Take Me Out (Crimson Romance)

by Elley Arden

  If she’d paid more attention to the fear, she might have been better prepared when the news hit that Marc had been accused of impregnating a Scranton woman and was to undergo a paternity test — and the news hadn’t come from him. Because Marc was a former UGA student, the scandal had been worthy of front-page attention in the Athens Banner-Herald. Bailey had been grief-stricken to the point of numb — too numb to answer his calls or, three days later, open her dorm room door to him. The way she saw it, there were only two things he could do: admit it or lie about it, and she didn’t want to hear either one. So she’d packed up his ring and sent it back to him. Then she’d put her heart on ice where it had been ever since.

  And Marc had been in New York ever since — eight years, 341 homeruns, and one pennant later.

  She’d lost count of the number of women. And there had been so many — models, actresses, women famous for being famous. He’d gotten engaged to a good percentage of them, though he had yet to make it to the altar.

  And now here he was, just a few yards away. Bailey didn’t dare look up, but she could hear Missy shouting orders about unloading Mr. MacNeal’s clubs and getting him signed in.

  Good. He’d be out of here soon. He’d never know.

  “And you come right this way!” Missy’s voice was getting closer. “Bailey will take good care of you. She’s not just some volunteer here giving out Band-Aids. She’s the best nurse in this town. Why, she saved my friend Lanie’s life!”

  Ah, hell.

  She looked up into eyes so brown that the irises were barely detectable. He narrowed those eyes and stuck out his lower lip. So he never had stopped resorting to the pouty mouth when things weren’t going his way. Clearly, seeing her was a surprise, and not a pleasant one.

  “Bailey!” Missy said. “This is Polo MacNeal. His plane was late, and he has a headache. Can you take care of him?”

  Their gazes locked and held as Missy pivoted, called over her shoulder that she had to check on something, and disappeared.

  His black hair was cut shorter than it had been the last time she’d touched it, but it still lay in loose curls all over his head and, unlike many MLB players, he had remained clean-shaven. Not surprising. Even if the Yankees hadn’t had a strict no-facial-hair policy, Marc knew his assets. There was no way he would have wanted to cover up that chiseled jaw or distract from the most beautiful mouth in the history of mouths, even when it was pouting. Especially when it was pouting.

  Not that she cared.

  “Hello, Marc.”

  • • •

  Bailey. It was her. Marc glanced at her hands. No rings, though that didn’t mean anything.

  Not that he cared.

  “Nobody calls me that anymore,” he said because it was the first thing that came to mind. She shrugged like she didn’t care, which she didn’t. She’d proven that well enough.

  “A baseball player has to have a nickname,” Bailey said lightly. “I suppose it went from Marc to Marco Polo, to Polo?”

  He nodded. Obviously she had not followed his career or she would have known without asking how the name evolved. But then why would she have?

  “I had no idea you lived here,” he said. If he had, he wouldn’t have come — regardless of the insistence by his old acquaintance, Harris Bragg. Harris, the former University of Alabama National Championship winning quarterback — or actually, his wife — was very persistent that he do this. He’d offered to just send a check, but Missy had kept calling, kept talking about how “giving back” to the community would be so good for his image. Never mind that this wasn’t his community and his image was better than that of a lot of pro athletes. But Lord knows that woman could wear down the Swiss Alps. So here he was.

  “My Great Uncle Tiptoe lives here,” Bailey said. “After I graduated, there was a job opening. I had some previous plans to move to New York, but that didn’t work out.”

  Didn’t work out? Didn’t effing work out? And whose fault had that been? He swallowed his anger because he had no choice. He’d had too many women, been engaged too many times, but that was about all the “bad boy” the Yankee front office was willing to tolerate out of him.

  “Look, I just need some ibuprofen and some water. Can you manage that?” He couldn’t deal with this; he needed away from here. No matter how glossy her taffy-colored hair was. No matter that Bailey made that ridiculous T-shirt with the cartoon golfers look better than Missy Bragg ever could.

