by Joanne Rock
Finally, they reached the couch and he lowered her onto the soft blue tapestry. The lights from the courtyard filtered in through the windows, allowing him to see how good she looked stretched out on his furniture. Her blouse had come partially unbuttoned, revealing a hint of a creamy lace cup hugging her breast. A gold necklace with three pearls slid into the vee of her cleavage. Her skirt hem dipped between her thighs, the line askew so that he could see more of one leg than the other.
“So beautiful.” He dropped a kiss there, high on one thigh, just to make her think about it.
She shivered and made a sweet sound in the back of her throat, making him recalculate his whole approach. They had all night.
“Let me,” she urged, reaching for the belt she hadn’t finished removing.
Moving away so she couldn’t complete the task, he unfastened the clasp himself.
“Close your eyes.” He placed his palm over her eyelids. “Don’t think. Just feel.”
“I haven’t had a thought in my head for hours,” she assured him, her whole body wriggling and restless until he planted another kiss between her thighs.
A slow, thorough kiss.
Her breath caught. Held. Her legs tightened and braced against the couch. Then, within a few heartbeats, her limbs went limp and languid. He reached to unfasten the rest of the buttons on her blouse, easily popping open one after another while he inched higher up her body with his mouth.
He had just reached the hem of her skirt when the doorbell rang.
And rang.
Amber bolted upright, straightening clothes and tucking strands of hair.
“It’s okay,” he assured her, not in any mood to see who was on his front porch at one in the morning. “They’ll go away when we don’t answer.”
Riiingg!
Whoever it was really laid on the bell, drawing out the chime for five times longer than normal.
“It sounds urgent.” Amber skittered away from him on the sofa. “I don’t mind waiting while you see who it is.”
As if he was in any condition to deal with company now.
“Shit.” He indulged in the curse, feeling certain the situation warranted that and more. “I’ll get rid of them, I promise.”
If he only had a few days with Amber, he planned to make the most of them.
Riing!
“That’s fine. Just, maybe, hurry.” Amber handed him the shirt she’d torn off him earlier.
Grumbling and complaining all the while, he dragged his feet to give himself time to cool down. Heath elbowed his way into his shirt as he opened the door.
His third baseman, the notorious Diego Estes, stood on his front step. A black Mercedes coupe with a wrinkled front fender hissed in the driveway behind him.
“Thank God you’re home, Skip.” Diego ran a hand through hair that looked as if it had already been well raked. “I need a place to crash. I’m wrecked in more ways than one.”
“Is anyone hurt?” A million ugly scenarios raced through his head.
“No.” Estes shook his head, eyes widening briefly at the suggestion. “Of course not. I just forgot you had that damn security gate and I clipped the front of the thing before I put it in Reverse and punched in the code you gave me. As long as I don’t have whiplash, no one’s hurt.”
Curses rose to Heath’s lips as he thought about all the reasons why he should boot Estes off his team for pulling this kind of crap the night before the most important road trip of the season. Still, Heath reined it in because Estes was a five-tool player with an on-base percentage no one could deny.
“I have company, but if you just find a room and lock yourself in, I guess you can—”
“Hel-lo.” Diego’s eyes—even while under the influence and bleary from the demons that drove him—lit up at the sight of Amber.
Heath didn’t need to turn around to feel her presence in the foyer behind him.
Just like that, he didn’t feel so charitable toward his superstar guest, five-tool player or not. With Diego attempting a ludicrous once-over of Heath’s woman, it made it damn easy to slam the door in his face.
“Forget it, Estes,” Heath shouted through the oak barrier. “The pool house has a futon. You can crash there or I’ll be on the phone to the cops so fast you can kiss your season goodbye.”
Turning back to Amber, he was all too ready to take up where they’d left off. But the worried expression on her face suggested it wouldn’t be as easy as returning to the den. For one, her concern nipped at his conscience, which informed him he needed to address this situation better.
“Shit.” Opening the front door again, he let the third baseman in and hoped he could restrain from kicking his ass long enough to show Amber he wasn’t such a bad guy.
No doubt about it, he was in for a crappy night.
7
“YOU’RE FORTUNATE you didn’t hurt anyone.” Amber poured Diego a second cup of coffee the next morning, wondering how Heath coped with a team full of young guys with too much money, fame and opportunity to get into trouble. “Thank God the only thing damaged in all this is the car and Heath’s gate.”
After Heath had let Diego in last night, he’d admitted he had been drinking, but Amber didn’t think he’d been over the legal limit. Still, riding around upset and nipping from a flask was idiotic and asking for trouble.
She’d retired early, finding a guest bedroom and giving Heath privacy to talk to his friend. Apparently, Diego had been in a tailspin after discovering his old girlfriend back in the Dominican Republic had given birth to his baby after their breakup. Amber hadn’t figured out all the dynamics of that relationship, but she’d learned that much from Heath when he found her before dawn and carried her back to his bed. She’d been too tired to capitalize on his nearness, and they’d spend those few hours together sleeping.
Her wild affair wasn’t exactly off to an auspicious start. But then, she still had the rest of her vacation and a trip to L.A. ahead.
