Double Play

by Jennifer Bernard

  He scrubbed a hand across his neck. He’d never had an argument like this before, with someone questioning his reasons for playing. He was good at it, he got paid well, end of story…usually.

  “Pure? Why should it be pure? If you play baseball, you get dirty. Unless all you’re doing is watching games on TV and playing with the stats.”

  “Playing with stats…there you go, mocking my work again.”

  And she was off once more, marching across the green grass like a petite soldier.

  “Damn,” he breathed, gazing after her. She sure was sexy when she was handing him his ass.

  His phone buzzed in his back pocket. He pulled it out and saw Duke’s name flashing on the screen. “Can you come into the office a little early, Dwight? Got some news for you.”

  “News. What news? Just tell me now.” Maggie had him all rattled.

  “No. It’s the kind of thing I like to do in person. The only good part of this fucking job. Why do you have to steal that from me?”

  The world shifted around him, grass tilting against the dark sky. “Duke. Don’t fuck with me. Is this—”

  “Seriously, you’re going to make me do this on the phone? You’re a punk, Conner. But you’re no longer my punk. Yes, the Friars want you. They want you there by tomorrow. Get your ass to the airport.”

  “Holy effing—” He pulled the phone away from his mouth before he let too many swear words out. “Are you kidding me here?”

  “Of course I’m not kidding you. I’m not a kidder. I leave that crap to you boyos. Okay, good luck up there.”

  “I’ll swing by the stadium and say goodbye.”

  “Sure thing. Kilby’s going to miss you, I’ll tell you that. Crush will probably cry in his beer tonight.”

  Dwight doubted that. Crush didn’t even drink anymore since he’d gotten together with Wendy Trent, the mayor of Kilby. These days he walked around looking happy as a chickadee. “Thanks for everything, Duke.”

  “Yeah, yeah, just don’t let me see you back here. Unless you get injured. That’s the only excuse. Have fun and play your ass off. I’ll see you on TV.”

  Dwight hung up and looked to the heavens. Thank you, Jesus. Three long years. You finally had mercy on a brother.

  Unless… He looked ahead at Maggie, who was almost to his car. Maybe he had it all wrong. He was giving her a hard time about her computer program, but what if she was the one who’d recommended him to the Friars? What if he owed it all to her?

  He jogged after her, gaining speed as he went. She spun around at his approach. With her arms folded across her chest, eyes alight with fiery gold, she looked fairly magnificent. Without thinking too much about it, he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up, so her face was level with his.

  “I’m in. I got called up. Just now. This was you, wasn’t it? You did this?”

  Her mouth dropped open, her lips parting. He noticed how full they were, and what a pretty color, like raspberry wine. He lowered her down, letting her choose how close she got to his body. Close. Very close. So close the tips of her breasts brushed against his front. He instantly went rock hard.

  Wow. When had he developed a thing for the whiz kid?

  “I’m…uh…happy for you,” she began. He noticed that she was staring at his mouth too, in a way that got him even more worked up.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but thank you.” He brushed a quick kiss across her lips—just to taste.

  She stared at him, astonished. He ran his tongue across his own lips to taste her again. Because that one brief moment of contact wasn’t enough. Not even close. He leaned in again, wondering if she’d back away, if this was taking things too far, too quickly. Besides, he was leaving. Tonight.

  But she didn’t move except to lift her chin in a clear offer of another kiss. He took this one deeper, more slowly, running his tongue along the soft inside of her mouth, finding heat and fire. Kissing her made something inside him shift. Maybe it was the innocent way she leaned into him, or the way her heart raced against his. Her breath came faster, mingling with his. He wanted to take her hand and rub it on his cock, show her what she was doing to him. But something warned him that might be taking things too far, too quickly.

  Instead he stepped back, keeping his hands on her shoulders for distance. “Guess I got carried away there. I’m sorry about that.”

  “You are?” She looked a little dazed as she put a hand to her mouth.

  “Not sorry, as in, sorry. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I wouldn’t want to do that.”

