by Pamela Aares
Scotty threw a fast two-seamer to the outside of the plate and caught Umbrio looking. Then he put him away with an off-speed change-up. He wouldn’t want to run into the guy at a bar later tonight; he’d still be hot under the collar. Nope. This would be a good night to keep a low profile.
The Sabers won six to four, closer than Scotty had liked. Menudo made another error in the outfield that almost cost Scotty his win. Having his pitching record in the hands of a guy like that irked him. And he intended to let the sorry-ass know.
After the game, a young blonde reporter snagged Scotty before he left the field. A network reporter, so he’d have to give her a minute or two.
She tossed her hair and smiled at her cameraman. Then she turned her sea-green eyes to Scotty.
“Great game.” She smiled at him.
It was an innocuous statement, one he’d heard a hundred times, but something in her delivery told him he was being set up.
“It’s a great team,” he said, starting to run his tape of all the usual lines—safe lines for any situation. “We go out and deliver, back each other up, get it done.”
“Speaking of backing each other up, is there truth to the rumors that you have a rather special relationship with Sabers owner Chloe McNalley?”
His face froze. There weren’t any usual lines for this; someone had fed the reporter information. And maybe it was just muckraking, but he was pretty sure she’d been primed.
“Miss McNalley makes every player feel like he’s playing for her,” he heard himself say. “It’s a great talent of hers.” The reporter inched closer. “But no player would ever have any kind of serious relationship with ownership, you know that. We leave that sort of thing to our agents.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew he shouldn’t have added that last bit, should have shrugged the whole thing off. Damn, this was the national news. And she’d caught him off guard. Who’d tipped her off? That was a question he’d like answered but couldn’t ask. As he walked past Dick Fisher and ducked into the tunnel, Fisher’s breezy smile gave him a pretty good idea just who it might have been.
In the clubhouse, he stripped and headed for the showers. But he’d need more than water to wash off the slimy discomfort that oozed over him. There hadn’t been any good answer to the reporter’s question—no matter what he’d said, it was her question that would stick in people’s minds. And it wasn’t like he could’ve just walked away. But he’d denied any relationship with Chloe, cut her cold, and he felt rotten. Really, really rotten.
“Nice tosses.” Ribio punched him on the shoulder as he bent to grab his bag from his locker. Ribio was a veteran. His words were a compliment that meant something.
Menudo crossed the locker room, grinning. His locker was three down from Scotty’s.
“He doesn’t need pitches.” He laughed. “He needs moves.” Menudo rocked his hips with sexual, gyrating thrusts. “I heard the press lady say you’re sleeping with the boss,” he added with a snort.
Anger fired by guilt lurched through Scotty. He launched for Menudo’s throat and slammed him up against the lockers. In a flash, Ribio pushed between them. He had one forearm on Scotty’s chest and the other across Menudo’s throat.
“Never insult a lady in front of Donovan,” Ribio said as he pulled them apart. The grip on his arm told Scotty that Ribio’s nickname, Little Bull, hadn’t been earned for only his hits on the field.
Menudo slinked off to the showers. There was a hierarchy among the players, and Menudo was at the bottom of the pile.
“Some guys shouldn’t come up,” Ribio said as he walked toward the door.
Ribio had saved Scotty from an ugly scene, but his intervention only made Scotty feel more like a fraud. The gut punch of guilt tightened in him. He’d known from the beginning he was walking a path he shouldn’t, that every time he touched Chloe he was digging in deeper, digging them both in. He had self-control and he’d better use it, if not for his sake, then for hers.
He needed to feed the blast of energy she fired in him into some other, safer, channel. But right now he had to give her a heads-up. He tapped out a text message, then deleted it. Typed out another and deleted it as well. Finally he just typed out a short message telling her that he’d been caught off guard and he was sorry.
