Center Stage: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 8)

by Mindy Klasky

  “Sure,” Ryan said, shrugging hard enough that Lindsey lost her grip. “What else have you got?”

  “Officer—” Lindsey began, trying to figure out how she could talk her way out of this rapidly escalating situation. “There’s been a misunderstanding here.”

  “So this man wasn’t committing public acts of lewdness?” the policeman said.

  “Well, no, he… I…” Lindsey knew better than to plead guilty, but she couldn’t piece together an answer she thought would be acceptable.

  “And he wasn’t trespassing on Chester Beach property?”

  “No!” Was he? Wasn’t the beach public property, where anyone had a right to walk? But maybe the pier was different, maybe they were breaking the law by standing beneath it.

  “And doesn’t he deserve to be locked up just for being the ugliest son of a bitch who ever graduated from Chester Beach High?”

  “That’d be you!” Ryan said, and he took a full step forward, clasping the policeman in one of those strange man-hugs, gripping him tight with one arm for the time it took to swear at him and run a mocking hand over his short-cut hair.

  Lindsey just watched as the cop returned the favor, saying, “You bastard! What are you doing out here on a Tuesday night, mid-season?”

  “Hamstring sprain,” Ryan said, gesturing toward his left leg. “I’m on the DL for another day. Just came out to see the old man.”

  The policeman looked past Ryan at Lindsey and nodded knowingly. “Uh-huh.”

  Lindsey crossed her arms over her chest and tried to look like she got arrested every day. Okay. Not arrested. Stopped in some sort of bizarre practical joke. Ryan and the cop clearly knew each other; they were talking about the Satellites and the Rockets’ current record, and the team’s chance of going all the way this year, which would be a hell of a lot better if the starting lineup could just get healthy and stay that way for more than three days at a time.

  At least the conversation gave Lindsey a chance to double-check her clothes. She was buttoned up. Safe. Ryan seemed to sense that she’d finished her quick survey—he finally turned toward her and offered up an introduction. “Dave Trilling,” he said, gesturing toward the guy’s crisp blue uniform. “Lindsey Ormond.”

  She offered a hand to shake, pretending like she wasn’t just grateful not to be booked for a crime.

  Ryan said, “Dave played catcher on our high school team. He might have had a future in the game, if he hadn’t set his heart on catching bad guys.”

  “Someone has to work for a living,” the cop said. The guys exchanged a few more jokes, and then Dave said, “Seriously, you two. Set a good example for the youth of Chester Beach.”

  Get a room.

  That’s not what Dave said. But that’s what he meant. Lindsey’s cheeks flushed hot, and she fought the urge to cross her arms over her chest. Ryan, on the other hand, merely said something obscene.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Dave said. “Got time to grab a beer tomorrow night? I’ll be off that shift at six.”

  Ryan glanced at Lindsey. “Can’t, sorry. I have to get back to Raleigh in time for batting practice. I’m back in the game tomorrow.”

  That was just as well, Lindsey thought. She couldn’t really imagine sitting down in some noisy beach bar, sharing a pitcher of beer with the guy who’d almost caught her half-naked under the Chester Beach pier.

  For that matter, she was having trouble picturing herself drinking with the guy who’d almost gotten her half-naked. She wished she could make herself disappear.

  The guys said a few more things, and they parted with another one of those half man-hugs. Dave promised to come to Raleigh some time before the season was over. Ryan said he’d leave tickets at will call. Lindsey nodded as the policeman said goodbye, and she watched him pick his way up the beach to the boardwalk.

  In the darkness, the waves were loud as they crashed against the pier. They were breaking higher on the sand; the tide must be coming in. Lindsey studied the silver foam like it held all the secrets to the universe.

  What was Ryan thinking now? Did he expect her to go back to whatever Dave Trilling had interrupted? Was he thinking about recreating that scene from From Here to Eternity right here, right now, leaving her gasping and desperate in the pounding ocean water? Was he wondering what it would feel like to push her up against one of the pilings, to catch his fingers in her hair, to run his hands under her shirt, inside her pants…

  Oh. That’s what she was thinking about.

