by Linda Morris
No, she wouldn’t think that way. She’d never been good at taking life one day at a time. She was always either worrying about the past or making plans for the future. Just this once, she wouldn’t think at all.
Her bare breasts brushed against his chest, and she closed her eyes, savoring. His arms encircled her, strong and protective, and one hand came up to cup her breast, his thumb brushing across the nipple. His touch was confident, as if he knew exactly what would please her. She had to admit, he had a good track record.
He tipped her chin to take her mouth in a slow, thorough kiss. He tugged sharply on her hair as he slid his hand through the wet, tangled mass to hold her for his kiss, but she didn’t complain. His other hand dropped, gripping her buttock hard before he slipped around to toy with the super-sensitive skin between her thighs.
Every line of his body was hard with tension, and she sensed the desire he kept tightly in check. There was no need, however. She’d been ready when she’d climbed into the shower.
She let one hand drop down to touch the iron heat of his erection, and he made a tortured sound in response. She tore open the condom packet and quickly rolled it on him as he watched and stroked her breasts.
“Let’s not waste any more time,” she whispered.
He didn’t, guiding her back against the wall, lifting one of her legs to drape over his hip, and entering her with a wicked thrust. The impact shuddered through her, an echo of pleasure sounding in every part of her body. His strong body held her pinned against the shower wall as the hot water streamed down, sluicing off their heated, straining bodies.
Her climax rolled toward her, pleasure ratcheting up exponentially with every thrust until she tipped over the brink with a cry. In spite of the languor stealing through her limbs, she lifted a hand to his face, leaning forward to use the tip of her tongue to catch a drop of water wending its way through his whiskers.
He gripped her buttocks with both hands and, with a groan, took up an almost punishing rhythm. Before she knew it, pleasure rose again, and this time he followed her over the edge, his body shuddering and then going slack in her arms. His head dropped with exhaustion on her shoulder, and her eyes drifted shut.
Yeah, she could get used to this.
Some time later, he rolled atop her on the damp, twisted sheets of her bed, donned a condom from the nightstand, and took her again. She was half-asleep when he started, but his thrusts and the steady rise of pleasure soon had her awake. She bit back her cries as she came, not wanting to wake Jack, who was in his crib at the foot of the bed. Paul came with a groan, and she smiled and touched his lips with a fingertip. “Shhh, you’ll wake Jack.”
“Totally worth it,” Paul whispered, but he rolled off quietly nonetheless. He removed the condom and disappeared into the bathroom to dispose of it, and then came back to cuddle Willow into the crook of his shoulder. God knows, she’d been burned before, but when he held her like that, it was impossible not to be optimistic about the future. She fell asleep with a smile.
*
Willow’s phone buzzing on the nightstand woke her. She checked the readout but didn’t recognize the number. Glancing at the crib to make sure Jack hadn’t awakened, she donned a nightshirt and took the phone out in the hallway to answer it.
“Thank God. I’ve been trying to get through to Paul for an hour. He’s not answering his phone. Do you know where he is? This is Sarah Dudley, by the way.”
“Sure, he’s right here.”
“Put him on. There’s been an emergency.”
Full of foreboding, she shook Paul awake and handed him the phone. “It’s your sister.”
He came awake instantly, disappearing stark naked into the hall to avoid waking Jack. Too late. Jack stirred and instantly wanted to eat. She put him to her breast while she paced, stroking his head—whether to reassure him or herself, she didn’t know. She craned her neck, trying to hear what was going on without obviously eavesdropping.
“God. I’ll be right there.” He clicked off the phone and handed it back to her. “The team bus crashed outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan.”
“Oh, no. Is everyone okay?” Jack fussed as she made some motion that accidentally pulled him away from her breast. She helped him latch on again, her gaze never leaving Paul’s face.
He shook his head, mouth grim. “I don’t think so. They took the injured guys to a nearby hospital. I’ve gotta go.”
