Center Stage: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 8)

by Mindy Klasky

  He was the one who’d found her hiding in the snack bar at the public pool when she was seven years old, crying because she was afraid to jump off the high board—and he’d taught her how to make the jump, and how to dive as well. He was the one who’d taught her how to drive stick when she was fifteen, letting her grate the gears on his old truck until she’d finally mastered the clutch. He was the one who’d told her she should look to her career instead of marriage when Doug proposed to her, and he was the one who’d walked into the hotel ballroom that horrible night and told all the guests that the wedding was off.

  For all those reasons, and a thousand more, she turned to her oldest brother now and said, “It’s the same thing with Will.” But even as she said the words she shook her head, vehemently enough that her careful up-do started to tumble loose. “No,” she corrected herself. “It’s not the same. Will’s not screwing around with other women.”

  “You’re not making sense, Lindsey.”

  She bit her lip and forced herself to speak the truth. “Will’s not ready for this, not ready to be married. He thought he was. I thought he was. But he doesn’t want to be tied down. He doesn’t want to give up fishing trips with the guys and golf on Sundays. He doesn’t want to pass up the chance that there’s someone else out there, someone better. Someone who can cook,” she added ruefully.

  “You can cook.”

  She shook her head. “If you’re going to lie about that, then I can’t ever trust you on anything else again.” She sighed. “Macaroni and cheese out of a box isn’t cooking. Neither is raiding the salad bar at the local grocery store. Stop changing the subject. Will’s not ready. I forced him into this.”

  Zach’s voice was rough. “If that’s true, then the asshole should have told you he had cold feet. He never should have let things get this far.”

  Lindsey sighed. “It’s not all his fault. After last time, I wanted to do what’s right—keep the wedding small, keep it simple—but everything moved too fast. I was trying to be a good girl.”

  “You are a good girl. You’re always a good girl.”

  The vehemence in her brother’s voice sparked tears in her eyes. Before she could answer, there was a sharp buzz by her elbow. She recognized the text alert even as she reached for her phone. And there was the message—the one she’d feared to see, the one she’d known she would find. It had just been a matter of time.

  I’m sorry.

  The words were there in black and white, like thousands of other texts she’d gotten from Will. She could picture him typing the nine characters, lean fingers flashing over the face of his phone. She knew him well enough to imagine the other messages he’d typed, the longer ones, the explanations, and she could picture the way he’d deleted all but the basics.

  The two words stole her breath, collapsing every atom of oxygen in her lungs into a solid, aching lump. For one blinding moment, she thought someone had actually, physically hit her. She couldn’t think of what to say, couldn’t remember how to speak, couldn’t put together a single coherent thought.

  But then acting saved her again. She forced a deep breath into her lungs, just like she did for vocal warmups. She straightened her fisted fingers, focusing on the jagged energy that flowed out of her. She surveyed every taut muscle from head to toe, measured it, controlled it. And then she managed to pass the phone to Zach.

  “There we go,” she said.

  Years of acting couldn’t completely conquer her trembling vocal cords. Her voice was too high. But she was able to force another sentence past that lump in her chest. “Well, a good girl doesn’t keep her guests waiting in a sauna when there’s nothing left to see.” She started to push herself upright, even though she thought she might puke.

  “I’ve got it,” Zach said. He looked like he was ready to go ten rounds with Will, then mop up the reception hall with whatever remained of her battered fiancé. No. Not fiancé. Not anymore.

  Lindsey twisted the slender engagement ring on her finger, scarcely seeing the overhead fluorescents sparking off the two-carat diamond. “I’m fine,” she insisted, making a conscious effort to modulate her tone. “I’ll just go out there now and tell everyone.” She looked around the little closet of a room. “Do you think I should change first? I wore jeans. Maybe they’re more appropriate than this?” She gestured at her wedding gown.

  Zach handed back her phone. “You don’t have to tell anyone anything. I’ll send people home. Go ahead and change. Or wait till Grace gets back. I can send back Rachel and Beth. Anna, too. They can help you.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t need any help. I don’t…” But she trailed off because she couldn’t figure out anything else to say. “I’m okay,” she finally finished, even though she wasn’t. Even though she never would be again. “I’ll wait for Grace.”

