Thrown by Love

by Pamela Aares

  She laughed. Scotty didn’t have a slugging percentage, at least not much of one. Most pitchers didn’t. And now that he played for the Sabers, the designated hitter hit for him. But she liked his humility. With rare exceptions, even the most talented superstars had a genuine modesty, at least when it came to their game. It wasn’t that they didn’t have confidence too—pitchers had that in abundance. But baseball could beat the best player any day. The only players that made it were the ones who remembered that. Yet in the past few years, attitudes had changed; social media had blurred the line between public and private. Players had become celebrities, personalities, whether they wanted to or not. Even the shyest players had to deal with the pressures of public attention, something they may not have bargained for when they were learning to throw a perfect pitch or hit a ninety-five mile an hour fastball. And most players knew, though it was an unspoken contract, that they were ambassadors. Fans—especially kids—looked up to them.

  Walking the challenging line between superstar and ambassador was difficult, made harder by the pure male energy, channeled and honed, that drove players. That and their competitive natures. That energy was a power to be reckoned with.

  And didn’t she know all about that energy and power.

  Scotty effortlessly tossed the ball to the catcher. Chloe loved his command of his body, loved the economy of movement and the grace. She’d never mention the grace part, of course, but he had it. And it made him beautiful to watch. She turned away when Lowell caught her staring and made a face at her.

  They let G’maw pitch to the children, but when Scotty’s dad came up to bat, his brother called him to the mound.

  “I’ll give him heat,” Scotty said, flashing Chloe a smile as he jogged past.

  It wasn’t the heat of his pitch she had in mind as she watched him take the mound. His jeans hugged his hips. Very tightly. One thing about pitchers is that they need strong butt muscles. And Chloe had enjoyed a taste of what those strong muscles could do. Color rushed into her face, and she was glad she was standing far enough out that no one would notice. Glad too that playing center field allowed her to admire his form without others catching on.

  Lowell tossed him a hardball and then crouched behind the plate and held up his catcher’s mitt. She imagined they’d often played like this when Scotty was a boy.

  Sam hoisted his bat. “Show me what you’ve got, son.”

  Scotty whizzed in a slider, and it escaped Lowell’s mitt. He scrambled in the dirt to come up with it and the boy on second trotted to third, grinning.

  “For jeez’ sake, Scotty, warn me before you do that,” Lowell said as he crouched back down behind his dad.

  Scotty threw an off-speed curve ball, but Chloe didn’t even watch where it went. Something grabbed her attention and then clicked as she watched Scotty’s delivery. He was tempering his throws, of course, but she was pretty sure she saw the tic in his mechanics that was giving him trouble. She’d noticed it a few times during games, but only passively. She’d spent the first fourteen years of her life sitting with her dad behind home plate, watching pitchers. She’d hadn’t realized she’d learned so much, that she could identify such a specific problem just from studying a player. While now wasn’t the time to say something, she’d find a way to tell Scotty what she saw.

  Scotty’s next pitch was a big fat one across the plate, and his dad connected. The ball sailed between her and left field and dropped into the potatoes. People hooted and the two boys on base raced home before the neighbor playing left field came up with the ball.

  “No fair hitting into the rough,” Chloe shouted to Sam as he rounded second base and headed for third.

  G’maw walked up to the plate and stood ready to bat, grinning out at Scotty.

  “You’re batting for the wrong team, G’maw.”

  “All’s fair at Sunridge Fields,” Sam said with a grin as he stopped at third.

  “I’m a switch-hitter,” G’maw said with a defiant swing of her bat.

  Chloe bit back her laugh. G’maw’s interpretation of switch-hitting would make life in the majors interesting.

  “Toss me the softball,” Scotty said to Lowell.

  “I don’t need a softball,” G’maw protested. “I’m not that old yet.”

  Scotty shrugged. “You’re asking for it.”

  “You bet I am.” G’maw waved her bat with the finesse of a practiced hitter. Scotty tossed a slow pitch right over the plate. G’maw swung and connected, but the ball tipped foul to the left.

