by Linda Morris
Willow’s stomach clenched. One more reason to keep Jack to herself as long as she could. How could she trust Paul with a secret that could wreck her career? Her top priority now was taking care of Jack, and that meant keeping this job at any cost. You got three strikes in baseball, but not in sports journalism. How many times could she blow it by getting involved with the wrong guy and still expect people to give her another chance?
She had no intention of finding out.
Chapter 3
“You’ve got ten minutes.” Alex Moreno-Lopez stormed into his tiny cinder block office in a cloud of sweat and frustration.
True to Paul’s warning, Willow hadn’t been allowed into the clubhouse while the players were there. Now that the game had ended, unfortunately in a Thrashers loss, and the players had all showered, changed and left, the manager had agreed to a post-game interview. He flung himself into his wheeled office chair and put his dirty cleats up on the desk, dropping clumps of mud all over the papers scattered everywhere.
“Thanks, Alex. I’m recording, is that okay?”
“Sure. I’m an open book. I’ve got nothing to hide.” He looked a bit sour, but she couldn’t fault him for that after the way his bullpen had blown a lead in the eighth inning.
He had an extraordinarily handsome face, even when it was twisted in disappointment. His Latino heritage showed in his tawny skin and short-cropped black hair. Like many ballplayers, he traced his ancestry back to Cuba, or so she’d read on Wikipedia. She was here for the colorful details she couldn’t get from a website.
“You had a tough loss today. What lessons do you think your team learned out there?”
“We learned the bullpen sucks.”
Willow blinked as she waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, she lifted an eyebrow.
“That’s it? The bullpen sucks?” A manager who didn’t mince words. Every sports reporter’s dream.
“Don’t you agree? The bullpen sucks. What else should I say?” The tense line of his jaw reminded her of a catcher squaring up for a play at home plate, ready to take the charge of an incoming runner.
“Don’t most managers keep that kind of talk in the clubhouse? I don’t think the guys would be happy to hear the way you’re talking about them to the media.”
“Oh, you didn’t know they sucked today? It’s a big secret? I’m telling you something the rest of the world doesn’t know? You think those pingitos don’t know they screwed up today?”
“What’s a pingito?” she said, momentarily diverted.
His cheeks darkened. “Look it up.”
“Okay. How do you spell it?”
He spelled it, looking wildly uncomfortable. “Look, don’t look it up, okay? It’s not important. It’s my way of saying they don’t know what the hell they’re doing. We can’t win this year with guys pitching like that. Our run production was okay, starting pitchers are pretty good, but those pingitos in the bullpen …” He shook his head. “Don’t look it up.” He pointed a finger at her.
“I won’t,” she lied. “So, this is your first year managing minor league ball. Many people think you’re on the fast track to being called up to Chicago to take a coaching job with the White Sox. You’d be working with Tom Cord. Rumor is he’s hard to handle. What do you say to that?”
“I say if we had guys with half the talent and a third of the heart Tom Cord has, we’d have won that game. Don’t ask me about managing the White Sox. I have a job, and it’s here. That’s what I care about.” He pulled his feet off the desk and let them fall with a thud, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees.
“I see. The Thrashers have a rather storied history in Plainview. They seem to be the heart and soul of the town. What’s it like to work for a small-town team with such deep roots in the community?”
He rolled his eyes and tugged his cap down hard. “Deep roots, my ass. That Walter Dudley is a cheapskate. And the young Dudley.” He shook his head. “He doesn’t give a damn. Ice runs in his—” Here he broke off, swallowing hard. “Can that be off the record?”
“Sure,” she said casually, switching the recorder off. So much for Alex being an open book. Everybody in the Thrashers organization wanted to talk off the record, if they talked at all. Interesting. “As long as you let me have it on background.” Details gathered on background weren’t reported, but reporters used them to frame their story and to get an idea of where the story was. If Alex spilled anything juicy, she wouldn’t be able to publish it, but she’d know the right questions to ask someone who would talk on the record.
