Playing Hard

by Melanie Scott

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  For the boys of summer.

  Prologue

  MARCH

  Sunshine and baseball. Two of his favorite things. Oliver Shields shifted on the plastic seat and stared down at the field where the New York Saints were currently in the middle of a training session. All he really needed for perfection would be a cold beer in his hand.

  Sadly, he was going to have to make do with Gatorade. He took a swig, then put the bottle down and adjusted the ice pack on his right hand. He’d been too slow, had lunged for a ball early, and it had clipped the tops of his fingers. Dan Ellis, their coach, taking no risks so early in spring training, had sent him off to ice the fingers for a few minutes.

  So now he got to sit in the Florida sunshine, relax, and just enjoy watching the guys do their thing. Nice.

  Things were coming together. They had a few new players as always, guys just picked up or being trialed—which sometimes made things interesting, but this year everything had gone relatively smoothly.

  Down on the field the new guy who’d just subbed into Oliver’s first-base spot while he was icing his hand completed a flawless double play. Finn Castro had good hands and a good arm.

  Unfortunately, from what Oliver had seen of him so far, he also had a cocky mouth. Some new guys came in all bluster and arrogance, but usually they settled in quick enough.

  Finn? Well, he hadn’t settled down yet. Oliver and Hector Moreno, their catcher, had fifty bucks riding on how long it would be before Dan stepped in and tore a few strips off the kid, but so far it hadn’t happened.

  As if he could hear Oliver’s thoughts, Dan Ellis turned and bellowed, “Shields, get your ass back down here.”

  Oliver grinned and put down his dripping ice pack. Time to get back in the game. As he walked onto the grass, Finn was coming off.

  “Nice play,” Oliver said.

  Finn smirked and brushed past him, his shoulder meeting Oliver’s just that little bit too forcefully.

  “Hey,” Oliver said, turning after him, but Dan bellowed his name again and he dismissed the kid from his mind as he slipped on his glove. No point letting a noob with a chip on his shoulder ruin his day.

  An hour later, when Dan decided to stop being a sadist and called a halt to the session, Oliver was feeling good. His hand was fine, the day was still beautiful, and he might even get in a few laps in the hotel pool before dinner. He lingered for a couple of minutes to talk with Dan and Hector and Brett Tuckerson, the starting pitcher. The three of them were the senior players on the Saints and Dan liked to check in and see what they thought of the new guys. Opinions given, he headed for the locker room.

  As he reached the door, he heard Castro’s voice, laughing. Then, “Shields. Fucking wimp. Did you see him, icing his hand like a seventy-year-old? He better watch out. That first-base spot is going to be mine before the season is out. Dude should give it up and retire before he starts embarrassing himself.”

  Little shit. Oliver felt the burn in his gut. He was used to the odd rivalry on the team. Healthy competition. There was always someone younger coming along who thought he deserved a shot. But Oliver had fucking earned his first-base position through fourteen—soon to be fifteen—years of hard work. And good arm or not, no cocky bastard like Castro was going to take it from him.

  He pushed the door all the way open, maybe a bit too hard. It crashed against the wall and Finn and the guys he was talking to—most of them rookies—turned as one.

  “You know, Castro,” Oliver said as he walked into the room and dropped his glove onto the nearest bench. “You’d think a guy who’d been traded dirt-cheap by his old team might have the sense to shut up and try to get along with his new teammates rather than mouthing off.”

  Finn’s mouth went flat, green eyes cooling as he rose from the bench he was sitting on. “You got a problem, old man?”

  “Yeah,” Oliver said, meeting Finn’s glare evenly. “You. Let me give you a tip. The guys who run the Saints don’t like egotistical, wannabe little boys. They like guys who can fit into the team and do the damned job they’re given. So why don’t you focus on that instead of talking yourself up.” He stepped forward. The two of them were close enough in height, but Oliver had a few pounds on Finn.

  “Who says it’s talk?” Finn said. His chin came up, shoulders squared.

  Little fucker really didn’t know when to give in. Stupid. Or stubborn. Which amounted to the same thing. Oliver grinned at him. If Finn wasn’t going to back down, then Oliver would be happy to show him how things were done at the Saints. “Castro, better players than you have tried to take my spot. And I’m still here. Not going anywhere until I’m good and ready. So I suggest you shut up and get used to the outfield. Because that’s where you’ll be spending your time this year.” He bit off the if you stay that belonged on the end of that sentence. Finn’s expression was 100 percent pissed off. The kid really didn’t know when to quit.

  Finn took a step toward Oliver. “Why don’t you go—”

  “Castro,” Brett said from the doorway. “Shut the hell up and sit the hell down.”

  To Oliver’s surprise, Finn did. So maybe the kid wasn’t completely stupid. At least he was smart enough not to get on the wrong side of the team captain. Oliver tipped his chin at Brett, who rolled his eyes in reply, and then walked past Finn to his locker. He didn’t miss the glare and the muttered “douche” that Finn directed at him. But he ignored it. Hopefully the kid would get the message about his current position in the team hierarchy and lose the attitude. But if he didn’t, it was going to be a very long season.