  “Dwight, if I wanted to be comfortable, I’d still be back in Boston tweaking my program. Or I’d be working on my next degree somewhere. I didn’t come to baseball to be comfortable. And just for the record, kissing you didn’t make me uncomfortable at all. It made me want to do it again, if you want to know the truth.”

  He laughed, finding her completely delightful. “That’s exactly what I like to hear. Repeat performance, coming up. But it’s going to have to be in San Diego, baby!” His excitement spilled over. “I’m going to prove your model right, you’re going to be joining me in beautiful downtown San Diego and we’ll do this all over again. We got a date?”

  A funny look crossed her face, something he didn’t care to analyze at the moment. “Sure. It’s a date,” she said. “And congratulations again. I’ll be rooting for you one hundred percent.”

  She walked around to the passenger side of the Audi. He clicked the button on his key fob so she could get in. As soon as she couldn’t see him anymore, he frowned and scrubbed at the back of his neck. Her reaction…it was off somehow. She ought to be more excited, more “told you so,” more “way ahead of you, dude, I knew this was coming.”

  He shrugged it off and got into the Audi. He didn’t really know Maggie. Maybe this was a completely normal reaction for her. And what did it matter anyway, because he was going to San Diego!!

  5

  Nina fled down the street, past the statue of Colonel Kilby on his horse, toward the old fort turned souvenir shop. What was she even doing here in Kilby? Trevor kept inviting her to San Diego to live with him and Paige. If she moved to California, she could go to the beach, learn to surf, or maybe rollerblade. Maybe she’d meet a nice California accountant or something like that, someone who wanted the same things she did. A family. A normal, boring existence, with dogs and kids and maybe a pet hamster.

  But California wouldn’t have Jim Lieberman. At least, not yet. And for some stupid, stupid reason, the moment he’d body-surfed into the stands in Albuquerque, the moment their eyes had met, she couldn’t think about anyone else. She couldn’t even drag her eyes away from him the rest of that game. His energetic, positive playing style had completely captivated her.

  Ever since that game, well over a year ago, no other man had appealed to her. She’d moved to Kilby to be with her brother, but when Trevor got called up to San Diego, she’d stayed in Texas. She’d even gotten a job at Catfish Stadium. Why? One reason. The adorable dark-haired shortstop.

  Why, oh why did she have to be fixated on someone who still hadn’t asked her out? She knew Jim liked her. She could read it on his face every time he looked at her, and everyone else told her the same thing. Was it really Trevor getting in the way?

  Sure, Trevor could look scary, with his badass scowl and tattoos. But underneath his daunting exterior he was a caring, passionate man who would do anything for someone he loved. Why couldn’t Jim see that? What did he think Trevor would do if he made a move? Or was it some kind of misguided ‘don’t mess with the teammate’s little sister’ principle? In which case, shouldn’t the little sister have a say in it?

  Paige, her future sister-in-law, had even suggested that Nina make the first move.

  “Invite him to Crush and Wendy’s wedding,” she’d said on the phone just the other night.

  “He’s probably already invited. All the Catfish are.”

  “If you’re both going anyway, why not go together?”<
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  “The thing is, I have tried to sort of suggest we do something together, but it never works out that way. Like the time I asked if he was going to the Founders Day Picnic and he started talking about the Wade family sponsoring it and how he couldn’t support them, especially after we were nearly kidnapped.”

  “That means he cares about you.”

  “That means he didn’t want to go to the picnic with me!”

  Just a couple days ago, Jim had called her about a charity dinner. Once again, no invitation. Just a whole lot of conversation. She was more than ready to ditch the conversation and move into the action phase.

  The whole thing was so aggravating, Nina could just scream. In fact, she did scream a little bit. When she reached the rearing bronze statue of Colonel Kilby on his horse, she tilted her head back and let out a “gahhhhh” of frustration. “You’re more decisive than him and you’re a statue. Can’t you teach him a thing or two?” she muttered.

  Neither Colonel Kilby nor his horse had much to say about that.