  “Late swing, G’maw.”

  “Pansy-ass pitch, Chapta.”

  Chloe knew Scotty had nicknames, most players did. She’d heard Charmer and had a darn good idea how he’d gotten that one, but Chapta was one she hadn’t heard before.

  Scotty looked his dad back to third with a grin. It wasn’t as though Sam would try to steal home—they were having way too much fun razzing the family matriarch. Scotty wound up and threw, and G’maw connected with a grunt. The ball bounced right in front of Chloe. She leaped and caught it, then looked to the infield. To her astonishment, G’maw had already rounded first. She threw it to second and watched as the boys caught G’maw in a rundown, ending the inning. Chloe’s team cheered and Sam’s team booed. Chloe wiped her sweating palms on her capris.

  It was her turn to bat.

  Chloe took a few practice swings. Scotty sat on the hay bales that served as their bench and watched. She felt his eyes on her as she waggled the bat. She couldn't resist a slight wiggle of her hips. Just a couple hours ago he’d had her capris off and his hands around her hips. She shot a glance at him and saw him shift on the hay bale, tugging at his jeans to hide his arousal. She shouldn't be teasing him, but she couldn't resist.

  G’maw threw what they called a girl’s pitch, and Chloe mugged at her.

  “I won’t break, G’maw. Give me something I can hit.”

  G’maw did an almost comical windup, but the pitch she let fly was a doozy. Chloe connected, and the ball sailed into the gap in center. Chloe had speed, and the neighbor kid couldn’t get to the bag before she reached second. She danced on the bag, a grin stretching her face.

  "Atta girl!" Scotty jumped up, applauding, joined by the shouts and cheers from the other members of her team. He flashed her a thumbs-up and as they locked gazes, she knew the road ahead was going to be more challenging than she'd imagined.

  Stars reached a sparkling canopy in the inky black sky as Chloe walked out into the gardens surrounding the guest cottage. It was later than she’d realized. The Donovan clan and their friends had partied late into the night, celebrating Dara, congratulating her on her new teaching job and sharing jokes and stories with the ease and humor of people who’d known each other all their lives. She wondered if Scotty realized how special it was to have such a large, loving family. When she’d visited friends’ families during break at Laughton Hall, she’d envied their inside jokes and good-natured jousting, but she’d never felt her loneliness as strongly as she did now. Until her dad died, she’d never really thought much about family, she’d been so caught up in school and then her teaching. But now, surrounded by the Donovan’s boisterous, deep love, she felt the hole that losing him had carved, felt the yearning for connection haunting her.

  Scotty had said goodnight to her at the kitchen door since he could hardly have come out with her to the cottage. But she wished they’d made plans to spend at least a few minutes alone together. These might be their last, at least for a while. Though it had been a hard decision, she’d decided they needed to take a month away from each other. Wherever their relationship might go, if it could go anywhere, pursuing it would have to wait until after the stadium vote. If what they shared was strong, if it was real, what difference could a month apart make?

  Owls hooted to their mates as she walked along the path leading past the barn. At the edge of the field where they’d played their game, she stopped to stare up at the glowing path of the Milky Way arching above her. So many,
many stars. They reminded her of permanence, of beginnings and of the future. And focusing on them settled some of the imbalance that had shaken her the last few months. The sky and the universe, for all their mystery, didn’t confuse her.

  “Are the heavens still in their right place?” Scotty’s voice was soft against her neck as he slid his hands around her waist and pulled her back against him.

  “You surprised me. Again.”

  He closed his arms around her.

  “I’m just getting started surprising you,” he said as he pulled her down to the soft grass.

  Chloe stared into his eyes, ran a finger along one brow and then cupped her hand around his jaw.

  “What?” Scotty asked. “You look quite solemn.”

  “Hmm . . . I was wondering . . .”

  She moved her fingers to trace his lower lip, and he took a nip out of one. He grinned when she gasped softly.

  “Wondering what?”

  She searched his face in the darkness, trying to see inside him, trying to see him. She wondered at his depths. At the drive that had taken him so far from a family he obviously dearly loved. Maybe that love was what allowed him to go so far, confident they’d always welcome him home.

