Rules of the Game

by Nora Roberts

  overlooking them because of the importance of the de Marco account and Parks Jones. In either case, Brooke determined to keep an eye on her friend, and the agent. It wasn’t unheard-of for a woman approaching fifty to be naive of men and therefore susceptible.

  If she were to be truthful, Brooke would have to admit she enjoyed watching Parks. There was no doubt he was in his element in the field, eyes shaded by a cap, glove in his hand. Just as he had been in his element, she remembered, at the glossy party at the de Marco villa. He hadn’t seemed out of place in the midst of ostentatious wealth, sipping vintage champagne or handling cocktail party conversation. And why should he? she mused. After their last encounter, Brooke had made it her business to find out more about him.

  He’d come from money. Big money. Parkinson Chemicals was a third-generation, multimillion-dollar conglomerate that dealt in everything from aspirin to rocket fuel. He’d been born with a silver spoon in one hand and a fat portfolio in the other. His two sisters had married well, one to a restauranteur who had been her business partner before he became her husband, the other to a vice president of Parkinson attached to the Dallas branch. But the heir to Parkinson, the man who carried the old family name in front of the less unique Jones, had had a love affair with baseball.

  The love affair hadn’t diminished during his studies at Oxford under a Rhodes scholarship; it had simply been postponed. When Parks had graduated, he’d gone straight to the Kings’ training camp—Brooke had to wonder how his family had felt about that—and there had been drafted. After less than a year on the Kings’ farm team, he’d been brought up to the majors. There he had remained, for a decade.

  So he didn’t play for the money, Brooke mused, but because he enjoyed the game. Perhaps that was why he played with such style and steadiness.

  She remembered, too, her impressions of him at the de Marcoses’—charming, then ruthless, then casually friendly. And none of it, Brooke concluded, was an act. Above all else, Parks Jones was in complete control, on or off the diamond. Brooke respected that, related to it, while she couldn’t help wondering how the two of them would juggle their need to be in charge when they began to work together. If nothing else, she mused as she crunched down on a piece of ice, it would be an interesting association.

  Brooke watched him now as he stood on the bag at second while the opposing team brought out a relief pitcher. Parks had started off the seventh inning with a leadoff single, then had advanced to second when the next batter walked. Brooke could feel the adrenaline of the crowd pulsing while Parks talked idly with the second baseman.

  “If they take this one,” Lee was saying, “the Kings lock up the division.” He slipped his hand over Claire’s. “We need these runs.”

  “Why did they change pitchers?” Brooke demanded. She thought of how furious she would be if someone pulled her off a job before it was finished.

  “There’s two on and nobody out.” Lee gave her an easy paternal smile. “Mitchell was slowing down—he’d walked two last inning and was only saved from having runs score by that rifle shot the center fielder sent home.” Reaching in his shirt pocket, he brought out a cigar in a thin protective tube. “I think you’ll see the Kings going to the bullpen in the eighth.”

  “I wouldn’t switch cameramen in the middle of a shoot,” Brooke mumbled.

  “You would if he couldn’t focus the lens anymore,” Lee countered, grinning at her.

  With a laugh, Brooke dove her hand into the bag of peanuts he offered her. “Yeah, I guess I would.”

  The strategy proved successful, as the relief man shut down the next three batters, leaving Parks and his teammate stranded on base. The crowds groaned, swore at the umpire and berated the batters.

  “Now there’s sportsmanship,” Brooke observed, casting a look over her shoulder when someone called the batter, who struck out to end the inning, a bum—and other less kind names.

  Lee gave a snort of laughter as he draped his arm casually over Claire’s shoulders. “You should hear them when we’re losing, kid.”

  The lifted-brow look Brooke gave Claire at the gesture was returned blandly. “Enthusiasm comes in all forms,” Claire observed. With a smile for Lee, she settled back against his arm to watch the top of the next inning.

  Definitely an odd couple, Brooke mused; then she assumed her habitual position of elbows on rail. Parks didn’t glance her way. He had only once—at the beginning of the game when he took the field. The look had been long and direct before he had turned away, and since then it was as though he wasn’t even aware of her. She hated to admit it irked her, hated to admit that she would have liked to engage in that silent battle of eye to eye. He was the first man she wanted to spar with, though she had sparred with many since her first naive encounter ten years before. There was something exciting in the mind game, particularly since Parks had a mind she both envied and admired.

