“My father? The fact that he’s my father is totally irrelevant. He’s the owner of the Catfish. The Friars listen to him.”
“When they’re not trying to get rid of him.”
“That’s a low blow. They respect his baseball knowledge. He’s on the phone with the GM all the time. They play golf together. If you want to stay in the Friars organization, Crush can help you. But you need to tell him why he should. It won’t mean anything unless it comes from you personally.”
He put down the bottle of water and paced toward her, danger riding on his every step. “You didn’t say anything, did you?”
“Of course I didn’t. That’s why I’m here. You have to tell him. And you have to tell him now, before it’s too late and they drop you.”
“And if I don’t tell him? What then, since you seem to know so much about it?” He was less than a step away from her, an overwhelming presence. But she was Paige Mattingly Austin Taylor; she knew how to stand up to dominating men. She matched him stare for stare, jutting her chin up and daring him to take one more step.
“If you don’t tell him, you lose everything. No more baseball contract, no more salary, no more Triple A, no more anything related to Major League Baseball. Is that what you want?”
His flinty composure didn’t falter. “That’s what I want.”
“Liar. You’re a baseball player. How can you say you don’t want to play?”
He turned his back on her, so she faced his inked hawk with its talons and hooked beak. “I’ll find a way to play. I’ll even get paid for it. I don’t need MLB. Don’t need the Friars.”
“You don’t need anyone, is that it?”
Back muscles flexing, he disappeared into the bathroom. Paige took a few deep breaths for calm. What was she missing here? Why wasn’t Trevor more upset at the idea of getting dropped? It was almost as if he wanted to get released. But that made no sense. The worst had happened, his past had been unearthed. What benefit was there in leaving the Catfish now?
She heard running water, some splashing, and when he came out, drops of water clung to his hair and a small rivulet traveled down the hard planes of his chest. He gave her an almost insolent look. “If you’re waiting around to tell me what an ass I’m being, save yourself the time.”
“I could tell Crush myself,” she burst out.
“Wouldn’t do any good.” He snagged a towel and swiped it over his hair. “For all you know, everything I told you was a lie. It’s secondhand information. It won’t mean a damn thing to anyone.”
“There’s proof. I looked it up online. There was an article about Dinar Wachowski and how a minor was suspected in the attack.” She trailed off, remembering all the details the story left out. The fact that he’d been protecting his father, that it was self-defense. None of those mitigating circumstances had made it into the article.
“Spying on me?” The ice in his voice made her shiver. So this was the side of Trevor that intimidated pitchers so much they lost five miles off their fastball. “Or were you checking up to see if I told you the truth? Maybe I didn’t. Who knows? You’ll never be sure.”
Paige took a tiny step back, her conviction faltering. She didn’t know this cold, hard man who looked like Trevor Stark. It was impossible to believe that only a few hours ago he’d been licking her naked body in a tack room. “I wasn’t spying, I was trying to find out what that man is up to now. Maybe he’s dead and you don’t have to worry anymore.”
“Playing girl detective? That’s adorable. Did you crack the case yet?”
“Don’t be like this, Trevor,” she whispered. “Why are you so angry?”
“Do I seem angry?” He shrugged, tossing aside the towel, then prowled toward his clothes drawers. “Maybe I should call up Hudson Notswego and see if I can get him to divorce Nessa Brindisi. That would solve all your problems, right?”
She recoiled, feeling as if he’d slapped her in the face. “What’s your point? Why bring Hudson into this?” She couldn’t understand what was going on. Her mind was moving so sluggishly. It felt as if she was missing big chunks of the situation, as if Trevor was operating at light speed while she chugged along in a dune buggy. She couldn’t take her eyes off him as he roamed the room in search of clothes. Maybe this was how mice felt while a cat batted them around.
Maybe this was what Trevor did to pitchers—he drove them mad, in slow, deliberate steps.