  She sat back in her chair, because it was infinitely easier to do that than to argue. She buried her hands deep in her white satin skirt. She watched as Zach squared his shoulders, as he raised his chin, as he got ready to face the crowd.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, just before he put his hand on the doorknob.

  The stoic expression on his face almost made her sob. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about.” He stalked out of the room.

  But she should be sorry. She’d brought all these people together, raised their hopes, heightened their expectations. She’d promised them dinner and a party, on a Monday night, for God’s sake. Monday, because that’s when the Rockets didn’t have a baseball game. Monday, because that’s when theaters were dark.

  But now everyone would be sent home. All because Lindsey had screwed up. All because she hadn’t managed to talk to Will, to settle everything before it came to this.

  She forced herself to her feet and strained her arm reaching over her shoulder, working the wedding dress’s long, hidden zipper. She’d better hurry, get out of the gown and back in her jeans and T-shirt. That way, maybe Grace wouldn’t worry too much when she got back. That way, maybe Lindsey could help with the caterers, or maybe with the pastor, with packaging up the food for a homeless shelter or someone else who could use it.

  Maybe she could still make something good come out of this disaster. At least, she could try.

  ~~~

  People could be real assholes.

  As the wedding guests listened to Ormond’s announcement, a few gasped in surprise. One older woman exclaimed, “Not again!” Even the people who had enough sense to keep their voices down started whispering, loud enough to make the whole overheated church sound like it was stuffed with bees. When he was through talking, Ormond stalked down the aisle as if his spine had turned to oak; he didn’t look left or right as he strong-armed the door to the vestibule, obviously hurrying out to take care of his sister.

  The guests could all lie and say they meant well. They only worried about poor Lindsey, about how she was handling being left at the altar twice in as many years. Of course it couldn’t be her fault. No girl deserved that.

  But every goddamn whisper made it clear people thought there was a hell of a lot Lindsey had done. Or not done. It was all her fault.

  Ryan took his time heading down the aisle, not wanting to fight the crowd. When he got to the vestibule, he found Ormond in the center of a tight knot of people. Anna Benson, his fiancée, was there too, and the matron of honor, in a pink dress that looked like it had seen better days as she clutched a brown paper bag with a spreading wet stain across the bottom. Another woman was calling out to a bunch of kids, telling them to hush for Aunt Lindsey’s sake, and a fourth stood on the edge of the family circle, shaking her head. A man balanced out the group, a couple of inches shorter than Zach and probably twenty pounds heavier, but with the same hard line to his jaw, the same eyes shouting that he was an Ormond brother.

  “She’s fine,” Zach said, raising his hands to cut off protests from his siblings. “She wants to be left alone, and that’s what we’re going to do. She’s driving out to the farmhouse tonight. Sh
e’s got a couple of days off before she has to get back to work.”

  “She’s still waiting to hear about auditions for Itsy Bitsy Mouse, isn’t she?” asked the quiet woman, the one on the edge of the group. “She’ll just die if she doesn’t get to play the mouse.”

  Ormond shook his head. “She’s not going to die over anything. Come on, guys. This is Lindsey we’re talking about. She only wants to do what’s right. She wants some space, and we’re going to give it to her.”

  Families were strange. Ryan was an only child; he’d never had a group of brothers and sisters to gather around, to talk behind his back, to do whatever they thought was right for him. It was kind of sweet.

  Ormond started repeating himself, and then he began actively guiding his relatives out the door. “I’ll check on her tonight,” he said a few times. “I promise.” And then he pulled out the big guns. “Come on, guys. You know how she’d feel if she heard you worrying like this. Don’t pile on the guilt. Get out of here. We’ll talk in the morning. Anna, can you help round up the kids?”