As a bonus, in her particular situation, on-background info could be used to help her get to know the father of her child. Lovely.
They’d never prepared her for that in journalism school. Dr. Wallace, her favorite professor, definitely would not approve. She quashed the tendril of shame that rose at the thought. You’re doing this for Jack. He’s more important than what your old J-school professor would think.
She wrapped up her interview and said good-bye. She had enough for her first installment in the series. In the hallway, overcome by curiosity, she pulled out her smartphone and keyed pingitos into the search engine.
“Oh, my,” she whispered. Alex had given her a great story, but she doubted the pitchers in the bullpen would be happy with what their manager had implied about their penis size.
*
Two days later, Willow clicked send on the email containing the story to Nate at Screwball when a knock came at the door of her room at the Painview.
Dammit. She hadn’t had a chance to Skype with Jack all day and she’d been planning on doing that as soon as she finished her piece. Whoever it was would have to make it quick. She longed to see her sweet boy’s face and, even more, to feel the soft, warm weight of his plump body in her arms. Maybe she could fly down next weekend for a visit. An impatient knock came again. “Okay, okay.” She eased herself out of the cracked vinyl chair and went to the window to peek, pulling the eighties-style seafoam-green curtains aside.
“Holy crap.”
Paul Dudley. She let the curtain fall, hoping she could maybe ignore him.
“I know you’re in there. I saw the curtain move,” he said with a wry note in his voice. “Let me in.”
Frantically, she scanned the room. It was a mess. The housekeeper hadn’t made the bed yet and the polyester bedspread careened crazily off to one side of the bowed mattress. Dirty clothes were strewn across the floor. On the tiny table next to the window, snacks she’d bought at a convenience store mingled with her computer, cords, and a batch of papers.
Most damning of all, in one corner sat an electric breast pump and a mini-freezer she’d brought to store her milk until she was back with Jack full-time.
Damn. She grabbed the various cups and tubes of the breast pump, crammed them all together, and lowered the big plastic lid on top of the case. She put it on top of the freezer and grabbed a towel from the bathroom to throw over the top.
“Willow, this is ridiculous. Open this door.”
“Just a minute,” she said, a little breathless. Hand on the doorknob, she cast one last glance around the room. She’d forgotten the framed photo on the nightstand. Jack as a newborn, red-faced and wrinkled, wearing a yellow sleeper and sucking on his fingers. She crammed it into the nightstand drawer and opened the door with a smile.
“Hi,” she said brightly, hoping she didn’t look as panicked as she felt.
“Hi.” From the suspicious slant of his eyebrows, she probably did look panicked.
“Can I come in?”
“Uh, sure.” She moved aside and waved him in. “Make yourself at home.” She couldn’t feel good about inviting Paul Dudley into a hotel room when the two of them were alone, but it was the Painview Motel, after all. She literally couldn’t imagine a less seductive setting. A morgue, maybe?
She wished she were wearing something a little more substantial than a long-sleeve T-shirt with no bra and an old pair of sweatpants. She needed all
her armor to do battle with Paul Dudley. Looking like a college student who’d just pulled an all-nighter didn’t fill her with confidence.
“God, it’s worse than I thought.” He shook his head. “This place is a hellhole.”
“What?” She crossed her arms. “It’s perfectly fine for my needs.” She met his gaze. Let him call her bluff. “I’d offer you something, but I only have Cheetos and warm Diet Coke.” She nodded at the half-eaten bag on the table. “Unless you like that sort of thing.”
“No, thanks. I can see this dump meets your needs perfectly.” He at least did her the courtesy of saying that with a straight face.
She shrugged. “I don’t do a lot of entertaining. I’m here to work.”
“Well, that’s reassuring.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said with a scowl.
“Nothing.”
Nothing, my ass. “I think it meant something. Do you have some reason to question my work ethic?” What business was it of his anyway?
