Hard and Fast

by Lisa Renee Jones

  Reggie winked. “You got it. I’ll e-mail you the shots within the hour.”

  BRAD’S BOOTS scraped against the floor of the home-style restaurant where he was meeting Tony and Kurt for breakfast. He felt as rough as he probably looked. The ache in his arm had rendered shaving impossible. The pain, which radiated from his elbow to his shoulder, had kept him awake most of the night. That, and thoughts of Amanda.

  He’d been a damn fool to align himself with a member of the press. That phone conversation with Laura had been a wake-up call. Amanda may not have sideswiped the team with bad press yet, but Jack had proved that once a reporter, always a reporter. They were all after a story. How they used the information they were given depended only on their current agenda.

  The worst part of this situation was he still wanted her. If he ever found himself alone with Amanda, he wasn’t so sure he could resist her. One night with her hadn’t come close to satisfying his desire. She was in his head, working a number on him. Driving him insane.

  Shoving away the thoughts, Brad approached the table, slapping on a game face.

  Kurt grabbed his hat from the seat next to him, and stuck it under his chair. “Morning,” he murmured, scrutinizing Brad before adding, “Or maybe not.”

  “Long night?” Tony asked, as he buttered his toast.

  Brad’s only reply was a grunt as he sat. He prayed Tony wouldn’t start needling him over Amanda. Most of the time Brad found Tony entertaining and could give as good as he got. This wasn’t going to be one of those times.

  A fifty-something waitress appeared beside Brad. “What can I get you?”

  “Coffee. Black. And keep it coming.”

  “Something to eat?”

  “Just the caffeine for now.”

  “I’ll take some Texas Pete,” Kurt said.

  The woman stared at him as if she had no idea what he was talking about. Kurt asked every wait person at every restaurant for the Texas condiment, knowing they wouldn’t have a clue what it was. Something in their reactions amused him.

  “Hot sauce,” Brad told the woman. She shook her head, then left to fill the order.

  Kurt turned a sharp gaze on Brad. “You really are foul this morning.”

  Brad didn’t reply, just turned his cup right side up so he’d be ready for his coffee.

  “Guess you didn’t get lucky last night, after all,” Tony taunted.

  “Like I’d tell you if I did.” Brad thanked the waitress as she filled his cup. He brought the cup to his lips, eager for the brew.

  “Becker sure thought you did,” Kurt commented. “You should have seen the look on his face when he realized you and Amanda disappeared at the same time. That was one pissed-off preppy.”

  Tony piled eggs onto a piece of toast and chuckled. “Yeah, he was and I loved it. As much as I enjoy watching that kid get you worked up, I enjoy seeing you do it to him ten times more.” He eyed Brad. “But it’s pretty damn clear something went wrong. What the hell happened?” He shoved the food into his mouth.

  Brad narrowed his gaze on Tony. “You tell me. I just happened to be around when Laura called Amanda.” He paused to let the words sink in. “Called crying over you, claiming to have some big secret you wouldn’t want exposed.”

  “Laura.” Tony’s face went pale. He dropped his toast to the plate.

  “Shit,” Kurt said. “What’s she got on you?”

  “Nothing.” Tony shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense. I was with Laura last night.”

  Kurt’s eyebrows shot up. “That wasn’t Laura you left with.”

  Tony gave a slow nod. “I met up with her a little later.”

  “Two in one night?”

  Tony didn’t respond to Kurt. “It was damage control.”

  “Which wouldn’t be needed if you weren’t playing with fire,” Brad said. The words were directed at himself as much as Tony. His time with Amanda had certainly been playing with fire. “Laura was ready to hang you out to dry last night. For all you know, she might have.”

  “Again,” Kurt said, “what’s she got on you?”

  Tony’s voice took on a defensive tone. “I told you. Nothing.” He tossed his napkin in his plate. “I need to go. Doc’s expecting me.”

  “There’s one more thing you might want to know,” Brad said, delaying Tony’s departure. “Jack’s asking questions.”

  Tony visibly swallowed. “What’s new about that?”

