Screwball

by Linda Morris

  She put her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, desperate for the heat and comfort only he could provide. His hand moved down to cup her breast through the halter top of her dress, and heat streaked through her body as her nipple hardened.

  The kiss seemed to last forever. He pulled away finally, short of breath, those cool blue eyes now hot and focused. “Come on.” He gave her hand a tug.

  Maybe she shouldn’t be out here with him. He was a stranger. It didn’t make sense and it wasn’t reasonable. But she’d had a “reasonable” relationship with a man she loved, and whom she thought had loved her. Her family had liked Tony. Her friends thought she was cool for dating an ex–football star. Everybody had approved of that relationship, and it had wrecked her life. She couldn’t do another relationship. The price was too high. But one night …

  Paul wouldn’t take her anywhere she didn’t want to go. She knew that instinctively.

  He led her to the pier. A few late-night wanderers were leaning over the rail to watch the waves crest on the shore. On the beach, the pier was a boardwalk over sandy dunes. He pulled her under the pier and back into his arms for another kiss. This time, he slid the straps of her dress down her shoulders and eased the cups of her strapless bra down. Bending, he took her nipple into his mouth, drawing a shocked gasp from her.

  “Shhh.” He looked above them, where moonlight shone through the cracks in the boardwalk and an occasional step shuffled overhead. “They can’t see us, but they can hear us,” he whispered.

  He lowered his head again. Just like that, knowing she couldn’t moan, couldn’t cry out, she suddenly wanted more than anything to shout her excitement to the skies. Being unable to made it worse. Or better. She couldn’t decide.

  Desperate for contact with his skin, she slid her hands to his neck, unfastening the top couple of buttons of his shirt to expose the skin of his throat and upper chest. He dropped to his knees, moved his hands behind her to cup her buttocks, and pressed a row of hot kisses down the soft skin between her ribs, all the way to her navel. Her dress hung on her hips, preserving at least a shred of modesty for now.

  She unfastened her bra and tossed it aside. He cupped her breasts as he let his tongue slide into her navel, sending shivers up her spine. Her hands slid into his hair, holding him close. She never wanted to let him go …

  No. She wouldn’t let herself think that way. This was for one night. She didn’t even know his last name, and she wanted to keep it that way. She could be ruthless and take pleasure for pleasure’s sake. It was the only way to keep from getting hurt again.

  He lifted his mouth from her abdomen and looked at her, his face inscrutable in the darkness. “Are we going to do this? If you don’t want to, stop me now.”

  “Yes.” She didn’t need to think about it. She needed this every bit as much as he did. Maybe they could heal each other, just a little bit.

  After that, everything moved quickly. He pulled her down to the sand, bare from the waist up, kissing her, touching her, exploring her body. His hands covered her breasts. She stopped him long enough to unbutton his shirt and throw it aside, alive with the need to have his bare skin pressed against hers.

  He lifted her skirt and slid his hand between her legs, moving the narrow strip of her thong to one side to touch the wetness he found there. The feeling startled another gasp from her, and he shook his head. “Quiet now,” he whispered. “You wouldn’t want to be overheard.”

  The smug jerk. He was loving her inability to keep quiet. Oh, he so deserved payback for that one. She cupped the hardness at the front of his pants, wringing a soft groan from him.

  “Hush now,” she returned with the best kind of sexual malice tinging her voice. “You wouldn’t want to be overheard.” She slid down his zipper and reached in to pull out his erection. He couldn’t quite muffle his sigh, much to her amusement.

  A buzz-killing thought struck. “Please tell me you have a condom.” She’d gone off the pill after the debacle with Tony, thinking it would be a long time before she needed to worry about birth control again.

  He fumbled in his back pocket for his wallet and withdrew a condom. He held it up, eyes alight. “I do.”

  “Thank God.” Enough preliminaries. She was ready to move on. In moments, he’d shoved his pants off and donned the condom, kneeling above her, his face all sexy purpose and intent. She slid off her dress and spread it out to give them protection from the sand and then lay atop it.

