Screwball
Page 3
She wouldn’t forget what he’d done for her anytime soon.
If this interview went well, this would be the first day of a long separation from her son, but she couldn’t think about that. She had to focus on nailing this. Chances like this didn’t come along every day.
“Willow?” She shook off the gloom and looked up. A slim, young blonde woman in skinny jeans and a blue Thrashers polo was coming down the hall, hand extended. “I’m Tracy Rice.”
She rose and shook the woman’s hand. “Nice to meet you.” She hadn’t imagined her contact would be so young. The girl scarcely looked old enough to be out of high school. She was ancient by comparison, even though she was only twenty-six. The last year had put her girlhood behind her forever.
“I spoke to Paul Dudley, the Thrashers team president. He’s ready to meet you now. Shall we?”
“Sure.” She swallowed to calm the fluttering rising in her stomach and tried not to think about how much was riding on this. Tracy had warned her that neither Paul Dudley nor his father, Walter, was completely on board with the idea of a long-term profile. She had to persuade them of the wisdom of the idea. Nate was counting on it, and counting on her.
Tracy led her down the hall and rapped on a half-open door. “Paul, Willow Bourne from Screwball is here.”
“Come in,” a masculine voice said from within.
Tracy pushed the door wide and stood back to let Willow pass. She entered and had a quick impression of a modest office decorated with photos and memorabilia before her eyes found the man behind the desk.
Her legs stopped working and her heart went cold.
Paul.
She stopped dead, a jerky movement with no grace. His eyes were focused on his laptop screen. She remembered those blue eyes well. She saw them staring back at her from her son’s face every day.
His eyes flickered up to hers, froze and then looked back. “Willow?” The same shock and disbelief that had to be on her face was stark on his.
She had to make a split-second decision, and she did it from instinct. Keep cool and admit nothing. Yet.
Aware of Tracy watching them, she forced her legs to move her forward, extending her hand. “I’m Willow Bourne, from Screwball.”
Paul rose and took her hand, his own warm and strong, like she remembered from the night on the beach.
“I know. We’ve met. I mean, how have you been?”
She pulled her hand free and sat in one of the empty chairs in front of his desk, before realizing he hadn’t actually asked her to take a seat.
“Do you two know each other?” Tracy asked, her eyes flickering back and forth between the two of them.
“Yes,” Paul said, as Willow said, “Not really.”
Other than biblically, of course.
“I had no idea that was you. I mean, I never got your last name.” She shut her mouth, hard.
Tracy was giving them the oddest look now, as if she couldn’t quite believe was she was hearing.
God, Willow, don’t be stupid. She might as well have blurted out they’d once had a one-night stand together.
That they’d made a child together.
The back of her neck tensed as her scattered brain put the realization together. She’d been so startled to find out Paul Dudley was Paul from the beach that she hadn’t even made the most important connection of all: He didn’t know about his son.
She’d tried to find him when she realized she was pregnant, but her search had been focused in St. Pete, and with no last name to go on, she hadn’t gotten very far.
“We met down in St. Pete. I was with the Thrashers for spring training last year. You were between jobs at the time, though, Willow. I had no idea you were blogging now. Tracy, have a seat.”
He sat again behind his desk. Thank God he seemed to be calmer than she was. She could barely form coherent thoughts in a sequence, but he seemed to be cool and collected.
Well, why wouldn’t he be? For him, you were a one-night stand he’s probably never thought of since.
For you, he is the father of your child.
She couldn’t let herself think about that. If she did, her fear would show on her face. She’d have to tell him, but not right now. She had to be calm, gather her thoughts, decide how best to proceed. Nate was counting on her, and he never lost an opportunity to remind her that he’d taken a chance on her. She couldn’t screw up this profile.
Too much was riding on this job.
“You envision shadowing us for the season? Writing a profile about what it’s really like to run a small-town minor league team, right? How long do you expect to be with us?”
