Extra Innings and In His Wildest Dreams

by Debbi Rawlins

  “A friend.”

  “That much I figured out.”

  “I mean a really good friend. She’s saved my butt a couple of times during midterms. She’s incredibly together, kind of like I want to be when I grow up.”

  “Like that’s ever going to happen.”

  That got him a tiny smile. “Look who’s talking.” Then she looked bummed again.

  “Hey, cheer up. Your friend will figure it out.”

  “Yeah, I know. It just doesn’t seem fair. Her thesis is on dream interpretation, and she’s been working hard at it for over a year now.”

  “Ah, another one of your perpetual-student friends.”

  “Knock it off, Nick. Emma’s different. Things haven’t been easy for her. She doesn’t have parents who paid her tuition. She was on partial scholarship and had to take out a student loan, plus she works part-time as a waitress and as a teaching assistant for Professor Lyster.”

  Nick yawned.

  “Sometimes you’re a jerk.”

  “What? It’s my fault Grandmother’s trust fund paid our tuition? I didn’t hear you complaining.”

  Brenda glared at him. “You could show some compassion.”

  “For God’s sake, lots of people put themselves through school. What’s the big deal?”

  “Yeah, but Emma’s different. She’s had to work twice as hard because of a learning disability she had as a child.”

  He stuck the pot under the tap and started to fill it with water. “How much am I supposed to put in here?”

  When she didn’t answer, he turned to find her staring out of the window, totally lost in thought. Her chin-length dark hair hid most of her face but he could tell by the slump in her posture she was really upset.

  He turned off the water. “Hey, Bren, why don’t we go out for Chinese, or maybe Italian this time? My treat.”

  She shook her head and gave him a wan smile. “Nah, I don’t feel like it.” She went back to preparing the chicken. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  Ah, hell. Rotten timing. Of course Nick didn’t think Brenda would have a problem with doing him this small favor, especially since she’d been too busy studying the past few years to use the family ski house, but still. “I need the Aspen place for Thanksgiving.”

  A small frown drew her brows together. “It’s my turn to have it this year, right?”

  He didn’t like the way her interest suddenly piqued. “You’re not planning on using it.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” She had that lost-in-thought look again. It made him nervous.

  “You haven’t been there in five years. You don’t even like to ski.”

  “But it’s nice and quiet out there. An excellent place to unwind, study, whatever.”

  “It’s quiet here.”

  She glanced at him with that faintly amused look again. “What’s the deal? You promised some sweet young thing you’d take her skiing in Aspen?”

  “So?”

  “So, too bad. It’s my turn to have the house. You should have checked with me first.”

  He muttered a curse. “Bren, come on.”

  “Sorry, Nick, I really am.” She did look apologetic, as though she wasn’t going to give in. Dammit. “But I do need it this year.”

  “Bull. You hadn’t even remembered it was your turn.”

  “I know, but this thing with Emma…”

  Oh, man, there was that apologetic expression again. “What does this Emma have to do with it?” He paused, struck by inspiration. “If you think she might be upset, shouldn’t you stick around and comfort her? You are her friend.” He tried to look sincere and concerned. Too bad Bren knew him too well.

  Her look of disdain made him sigh. “Why don’t you rent another place?” she asked, turning back to cutting up the chicken.

  “Are you kidding? Everything’s booked by now.” He took a long pull of his beer, annoyed that everything had gotten complicated. “Hey, how about I rent you a place? Anywhere you want. Jamaica? St. Thomas? You and your friend can soak up the sun and study to your heart’s content.”

  She pursed her lips, drummed her fingers on the counter. Good. Obviously she was thinking about it. “I have another solution.”

  “Okay.” He started to relax.

  “You can be Emma’s subject.”

  “What?”

  “You let her study you for the next two weeks and the house is yours.”

  “That’s no solution, that’s blackmail.”

