“Perhaps not the most effective strategy for attracting a woman.” I rocked my hips and he hissed, already half-hard.
“Next time you try to pull a disappearing act,” I said, “I’m going grab you by the balls and hang on.”
He wrapped both hands around my butt and pulled me closer. “You do that.”
We both startled when the first passengers came past the window, and did our best to straighten ourselves without giving anyone a free show. We had to crawl all over each other to switch seats so Randy could drive, and he ended up taking me all the way home.
Because there was no place else either of us wanted to be.
About the Author
Liv Rancourt writes light, funny, contemporary romance and urban fantasy. Her novel Hell…The Story was a 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award quarterfinal entry. Previous publishing credits include Forever & Ever, Amen; A Vampire’s Deadly Delight; and several short stories in the Ten Tales series.
Liv’s day job is as a neonatal nurse practitioner, and she’s taken care of small and sick infants for almost thirty years. Before she got serious about writing, she spent her free time fronting a rock band and hanging out in the church choir. Currently, she lives in Seattle with her husband, two teenagers, two ferrets, one crabby cat, and one sweet puppy.
She can be found online at her website and blog (www.livrancourt.com), on Facebook (www.facebook.com/liv.rancourt), or on Twitter (www.twitter.com/LivRancourt).
Contents
Tradeoff
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
About the Author
Tradeoff
Elley Arden
Avon, Massachusetts
To my parents, who dragged me to hundreds of baseball games, getting this whole ball rolling.
Chapter One
“You didn’t have to come. I wasn’t going to jump off a bridge or anything.” Ben Border looked away from his agent and out the hotel room window at the gleaming baseball stadium across the street. The massive steel-and-brick structure in the middle of sweltering Orlando, Florida, was his home field now.
Being here felt nothing like being in Boston.
“When one of my guys starts throwing around the ‘R-word,’ you can bet your sweet ass I’m on the next available flight,” Jordon said.
“Retirement is not the end of the world.” Not when a guy was thirty-seven and being tossed around the league like a leper.
Okay, that last part was an exaggeration. It was one trade in a long career. He’d been lucky for the most part. Maybe that’s why it hurt so much. But there was another reason, too.
Ben was tired and restless. Baseball didn’t feel the same. Each time he crouched behind home plate, he asked himself why he was putting himself through the same meaningless motions. Wasn’t that a slap in the face to the game he supposedly loved?
Jordon stood and crossed the drab carpet to the pathetic plastic coffee pot hogging the meager countertop in Ben’s mid-priced hotel room. “There’s nothing wrong with retirement if you make the decision from a reasonable place, not one filled with emotion.” He poured steaming liquid into a tiny foam cup and returned to the empty seat across the table from Ben.
Was Ben being emotional? He wanted to argue he wasn’t, but he knew better. There hadn’t been tears, but there’d been anger when Hopkins had informed him of the trade. And the anger lingered. Holed up in a hotel room, awaiting his first field appearance with a team of strangers, Ben had known better days. Right now, he’d give anything to be home in Lake Placid, tossing a line into pristine Mirror Lake.
He was done dreaming and achieving. Those were a young man’s games.
“Give it some time,” Jordon continued, shrugging out of his suit coat. “Orlando might be perfect for you. You’ve got yourself a bullpen full of fastball pitchers. That’s gotta make you smile.”
Ben did love being on the receiving end of a 90- to 100-mile-per-hour fastball. Something about the way he stared down the speeding bullet and caught it with a wicked sting and deafening pop juiced his veins. He smiled. “Okay, I’ll give you that.”
“Good man,” Jordon said, slapping the table. “That’s a start.” He sipped from the foam cup. “You used to say everything happens for a reason.”
Ben sniffed. “I was younger then.”
“Barely.”
“Well, I was less jaded.”
“Listen, I’m not going to act like this doesn’t suck. Being traded from a championship team to a struggling one, you have plenty to be pissed about. But if you look for the positive, you’ll find it. It’s up to you.” Jordon stood. “And on that note, I’m going to head over to the stadium to meet with Wells. You should rest.”
“Yes, Dad,” Ben said, chuckling. Jordon was a few years younger than him, but the guy hovered like a mother hen.
Jordan flipped up his middle finger before leaving.
As Ben’s laughter died, he moved to the bed and belly-flopped onto the goose down comforter. Everything happens for a reason, huh? It was the motto he’d lived by his whole career. His gut told him it was still true. His brain told him the reason for this trade was to force his retirement. Regardless, he wasn’t prepared to mar his stellar reputation with the league by being a no-show tonight and sticking it to a team that was woefully low on capable catchers. He would play his best, like he always did. And if, when Hernandez returned from the disabled list and resumed his crouch behind home plate, Ben ultimately decided to hang it up, he’d do so with respect for his teammates and the game.
Dragging himself off the mattress, he went through his normal pregame routine with lackluster enthusiasm. After showering and shaving, he downed a movie-theater-size box of M&Ms and grabbed his bag. Now was as good a time as any to face his new reality.
