by Pamela Aares
Scotty laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt, and Aderro made it to second base. The crowd cheered. A player making a comeback was a great cause for celebration, especially a comeback like Scotty’s.
Scotty walked back toward the dugout with the grin she loved plastered across his face. He paused and tipped his cap to the crowd, then glanced to where she sat with Jackie and Brigitte before he ducked out of sight.
“He loves you,” Brigitte said. “That look was a perfect testament.”
“If a quick look into the stadium is all it takes to declare affection, half the women here today could imagine they’re on the player’s lists,” Chloe retorted. But he had. Glanced. Quite purposely. And it had set her heart fluttering.
Brigitte gave a conspiratorial nod to Jackie. “She is a tough case, my friend Chloe, but I believe there is hope.”
Jackie smiled at them both over the rim of her plastic beer cup.
By the time the Giants’ manager, Hal Walsh, took Scotty out of the game in the bottom of the sixth inning, Chloe had been clenching her jaw so tight for so long, both it and her head ached. The Giants led five to one. She’d watched with pride as Scotty had thrown perfectly timed sinkers and cutters with late movement that confounded even the best of her Sabers’ hitters. There was no hitch in his movements, just perfect placement and breathtaking velocity. She was more than relieved when Walsh pulled him out; with a big lead there was no use overtaxing his arm on his first outing. Thank God for good managers.
But though she was concerned for Scotty, her own team claimed her attention. She made a mental note to ask George and Charley about beefing up the Sabers’ bullpen. If the Sabers faced the Giants in the Series, they’d need strong arms for the middle of the game. The young slugger George brought up from the Seals would bump up their hitting, but they still had pitching holes to fill.
“You deserve a beer,” Jackie said. She waved the vendor over. “Maybe more than one,” she said as she handed the beer to Chloe.
“I’m not sure what I deserve, but I know what I want.”
“She’s a quick study, my friend Chloe,” Brigitte said with a sly smile. “It only took me fifteen years to get her to say that.”
The Giants won six to two. Chloe asked her friends where they wanted to eat.
As they sipped matching cosmos in the restaurant across from the stadium, Chloe was glad for the company of her friends. Being with them helped melt away the edges of her loneliness, made her almost happy. They were staying over at her place in the city. It was a short cab ride away, so they ordered a third round of drinks. Brigitte and Jackie appeared unfazed, but Chloe was a lightweight. She felt the glow of the alcohol all the way to her toes.
“It is a lovely game. I’m beginning to appreciate it,” Brigitte purred, her accent making the word lovely sound like something you’d want to taste. “And the men are fabulous. Great glutes.” She tossed her hair and sent the earrings that dangled from her ears sparkling. “I can see why you ladies love them.” She leaned close to Chloe. “What I’d really like is a pass to the locker room.” She flashed a teasing smile. “My wildest fantasies always end up with me under warm running water surrounded by all those hard, glistening bodies.” She crossed her arms in front of her. “But you both know such men beyond fantasy. I can’t say that I’m not just a bit jealous.”
Chloe took a gulp of her drink. “Knew,” she said. “Past tense.”
“There’s no such thing as past tense with real love,” Brigitte said with a defiant nudge.
“I didn’t say I loved him.”
Brigitte looked over at Jackie and then shot Chloe an incredulous stare. “Like you’d have to. We can see, Chloe, so don’t be ridiculous.”
She looked down at her menu, but Chloe wasn’t deceived—the woman was scheming. And there was no stopping Brigitte once she scented intrigue.
“And since we’ve already established that you love Scotty, you must let him know that you’ll give him another chance.” She peered up through her lashes. “I’ll have the escargot and chili. I love American chili.”
Chloe took another sip of her cosmo. Snails and chili sounded like a horrid combination, but Brigitte had no concern for convention.
“You must be mysterious, Chloe,” Brigitte went on. “Make him wonder. But don’t be too oblique; men can be so foufou.”
