Beauty and the Ballplayer

by Arlene Hittle

  His brother’s voice saved him from having to relive that nightmare. “Friday it is, then. I’ll close up shop early and be there by six.” Stan paused for a breath, and Matt pictured the finger wag that accompanied the rest of his speech. “Just don’t wait too long. If she’s as fabulous as you seem to think, she has men beating a path to her door. You snooze, you lose.”

  Chapter Two

  Meg perched on the edge of a chrome-and-canvas chair in her doctor’s reception area. Having taken the morning off from work to confirm the results of yesterday’s home pregnancy test, she managed to pee in a little plastic cup without getting it all over her hand, or the floor. Now she awaited the doctor’s diagnosis.

  “Ms. Malone, Dr. Banks is ready for you.”

  Meg grabbed her purse off the floor and followed the nurse down the hallway. They stopped long enough for Meg to face the dreaded scale, which, she noted thankfully, hadn’t changed since her last visit. It would start to climb soon enough. No point in packing on any more pounds than necessary.

  Then they entered an empty exam room, where the nurse checked her blood pressure and felt for her pulse. Though Meg usually had trouble finding her pulse, even she could feel how fast it was racing. “You might want to wait to do that.”

  The nurse smiled at her and made a note in her chart. “The doctor will be in shortly.”

  Yeah, right. Figuring she had at least a ten-minute wait ahead of her, Meg hoisted herself onto the exam table. She sat swinging her feet and gnawing her thumbnail while she wondered why those tables were always so hard to sit on.

  When the answer didn’t come right away, she killed time by examining the room. She noticed the poster showing various stages of pregnancy—a poster she’d never seen in all her visits to Dr. Banks’ office for annual “well-woman” checkups or sniffles that wouldn’t go away.

  Yep. He picked this room for a reason.

  She was about to go study the poster when the door snicked open. Dr. Banks came through the doorway, beaming.

  “Ms. Malone, congratulations are in order.”

  The doctor looked so pleased she couldn’t resist messing with him a little. Must be nice to live in his world, where every baby was good news. “You mean I’m not pregnant?”

  Dr. Banks’ eyebrows lifted. He glanced down at his chart and looked back at her. “From your reaction, I can assume you’re still single?”

  Since the doctor seemed to have no sense of humor, she let him in on the joke. She nodded and gave him a quick rundown of Tim’s defection. “I’m ready to go on without him.”

  “I figured as much. In my experience, most women don’t make an appointment with their GP if they’re planning to terminate the pregnancy.” He paused to stroke his chin. “You know single motherhood isn’t easy, right?”

  “I kind of figured.”

  Dr. Banks studied her as if her face held instructions to everlasting life. “At this stage in the pregnancy, there are options.”

  The matter-of-fact way he said it made Meg cringe. Maybe not every baby was good news in the doctor’s world after all.

  She cut him a break for making the suggestion. He had no way of knowing how she felt. She wasn’t the type to picket Planned Parenthood shouting slogans like “It’s a child, not a choice.” Nor would she ever presume to tell another woman what to do in this same situation. But for herself—with her upbringing and beliefs—abortion wasn’t an option.

  She also couldn’t fathom going through the hassle of being pregnant and the pain of childbirth without having something to show for it. Keeping the baby was her only choice.

  Meg shook her head. “Not for me.”

  Dr. Banks looked down at his notes again. “Then you’d like to know your due date?”

  Meg grinned. “That’s kind of why I’m here.”

  “You’re likely to have a Halloween baby. Now, let’s talk about prenatal care.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Meg was back in the parking lot with a bottle of vitamins in one hand and a list of do’s and don’ts in the other. Some of them, like avoiding alcohol and cigarettes, wouldn’t be a problem. But no more deli meat or soft cheese? That really put a damper on her two favorite lunches: A ham and brie sandwich or Greek salad with lots of crumbled feta. And the thought of foregoing her beloved morning coffee drink made her jittery.