  Chapter One

  OCTOBER

  Wall-to-wall hot men and all Amelia Graham really wanted was more comfortable shoes. It was official. Her life was sad. If there was a list of people who had lost their mojo, it would clearly say “Amelia Graham” at the top. In bold. Underlined. She winced at the mental image and tried to find her party spirit. But her feet hurt—stupid new shoes—and the wall-to-wall hot men seemed far more interested in the hordes of superhumanly glamorous women filling the room than in her. She looked good but these women were New-York-model-level gorgeous. And if the sky-high stilettos most of them wore were hurting their feet, they were far better at ignoring that fact than Amelia was.

  Which only proved that her name belonged on the sad list. If Em could see her now, she’d be rolling her eyes in disgust. Of course, it was Em’s fault that Amelia was stuck at this party in the first place. Her best friend had steadfastly refused to move to New York, remaining at home in Chicago. Which meant that when Em’s brother Finn—Amelia’s de facto brother by way of lifelong best-friend-hood with Em—had been transferred from the Chicago Cubs to the New York Saints, Amelia had reinherited first-line Finn Support status. All the other Castros were still back in Chicago, so it was Amelia who got to play cheer squad and sounding board and whatever else he needed. Back on Team Finn. Not that she’d ever really been off it. And it was a r
ole she was happy to play. After all, she owed the Castros a lot, and Finn especially. She could never repay that debt. Being there if he needed her was the least she could do. Still, she’d been in New York for seven years now and they hadn’t been as close as before she’d moved here. Until he’d moved here, too. She’d helped him find his apartment and showed him around when he’d first arrived in New York and somehow they’d fallen back into old patterns.

  Not quite as it used to be, though. Sometimes weeks went by without him calling. After all, he traveled a lot for games and he’d found a crowd to run with quickly enough—Finn was blessed with the same dark good looks as his sister and a bucketload of charm as well and never had trouble making friends—but he still called her when he was at loose ends and wanting to be entertained. Or wanted a familiar face at his games. And Amelia couldn’t help being there to answer. Plus there was Em, who wanted reports on how Finn was doing. Something Amelia had been used to when Finn was in high school and he’d told her things he wouldn’t necessarily tell his sister. Now, at twenty-nine, it was kind of weird to be asked to keep an eye on a twenty-five-year-old guy who was a professional baseball player.

  But she couldn’t say no to Em any more than she could to Finn.

  So she’d said yes when Finn had invited her out tonight, even though it was the first Sunday she hadn’t worked in a month and all she really wanted to do was sleep. But the Saints were celebrating the fact that they’d made it to the American League Division Series for the first time in a long time and she was feeling guilty that she hadn’t actually made it to that many of their home games this season due to work craziness. Amelia liked baseball, having kind of absorbed her knowledge and affection for it through Finn, so a baseball party should have been fun. So she’d come. And now, somewhat predictably, she was bored, watching Finn dance with random women.

  She sighed and rattled the two rapidly melting ice cubes that were all that was left of her drink. There really had to be something wrong with her. All these gorgeous men and no one had caught her eye. Which was troubling. She had something of a thing, to her chagrin, for guys who oozed confidence, and professional athletes oozed it more than anybody. But all too often it seemed that über-confidence had a downside. Too many of the guys who had it were a little too fond of themselves and a little too sure of their place in the universe. It had been that way with the jocks she’d steadfastly avoided dating in high school and college, and it was the same with the men she’d met on Wall Street since she’d graduated. Both groups leaned toward master-of-the-universe worldviews. The Wall Street guys just did it in expensive suits rather than baseball uniforms.

  She’d resolved the last time, after another crash and burn with an investment banker who’d been exactly that type, to stick to nice guys in the future. Maybe the fact that she was bored tonight—surrounded as she was with men who should be Amelia catnip—meant she had a chance of succeeding in keeping that resolution.

  Though, if she was going to stick to her guns, tonight was probably not the best night to put her plan into action. She was guessing that ordinary nice-guy types were an endangered species at this party. Finn had let slip enough team gossip about how the single guys tended to blow off steam that she could be fairly certain of that. So maybe she should just give it another hour and then make her excuses to Finn and leave. Go home to comfy slippers and watching whatever seemed good on Netflix while she baked some late-night muffins. Maybe the pistachio chocolate ones she’d spotted on one of her favorite food blogs the other day. Finn wouldn’t care if she left now that he was surrounded by beautiful women, so she was off the hook there.

  Time to be sensible.

  Like the guy she wanted. She sighed and put the empty glass down on the small, high table near her elbow. If she was going to stay, she needed another drink. Though maybe a soda first. Whoever had made the cocktail she’d just finished definitely hadn’t skimped on the alcohol. The buzz of it was warming her veins just a little too well. Not good if she wanted to be sensible, smart Amelia. One soda, one more cocktail, and then one swift getaway.