  By the time Ormond got them all outside, Ryan had changed his mind. Half a dozen siblings were half a dozen pains in the ass. He just had to remember that, the next time he called Dad and felt the old gripping fear in the pit of his stomach. The next time he thought about the promises he’d made to his mother, and all the ways he was letting her down. All the ways he was still the same screw-up he’d been in high school, in college, after.

  Because he sure as shit wasn’t going to bring up the hitting coach job for Dad tonight. Not with Zach glaring at him right now, demanding, “What do you want, Green?”

  Ryan held up his hands in protest. “Nothing, man. What can I do around here?”

  “Get home. Get something to eat. You have to get to the park early enough tomorrow.”

  Ryan shook his head. “Still on the DL.”

  Shit. Ormond must really be upset. He never would have forgotten the disabled list under ordinary circumstances. Well, Ryan didn’t have to report to Rockets Field the following day, so he might as well do what he could around here. That might even give him a chance to build some good will when it came time to ask about Dad, in a day or two. A week. Whenever the coast seemed clear. “Need help cleaning things up downstairs?”

  “The caterers’ll get it.”

  Ryan glanced toward the closed door of the coatroom. That’s where Lindsey had to be. No chance in hell he’d be able to help with anything in there. He gave up and started to head toward the parking lot, but Zach caught him up short. “Actually, there is something.” At Ryan’s questioning glance, Zach nodded back toward the sanctuary. “Could you walk through and make sure no one left water bottles lying around? We probably shouldn’t have allowed any in there in the first place.”

  “No problem.”

  And it wasn’t. Just a walk down the center aisle, checking to either side. He picked up half a dozen bottles, some half-full, some stained with lipstick. As long as he was at it, he slipped a couple of hymnals back into their slots and collected a handful of programs that had been left behind.

  He dropped the paper into a trashcan in the corner of the vestibule, but there wasn’t room for the bottles. Shrugging, he headed downstairs to the reception hall. The caterers were in full swing, knocking down tables and stacking folding chairs. The pastor was back in the kitchen, talking to some guys in jeans and T-shirts, giving instructions for them to take a couple of huge platters of food out to their waiting van, the one with Food For Our Fellows painted on the sliding door.

  Ryan tossed the water bottles into a blue bin labeled Recycling just as someone asked the pastor, “What do we do with the champagne?”

  The preacher looked like he’d never heard of the stuff. He spluttered, “Well, we certainly can’t send it over to FFOF. And we can’t keep it here in the church kitchen. I suppose Mr. Ormond should take it home. No reason it can’t be served on a happier occasion.”

  The pastor’s words were interrupted by a crash as a stack of folding chairs toppled. The caterer leaped forward to handle the crisis, commandeering workers to restack the chairs. Ryan stepped forward as the preacher looked doubtfully at the case of Dom Perignon. “I can get that for you, sir.”

  Instant relief washed across the guy’s face. “Thank you, young man.”

  Ryan grunted as he picked up the case and headed up to the vestibule. Ormond was waiting at the top of the stairs. “What part of ‘don’t stress your hamstring’ do you not understand?”

  “Forget about it,” Ryan said amiably as he put the box on a nearby table. “My leg is fine.” He glanced toward the coatroom. “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s fine.” Ormond stopped and corrected himself. “She will be fine.” He shook his head. “She’s a fucking mess, but she’s pretending everything’s all right. Shit. I want to kill that son of a bitch.”

  Ryan shrugged. “He deserves it.”

  “She’s my baby sister. I don’t know how I missed it. How I fucked up.”

  “This isn’t on you, man.”

  Before Ormond could say anything else, the coatroom door opened, and Lindsey stepped into the vestibule. She was shorter than he remembered—the top of her head would barely reach his shoulder. She was skinnier, too. In blue jeans and a faded Rockets T-shirt, she looked like she might blow away if the old church’s air conditioner ever kicked in. Her face was drawn, but her cheeks were pink, like she was blushing.

  Or like she’d scrubbed away a wedding’s worth of makeup. He could still make out mascara or eyeliner or whatever that crap was called, making her dark brown eyes look huge, like she was an orphan or something, which come to think of it, she was. Her hair fell around her shoulders in stiff waves. He could still see the crimped lines where it had been pinned off her neck, princess-like, for her big day.