  Lee was on target, as the Kings went to the bullpen when the starting pitcher walked two with one man out. Brooke shifted closer to the edge of her seat to watch Parks during the transition. What does he think about out there? she wondered.

  God, what I wouldn’t give for a cold shower and a gallon of beer, Parks thought as the sun beat down on the back of his neck. He’d been expecting the change of pitchers and was pleased with the choice. Ripley did well what a reliever was there to do—throw hard and fast. He gave a seemingly idle glance toward the runner at second. That could be trouble, he reflected, doing a quick mental recall of his opponent’s statistics. The ability to retain and call out facts had always come naturally to Parks. And not just batting averages and stolen bases. Basically, he only forgot what he wanted to forget. The rest was stockpiled, waiting until he needed it. The trick had alternately fascinated and infuriated his family and friends, so that he generally kept it to himself. At the moment, he could remember Ripley’s earned-run average, his win-loss ratio, the batting average of the man waiting to step into the batter’s box and the scent of Brooke’s perfume.

  He hadn’t forgotten that she was sitting a few yards away. The awareness of her kindled inside of him—a not quite pleasant sensation. It was more of an insistent pressure, like the heat of the sun on the back of his neck. It was another reason he longed for a cool shower. Watching Ripley throw his warm-up pitches to the catcher, Parks allowed himself to imagine what it would be like to undress her—slowly—in the daylight, just before her body went from limp surrender to throbbing excitement. Soon, he promised himself; then he forced Brooke to the back of his mind as the batter stepped up to the plate.

  Ripley blew the first one by the batter—hard and straight. Parks knew that Ripley didn’t throw any fancy pitches, just the fast ball and the curve. He was either going to overpower the hitters, or with the lineup of right-handers coming up, Parks was going to be very busy. He positioned himself another step back on the grass, going by instinct. He noted the base runner had a fat lead as the batter chipped the next pitch off. The runner was nearly at third before the foul was called. Ripley looked back over his shoulder at second, slid his eyes to first, then fired the next pitch.

  It was hit hard, smashing into the dirt in front of third then bouncing high. There was never any opportunity to think, only to act. Parks leaped, just managing to snag the ball. The runner was coming into third in a headfirst slide. Parks didn’t have the time to admire his guts before he tagged the base seconds before the runner’s hand grabbed it. He heard the third base ump bellow, “Out!” as he vaulted over the runner and fired the ball at the first baseman.

  While the crowd went into a frenzy, Brooke remained seated and watched. She didn’t even notice that Lee had given Claire a resounding, exuberant kiss. The double play had taken only seconds—that impressed her. It also disconcerted her to discover that her pulse was racing. If she closed her eyes, she could still hear the cheers from the fans, smell the scent of sun-warmed beer and see, in slow motion, the strong, sweeping moves of Parks’s body. She didn’t need an instant re
play to visualize the leap and stretch, the shifting of muscle. She knew a ballplayer had to be agile and quick, but how many of them had that dancerlike grace? Brooke caught herself making a mental note to bring a camera to the next game, then realized she had already decided to come back again. Was it Parks, she brooded, or baseball that was luring her back?

  “He’s something, isn’t he?” Lee leaned over Claire to give Brooke a slap on the back.

  “Something,” Brooke murmured. She turned her head enough to look at him. “Was that a routine play?”

  Lee snorted. “If you’ve got ice water for blood.”

  “Does he?”

  As he drew on a cigar, Lee seemed to consider it. He gave Brooke a long, steady look. “On the field,” he stated with a nod. “Parks is one of the most controlled, disciplined men I know. Of course—” the look broke with his quick smile “—I handle a lot of actors.”

  “Bless them,” Claire said and crossed her short, slim legs. “I believe we all agree that we hope Parks takes to this, ah, alternate career with as much energy as he shows in his baseball.”

  “If he has ten percent of this skill—” Brooke gestured toward the field “—in front of the camera, I’ll be able to work with him.”

  “I think you’ll be surprised,” Lee commented dryly, “at just what Parks is capable of.”