  “Suit yourself.” She shrugged and turned back to the cutting board, but not before he saw the beginning of a grin. “Study me? Like figure out what’s going on in my subconscious?”

  “Not exactly. You simply relay your dreams to her and she analyzes them, and then compiles the data for her thesis.”

  “Using a bunch of psychobabble.” He snorted. “That is so not going to happen.”

  She shrugged again, the stubborn glint in her eye all too familiar. She meant business.

  “What if I find someone else?”

  “Nope. You’re perfect for the study. You can fall asleep in a heartbeat and you’re good at recalling your dreams. Besides, she needs someone yesterday.”

  “Oh, man.” He abandoned the pot and sat at the kitchen table. “I can’t just drop everything for the next two weeks.”

  She laughed. “Like what? Playing tennis, or maybe having dinner with your girlfriend du jour?”

  He sighed with disgust.

  “Like I said, suit yourself.”

  “How many hours a day does this thing take?”

  “You’ll have to talk to Emma about that.”

  He narrowed his gaze in suspicion. “You aren’t trying to fix me up with her, are you?”

  “Oh, God, no. Emma’s much too good for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it. Just let me know if I should call and tell her to expect you.”

  “You realize this is blackmail.”

  Brenda smiled. “I call it a trade.”

  He got up, muttering a few choice words as he headed out of the kitchen.

  “What about dinner?”

  “I don’t have time. Call your friend. Tell her she’s got a new sucker.”

  Brenda waited until he was out of sight and then pumped her hand in the air. “Yes!”

  She did a little victory dance around the kitchen table, and then headed for the Mickey Mouse phone Nick had given her last Christmas.

  This was just perfect.

  EMMA SNOW STRAIGHTENED HER back, squared her shoulders and looked Jake straight in the eyes. “Would you like to go to Dean Sutter’s reception next month? Um, that is, with me?”

  Jake looked back blankly.

  “Wait, let me try that again.” She flipped back her pony tail, and cleared her throat. “Next week Dean Sutter is having his annual reception for the students who are completing the graduate program. If you aren’t doing any thing…what I mean is…would you like to go with me? As my date. Well, not really a date of course…just someone to sit with at dinner.”

  Jake stared at her a moment longer, yawned and then walked away, clearly unimpressed.

  She glared at his retreating back. “Thanks, you ingrate. See if I bring home any more kibble.”

  He didn’t even turn around. Instead he gave her “the tail.” She was fairly certain it was the feline version of flipping her off. The persnickety tabby often turned and stiffened his tail when he was displeased about something.

  “I heard they’re serving salmon for dinner,” she called after him, but he ignored her and disappeared down the hall.

  Emma sighed. She didn’t know why she was going through this futile exercise anyway. If she didn’t complete her thesis, she wouldn’t be going to the reception. Which meant she’d be stuck in school for another several months, assuming Professor Peters’s patience didn’t run out. Or her funds did. Both were serious contenders to screwing up her degree.

  God, she had to be the oldest gr
aduate student in history. She sank onto the edge of her bed and dropped back onto the mattress and stared at the chipped ceiling. Of course that wasn’t true—many people returned to school after raising families or whatever, but it felt as though she’d been in the graduate program forever, lagging behind because money had run out, or her job as a teaching assistant required too much time or her mother was calling her back home to Utah for some ridiculous reason.

  Emma fell for it every time, no matter how flimsy her mom’s new excuse. Guilt would start gnawing at her for not having been the perfect child her parents had dreamed of having, and she’d drop everything to go be her mother’s crutch. Usually even without her mom’s subtle reminders of how much she’d sacrificed to work with Emma, the years she’d spent helping her learn to read so she could be a “normal” child.

  She blocked the destructive thoughts from her mind. Her energy was much better spent finding a new subject for the final phase of her thesis, not that she honestly had much hope. It had taken her best Bob Seger CD, a nerve-racking dinner with the lascivious Martin Stanley and a promise to clean Norman Cove’s apartment for two months to secure the last three male subjects.