“I’m the one who probably needs the extra chance,” Chloe said, not liking the slur of her words. “I traded him, for goodness’ sake. I didn’t even ask him what he wanted.” She leaned forward and motioned for Brigitte and Jackie to do the same. “I think he might hate me,” she whispered.
Both women looked at Chloe like she’d grown a third head or suggested a moratorium on chocolate.
Jackie tapped her arm. “Reality check. I have it on good authority that he more than wants you, Chloe. Men dish, even though we think they don’t. And Scotty told Alex that he’s crazy about you.”
What was it about English accents that made everything sound so official? Almost believable?
“He’s crazy about oodles of women,” Chloe said, tapping the moisture that ran down the angled side of her glass. “I don’t want to be an oodle. I’d rather be alone until the day I die.”
Being one among many wasn’t what she had in mind for her life. Her heart wouldn’t take it—not being a man’s only love would break her. That much she’d figured out.
“I mean, did you see the Gazette? Scotty’s been in town all of two days and been photographed by the gossip press with four different women. Four.”
A near smirk curved across Brigitte’s lips. “Since when do you read gossip? Those were photos taken at the airport.” She tapped her perfectly manicured nails against Chloe’s arm. “You forget—I am an expert at les commérages. Don’t be a fool.”
But that’s exactly what Chloe was sure she was being. A fool.
She pressed up against the table and stood. Wearing heels had been a bad idea. “Ladies room,” she said, trying to force a smile. She looked back over her shoulder, realizing that leaving Jackie and Brigitte together was maybe a bad idea.
When she returned to the table and they told her their plan, she was sure leaving them alone had been a bad idea. Very bad. But she swore to give their plan a go. She didn’t have much to lose.
The next morning, after Jackie and Brigitte had left, Chloe sat at the kitchen counter of her San Francisco apartment. The place was useful for times like this when she had to be in the city. Besides, it had been in her family for three generations, and she hadn’t had the heart to sell it.
She poured a third cup of coffee and considered her friends’ plan. The idea of luring Scotty to a rooftop dinner was clearly the work of drunken women. And definitely ridiculous. Even if she had the confidence to pull it off, the crafty plan just wasn’t her style.
She frowned at a scratching sound at the door. When she opened it, Smokey stood there, tail wagging. She looked down the hall, but it was empty.
“Guess you’d better come in.” She hugged him and couldn’t help but laugh as he licked her face. A blue paper was taped to his collar.
“Don’t you look spiffy,” she said as she hugged him one more time. The collar had a pattern of seashells and stars woven into it, a sweet touch for a tough-looking dog. She sat back on her heels and pulled the paper free. Her hands trembled as she unfolded the note.
He misses you and so do I. Meet me at the beach where we rescued Smokey at ten am sharp if you ever want to see your Green Dragon again.
Scotty had preempted the silly plan Brigitte and Jackie had cooked up. Maybe that was a good thing—she’d never been good at that sort of guileful ploy.
She called down to her doorman.
Yes, Chester said, a gentleman had dropped off the dog. No, he wasn’t waiting downstairs; he’d left and asked Chester to bring the dog up to her door.
“I knew you were home and so I assumed you were expecting him. The dog, I mean. I’m sorry if—”
�
�No. It’s fine. What did the gentleman look like?”
“I think you know, Miss McNalley.”
Scotty evidently had won Chester’s allegiance. But then, Chester was a Giants fan, after all.
She fingered the note.
Some part of her said to treasure the time she’d had with Scotty and leave it at that. Theirs hadn’t been a perfect ending, but their parting hadn’t ruined her memories, memories that would forever sustain her. Memories that had almost made her believe in love.
She read the note again, afraid to imagine what the words really meant. But she did imagine. And she liked where her imagination took her.
And when the part of her that craved life, that sought to know the secrets of the universe, to discover what was possible—sometimes even beyond her wildest fantasies and flights of the imagination—when that part grabbed hold of her heart and exposed her to possibilities, she knew she couldn’t settle for memories.