  “I can manage it.” Her words were wrapped up in sarcasm tighter than cowhide on a baseball. He’d been on the bad end of that scowl before, too. “I can manage whatever I have to. But what you really need for an ordinary headache is acetaminophen.”

  “Whatever. Give me four.”

  “I am not giving you four. Two is enough, and I’m not giving you that until I check your blood pressure. Sit down.”

  What in the hell? “Look, Florence Nightingale, I don’t need my blood pressure taken. I need something for my headache. If I were in a drugstore, they wouldn’t take my blood pressure. They’d sell me all the acetaminophen and ibuprofen I wanted!”

  “But you aren’t in a drugstore, are you? You’re here at my mercy because I’m the one with the painkillers. And if you want any, I suggest you sit down.” She reached for a stethoscope and blood pressure monitor, her movements slow and calm, but Bailey had a steely tough glint in her eyes.

  She’d turned mean. Hard. Of course, his first clue to that should have been when she’d sent his ring back by Federal Express without giving him so much as one second to explain.

  He closed his hand around her upper arm and leaned in until their noses practically met and their eyes blurred. “So you want to play doctor?”

  She drew back, but not in fear. Oh, no. Bailey wasn’t afraid of anything — well, except for thunderstorms. No, she drew back just enough so that her crystal-clear blue eyes met his in perfect focus. There had been a time when he’d wanted those eyes looking into his more than anything. Now, he just wanted away from them.

  “I don’t play doctor,” she said. “I don’t play anything. You’re the one who plays games. I do real work.”

  That was it. He was out of here, headache or no. Nothing was worth this. He turned to go.

  “Now sit down in that chair,” she demanded. “You won’t win this tournament; you won’t come anywhere close if you go out there with a headache.”

  So Bailey still knew that about him — knew that he couldn’t perform when he didn’t feel well. And she still knew how badly he wanted to win, how much his self-worth was tied up in being the best. To keep from looking at the anger in her eyes, Marc let his eyes drop to Bailey’s hands. That brought back a memory he could have done without. Back in school, she would stroke his temples when he had a headache, massage his shoulder when he had a muscle strain. But that time was past.

  “Fine!” He slammed himself into the chair and held out his arm.

  “Don’t talk.” She wrapped the cuff around his bicep. “Don’t move.”

  He closed his eyes and pretended he was somewhere — anywhere — but here.

  • • •

  Bailey knew it was ridiculous to insist on taking his blood pressure. Marc was a world-class athlete who got regular medical attention, but she did it anyway and she knew exactly why, even if she didn’t like the reason. Handling the familiar equipment made her feel confident and powerful.

  “141 over 87,” she said. “That’s marginally high but not nearly high enough that it should be causing a headache. And your pulse is a little fast.”

  “If my blood pressure and pulse is high, it’s because of you,” he said spitefully.

  He had a point; she was antagonizing him. Still, she carried on.

  “Do you often get headaches? Do you have migraines these days?”

  “No migraines, Bailey.”

  Suddenly, he looked tired, and something turned in her, willing her to remember sweet times, when he had needed her. She gripped the stethoscope
like it was a lifeline. “Are you taking care of your allergies? You don’t have a sinus infection, do you?” She hadn’t meant for her voice to come out so soft. His sinus infections had always started with an allergy flare-up and headache.

  “No, Bailey. It’s just a plain old headache from too little sleep and being on a plane too long.”

  “Are you sure? Do you have a fever?” His temperature had always spiked so fast. Without thinking, she placed her hand against his cheek to check.

  He smiled like he used to and pressed her hand more firmly against his face.

  “No fever,” she said.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Is that the scientific way to check for fever these days?”

  She jerked her hand away. Why had she touched him, and how dare he make fun of her?

  She turned away and zipped the blood pressure monitor into its case. “Have you eaten today? Had any coffee?”

  “I ate what they gave me on the plane, and you know I don’t drink coffee.” He sounded perplexed. Good. He deserved to be.

  She turned back and met his eyes. “I know you didn’t drink coffee when you were young and sweet. Who knows what you do these days, apart from chasing women and baseballs.”