“The point is, don’t you have your own life to fix? Maybe you should stop messing around in mine. What does it matter to you if I play baseball or don’t play baseball?” He snapped his fingers, as if it all made sense now. “I got it. You’re here working for Crush. He wants me to stick around so I can help win that fucking championship. And you . . . you’re in Kilby because you want a pat on the back from your daddy. It’s all falling into place like a chain of dominoes.”
The blood rushed from her face. “I’m not here working for Crush. I’m here because I—” She was about to say something crazy. Something about what she felt for him. That she . . . God, that she loved him. Yes, that ache in her heart, the magic she felt only with him, that was love.
Where was the Trevor who’d captured her heart? Was he still in there somewhere, buried under this horrible icy behavior?
She needed to reach him, desperately needed to get back the Trevor she loved.
“I’m here,” she said with all the dignity she could muster, “because I love you and I want you to be happy. I don’t believe you’ll be happy if you torpedo your baseball career. You never will be.”
“I’ll be happy if Nina is safe.” His voice rasped like a dry razor over stubble. Had he even heard what she’d said? The part about loving him? He showed no reaction to it.
Walk away, Paige. He doesn’t want you here. He doesn’t care about your feelings. He doesn’t love you, or he wouldn’t talk to you this way.
But her foolish, reckless heart wouldn’t let her walk away. “I don’t think so. And what about Nina? What does she want? Does she want to stay hidden forever?”
His icy facade finally broke. He closed the distance between them in one long step. “Nina is none of your business. You don’t talk to Nina, you don’t try to find Nina, you stay away from Nina. You hear me?”
Fury flooded her in a hot rush that made her ears ring. How dare he treat her like this? She was trying to help him. She’d just told him she loved him.
He loomed over her, all heat and bare chest and impossible good looks. “My life is not your worry. Don’t turn me into another Hudson Notswego.”
All on its own, her hand flew up and whipped a slap across his cheek.
“Now you’re being an ass,” she choked out. “But I guess you like it that way.”
Showing no expression—of course—he brought a hand to his left cheek, where the white scar slashed below his cheekbone. It stood out against the surrounding skin, now pink from the blood she’d brought to the surface.
“I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry.” She cradled her hand against her chest. The palm tingled, as if her body was just as shocked as she was.
He stared at her stonily, as if he couldn’t care less what she did. As if he didn’t even understand why she was still there. All her fury came flooding back—double.
“I’m on to you, Big Bad Trevor Stark. I know what you’re doing right now. You’re trying to drive me away so I won’t rock the boat for you.”
Awareness flashed across his face like heat lightning on a muggy day, gone before you knew it was there.
She shouldered her little backpack, which had slipped to the floor, and marched toward the door. He watched her go, white-faced save for the rosy hand print darkening his cheek.
“I stand by my slap,” she told him as she walked out the door. “And I stand by everything else I said too.”
Batting practice in Sacramento. Trevor at home plate. About fifty feet away, Lou the batting coach swung his arm in circles to prepare. A few hundred miles to the south, the Fr
iars were debating Trevor’s future. Another few hundred miles to the southeast, Crush Taylor was going to, any minute, pick up his phone and make his recommendation. They’d either drop him or keep him in Kilby, but a call-up was out of the question now.
Trevor felt like a fucking chess piece. His life was officially out of his control. Up until now, he’d been torn between the risks of a call-up and staying low-profile in Kilby. Fuck it, he should have let himself get called up and taken his chances with the exposure. That option was gone now. If the Friars kept him on the payroll, he had two choices. He could play normally and let the Wades rat him out to the Wachowskis, in which case there wouldn’t be a chance of exposure; it would be 100% guaranteed. Or he could sell his soul. Betray baseball. Betray his team. Betray Crush.
Betray Paige.
But that was where he slammed the door on his thoughts. He couldn’t bear to think about Paige. Even the sight of a fluffy white cat outside a gas station off the I-5 felt like a flaming arrow straight to his heart.
Trevor told himself it was for the best. One way or another he was going down, and he didn’t want to take Paige with him. He was either going to get booted out of baseball or hunted down by the Wachowskis. Neither option offered much of a future for a bright, kind, beautiful girl like Paige. She deserved so much better in every possible way.