She wanted it all.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Scotty stood at the base of the stairs, leaning on the rail and staring out at the ocean. He’d come early and had walked the beach more than a few times in an attempt to calm his twitchy nerves. He loved being back in San Francisco, loved the way the city hugged the water. People choosing to settle inland made little sense to him. And he loved being back with the Giants. He’d made friends on the Sabers, some he’d have for life. But the Giants were his team. If he played well, maybe it always would be.
After a quick glance at his watch, the fortieth in ten minutes, he shoved away from the railing and walked down the beach toward the tideline. A couple walked past him with two retrievers on leashes. The gently sloping, long expanse of beach was a favorite for dog walking.
A round, palm-sized rock caught his eye. He picked it up and fingered it, then skipped it across the water. Four skips. He found another smooth stone and let it fly. Three skips.
As he bent to reach for another, Smokey bounded up beside him with a yelp of welcome. He saw the note attached to Smokey’s collar and frowned. He shaded his eyes and looked up the stairs. No Chloe. Just some tourists snapping photos of the beach.
Scotty knelt and rubbed Smokey behind his ears. Smokey slit his eyes and leaned in for more.
“Hope you’re getting overtime for Saturday deliveries,” Scotty said. He tugged the note free and then slipped off the ribbon that bound it. A seagull flew low near them, and Smokey spun around and raced down the beach after it.
“Smokey!” Smokey stopped, but gave Scotty a look of pure indignation, as if to ask whether Scotty had forgotten that chasing seagulls was one of life’s greatest thrills.
He whistled and Smokey padded along the tideline, shooting sidelong disapproving glances as he made his way back.
Scotty unrolled the note.
Who says I would want my Green Dragon back anyway?
The fact that she had said she wanted it back, that he’d heard her say so when she’d sat at his bedside in the hospital, was evidently not something she remembered or if she did, maybe she’d changed her mind.
Lying in the hospital bed, he’d seen the scene from above, as if he were watching it unfold from an eerie distance. A light had wrapped him, like cotton or clouds, and he’d floated in it, sailing into a strange world, a world where light and sound merged and direction had no meaning. But before that world of unutterable beauty closed in, he’d seen her, heard her, felt her hand in his, felt her lips against his palm. After he’d come to, he’d thought he’d imagined her presence and her words or maybe hallucinated the whole scene. But later, as he’d worked through it with G’maw and told her what he’d seen, he knew he hadn’t imagined her being there. As he’d pulled himself back together during the long days in Nebraska, remembering what Chloe had said that day in the hospital had given him hope.
But the words on the note he now held and the fact that she hadn’t come dashed any hope he’d harbored.
He thought about running up the stairs, about trying to catch her before she drove off. But he’d likely sealed things mighty well with his comments to the press and his drunken and way too public cavorting with Sabra. Chloe didn’t know that nothing had happened between him and Sabra that night. Or that he hadn’t dated since he’d returned to San Francisco. He wanted Chloe and no one else, but her note was a clear message that he wasn’t going to have the opportunity to tell her. Maybe his dad had been wrong. Sometimes you didn’t get second chances.
He crumpled the note in his fist and walked along the tideline, considering his next best move. He was an optimist. A pitcher had to be to go out on the mound every week. He wouldn’t give up. Not yet. A harbor seal telescoped its nose up out of the water, peered at him and appeared to nod and then submerged below the waves. Scotty laughed. Reading signs of support from a seal? Maybe the smack to his head had knocked a few brains cells nutty.
“I do have a full library, you know. I’m hardly wanting for paperbacks.”
If being startled could feel like heaven, he was there. He turned to see Chloe picking her way toward him across the pebbled beach. Her jeans hugged her hips and accentuated those curves he loved. He tried to talk down his hard-on, but he was way beyond that.
Smokey ran to her, wagging his whole body.
“Disloyal beast,” she said as she rubbed him behind his ears.
“Him or me?” Scotty said with a slight grin.
“You, of course.”