  “He says someone on the team is juicing.” Brad made the statement in a flat tone and let it hang out there with implication. “He brought up your name.”

  “Same story here,” Kurt said. “He cornered me last night. What happened to that guy? He used to have our backs—or so we thought. Now I don’t know.”

  A muscle in Tony’s jaw jumped. “That sorry bastard.”

  “I told him in no uncertain terms to back off,” Brad said. “But Tony, man, watch your back.”

  “Yeah, Jack’s after blood,” Kurt added. “You can almost smell his lust for a big story.”

  “I agree,” Brad said. “Jack is after the bigger fish. He wants to go national. That has to be it.” He repeated the words his father had told him too many times to count. “So I say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” What about Amanda? Was she a friend or an enemy? It didn’t matter, because he couldn’t afford to keep her close.

  “Right,” Tony said. “So we know what he’s up to. That makes sense.” He checked his watch and pushed to his feet. “I gotta go. Check you guys later.”

  Brad gave him a quick nod then watched him leave. Beside him, Kurt said what was on Brad’s mind. “He’s about to shit his pants.”

  “Yep,” Brad said, leaning back in his chair. “Something’s not right, that’s for sure.”

  Kurt maneuvered his chair to the end of the table so he could see Brad better. “I’ve seen a lot of guys make stupid decisions with less on the line. So now that Tony is gone, what happened last night with Amanda?”

  Brad could trust Kurt. Still, he sidestepped the real question. “I was mad when I heard her talking to Laura.”

  “You can’t hold that against her,” Kurt said. “It’s her job.”

  “Reporters haven’t exactly been friendly to me.”

  Kurt smiled. “You two looked pretty friendly last night on that dance floor.”

  “Yeah, well, I had Becker breathing down my neck about that damn bet. I almost forgot how dangerous reporters can be.”

  “I guess Becker can have her, then.”

  Brad shot him a go-to-hell look. “Stop trying to piss me off and eat your damn breakfast.”

  Kurt chuckled and reached for his plate of untouched pancakes. Personally, Brad saw nothing to laugh at. Because the truth was, thinking about Becker anywhere near Amanda tore a hole in his gut.

  If things were different, he’d find a nice secluded spot, strip off her clothes and get lost in her lush curves. His groin tightened thinking about all the things he would do to her. If things were different.

  12

  DRESSED IN a simple blue dress and high heels, Amanda bypassed the press box to sit closer to the action. Her attire was meant to keep her cool in the sticky L.A. temperatures. A tough order, considering she was feeling some real heat. It was the third home game since the Nashville away series and, at the rate she was going, it would be the third game she’d been shut out by Brad and Tony. Neither one of them would talk to her.

  Oh, she’d see Brad eyeing her when he thought she wasn’t looking, but talk to her? Give her an interview? No way.

  Somehow, she had to convince them to talk to her. They were key members of the team and her columns would start to suffer from their silence. As it was, Kevin was pressuring her to get the steroid story before Jack. It didn’t matter that her readership was growing. The man was obsessed with beating Jack.

  Which meant she had to take action tonight. Somehow, some way, she had to set things right.

  Her gaze traveled to the field,
seeking out Brad yet again, the sizzling awareness she felt for him was driving her crazy. Like a magnet, he drew her attention, her admiration.

  Amanda stuffed a piece of gum in her mouth, wishing it was a big fat nacho. Though she’d moved into her new duplex while the team was out of town, she had yet to find a nearby gym with a pool. She hadn’t done her normal morning three-mile swim in almost a month now, so she had to watch her diet. She hated it because she liked to eat way too much.

  Reggie sat beside her and changed the lens on his camera. “Warning. Don’t look, but Laura is to your right several rows over.”

  Amanda cringed. Laura had been calling her constantly since the morning of the no-show. She would ramble about Tony, clinging to Amanda like a long lost friend.

  “Please don’t let her see me,” Amanda said. “I don’t know what to do about her. And I’m sick of her dangling this apparent secret about Tony in front of me.” Amanda regretted having gotten to know the groupies. Aside from those first few tidbits, they hadn’t provided her with any inside tips to follow up on. And it seemed their hanger-on tendencies extended to the press, so they were hard to escape. “I’m getting all kinds of warning bells with Laura. Something is not right with that girl.”