After dinner at his uncle’s place, Scotty didn’t feel like sleeping. He walked up Newbury Street, peered into the window of a closed bookstore, then headed for Red Tuesdays, a local hangout one of his cousins had introduced him to. He ordered a shot of Bushmills and leaned his elbows on the polished wood of the bar.
“That’s a nice whiskey,” a sweet-toned voice said.
He twisted to his right. A long-legged woman—very long legs or very short skirt—sat two seats over, swirling amber liquid in her glass.
“Though I prefer Oban.” Her face had invitation written all over it. “It’s smoother.” She smiled, they talked pleasantries, and after a few moments, he moved one stool closer. He told her he was in town on business.
“I live in the Back Bay,” she said with a sultry smile. She leaned toward him, her fragrance wafting over his senses. “Not too far from here.”
Maybe Chloe was right. Maybe distance was best; maybe it’d put the whole relationship in perspective. There was a sure-fire way to find out.
“Can I buy you another?” he asked.
“No, I’m a lightweight,” she said. “I just like the taste. My name’s Joan.”
“Scotty,” he said as he shook her hand. She swiveled her legs around the stool and faced him, her knees brushing the side of his thigh. She was beautiful, really, truly beautiful. Her being in a bar at this hour, alone, made no sense.
She looked at her watch. “I should be going.”
It wasn’t the line he’d expected to hear.
“But I have tickets to a play tomorrow night,” she added. “And my friend who was going with me got called out of town. Would you like to join me?”
Nothing wrong with seeing a play. And they had a day game.
“Only if you let me buy you dinner after,” he said.
She slid off the barstool and held out her hand. “I’ll meet you at the Colonial Theater at seven thirty.”
Joan was fifteen minutes late, so they didn’t have much time to talk before the curtain. The play was a musical, a production of Cabaret. Not exactly light viewing, but the cast was great. At dinner, Joan seemed uncomfortable and Scotty found himself doing most of the talking. When she invited herself to his room for a drink, he was surprised. But he was on a mission, and that mission was to put a real gap between him and one Miss Chloe McNalley. Joan was interested, more than willing, and he hadn’t had sex since Nebraska.
He drew her out a bit as they walked the two blocks to his hotel. He had years of experience smoothing the way to his bed. He rarely had to, but some women were shy, even those who thought they knew what they were after.
The key card gave him trouble at the door to his room; damn things always did. He flipped it over and tried it the other way.
“Would you like a drink?” He followed her inside and crossed to the table beside the TV and retrieved a bottle of Bushmills. He’d bought it that afternoon with her in mind.
“A small one,” Joan said.
In the harsher light of his hotel room, she appeared older and a bit drawn, like she’d seen more of the world than she let on. She sat directly next to him on the bed, a move that surprised him. He could tell she was nervous. She stood and paced to the window.
“I know who you are,” she said.
“Glad one of us does,” he said. Heaviness dropped into him as she walked back to the bed. A baseball groupie; he should’ve known. Usually he didn’t care. She tipped back her drink with one hand and ran her other hand up his leg. Very practiced. Very unappealing.
Suddenly everything felt wrong.
“What’s it like to have thirty-five thousand people cheering for you?” she murmured.
Her hand neared his crotch. H
e took hold of it and moved it into the space between them on the bed. He didn’t feel like doing the “wonders of being a baseball player” discussion. And he didn’t feel like stripping off his clothes and going through with all that either.
Making love with Chloe had changed him, and he hadn’t known how much—how great a shift there’d been—till now.
If he needed any clearer proof, he’d be an idiot.
He stood and walked a few steps away from the bed. “It’s a privilege,” he said. “People love the game. We’re just part of it.” His tone wasn’t cool. He’d had several points at which to stop this and he’d gone forward anyway. It wasn’t Joan’s fault, even if she had deceived him, had played him for her own reasons. Maybe her approach was merely part of her fantasy. No matter, his heart wasn’t in it and neither was his body.
“Look, I have to turn in,” he said as gently as possible. “Can I call a cab for you?”
