Curveball (The Philadelphia Patriots)

by Sykes, V. K.

  But she gave Ryan full marks for recognizing the inevitable and accepting it with more grace than most players in the same boat would have shown. The guy sensed—no, he knew—he was about to be dumped by the team he loved, and yet apparently held little if any bitterness against the Hornets. He simply wanted to move on to a team where he could use his remaining talents to keep playing the game he loved for as long as he possibly could. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, he’d made it brutally clear that he needed an American League team. One in this part of the country, so he could stay in close touch with his daughter.

  His daughter.

  What a heart-wrenching story. Taylor couldn’t even imagine how she would have coped at barely seven years old if her own mother had said sayonara and hopped on a plane to Mexico with her lover. What mother could do that? Ryan had said that his ex-wife had been unable to cope with the demands of a ballplayer’s wife, but Taylor didn’t buy that kind of sob story. She felt precious little sympathy for a woman like that.

  She couldn’t help comparing Ryan’s ex with her own mom, because Bridget Page had coped with a lot worse, after all, in a baseball family. A minor league player and then a scout, Taylor’s father had spent decades travelling all over the country, away much more than he was home. And yet Mom and Dad had always seemed happy to her in their marriage. Families coped with the demands of the job. That was always how it had been in baseball. You did what you had to do, and you stayed loyal.

  While his ex might be lacking in courage, Ryan clearly wasn’t. Not only had he coped with the demands of single parenthood while trying to succeed in the brutally competitive sports world, he’d managed a troubled daughter who had put both herself and her dad through the wringer. The man had character to go along with those devastating good looks and elite athletic talent.

  No wonder she felt so attracted to him.

  With a start, Taylor looked down at her yellow writing pad. Lost in those thoughts about last night, she’d doodled “Ryan Locke” and “1B” over and over again, each time inserting a question mark. She blushed but told herself it was all about the question of whether she could acquire him for the Patriots, and not because of some developing schoolgirl-type crush. It was all business, and it would stay that way.

  And the question did remain huge in her mind because last night hadn’t brought her even a small step closer to knowing whether he’d accept a trade to the Patriots, much less a forced move to first base. At this point, though, it wasn’t looking good.

  From the moment Ryan gallantly walked her out of the bar last night and waited for her cab to arrive, she’d thought about little else but what the impact of a trade to the Patriots might be on him. The one clearly good outcome was that it would allow him to be even closer to his daughter, only about a two hour drive away. From that point of view, the Patriots would be the best solution for him other than the Yankees.

  But it would all come down to whether he would agree to make the switch to first base. That transition wouldn’t be easy. His battered body would have to be able to stand up to the rigors of playing nine innings in the field, six or even seven days a week.

  Taylor looked up from her doodling as Dembinski came to a halt at her open door, a super-sized cup of something from Starbucks in his big paw. “Let’s talk. My office.”

  “Be right there, Dave.” And good morning to you, too. She grabbed her laptop and her cup of coffee and hustled after him.

  She followed the GM into his office—only somewhat less cramped and dreary than her cubbyhole—and sat down on the small sofa that took up a whole cinder block wall. The institutional green of the office reminded her of a hospital, and she wondered yet again if she’d ever have the nerve to suggest to Dembinski that the team spring for a paint job in a more upbeat color scheme.

  As Taylor put her laptop on the coffee table and flipped it open, Dembinski thumped down into his chair, a threadbare armchair in a dull gray fabric that managed to hide most of the stains from spilled coffee and booze.

  “I’ve got nothing,” he said after pounding back a big slurp and wiping the back of his hand across his lips. “Nada. There’s just nobody out there who we can get at a price we can live with. They either want the moon for a decent regular, or they want to unload marginal guys like Cruz. Hell, we’ve already got a Cruz. We need a guy who can swing a bat and get on base.”