  With a shrug, Brooke leaned on the rail again. “We’ll see if he can take direction.”

  Brooke waited, with the tension of the crowd seeping into her, as the game went into the bottom of the ninth inning. Still tied 1-1, neither team seemed able to break through the defensive skill of the other. It should have been boring, she mused, even tedious. But she was on the edge of her seat and her pulse was still humming. She wanted them to win. With a kind of guilty surprise, Brooke caught herself just before she shouted at the plate umpire for calling strike three on the leadoff batter. It’s just the atmosphere, she told herself with a frown. She’d always been a sucker for atmosphere. But when the second batter came up, she found herself gripping the rail, willing him to get a hit.

  “This might go into extra innings,” Lee commented.

  “There’s only one out,” Brooke snapped, not bothering to turn around. She didn’t see the quick grin Lee cast at Claire.

  On a three-and-two pitch, the batter hit a bloop single to center. Around Brooke, the fans went berserk. He might have hit a home run from the way they’re reacting, she thought, trying to ignore the fast pumping of her own blood. This time Brooke said nothing as the pitcher was pulled. How do they stand the tension? she wondered, watching the apparently relaxed players as the new relief warmed up. Base runners talked idly with the opposition. She thought that if she were in competition, she wouldn’t be so friendly with the enemy.

  The crowd settled down to a hum that became a communal shout with every pitch thrown. The batter hit one deep, so deep Brooke was amazed at the speed with which the right fielder returned it to the infield.

  The batter was content with a single, but the base runner had eaten up the distance to third with the kind of gritty speed Brooke admired.

  Now the crowd didn’t quiet, but kept up a continual howl that echoed and reverberated as Parks came to bat. The pressure, Brooke thought, must be almost unbearable. Yet nothing showed in his face but that dangerous kind of concentration she’d seen once or twice before. She swallowed, aware that her heart was hammering in her throat. Ridiculous, she told herself once, then surrendered.

  “Come on, damn it,” she muttered, “smack one out of here.”

  He took the first pitch, a slow curve that just missed the corner. The breath that she’d been holding trembled out. The next he cut at, fouling it back hard against the window of the press box. Brooke clamped down on her bottom lip and mentally uttered a stream of curses. Parks coolly held up a hand for time, then bent to tie his shoe. The stadium echoed with his name. As if deaf to the yells, he stepped back into the box to take up his stance.

  He hit it high and deep. Brooke was certain it was a repeat of his performance in her first game, then she saw the ball begin to drop just short of the fence.

  “He’s going to tag up. He’ll tag up!” she heard Lee shouting as the center fielder caught Parks’s fly at the warning track. Before Brooke could swear, the fans were shouting, not in fury but in delight. The moment the runner crossed the plate, players from the Kings’ dugout swarmed out on the field.

  “But Parks is out,” Brooke said indignantly.

  “The sacrifice fly scored the run,” Lee explained.

  Brooke gave him a haughty look. “I realize that—” only because she had crammed a few basic rules into her head “—but it hardly seems fair that Parks is out.”

  Chuckling, Lee patted her head. “He earned another RBI and the fleeting gratitude of a stadium full of Kings fans. He was one for three today, so his average won’t suffer much.”

  “Brooke doesn’t think much of rules,” Claire put in, rising.

  “Because they’re usually made up by people who don’t have the least idea what they’re doing.” A little annoyed with herself for becoming so involved, she stood, swinging her canvas bag over her shoulder.

  “I don’t know if Parks would agree with you,” Lee told her. “He’s lived by the rules for most of his life. Gets to be a habit.”

  “To each his own,” she said casually. She wondered if Lee was aware that Parks was also a man who could seduce and half undress a woman behind the fragile covering of a rock wall in the middle of a crowded, glitzy Hollywood party. It seemed to her Parks was more a man who made up his own rules.

  “Why don’t we go down to the locker room and congratulate him?” Genially, he hooked his arms through Claire’s and Brooke’s, steamrolling them through the still cheering crowd.