“I’ll come with you.” She didn’t think for a moment before she spoke. Paul needed support. She’d go with him.
“No, stay here and be with Jack. It’s a fast-moving situation, and no place for a baby. I’ll feel better if I’m not worried about you two.”
She met his gaze, ready to argue, but he didn’t blink. After a moment, she nodded. “Okay.” This wasn’t about her. It was about the team and what Paul needed from her right now.
He quickly dressed and threw a few things into a bag. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”
“Call me as soon as you get there.”
“I will.” He kissed her and went to the car. A minute later, he roared off in the early-morning silence, and she was left to wait and wonder. And worry.
Chapter 12
A little more than twenty-four hours later, Paul walked back in, grim and exhausted. He’d texted her a few times to let her know he’d arrived safely in Michigan and none of the injuries to the players were life-threatening. The most serious was a utility outfielder with a concussion. He’d been kept overnight in a Michigan hospital for observation but released the next day.
The news had seemed positive, and Willow had been relieved, but when he walked in, shoulders in a slump, she knew he hadn’t told her everything.
She woke Jack, knowing that spending time with him would cheer Paul, and brewed a pot of coffee. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving. I didn’t have much of a chance to eat. Or sleep. Or bathe. I’m a little ripe, actually.” He eased Jack into his bouncy seat on the floor and then sat nearby at the kitchen table. Elbows on the table, he rubbed his forehead, his mouth a hard line. She’d never seen him look more down.
“Food first, then you can hit the shower and get some sleep. How about some eggs on toast?”
“Sounds wonderful.”
“You want to tell me what happened?” She cracked eggs into a bowl for scrambling and put a pan on the stove to heat. A few slices of bread went into the toaster.
“We’re damn lucky it wasn’t worse, and it was bad enough. The driver hit a wet patch of pavement and the brakes partially failed. It slid off the road and tipped into a drainage ditch.”
“Dear God.” She pressed her fingertips against her mouth. “It sounds like a miracle no one was killed.”
“Thank God it happened in a rural area, where there was nothing much to hit. The guys mostly have bumps and bruises and a couple of wrenched necks and pulled muscles here and there. Alex has a fat lip. Fatter than usual, I mean.” He lasered a meaningful glance her way. “Funny, I don’t feel that bad about that one.”
She shook her head and smiled. “Let it go. You’ve got nothing to worry about.” She had to admit, though, she enjoyed Paul’s jealousy a fraction more than she should.
The mirth drained from his expression. “Sarah was on the bus too. She’s scared shitless, but okay. Thank God.”
“My God.” She closed her eyes for a moment, imagining how awful it could have been. He’d lost his mother way too soon. To lose his sister too would have devastated him. “How did it happen?”
“The bus was twenty years old.” He looked at her for a long moment, and she didn’t have to wonder what he meant.
“Let me guess. Your dad wouldn’t sign off on the purchase of a new one.” She scrambled the eggs with a fork and added salt and pepper.
“Bingo. I got there in time to discover the Michigan State Police and the traffic investigators had cited us for several safety violations on the bus. Who knows if they actually contributed to the accident, bu
t it’s no longer up to code. We’ll have to pay a fine, and we’ll be lucky if we don’t get sued.”
“Oh, God. That sounds expensive.”
“Could be. The only thing in our favor is most of the players don’t want to sue their employer, especially since we’ll take care of their medical bills. If worse comes to worst, I think most of them will be okay with an out-of-court settlement. With any luck, they’ll want to get back to playing ball and not make a big stink out of it.”
“Thank God. Will your insurance pay for it?” Holding her hand over the skillet, she judged it was hot enough. The eggs sizzled when they hit the pan, and she stirred them with a wooden spatula.
“The bus is insured, but any settlements will come out of the team’s pockets. Funny, my dad didn’t want to buy a new bus, or charter one, and now he’s going to pay money out on settlements instead.”
