“Hi,” she said, sounding a little unsure of her reception.
“Hi. I thought you were on the job.”
“I’m more than the job, Pace.”
He didn’t say anything to that because her point slammed home hard. She was more than her job.
He was not.
“I know you have doctors and PTs and a million people looking out for you,” she said. “But I thought I’d come do some stretching with you, the ones your doctor recommended when I checked you out of the hospital.”
“There’s no point in rushing, not if I got suspended for twenty-five games. Or worse.”
“Don’t give up, Pace. We can get to the bottom of it, expose who did this to you, and—”
“And then what? Destroy someone else instead, someone I likely know and—” Care about.
“Yes,” she said softly, clearly understanding. “If that’s what it takes.”
Wishing he was still dead asleep because being awake hurt like hell, he moved aside for her to come in.
“I’ve been researching, writing,” she told him. “I just wanted you to know. I want to be upfront with you on this.”
Ah, hell. “Sounds argument inducing.”
She turned and looked him over. “It won’t be. I’m not here to argue. I’m here to help you stay in shape. Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle. And you’re already dressed for what I have in mind.”
Okay, that sounded a lot more promising than he’d thought. Especially when she put her hands on his belly and gently pushed him past the living room toward the hallway.
“Your doctor suggested a lower-body workout for circulation.”
He was game for a lower-body workout, only she didn’t go as far as his bedroom, pulling him into his home gym. She turned on the light and looked at him as she pulled off her sweatshirt and then her pants, leaving her in a pair of bicycle shorts and a sports bra. She pointed to the leg-press machine. “Sit.”
He did, only because she looked exceedingly hot. He put his legs up and pushed.
“Good,” she said, leaning over him. “Keep going.”
He liked her workout outfit. A lot. He reached out to touch, but she slapped his hand away. “Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all, “but people who don’t trust me don’t get to touch me.”
“It’s not that I don’t—”
“Shh. This is a workout.” She sat at the bench press next to him. “I bet I can do more reps than you.”
He eyed her gorgeous, curvy body, which had probably never seen a gym, and pulled out a smile he didn’t know he had in him. “No, you can’t.”
She gave him a sidelong look. “Prove it.”
“I’d rather kiss you.”
“Of course you would. I’m very kissable. Oh, and FYI . . .” She cocked her head. “I can see up your shorts.”
She didn’t sound too impressed, and he felt the need to defend himself. “Yeah. I don’t think I’m . . . working. I think it was the anesthesia.” Or so he’d told himself.
She raised a brow. “You’re not . . . working? You mean you can’t get an erection?”
Giving up with the weights, he lay flat on his back trying not to be embarrassed. So he couldn’t get it up. He could live with that.
No.
No, he really couldn’t live with that. “It’s probably only temporary—” He broke off when he felt her finger outline his anklebone, then run up his calf. His basketball shorts were low on his hips and long to his knees, and she easily skimmed beneath the loose material to stroke his thigh.
“Did you ask the doctor about it?”
“No. It said something about it in the paperwork they gave me. In the fine print.” Specifically it’d said that erections might be tricky for the next week or so. He hadn’t gone a day without his dick at least twitching on its own since he’d turned twelve, but it’d been over a week now and nothing—
She stroked his leg again, with her entire hand now, then added the other to the mix in an intoxicating massage that felt so good he groaned, deep and heartfelt.
“You’re tight, is all,” she murmured. “Stressed.” She dug her fingers into the muscles of his thighs. “That’s not good for your recovery.”
He opened his eyes and found her leaning over him, her ponytail hanging forward, lightly grazing his skin as she rubbed his legs. Her eyes locked on his and she smiled. She ran her gaze over his chest, then his lap, checking for success, which had him letting out a low laugh. “Don’t bother. I told you—”
Her fingers skimmed back up to his hips and lightly stroked over his belly, then caught on the waistband of the shorts, which were so low they’d probably be too indecent to wear out of the house. Especially since, hello, her magic was working.
Things were stirring.
She smiled. A cat-in-cream smile as she played with the tie at the waistband, pulling lightly until it gave.
“What are you doing?” he asked hoarsely, not wanting to scare off his erection.
“You’re far too tense. I’m going to fix that.”
“I—” God, her hands were heaven. “I thought we were barely speaking.”
“This won’t involve speaking,” she promised, and tugged. He lifted his hips to help, and then the next thing he knew, he was bare-ass naked and she was still fully dressed.
But then she remedied that by standing so that he could see her fully, and slowly stripped out of the rest of her clothes, then dropped to her knees between his.
“Holly—”
She licked him, and he choked out her name again, but he wasn’t sure it was audible. He couldn’t find his tongue. Jesus, he couldn’t even find his brain as she slowly took him in her mouth and sucked.
At the low, inarticulate sound he made, she paused. “I should tell you, I’m not that good at this. Should I move on to something else?”