  “Chloe?”

  “Yes, Chapta?”

  He groaned. “That’s what you’re wondering about?”

  “Yep.”

  He rolled off her and onto his back so they could both look up at the stars. He reached for her hand and entwined his fingers with hers.

  “You already know I like to read. Well, I liked to read when I was young too. When I should’ve been sleeping or heading to school or pitching or helping with chores.”

  When he fell silent, she squeezed his fingers. “And?”

  “And when Mom or Dad or G’maw called me to the table or the field or wherever, I usually begged for just one more chapter. G’maw started calling me Chapta and she got my brothers and Dara doing it and it just stuck.”

  Chloe focused on the sky. When she didn’t say anything, Scotty rolled to his side and stared down at her.

  “Well?”

  “That’s really rather . . . ”

  “Silly? Dumb? Childish?”

  “Sweet. Darling. Adorable.” She grinned. “Maybe we should share the story via social media?”

  Scotty growled and pounced, lying on Chloe and then rolling them a couple of times in the grass. “I’ll show you sweet.”

  He stopped them with her on top, held her face between his hands, and proceeded to kiss her not only sweetly, but passionately.

  She loved the combination, a blend that was pure male passion and rising desire.

  A blend that was Scotty’s own. One she imagined she’d never tire of.

  Chloe was still cocooned in the haze that their lovemaking had conjured when Scotty leaned up onto his elbows and hovered over her.

  “Want a lesson in cosmology, professor?” He shifted and brushed her hair away from her face. He slid down onto one elbow and rested his head in his upturned hand.

  “First off,” he said with a mock serious look, mimicking straightening a tie around his neck, “as you look up at the sky, remember that gravity is pinning you to the Earth.”

  She had to giggle at his comic professorial tone, but the humor quickly faded as his other hand tracked fire when his fingers roved from her shoulders to her hips.

  “You’re making it mighty hard to concentrate.”

  He traced the curve of her hip, then her waist. Then he flicked his fingertips across her already hard nipple.

  “Do pay attention,” he said in a dramatic, admonishing tone. “Now imagine that you are lying on the bottom of the Earth and you are looking down at the stars, not up.”

  He gestured into the darkness. “See the stars as down there, below you. Feel how gravity bonds with the Earth and keeps you from falling into the stars. Well, that and”—he cupped her breast—”my left hand.”

  She stared at the dark bowl above her and the scattered points of twinkling light. She’d looked at the night sky for as long as she could remember. She’d never look at it the same. So much of her life would never be the same. She pushed herself up and slid her hands around Scotty’s neck.

  “Do you work at turning the world upside down,” she said as she nipped a kiss to his lips, “or does the ability just come naturally?”

  Her announcement could wait. Just then she wanted to be held and look at the world with new eyes, make love with him, looking down into the universe.

  Scotty sat across from Chloe in the cushioned leather seat of her jet. At least there was no cabin attendant fawning over them; she had spared them that. She had her nose in the paper they’d bought at the general store that morning as they’d passed through Cedar Creek. Dara had driven them to the plane, chattering all the way and occasionally shooting questioning looks at Scotty in the rearview mirror.

  He watched Chloe as she reviewed the box scores in the sports section. She had decisions to make about the team down the road if she followed through on her plan to rid the Sabers of the weak players Fisher had brought in. Though there was more to a player than his numbers in the box scores, the numbers gave a damn clear snapshot of a player’s strengths. She made tic marks as she went down the page. He squirmed a bit, recognizing once again that she could buy and sell players. Could sell him. He’d never been this close to the person responsible for those sorts of decisions, hadn’t considered what it was like from the other end.

  He was tired, even though after he’d snuck back to his room just before dawn, he’d slept deeper than he had in years. It was a tiredness that came from hours of the most stunning sex he’d ever had. And he sure wasn’t going to complain about that. Yet it’d been way more than sex. What he and Chloe had shared had satisfied not only his body, but his soul, stirring him and soothing him at the same time. But dwelling on what had happened, on his reactions, wouldn’t do any good. They still had no future.

