Stopping Short: A Hot Baseball Romance

by Mindy Klasky

  Adam shook his head. “And here, I thought you invited me every year because you like my winning personality.”

  “I invite you every year because my brothers would kill me if I didn’t. Besides, I want to be neighborly. Go on—get out there. They’re dying to talk about that suicide squeeze in the ninth.”

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  She eyed the white box of candy. But she’d been right the first time. She should eat dinner before she indulged. She turned to the cabinets on top of the refrigerator and stretched on her tiptoes to hide the box from prying eyes.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Adam said as she closed the door on her stash.

  “If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you.”

  “What if they just happen to discover it on their own?”

  “Hasn’t happened for the ten years you’ve been coming back from spring training. Isn’t going to happen now.” She picked up her beer and nodded toward the back door. “Let’s go. They might have left us a bite or two.”

  Adam led the way. He knew the screen door as well as she did; he remembered that he had to lift on the handle just a little as he pushed it open. He should remember—he’d been running in and out of this kitchen since he was a skinny blond boy with summer shorts, a bare chest, and scabbed knees.

  The hair had darkened over the years—it was chestnut brown now, with a hint of silver coming in at his temples. And he wore an anonymous navy polo shirt to cover his chest. She had no idea about the state of his knees, especially after that hard slide he’d taken into second, in the bottom of the fifth.

  Adam Sartain might be the most popular player on the Raleigh Rockets, the steady left fielder who’d showed up day in, day out for nearly a decade of play. But first and foremost, he’d always be Haley’s next door neighbor, the casual guy who had literally dropped by for a cup of sugar for his mother, the kid who’d regularly waited for Haley to sneak out of the house when they were ten years old, when the pond at the Reeves farm held perfect summer allure for a couple of kids who couldn’t get enough of peepers and fireflies.