  A perfect opening. Taylor wanted to smile but didn’t. Dembinski was good and pissed after his phone calls, and he wouldn’t take kindly to her grinning at him. “Exactly. And I think I’ve found the right guy, Dave.” She slid her finger over the laptop’s track pad, brought up the spreadsheet she wanted, and then turned the computer around to show him the screen. “Check out those numbers.”

  A frown almost pinched the GM’s heavy brows together. “Who is it?” he said as he scanned the rows and columns.

  “Let the numbers speak for themselves first, okay?” Taylor tried to keep a little quaver out of her voice.

  After giving her a quizzical look, he shrugged and zeroed in on the screen. “The power numbers are lower than what I’ve been looking for, but all the rest of the stats are fine. More than fine, actually. Jesus, I don’t even understand all these weird stats, but I guess that’s what I’ve got you for.” He looked back up at her with some semblance of a smile. “Where are the defensive stats, though? On another spreadsheet?”

  Taylor forced a small smile as she shook her head. “There aren’t any.”

  Another deep frown. “Taylor, what the fuck?”

  “There aren’t any fielding stats, Dave, because the guy’s never played a game at first in his life. But do we care?”

  He hesitated, then slowly nodded. “Okay, it wouldn’t be the first time a guy’s converted. Still, I don’t like the fact that he’s never even played one game there.”

  “It’s Ryan Locke,” she said before he could continue. “The Hornets are putting him on the market officially today—I just checked that with Joe Ridge. I was sure they were showcasing him yesterday, so I asked Joe about it after the game.”

  When he shot her a glare, she held up a hand. “You know he and I have been friends for years. I just mentioned Locke’s situation and he opened up.” It was a small, harmless lie.

  Dembinski picked up his coffee cup and leaned back in his chair, legs spread wide apart in the way men did when they wanted to assert their masculinity. His eyes betrayed both fatigue and something she couldn’t quite fully identify. Suspicion or skepticism, perhaps.

  “Well, I wanted you to think outside the box,” he said. “And I’m not surprised that Ridge is looking to move Locke. Not with that Swain kid breathing down Locke’s neck.”

  When he paused, Taylor decided to remain silent. Dembinski was obviously working the idea through in his head, maybe even already calculating what it might take to pry Locke away from the Hornets.

  “I can see why you’d think this might be a nice option,” he continued, “but there’s an obvious problem.”

  Taylor swallowed hard. Damn. “Other than the fact that he’s never played first?” she asked tentatively. But she knew where Dembinski was going with this.

  “Yeah. The guy can’t throw worth shit anymore, and he’s slow as a goddamn snail on Valium.”

  Dembinski’s hard look challenged her to disagree.

  Taylor didn’t hesitate. “You’re right on both counts. But it’s not like we have a full deck of options, right? The way I look at it, Locke can get on base, can hit for some power, and still has a reliable glove. He can cover enough ground at first to do a decent job defensively, and we can live with some throwing errors, given his other numbers.”

  Though Dembinski gave a non-committal shrug, Taylor sensed that he seemed to be warming to the idea. She moved in to try for a clincher. “Dave, from what I’ve seen of Locke this spring, the guy’s still got fire in his gut. He’s a team player, a character player. We can use a guy like him in our clubhouse. He could act as a veteran leader on t
his team, just like Jake Miller and Nate Carter.”

  “Maybe,” Dembinski said. “In any case, you’re right about our options. And Locke’s still solid at the plate.” He swigged down another mouthful of coffee and said, “Let’s toss your idea around at our meeting with the scouts tomorrow. Get their take on it.”

  Double damn. While part of her was relieved that he hadn’t blown off her idea, she didn’t relish the thought of trying to convince a gaggle of skeptical, innately conservative scouts. Especially since it wasn’t necessary. In the end, Dembinski would do what he wanted, regardless of what the pack recommended. That was his style, and she heartily approved.