She exchanged a look with Tracy, whose eyes were wide. She still looked freaked out. Willow could relate. She was pretty freaked out herself. “I didn’t think we’d come to any agreement. I mean, this is an interview and—” What was she trying to do, talk him out of the profile? He was talking like he considered it a done deal. Why the hell was she quibbling?
Thinking on her feet had always been her strong suit. As a reporter, she’d nabbed plenty of great sound bites from athletes who were off their guard. She needed to take a deep breath, collect herself, and get with it.
“I think six weeks should be enough to write the profile.” Six long weeks away from Jack. Six weeks that her mom would be babysitting him. She pushed down the guilt. Her mom was over the moon at the prospect of spending so much time alone with her grandson.
If it had made Willow feel like a loser to be moving back home at twenty-five, unemployed and pregnant, well, she hadn’t had a lot of choice. It had been best for the baby at the time. Now, taking these strides toward independence was best for both Jack and her. This job would enable her to move out after it was over and get her own place for Jack and herself. To chip away faster at the mountain of debt she’d incurred from her pregnancy and the birth.
The separation would last only six weeks, a blink of an eye compared to the long future she had ahead of her as a parent. Jack would be fine with her mom. Much better for him to stay in a familiar situation than for him to be schlepped off to a motel, cared for by a strange babysitter while she worked on the piece. Her mom had been caring for Jack while she worked, so he was comfortable with her. A little too comfortable, said the green-eyed, jealous side of her. Another reason why she and Jack needed their own place. She didn’t want him to grow up confused about who his mother was.
It’s only six weeks.
Focus. If I think about being away from Jack, I’ll never get through this without losing it.
She swallowed her emotions and took a deep breath. “I’ll need full access to the team, of course. Player interviews, interviews with front-office staff, attendance to all the games, away and home.”
“Of course. You can sit in my executive box for the home games.” A tiny smile played around that serious mouth of his.
Oh, no. She should have seen that coming. “Great,” she said firmly, planting a smile on her face. She hoped it didn’t look as fake as it felt.
Paul, on the other hand, looked like a cat who’d recently dined on canary. Could he possibly be enjoying this?
Of course he is, stupid. He doesn’t know I had a child. He’s probably hoping for a repeat of what happened in St. Pete.
Ha. Fat chance. She’d screwed up one job with a workplace relationship and changed her life forever with an impulsive one-night stand. Damned if she’d do either again. She had a child now. The stakes were too high. Youthful, dumb decisions were a luxury she could no longer afford.
“I’ll need to travel with the team, of course. I’ll need a pass for the team bus.”
The smile disappeared. “I see. You were planning on going along on road trips, huh?” He exchanged an inscrutable look with Tracy, whose expression mirrored his. “That might be a problem.”
“Why is that?”
“My father, Walter Dudley, is a bit old-fashioned.”
Some tiny sound escaped Tracy, and he shot her a warning look.
Willow looked between them, mystified.
“He doesn’t like women on the team bus, or anywhere near the clubhouse,” Paul said.
“You’re kidding.” What century was this?
He grimaced. “Afraid not. I’ll get you press credentials that will let you get on the field and do post-game interviews, but the team bus may be a no-go.”
“You’re team president. Can’t you make it happen?”
He shifted in his seat. “I run the day-to-day operations of the team as president, but my father is still the owner of the team. He ran the team for thirty years before I took over the presidency. He still keeps a hand in.”
Another strangled sound emerged from Tracy, and Paul’s look grew even blacker.
Ah-ha. Lines of tension appeared in his face when he spoke about his father. The journalist in her smelled a story. The best kind: one the subject didn’t want told. Excitement flickered to life in her brain.
“I’m afraid a team bus pass is a necessity. In order to do a behind-the-scenes profile, I need access to everything, including life on the road, the clubhouse, everything. If you can’t arrange that, maybe I need to talk to your father.”
