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

by Mindy Klasky

  Who said Lindsey needed to see the sunrise? Maybe she should just sit here and watch the show for an hour or two?

  She rolled her eyes and reached out with a tentative palm. He was sleeping more deeply than she thought. She tightened her fingers on his shoulder in an effort to wake him. “Ryan,” she whispered. When he didn’t stir, she shook him again. “Ryan!” She glanced toward the stairs, wondering how loud she could be before she bothered Mr. Green.

  She shifted her hand to Ryan’s chest, spreading her fingers over the bands of muscle there. She wasn’t sure if she was feeling his heart beating through her palm, or if that was her own fevered pulse. “Ryan,” she said, pushing again.

  His fingers whipped up to close around her wrist, and he opened one eye. “You better have a damn good reason for waking me, woman.”

  “I— You said— I thought we were going to…”

  He laughed, though, at her confusion, and he grabbed the blanket around his waist. For just a moment, she glimpsed a distinct tent in his boxer shorts. What had Zach and Dane joked about, more times than she deigned to remember? Morning wood?

  Still holding the blanket, Ryan leaned down and snagged his clothes from the rug. “Give me a minute,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper before he disappeared up the stairs.

  It took him more than a minute. More like five. But he smelled like toothpaste and soap when he came back downstairs, and he’d managed to get his shirt and pants on. They sneaked out of the house like they were still in high school, easing the door closed behind them.

  This time, Lindsey knew the way to the beach. She strode past the buildings, slipped down the beach. The tide was out, yielding a long, compacted slope of sand.

  Moonlight silvered the water, glinting off the pier in the distance. Waves broke far out at sea, rolling lazily up the long beach. A steady breeze blew across the water, and Lindsey shivered.

  “I should have brought a sweater,” she said. She immediately wanted to take back the words. They sounded so stupid, so…mundane, not the sort of thing she should be thinking about when she was here to see the sunrise.

  Ryan shifted behind her, coming up close to her back. His arms circled around her, warm and comfortable. His fingers spread across her belly, urging her to lean into him, to relax.

  She tightened her thighs, though, resisting. What the hell was she doing here, anyway? What had possessed her to take this insane road trip, to stay in a stranger’s house, to get up on just a few hours of sleep and stare out at the cold, dark ocean?

  But she didn’t have to justify herself. She was here, now. She’d chosen to come, and Ryan had come with her.

  The sky grew lighter. The horizon was painted with pearl, the distant water merging into the sky. The entire beach was silent, expectant.

  She relaxed against Ryan’s chest, letting him steady her, letting him maintain their balance. His thighs were steady against the backs of her legs, and his arms tightened slightly, making her feel safe, secure. She drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. As she breathed out, the pearly sky brightened and flushed. Another breath, and a pink glow brightened the horizon. One more, and the entire ocean was on fire for a single moment, a drawn-out heartbeat. And when she breathed again, daylight had stolen over the world.

  As the sun rose, she covered Ryan’s fingers with her own. He tightened his grip, steady and even.

  Only after the sun had fully cleared the horizon did she turn to face him. The ruddy light made his brown eyes look golden; it brought out auburn highlights in his hair. “So that’s what I missed, back in high school.”

  “That’s what you missed.” And before she could say anything else, he leaned down and kissed her.

  She tasted salt on his lips, ocean spray that had been carried in on the wind. And she tasted peppermint toothpaste. But more than that, more than any flavor, she tasted a promise, a laugh, an offer to share so much that she’d missed before.

  She let herself go in that kiss. She let herself forget that they were on a public beach, that the rest of the world must be waking around them, that the boardwalk would soon be filled with shopkeepers and vacationers. She didn’t think about the waves slipping higher on the beach behind her, or the breeze picking up, or the sand shifting beneath her toes.

  Instead, she focused on one perfect kiss. And after that, she focused on weaving her fingers between Ryan’s. And walking up the beach. And heading back to his father’s house, where Mr. Green had apparently awakened with the unquenchable urge to cook enough eggs and pancakes and bacon to feed an entire baseball team.