  “Are you okay? Nina, what happened? I heard you scream.” She whirled around to find Jim Lieberman jogging down the street toward her. At five foot ten inches, he was one of the smaller players, but also one of the quickest and most graceful. She loved watching him scoop balls up from his position at shortstop and whip them to first base. Privately, she called him “not-so-tall, dark and adorable.” Not that she would ever tell him that.

  She stopped and folded her arms across her chest. Maybe it was sweet of him to be so worried. But if he really cared about her, why didn’t he ask her out?

  “Nothing happened. What are you doing out here?”

  He stopped a few feet from her, as if afraid to get too close. She rolled her eyes. Sweet Lord, give her patience. “You should go back to Dwight and Maggie. They don’t even know each other. It’s rude to leave them all alone.”

  “Dwight told me to come after you.”

  That just made her even more mad. Why didn’t Jim think of these things himself? “Oh, so that’s why you came, not because you wanted to?”

  “Of course I wanted to! But I didn’t know if I should because you said not to.”

  It sounded reasonable when he put it like that, but in her heart, she knew it wasn’t. She looked at her shoes, chewing on her bottom lip. This was so pointless. She’d fallen for a cute ballplayer who could field grounders like a champ, but kept striking out when it came to her.

  Jim came closer still, so close she noticed a long coppery strand of hair on his denim jacket. That made her think about what he’d looked like in that Anna outfit, and her lips twitched into an unwilling smile.

  “You’re smiling.” Relief rang through his voice. “Does that mean you forgive me?”

  No. It didn’t. But he was so cute standing there with his hands in his pockets, a street light illuminating the earnest planes of his face. She always felt so right with him. She’d always, her whole life, followed her intuition on everything. And her intuition told her Jim Lieberman was right for her.

  Was that inner voice letting her down this time?

  “That depends,” she finally told him. “Are you afraid of my brother?”

  He gave her a steady, level glance. “A little. You know how he is about you.”

  Despair settled through her. She could never be with someone who was afraid of Trevor. How would that ever work out? She turned away from Jim’s eager dark gaze. He was just going to break her heart. Why bother?

  “Wait.” He stepped to catch up with her. “I didn’t finish my thought. Trevor intimidates me, yeah. I respect him and I know you guys have been through a lot. He’s protective and I’m glad he is. I would be too if I was him. But I still want to…I mean, I’m not so intimidated that…I mean …want to walk a little bit? There’s a great ice cream shop down the street.”

  Her heart soared. Was he finally asking her out? “Scoop. Yes, I know it.”

  When he didn’t say anything more, her heart dropped right down to her shoes again.. All he’d done was mention the ice cream shop. He hadn’t actually invited her. Just like when he’d called to talk about the fundraiser and never asked her to be his date. Jim could be very confusing. “What about it?”

  “Well.” He seemed to take a deep breath. “Would you like some ice cream? It would be my honor to escort you to Scoop and treat you to an ice cream sundae.”

  Yes! An actual invitation to a do something together. Finally! A date! Inside, she gave a silent hallelujah and a victory dance. Outside, she pulled a worried face. “I don’t know, I should probably call Trevor and get his okay.”

  When his eyes widened, she laughed and nudged his arm with her elbow. “Just kidding.”

  He gave her a look full of comic reproach. “You’re a lot meaner than you look.”

  “And don’t you forget it.” Suddenly filled with happy anticipation, she threaded her arm through his. “I would love to have ice cream with you, Jim Lieberman.”

  He grinned back at her and pressed his elbow into his side, so her hand fit snugly against his solid warmth. They continued down the street. As they passed Colonel Kilby, Nina glanced up at the bronze soldier and offered him a silent “thank you.”

  6

  Jim Lieberman came from a family of worriers. It was an ancestral trait, really, probably dating back centuries. His father used to say, “Worry is the secret to a long life. Miserable, but long.”

  Jim had generally followed in the anxiety-ridden family footsteps. But at some point, he’d started to question the dogma that had been handed down from his Latvian ancestors. Did worry really change anything? What if it was a fake out, a way to think you were taking precautions when really all you were doing was spinning your wheels about something that might not ever happen?