His brows came down in a hurry over those blue-gray eyes. Hmmm, he didn’t like it when you tried to go over his head. Interesting.
“The post-game clubhouse is out of the question. It’s a privacy issue with our players. I’ll see that you get your bus pass. Leave it to me.”
“Good.” She rose. “If I’m going to be in town for an extended stay, I have some arrangements to make.” She extended her hand to shake his, trying to keep it impersonal.
“If you need any assistance, let me know. I can find you a place to stay.”
“Thanks, but I’ll take care of my own arrangements while I’m working.”
His frown deepened. Too bad. Maybe he’d meant it kindly, but it sounded a little too cozy for her taste. She had to maintain as much journalistic independence as she could on this project, no matter what, even considering their history. Especially considering their history.
“If you need anything, let me know. I’ll be glad to help in whatever way possible.” As he spoke, his eyes dipped to her chest, lingering for a second until he brought them back to her face. His cheeks reddened.
Checking me out, huh? You are so busted, buddy.
“I’m sure Tracy can get me set up with whatever I need,” she said through gritted teeth. Yeah, he was hoping for a replay of that night, but it wasn’t happening.
It wasn’t until she was behind the wheel of her rental car in the parking lot that she realized what had drawn Paul’s attention. Her blazer had gaped open in front, revealing the front of her blue blouse darkened with a damp spot. Her nursing pads had proven unequal to the task of concealing a missed nursing.
“Damn it,” she muttered, buttoning her blazer and feeling like an idiot. Here she’d thought he’d been ogling her magnificent bosom. No, he’d been staring at a very obvious nursing stain.
Had Paul understood what he was looking at? He was a bachelor, so maybe not. God, she hoped not. She’d tell him about Jack in her own time, on her own terms. Until she was ready, she didn’t need him getting any suspicions. He couldn’t even know she had a child. He’d be bound to wonder about the timing.
She pulled out the old nursing pads and stuck them in a plastic bag she kept for the purpose and then inserted two fresh ones she kept in her purse. She dabbed at the stain on her shirt with a wet wipe. Time to get back to her room and pump, ASAP.
A rap on the driver’s window made her jump. “Hi.”
Paul leaned down, one hand braced on the roof of her car.
Her heart hammered. She half turned the key and lowered the power window. “Hi. What’s up?” Her voice rose about three octaves at the thought of confronting him without Tracy as a buffer. At the same time, she couldn’t help noticing, but damn, he looked good.
Out from behind his desk, every line of his muscles protruded. Her breath lodged in her throat, and she couldn’t tell if it was from fear or excitement. Why, oh, why had he turned out to be that Paul?
“I was hoping we could talk somewhere, privately. Maybe go for coffee or something?”
No. No no no no no. The crescendo rose in her head, so she shouldn’t have been surprised when she blurted, “No,” right out loud.
Paul sure looked it, though.
She turned the key all the way in the ignition to start the engine. “Sorry, I mean, it’s not a good time right now.”
Let’s have this discussion sometime when my boobs aren’t leaking all over the place, giving away the fact I secretly bore your child a few months ago. Check that, let’s never have that discussion.
“Oh.” He looked nonplussed. “When is a good time, then?”
“Ah, I’m not really sure. How about I get back to you?”
Those crystal blue eyes of his darkened. “Look, if you’re concerned things are going to be awkward between us because of what happened, don’t worry. I’d never make trouble for you that way. If you don’t want anything to happen, of course, it won’t.” A smile flitted across his face. “Of course, I might try to talk you into it.”
Ah-ha, so he had been hoping for a replay. Well, who could blame him? It had been the sweetest, most passionate night of her life.
Too bad it would never happen again.
To him, it was a fun thing he’d like to repeat a time or two. To her, it was the night her life had changed irrevocably. If it happened again, her life would be turned upside down again, and that she couldn’t afford. Not when she was just now getting back on her feet. Not when she had Jack to think about. God. She’d lost her last job because of a relationship gone sour. If she lost this job too, how would she get another? Her stomach knotted.