  But he’d clearly intended to challenge her with another one of the tests he’d been setting for her, so she’d just have to do her best and let the chips fall. But a day’s delay sucked.

  “Sure, I’ll run up a presentation. I’m just a little concerned that the Hornets could trade Locke before we get a chance to even stick our foot in the door. You know there are likely to be some AL teams that see Locke as a DH option.”

  Dembinski nodded. “No doubt, but I can cover that. I’ll give Ridge a call today and tell him we might be interested in Locke if he’s available. Just give him an expression of interest. That way we’ll be on his radar screen, so he won’t do anything final until he hears from me again.”

  Knowing Joe Ridge, Taylor might have disagreed with Dembinski’s optimism on that score, except for the fact that she’d pretty much told Joe that if the Patriots decided to make an offer for Locke, it would be a good one.

  Taylor gave him an enthusiastic smile. “Great idea, boss.”

  * * *

  RYAN LET THE hot water sluice over his body, flexing and stretching his tired, aching muscles. He hadn’t been the first player to hit the showers but he was damn well going to be the last one out. He was in more than a little pain but a few ibuprofen usually took the edge off. Not today, unfortunately.

  For the second day in a row, his manager had left him in for the full nine innings. Ryan might as well have had a neon sign stuck to his body saying available because the message to him and everybody else with an IQ of at least double digits had been brutally clear. Any shred of doubt that he was about to face a fork in the road had evaporated.

  Not that anybody on the team would ever mention that he was about to get the heave-ho. Players thought that kind of a thing was a jinx, and guys in his position weren’t looking for expressions of sympathy, anyway. But they knew and it made them uncomfortable.

  See you at some other team’s park, Ryan, old buddy. It’s been a blast.

  At least he’d had a good day. One for three at the plate plus a walk, one run scored and, thankfully, no errors. The miscue-free day was more the result of his not being required to make any tough throws than to any improvement in his arm.

  But if there was a true bright spot, it had been the charged looks Taylor Page had sent his way when she studied him again during the Hornets’ turn in the batting cage. Unless he’d suddenly lost his ability to read a woman’s look, those lengthy glances had conveyed more than professional interest in him, and he hadn’t hesitated to give her a couple of careful smiles in return. He worried a little that his teammates might wonder what was going on, but they all seemed to be concentrating on the field, too wrapped up in their warm-up routines to notice.

  For today’s game, Taylor had dressed in total executive mode, not like the hottie he’d met in the bar last night. Oh, she was still hot, all right—frigging lava exploding out of a volcano hot—but her outfit this afternoon couldn’t have been much more conservative. With a navy jacket over a white shirt and gray tailored pants, he figured she might have passed for a sharp-looking female FBI agent, packing heat under her prim blazer. Well, he’d sure been packing some serious iron himself just thinking about their time together last night.

  But even after a couple of hours of conversation at the Summer Moon, he hadn’t been entirely sure of her motives. She seemed evasive whenever he probed about her baseball intentions, but that might have been his paranoia after finding out he was no longer in the Hornets’ plans. By the time he handed her into her cab, he’d started to think that maybe she didn’t have an agenda after all. She’d simply enjoyed his company after he butted in on her dinner with Ridge.

  And he’d definitely enjoyed her company. Oh, yeah, big time.

  He got out of the shower, toweled off and dressed quickly. By that time, everybody had already left except the equipment guys, a trainer and the clubhouse attendant. After quickly dealing with his wild hair, he stuffed a few bills into the attendant’s tip jar and headed out to his car.

  Like a lot of the guys, Ryan had driven his own wheels south for spring training. In the stadium’s player and staff parking lot, his two year-old Grand Cherokee looked down-scale compared to all the Mercedes, Lexus and Cadillac rides of other players—most of them top-of-the-line SUV’s with every bell and whistle in the manufacturer’s lineup. Not that he really cared. The Cherokee was comfortable and did the job, and he didn’t see the point in wasting money on fancy wheels.