  He pulled her thong off, kissing the bare skin he revealed, letting his tongue come out to taste her, teasing and tempting as he went.

  After what seemed like ages, he slid inside of her, giving relief to the sweet ache inside her, yet paradoxically making it worse. His strong shoulders hovered above her, blocking out the moonlight as the steady rhythm he set drove every thought out of her mind.

  Yes. This was what she needed. Oblivion. Tears sprang into her eyes and she couldn’t explain them. He began to move aggressively, hammering her body with the strength of his thrusts, but she didn’t complain. His forcefulness made it easier not to think, and if she didn’t think, she wouldn’t have to wonder about how hard it would be to let him go.

  *

  “How’s it going in there?” Kendra called through the bathroom door, the concern in her voice obvious.

  Hands shaking, Willow managed to pee all over her hand before finally getting some on the little strip that poked out the end of the pregnancy test.

  “Fine.” She washed up and opened the door, holding the little pink test carefully between two fingers. “It says you have to wait three minutes.”

  Kendra pulled out her phone. “I’ll set a timer.”

  Willow sat at the foot of the bed next to her friend, watching the results window on the test. She fumbled for Kendra’s hand and settled in to wait.

  Willow had thrown up again that morning. That made five days in a row. The smell of coffee, normally her favorite aroma, had sent her racing for the bathroom every time. She’d known she had to take a pregnancy test, but she couldn’t face it alone. Like a true friend, Kendra had dropped everything to come when she’d called, and had stopped at a Walgreens on the way to pick up the test for her.

  Her friend squeezed her hand hard. “Whatever it is, I’ll be there for you. We’ll get through this together, I promise. It’ll be all right.”

  Willow nodded through the tears rising in her eyes. They were blurring her vision and she couldn’t see the window. She wiped them away. A line was starting to appear on the test—no, wait, was that two lines?

  Willow couldn’t breathe. Slowly, two blue lines grew darker and darker.

  “It’s two lines,” Kendra said. “What does that mean?”

  “Uh, I’m not sure.” The instructions had said two lines meant pregnant. Surely that wasn’t right. She must have misread them.

  She retrieved the test box from the bathroom and handed it to her friend, her hand shaking so hard she could hardly do it. “You read the directions and tell me what it says.”

  Kendra read for a moment and then looked up, eyes wide. “Two lines means pregnant. Oh, honey.” She stood and slipped an arm around her friend’s shoulders.

  Willow burst into tears. “I don’t even know his last name!” She sobbed onto Kendra’s shirt for what seemed like an hour. Shit. Shit. What was she going to do? Oh, God. Did she even want kids? Someday, maybe, but she didn’t want them now. She was young, with her whole life ahead of her, and more importantly, she was all alone. She didn’t have a job. She’d never imagined having this moment be like this. Getting pregnant was supposed to be a joyous thing. Not this disaster. Eventually, the emotion seemed to have drained away from her, leaving her with aching eyes, a runny nose and an empty feeling.

  Kendra brought her a tissue, and she blew her nose, then retreated to the bathroom to discard the test and wash her face. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror looked every bit as awful as she felt. Her fair skin hid nothing. It was covered with splotc
hes, and her nose was red from crying.

  She wiped her face and went back to the bedroom.

  “What are you going to do?” Kendra’s eyes were wide and solemn.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, are you going to have it, or—” Kendra broke off, biting her lip.

  “I know what you mean. I don’t know.”

  “Are you going to track down Paul to tell him?”

  “I don’t know!” she shouted. She buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know anything, okay?” she said more softly.

  God. Pregnant. With no job and not even a boyfriend, much less a husband.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Willow took a deep breath and sat next to her friend. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry.” She put her arm around Kendra’s shoulder and forced a weak smile.

  God, was she ever sorry.

  Chapter 1

  Thirteen months later

  “Do I have your permission to fly her in?”