“No, but let me ask you this.” He crossed his arms. “Have you been giving my manager a shoulder to cry on about me? Because that’s way out of line. That’s not your job.”
How had he known? Had Alex told him? Well, it was a small organization, and various players had been milling around post-game. Any one of them could have seen her go into Alex’s office and drawn conclusions. Obviously, gossip got around fast in Plainview.
“Oh, please. Don’t tell me what my job is.” She braced her hands on her hips. “I’m a reporter. My job is to get people to talk to me, and that’s what I was doing. Besides, I’m not your employee. If you have a problem with what he said, talk to him, not me.”
“Oh, you can rest assured I did, and now I’m talking to you. Remember this: If you give him enough rope to hang himself, he will. He can’t keep his big mouth shut. I really don’t think you came here to wreck his career.”
Oh, please. The gall. Did he think he ran everything in Plainview, including her? “Is it his career you’re worried about, or yours?”
“What do you mean?” He scowled. Funny, with so many people, their eyes darkened when they got angry. Paul Dudley, though. The madder he got, the cooler his eyes went. He radiated ice right now.
“Maybe you’re concerned he’s going to tell me some things that don’t reflect very well on you. Things that make you look bad.”
“I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about me.” He took a step closer. Close enough that she could smell some luscious combination of cedar and citrus.
Focus, Willow. He’s trouble, for you and Jack. For your future.
“If he trashes ownership to the media, I’ll have no choice but to fire him. Think about that before you try to sweet talk him into giving you a story that will get you two days of notoriety and ruin his career for good.”
“I’m not responsible for his career. My responsibility is to get the story, and it’s obvious there’s one here you don’t want anyone to know about. I’ll find it. Even if you’ve gotten to Alex and ensured he won’t talk, I’ll find someone who will.” She poked his chest.
His cool eyes flickered to her fingertip, and she pulled it away. Even an angry gesture carried its own weird sexual energy when she directed it at Paul.
“You’re welcome to try.”
“I think you should go now.” She opened the door and stood aside to let him pass.
He didn’t budge. “Why do you care so much about Alex?” He wore the oddest expression, like curiosity, maybe.
She waved him away. She wouldn’t be drawn back into an argument about his manager. “I don’t. I care about getting to the story. Whatever you’re trying to hide, I will get to it.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less. I don’t care what you say or write about me, but if you get Alex to say something stupid, he’ll regret it. So will you.”
She lifted an eyebrow, not answering, her hand still on the doorknob, and he sighed.
He looked around the room, as if searching for an excuse not to go. “Believe it or not, I didn’t come here to fight with you about Alex.”
“No?”
“No. Tracy says she told you about the duplex I have for rent, and you turned it down.”
She shrugged. “So? I’m fine here.”
He looked at her. “Come on. No one could be fine here. It’s the home to Plainview’s worst meth addicts.”
“This place meets my needs. I’m not here a lot anyway. I’m with the team most of the day.”
“What about days off?”
“When you guys have a day off, I fly back home.” She’d only been able to do it once so far, and it had been exhausting, but worth every bit of hassle for the hours she’d gotten to spend with Jack.
“Someone special back home?” Was he aware of how rough his voice got sometimes? When he was, what? Angry? Upset? Jealous? An irrational thrill went through her, even though she knew it was the last thing she should be feeling.
“Yes, actually, there is.” She seized on the opportunity. Perfect. She could tell the truth—because Jack absolutely was someone special—and still give Paul the impression she had a boyfriend. If he thought she was otherwise involved, nothing could happen between them. Right? Right.
Because she wasn’t fooling herself. He might piss her off, he might rub her the wrong way, and they might argue every time they spoke—but still, she was attracted to him. He was dangerous, like a fire in the hearth. It could warm your bones on a chilly night, or it could scorch your fingers if you got too close.
“Oh.”
Was he disappointed? She couldn’t read him, as usual.
“If you change your mind, the duplex is available. Don’t worry about us. I mean, the past. It wouldn’t get in the way of you staying there.”