  Ryan’s face was opaque in the darkness. But he finally took a step back, half-turning toward the boardwalk. He cleared his throat and asked, “Ready to call it a night?”

  She followed his lead, ducking out from under the pier. The moonlight was brilliant on the deserted beach, bright enough that she had to blink, hard. It seemed more difficult to walk on the sand; her feet slipped out from under her as she fought to climb back to the boardwalk.

  Ryan’s fingers closed around her elbow, steadying her, giving her support. Her first thought was to pull away, to reinstate a proper distance between them.

  But Lindsey had already decided to change things up. That’s what this trip was all about, wasn’t it? Oh, she wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t going to rip off all her clothes, to rip off all Ryan’s clothes. She wasn’t going to do anything Dave Trilling could arrest them for, if the cop came back this way on his nightly rounds.

  But that didn’t mean she couldn’t put her hand in Ryan’s when he hopped up on the boardwalk, when he reached down to help her climb beside him. It didn’t mean she couldn’t lace her fingers between his as they walked down the silver boards. It didn’t mean she couldn’t feel the heat of his body next to hers and imagine what it might be like to take him up on his offer—definitely not tonight and probably not tomorrow, but sometime down the road, when she wasn’t exhausted and emotionally wrung out from the challenge of being bad.

  Whatever she was offering, that seemed to be enough for Ryan. He held her hand and walked beside her, all the way back to the beach house where the Ferrari filled the driveway, as sleek and magical as the Batmobile. It wasn’t until they stood on the front porch, with Ryan holding the keys she’d finally passed to him, that he muttered, “Goddammit!” not quite under his breath.