  She was carrying a long white garment bag, one that had to contain her wedding dress. Her other hand clutched something that looked like a strangled poodle. It took him a moment to realize it was her veil.

  “Zach—” she said, and then she realized she wasn’t alone with her brother. “Ryan.” She nodded in greeting.

  “Hey,” he said, because he wasn’t sure what else to say. I’m sorry? Congratulations on finding out before you tied the knot? I knew weddings were a crock of shit?

  But he didn’t need to worry. Because Lindsey had straightened up the second she realized she wasn’t just talking to family. She raised her chin and forced a smile. He could tell she was working at it; her grin was just a shade shy of real, but it was a damned good act, given her shitty evening. “I have to apologize, Ryan,” she said. “I know you had better things to do on a day off than hang around for a wedding that never happened.”

  Damn, she was good. He cleared his throat, wishing he was half as poised as she was. “I’m just sorry things didn’t work out.”

  Lindsey nodded toward the champagne. “Maybe you can take a bottle of that. It’s something to make up for roasting half to death in this church.”

  Before either of the men could stop her, she handed Zach her wedding dress and veil. She didn’t waste any time lifting the flaps on the case of champagne and slipping her blood-red fingernails in between the bottles. She made a show of handing one to him, displaying it across her forearm like she was a waiter in some fancy restaurant, tilting the bottle so the label was perfectly displayed. She put on a fake French accent. “Monsieur will find eet ees a most excellent year.”

  He grinned and took the bottle, because what the hell else was he going to do? One glance at Zach, though, told him it was time to get the hell out of the church. Time to let Lindsey put away her act, to let her be herself on the most miserable night of her life. Folding his fingers around the neck of the champagne bottle, he nodded toward the stairs and said to Zach, “They’re pretty much done down there.”

  “Probably ready for a check,” Ormond said.

  “I’ll get it,” Lindsey said, and she reached around for the tiny excuse
for a purse that hung from her shoulder.

  “Right,” Zach said, and he raised his full hands toward the front door. “Get the hell out of here. I’ll take care of it.”

  “It’s not right—”

  “No,” Zach cut her off. “You’re right. It isn’t.”

  She almost lost it then. The veneer of being in control, the smile she’d flashed for Ryan’s benefit, the steel that kept her spine straight, all of it wavered, like he was watching some magic trick collapsing.

  “You,” Zach said, nodding to Ryan. “Get her out of here.”

  And then it was like old times. Like he and Zach were on the road, back at the beginning of Ryan’s career, when he was just as likely to take one of the ever-present groupies up to his hotel room as he was to follow the rules and get some sleep and be ready to play the next day. Zach was the one who kept order then, who told him what to do.

  So it was second nature to reach out and take the dress from his old friend’s hand. To shift the Dom Perignon so he could tuck the crumpled veil under his arm. To read the tight nod, the unspoken thanks, the brother-in-arms gratitude that he could accept with his own ducked chin. He and Zach had played together for years. They’d been in and out of a thousand scrapes—tough baseball games, tougher times in bars and airports and hotels afterwards.

  It was like having a brother, without all the crap.

  “Come on, Lindsey,” he said. And he held the door for her, with just enough insistence in his steady gaze that she had to lead the way out to the parking lot.

  There were only a few cars left on the steaming blacktop. Zach’s Beemer. His own red Ferrari. And a dark grey Prius, looking all prim and proper, crouching beneath a scraggly tree at the far end of the lot.

  “I can take that,” Lindsey said, holding out her hand for the wedding stuff.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Right.” He fell in beside her as she huffed and led the way to her car. She’d always had a mind of her own. He’d first met her at the clubhouse, probably the first day he’d been called up from the minors. She’d worked some sort of publicity job for the Rockets then, something that helped pay the bills while she was in college. She’d worshipped her brother, gone to every home game, and all the guys on the team had gotten used to her hanging around.