  * * *

  Maggie Jameson and Raina Easton definitely knew how to throw a party. Oliver Shields took his tequila from the bartender and turned to survey the room, taking in the heaving mass of partying New York Saints players, wives, girlfriends, and whoever else had been invited. The play-offs. The Saints had made the fucking American League Division Series for the first time in God only knew how many years. Of course, he should know, having spent the last fifteen years playing for the Saints, but after his first two tequilas had gone down fast, the statistic, one that most of the time he had to try hard to ignore, refused to come to mind easily.

  He was finally going to the play-offs. Halle-fucking-lujah. He had to hand it to Alex Winters. He hadn’t liked the man when Alex had first bought the club with his two best friends, Lucas Angelo and Malachi Coulter—not only because Alex had succeeded in getting Oliver’s onetime girlfriend Maggie Jameson to become Maggie Winters—but the terrible trio knew what they were doing. This was the third season since they’d purchased the Saints from Maggie’s dad, and the team had made the goddamned play-offs.

  Which was why every man and woman even remotely connected to the Saints was currently blowing off steam for one night of insane partying before it was back to the grindstone. After tonight it would be tunnel-vision focus and a lot of sweat. Eyes on the prize twenty-four seven if they were going to achieve the next seemingly impossible goal—making it to the League Championship Series and then, if the stars aligned, to the World Series.

  Ollie sipped his tequila—one of the other things Raina Easton knew how to do was stock a damned good tequila in her burlesque club—and watched the crowd. Across the room he saw Maggie’s dark head next to Alex’s blond one and found himself smiling. They were good together. They worked. In the way that he and Maggie, as much as he’d never wanted to admit it, never quite had.

  Damn, that was way too serious a thought for tonight. Tonight, he’d decided, was for celebrating. He’d been pretty damned dedicated this season. Practically a monk. But even monks needed to give in to temptation occasionally, and this room was just chock-full of temptation, though no one had actually caught his eye yet. Which was why he was still drinking tequila alone at the bar instead of busting a move down on the tiny dance floor with some gorgeous woman. Like Raina was with her fiancé, soon-to-be-husband, Mal Coulter. Raina was a former Broadway dancer, among other things, so she was making Malachi work hard to keep up, but the two of them were grinning at each other like fools. Next to them, Finn Castro was dancing with a short blonde Oliver didn’t recognize.

  The sight soured his mood slightly. Castro had been a pain in the butt all season. A smart-ass whenever he thought he could get away with it. Temperamental. Too fond of partying. And always pushing for a chance to step into Oliver’s position. The only thing that had saved him from being traded again was the fact he’d been playing very well. Not good enough to take Oliver’s slot, but Alex had gotten more than his money’s worth. Pity Castro was such a dick. A dick who was just going to have to keep making his peace with life in the outfield. Oliver wasn’t going anywhere.

  He drained his tequila, savoring the smooth burn for a minute, then decided that maybe it was time to slow down. He’d driven tonight, not wanting to break training completely. Also, if he did find some temptation to yield to, he preferred to drive them back to his place himself rather than use a driver.

  Turning back to the bar, he waved at the skinny bald guy tending it and said, “Club soda,” at the exact same moment a woman slid through the crowd at the bar and ordered the same thing.

  She turned to look at him and said, “Snap,” with a smile in big blue eyes almost the exact deep shade of the Saints logo. He found himself smiling back automatically. She had a pretty face, curving lips, and dimples to go with the eyes. Her hair was pulled up into some sort of messy bun arrangement at the back of her head, wisps of it coming loose ar
ound her face. In the low lighting of the bar, he couldn’t really tell what color it was … maybe blond, maybe red, maybe something in between.

  The bartender slid two glasses across the bar toward them. Ollie nodded at her. “Lady’s choice.”

  “Thanks,” she said and leaned forward to take the nearest glass. Her dress was sleek and black and finished north of her knees, showing off a very nice pair of legs and equally sleek black high heels, but it wasn’t the usual plunging, painted-on thing that girls who came to trawl Saints parties for talent wore. Who was she exactly?

  He reached for the other glass, using the movement as an excuse to move slightly closer. “So, what has you hitting the hard stuff tonight?”

  She stirred the soda with the straw. There were no rings on the slim fingers. “I could ask you the same question.”

  He started to say I’m in training, then stopped. For once he didn’t feel like being Oliver Shields, first baseman. And his mystery companion hadn’t shown any sign of recognizing who he was. “What if I said I’m on duty?”

  Her eyebrows arched slightly. “On duty? Are you security? One of the guys’ bodyguards?”

  She didn’t know who he was. This could be fun. “I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you. And that would just cause problems.” He hit her with a smile. “Now I’ve told you, your turn.”

  “Me? I’m an economist at Pullman Waters,” she said. “Wanna hear about the outlook for Southeast Asian currencies in the next few months?”

  He nearly choked on his soda, and she burst into laughter. Deep throaty laughter that sank into his gut and spread outward and downward. Damn. His vague curiosity about her kicked itself up to very interested.

  “Sounds fascinating.” He didn’t really know what an economist did but he was willing to find out.

  “Really?” Amusement lurked in her eyes.