She nodded, but then she inhaled and her eyes rolled upward with a flutter and her body swayed from its sitting position.
The team trainer caught her from behind.
“Call for the cart,” Tag said over his shoulder.
Laying on her back on the warning track, the woman stared up at him. “Did I get sacked?”
Sacked? Like fired? Tag shook his head. He didn’t detect an accent, but maybe she was from another country where the phrase meant something different.
“You fell,” he said. “We’re going to get you to the hospital for some tests.”
She mumbled something.
Tag leaned closer until he could feel her warm breath on his cheek and smell her spicy perfume. The normal slow jog of his heartbeat turned into a full-on sprint. “What did you say?”
“I hate hospitals,” she whispered. “I hate doctors, too.”
That was worth a chuckle, so he let loose.
“Then this is going to be a long night for you,” he said, thankful he wasn’t the emergency room doctor who’d be on the receiving end of her disoriented disdain.
She sat again, and her hand shot up to grip her neck, her pretty face crinkling.
“Does your neck hurt?”
She answered with a vacant stare.
“We’re going to board her.”
Ten minutes later, Miss Rooney was strapped in and hoisted onto the cart. As Tag watched her get driven away toward the exit in the left field wall, his phone buzzed. He glanced at the text from Marc. It was the contact information for Jordon along with a note:
After that circus act, I bet you’re ready for some real sports medicine. Ha! Let me know what he says.
Somehow, Tag had forgotten about Jordon, and now that he was reminded and feeling uncomfortable in the middle of the baseball field, he was oddly sorry he wasn’t accompanying Miss Rooney. Whether she hated doctors or not, an evening with her sounded better than an evening spent worrying about contacting his brother.
Chapter Two
M. J. laid a hand over her eyes, shielding herself from the overhead light. Her head hurt. Her stomach churned. If it were any other day, she might try to blame the discomfort on the woman standing at the foot of her bed.
“Maya Jane, your father is not pleased.”
M. J. grimaced at her stepmother’s chiding but didn’t doubt the sentiment. Dad was rarely pleased when it came to his only daughter. Still, the woman, who’d spent the last twenty years telling M.J. she loved and supported her as much as if she’d given birth to her, could’ve at least waited until she was out of the hospital to launch into the lectures.
“He can barely think straight with worry,” Felicia continued.
And yet, he wasn’t here. He hadn’t even called.
“This is the biggest case he’s heard since his appointment, and the trial requires all of his attention.”
Good thing his daughter never did.
“How are we doing?” The booming male voice was a nice change from Felicia’s high-pitched rattle.
The short and stout emergency room physician who’d been in and out of M. J.’s room since she arrived hours ago, stood over her.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
M. J. dropped her hand to the sore side of her neck. “I’ve been better.”
“And you will be better again. It’s a mild concussion, and you just need to take it easy.”
“No football,” Felicia blurted.
The doctor confirmed it.
“For how long?” M. J. whispered at the doctor, trying not to think of Felicia’s glee, which would become Dad’s glee when he heard the news. His daughter playing professional football was a thorn in his side; he viewed it as nothing more than a teenage rebellion gone awry, an excuse for M. J. not to grow up and get a real job. He was wrong, but over the years she’d gotten tired of trying to explain what football meant to her.
The doctor tugged a pen from his breast pocket and clicked the top. “You’re out until you’re cleared. You’ll need to follow up with your team doctor tomorrow in the concussion clinic. For the rest of today, take it easy. No physical activity. Limit your exposure to electronics. And if the symptoms worsen, notify your physician immediately, or go to the ER.” He said that last part while he was looking at Felicia. “Watch her closely, Mom.”
M. J. almost snorted. Mom? Felicia had never baked her cookies or read her bedtime stories. No one would ever mistake the woman for June Cleaver.
She did have the nagging part down though.