  On the drive back to Raleigh, she teased Ryan about the posters of his heroes on his bedroom wall, about the trophies he still kept, about the way his life was frozen in amber, there in the beach house.

  And he told her about his mother dying the year before, about his father rattling around in the old house, unable to find anything to do.

  She told him about Beth, and about her father’s heart attack, about her mother dying only a year from a broken heart that the doctors diagnosed as idiopathic encephalitis. She told him about how Zach had stepped in, had held the entire family together, even as he was building his career with the Rockets.

  They talked like they’d known each other for decades, everything easy, everything shared, because they’d started the day by the water, started the day with the sunrise. And when Ryan dropped her back at the farmhouse, she wished he never needed to leave her. She wished he didn’t need to drive into Raleigh, to head back to Rockets Field, to the ballpark and real life.

  It was time for her to settle back to real life, too. It was time for her to get to work, figuring out what she wanted to be, now that she was grown up.

  ~~~

  That night, Lindsey’s heart pounded as she pressed the button on her phone to place the call. It rang once, twice, a third time. She pulled the phone away from her ear, ready to hang up, but she just caught Ryan’s voice, “Hello?”

  He was shouting. She heard the chaos in the background, recognized it as the noise of a crowded locker room. She’d caught Zach after games often enough. “Hotshot!” she said, purposely projecting, like she was speaking to the back row of a theater. “It’s me. Lindsey. Lindsey Ormond.”

  There was a moment when she thought he hadn’t heard her, but then the noise died down, like he’d ducked inside a closet, or a storeroom. “You’re the only Lindsey I know,” he said, and the smile behind his voice let her heart stop pounding.

  “You had a good game tonight,” she said. She’d paid more attention to the game than she had in years. It had helped that the camera kept cutting back to Ryan, with the commentators noting he was back in the game for the first time in fifteen days, after his stint on the DL. He’d clubbed a home run his first time up at the plate, and they’d replayed the highlight several times during the game. The Rockets had won by two runs.

  “It feels good to be back,” Ryan said.

  And now it was her turn to say something else. Her responsibility to keep the conversation going. God, this was hard, an awful lot harder than keeping the conversation going on the long drive back from Chester Beach. She felt stupid for having called. The team was celebrating the win; she should let him go hang out with the guys.

  “Never mind,” she said, just as Ryan started talking at the same time.

  “Did you check on auditions?” he asked.

  Her belly turned as she thought of the new play she’d texted him about. A Streetcar Named Desire. A faded Southern belle, driven mad because she didn’t have a man.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I signed up to read for Blanche.” She didn’t have a prayer, not when she’d spent the last five years playing cute little animals. But she had to start somewhere, and the audition would be good practice for a different role, for one she actually wanted.

  “When is it?”

  “Next Monday.”

  “I’ll hold a good thought for you.”

  “Thanks.” Oh my God. No wonder s
he hated talking on the phone. She sounded like she was reading the world’s worst dialog from the universe’s most boring play. But then she remembered something else she could ask. “Did you talk to Zach? Did you ask him about your father?”

  “Not yet,” Ryan said. “I figured I should wait to catch him in a good mood.”

  “He’ll be in a good mood now,” she said, with absolute certainty. “With another win in the books.”

  “Yeah, well…” Ryan trailed off.

  “Do you want me to say something?”

  “No!” His response was sharper than she expected. But not sharper than she deserved. It was like she’d been saying Ryan couldn’t get the job done, that he couldn’t keep the promise he’d made to his mother.

  She wracked her brain for something else to say but had to settle on a weak echo of his words. “Yeah, well… Congrats on a great game.”

  “Thanks.”

  She heard someone call his name, and he covered the phone to say something, words that were muffled by his fingers. Before the agony of their conversation could last any longer, she said, “Go on! I know you’re busy. Have a good night!” And she barely waited for him to say goodbye before she slammed the phone off. She tossed it to the far end of the couch and buried her face against her knees, vowing never to embarrass herself that way again.