His face and his voice revealed nothing. Once, she would have thought that meant he agreed with his father, or at least didn’t strongly disagree. Now she knew better. He carried a lot of anger simmering underneath the surface, and it had all come bubbling out that day in the clubhouse. “So what now?”
“We chartered another bus to get everybody home. They should be back in a couple of hours. The first game of the road swing was canceled, but we’re rescheduling the others for later in the season. Sarah’s doing a great job handling that.”
“I’m sure she did a great job handling everything.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t sound like he was happy about it, though. She pulled the toast out, buttered it and then slid the eggs out of the pan.
She put the plate in front of him and got him a fork but didn’t hand it to him. When he reached for it, she yanked it back. “Stop it.”
“What?” He stared at her, eyes wide, hand poised in midair.
“Stop what you’re thinking. I can tell you’re feeling guilty, wishing you’d been there. There’s no need. You couldn’t have stopped the bus from crashing, and you couldn’t have handled the aftermath any better than Sarah did. Stop it.” She gave him the fork, her point made.
“My dad doesn’t agree.” He tore into the eggs like a starving man, making a noise of appreciation.
“Oh, yeah? What’s he think? Something stupid, probably.” Not the most tactful thing she’d ever said. After all, she was talking about her son’s grandfather, but Walter Dudley pushed her buttons every time.
Paul glanced her way but let it slide, digging into his eggs. “He knows I took the trip off to spend time with you and Jack. He lectured me on the phone, told me I needed to check my priorities.”
“Over the phone? The lazy bastard couldn’t even be bothered to make the trip to Michigan when his players were injured?”
He shot her a sharp glance. “That’s my dad you’re talking about.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” Okay, she’d totally meant it, but admitting so probably wasn’t politic. Dudley loyalty ran deep, regardless of whether the old man had earned it or not. Family ties could truly bind, or gag. Sometimes both. She fixed a plate of toast and eggs for herself, poured them each a coffee and joined him at the table. “What you did was perfectly acceptable. You took some time off and left a well-qualified person in charge of the team in your absence. Sarah could have handled anything that came up, and she did. It just happened to be something awful. That’s bad luck. It’s not your fault.” She gripped his arm, sensing she wasn’t getting through to him. “Hey! I mean it.”
“It’s my responsibility, Willow. The team is my responsibility.”
The words made her see red. “What about spending time with your new family? Getting to know your son before he leaves? Isn’t that your responsibility?”
“Of course it is. You know how happy I am you stayed here and let me have more time with Jack. With you. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that, before all this crap happened.”
“Oh, yeah?” Suddenly she had a little trouble drawing a breath. Was he going to … Nah, she wouldn’t even think it. Of course not.
“Can you stay for a little while, you and Jack, and live here with me? I mean, you can be based anywhere, right? Screwball is based in Atlanta, and you didn’t relocate there. Can’t you live in Plainview as well as you can live in St. Pete?” When she didn’t answer right away, he added, “You don’t have to live here if you don’t want to. You can move back into the duplex, rent-free.”
He didn’t even want her to live with him? The little bubble of hope she hadn’t admitted to herself that she’d had deflated. Against all reason, a part of her had hoped he’d been about say something more serious. She scarcely dared to even admit she’d been thinking of him proposing, but truth be told, a part of her had been hoping for exactly that. It would have been rash, maybe, and horribly timed, but it would have been a statement. An assurance he was making room in his life on a permanent basis—not just for Jack, but for her too.
A statement that they mattered to him as much as the Thrashers. Just as much as his precious Dudley family loyalty.
Apparently that had been too much to hope for. Instead, he was no doubt consumed with guilt for what had happened to the team while he was spending time with his family. Where that left her and Jack long-term, she didn’t know.
“I don’t know, Paul. I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet,” she heard herself saying. “I’ll stay in Plainview a little longer. I don’t know if I’m ready to commit to anything more.”
He nodded. “I’ll take what I can get, for now.”