• • •
Beeep. Beeeeeep. Beeeeeeeeeep! Scarlett Dare jerked awake, hand flailing for the snooze button. She pounded it, and blissful silence was restored to her hotel room. But not five minutes later, her eyes were open and she was staring at the popcorn ceiling. She couldn’t be late for a meeting if she tried. Pushing off the bed with a sigh, Scarlett headed for the coffeepot. Her life had slid into a rigid routine over the past four weeks. Up late working on presentations and marketing plans, up early for board — or more accurately, bored — meetings, and all the while fueling herself with copious amounts of caffeine.
In a few hours, she needed to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, schooling forty new hires on company objectives and brand messages in her role as executive vice president of marketing for Pace Waterman. Despite the fact that she probably could recite the spiel in her sleep, her boss, Brad, would probably prefer her to do it while awake. She yawned and took a gulp of the too-weak brew. Ugh, hotel coffee. She missed her morning cup of vanilla and hazelnut espresso from Rockn’ Joe’s. Within three months, the much-anticipated Orlando office would be pushed from the proverbial nest with only the occasional, emergency visit from the senior management team. Then Scarlett would go back home to New Jersey for a month — maybe two — before she would fly out to the next expansion location that she’d be too busy bouncing from hotel room to boardroom ever to see.
The growth was a good thing for Pace Waterman, especially in this economy. But after nine years at the top of the Fortune 500 investment firm’s corporate ladder, Scarlett was more fatigued than excited by the travel these days. She used to thrive on the wheeling and dealing of the business world, the people she met in vibrant cities all over the world, the crisply laundered hotel sheets, and the indulgence of room service. But the novelty had slowly worn off, leaving behind physical exhaustion, brain drain and family alienation.
Speaking of which …
Grabbing her cell phone, she glanced at the time, fi
guring Maddy would be home from picking up Liam at preschool. She’d emailed her sister yesterday, but this level of groveling needed a more personal touch.
Scarlett dialed before she lost her nerve.
Maddy answered on the first ring.
“Please, tell me you understand.”
“I understand.” Maddy’s voice was weak and raw. When Fiona squealed in the background, Scarlett could imagine why. She didn’t have children of her own, but she was pretty certain caring for a newborn meant her sister had been keeping more abysmal hours than she had — and without the joy of room service at that.
Despite Maddy’s verbal reassurance, Scarlett’s guilt remained. “I tried everything I could, but even flying in the morning of the baptism and flying out immediately after … it just won’t work.” The lack of convenient nonstop flights to Syracuse made it a little too far away.
“I understand,” Maddy repeated.
She’d always considered it an unavoidable part of achieving her goals. This level of success didn’t come easy. She wanted to be the best, and that meant putting in the time and effort even when it was tough. She had to persevere and sacrifice things. Like family visits.
And a happy marriage.
Somehow those sacrifices didn’t seem quite so reasonable these days.
“How is she?” Maybe a change of subject would boost her mood.
“Fiona is good. She’s going through a growth spurt, so she’s nursing every hour. It’s killing me. Well, not really, but it feels like it — wait, Liam, put that down!” Words turned muffled on Maddy’s end. A couple bangs, a loud cry, and Maddy growled on her return. “He’s obsessed with her baby monitor. That freaking thing cost a fortune.”
Yeah, Scarlett knew exactly how much the video monitoring system cost; she’d bought it as a baby shower gift — another event she hadn’t been able to attend. Setting up college funds for the kids and buying expensive gifts had seemed like a reasonable tradeoff for Auntie Scarlett’s absence, but maybe it wasn’t sound reasoning if nobody even remembered what she’d bought.
“Did you get the pictures Tim emailed?”
“I did.” Scarlett clicked out of the presentation and stared at the tiny faces making up her screensaver. “They are so beautiful, and Liam is so big.” Her heart torqued, producing a dull, painful beat. She hadn’t seen her nephew in over a year … and he was only three. She’d missed a third of his life already. He wouldn’t even know her when he saw her again — whenever that would be.
Fiona’s cries ratcheted in the background.
“Can I call you later?” Maddy asked.
“How about I call you?” Otherwise she might be too busy to answer. It was pathetic but true.
Maddy hung up, and Scarlett dragged herself into the shower. Once dressed, she determined to recapture her enthusiasm. These bouts of discontent came and went. But this was the life she’d chosen, Scarlett reminded herself, the one she’d jumped through hoop after hoop to capture.
At almost forty, she questioned those acrobatics sometimes, but what else was she going to do … leave? She’d contemplated it before — headhunters were always looking her way — but with a resume like hers, there was nowhere to go. She was already at the top of the chain. Sure, she could go to another firm for more of the same, but she wasn’t exactly unsatisfied with Pace Waterman. Just a little … understimulated.
But who didn’t want a little more excitement in their life?
Her phone chimed with a text message from Brad: We’ve moved the meeting up. See you in 45 min.
Sounds great, she typed, conscious of the irony in her enthusiasm. Staring at the text message exchange, Scarlett contemplated adding more words. What if she’d typed, On second thought, 45 minutes won’t work for me? That would be very unlike her. How would Brad respond? Her fingers itched to find out, but at the same time something told her not to risk it. She was proud of her career accomplishments, and it would be stupid and juvenile to rebel just for rebellion’s sake.