  Looking one more time at her hiding place for the taffy, she ignored the dogs’ howling for release as she went out to join the party in the back yard.

  ~~~

  Adam straightened from placing the serving platter on its shelf in the breakfront just as Haley let loose with a string of profanity that would have fit better in the locker room than her comfortable colonial home. He sauntered back into the kitchen as she wound down with, “I’m going to kill Billy!”

  “He cleaned out the beer?”

  “I should have known better than to let him put up the leftover food.” She slammed the refrigerator door. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d kicked it for good measure.

  He shrugged and did his best to distract her from thoughts of bloody revenge. “Is there any pudding left?”

  “Aren’t you in training?”

  “Sure,” he said easily. “I’ll have a bowl now and run a few windsprints tomorrow.”

  “A few hundred, maybe.” But she took two bowls out of the cupboard and served them both generous portions of the banana pudding she’d made that morning, using her mother’s treasured recipe. After shoving spoons through the meringue, she led the way into the family room. She collapsed in a corner of the couch and handed him his bowl as he sat at the opposite end.

  He took his time, putting together a perfect scoop that captured pudding, ripe fruit, vanilla wafers, and meringue. As the sweetness made his teeth ache, he leaned his head against the back of the couch, “God, it’s good to be home.”

  “Oh, come on,” she said, kicking him with a bare foot. “You love Florida.”

  He forgot about finding the perfect balance for dessert and settled on inhaling the rest of the bowl. Between bites, he said, “It’s got its charms. It’s always good to see the guys again. And the weather is a hell of a lot better than up here. But the older I get, the more I hate being on the road, and spending two months away…”

  “Yeah,” she said, nudging him again. “You’re so old.” She drew out the last word, adding a twang that made her sound more like one of her tween nieces than a full-grown woman. “Come on, Sartain. You’re holding out on me. You know the rules.”

  “Rules?” he asked, scooping up the last bite of pudding. As he swallowed, he realized his mistake. He’d just lost his major excuse to duck out of this ridiculous game.

  “I went first last year.”

  She had, hadn’t she? But he still took his time leaning forward, putting his bowl on the coffee table. When he settled back on the couch, he had a sudden inspiration, and he scooted closer to her, putting her feet on his lap. His fingers automatically started to work the arch of her right foot, finding the pressure points and releasing her tension.

  “Mmm,” she sighed, and he wasn’t sure if that was a comment about his hands or the massive bite of banana pudding she’d just shoved into her mouth. Even though it had to be one or the other, it sounded a hell of a lot like something else. He shifted his attention to her toes, amused by the rapturous tone in her voice when she said, “God, that feels amazing.”

  “Sounds like someone hasn’t been getting any,” he teased.

  “I went first last year,” she repeated. But she sank lower on the couch, resting her head against the arm after edging her empty bowl onto the table.

  He worked up from her toes to her calf, amused by the tiny puppy sounds she made. He could keep this up all night, though, and she wouldn’t forget their long-standing arrangement. Who had started it anyway?

  That’s right. He’d started it. Ten years ago. The first time he’d come back from spring training and pumped her for information about Sara Thatcher, about whether the hottest girl from their high school class was dating anyone locally. Haley had promised to tell him the truth about her then-best friend, but only after he confessed to what he’d gotten up to down in Florida. As a way of putting off the inevitable, he’d pressed her for her own spring exploits, but in the end he’d told the truth about the women who hung out in the Coral Crest bars, the women who were all too eager to screw a different ballplayer every night of the season.

  Sara Thatcher was ancient history. But the Spring Swap continued to be an Opening Day tradition.

  “Come on, Sartain,” Haley said, not fooled at all when he switched his attention to her left foot. “I fed you. And I bought you Guinness. We all celebrated your win. So fair’s fair. Spring Swap.”

  So much for the good will gained from a box of salt water taffy. He swallowed hard and met her eyes. “Let’s just say it was a dry season.”

  Haley raised her eyebrows with skepticism. “No one? Not all spring long?”

  He shrugged. “I hooked up with one girl the first week, but she was out of there by the middle of February.”

  “By Valentines Day,” Haley teased.

  “Yeah.”

  “And? After that?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Has anyone ever told you you ask too many questions?”

  “Yeah, you do. Every year. Don’t tell me you’re losing the old Sartain charm.”

  “I’m an old man down there.” He kept his voice light, but he saw her measure the truth behind his words.

  “You’re thirty-two, Sartain. I don’t think we need to drag out the wheelchair yet.”

  He shrugged. “Half the guys are right out of college. Baseball is a young man’s game.”

  And that was the thing about Haley. She didn’t try to tell him he was an idiot. She didn’t tell him age was just a number, or he still had some good years in him, or he was only old if he let himself think he was old. She didn’t even treat him like a guy, tell him to get out there and find a girl for the night, worry about building something real later, a lot later.

  Instead, she sat up and pulled her feet out of his range. She looked at him with real concern. “Hey,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  And he should be, right? He had one year left o
n a hundred-million-dollar contract that pretty much let him do whatever he wanted to do for the rest of his life. And so what, if his shoulder ached when he got up in the morning? Why did it matter if his knees complained for the first half hour he was walking around? Why should he care if the opposing pitcher never bothered to throw over to first once he got on base, if he wasn’t a threat to steal, any time, any way?

  He still loved playing the game. And his team still looked to him for guidance. Hell, he’d taken the first question at the presser that afternoon, feeding all the usual answers about how this was the strongest team the Rockets had ever seen. And he’d loved saying it, because it was the truth. This team actually had all the parts to win a championship. With their starting pitching and their lineup of hitters, half the sportswriters out there were saying they were a shoe-in for the World Series.

  Every guy on the team was a little drunk with the predictions. They wanted to win rings, sure, everyone did, every year. But they wanted to do it this year, when Marty Benson was around to share the glory. The long-time owner had handed over the day-to-day operations to his granddaughter. He’d had a stroke at the beginning of last season, but he still watched every game the team played. As their owner and their greatest fan, Mr. Benson cheered them on, and the guys wanted to pay back that faith before it was too late.