Now, Diego hung his head over a heavy stoneware mug while he sat at the breakfast bar. His eyes were rimmed with red, and his thick, dark hair had seen better days. Even so, Diego Estes was a tremendously attractive sight. Not that she’d trade the raw sex appeal of Heath for an instant. But objectively speaking, she could see where Diego might earn a reputation as a ladies’ man. She’d bet it hadn’t required much effort on his part to gather flocks of female followers.
“Did Heath tell you what happened?” He didn’t bother stirring in any sugar, but he clanged a spoon around the mug anyhow, clearly tired and out of sorts.
“He said you were upset because you found out that you missed the birth of your son.” She found herself identifying with the jilted girlfriend back in his hometown and strove not to sound judgmental.
Amber’s mother had been two-timed by her first husband for months. Amber hadn’t even been more than eight or nine in the aftermath of that hellish time, but she recalled what it was like to see her mom’s heart broken into a million little pieces.
“I didn’t just miss his birth. I’ve missed—” He shook his head. “If I had known I was going to be a father, I would have been there,” he vowed, pounding the counter with his fist. “My son is six weeks old, and I never even knew about him until I tried calling my ex-girlfriend and her mother picked up with a kid crying in the background. The mom told me about my son. Jasmine never even tried to let me know.”
Amber slid the coffeepot back onto the hot plate, hoping Heath wouldn’t mind that she’d made herself at home. Or at least started the java. His sleek granite and stainless steel kitchen wasn’t exactly what she’d call homey. But Amber didn’t have any way of getting home until Heath woke up. And Diego seemed as if he needed comfort. The guy sounded sincere. Hurt. She debated what to say as Heath entered the kitchen.
Hair slick from his shower and his jaw freshly shaven, he wore a suit without the jacket. Charcoal pants matched the coat he pitched onto a nearby chair. A blue silk tie had the Aces logo embroidered in
the middle, accentuated by a silver tie clip.
Bearing little resemblance to the laid-back biker dude she’d met on Nantucket, Heath was all business today.
“Maybe Jasmine knew you would be there if she told you, and she didn’t want you to walk away from baseball and resent her for it later.” Heath skirted around the breakfast bar and came straight to her.
She caught a hint of spicy aftershave as he captured her waist and kissed her hard on the cheek.
Oh. Hormones flared to life. Thoughts of Diego’s problems fled.
“Do you know that?” Diego was on his feet, apparently plenty interested in Heath’s take on the situation. “Did you know about this kid when you recruited me?”
“Hell, no.” Releasing her waist, Heath helped himself to coffee, not seeming to mind that she’d raided his cabinets to find the necessary items. “Just an educated guess. But I’ve been around athletes and their girlfriends long enough to have seen this happen before.”
Amber would have never suspected that Heath spent his free time dealing with things like this and she wondered if other managers were a part of their players’ lives this way. Or did he have a special relationship with Diego because he’d personally recruited him?
Slowly, Diego sank back into his chair. Amber collected the things she’d assembled to make eggs for the hungover Diego, but Heath shooed her away and passed his mug of coffee to her.
Nice. She smiled as she poured in the creamer, pleased to see her seriously rich new lover didn’t need to have all his food catered.
“You have been in the game a long time, haven’t you, Skip?” Diego used the nickname for a manager, she’d learned, though it sounded old-fashioned and quaint to Amber’s ears. “And your dad played before you, right?”
Heath’s father had been a ballplayer, too? Her mug hit the granite harder than she’d intended, sloshing a bit of coffee over the side as she contemplated what she was doing dating someone involved in a major league dynasty.
“Sorry,” she murmured, hastily wiping up the excess with a napkin.
“Yes. My father pitched for the L.A. Stars.” His words were clipped, but a hint of pride remained. “His jersey still hangs in the stadium. You’ll see it tomorrow at the field.”
“Really?” Amber wondered why Rochelle hadn’t mentioned that. “Does that make you baseball royalty?”
She said it to tease him, but he didn’t crack a smile as he broke the eggs over a frying pan.
“He didn’t acknowledge me until after I was drafted. He never married my mom.”
Heath tapped one shell after another until the pan was full, focusing all his attention on breakfast. But Amber had been forced to share the story of her own family history enough times to know you didn’t spill those details without an answering spear of pain.
Diego seemed oblivious, though, still stirring black coffee. “Maybe your mom was like Jasmine. She wanted your dad to have his career.”
“Could be,” Heath agreed easily enough, retrieving plates from an overhead cabinet. “Families make sacrifices all the time to see their own go pro. You can fly Jasmine and your son up here to spend time with them, but don’t blow it for them and mess up the career. You’ve got a hell of a lot to be proud of, and so do they.”
Amber soaked in the import of that advice while Diego accepted a plate full of eggs.
The two men moved on to discussing their chance of a win in L.A. and Amber used the time to think about what Heath had said. Did he speak from experience and a real desire to reassure Diego? Or was Heath’s main goal just to retain a successful player on his roster? He certainly had reason to want the team’s best hitter focused on his game.
But she hated to think Heath would ever suggest one of his players ignore a son in favor of making a name for himself in the big leagues.