  She sighed. Now that Norman had backed out, at least she didn’t have to scrape together a few hours a week to do his cleaning. Time was becoming more of an issue. As it was she didn’t know how she could continue to volunteer at the animal shelter.

  She loved working with the strays. It was a way of giving back for the kindness her elderly neighbor had shown her when she herself had been a kind of stray, roaming the neighborhood after school when she’d felt unwelcome in her own home.

  There was a bright side. Not having to clean Norm’s apartment would allow her time to work an extra shift at the pub. Or more time for her thesis.

  If she still had a shot.

  She was so screwed.

  The phone rang, and Emma leaped off the bed, foolishly hoping someone was answering her new ad from the library bulletin board.

  “It’s Brenda,” her friend said before Emma finished getting out her hello. “How you doing, kiddo?”

  “Better than roadkill.”

  “That good, huh?”

  “I can’t believe this is happening.” She carried the phone back to the bed and flopped down. “I am so pissed at Norm I could strangle him.”

  “Why did he bail?”

  “He claims he’s flunking chemistry and he has to use the time to study more.” Emma snorted. “Flunking my butt. I got a glimpse of his new lab partner.”

  “What a jerk! He’s a whiz at chemistry. Did he actually think you’d buy that excuse?”

  “Hard to believe he beat a million other sperm to the finish, isn’t it?”

  Brenda laughed.

  Emma joined her, and then sighed. “Men. If they put one on the moon, they ought to be able to put them all there.”

  “No argument from me.” Brenda hesitated. “This isn’t like you to be joking at a time like this. You’re not going over the edge on me, are you?”

  “I think I’m in shock. I’m so close to finishing—this is like a bad dream, no, a nightmare. If I don’t find some humor, I’ll do something—I don’t know what, but it won’t be pretty.”

  “Well, you can thank me with a hot-fudge sundae because I’m about to save your butt.”

  “What? You’re going to dress in drag and be my final male subject?”

  “Are you ready for some good news or not?”

  “I am so ready.”

  Brenda paused dramatically. “I’ve got a guy for you.”

  Emma frowned. This had better not be one of Brenda’s setups. Although it seemed she’d given up trying months ago. “Define that further.”

  “My brother.”

  “The womanizer?”

  Brenda cleared her throat. “That’s not exactly how I’d categorize him. Women are drawn to him.”

  “You said once he had a different ‘flavor’ for each week.” Emma stared at her pathetically short fingernails. At least she wasn’t biting them anymore. Maybe they’d look halfway decent in time for the reception.

  “I know, but not because he necessarily encourages it.” Brenda sighed. “Nick’s one of those guys women do silly things for…even the ones you’d never expect to behave like that act like brainless morons around him.”

  Emma rolled her eyes. “And you want me to go out with him?”

  Her friend laughed. “Oh, God, no. He’s volunteering to be your test subject.”

  Heat singed Emma’s face. She knew she was bright red right now, a curse of her fair Irish skin. “I knew that.”

  Brenda chuckled. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Em. He’s my brother and I love him…I even like him most of the time. But I would never try to fix you two up. Trust me.”

  “I’d been thinking about the Dean’s reception and my mind was on a different track so I—” Emma’s muttering came to an abrupt halt as realization sunk in. “He’ll do it? For the whole two weeks?”

  “Yup.”

  “Why?”

  “He owes me a favor.”

  Emma got a funny feeling in her tummy. “Does he want to do it?”

  “No.”

  “Great.”

  “Have any of your subjects wanted to do it? If I remember correctly, you did an awful lot of bribing and bartering.”

  “True, but this is the end of the line. He can’t bail out on me because he has something else to do, or decides he doesn’t like being asked a gazillion questions.”

  “He won’t bail. We have an understanding.”

