It suddenly hit him like a wild pitch to the gut. He did know her. She looked different, her hair wasn’t so wild and curly, and it had been a while, but he remembered…
“Here we go.” The driver pulled the cab to the curb. “Afraid y’all are gonna get wet but I can’t get any closer.”
“Thanks.” Dylan paid him, waving his hand when the guy started to make change. “Keep it.”
She’d already slid out of the car and dashed for cover. He ran after her, wondering why she hadn’t come out and told him they’d gone to high school together. She was younger, maybe two years. No, she must’ve been a year behind him because she’d been in charge of the debate team, school-paper editor, stuff like that, so she had to have been a junior that last year he was there.
Back then she’d gone by Beth and she was super smart, one of those real brainy kids who tutored other students. The dumb ones like him—damn it, he wasn’t dumb, and he knew better than to apply that label to himself. Though it had taken him a while to get it. His severe dyslexia had been the central focus of his life, along with his talent for baseball. He’d gone undiagnosed for far too long, and spent too much energy hiding his struggle to seem normal.
He still didn’t understand how he’d been passed along from grade to grade, except that everyone had seemed more interested in his ability to play sports.
By the time he’d graduated high school, he was barely literate. He’d gone to college anyway, determined to do whatever it took to finally learn. With professional help, he’d gotten his degree, but his stubborn refusal to forget school to play pro ball had come at a cost.
The gym was a real dive used by amateur boxers, mixed-martial-arts enthusiasts and street rats. He’d been there twice and only once saw a woman using the facilities. Too late now, but he kind of regretted dragging her here. She could have begged off because of the weather, but now that he knew who she was, he realized she wouldn’t have begged off even if they’d been hit by a tornado.
She’d pulled her blazer up to cover her head in a vain attempt to stay dry, giving him and any guy watching an excellent view of her nice round ass in the form-fitting skirt.
He caught up to her outside the building and stopped her when she started to push open the grimy metal door. “This isn’t the kind of place you’re used to,” he said, acutely aware of her perfectly shaped lips when she tilted her head back, and her sweet breath warmed his chin.
“I figured that out already,” she said, glancing at the graffiti-decorated cinder-block walls. “You hoped I wouldn’t come in the first place.”
He smiled, and didn’t bother with a denial.
She swiped at the damp hair curling around her face, making her look more like the girl he’d first noticed in school one day when he’d watched the debate team in action. “Why the change of heart?”
He hesitated. She obviously had a reason for not coming clean right away. It wouldn’t have benefited her to trade on their vague past, that stuff didn’t work with him, but she didn’t know that. What the hell…he’d let her keep up her charade. For now.
Dylan shrugged. “I know you’re just trying to do your job.”
She studied him for a moment. “Let’s go inside. You’re getting wet.”
He moved closer to her when he felt the rain sluice down his back. “This is crazy. I’m not playing tonight. Let’s go back. I could use a warm brandy.”
“You could use a workout.” She patted his belly. Then yanked back her hand as if she’d touched a flame. Her eyes widened, her lips parted. “Sorry.” She blinked, moving back until the door blocked her retreat. “I was teasing. And clearly not thinking—” She turned away, muttering a mild curse, and then struggled with the slippery doorknob.
He covered her hand with his, stilling her attempt to escape. “It’s okay.” Her hand felt small and fragile. “You’re right. I can’t afford to miss any chance to work out.”
“Come on, it’s obvious you’re incredibly fit.” She kept her back to him, trembling a little, breathing hard. From the damp air? Or because he was pressed up against her? Damn, she smelled good. “Is this another ploy to get rid of me?” she asked softly.
“Jesus.” He jerked back, putting so much space between them that he ended up back in the rain, his head and face getting pelted. “I didn’t mean to crowd you. My back was getting soaked.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, and sighed. “Look at you. Come on.”
This time he made no move when she opened the door. He waited until she was inside and then followed her into the dreary, foul room, the stench of sweat mixing with the dank air. The place was worse than he remembered from yesterday. Probably because he felt like shit for bringing Beth with him. Normally he didn’t mind hard-core backstreet gyms while on the road, and in fact preferred them over the yuppie chains found across the country.
A couple of guys sparred in the smaller ring, and three more pounded the punching bags, two of them slowing down to eye Beth. Buster, the older beefy man at the desk in the corner, glanced up with a mean frown, and then waved Dylan an acknowledgment.
“We’re idiots,” she said, staring at the pair of kickboxers going at each other, sweat pouring down their faces. “At least I am for not bringing a towel.” She followed his gaze to the stack behind Buster. “And I’m not touching one of those. No offense.”
“We can still leave.”
“Nope.” She flexed her shoulders.
“You’re gonna work out, too?”
She slid him an amused look. “I’m going to ask you questions while I watch you work out.”
Grinning, he dug in his pocket for cash for the day-charge. “These guys are serious. Hope I don’t embarrass myself.”
“I’m sure you can hold your own.” She ran her gaze across his chest and down to his shorts. Wet as he was, not much was hidden. Her eyes flicked up to meet his, and she quickly looked away.