  This was one of the reasons he loved baseball so much, and why he’d left college to pursue it. When someone hit a fast grounder to short, you had to react instantly. It required muscle memory, quick reflexes, and a non-distracted mind. It didn’t help to stand there worrying about whether or not a ball would come. Awareness, alertness, sure, those made sense. Obsessive worry, not so much. If you worried too much, you overcompensated. You made errors. You overthought the throw to first and hit the first-base umpire in the kneecap. That sort of thing.

  Right now, walking with Nina Stark through the moonlit streets of downtown Kilby, he told himself the same thing. Stop worrying. Stop overthinking. He had his dream girl’s hand tucked into the crook of his elbow. She was smiling, and he was pretty sure it was at him—although it could also have been at the statue in the town square.

  “About Trevor—” he began.

  “Do we have to talk about my brother?” Nina screwed up her face in that ultra-cute way of hers. She had a million adorable expressions, and he’d mentally catalogued all of them. “I’d rather talk about almost anything else. Like frontal lobe degeneration or serotonin reuptake inhibitors.” She glanced at him shyly from under her eyelashes.

  You could have knocked him over with a feather. What sort of weird college flashback was this? “Really? Why those things?”

  “Well, I know that you’re taking a break from getting your degree in neuroscience, but I read up on it a little. Just to see what it was, you know. So we could carry on a conversation about it without you having to explain everything.”

  Warmth flooded his heart. What a sweetheart Nina was, the most endearing, enchanting darling in the world. He’d never met anyone like her before. “That’s really sweet of you,” he managed. “I barely remember all that stuff. I’ll be in trouble if I ever go back to school.”

  “I’ll help,” she said eagerly. “I can quiz you. I was homeschooled until my last year in high school, you know. By an Israeli bodyguard. She was super-strict.”

  An Israeli bodyguard. Lieberman swallowed and nervously glanced around the streets. What were the chances that Trevor had stationed this bodyguard somewhere in Kilby to keep an eye on Nina? Knowing Trevor, pretty good.<
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  Nina was still talking about her strange education. “I’m really good at literature and international geopolitics, but know nothing about anthropology or math. I’ve been trying to fill in the gaps.”

  “Why were you homeschooled?”

  “Because Trevor was worried that the criminals my father was involved with would come after me.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if hiding from a gang was just a regular occurrence. “They never did, though. Deborah never got to show off her amazing assassin skills.”

  He gulped. Assassin? “You’re still here, so Trevor did something right.”

  He pressed her hand tighter against his side. She was so blond and delicate, he sometimes forgot that she’d grown up in a tough neighborhood in Detroit. Not only that, but she had a violent incident in her past. The whole team had been buzzing about it when Trevor and Nina’s story came out.

  Her father, a pharmacist, had gotten caught up in a drug ring. One night when she was twelve, she’d witnessed her father in a confrontation with one of the gang members. She’d swung a baseball bat at the man and left him with brain damage. To protect her, Trevor had shouldered the blame and gone to juvie for the deed.

  Just recently, Nina had come forward and set the record straight to clear Trevor’s reputation. It was just one more reason that Jim admired her. She was only twenty-two, but she’d lived through some terrible experiences and shown so much courage.

  “I thought we weren’t going to talk about Trevor.” She made another of her cute little faces. “Anyway, he’s in San Diego living his dream. He should worry about that, not anything else.”

  The topic of dreams made him curious. “What about you? What about your dreams?” They’d reached Scoop, a pretty little ice cream shop with a yellow awning adorned with cheerful cutouts of ice cream cones. He opened the door and ushered her in.

  “Well, I’m the queen of random jobs. I used to be a dog-groomer in Tucson, and that was pretty fun. I was an ace at clipping dog-nails. I also worked at a paintball range, a Chuck E. Cheese, and a farmer’s market selling honey. Now I’ve transferred my experience selling sweet things to Catfish Stadium. Did you know I got a job as a vendor selling cotton candy during the games?” She offered him a saucy smile as she passed through the door.