His good hand came up to tangle his fingers in her hair. “Please don’t,” he said with all his heart as she drew him into her mouth again. Oh Christ. Christ, it felt so good to feel. “Holly—”
She ignored him. Something he should have been used to when it came to her. She ignored him and kept at her leisurely pace of driving him right out of his ever-loving mind, which at the moment, was a fine place to be. “Two-minute warning,” he gasped when his toes curled.
Her eyes were half closed, a dreamy, aroused smile playing about her lips as she worked him, and he had to reassess. “Make that ten seconds.”
She reached up and put a finger to his lips, reminding him that this wasn’t going to involve speaking. “Okay, yeah, but Holly, I’m going to—”
She didn’t stop.
And he came.
He came from the tips of his toes and beyond, and when he’d relanded on planet earth, he was still flat on his back on the bench, blinking at the ceiling, feeling as if he’d taken the entire bottle of pain pills that he hadn’t touched in days.
She kissed his inner thigh while he tried to find his tongue, which was currently stuck to the roof of his mouth. “I don’t know whether to thank you or apologize,” he murmured, unable to even muster up the energy to lift his head when she shifted away.
“Are you hungry?”
“I don’t know.” He reached out for her and got nothing but air. “Maybe a little.”
She picked up a sweatshirt he had hanging over one of the barbells and slipped into it, which came down to her midthigh. “I’m going to find you something to eat,” she said, zipping it up between her breasts. “Wait here.”
As he’d expelled every last ounce of energy, that wasn’t a problem. He couldn’t have moved to save his life. So he waited.
With an undeniably dopey grin on his face.
Barefoot, wearing nothing but Pace’s sweatshirt, Holly padded into his kitchen.
And let out a startled scream.
“Sorry,” Wade said quickly, turning to face her, blinking at her attire, or lack of. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Henry had been in the
middle of guzzling a Dr Pepper, but when his gaze ran down her body, he choked.
Wade simultaneously slapped him on the back and covered his eyes.
Holly tugged self-consciously at the hem of the sweatshirt. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We came to feed the poor, beleaguered, whiny patient,” Wade said. “But it turns out he’s not so beleaguered.”
Footsteps came down the hall and then Pace appeared in the doorway. He took in the situation, which was the guys looking at Holly standing there in nothing but his sweatshirt, and with a low oath pulled Holly to him, protecting her from view of the others with his body as he turned the two of them to the door. “Wait here,” he directed the guys over his shoulder as he led her out of the kitchen and into the hallway. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not your fault. But I feel very naked.”
“My favorite state.”
“Yeah, but not mine.” She headed back to the gym. He followed her, still wearing only those basketball shorts and his sling, extremely comfortable in his own skin. As he should be. If she had a body that fine, she’d be comfortable naked, too. At least some of his color was back, and she smiled as he put a big, warm hand on her hip.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Let me get rid of the guys.”
“No, don’t. I have to go work anyway.”
At that, she expected him to rush her along, but he stayed still, dropping his forehead to hers. She just closed her eyes, breathing him in, lifting her arms to wrap around his neck. They stayed like that for a moment before she pulled free to slip into her sweatpants. When she started to unzip his sweatshirt to replace it with her own clothes, he shook his head. “Keep it.”
So she left it on and slipped into her shoes. “I should go.”
He came close, playing with the hood ties on the sweatshirt, the one that smelled like him. “I owe you.”
Her knees knocked together. “Yeah. You do.”
His mouth curved and his eyes were hot as he leaned in and kissed her good-bye, a kiss that made her wish things weren’t so complicated, that they were just a man and a woman with a simple attraction for each other. An attraction without any messy emotions, attachments, or obligations to stories that needed to be told. But she’d never been that lucky, and she didn’t see that luck changing any time soon.
Chapter 22
It’s hard to win a pennant, but it’s harder losing one.
—Chuck Tanner
Holly had left Tucker multiple phone messages, trying to arrange an interview, but he’d proven hard to get ahold of. She knew Pace had asked her to let him handle it, but he hadn’t done so, at least not to her knowledge.
Plus, there was the little matter of this being her job, and she always did a thorough job.
When Tucker finally called her back, they arranged to meet at an outside burger joint in the center of town. Surrounded by tourists doing some summer shopping and college students on break, Holly pulled out the e-mail she’d gotten from her contact, the one that outlined the contents of the mysterious powder packet.
Tucker read the e-mail, then pushed it back across the table toward her, his face inscrutable. “What are you asking?”
“I got the packet out of your duffel bag. The duffel bag you brought to Pace’s.”
“Did you?”
“It . . . fell out.”
He laughed. “Uh-huh.”
“What do you use it for?”
“That’s not any of your business.”
“You don’t play ball,” she said.
Something in his eyes changed at that, chilled. Hardened. “I do not, no.”
She knew his background, that he could have been a great player himself except for his accident, so she tread carefully. “I just don’t see why you’d be taking stimulants.”
“No? I have a bum leg, Holly. The powder in that packet is a natural growth stimulant, from plants and herbs.”
“So you’re saying you use?”
“It’s not a manufactured drug, it’s natural.”
“Semantics, Tucker, and you know it. If the commissioner had known of its existence, it’d have been put on the banned list. It will be put on the banned list.”