  His mouth went hard. “Yeah? Sometimes I hit baseballs, too. Pretty well, in fact. Just give me the damned Tylenol so I can go play golf.”

  Why was she doing this? Arguing with him? Keeping him here? It was time to relent. She reached for the kit with the meds, just as Missy Bragg rushed up with a blonde in tow. She was six feet tall with legs eight feet long.

  “Polo! This is Miss Texas! She’s your date for the gala tonight.”

  He gave Bailey one last haughty look, then the devil moved into his eyes, and an angel took hold of his mouth, spreading it into that smile she should have forgotten. But that smile wasn’t for her. He lifted his face in the direction of Miss Texas.

  “Hello, darlin’.” Marc rose up with that same slinky panther’s grace that was always in evidence when he stretched his glove up for a ball he knew he couldn’t miss.

  He ran his tongue over his beautiful mouth. Slowly. All the while, he did nothing to hide how much he appreciated the view that was Miss Texas. With a flip of blonde hair, she placed a hand on her hip and preened. This woman knew her power.

  Bailey would never have that kind of power. But she had acetaminophen. She shook two tablets into a pill cup and fished a bottle of water out of the cooler.

  “Here you are, Mr. MacNeal. I hope you feel better.”

  “Thanks,” he tossed over his shoulder, already on his way out of the tent. He swallowed the pills, but he uncapped the water and offered it to Miss Texas. “Would you like some before I germ it all up?”

  And they linked arms and walked away, laughing as they went.

  Chapter Two

  More than anything, Bailey wanted to go home to her apartment over Uncle Tiptoe and Aunt Aileen’s garage where there was no golf, no Miss Texas, and no Marc MacNeal. Maybe she could. If she could find a replacement, she could feign illness. She picked up her cell phone and began to scan through her contacts, looking for a likely coworker. Of course, if Marc noticed she’d gone, he would know humiliation had made her go to ground, but she didn’t care. Right now, pride meant nothing, and getting the hell out of here meant everything.

  Bailey dismissed most of the names she scrolled through for one reason or the other — working today, on vacation, sick kids. She finally found a likely candidate and was just about to dial her and offer her first-born when Missy sped up in her golf cart. This time she was alone.

  “Bailey!” she yelled even before she jumped out. The woman was in an absolute panic.

  Her stomach dropped as she grabbed her kit and ran to meet Missy.

  “What is it, Missy? Is someone sick? What’s wrong?” Please, God, not Marc. What if it was more than a headache, something that she would have caught if she had not been distracted and so intent on being mean to him? A headache was the first sign of so many things — aneurysm, stroke, tumor, meningitis. She hadn’t even asked where his head hurt or if he was nauseated! She began to mentally tick through the names of the doctors playing in the tournament.

  “Nothing like that,” Missy said. “But Miss Mississippi 2010 has a stomach virus!”

  Relief settled over her. “Where is she? I’ll take a look at her. It could also be the heat or something she ate.” It wasn’t like her to overreact, but Missy inspired that, and she might be overstating Miss Mississippi’s illness.

  “She’s not here. She’s still in Mississippi,” Missy said.

  What the hell? “Then how does this concern me? I’m not going to Mississippi to take care of her.” Though, come to think of it, that wasn’t a bad idea. If she did, she for sure would never see Marc again. Almost against her will, her head turned to scan the course for one more look …

  “Oh, Bailey! Of course not. But were you going to the gala tonight?”

  “No.” Thank God. By then, even if she had to see this tournament through, she’d be safe and alone at home with a Lean Cuisine and a romance novel. Or murder mystery. Yes. That would be a better choice given her current mood.

  “I need you to go with my cousin. Miss Mississippi was going to be his date, but she’s throwing up her guts.”

  “No,” Bailey said, forgetting for a moment that no one ever told Missy no. “I absolutely cannot do that. I don’t even have a dress.”

  Missy narrowed her eyes. “Yes, you do. You must. You were at the benefit ball for breast cancer in May. And you were not naked or inappropriately dressed. I would have remembered.”