“Absolutely,” Felicia said, eyeing M. J. up with the same you-heard-the-man look she had perfected during M. J.’s limit-testing teen years. “And no shifts at that filthy, noisy bar, either.” Felicia nodded for emphasis, and then addressed the doctor. “We’ll make sure she follows orders.”
No doubt they’d try. Dad and Felicia had been trying to force M. J. into some neat little mold for twenty of the twenty-seven years she’d been alive. Dresses, makeup, high heels. Couldn’t you try out for cheerleading instead? Don’t you want to be a ballerina like your stepmother? Stand up straight. Sit like a lady. Majoring in physiology is a waste.
And the beat went on. No football. No shifts at the bar.
“Did I hear someone say something about following orders?” Tanya stood in the doorway with a bottle of Gatorade in hand. Her keys swung around the index finger of her other hand.
Felicia grimaced and looked away. There was no love lost between the pair. Being one of those women who started sentences with “I’m not a racist, but . . . ” Felicia couldn’t quite get past Tanya’s skin color and the fact that she played professional football, too. One or the other, maybe. But both? Never.
M. J. closed her eyes again. Damn concussion. If she’d been in her right mind, she’d never have let Tanya call Dad in the first place. There hadn’t been a voicemail M. J. had left for him over the past decade that wasn’t addressed by Felicia first.
“We’re just going over discharge orders,” the doctor said.
Tanya laughed. “Good luck with that. A quarterback doesn’t take orders; she gives them.”
Felicia’s dramatic sigh filled the room. “Well, she’s going to listen now. Maya Jane . . . ” her hand landed on M. J.’s ankle, “you need to come home with me where you can rest and be waited on hand and foot. Right, doctor?”
“Sounds good to me,” the man said.
It sounded terrible to M. J. She hadn’t lived at home since she was eighteen. She would never willingly put herself back in a place where she fell short of expectations just by breathing. “I’ll be fine.”
“She’ll be good.” Tanya stepped forward. “I got this.”
Felicia sighed again. “Your father isn’t going to be happy with you.”
He never was, but when she’d broken every record in the league’s book and powered the Cleveland Clash to a championship, he’d have to acknowledge she was at least good at it.
M. J. pushed off the elevated mattress using the aching muscles in her back. Shit. She felt like she’d been sacked by Washington D.C.’s freight train, CeCe George. Except that getting up after a hit like that was the best feeling in the world. Certainly better than dealing with disapproving family members.
The weekly injury clinic at University Hospital, where M.J. would see Dr. Ridge, couldn’t come fast enough. If she had anything to say about it, she’d be cleared in time for tomorrow evening’s practice.
• • •
Tag stared at his cell phone resting beside his laptop. The damn thing seemed to be alive, taunting him. He tried to focus on the MRI results on the computer screen, but his gaze kept wandering back to the phone as if it had spoken to him: When are you going to call your brother back, chicken? Buck, buck, buck. How ’bout now?
“How about never?” Tag spouted, and then looked at his open office door before standing up to close it.
Of course, Jordon had to go and be a dick about this by refusing to give details or make arrangements through Tammy
. His message had been crystal clear and befitting of his reputation as a hardline negotiator: I will only talk to Dr. Howard.
But Dr. Howard didn’t want to talk to him.
Dropping his elbows to the desk with enough force to hurt, he roughed his face in his hands and growled. “Fine.” He’d call, because if he kept up like this much longer, he’d be certifiably crazy, and that wouldn’t get him to the top of the sports medicine world.
Calling Jordon, on the other hand, might.
With a deep breath, Tag tapped through to Jordon’s number, reminding himself this was business. It’d been twenty-five years since they’d said a word to each other, with no attempts at contact in between. He wasn’t a sniveling nine-year-old anymore. He was a focused and determined thirty-four-year-old, who could handle a professional call without getting sentimental. From what he’d heard, Jordon wasn’t the sentimental type either. There was no reason to believe this call would disintegrate into a discussion of the past.