“No pressure.” He got in his own sly peek at the damp shirt clinging to her breasts, her nipples hard against the white fabric between the blazer’s lapels, before he walked over to pay Buster. He’d have to watch himself. The way she distracted him could get him in trouble if he wasn’t careful.
ELIZABETH WATCHED HIM approach a dark-skinned, middle-aged man she would’ve sworn had never cracked a smile in his life until she saw him talk to Dylan. They chatted a couple of minutes while she surveyed the room, and a guy skipping rope at a ridiculous speed surveyed her. She didn’t care. She even gave him a small friendly smile, but only because she was here with Dylan and everyone knew it.
Damn, she wanted to pinch herself. High school Dylan had been cute as hell, but now, all grown up and filled out… The memory of him pressed against her back brought a warm flush that went all the way down to her toes.
Holy crap, she didn’t need a workout to get her heart rate up.
“Okay. Let’s head to the back room.” Dylan touched the small of her back, and she was pretty sure she shivered because he immediately withdrew his hand.
She wanted to say it was all right, he could touch her all he wanted, but that wouldn’t be very professional. Instead she clutched her notebook and purse like lifelines and let him take the lead toward the arched doorway behind the ring.
This area was less crowded, with a short, muscular teenage boy running hard on one of the two treadmills facing the corner wall. He spared them a brief glance and said something in Spanish to the skinny kid using one of the weight benches. The second boy lowered the bar he’d been straining to lift, letting the weights clang, and looked over at them. With a shy smile he mumbled something back to his friend, again in Spanish.
Dylan grinned as if he’d understood what had been said.
“What?”
“They think you’re hot.”
“I’m pretty sure they were looking at you.”
Dylan chuckled, and threw the two towels he’d grabbed over the unoccupied elliptical. He examined the other three benches, chose one and st
arted adding weights to the bar.
Mesmerized, Elizabeth stared at the way his biceps bunched and released every time he picked up one of the thick circular weights from the stack. It wasn’t until her chest tightened that she realized she was holding her breath.
Letting it out, she turned away from him and pretended interest in the jump ropes hanging off a line, the trio of small punching bags swinging from the low ceiling. Too bad it didn’t smell any better than the front room. Amazing how much these guys could sweat. “How do you know Spanish?”
“I picked it up from some of the guys on the team. We have three players from Mexico and one from Puerto Rico.”
She turned and saw him swing his leg over the bench to straddle it. His thigh muscles were pretty damn impressive, too. She concentrated on selecting a page in her notebook. When she could trust herself to look up, she asked, “Shall we begin?”
His mouth drew into a thin line. “Come here.”
She didn’t quite understand what he wanted but took a tentative step toward him.
He motioned for her to come closer, and patted the bench between his legs.
Startled, Elizabeth moved a step back. He wanted her to sit there? He had to be joking.
“It’s clean,” he said.
She hadn’t even thought that far ahead. Sitting that close to him was what had her panties in a twist. She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure I follow—”
“Before we start the interview I want to set a couple of ground rules.” He steadily held her gaze. “For your ears only.”
“Oh.” She could hardly refuse. Unless he was playing her again. “I see.” She settled on the bench, with her body angled away from him, which should have been perfectly safe, except that it wasn’t at all. She could feel the heat of him and the temptation to look down to his chest and below was almost too much. “Okay, what is it?”
“You think you could wrap my hands for me?” He lifted his shirt hem and pulled an Ace bandage from a hidden pocket. “I like it tight.”
She pressed her lips together to keep an inappropriate thought from spilling out. Dammit, she would not let him throw her off course. She calmly accepted the bandage, the brush of his fingers across her knuckles making her quiver. “What does this have to do with the interview?” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded husky and low.
“I want your word you won’t print anything I do here that might compromise me.” His gaze swept her lips, then met her eyes. “What do you say, Beth?”
4
OH, GOD. DYLAN knew who she was.
She blinked, tried not to show any reaction, but she was pretty sure it was too late. “It’s Elizabeth,” she said, watching him watch her, waiting for him to call her bluff.
“Right. Sorry. Elizabeth,” he said with an apologetic shrug, and okay, now she wasn’t sure after all.
This was so not fair. He had one of those poker faces that any reporter would love to rattle. Her, she wanted to kiss him. She did. She couldn’t help it. Sitting this close to him made it impossible not to want to run her hands over the lean, sleek muscle of his thighs and arms. To find out if Dylan Andrews kissed as well as advertised in the girls’ bathroom all those years ago.
“So what’s it going to be, Elizabeth? Do we have a deal?”
She toyed with the stretchy bandage, trying to avoid his unwavering gaze. His request was surprising, mostly because it left so much room for interpretation. She’d write what was necessary. It was, after all, an interview, not a press release, but given her teenage crush, she was already half on his side. He didn’t need to know that, though. “Fine, as long as it’s quid pro quo,” she said finally, and looked back up in time to see his eyes narrow slightly. “If I do anything…say anything that might be construed as not entirely kosher…it stays between us.”
No more poker face. A smile tugged at one side of his mouth. “Now you’re just teasing me.”