Smokey ran down the beach, and they trailed after him. For a few minutes neither spoke. Sharing silence was fine with him—words seemed to get them both in trouble. He wanted to kiss her, to drag her into the driftwood beach hut that someone had built up against the cliff. But she kept her distance. And he could wait.
Smokey found a ball in a pile of kelp and brought it to him. He handed the ball to Chloe, and she smiled and tossed it out in front of them. They watched Smokey leap and catch it before it hit the beach.
Suddenly Chloe stopped and put her hands to her hips. The sun lit her from behind, making it look as though a shimmering halo glimmered around her.
“I want to apologize,” she said. “For not knowing what I could’ve known. What I should’ve known. For trading you without talking with you first. It was wrong.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and hugged her elbows tight. “I was wrong. I was afraid. Afraid for the team, about the stadium vote, afraid of Fisher, afraid for us. I could’ve—”
“No.” He put his finger to her lips. “It was the right thing, what you did. All the right things, Chloe. There was a lot on the line.”
She backed away a few steps.
“Until I met you, I didn’t know how much could really be on the line.” She laughed then, surprising him. “Maybe we can just start over.” She held out her hand. “Chloe McNalley,” she said with a smile. “Nice to meet you.”
He shook her outstretched hand, tried to hold it and tug her to him, but she wriggled her fingers away.
“Nope. Starting over means just that. You’re supposed to introduce yourself.”
“Scotty Donovan,” he said. It felt like a silly game but if it made her happy, he’d play along. “And this is my dog, Smokey.”
He bent down and teased the ball from Smokey and threw it toward the cliff. It sailed behind the driftwood hut.
“Still working on your tennis ball slider, I see,” Chloe said with a quiet laugh as she hiked up toward the cliff to fetch the ball.
He loved seeing her move. Hell, he loved everything about her. She disappeared behind the makeshift structure. There were probably a dozen lost balls back there. Smokey nosed around the logs of sun-bleached wood at the base of the hut, but didn’t come up with one.
“Donovan?”
He turned. A woman approached him. A tiny poodle tethered to a rhinestone-studded leash pranced beside her.
“Where have you been keeping yourself?” She tiptoed up and kissed him, smack on the mouth. He took a quick step back.
“Laurie.” He r
emembered her name, amazing himself at the quick recall. Well, he should remember her, since he’d slept with her more than once in the past. But that past seemed eons away right now.
“I was playing for the Sabers,” he said as if that explained the months since he’d seen her.
“I heard you’re back with the Giants,” she said. She looped her arm through his, not noticing that he kept backing away. “We need men like you in San Francisco. Welcome back.” She curved into him, touching him with the length of her body. “Remember that spa up in Napa, the one with the mineral baths? I think we should give that a go again. That was such fun.”
He tugged away and glanced up to where Chloe stood near the hut. She stared, clutching the tennis ball in her hand.
The poodle wound itself around his legs.
“Don’t mind Missy, she likes men too,” Laurie said as she bent to untangle the leash.
Smokey ran up, growling.
Laurie scooped up her tiny dog and hugged it to her chest. “You should keep a dog like that on a leash.”
“He’s harmless.” Scotty knelt down to Smokey, grateful to put distance between himself and Laurie. “He was just saying hello.”
“I know what hello looks like.” Laurie knelt and laid her hand on his forearm before he could tug it away.
A sharp thwack hit him square between his shoulders; no doubt a tennis ball. He looked up, and Chloe gave him the wave he hated as she headed for the stairs. He leaped to his feet and ran up the beach after her.
She turned and put her hand out in an unmistakable sign.
“No, Donovan. No thanks. I’ve seen quite enough.”
He ran toward her and circled her wrist. “Wait. It’s not what it looks like.”
“Apparently nothing is with you.”
He saw that she was trembling, felt some helpless emotion rising in his chest in response. Would she let him explain? Damn, they were close. She couldn’t think a woman on a beach was a threat.
Chloe raised her head and shot a look at Laurie, then shut her eyes and shook her head.