Wouldn’t it?
By the time Scarlett hit the hotel hall with laptop bag in hand, she was back to business and certain whatever hoops she had to jump through today would be worth it.
• • •
Ben just wanted to find the elevator and get inside without anyone following him. After a wrong turn that led to the ice machine, he found the elevators down the next hall. They were blessedly empty. Stepping inside the closest one, he punched the starred button and backed into the corner, feeling nothing but age in his bones. He used to get so nervous before games that he puked. “Adrenaline rush,” Coach Cole had called it.
Apparently there wasn’t any adrenaline left.
15, 14, 13. There were too damn many floors in this hotel. Too many chances for someone to hop on and ask him any number of questions he wouldn’t be able to answer with a smile on his face right now. His standoffishness would get blown up on somebody’s sports talk radio show, and he’d never hear the end of it.
Ding. The car stopped, and Ben’s heart squeezed. He glanced at the numbers as the door slid open. The ninth circle glowed. He’d have company for eight more floors. Damn it.
He lowered his head until he could only see black patent leather high heels step onto the marble floor. He lifted his head a smidge more, assessing the bare legs attached to the sexy shoes. Warm appreciation soothed his tattered edges. For the first time in days, he felt something good.
Lifting his head, Ben was unprepared for the heart-shaped face and cobalt eyes staring at him like he was a ghost. That adrenaline he thought was gone suddenly shot through his system, carrying with it a name.
“Scarlett?”
Her exhale echoed in the paneled box. “Holy hell, Ben! That is you.” She rushed him, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her full length against his charged body. “I thought it was you.”
He wrapped arms around her waist and breathed against her temple, trying to calm his racing heart. The familiar strawberry-vanilla scent tossed him back twenty years. To senior prom. How was it possible she still smelled the same?
Emotion heightened as his brain processed the olfactory information, and he broke into a cold sweat. Twenty years. He never thought he’d see her again.
All too soon she let go, dragging her hands from his shoulders and covering her mouth. Her blue eyes smiled like she used to whenever Ben played class clown in fifth-period English. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
He shook his head, gaping in her direction. How many times had he dreamed of something crazy like this? “I can’t believe you’re here.”
The elevator door slid open to the lobby, and a man stepped inside. Scarlett scrambled off, looking over her shoulder at Ben as he followed her into the busy lobby.
“I take it Boston plays Orlando?” She stopped beside an alabaster pillar.
“Not exactly.” He winced. “I play for Orlando now.”
“Wow,” she said, shiny lips forming a flawless circle.
He watched her watch him, and his skin hummed. She was still beautiful after all these years. Her rust-red hair hung lush and long, perfect for running his hands through. Her bronze skin glowed, making him want the smallest taste. She’s probably married, his brain warned. By their age, most people were. Even he’d come close a time or two. But it was hard to pull the trigger when he was in love with someone else. And now that someone else was standing before him.
He glanced at Scarlett’s ring finger as she fiddled with the cuff of her perfectly pressed blouse. Nada. Not even a tan line. It was a good sign.
“What brings you here?” he asked, momentarily dropping his gaze over the fullness of her breasts, the flare of her hips then back to her twinkling eyes again. She’d been skinnier in high school. Bony. If he’d found her hot then, she was smoking now. Ben exhaled.
“Work. We’re opening a new office in Orlando. I’m here for the next few months. What a crazy coincidence, huh?”
Absolutely. But hadn’t he said everything happens for a reason?
Maybe she was the reason.
• • •
Scarlett fidgeted with her clothes as her eyes scanned the familiar man before her. After twenty years apart, she would expect to be able to keep her hands to herself, but they kept itching to touch that smooth face. She wanted to lift the hat from his head to see if his thick black curls looked the same. A smile touched her lips when she thought he might be graying. God knew she dyed her hair every four to six weeks.
“Ben Border,” she breathed, unable to believe her luck. The last time she saw him in person was the summer bonfire, where they’d agreed it was best to break up before she left for college in Maryland and he left to play baseball in Indiana. She kept up to date on his career through news stories and her mother’s network of busybodies, but she’d never been lucky enough to see him in person … until today.
“Scarlett Dare.” He grinned, crinkling the skin around his bright green eyes. “You know, you’re just as beautiful as you were twenty years ago.”
She laughed. “And you’re just as smooth.”
“Only if you happen to be single. If you’re spoken for, then that was out of line, and I apologize.”
“Divorced,” she said, still smiling. That may have been a first. She couldn’t remember ever remotely talking about her slacker ex-husband and their circus of a divorce with a smile on her face. “How about you?”
“Perpetually single.”
“That’s because the right one got away,” she teased.
Ben’s smile widened. “You know what? Today just got a million times better.”
“Agreed.” She couldn’t stop the head-to-toe tingles, not that she wanted to after the lackluster way she’d been feeling all morning. She just expected them to disappear once the initial shock of seeing him wore away. It’d been twenty years! They were different, older people. Surely her body understood it was overheating and overreacting on outdated information.
Whirlwind Romance: 10 Short Love Stories Page 29