  “Hey, is that your own ride or a rental?” enquired a feminine voice from behind him.

  Ryan didn’t need to turn around to know who those honeyed tones belonged to, and he immediately pivoted to see Taylor twenty feet behind him and closing fast. Her computer was slung over one shoulder and a medium-sized black leather purse over the other. Her step was light and purposeful despite the obviously heavy weight she was lugging.

  He broke into a smile as he spotted her red sedan directly across from his Cherokee—the Ford Fusion from last night at the Summer Moon, where she’d left it in favor of the cab back to the hotel. “It’s mine. What about yours?”

  “A rental,” she said, slowing as she approached him.

  “Can I give you a hand with all that stuff you’re lugging around?”

  She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m fine. I’m stronger than I look and, believe me, I’m used to this thing. Like the old Amex commercial said, I don’t leave home without it.”

  Ryan smiled at the corny old reference. “Two days in a row at the batting cage, plus last night at the restaurant and now here. Someone just might get the idea you’re stalking me, Ms. Page.”

  After maybe a second, he shot her a grin to let her know he was busting her chops.

  She rolled those crystal clear eyes but gave him a smile at the same time. Ryan thought he could be seriously tempted to get lost in those gorgeous blues, along with all the other delectable parts of her, too.

  “And to what end would I be doing that, Mr. Locke?” she said.

  He shrugged, willing to play the game. “My working theory at the moment is that you’re just entranced by my winning personality. Either that or you’ve got some nefarious plan for snatching me away from the Hornets.”

  Taylor didn’t flinch. “If this wasn’t the first series between our teams, Ryan, you’d know that I always check out our opponents at batting and infield practice. It’s always been a thing of mine. How hard a guy works in pre-game tells me more about his character than almost anything else he does.”

  When she adjusted the computer bag on her shoulder, obviously uncomfortable, Ryan reached for it. “Unless you have to run right now, please let me take that thing for you.”

  Taylor gave an amused sigh of acquiescence, and shrugged it off her shoulder and into Ryan’s waiting hand. It didn’t feel heavy to him, but then again he was a foot taller than Taylor Page.

  Though Ryan was skeptical about her reasons for watching his team’s batting practice, there was no point arguing about what she’d said—especially since the last thing he wanted was to piss her off and drive her away. “Actually, I figure it was karma that we bumped into each other out here. I was going to call you soon, anyway.”

  Taylor’s head jerked back. “You were?” She tried but failed to cover up the extent of her surprise.

  “Sure. I had a great time last night.
And it looked to me like you did, too. So, I figured why not go for it? We don’t have family down here, and it’s not like there’s all that much to do besides hang out with the same guys night after night.”

  She glanced down at her shoes for a long moment, obviously considering, before meeting his gaze again. “I did have fun last night and my dance card’s not exactly full, so I can’t say it isn’t tempting.”

  He felt a surprisingly powerful surge of satisfaction, but managed to keep his grin light and easy. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”

  Her demure, almost shy little smile sent that surge of satisfaction straight to his groin, transforming it into heat. He hadn’t reacted so strongly to a woman’s smile in a very long time.

  “Drinks again at the Summer Moon?” she said.

  “Why not make it dinner instead? There’s a fantastic seafood place not far from my house in Tampa. Nothing fancy, just unbelievably good food.” He hesitated for a few seconds. “I know it would be a long way for you to go, so if you’d prefer someplace closer…”

  “You live in Tampa?” she said, shooting him a quizzical look. “I figured you’d be in the Bradenton area, to be close to the Hornets’ home park.”

  Ryan still could barely believe she’d said yes to dinner. His mind was racing a hundred miles ahead, already planning, but he put on the brakes long enough so he could answer her question. “I’ve got a little place in Apollo Beach. I guess maybe I was already channeling a future trade to the Yankees when I bought it a couple of years back. I sure won’t have far to drive to their spring training facility if it happens.”