A gruff hello interrupted the second ring.
Tag opened his mouth, but no words came out. Worse, his mind blanked.
“Hello?” Jordon said again.
“This . . . is Dr. Howard.” Making a professional call, he told himself. Be professional.
“Tag.” There was just enough of a pause after Jordon’s voice faded to inject emotion into the silence, making Tag squirm.
He’d spent the last twenty-five years of his life trying to forget the emotionally abusive family he’d come from. He didn’t want to deal with anything but an injured baseball player now.
“How are you?” Jordon asked.
“I’m well.” It was a rote and inaccurate answer, considering the searing pain in Tag’s chest. “What can I do for you?” He had the impossible wish that if he didn’t acknowledge the connection, then Jordon wouldn’t remember him.
But Jordon had been the oldest. He had to be close to forty now. Certainly, a fifteen-year-old Jordon would’ve remembered Francis Kemmons’s drunken tirades and humiliating coaching sessions even better than a nine-year-old Tag did, which was saying something, because, after twenty-five years, Tag still heard the man’s voice as though he was standing behind him.
You’re too weak, boy. Weak boys don’t play baseball. They grow up to be sissies.
Tag swallowed the jagged emotion pressing into the walls of his throat, and yanked the glasses from his face.
“I need you to take a look at Grey,” Jordon said.
Tag squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head against the thickening silence. Unbelievable. It wasn’t enough to be contacted by Jordon, but the injured player was his brother, too.
“I don’t know if you heard about the injury,” Jordon continued.
“I did.” It had been all over the news. Even if Tag hadn’t been a sports medicine doctor and team physician, even if he hadn’t been related to the injured party, the sheer horror of a decorated athlete nearly sawing off his throwing hand would be astonishing news. “But I thought he was progressing.”
“He is. Everything internally seems to be healing miraculously, but they have to keep stopping therapy because the wound site re-opens.”
All of a sudden, the reason Jordon would single out Tag despite their troublesome connection became clear. “You heard about my research, didn’t you?”
“Actually, one of the trainers mentioned it. I . . . sat on the information for a while not knowing if I should call.”
Again with the personal innuendos. Tag winced. His eyes blurred and burned. It had to be psychosomatic. He hadn’t struggled with his vision since the surgery ten years ago—unless you counted the ridiculousness of wearing reading glasses at such a young age. Still, it was better than being legally blind in one eye because of a congenital cataract that nobody in your biological family cared enough to fix. He dipped the phone away from his mouth and exhaled. Getting through this call would be so much easier if the focus remained on work.
“I might be able to control the dehiscencing by using pig bladder as a scaffold to re-grow the tissue,” Tag said, hearing the sureness return to his voice.
“That’s what I’ve been told.”
“But I’d have to see him first—make sure he’s a candidate.”
“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”
Tag rubbed a palm over his face as the bulk of his brain scrambled for a way to backtrack and get out of this meeting. The other small but noisy part of his brain chastised him for even considering turning down the opportunity to use experimental treatment to put a Gold Glove centerfielder back on the field. Something like this could put Tag on the radar of every agent and team manager in the game. It could make him an integral part of major league baseball, something Francis Kemmons said he’d never be.
“I, uh, don’t know my schedule off-hand, but you can call my office. Tammy will set him up.”
“Tag . . . ” Again with the emotionally-charged pause. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me until it works.”
Or at the very least, until he kept the appointment. A second after hanging up, Tag was back to thinking up ways to get out of it.
A knock at the door rattled him. “Come in,” he called.
Fran poked her head into the room. “Lunch is here. You better get some before Dr. Ridge eats it all. He was drooling during set up.”
“Thank you.” Tag returned the nurse’s smile, knowing they’d ordered his favorite brick oven pizza for the afternoon’s Fellows’ clinic.
Come to think of it, he did need to get out of this office—and out of his head—and he needed to give his stomach something to do other than churn with worry over seeing his brothers again.