  And anyway, it seemed clear that their night under the stars hadn't had the same effect on her. She was sitting across from him, working diligently and easily, as if their night together had been simply another night.

  “Any prospects?” he asked in an attempt to get her to talk. She hadn’t said much since they’d settled into their seats. After what they’d shared in the past day, the silence felt like a yawning gap. He didn’t like it.

  She looked up from the paper.

  “My dad wanted Tory Griffin. I think he was right.”

  She pressed her lips into a thin line. He knew her well enough to see that something other than player trades was on her mind.

  “You can tell me,” he said. “Whatever’s bothering you, you can tell me.”

  When she slid her gaze to the window, he wished he hadn’t spoken. They were returning to the real world, the world where she was an owner and he was a member of a team—a team she happened to own. There wasn’t any way around that.

  “We’re going back,” she said as she kept her face averted.

  “Should we tell the pilot to change the flight plan to Bali?”

  “I should’ve thought of that.” There was nothing playful in her tone.

  She turned to him, and he read the sadness in her eyes. He’d known this moment would come; it was just a question of which one of them would call it. The heroic deed would be to make a move first, save her from having to take the inevitable first step. He inhaled a heavy breath; he didn’t want to do it. She was the only woman he’d met that he could imagine making a life with. Hell, before he met her, he hadn’t wrapped his head around any of that, hadn’t thought beyond the next baseball season. But it wasn’t his head that was doing the thinking, and his heart didn’t have the experience to know what to do. He’d never known that caring for a woman could be world-shaking amazing and soul-crushing at the same time. But he couldn’t tell her that. Not now.

  “We should take some time away from each other, Scotty. At least a month.”

  She’d
beat him to the first move.

  “See if all this cools off,” she added, gesturing between them with one hand.

  As if it would. But he saw the strong feminine resolve in her eyes, the same kind he’d seen in his mother and grandmother when they’d settled on a course of action. He doubted she was much of an actor; the resolve was real. She’d said “all this” as if what had happened between them was some sort of quantifiable object to be turned and examined, its benefits and drawbacks weighed and measured. A wash of unease dropped into his gut. Maybe she wasn’t in as deep as he was. They hadn’t talked feelings, hadn’t had time between the sex and playing and more sex. But maybe there weren’t any feelings to discuss. Maybe on her side it was only sex and companionship. She was alone; her father had just died. And Scotty was convenient. Maybe he was simply support. He pushed back in his chair, uncomfortable with his thoughts. Uncomfortable in his skin.

  God, she’d never once mentioned feelings. What woman didn’t mention feelings if she had them?

  He wiped a hand across his jaw.

  Only a woman who didn’t have them.

  He thought he was damn good at reading people. But she wasn’t a hitter, and he wasn’t looking to see if she feared his fastball or had a clue about his pitching sequence. And she wasn’t a woman looking to improve her lot by adding him to her list of conquests.

  There were plenty of guys who’d be a hell of a lot less trouble for her, guys who could accompany her to events without raising eyebrows. Guys who fit in her world. Guys who wouldn’t make her job harder to do.

  He’d thought about the possibility of other men before, but had always shoved the idea down. But now, given her suggestion that they spend time apart . . .

  “Sure,” he said, feeling suddenly foolish. There was too much at stake not to respect what she was asking. Too much at stake for her.

  Hell, for him too.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chloe arrived back at the Sabers’ front office to find that Dick Fisher had defied her orders. Worse, he’d called a press conference to announce that he’d signed a player from the Florida Rays. Either the man was hell bent on ticking her off or he was an idiot. Or . . . a worse possibility occurred to her. Maybe he was somehow getting kickbacks from the players he signed. But that was ridiculous—no player would do that. Yet Fisher needed money, Mike's sleuthing had confirmed that. She was missing something and it nagged at her. And damn him, Fisher knew she didn't want to make any moves to undermine the city officials' confidence in the team. So she was stuck. For now.