  Her head spun as she dropped her cargo, including her purse, in her Bug’s passenger seat. So many things to consider… She’d never remember it all.

  But she had to try. Her little one had no one else to protect him or her.

  Before Meg could start the car, her cell phone rang. She dug it out of her purse and checked the number. Not recognizing the digits in the display, she took a moment to hope it wasn’t someone from the office with an emergency. Then she flipped the phone open. If it was someone from work, there was no point in pretending to be unavailable. Not when she’d arrive in less than ten minutes.

  “Meg here.”

  “Hi, Meg. It’s Matt. How’s your hair today?”

  Relief washed over her. No emergency—unless you counted a fashion emergency, she thought with an inner giggle. “About the same as yesterday.”

  “Help is on the way. My brother will be here tomorrow.”

  Wow. His offer of help for her hair had been serious.

  Uncertainty tempered a rush of excitement. Did she really want to see Matt again? Okay, she did. Despite their somewhat rocky first meeting, she liked the guy. He seemed very…stable. And after Tim, stable and reliable were high on her list of desirable attributes in a man. Right after the warm sense of humor and golden-brown eyes that had haunted her dreams last night.

  But seeing him again wasn’t smart. She had to remember she was making decisions for two now. What her hormones wanted wasn’t necessarily what was best for the baby.

  While her body shouted “yes,” her head said no—and her heart was still undecided. Counting that as two no votes, she scrambled for an excuse. “I work tomorrow.”

  “Not all night, right?”

  Damn. Caught on a technicality. “Well, no.”

  “Stan won’t be here until six-ish, so you can come after work.”

  “What if I have after-work plans?”

  His voice was subdued. “Do you?”

  He sounded almost hurt. Meg cursed the honesty and good manners her parents had drilled into her even as she admitted the truth. “No.”

  “You do now.”

  She heard Matt’s triumphant tone and realized he’d won this round. “I guess I do.”

  Despite her reluctance to let Matt any deeper into her life, she could hardly wait to see what a stylist to the stars could do for her less-than-stellar mane.

  “Stan’ll be staying at the Radisson, Room 233. If you come at six, we can grab some dinner afterward.”

  “Dinner?” That sounded suspiciously like a date. She definitely wasn’t ready for a date.

  His chuckle gave her the feeling he was reading her mind. “Sure. I can’t ask Stan to come all the way from Phoenix and not feed him. And you have to eat, too.”

  As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t argue with that. Why did Matt have to be so darn practical? She resigned herself to dinner. At least his brother would be around to chaperone, should the need arise. With the way they’d been checking each other out the other night, she had no doubt something would arise. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Good. Then I’ll see you tomorrow, six o’clock.”

  “See you then.” Even as she said it, she wondered why she couldn’t say “no” to this man. What gods had graced him with the power of persuasion?

  As she rooted around in her purse for her datebook and scribbled down the appointment, Meg reminded herself again to think of the little one.

  No matter how sexy and persuasive Matt was, neither she nor the baby needed a man complicating their lives. Not now—and maybe not ever.

  ****

  At the office the next afternoon, Meg found herself
checking the clock on her computer for the twentieth time in thirty minutes.

  How is it only twenty to three?

  She rolled her eyes. Time dragged because she was counting down the minutes until she could go home and get ready to meet Stan.

  Stan? It wasn’t the stylist she yearned to see. No point in denying it. Even if she didn’t plan to start dating again so soon after the Tim debacle, she and Matt could become friends.

  Speaking of friends, she thought as Stephanie approached her desk. She and the twenty-five-year-old didn’t have much in common, except for starting work at Tooley, Hamilton & Smith on the same day. Still, she liked and trusted the younger girl, her closest friend in town.

  “Hey, Steph.”

  “Hey yourself,” Stephanie replied. “You’re looking a lot better than you did a few days ago.”

  She glanced around the cubicle-filled room to see how many of her coworkers were listening. All of them seemed to be engrossed in their work, but looks could be deceiving. Even if no one was interested in her and Steph’s conversation, which she doubted, she wasn’t about to share her news so publicly—or so soon.