A low strike came at him. Following his usual routine, he sent the ball into left field. Every guy did something different during batting practice. Some liked to hit home runs, but not Trevor. He liked to hit everything to the opposite field and save the homers for the game. He hit ten pitches, max, then let the next guy go.
Once, he’d watched Don Mattingly hit one hundred pitches in the cage.
Mattingly. Crush’s favorite hitter. Paige’s namesake.
He was doing Paige another big favor by forgetting the words she’d spoken in his hotel room. I’m doing this because I love you.
He watched pitch number two come in right over the plate, saw the numbers on the ball. Slammed it into left.
Because he loved her, he was going to pretend she’d never said that.
Besides, she didn’t really love him. It was a rebound infatuation at best, or the natural result of their fricking fantastic sexual chemistry. Love love . . . no.
Pitch number three. Against the wall in left field. Solid.
He could count the people he’d loved on the fingers of one hand. His mother, who’d died before he even understood the concept of love. His father, who’d warped into someone he didn’t recognize, then sent him to juvie. And his sister Nina. Of those three, only Nina was still alive, and still held a place in his heart. He’d never loved a woman. He’d lusted, he’d desired, he’d crushed, he’d fantasized. But loved?
No one had ever made him feel the way Paige did.
He slapped a hard line drive just over Lou’s head, forcing him to duck. “Hey!” the batting coach yelled.
“Sorry.” God, when was the last time he’d misdirected a ball in batting practice?
“You changing things up, T?”
“Nah, my foot slipped.”
Lou wound up and delivered a nice fastball on the outside corner, which Trevor took deep.
Grizz. He loved Grizz too. How could he leave Grizz off that list? In so many ways, Grizz had stepped into the gaping hole left by his father’s addiction. He’d been a steady, rock solid presence who understood what he was going through in those years.
Grizz had slapped him once too, he suddenly remembered. The Wade County JD baseball team was playing a showcase game against the high school he’d attended before he got arrested. The idea of seeing his former teammates churned up so much rage and embarrassment that he’d been acting like an asshole the entire bus ride across town. He’d led the team in a chain-gang song. He’d solicited bets on how many hits he was going to get. He’d said insulting things about the cheerleaders, even giving out a few of their names.
When they reached the high school, Grizz hauled him into the locker room and shut the door on the rest of the team. Then he’d delivered a short, sharp slap to his face, as if he was trying to wake him up from some kind of trance.
“I know it’s tough,” the old man had said, his jaw quivering. “Comin’ back here might be one of the hardest things you gotta do. But what do you do about that? What I been teaching you? What I keep sayin’, over and over again?”
“Get your revenge on the field.”
“S’right. Just like Jackie Robinson did. You don’t go out there feelin’ shame, like you ain’t good enough. You go out there and swing that bat and show them. Show them. It ain’t about spoutin’ baloney on a bus. You know that ain’t right. What’s the right thing? Say it again.”
“Keep it on the field,” he mumbled.
“Hold yer head up. The Lord is testing you, but He sent us Jackie to show the way.”
“Sure, Grizz. I’m sorry.” Trevor didn’t always buy into Grizz’s religious take on things, but at the core, the man was right, one hundred percent. Get your revenge on the field.
Now, power flowed through his core, his arms, his hands, through his second best bat, the one he used for batting practice. He whacked a vicious line drive through the gap into left. Unhittable. Fucking satisfying. Swinging the bat cleared his head. Made everything fall into place.
Paige. Knowing Paige was the best thing that had ever happened in his life. Even if it was selfish, he couldn’t let her go. Wouldn’t. Had he screwed things up too much already? If he could just get through this mess, he’d beg her to forgive him. He’d have to figure out a way to protect her from all his disasters. Once he was sure she wasn’t at risk, he’d throw himself at her feet.
No way was he going to let Paige go. That was final.