She pursed her lips, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a denial or anything else. “What do you say, Andrews?”
“Hell, I can’t wait.”
That made her laugh, eased some of the tension. She still wished she knew if he’d recognized her or randomly pulled up a nickname for Elizabeth. “So, what do you have to say that’s so juicy I might have to kill myself before I can divulge it?”
His smile broadened, and he stretched out his neck from side to side, flexed his shoulders, the whole time keeping her in his sight, almost daring her to give in first.
She was foolish not to swallow her pride and be the one to blink. Those damn hazel eyes were just too lethal. All he had to do was look at her to make her stomach tighten, make her want to cross the space between them and feel those corded muscles for herself.
“Come on, Andrews,” she said, urging him to confess all with promises of a reward in her purposely sultry voice.
He jerked his head in the direction of the small red punching bags suspended from the ceiling and then held up one of his hands for her to wrap. “My coach can’t know I’m using the bags.”
She slumped back and stared at him. “Are you kidding me? That’s your big secret?”
“I never said it was a secret.”
She sighed and started wrapping his hand. “Do you think this is wise? Your coach is right. You should be protecting your hands.”
Dylan snorted. “I only use the speed bags, not the free-standing ones. They’re too heavy for my purpose. I just want to keep my arms and shoulders limber.”
“But your coach still wouldn’t like it.” Even though she’d been concentrating on her task, she felt the weight of his stare. Good. Let him look, let him wonder.
“How much do you know about baseball?”
When she finally looked at him, she saw amusement as well as heat. “Enough.”
“Do you know what position I play?”
She went back to winding the bandage tightly around his hands, her pulse picking up speed because he really was so damn good-looking. “Shortstop. I’m not an idiot—I did my homework. But this interview is about you, not the sport.”
“What do you know about my background?”
“You played in Japan instead of signing with a Minor League team in the States.”
Dylan’s eyes narrowed, but that wasn’t all. She’d noticed it back at the bar, the way he quickly glanced to his left and down when he was uncomfortable. He recovered in a heartbeat, but it was his tell, and she could use that. So he was nervous about discussing Japan. Why? No other reporter had gotten a straight answer out of him yet. She gave a final tug and secured the wrap. “The reporter asks the questions. That’s how interviews work.”
He watched her get up and take a step back, just out of range, but close enough that he could reach her. “One more question and I’m all yours,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Why are you pretending we don’t know each other?”
Elizabeth should’ve been prepared for this. Shame on her for fooling herself. But she’d honestly believed that her post-high-school transformation had been enough to leave her nerd image behind. Still, she never would’ve been so much as a blip on his radar if not for that damned picture.
“We didn’t know each other. I knew who you were. Everyone did. But me…” She shrugged, trying to seem casual, hoping, praying that it wasn’t the ridiculous picture that had jarred his memory.
“I knew who you were.” He studied her with a critical eye. “You look different though.”
“Thank God.”
“I liked your long curly hair.”
He remembered her hair? “You and my mother.” She lifted her notebook. “Now it’s my turn to ask the questions.”
Smiling, Dylan moved away from the weight bench and started a slow, rhythmic volley with one of the red bags, dodging her interview as neatly as a boxer avoiding his opponent. He didn’t hit hard, just fast and steady, his hands moving in a circular pattern as he made contact with the bag.
His timing
was perfect. Watching the repetitive jabs calmed her. Just so long as she kept her gaze on his hands and not the fluid play of muscle in his upper arms. Because even ten years later, Dylan still did it for her in a huge way. There was something about him, something beneath the confidence that almost bordered on arrogance, beneath the boyish charm and cocky attitude that drew her. It was the occasional touch of vulnerability in his hazel eyes that had her dizzy and disarmed.
If she wasn’t careful, she could end up making the second biggest mistake of her fledgling career.
AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER, Dylan moved to the free weights, where he settled on a pair of twenty-five-pound dumbbells. He needed to expend more energy. He still felt tight and edgy even after going extra rounds with the bags, hitting the tread-mill for forty minutes and then spending another twenty on the elliptical. Instead of loosening him up, his workout had left him tighter than ever. All because of Beth.
Contrary to what she thought, he’d noticed her in school. When she was passionate about something, she’d had quite the mouth on her. He smiled thinking about the time she’d discovered that the school board had vetoed condom dispensers in the bathrooms. She’d gone ballistic, grabbing the microphone during a pep rally and urging the students not to tolerate such ignorance. Some of the guys had taunted her about being a virgin who wouldn’t know anything about condoms but she hadn’t let that stop her. So damn brave.
“Any time now would be just fine.”
“What?” He used the towel draped over his shoulder to wipe the sweat from his face and stared at her. He’d forgotten the question.
With a frustrated sigh, she rubbed her temple and sat on the weight bench across from him. “If you want to drag this out, then there’s not much I can do about it, but if you think I’m going gently into the night, you’re terribly mistaken.”
He grinned. “Yeah, I remember. You can be a real bulldog.”
Extra Innings and In His Wildest Dreams Page 3