Pizza would help.
• • •
M. J. sat on the exam table, trying not to let the nervous energy swing her feet hard enough to rattle the metal sides. If Dr. Ridge didn’t clear her, she was going to freak. The Clash’s season wasn’t a long one. Heck, they barely had the backing for the six regular-season games they played. Missing even one game would be detrimental to her pursuit of a championship, a league-passing record, and MVP. She needed those things if she was ever going to get the kind of public accolades that would make her image-conscious father realize that, despite his judgmental tendency to declare right and wrong for everything, there was more than one way to define success.
“Dr. Ridge will be right with you. He’s running a little behind.”
M. J. blinked at the woman who disappeared as suddenly as she’d appeared. Great. More waiting.
She watched as people passed the open door to her exam room. Some looked in and smiled, but she couldn’t manage to muster the strength to smile back. In fact, she was just about to get up and close the door when a handsome man in a white coat passed. They made eye contact for a brief second before he disappeared in the same direction the nurse had.
But then he was back.
“You,” he said, smiling.
It was a wonderful smile, bright and white, balling his cheeks and squinting his eyes, defining his chin with a sexy v-shaped crease.
“Me?” M. J. questioned.
He stepped into the room, wearing the same smile along with a pale blue dress shirt and crisply pressed gray pants visible from the split in his white coat. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“No.” One word was a better bet than letting her incredulity slip out amid a full sentence. If she’d met a man like that before, she’d certainly never forget him.
“You’re Miss Rooney, aren’t you? I examined you on the field after you fell.”
M. J.’s jaw dropped. “Oh,” she managed, despite the embarrassment heating her face. If she didn’t remember him, God only knew what she’d done or said during their exchange. She wasn’t exactly mealy-mouthed.
“How are you feeling?” He tilted his head and rolled his gaze over her, a hint of that smile lingering in his beautiful hazel eyes.
Physically? “Better.” Mentally? Like a fool, bec
ause she was trying to place him, but nothing that happened after she toppled over the railing and before Felicia arrived at the hospital made sense. And now she was gawking at this crazy-attractive man.
“How’d you end up at Fellows’ clinic?”
“Dr. Ridge.” She matched the tilt of his head with her head. “He’s my team physician.”
Dr. Sexy’s eyes widened. “Which team?”
“Clash,” she said without hesitation, maybe even a little too fiercely. She’d just been laughed at too many times to count.
When he chuckled, she wanted to slap him, but he looked so damn good doing it.
“Now it makes sense,” he said. “You told me you belonged on the field when I asked how you got there, and then you asked if you’d been sacked.”
He wasn’t laughing at the fact she played football? Interesting. On the other hand, he was laughing at something she said, which begged the question, what else had she said? Did she tell him he was hot? Probably. But if she did, she didn’t want to know, unless maybe he’d told her she was hot, too. On second thought, nope. She didn’t want to know that, either. What he thought of her was completely irrelevant. A guy like this—perfect in every way down to the high-gloss tips of his loafers—couldn’t appreciate a girl like her. Even if he liked what he saw, he wouldn’t like how she behaved. M. J. Rooney played a man’s sport, and she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. She already caught enough flack about that from her family. She didn’t need to add another disapproving man to the mix.
“Knock, knock.” Dr. Ridge stood in the doorway. “Go find your own patients,” he directed at Dr. Sexy. “Better yet, go get some pizza before I finish it off.”
Dr. Sexy smiled again as he nodded, exuding a nonchalance that had M. J.’s muscles bunching, bracing against the attraction.
“Miss Rooney,” he said. “It was nice to see you again.”
It was, wasn’t it? Even if she didn’t remember seeing him the first time.
Chapter Three
Tag bit into a piece of portabella and prosciutto pizza while he took a seat on a wheeled stool in the exam room turned cafeteria.
Hearts Are Wild Page 43