  Paul Dudley looked over his desk to his marketing rep, Tracy Rice. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think more publicity is the last thing this family needs.” He swiveled his chair to look out the window to the half-empty parking lot. In the distance sat Dudley Field, squat and dark. He’d ordered the grounds crew to cut the lights totally whenever they weren’t playing a game.

  Yet another cost-saving measure that hadn’t seemed to have made a difference. The Plainview Thrashers bled money faster than he could staunch the flow.

  Tracy sat on the edge of the desk. “This blog, Screwball. They want to send someone to shadow us and do a series of profiles on the way a small-town minor league baseball team really runs. It will get a national audience, far more than the Thrashers budget could afford if we were paying for it.”

  “Is this ‘national audience’ going to come to Plainview, Indiana, to buy tickets to Thrashers games?” One eyebrow rose. “This won’t put asses in the seats, which is what we need.”

  He rubbed the ridge of his nose, fighting the headache that always seemed to threaten these days. The Thrashers legacy mattered more than anything to him—it had mattered to generations of Dudleys—but, God, lately, he felt like the captain of a sinking ship.

  Ticket sales had declined from last year, and from the year before that. At least when his sister, Sarah, had been VP of marketing, he’d had someone to share the burden, at least a little. But she’d run off with star pitcher Tom Cord, the big leaguer who’d done time in Plainview rehabbing an injury. Together, they’d established a pitching academy, in no small part because their stubborn old man, Walter Dudley, had old-fashioned notions about women in baseball and wouldn’t let his daughter take on a job that made the most of her abilities.

  Their dad had driven Sarah away with his stubbornness. Paul supported his sister’s decision, but he missed her every day. Her old assistant, Tracy, did a great job filling in for her old boss, but it wasn’t the same.

  He looked at Tracy. True to form, Walter Dudley wouldn’t let Paul give her the title of VP. “I’ve learned my lesson there,” the old man had grumbled. “No women in the front office. I knew it would be a mistake, but you talked me into giving Sarah a chance. You see how that turned out.”

  Yeah, with an overqualified employee who happened to be your daughter quitting because you wouldn’t stop busting her chops.

  He wouldn’t voice the words aloud. He’d done it plenty of times before, to no effect. The best way to manage his father, as well as he could be managed, was to work around him. It had taken him years to learn that lesson.

  “Tracy’s already in the front office, Dad. She’s doing all the PR work as an assistant, and not getting the money or title.”

  “No, you’re doing the PR work, and she’s your assistant,” his father insisted.

  “Dad, you know I can’t handle that and run the team too. Calling me ‘acting marketing VP’ is a polite fiction to keep from giving Tracy the promotion she deserves.”

  His father hadn’t budged, however, as Paul had known he wouldn’t, and he couldn’t hire executives without his dad’s sign-off. He’d given her a hefty raise, however, which he did control.

  “We can’t afford it,” Walter Dudley had complained.

  “We can’t afford to lose her. She’s doing Sarah’s old job and her own. We’re saving enough money by paying one person to do two jobs. The least we can do is pay her a decent salary.”

  His father had sniped at him for days about it, and that ever-present half headache had only gotten worse.

  Tracy had every right to be furious over the way she was being treated, so he could only hope the raise mollified her. The last thing he could afford to do was replace another disgruntled employee.

  Tracy had been a trooper. He owed her this one, even if it meant he’d be pestered by an annoying blogger who would no doubt cause more trouble than good.

  “You think this is a good idea?”

  Tracy’s eyes lit. She knew he was more than halfway to giving in, dammit.

  “What’s the name of this blog again?”

  “Screwball. Willow Bourne is the reporter-slash-blogger who wants to profile us.”

  “Willow?” The name sent a surge of heat through his body, to a place of remembered happiness that short-circuited his brain. It had been more than a year ago, that one night on the beach in Florida, but he’d never forgotten it. Smooth skin, long reddish hair spread across the sand and brown eyes that seemed to soothe his troubles with a glance. That way she bit her bottom lip when she was aroused.