  She shrugged. “Must have been some kind of forty-eight-hour bug.”

  “Probably.” Stephanie nodded. “We both have at least an hour of work ahead of us, but I’m issuing the invitation now so we have something to look forward to. Wanna meet at the Crazy Irishman when we get off?”

  “I’d love to, but I have something else to do tonight.” It was only half a lie. She wouldn’t mind socializing, but she didn’t want to hang out at the Crazy-I.

  It wasn’t that she worried her secret would get out. She’d never been much of a drinker, so no one would question her decision not to imbibe. She just didn’t want to be that girl—the kind who spent every free moment at a bar, watching her friends get drunk and stupid. With the baby to consider, the idea held even less appeal.

  “Does this ‘something’ have anything to do with that hunky guy I saw you sitting with at the Crazy-I Wednesday night?”

  Meg had to stifle a groan. She should have known Steph had noticed. She hadn’t earned the nickname “Eagle Eye” for letting things slip past her.

  “Maybe.” She tried for a mysterious smile, hoping it would deter any further questions.

  No such luck. When Steph pulled up an empty chair and hunkered down beside her, she knew she was in for the full interrogation. At times like this, she wished her friend had a little less youthful exuberance.

  “So who is he?”

  “The guy who stole my table—which, I might add, we may well have gotten if you’d followed me like I asked.”

  Stephanie’s cheeks tinged with a rare blush. “Sorry about that. But Perry and I were really making a connection.”

  “Does that mean you and he are finally going out?” Her excitement was genuine because Steph’s hard work was starting to pay off. Okay, she also thrilled at the chance to deflect her friend’s attention from Matt.

  Stephanie sighed. “We’re exactly where we were before. He still doesn’t know I’m alive.”

  “But I thought you said—”

  Her friend interrupted. “I know what I said. But I was obviously mistaken, because he’s barely said two words to me in the last two days.”

  “That’s too bad,” Meg murmured. The real tragedy was that, with no good news of her own, Steph was likely to return to the interrogation.

  Sure enough, the next words out of her mouth were “So who’s your mystery man?”

  Resigned, Meg divulged a few details. The sooner she spilled the beans, the sooner Steph would stop asking. “His name’s Matt, and we’re going to dinner tonight.”

  Her friend raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it a little soon to be dating again, Meg? A little more than a month ago you were sobbing on my shoulder over Tim.”

  “Matt and I are just friends. Or at least we’re on our way to becoming friends.” Meg hoped he’d see it her way.

  Stephanie had the gall to chuckle. “Honey, men who look like that don’t have girl ‘friends.’”

  She spun her chair away from Steph and back toward her computer. “Maybe it’s time they start.”

  ****

  Matt took one last look around his hotel room, scanning for stray equipment that would give away his identity. It was a quarter past five, and he had forty-five minutes to shower and stow away his telltale gear. Thank goodness the hotel maid had been in to tidy up and make the bed. He didn’t want Meg to think his brother was a slob, even if he did tend to leave dirty socks on the floor.

  Satisfied the room was baseball-free, Matt sat on the bed to wait for Stan and Meg—mostly Meg—to arrive. He put both hands behind his head and leaned back against the headboard, relishing the chance to relax.

  It had been a long day, and another tough one. The kid, Jim, was good. Really good. Good enough that Matt would have to work doubly hard to ensure he’d make the starting lineup.

  He sat up again and rubbed his shoulder, which still ached. That morning, he’d been hit by a wild pitch from another rookie, a 20-year-old pitcher named Luis.

  He groaned. “Rookies’ll do me in.”

  Grabbing a bottle of water from the mini-fridge, he retrieved a bottle of ibuprofen he’d stashed in the nightstand drawer. He popped four of the little white pills and then carefully replaced the bottle. He could explain ibuprofen if he had to, but since he’d told Meg this was his brother’s room, he didn’t want to have to.

  He hadn’t lied to Meg about the room. He’d merely said Stan would be staying here—which, technically, he would. No need to mention Matt was in residence, too.