  “You could cut her off. Tell her you don’t have time for her calls,” Reggie suggested, resting his camera on his knee. “But you risk her secret going to Jack. And if that secret is the steroid story, you risk big trouble with Kevin. I still wonder if Laura really has a secret at all. She could be working you, girl. Maybe she gets off on it. Maybe she’s doing the same kind of thing to Tony.”

  “I was wondering that myself.” This was so not how she’d seen her career playing out. She hadn’t signed up for secrets and manipulation, yet she’d backed herself into this corner. “Based on the cold shoulder Tony and Brad are giving me, if I don’t cut her off, the team isn’t going to trust me. What if more of the players stop talking to me?”

  Reggie opened his mouth to answer but stopped short when Laura obviously spotted her. “Amanda!” She was standing up waving her hands.

  “Oh, man,” Amanda said. “Right in front of the team.”

  “You could pretend not to see her,” Reggie offered.

  “Amanda!”

  “Right,” Amanda said. “The way she’s screaming the entire world knows she’s calling me.” She gave in to the inevitable. “I’ll be right back.”

  Amanda joined Laura and listened to ten minutes of Tony stories, before she made an excuse to leave. She started to turn when the tingling sensation of being watched took hold.

  She searched for the source, instinct guiding her to the edge of the dugout. Her eyes locked with Brad’s. She inhaled sharply, taken aback by the unexpected connection. The coldness of his gaze reminded her of that night in her hotel when he’d shut her out. Obviously, he’d seen her with Laura just now and he was judging her the same way he had that night. Damn it, she didn’t deserve his wrath. Still, underneath her anger she felt a pinch of unease she didn’t want to analyze.

  Frustration danced along her nerve endings and Amanda wanted to scream. She barely knew Brad. He shouldn’t hold anything over her. She had to put an end to this standoff tonight.

  The sound of a bat cracking against a ball broke the spell. Amanda tracked Tony’s ball as it sailed across the field and flew over the back wall. That home run not only would win the game, but also bring him within a few home runs of his record. It was a press-worthy achievement, one she needed to report and Tony wasn’t even speaking to her.

  Resolve formed. She was going to take control again and those two had better be ready to talk.

  AFTER THE GAME, Brad walked into the locker room with Kurt. Brad’s mood went south the minute he saw Becker talking to Amanda. He ground his teeth, every muscle in his body tense.

  “Becker wants to win that bet,” Kurt said. “You gonna let him?”

  Brad jerked his locker open and grunted. “He doesn’t have a chance in hell.” Truth was, the bet had long since been won. Too bad he couldn’t tell anyone.

  “Because you already won, right?”

  “Stop digging. That’s a reporter’s job.”

  Amanda’s laughter filled the air, wreaking havoc on his nerves. Brad glanced over at her, taking in the way her face lit up as Becker talked, as if whatever he said was really interesting.

  “Sure looks like Becker’s giving it a rookie try,” Kurt said, twisting the proverbial knife. “Maybe he’s going for a tie.”

  “Cut it out, Kurt. I’m not in the mood.” He grabbed a towel. “I’m going to take a shower.” Before he spewed the curses he’d been biting back.

  A few dodged reporters later, Brad stepped beneath the hot spray, hoping to escape the scurry of activity and pull himself together. But there was no escaping tonight. Becker stepped into the stall next to him, on the hunt for a fight.

  “Damn man, Amanda is hotter than hot,” he said. “I’m going to thoroughly enjoy winning this bet.”

  Brad suppressed his claim of victory. If he heard Becker call her hotter than hot one more time, he might throttle him. He so wanted to make sure Becker never went near Amanda again.

  In his current mood, Brad was a ticking bomb that needed to be far away from Becker, and he knew it. He turned off the flow of water and wrapped the towel around his waist. But he couldn’t walk away without saying something. “You should concentrate on throwing the ball into the mitt, kid,” Brad said. “Because if you keep pitching the way you did tonight, you won’t be around long enough to get Amanda in bed.”