He saw the flicker of surprise in her eyes. He was getting pretty good at surprising people. Especially himself.
She pushed up off the bed. “Was it something I said?” Her hurt looked genuine.
“No. You’re fine. Very fine. I just need to get some sleep.” He reached for the phone. “I’ll call down for the doorman to get you a cab.”
“I know how to get a cab. I’ve lived in Boston all my life.”
“I’ll walk you down.”
“No.” She managed a smile. “Thanks for dinner.”
He wanted to say it had been a pleasure, but he wasn’t up for the social lie.
She grabbed her purse and walked out.
Scotty crossed to the door and locked it. He pressed his forehead against the wood, wondering if Chloe’s day had been better than his.
He perversely hoped it hadn’t.
Chapter Twenty-one
It had been a good day. Though she’d dreaded it, Chloe had moved her things into Woodlands, leaving just enough in the San Jose apartment to get her through homestands. If she worked through the afternoon, she’d get most of the boxes unpacked by early evening. In the chaos of it all, however, she’d misplaced her cellphone. She lifted a heavy box of books from the couch, but the phone wasn’t under it. Hands on hips, she scanned the room. Misplacing things wasn’t her style, but moving residences wasn’t her strong point either. Mrs. Dayton, her dad’s housekeeper—well, her housekeeper—had brought in two men to help with the heavier items, but Chloe had insisted that she wanted to unpack her most precious books and papers and clothes on her own.
Tired of the dust, she walked out the double French doors of the library into the balmy afternoon. Summer had arrived in full and the gardens surrounding the house were overwhelmingly lush. Maybe it was the stunning weather or maybe it had just been the passage of time, but she was finally able to walk through the rose garden and not feel the terrific loneliness that had cloaked her since the day her dad had died.
She hummed a tune she’d heard in the stadium the week before, an upbeat song with a steady beat. Even the house felt less forbidding, although she still couldn’t bring herself to visit her dad’s suite of rooms. Yet there wasn’t any hurry. Nothing was going anywhere.
She returned to the library and sorted through her papers until the piles were each labeled and ready to tackle, one at a time. Her course books sat unopened on the sitting room table. She’d made her peace with leaving her class, at least for the time being. Teaching the story of the universe had been so much a part of her life, she couldn’t give it up, not entirely. She’d spoken with her dean at Stanford, and he’d assured her she could teach a guest course now and then. During the off-season she’d finish up two research projects she’d had to put on hold. Seeing them published would be some consolation. It would have to be enough. Four months ago, if anyone had told her that she’d stop teaching to run a baseball team, she’d have labeled them nuts. But the McNalley gene ran deep. She’d entered the world of the game, taken up the torch, and the thrill was undeniable. Some days she wasn’t sure whether to curse or praise her father. Other days she did both.
She reviewed the bundle of information from Mike Thomas. Soon she’d be able to deal properly with Fisher and turn the guy over to the MLB commissioner. The information Mike had gathered should provide the commissioner enough ammunition to drive the man out of the game. But with the stadium vote looming, it felt like everything was happening at once. Just that morning Mike had told her that Halliman, the venture capitalist who’d shown an interest in buying the team, had contacted him. He had another offer, he’d told Mike, one she might want to consider.
But the hustle of the move and her worries over Fisher did nothing to distract her from her heavy heart. She ached to see Scotty, to hear his voice, to just talk and laugh with him, ached in a way that made her feel some days as if she were hollow inside, not really there, as if she were going through the motions of living without feeling anything at all. Six days with no contact. She had to laugh at that. The universe was 13.8 billion years old and she was mooning like a teenager over the passage of six days? But the deep message of her heart was real. She’d deal with Fisher, get Scotty back to the Giants, and maybe then they’d have a chance.
If he even wanted one.