Not that she planned on getting caught up in Heath’s life. She was just here for the road trip and the fun. Relaxation and romance.
Right?
“Amber?”
Heath’s voice filtered through the worries chasing around her brain.
“Yes?” She realized she hadn’t touched the plate he’d put in front of her.
“When you’re ready, I’ll run you back home so you can pick up some things for the trip.” He studied her curiously over his coffee cup.
“That would be great.” It would give her a last chance to back out if she discovered Heath was the kind of manager who told his players whatever they needed to hear in order to show up at the park every day.
And if not? If Heath really walked the walk of a child left behind by a father too famous and important to be bothered by his own progeny? She would have far too much in common with her hot baseball manager lover.
She was screwed either way. So far, she was down in the count for keeping things light and uncomplicated.
HE’D BEEN AN IDIOT.
Diego dove into the pool behind his manager’s house, taking advantage of the cold, clean water to clear out his head.
He hadn’t just used poor judgment last night, when he’d been tipping a flask of Wild Turkey to drown the pain of discovering he had a son he’d never known about. That ranked high on the idiocy scale. Diego had been operating on diminished gray matter since he’d left Jasmine behind to pursue his career in the States. He’d been home once ten months ago, and there’d been that one time they’d caved to the heat that always flared between them. That must have been when she’d gotten pregnant.
He flipped underwater and pushed off the side of the pool, holding his breath while he swam the length of the in-ground monstrosity again.
He’d loved Jasmine. But they were young, and their dreams were so different. She wanted to work with kids who’d grown up in at-risk communities—the places where they’d come from. He couldn’t wait to get out of there and live the good life. Why couldn’t she understand that with the money he pulled down here, he could buy her a whole damn center to take care of those kids? He wished Jasmine understood there were different ways to help out—that he wasn’t turning his back on the people at home. Sure, she was trying to show kids how to have a better life—but so was he.
His lungs burned as he started his third lap of the pool, his oxygen-starved blood making him light-headed. Enlightened. Because sure enough, he saw now he wasn’t living the good life alone in the States, hounded by females who didn’t care about him half as much as they cared about the houses, clothes and cars that his kind of income could buy.
He broke through the surface of the water, gasping and spluttering but never breaking pace as his arms pinwheeled around for one stroke after another. Jasmine had just been smarter than him. She hadn’t dumped him a year ago because she was jealous of his soon-to-be fame or because she was trying to give him an ultimatum about staying with her. She’d simply known what she wanted and known that she didn’t need a fat bank account to be happy.
Or to make their kid happy.
Hell, maybe Jasmine had saved their son from being raised by a loser who still kept a flask of Wild Turkey around like some kind of high-school kid. Screw. That.
Diego pushed himself deep under the water again, but this time he opened his eyes to see what was in front of him.
Baseball wouldn’t be there for him if he kept up the hitting slump. But Jasmine and his kid—Alex, she’d named him—would be a part of him forever, no matter what.
He wasn’t going to mess around with his life anymore, now that he knew what he had to do. He would call her tonight and ask for another chance.
“HOLY COW.” Heath took two steps into Amber’s Boston apartment and wondered what he was getting into. “Don’t tell me you’ve read all these.”
Books filled every conceivable inch of the space. Built-in shelves butted up against furniture racks so that the walls looked as if they were covered with spines for wallpaper. The whole place was bright, though. She must have covered her collection in paper jackets of her own making because all the spines were mostly white wit
h brightly colored strips in the center where the title and author went. All the white books with red strips were grouped together. Then white with yellow. White with green. Between the books a few odds and ends were stashed to break up the marching rows—a striped hat box, a ceramic cow, a fat gold ship’s bell.
“I’ve probably read about half from cover to cover. A quarter I’ve used for reference and the rest are all on a growing list of things I’d like to read.”
Amber had already disappeared somewhere in the apartment, her voice raised enough for him to follow the direction of it. He wound around an old-fashioned tea cart to catch a glimpse of her in a room that looked like a bedroom with an office on one side. No, more like a library with a desk and a bed.
“I didn’t fully appreciate what it meant to be a book reviewer.” He ran a finger along a few of the titles, admiring the paper jackets, which were all pale yellow in this room. “Is there some significance to the color coding?”
“It’s my nod to the Dewey Decimal System without having to broadcast the numbers.” She pulled open a closet door and emerged with a suitcase. “I know the greens are bios. Yellow is history, and so on. But there aren’t many books here that are related to my reviewing work. Sadly, this is the extent of my personal entertainment most days.”
“Not this week, it’s not.” He’d been dying to get her alone ever since their date had been busted up by Diego’s appearance the night before. He cornered her by the closet. “You’ve got me and you’ve got baseball to keep you entertained. Very much in that order.”
He cupped her shoulders, slowing down her brisk movement around the room. Not until then—when it took her a long moment to say anything—did he realize she hadn’t said much on the ride over here today.
“Can I ask you a question?” She didn’t relax into his touch, putting him on guard.
“Have you changed your mind about this week?” He suddenly recognized that he wanted her to accompany him with a fierceness that surprised the hell out of him.