She wouldn’t leave him now, couldn’t leave him in this time of crisis. That didn’t mean she was ready to commit to a lifetime of playing second fiddle to the Thrashers. Two could play at the lack-of-commitment game.
*
That night, Paul slept in Willow’s room, but he never crossed the center line of the bed. He told himself he needed to stay in the room to help soothe Jack back to sleep if he woke, but he’d always had a good BS detector, even for that of his own making, and it was going off with sirens and flashers for that particular piece of self-deception. He wanted to be near his family, despite the tension that had sprung up when Willow refused to take a stand one way or another about moving to Plainview.
He’d picked a horrible time to ask her. He’d planned to make it more romantic, more sweeping. Not a marriage proposal, exactly, but some occasion befitting the gravity of making a commitment to raise their child together. Instead, he’d blurted it out during the middle of a discussion about his father, always a topic guaranteed to result in tension and acrimony from Willow.
He couldn’t blame her. His dad was a pain in the ass; always had been, always would be. Paul couldn’t even say he’d gotten used to him. He’d gotten numb, or so he’d thought. Lately, though, the numbness seemed to be wearing off. He hadn’t expected his father to be delighted to learn about his past relationship with Willow, or that he was Jack’s father. But hell, he had at least expected his dad to show a tiny bit of curiosity about his first grandchild.
Nothing. Walter had scowled and said, “I thought I taught you better than that.”
“Better than what, Dad? Better than to have sex?”
His father’s face flushed deep red at that, but Paul didn’t let him get to the lecture he clearly wanted to deliver.
“By the way, before you say something sanctimonious, I know all about your car being in Phyllis Milton’s driveway every Saturday night.” His dad had kept company with Phyllis for years but, for some reason, he still seemed to think he needed to keep it a secret.
Walter Dudley wasn’t fooling anybody, but that never kept him from trying.
“That’s none of your damn business, boy!” His dad had nearly come out of his seat.
“Just like whatever I do is none of yours.”
Paul glanced at the alarm clock. It would go off in fifteen minutes. Beneath the shades, eastern streaks of dawn light were already making their presence felt. Beside him, Willow slept softly. She hadn’t
made a move to touch him either, but she also hadn’t complained when he’d joined her in her bed, daring her with a glance to say something.
He shut the alarm off. He wasn’t getting back to sleep anyway, so what was the point of waking Jack and Willow? In the bathroom, he showered and tried not to think about when Willow had joined him the other day.
They’d be making love in the shower again soon. As soon as he got this whole mess straightened out with the accident, he could go back to giving Willow and Jack his full attention. He’d make her see they had a chance. He turned off the shower, dried off and dressed. He was making a pot of coffee in the kitchen when he noticed he had three missed calls on his phone. All from his dad. He’d left a message, too. Fighting dread, he played the voice mail back while he poured a cup of coffee.
“Looks like that girl of yours played you for everything you were worth. Have you seen the article she published? God. Dragged me through the mud, and you right along with me. Apparently she had her sources. Call me back.” What? His dad could only be talking about the Screwball profile. Willow had said she’d finished it. It must have gone live on the website.
A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck. Surely his dad was exaggerating. He hated Willow and wanted to find a reason to justify it. Paul fetched his iPad and fired it up, navigating to Screwball’s site. There on the front page was the headline: “After Bus Tragedy, Can Minor League Plainview Thrashers Survive Ownership Power Struggle?”
Bus tragedy? That was melodramatic. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down to read. It only got worse. The subtitle read: “With a tightfisted owner and an out-of-control president, the future of Chicago’s troubled farm team is far from certain.”
He scanned the article, which went on for pages. Not much of it was new to him. Willow had been honest with him about what her profile focused on. There were the usual complaints from Alex. No current players had been willing to go on record, but she’d gotten some ex-players to do so. No wonder his dad had been pissed. Willow had easily saved her most scathing words for the team’s owner.