  He hated to be so shifty, but he was way too leery of “baseball babes” to let down his guard so soon. When he was sure Meg liked him more than his potential earnings in the majors, then he’d tell her all about his job.

  Oh, he had no doubt he was on the verge of making the big league. Never mind he’d been perched on that ledge since college graduation. This was going to be his breakout season. He could feel it.

  It had to be. The alternative—washed up at twenty-eight—scared the hell out of him. He was too young and too determined to fail. Making the Major League would prove his worth to Lana and everyone else who’d ever doubted him.

  He jumped when a knock sounded at the door. As he crossed to the door, he did one last visual sweep of the room and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. Through the peephole, he glimpsed his brother and yanked open the door.

  Stan brushed past him, turning back to him moments later with a disappointed frown. “Where is your walking hair disaster?”

  He scowled, a warning for his brother to behave. “Her name is Meg, and she’s on her way. I told her to be here at six.”

  Stan checked his watch. “Then I have ten minutes to get ready. Help me move this chair over by the window.”

  After doing as his brother ordered, Matt helped him spread a cloth on the floor around the chair. When they finished, he said, “Can I ask you a favor?”

  “You know you can ask me anything.”

  “Pretend this is your room, not mine.”

  His brother arched a well-groomed blond brow. “Starting out on a lie? Not smart, big bro.”

  “You know I don’t want another girl who looks at the star catcher and sees an ATM for life.”

  “Has Meg given any indication she’s after your cash?”

  Matt squirmed. How was it his kid brother could make him feel like a disobedient five-year-old? “No.”

  “Then why, Matty?”

  “It’s too soon to tell her, Stan. Just trust me on that.”

  “You can’t keep judging all girls by what happened with Lana.” When Matt didn’t reply, Stan pursed his lips and exhaled. “I’ll do it—if that’s what you really want.”

  “It is.”

  Just then, another knock sounded. Matt and Stan both headed for the door, but Stan stopped him by mouthing the words, “my room.”

  Already beginning t
o question asking his brother to agree to the charade, Matt hung back. A second later, Stan opened the door with a flourish.

  “Welcome to my room, my dear.”

  ****

  Meg stepped into the room, as nondescript as pretty much every hotel room she’d ever seen, and first noticed Stan had his brother’s smile. Maybe it wasn’t quite as bright as Matt’s mega-watt grin, but Stan’s smile lit the room.

  She greeted both of them at once with a sweeping wave of her hand. “Hi.”

  Matt folded her into his arms for a welcoming hug. She found it odd that his affectionate greeting felt so right. When he released her, his brother circled Meg twice. “Matty was right. Your locks have a life of their own. And they like to par-tay. At least you have a gorgeous natural color to work with.”

  As hard as she tried, she couldn’t picture Matt saying anything of the kind. She didn’t know what Stan saw in the color, either. Her hair had been dull and unruly for as long as she could remember.

  “Is there anything you can do about it?” Her voice sounded ridiculously hopeful, but she was desperate. With a baby on the way, she’d soon have even less time and energy to try to wrangle her hair into some semblance of style.

  “There certainly is. Just let me kick Matty out and we’ll get started.”

  Matt started to protest. “I don’t want—”

  Stan cut him off with a wave. “My room, my rules. Come back in an hour.”

  Matt glowered at his brother but stalked through the door just the same. Meg barely had time to notice the somewhat odd exchange before Stan whisked her to a makeshift salon chair.

  “I’m sorry I had to kick him out.” He didn’t sound the least bit sorry as he situated her in the chair and swept a dark red cape over her shoulders. “I figured you didn’t really want Matty to watch.”

  She cocked her head to one side, contemplating that for a moment. Stan was right. “How’d you know that before I’d figured it out myself?”

  “Years of experience.” Stan tapped his temple. “I know how women think.”

  “I’m glad someone does,” Meg muttered under her breath. Aloud, she asked, “Did you cut Halle Berry’s hair?”