down. Blinked. Surely this was the old stadium. But where was the new one? Beyond the houses and the factory building, foothills climbed into the mountains beyond. The only other flat section of land was the little league field.

  There were a number of cars in the parking lot. She’d just stop in and ask for directions. Again.

  She swung the Mustang into the lot. Four cars were lined up in front of what had once been the press room or possibly the clubhouse. The roof looked like it was about to slide to the ground, and if it did, it would bury the cars parked alongside.

  There were a variety of trucks, cars, and SUVs lined up across a row of marked spaces. And two black sedans parked at the front of a double entrance door. J.T. pulled the Mustang into a slot a few spaces down from a white SUV just as several men in suits came through the door, two Hispanic men between them.

  Something was going down. She reached for her notebook and pen and jumped out of the car.

  By the time she reached the entrance, the two Hispanics had been pushed into the backseat of one of the sedans. Two of the suits climbed into the front and they drove away.