  Emma hesitated, not that she had much choice. As she’d said herself, it was the end of the line. Heaven help her if she didn’t finish her thesis. Not only was she flat broke, but the job they’d promised her at the clinic would be given to someone else who already had their master’s. “Does he have any time restraints?”

  “I doubt it. He does some day trading on the internet, some charity work, and he just got over his hobby of tinkering with old cars. He doesn’t have a regular job.”

  Emma thought hard, trying to remember what Brenda had said about her brother. All she recalled was that he’d been a gifted student who hated school but parlayed his genius into a small fortune. And that he was a real charmer with the ladies.

  Good thing Emma was immune to that kind of stuff. Sex was overrated, in her opinion, media hype, advertiser’s bait. One encounter had been enough to satisfy her curiosity.

  She switched the phone to her other hand, and then flipped through her calendar. “Does he know we’ll have to get started right away?”

  “He knows.”

  Her pulse started speeding with renewed hope. Brenda knew how important this was to her. She wouldn’t volunteer her brother unless she felt confident he’d see the study through. “I’d like to get started tomorrow.”

  “He’ll be there.”

  “I owe you a hot-fudge sundae. Hell, I owe you twenty of them.”

  “Forget it. My thighs can’t take it.” She sighed, and then paused. “Em, don’t let Nick get to you, okay?”

  Emma laughed. “Afraid he might charm the pants off me?”

  Brenda laughed, too. “You’re right. I don’t have to worry about you. Besides, you aren’t even his type.”

  Emma winced. She knew her friend didn’t mean anything by that remark but it still smarted. Guys had never been attracted to her, not like they were to other girls. She’d been too busy studying to date, and the only boys who had asked were bookworms and nerds, too.

  “Okay, this is for sure and I can go ahead and reserve the lab for tomorrow afternoon?”

  “It’s for sure,” Brenda said. “What time?”

  “I’m working the lunch shift tomorrow, and if you don’t mind skipping our coffee date, we can start at three.”

  “No problem. I’ll tell him.”

  “Let me know if that time is okay with him.”

  “It will be.”

  Emma frowned. Brenda so
unded awfully smug. “You didn’t do anything illegal to get him to volunteer, did you?”

  Brenda just laughed.

  2

  TARDINESS WAS ONE of Emma’s two major pet peeves. She muttered a couple of choice words as she fumbled with the key and finally unlocked the lab door. She bypassed her desk and hurried to the back room, more an oversize walk-in closet than anything else, and dropped her backpack on the small refrigerator they kept full of soda to ease the long hours of lab work.

  Only she and two other graduate students used the place but there was so much personal junk stowed between the two metal filing cabinets anyone would think an army of students lived here. While she prized neatness, she overlooked the mess the others left. She understood how so many long hours working in the lab stole time and energy.

  What she didn’t understand was how everything could have gone to hell at the pub in a matter of minutes, and at the end of her shift, too. Of all days for Manny to knock a tray of drinks out of her hands, and then take off for the beach before he helped her clean up. Of course everyone else disappeared, too, even the bartender.

  She started to undo her coat and gritted her teeth when she split a nail on the second button. Was she ever going to be elated when she could finally quit that awful job. In more ways than one. She looked down and made a face at the ridiculous red satin, teddylike thing she had to wear, and then shrugged off the coat and tossed it onto a file cabinet.

  If the tips weren’t so damn good she’d tell the owner what he could do with this skimpy excuse for a uniform. But no way could she find another job for the same amount of hours that paid her tuition and rent. It was a sorry reality that some women were forced to make their living that way, but she was glad she wouldn’t be one of them for long.

  If everything went well with this final study, she figured she could hand in her resignation in about a month. Bless Brenda’s heart for however she bribed her brother to fill in.

  Nick was perfect for the study in two ways. According to Brenda, he had amazing dream recall, and second, he had time. Brenda had told her once how he’d been a whiz kid who made his fortune early, and then diverted his energy to women. Good for him. All Emma cared about was that for two weeks he was all hers.