And that was just one more worry. Chloe straightened out a few already straight piles on the desk, trying to ignore doubt and the tensing of her shoulders that came with it. She’d stalled trading Scotty for a few days, unsure. What if she arranged the trade, straightened everything out, and Scotty decided he didn’t want her? What if he decided she was too much trouble? What if he met someone else, someone with no baggage that interfered with his livelihood?
She rolled her shoulders again. Just thinking about all the complications had her tight and anxious.
Thinking about Scotty and another woman had her going crazy.
He liked sex, was great at it. Would he give that up? Would he seek casual partners while Chloe was trying to make up her mind?
“Arrgh!”
She jumped out of her chair. Those kinds of thoughts weren’t helpful. And she couldn’t even say they were fruitless. No, they were producing plenty of fruit in her mind. But it was the poisoned kind. She had to stop imagining worst-case scenarios.
Her stomach growled and she headed for the kitchen. Her purse sat wide open on the counter. She rummaged through it again—she’d already emptied it twice. Funny how you could do something again and again and expect a different result even though nothing had changed. Maybe she did believe in magic. But her phone wasn’t there. Maybe she’d stuffed it into her gym bag at the last minute. She’d grab a bite and then look for it again upstairs. She heard Mrs. Dayton humming in the hallway. It was no secret that the staff was glad to have her in the house, to know that their lives would go on almost as they always had.
Chloe flicked on the TV on the way to the refrigerator. Mrs. Dayton had stocked it with her wonderful homemade soups, and a salad waited on the top shelf. Chloe grabbed a fork and settled in at the counter. She’d just lifted the first forkful when she heard the bubbly voice of the network’s female sports reporter.
She checked her watch. Today’s game hadn’t started. She saw from the banner crawl that the newscast was a replay from the previous day’s game. She’d skipped watching it, unable to concentrate on organizing her move and watch Scotty pitch at the same time. She’d taped the game, though, and planned to watch it later that evening.
The blonde reporter leaned in toward Scotty. Really close to him.
“Great game,” she said, smiling at Scotty.
Chloe felt her shoulders relax. The Sabers must’ve won.
The reporter’s smile widened, if that was possible. There must be a school where they taught reporters to smile that way, wide and falsely intimate, as if they and their interviewee had interests, or maybe secrets, in common. Scotty didn’t smile back.
“It’s a great team,” he said. “We go out and deliver, back each other up, get it done.”
“
Speaking of backing each other up, is there truth to the rumors that you have a rather special relationship with Sabers’ owner Chloe McNalley?”
Chloe’s fork clanged to the counter.
She watched as Scotty grinned that perfectly boyish grin, sweet and open and relaxed. Oh no, was he going to give their relationship away?
“Miss McNalley makes every player feel like he’s playing for her.” He paused. It was the longest moment of Chloe’s life. “But no player would ever have any kind of serious relationship with ownership, you know that.” He shook his head. “We leave that to our agents.” He laughed lightly and walked out of the frame.
She wished she could play the interview back, listen again. But she knew what she’d heard. He’d said it so perfectly, so convincingly, that she had no trouble believing him.
So from his vantage point, they weren’t in any relationship. She’d been fooling herself that she meant anything to him. The heart could write its own fictions, who didn’t know that?
The one thing she didn’t have to wonder about was how the reporter got her information. Fisher was playing this out, just as Mike had warned her he might.
But it was Scotty’s performance she hadn’t been prepared for. Maybe she should thank him. How long she would’ve fooled herself into believing she was special to him, that what they’d shared ran deep, she didn’t know. But he’d taken care of that.
She picked up her plate and shoved it into the fridge, although she doubted she’d be hungry later. She certainly wasn’t now.
She tossed and turned late into the night, Scotty’s face and words replaying in a relentless loop in her mind.
The next day Chloe drove to Mike’s office for a meeting with Halliman. She hadn’t wanted to meet with him, but Mike had insisted. She didn’t see Halliman’s red Maserati in the lot, but there was no mistaking the tricked-out Range Rover, even if it was a subtle navy blue. Maybe he was trying to make a different impression.