  She braced for whatever was wrong now.

  ~~~

  Ryan glanced past the blinds that splayed like broken fingers in the window beside the front door. Mom had nagged his father to fix the slats for years; they’d been ruined during a World Series game when Dad had disagreed about a strike called by the ump behind the plate.

  Dad had never gotten around to replacing the damn things, though, so it was easy to look into the small beach house. It was easy to see that the room was dark except for the TV, except for the ghostly flicker of grey light. Dad sat in his old leather recliner, and the tear on the arm had opened again, ripping past the peeling duct tape Ryan had pasted on the last time he visited. The old man was wearing sweatpants and a white T-shirt. Both were liberally stained with something Ryan hoped was beer.

  Dammit. Ryan had purposely called ahead. He’d purposely told Dad that he was coming down there tonight, that he was bringing someone, a girl. He’d given his father a chance to clean up, to straighten the living room, to pretend he had his shit together.

  Guilt churned in Ryan’s gut as he slipped his key into the lock. Guilt, and a burning sense of shame. He didn’t want Lindsey to see his father like this. Watching his father sitting there pissing his life away just made Ryan more aware of his own broken promise, the one he’d made his mother.

  She’d been dying, goddammit. The pain from the cancer was bad, and she slept most of the time, but she’d roused herself to see him whenever he got back to Chester Beach. That last time, she’d sent Dad to the store, said that guava juice—guava juice—just sounded perfect, and she’d used the hour it took for Dad to find the exotic stuff to make Ryan swear.

  She didn’t drag out the details. She didn’t remind him h
e’d been caught drinking when he was in junior high. She didn’t point out that he’d been suspended from high school—three times—that he’d skipped more classes his senior year than he’d actually attended. She didn’t drag up the report cards stacked in that drawer, next to the electricity bill and the power bill.

  She just said how sorry she was that she’d never found the right way to reach out to him, back when he was a kid, back when it might have made a difference. She was proud of his playing ball, she always had been. But he knew he’d embarrassed her all those years, when she was called to pick him up at school one more time, when she had to sit through yet another meeting with the principal, when she had to hold her head high in front of all the other mothers when they talked about their kids’ amazing grades.

  So when she asked him to help his father after she was gone, he’d said yes, of course. He’d promised to keep an eye on the old man, to make sure Dad didn’t give in to depression, the black dog Mom feared more than her own death.

  Ryan had promised, but he hadn’t counted on how hard it would be, keeping tabs on Dad at the same time he was playing ball. He hadn’t thought about road trips, about just how far away Chester Beach was from Raleigh.

  Because money didn’t solve all problems. A ballplayer’s fortune couldn’t get his father out of bed in the morning. A contract couldn’t tuck Dad in at a decent time, every night. Ryan couldn’t buy his way out of his promise to his mother, he couldn’t make things right just by getting Dad a new car, by hiring a cleaning lady, by offering to move Dad to a mansion, far from the beach town he’d loved his entire life.

  The only thing that would clear the slate was getting Dad to care about something again, to care about anything even a fraction of the amount he’d cared about his wife. And Ryan had an inkling, a suspicion that working as the hitting coach for the Satellites just might open that door.

  But not if Ryan didn’t get off his ass and figure out a way to ask Zach Ormond, to get the job in place. He should have done it a month ago, a week ago. Monday night. Because it sure as hell wasn’t going to be any easier talking to Zach now. Not with Lindsey in the picture.

  Whatever goddamn picture she was in. Whatever was going on between them.

  For just a second, he considered taking the coward’s route. He could turn around and get back in the car. He could drive Lindsey to a hotel. He could check them into separate rooms for the night, keep his pants zipped the way he knew he should have, down on the beach. Sure, he’d told her rooms were hard to come by on a summer night, but they could go inland until they found something, hit one of the towns closer to the main highway.

  But running away wasn’t going to solve any problems. It wasn’t going to make him forget what Lindsey had felt like in his arms, how she’d tasted when she finally opened up her lips to his.

  And it sure as hell wasn’t going to help Dad.

  He jammed his key into the lock and turned hard, taking a little vicious pleasure in the way his father sat up straight in his chair, in the way the old man scrambled to close his recliner. He called out his hello before Dad could get scared, and he ushered Lindsey into the room.

  “I’m turning on the light,” he said, pausing with his hand over the light switch, giving his father a chance to blink hard against the glare. Or maybe he was just bracing himself for the mess he knew he’d find.

  It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. In fact, maybe the guy had cleaned up a little, after Ryan called.

  Yeah, there were a half-dozen pizza boxes stacked beneath the coffee table. And an even dozen beer bottles, lined up like a kid’s toy soldiers. A month’s worth of newspapers was scattered on top of the couch, sports page after sports page folded back to the box scores.

  But the room didn’t stink. And nothing skittered into the shadows when he threw on the light. And the TV wasn’t playing some crappy reality show or, worse, one of those crazy infomercials. Dad was watching game tapes—from Ryan’s senior year, he saw at a glance.

  His father scrambled to his feet, running a hand through his thinning hair and smoothing down his stained shirt. “Son! I thought maybe you’d changed your mind about coming!”