  Busted. It was true enough that she had a dress, a dress she liked — gold and bronze-sequined from the strapless sweetheart neckline to the floor. It was the kind of dress that might be over the top for the red carpet but was perfect for a country club dance south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Under other circumstances she might have liked for Marc to see her in that dress, but other circumstances were long gone.

  “Believe me,” Missy plowed on. “I’m just the woman to understand not wanting to wear a special occasion dress more than once. But I don’t remember the dress, so no one else will. Heck, I don’t even remember what I wore. Anyway, most importantly, my cousin hasn’t seen it.”

  The dress was so not the point.

  As Bailey cast around for the words to make Missy understand that she was not going to that gala, six feet of blonde Lone Star State Sass prissed up like she owned the world and put a hand on Missy’s arm.

  “Missy, I need a ride out to watch the tournament? I want to watch Polo play?”

  Missy nodded. “Just a second.” Then she turned back to look at Bailey, which was more than Miss Texas had done. “Please, Bailey. I’ll owe you. I really need this.”

  Bailey would have caved but — wait. Had Missy said her cousin? Hadn’t she heard those Beauford brothers from Tennessee were Missy’s cousins?

  “Who’s your cousin?” Bailey asked.

  Missy smiled like she had just been dealt a king to go with the four aces in her hand. “Jackson Beauford,” she said.

  Jackson Beauford — the country music superstar and most famous of the three brothers, not to mention the best looking.

  “Yum!” Miss Texas said. “Jackson Beauford is your cousin? Aren’t there two others? Twins? A pro football player and a rodeo cowboy?”

  “There are actually four, including one you would not have heard of. But yes,” Missy said, “first cousins, Daddy’s side.”

  That’s when it hit Bailey. Like the football player and the cowboy, only people who followed his sport knew who Marc MacNeal was. And, well, as far as Miss Texas — would anyone recognize her on the street? But everyone who had ever turned on a radio, looked at a magazine cover, or watched television knew who Jack Beauford was.

  “All right, Missy,” she said. “I’ll go. Sure.”

  “Oh, Bailey! Thank you,” Missy said. She was already hauling ass back to her golf cart with
Miss Texas in tow. “Jacky will pick you up. I’ll get with you on the arrangements!”

  They were barely out of sight before a sick feeling settled into Bailey’s stomach. She had let her pride get the best of her. Not only was she going to have to go to that dance where he would be, but now faking the bubonic plague to get away from this tournament was no longer an option.

  Suddenly, wanting Marc to see her on Jackson Beauford’s arm seemed terribly childish.

  Chapter Three

  Marc had not played a worse game of golf since before puberty. He’d be lucky if he didn’t get one of those booby prizes tonight, like shortest drive or most balls in the water. Damn.

  Still, he smiled and glad-handed about because that’s what a good sport did. And now he had to go eat barbecue with the press and anyone who had been willing to pay for the privilege of eating with a bunch of sweaty golfers who were supposed to be somebody — though with his abysmal score he sure didn’t feel like much of anybody right now.

  He had to hand it to his date — Jessica, aka Miss Texas, had really hung in there and watched the whole tournament, despite that his late arrival that morning had put him in the last group to finish. She didn’t even seem to care how bad he’d played.

  Then again, maybe she didn’t know. When he’d broken a hundred, she’d thought that was a good thing.

  “Polo?” She sidled up next to him. “I’m about to catch a ride in the next golf cart back to the clubhouse for lunch? Would you like to come?”

  The clubhouse was less than a hundred yards away.

  “Well, honey,” he said. “That would be real nice, but I’m all sweaty, so I think I’ll walk. But I’ll see you back there.”

  She looked torn between disappointment and relief that she wouldn’t have to be exposed to his sweat. Maybe he wouldn’t shower before that shindig tonight. He wasn’t exactly sure why Miss Texas set his teeth on edge. Generally, he liked a beauty queen, and Texas had some of the best. But usually his beauty queens were nowhere in the vicinity of Bailey. He tipped the kid who had caddied for him and started walking.