  His stupidity in insisting they live in the moment.

  Living in the moment was all well and good, but why hadn’t he at least gotten her last name or her number? He’d never heard from her again. Until the end of spring training, he’d gone back to the Crimson Lounge nearly every night, drinking alone at the bar like a lonesome cowboy, hoping to catch another glimpse of the woman who’d made him, at least for one night, more alive than he’d been in years.

  He’d come up empty and, after a couple of weeks, it had been time to pack up the team and return to Indiana for the start of the minor league season.

  He’d done it with a heavy heart, knowing he’d left behind any chance of ever seeing her again.

  “Where did you say this blog is based?” The Willow he’d met in Florida had been a TV reporter, not a sports blogger, but still. The name was unusual enough. Maybe it was her.

  “Um, Atlanta, I think. Does that matter? She’s willing to fly here for all the interviews, of course.”

  His heart sank. Atlanta. Not St. Petersburg. Doubtless it was another Willow.

  It wasn’t a common name, but not unique either.

  “Sure, go ahead and set up the interview. Don’t promise she can shadow me for the whole season. Tell her the interview is a tryout, to see how it goes. I’ll make the decision after I meet her.”

  “Great.” Tracy beamed and slid off of his desk, running off, no doubt to make the phone call. “You won’t regret it.”

  He wished he could share her optimism, but looking on the bright side didn’t come easily to him these days. This blogger thing might turn out to be a PR debacle, but what did it matter? Working for his old man, debacles came with the territory.

  Things couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  No way.

  *

  Willow sat in the waiting area of the Plainview Thrashers executive offices and tried not to feel guilty. It was the first time she’d been away from Jack since his birth four months ago.

  She pulled out her cell phone and texted her mom. “Everything OK?”

  “Fine,” came the response moments later. “He just had a bottle. Your dad is putting him down for a nap. Concentrate on your interview.”

  Willow checked the time. Three thirty. It was a little late for his nap.

  “He usually naps at two. You might have to put him to bed a little later tonight since you gave him a late nap.”

  She winced, hoping that
didn’t sound too blaming. This time, it took two or three minutes for the response to come. Willow could practically see her mother’s bitten tongue.

  “I’ve raised children, you know.”

  She smiled slightly. “Yes, Mom, but look out how I turned out.”

  This time, the response was immediate. “You turned out perfectly. Except your son needs a father.”

  She rolled her eyes, fingers gripping the phone a little tighter. It had taken her mom months to accept she really had no way of contacting the child’s father. Now her mom seemed to think she ought to grab the first guy she met and marry him. They’d had this argument a thousand times. They weren’t going to settle it today. “Thanks for watching Jack. Give him a kiss for me when he wakes up.”

  She put the phone away, feeling a sharp stab of longing for her son. The decision to leave him to come to Plainview hadn’t come easy, but it was the right thing to do. After she’d written a few short pieces about teams in Florida, her editor at Screwball, Nate Collins, had asked her to do this profile of the Thrashers.

  Her young boss had pushed his dark-framed glasses up higher on his nose, his eyes flashing. “SportsNet is bankrolling us—very generously, I might add—to write the big think-pieces that the other sports blogs can’t. This is going to be a big one for us. Minor league small-town ball is a relic in today’s world. With so many entertainment options, it’s fading fast. A piece of Americana is dying. I want you to write the obituary.”

  Nate tended to talk like that: full of grand ideas about the culture and even grander ideas about the future of Screwball. She didn’t always like it, but this was her first big chance to prove herself, and she was in no position to refuse anything he requested. He’d given her a chance when she had no blogging experience and was the single mother of a newborn to boot. Most blogs didn’t pay well, but Screwball was owned by SportsNet, second only to ESPN in sports coverage. Her salary had enabled her to start digging out of the debt she’d accrued by being unemployed for so long, not to mention giving birth without health insurance. She’d needed this job desperately, and God, had she been glad to get it.