“I think we should forget the whole thing ever happened,” she said. “It was obviously a mistake, and dwelling on it would only cause problems for the profile. I need to retain my objectivity for this piece, and I can’t do it if we’re involved.” She had finally settled on the nicest euphemism she could think of for sleeping together.
His face clouded, and, for a second, she swore she’d hurt him. Surely not. He was such an enigma, she’d probably read him wrong.
“Fine. No problem. I’d already half forgotten it anyway.” He straightened, his shoulders stiff.
Okay, then. Every bit of hesitancy about turning him down vanished. If he was going to be a jerk about this, fine. That made things easier for her. She wouldn’t feel nearly so bad about blowing him off.
“Good,” she said, pasting on a bright smile. “We shouldn’t have a problem then.”
“No problem here,” he said, the curve of his lips dark and moody. “Drive safely.”
She gave him a final wave and headed back to Plainview, leaving him standing in the parking lot.
She looked in her rearview mirror and saw he was still watching her, his shoulders slumped.
Already half forgotten, my ass.
She’d like to forget him, but she had a blue-eyed reminder in the form of Jack. He was the only good thing to come out of something that had otherwise been a world-class screwup.
Chapter 2
That had gone well. Not.
Paul Dudley watched Willow’s car’s taillights disappear down the road. What the hell had happened? Over the course of the last half hour, he’d gone straight from shock to total confusion and still wasn’t sure how.
She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge their past in front of Tracy. He got that. He was a guy, with all of the occasional cluelessness about women that went along with that, but he wasn’t a stupid one. He’d followed her out to her car to get a chance to ask her to coffee at the Ladybird Café. Maybe they could hash it out, discuss the hulking elephant that had been tromping all over the room during their interview.
If he was honest with himself, he hoped to find out which way the wind blew, see what she thought about him, and if she was still available and might be open to s
pending some time together while she was in town.
Okay, be honest. Spending some time together equaled sleeping together, in his wishful thinking. He sure as hell didn’t want a relationship and didn’t know if she did either, but God, surely they could both use the connection and release that came with a friend with benefits.
Well, he’d gotten an answer on that score fast enough. That night on the beach was a “mistake,” according to her, never to be repeated.
For his self-protection, he probably ought to try to see it that way, but he doubted he could.
Their night together had happened a little more than a year ago, and he’d never been able to forget it. If he was honest with himself, it was the last time he’d been happy. Plainview, Indiana, wasn’t exactly a hotbed of young available women for him to date, and work—well, hell. He worked fourteen-hour days during the season to try to turn the team’s fortunes around, but between fading revenues and his father’s stubbornness and interference, he was caught between a rock and a hard place. He’d inherited a touch of that Walter Dudley stubbornness, however, and he wasn’t about to let his old man chase him off from the Thrashers the way he’d chased off Sarah.
He loved his sister, and he understood why she left. Walter Dudley would never have given her a job in baseball operations. For Sarah to have the career she wanted, she had to move on. As for him?
He never would.
He was a Dudley, and the Plainview Thrashers were his birthright, the legacy he’d inherited from Grandpa Dudley. Nobody, not even his father, was going to stand in the way of him doing what he’d been put on this earth to do.
He could have gone to a dozen teams throughout the country. Considering the constraints his dad put him under, he did a fine job running the team. He’d had offers through the years, offers from teams that would have given him a free hand. Let him run things his way. He’d turned down every one, knowing where his place was.
Across the parking lot sat the low-slung concrete edifice of the stadium, the bright spring sun picking out every crack and patch of rust. On the outside of the seating deck, block letters spelled out “Dudley Field,” one letter between each column, as it had been since the fifties when the stadium was built. From here, he could barely make out the statue of his grandfather, James Dudley, who founded the Thrashers and built Dudley Field.