  “We took a quick walk on the beach after we got here.” He gestured toward Lindsey and made some quick introductions.

  Dad gave him a sharp look of speculation, fast enough that Lindsey probably didn’t notice. Then he retrieved the remote control and turned off the television. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “I don’t know what’s in the kitchen, but you’re welcome to help yourselves.”

  Lindsey stepped forward with a sweet smile. “No sir,” she said. “It’s too late to eat. If it’s all right with you, I’d just love to get some sleep.”

  Another one of those quick looks from Dad, a question the old man was smart enough not to ask out loud. Ryan said, “I thought Lindsey could take my room. I’ll sleep on the couch.” He nodded toward the furniture in question, toward the library’s worth of box scores.

  “Fair enough,” Dad said. “You know where everything is.”

  Ryan took that as his cue to lead the way upstairs, turning on the lights to help Lindsey. He stopped at the linen closet to grab a towel and a washcloth, then opened the door to his childhood bedroom, pushing hard when the paint stuck a little in the damp beach air.

  The overhead light washed over the familiar belongings. A maple desk huddled in the corner of the room, bare except for a row of Bill James Baseball Abstracts. Classic posters hung on the wall, neat thumbtacks pinning Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Joe DiMaggio in place. Three shelves held his sports trophies from school, gleaming plastic men batting their way to championships.

  A narrow twin bed pushed up against the far wall. The sheets were tucked in with military precision, and a navy blue blanket was folded across the foot. Two down pillows were the only concession to the fact that an adult might want to sleep comfortably in the room.

  “Here at the Waldorf Astoria,” he said, sweeping his arm around like he was showing off a mansion.

  Lindsey laughed. “I feel terrible,” she said. “You didn’t tell me I’d be chasing you out of your own room.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He glanced at the bed again, ordering himself not to think about the fact that Lindsey didn’t have a suitcase, didn’t have any clothes other than the ones she was wearing. She’d be sleeping in that T-shirt. Or out of it.

  It had been years since he’d messed around with a girl up here, and then he’d had the good sense to make sure his mother and father were out of the house. Hell, it had been years since he’d brought a girl down to the pier. And the last time he’d been caught copping a feel, he’d had to answer to Chief Macomb, not Dave Trilling.

  He shook his head. He was tired. It had been a long day, and he still had to go back downstairs, had to figure out a way to make sure Dad was doing okay. At least, Ryan hoped, better than he looked.

  “Hey,” he said to Lindsey, and his voice was rougher than he’d planned.

  It was her turn to shake her head. She reached out a hand, rested her fingers along his jaw. “Thanks,” she said.

  “I haven’t done anything.”

  “Yes,” she said. “You have.”

  Not half of what he wanted to do. He settled for leaning in and giving her a kiss on the corner of her mouth, a quick brush that didn’t give either one of them a chance to fuck things up. “Holler if you need anything, Killer.”

  “I will.”

  “And kick me awake in the morning. You don’t want to miss that sunrise.”

  She smiled at that—a brilliant grin that lit up her entire face. For just a heartbeat, he thought about closing the distance between them, matching his thighs to hers, slamming the door behind him as he walked them back to the bed, as he pushed her down and finished what they’d started on the beach.

  But there was no way in hell Zach Ormond would consider Dad for the Satellites job if Ryan actually screwed Zach’s baby sister.

&nbs
p; He stepped back. “Get a good night’s sleep.”

  “You too,” she said.

  He shrugged a reply and closed the door behind him. As he headed downstairs, he told himself that Will Templeton was the stupidest man in the entire goddamn universe.

  Back in the living room, Dad had cleared off the couch, stacking the newspapers on the coffee table. He’d carried the pizza boxes into the kitchen, and the empty bottles had disappeared. He still wore his stained T-shirt, and his sweats still looked like they’d seen better days, but at least the guy was making an effort.

  Ryan sank onto the couch and nodded toward the picture frozen on the TV. “That’s the game against Lincoln?”

  His father nodded. “The one where you hit for the cycle.”

  And that was as good an opening as any he was going to get. “I never would have gotten that triple if we hadn’t worked on hitting to the opposite field.” His father grunted and reached for the remote.

  It was now or never. Ryan took a deep breath and said, “I’ve been thinking, Dad. You’d make a great hitting coach for the Satellites. And I know the guy who can make that happen.” He prepared himself for the inevitable argument.

  ~~~

  Lindsey squinted to read the battered clock on the nightstand. 5:30. She groaned and rolled over, covering her face with the pillow. Before she could fall back to sleep, though, she remembered where she was—Chester Beach. And why she was there—the sunrise.

  She threw back the covers and pushed herself upright to retrieve her tumbled jeans from the foot of the bed. She tugged them on before she sneaked out of the bedroom, letting herself into the bathroom as quietly as she could. She barely ran a trickle of water in the sink as she squeezed a bead of toothpaste onto her finger. She splashed cold water onto her face and ran her damp fingers through her hair.

  The door at the end of the hallway was closed—that must be where Mr. Green slept. She crept down the stairs to the living room.

  Ryan was stretched out on the couch, sleeping on his side. An old Army blanket was tangled between his legs, and Lindsey ordered herself not to think about the glimpses she caught of his boxers. On second thought, maybe his boxers would be a better focus, because the alternative was thinking about the broad muscles of his back, his shoulders, his abs that rose and fell with every breath.