  He left, humming over Becker’s yelled retort. Brad made it to the main room only to be cornered by some guy wearing a bow tie and a press pass from the opposing team’s home paper.

  “Was that Casey Becker yelling at you in there? That have anything to do with that fight you two had back in Ohio?”

  “It wasn’t a fight,” Brad mumbled, and tried to sidestep and retreat.

  The guy blocked his move. “Looked like a fight to me.”

  Brad was losing his patience. “Okay, then. It was fight.”

  Success flashed in the guy’s beady eyes. “I thought so. What were you fighting about?”

  The coach walked out of his office, propping a shoulder on the door frame. His eyes locked with Brad’s, a silent warning evident in his expression.

  Brad turned back to the reporter. “Why’d we fight? The kid likes Pepsi. Me, I’m a Coke guy.” He shrugged. “What can I say? We ballplayers get pretty intense about our cola.”

  Coach let out a roar of laughter, and relief rushed over Brad. He maneuvered around the less-than-pleased reporter, this time with success. Inwardly, he kicked himself for stepping in the line of fire, even though he’d averted disaster. Did he need reminding how important avoiding trouble was to his contract renewal?

  And that trouble included Amanda. The thought only served to rekindle his foul mood.

  LONG AFTER the game ended, Amanda waited near Tony’s car, Reggie by her side. She was ready to clear the air with Tony. Ready to put this Laura issue to bed and open communication with him again. Maybe she’d even be lucky enough to get a quote about tonight’s home run.

  There was just one problem. When Tony appeared, he wasn’t alone. Brad and Kurt flanked him.

  Fine. Amanda had to face not one, but three, very big, very intense ballplayers. Judging from the scowls they wore, they weren’t pleased to see her.

  She tried to resist squirming beneath their glares. Of all the eyes upon her, the ones who dealt her the most discomfort were Brad’s. She could feel his scrutiny scorch her skin. But she refused to look at him. Refused to forget that this meeting was about Tony, not Brad. She would not be deterred from her goal.

  “Showtime,” Reggie said. “How do you want to play this?”

  Amanda pushed off her rental car, which she’d moved to this parking lot. Her purse was on her shoulder and she left her notepad inside. She wanted to keep this easygoing and off-the-record.<
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  “Solo, but don’t go anywhere. I need the moral support.”

  Reggie winked. “I’ll be here.”

  Walking toward Tony’s red Porsche, Amanda noted how different he was from Brad and Kurt. While the other two men wore jeans and T-shirts, Tony sported designer pants and an expensive button-down shirt. Brad’s good ol’ boy quality was nowhere to be found with Tony. Everything from Tony’s attitude to his car seemed to scream big city and big money.

  Amanda’s hope that Brad and Kurt would go their way and leave her alone with Tony proved to be unfounded.

  “Hi, guys,” Amanda said, waving her hand then focusing on Tony. “I wanted to talk to you.” She paused. “Alone.”

  Tony stared at her, seconds passing in silence. The streetlight above seemed to cast her in the spotlight while she waited.

  “I promise I’ll only take a minute.” Amanda responded to the resistance she spotted in his dark brown eyes. “I don’t want to miss the chance to report on that big home run.”

  Finally Tony seemed to relax. “All right. I guess I can give you a couple of minutes.”

  “Great.” She turned to Kurt. “Maybe I can catch up with you at the next game?”

  He tipped his hat back, giving her a direct look. “Depends. You gonna start traveling with us?”

  Amanda had decided to be straightforward with the team, so she explained the situation. “If my boss likes my next story, then I’d say yes. If not, I might be headed back home to Texas but not for the game.”

  “Oh, man,” Kurt said, hands sliding in his front pocket. “Being a rookie is never fun.”

  “It has its moments,” she said, then forced her attention to Brad, not about to let him think she was intimidated. “You still owe me an interview.”

  His eyebrow inched upward. His expression was unreadable but still managed to suggest intimacy. “Do I?” he asked. “I thought we covered just about everything last time.”

  The private, underlying meaning charged the air. Amanda swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat, finding herself at a rare loss for words.