  “Adam,” Haley said, and he realized he’d let a lot of time go by without saying a word.

  “Yeah,” he said, and he made himself smile. “I’m fine. But if you were waiting to hear about my wild exploits in the Sunshine State, you’re doomed to disappointment. Come on, now. Your turn. How are things with Dylan?”

  She twisted her face into a frown.

  Automatically, he started looking around. Nope, there were only three dogs snoring in the huge bed beneath the grand piano. “You’re still together?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. But I decided three dogs were enough for any girl. There’s a cat around here somewhere. Probably curled up on my bed.”

  “A cat!”

  “Her name is Bess.”

  He nodded like that made perfect sense. And it did, really. For Haley.

  She adopted a new pet after each spectacular breakup with the guy she’d been convinced was The One. Darcy had been that asshole with the Jaguar, the lawyer who’d screwed around behind her back for over a year before she found out and threatened to cut off his balls. Heathcliff was that artist, the one who’d sponged off her for a year and a half before she’d given him his walking papers. Killer was… who the hell was Killer? One of the clueless jerks that Haley thought she could save, just like she thought she could save every homeless animal in Wake County.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “The cat has three legs.”

  She shook her head and kicked his thigh. “Nope, that’s Heathcliff.”

  “Then she needed two thousand dollars worth of surgery before you brought her home.”

  “You’re thinking of Darcy.”

  “Then she had mange and no one would adopt her because they thought she was a chupacapra.”

  “That’s Killer, and all her hair has grown back in now.”

  “Then what’s wrong with the cat?”

  “Nothing,” Haley said. But then she gave him a sidelong glance. “If you don’t count the fact that she only has one eye.”

  “Haley!”

  “What? There’s nothing wrong with her! She gets around the house just fine. And it’s not her fault she got into a fight and ended up with an infection by the time she got to Paws. We were lucky to save one eye.”

  Paws for Love. Haley had built the damn thing from the ground up. She still wanted to drag home half the animals from the no-kill shelter. And she would, if she kept dating assholes who left her high and dry. “So,” he prompted. “Dylan?”

  She grimaced. “Dylan had an anger-management problem from the day we met. He promised he was working on it, though. And I believed him.”

  He sucked in air between his teeth, even as a flash of anger tightened his gut. “Haley,” he said, and the word came out sounding like he was pissed with her.

  She set her jaw, the same way she had twenty years ago, when he’d broken her family’s dining room window, hitting the pitch she’d left up over the plate they’d marked with his T-shirt. “Yeah,” she said softly. “I always said I’d let a guy take one free punch, so I could put him on notice that things had to change. It turns out, I lied.”

  “What happened?” He wished Dylan was there, so he could beat the guy’s face in. He was glad Dylan wasn’t, because he wasn’t sure he’d know when to stop.

  Haley squared her shoulders. “Turns out I still have a mean right hook. I learned something growing up with you and my brothers.”

  “Did you call the cops?”

  “It would have been a madhouse. The dogs were going nuts—Killer wouldn’t let go of the cuff on his jeans, and Darcy was making a sound I’ve never heard him make before. Heathcliff was baying like he was trying to wake the dead. He never actually got a hand on me. I broke his nose, and he was bleeding all over everything.” She shook her head. “I figured we were even.”

  “Shit, Haley.”

  She met his eyes. “Yeah. Well…” She didn’t finish that thought. Instead, she said, “We’re a couple of winners, aren’t we? Sometimes I feel like I’m a million years old.”

  “Don’t say that,” he warned. “Not when I’m six months older than you are.”

  His declaration seemed to calm her. She nodded toward her feet, which still rested in his lap. “At least you still have a marketable skill. With that foot massage, someone’s sure to pick you up off the waiver wire. What am I going to do?”

  He laughed. “Okay. That’s way too close to a pity party, and you need a girlfriend for that. Time for me to get home. Through the dark. And the cold. All the way across both yards.”

  “You poor thing.” She was laughing, which had been his intention.

  “Up all those stairs to my bedroom.”

  “Smallest violin in the world,” she said, rubbing her fingers together.

  “Where I can look forward to a cold shower in the morning.”

  “Without a—What happened?”

  “Damn water heater must have blown out last week, after Jason stopped by. I found it last night when I got home.” So much for having someone look in on the place while he was gone. His manager, Jason Reiter, was supposed to keep an eye on the house. Reiter had an eagle eye for details; that’s why he was in charge of all Adam’s money, his personal finances and the Sartain Foundation. It was unlike the guy to miss a leak, and even more unusual that he hadn’t responded to Adam’s texts.

  Well, the damage was done. Another night of water in the basement wasn’t going to make anything worse. He’d get someone working on it tomorrow. He grimaced and looked at the clock on the TV. Later today. At least there were showers down at the ballpark.

  He shifted Haley’s feet and pushed himself up from the couch.

  “You can’t sleep over there, if your basement is full of water!”

  “Why not? I’ll be upstairs.”

  “What if there’s an electrical short? What if the house burns down?”

  “It’s had a week to collapse. I’ll be fine.”

  “That’s ridiculous! You’ll stay here tonight.”

  He didn’t like being fussed over. “Haley, it’s no big deal.”

  “You’re right. It isn’t. You know I’ve got two guest rooms. There are clean sheets on the bed in the boys’ room.”

  “Haley, I’m not a charity case.”

  “No,” she said, with something that might have been tolerance but came out sounding suspiciously like she thought he was the biggest idiot she’d ever met. “You’re a friend.” When he still didn’t respond, she said, “Jesus, Adam. I’m just being neighborly.”

  And that was it, the code from their childhood. It was neighborly for him to mow the Thurman lawn, in exchange for the chocolate chip c
ookies Haley baked. It was neighborly for her to pick up groceries for his mother, once Mom’s arthritis had made daily errands painful. Neighbors did favors for each other in dozens of little ways.

  Well, the prospect of being able to wash his face in the morning had a certain amount of charm. And it wasn’t like he’d never spent a night in this old house—he’d practically lived here when he was a kid. Besides, he knew that look of determination in her eyes. It had cost him more than one bet in the past.

  “Fine,” he said. And then, because he sounded like a seven-year-old boy who’d just been tricked into going to bed on time, he added grudgingly, “Thank you.”