He took a bite of his burger.
She sighed and tried another angle. “You and the guys on the Heat are all close friends.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Ty had your vitamins on him when he was arrested.”
“True. They’re good. They really work for him and his needs.”
“You’re right,” she agreed. “And I’m wondering what else works for him. I’ve done the research, Tucker. I know that with some of these new high-tech, drugs, if you’re not tested in the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours after taking them, it won’t register. Which means Pace must have ingested one to two days before his blood work.”
His amusement faded. “Are you accusing Pace of using?”
“No. The opposite. I believe he tested positive only because he ingested by accident.”
Tucker set down his burger. Leaning forward, his eyes filled with a genuineness that couldn’t be faked, he said, “Pace and I go way back. I’d never do anything to hurt him.” His voice cracked slightly. “Never.”
She could feel his grief, just as she felt something else—he was holding back on her. Was he protecting himself, or someone else? “I know you care about them,” she said softly. “That you’d never hurt them. But whether by accident or not, someone did. Someone hurt Pace. And it could happen again.”
But that was all she could get out of him. Frustrated, she went to the Heat facilities, where she had a scheduled meeting with Sam for the charity event she’d agreed to help with. They consumed a bag of cookies while they planned the annual poker night, laying out the floor plan, how they’d place a different Heat player at each poker table, the food, etc. And though Holly wanted to, though she had plenty of opportunity, she didn’t tell Sam about the packet she’d found.
On the way out, she ran smack into Red. “Have you been to see Pace?” he asked.
“Yes. Earlier.”
His mouth tightened. “Distracting him from his recovery?”
“No, I’m distracting him from his pain.” She instantly wished back the words, especially when he started coughing. And coughing. “Red? You okay?”
“Inhaler,” he gasped.
But that didn’t work, so she ended up driving him to the ER and the entire time all she could do was picture Pace’s face when she called to tell him she’d nearly killed his pitching coach.
But after a round of oxygen and some meds, Red was fine. Holly tried to take him home, but he refused to go, insisting on being dropped back off at the stadium, where he was meeting Ty for a pitching practice. “Damn stubborn men,” she muttered, pulling back into the Heat’s parking lot. “All of you.”
“That’s right, missy. We are.” As he got out of her car, he reached into her backseat for his bag and she went utterly still, frozen in shock as she watched him walk away carrying the same torn-in-the-corner bag Tucker had left that night at Pace’s.
She threw her car into park, turned off the engine, and followed him into the stadium and then to the bullpen, where Red had met up with Ty.
When she’d seen Tucker at the burger joint, she’d gotten the feeling he was protecting someone. What she’d never even imagined to think was that the person he might be protecting was his own father.
Red saw her approach, sighed, then gestured to Ty to keep throwing as he sauntered over to Holly. “What now? You not done trying to kill me?”
“Are you doling out stimulants to your players?”
He narrowed his eyes. “What the hell are you mumbling about?”
Ty stopped throwing and ambled up. “What’s up?”
Holly was done tiptoeing. “I was just asking Red about the natural stimulants Tucker supplies him with, and who he’s given them to.”
Ty’s eyes slid to Red.<
br />
“This is a private practice,” Red said, and turning his back, he walked off.
But Ty didn’t. He didn’t move.
“I know the players on this team,” he told her quietly. “Inside and out. I want you to know that none of them are using. Not a single one.”
Very carefully worded, she noted. “And how about you?”
He looked away.
“Ty—”
“I take vitamins. Lots of us do, but me more than the others because my body has taken a hit from the leukemia, and I get run down faster. I take added supplements and proteins.” He met her gaze then, his own earnest. “We’ve talked about this, Holly. There’s nothing wrong with making your body as fit as you can get it, especially for an athlete in a sport where you’re considered old at the age of thirty. You have to be fit for as long as you can be.”
“I understand that. Vitamins are one thing. But stimulants—”
“Natural ingredients,” he maintained. “All from plants. Nothing manufactured.”
“But—”
“Is eating celery and carrots all damn day long considered strength building?”
“Okay,” she said, nodding. “But smoking opium is dangerous, isn’t it? Because that’s a plant, too, Ty. A natural ingredient. It doesn’t make it right.”
“Look, I’m not saying I’m taking anything, but you should know, I don’t see a problem with it. I think the rules are too strict.”
“Can I quote you?”
He stared at her a long beat. “I guess I don’t see a problem with that.”
“Thank you for your time.” She went home and called the other players on the roster, one by one, asking each of them their stance on undetectable and banned substances. She got a variety of answers, but the bottom line was the same. Unlike Ty, each of the rest of them viewed a banned substance as unacceptable, in whatever form it took.
She stared at her blank computer screen, then started typing. She wrote the article she wanted to write. Well, not quite the way she wanted to write it, but close enough. She started with how the MLB and the commissioner’s office had forever changed the way athletes viewed banned substances by putting in mandatory testing, which was great, except that testing wasn’t always accurate, and there were athletes still managing to use. There would probably always be certain athletes who managed to use.
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