  Lee worked his way into the stadium’s inner sanctum with a combination of panache and clout. Reporters were swarming, carrying microphones, cameras or notepads. Each one was badgering or flattering a sweaty athlete in the attempt to get a quote. In the closed-in area, Brooke considered the noise level to be every bit as high as it had been in the open stadium. Lockers slammed, shouts reverberated, laughter flowed in a kind of giddy relief. Each man knew the tension would return soon enough during the play-offs. They were going to enjoy the victory of the moment to its fullest.

  “Yeah, if I hadn’t saved Biggs from an error in the seventh inning,” the first baseman told a reporter, deadpan, “it might have been a whole different ball game.”

  Biggs, the shortstop, retaliated by heaving a damp towel at his teammate. “Snyder can’t catch a ball unless it drops into his mitt. The rest of us make him look good.”

  “I’ve saved Parks from fifty-three errors this season,” Snyder went on blandly, drawing the sweaty towel from his face. “Guess his arm must be going. Thing is, some of the hitters are so good they just keep smacking the ball right into Parks’s mitt. If you watch the replay of today’s game, you’ll see what fantastic aim they have.” Someone dumped a bucket of water on his head, but Snyder continued without breaking rhythm. “You might notice how well I place the ball in the right fielder’s mitt. That takes more practice.”

  Brooke spotted Parks, surrounded by reporters. His uniform was filthy, streaked with dirt, while his face fared little better. The smudges of black under his eyes gave him a slightly wicked look. Without the cap his hair curled freely, darkened with sweat. But his face and body were relaxed. A smile lingered on his lips as he spoke. That battlefield intensity was gone from his eyes, she noted, as if it had never existed. If she hadn’t seen it, hadn’t experienced it from him, Brooke would have sworn the man wasn’t capable of any form of ruthlessness. Yet he was, she reminded herself, and it wouldn’t be smart to forget it.

  “With only four games left in the regular season,” Parks stated, “I’ll be satisfied to end up with a three eighty-seven average for the year.”

  “If you bat five hundred in those last games—”

  Parks sho
t the reporter a mild grin. “We’ll have to see about that.”

  “A little wind out there today and that game-winning sacrifice fly would’ve been a game-winning home run.”

  “That’s the breaks.”

  “What was the pitch?”

  “Inside curve,” he responded easily. “A little high.”

  “Were you trying for a four-bagger, Parks?”

  He grinned again, his expression altering only slightly when he spotted Brooke. “With one out and runners on the corners, I just wanted to keep the ball off the ground. Anything deep, and Kinjinsky scores . . . unless he wants the Lead Foot Award.”

  “Lead Foot Award?”

  “Ask Snyder,” Parks suggested. “He’s the current holder.” With another smile, Parks effectively eased himself away. “Lee.” He nodded to his agent while running a casual finger down Brooke’s arm. She felt the shock waves race through her, and only barely managed not to jerk away. “Ms. Thorton. Nice to see you again.” His only greeting to Brooke was a slow smile as he caught the tip of her hair between his thumb and forefinger. She thought again it was wise to remember he wasn’t as safe as he appeared.

  “Hell of a game, Parks,” Lee announced. “You gave us an entertaining afternoon.”

  “We aim to please,” he murmured, still looking at Brooke.

  “Claire and I are going out to dinner. Perhaps you and Brooke would like to join us?”

  Before Brooke could register surprise at Claire having a date with Lee Dutton, or formulate an excuse against making it a foursome, Parks spoke up. “Sorry, Brooke and I have plans.”

  Turning her head, she shot Parks a narrowed look. “I don’t recall our making any plans.”

  Smiling, he gave her a brief tug. “You’ll have to learn to write things down. Why don’t you just wait in your box? I’ll be out in half an hour.” Without giving her a chance to protest, Parks strolled off toward the showers.

  “What incredible nerve,” Brooke grumbled, only to be given a sharp but discreet elbow in the ribs by Claire.

  “Sorry you can’t join us, dear,” she said sweetly. “But then you’re not fond of Chinese food in any case. And Lee’s going to show me his collection first.”

  “Collection?” Brooke repeated blankly as she was steered into the narrow corridor.

  “We’ve a mutual passion.” Claire gave Lee a quick and surprisingly flirtatious smile. “For Oriental art. Can you find your way back to the seats?”

  “I’m not a complete dolt,” Brooke muttered, while giving Lee a skeptical stare.