  ~~~

  After Adam mentioned going to bed, Haley couldn’t keep herself from yawning. She pushed herself off the couch. “Go on upstairs. I’m just going to lock up.”

  Of course, he didn’t leave her. He padded with her into the kitchen as she checked that the dogs had plenty of water in their bowls, as she tested the lock on the back door. He followed her to the front hall, watching as she checked the deadbolt and turned off the porch light.

  Back in the living room, she ignored the old adage and knelt beside the sleeping dogs. She pulled gently on Heathcliff’s ears, awakening a series of snorts as the shepherd mix settled to a more comfortable position at the bottom of the canine pile. She rubbed Darcy’s belly, eliciting a series of half-hearted tail thumps against the floor as the ancient beagle sighed back to sleep. She scratched Killer from the top of her head to the tip of her tail, reminding the mutt that she didn’t need to wake up before sunrise.

  She knew Adam was laughing at her. Everyone laughed at her when she talked to her dogs. But that wasn’t going to keep her from carrying on the conversation. After all, the dogs were there for her every morning and every night.

  A hell of a lot more than she’d been able to say about Dylan.

  Adam followed as she led the way up the stairs. They both knew to avoid the squeaky one, three steps from the top—habit now, because they didn’t have to worry about waking her parents, who were presumably sleeping soundly in their Florida condo. Adam had learned that trick the hard way—trying to sneak out with her brothers on sleep-overs, back when Mom and Dad threatened to chain the doors shut against recalcitrant boys who only found new ways to get into trouble after curfew.