“That’s it, Trevor,” called the batting coach. “Leiberman, get your butt in here.”
Trevor made way for Leiberman, whose shoulders sagged as he made his way to the plate. No one liked following Trevor in batting practice, he knew that. Leiberman must have drawn the short straw. He smiled at the guy with real affection as he passed. “Keep your bat speed up. Watch the ball. Plant your back foot like it’s a fucking oak tree and swing from the hips. Got all that?”
Leiberman gave a few rapid blinks and stood up a bit straighter. “Since when do you hand out batting tips?”
Trevor shrugged and strode toward the dugout. Since when did he hand out batting tips? Since he realized that his time with this team was probably almost over. Since he realized that he loved his teammates. Not the way he loved Paige, but nonetheless.
A few kids were waiting at the railing by the dugout, waving baseballs for him to sign. He pulled off his batting gloves and offered them a big grin as he came over. “You guys play at all?”
Thrilled, the kids launched into a rapid-fire description of the Little League team they played on.
One boy looked familiar; he recognized him from the few times he’d stopped in at the Sacramento Boys and Girls Club. “They said you ain’t coming back to the Boys and Girls anymore. Is that true?”
“Well . . .” He’d thought long and hard before he made that phone call to the club. “I want you kids to have good role models in life. Not . . .” The kids, uncomprehending, waited for him to finish that sentence. God, didn’t they read the newspaper? Didn’t they know what he was? Didn’t they see why he had no business lecturing anyone?
Head down, he signed the last ball. “Want some advice?”
They nodded, a row of eager little bobbleheads.
“Enjoy every moment you get on the baseball field. Win or lose. The important thing is being on that field. It’s a privilege, and you thank your lucky stars every time.”
He’d never meant any piece of advice more.
Chapter 21
CATFISH STADIUM WAS a very different place during away games. Without the presence of the players and the daily rhythm of ball games, things got quiet and casual. Without the anticipation of throngs of ticketholders or pro
motions to conduct, people went around in shorts and flip-flops, took long breaks, sunbathed in the stands. All the vendor stands were closed, so the stadium even smelled different. The cleaning crew took the opportunity to give all the aisles an extra wash-down, so the smell of bleach drove out the familiar peanut-mustard, burnt-cotton-candy scent.
Paige met with her father over coffee in the break room to go over the expense spreadsheets she’d worked up.
“I can’t believe baseballs cost ninety dollars a dozen. Do we really need this many baseballs?”
“Well, we do get hand-me-downs from the Friars, but yes, it’s hard to play the game without those little suckers.”
“I’m surprised no one has ever lobbied for balls that don’t use cowhide,” she grumbled. “Isn’t there a vegan baseball out there?”
Crush pushed his sunglasses onto his head. “You’d better keep that thought under wraps, missy. The cowhide baseball is like a . . . a sacred cow. You don’t mess with it. Especially in Texas. Especially to a Texas rancher.”
“Bullpen Ranch is hardly a real ranch. You don’t even have any cows.” Paige knew she was acting like a brat, but she couldn’t stop herself. Damn Trevor Stark.
No. Trevor was Trevor. She couldn’t blame him for that. Better put the blame where it belonged—on her. She was a certifiable idiot for falling for him. She should have let him get shot up by that guy with the BB gun.
“Paige? Honey?” Her father waved his hand in front of her face.
She started. “What?”
“Take the day off. You’ve been working hard. It’s going to take me a while to go through these spreadsheets. We’ll get to them tomorrow, how’s that?”
“Am I done with the accounting department?”
“Yes. I have to figure out your next assignment. I might take you with me to some meetings in San Diego so you can see the schmooze fest in action.”
“Okay.” She shrugged listlessly. “Whatever you like. Anything’s better than accounting.” Pushing the spreadsheets across the table, she dragged herself to her feet.
Crush watched her with narrowed eyes. “I thought you’d be a little happier about going to San Diego. We might take my plane.”
Drive You Wild: A Love Between the Bases Novel Page 21