“That’s got nothing to do with why I don’t want to stay there.” A bald-faced lie, but sometimes a lie made things easier for everyone.
He looked remote, and a little sad, and perversely, she wanted to reach out to him. No, there’s no one special, not the way you mean. You seem so lonely. I’m lonely too.
She couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that. Even though she wanted to.
Yeah, Paul Dudley was dangerous, all right.
*
“You’re kidding.” Willow stared at the hotel desk clerk. This wasn’t an auspicious start to her first Thrashers road trip. “How can I not have a room? I made my reservation a couple of weeks ago!”
“I’m sorry.” The young girl in a blue polyester uniform winced. “We were fully booked and a plumbing leak has flooded three rooms on the ground floor. They’re uninhabitable. We’ll make arrangements to put you up in another hotel.”
“You don’t understand. I’m covering the Thrashers’ road trip. I have to stay in the same hotel as them so I can cover the team.”
“I’m sorry. You’re the last checkin of the day.” She nodded at the mass of players milling around the spacious lobby. “We can’t bump anyone from the team. They have a contract for a block reservation. I’m sure my manager would be willing to refund your money and pick up the full cost of the other hotel, however.”
“What’s going on?” Alex Moreno-Lopez had separated from a group of players and team personnel while the team’s clubby—a clubhouse helper and kind of equipment manager—checked the group in at another station a few feet away.
She explained the situation. He grinned, that easy smile that had no doubt broken a hundred hearts. “I’d say you could room with me, cariña, but I doubt the boss would approve of that. Why don’t we ask him what to do?”
“Oh, no, don’t get—” she started, but before she could finish, he was waving Paul Dudley over from where he stood talking to the pitching coach.
“What’s up?” Paul approached, his face impassive. In his crisp-pleated dress pants, striped Oxford and tasteful tie, he was all business.
You’d never know he’d ever been naked in her arms.
When she first encountered Paul
in his office, she’d been too full of panic at the situation to think about him in that way. As time went by, her nerves were starting to fade a little, to be replaced with an undeniable renewed attraction. Sometimes inconvenient, searing memories had a way of erupting at the worst possible times. Why did Paul’s moody, unreadable intensity suck her in a thousand times faster than Alex’s sunny flirtation?
“I seem to be out of a room,” she blurted, to interrupt her thoughts. “My room was damaged in some plumbing leak, and they don’t have any more. They want to move me to another hotel, but that would make it tough to write the profile. How can I shadow the team if I’m across town?”
“Easy. Take my room.”
Her body temperature skyrocketed twenty degrees. “You want me to share your room?”
“No, I’ll room with Alex here, and you can have my room.” He paused for a beat, his lips twitching a bit. “Unless, of course, you’d like to share my room.”
Oh my God, that sounded suspiciously like a hint. For a moment, the Paul of the beach in St. Pete wasn’t a distant memory, but a real, live, vital presence she could reach out and touch.
“Of course I don’t want to share your room.” She forced the words out in a normal tone, aware of the heat rising in her cheeks and Alex watching with interest.
When Alex had joked about sharing a room, she’d brushed it aside without a thought. When Paul said the same thing, it turned into this weird, awkward exchange full of blushes and subtext.
Alex shook his head. “Damn, I came up with the short end of the straw on that one. Paul, seriously? Your grumpy ass for a roommate? Why can’t I share Willow’s room?” He smiled and winked. “She’s cuter.”
Willow rolled her eyes. He was incorrigible with that charm that came so easily to him, especially compared to his boss.
Still, Paul Dudley had his own charms, subtle though they were.
“You can’t share Willow’s room because the team can’t afford the sexual harassment lawsuit. Here you go.” He handed Willow his key card. “I’ll get a spare to Alex’s room from the desk.”
“Thanks. I really appreciate it.” She started to turn away and then stopped. “It seems I owe you quite a few thanks. Tracy said you made your father let me ride on the team bus today.”