  CHAPTER 5

  Ryan should have talked to Ormond the night before, should have followed up the second he got off that phone call with Lindsey. But talking to her had knocked him all out of whack, like he was thirteen years old and his voice might break any second. He couldn’t string two words together, much less make a pitch for the Satellites to hire his father.

  So he’d put it off until tonight. And his luck held—the Rockets won again. Ryan made a great catch, too, timing a jump on the warning track, getting his glove up at the perfect angle to keep a high fly from skying out of the park, killing Atlanta’s chance for a three-run homer in the top of the ninth.

  This should be easy. Dad was a good hitting coach—the reason Ryan had done as well as he had, through all those early years. And the Satellites needed someone to fill the job.

  But at first, Ryan hadn’t wanted to ask his old friend for favors. That felt too much like ass-kissing, like the worst type of brown-nosing.

  Now, Ryan didn’t want Ormond to ask him any questions. When was the last time you saw your father? Who was with you? Did you really have a wet dream about my sister, with her sleeping a hundred yards away?

  Yeah. Right. Ormond had no way of knowing anything about what was going on between him and Lindsey.

  And Ryan wanted to keep it that way for, oh, about forever. Because he could still remember the locker room fight between Ormond and Barton, that southpaw pitcher who’d gone sniffing after Lindsey years ago. The guys had pulled them off each other before any permanent harm was done, but Ormond hadn’t even pretended to pull his punches.

  Everyone knew Zach had led the parade when Barton got traded to Kansas City. But Ryan knew Ormond had greased the skids, trading in years of hard-won credibility with management to cash in all his chips and say he just couldn’t catch for the guy. They just couldn’t work together.

  Barton had a reputation for liking things rough. The guy was a first-class asshole. No one would want their sister getting involved with that dickhead.

  Ormond had become even more protective of his sister after that first jackass left Lindsey at the altar—all the guys knew that. And now, with his kid sister jilted a second time? He’d be insane. At least a little bit.

  So Ryan dragged his feet, waiting until the entire locker room had cleared. He watched the last of the reporters scurry away. He stood there while the cleaning staff swooped in like hawks, spraying down the showers, hauling off the towels and filthy unis. With any luck at all, Ormond was gone for the night.

  Ryan was one unlucky son of a bitch.

  The former catcher stood by the elevators, clearly on his way down to the team’s parking lot. “Hey,” Ryan said, wondering if he could pretend to have left something behind in his locker.

  “Ryan,” Ormond answered, and he sounded honestly happy to see him. “You know, I haven’t had a chance to talk to you since last week. Since the wedding.”

  An icy blade settled against Ryan’s crotch. I didn’t do anything, he almost said out loud. But he caught the words against his teeth, waiting to see what Ormond really knew.

  “Thanks for helping out,” Ormond said. “With the water, and cleaning up after, and everything.”

  Ryan shrugged. “No problem.” And then, because he couldn’t help himself, because he had to test the waters, he asked, “How’s Lindsey doing?”

  Ormond’s face tightened. “She’ll be okay. But if I ever get my hands on the asshole who did that to her…”

  Noted. Ryan swallowed hard, even if he’d had the same murderous thoughts.

  “Anyway,” Ormond said. “I owe you one.”

  Ryan caught his breath and jumped off a cliff. “Actually,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”

  Ormond raised his eyebrows. Something about the expression made him think of Lindsey. That was the exact same expression she’d had on her face when he’d shown her the echo point beneath the pier—skepticism stirred into amusement. She hadn’t worn that expression for long, though. Not after he’d kissed her. Not after he’d closed his hands over her ass, after he’d pulled her close and—

  His mouth was as dry as the dirt warning track, and he wished he’d waited another night to broach the subject of a job for his father. Come on, Green. Stop being a pussy. He jumped in. “My father is between jobs right now. And I think he could be just the right man for the Satellites. For the hitting coach position.”

  Ryan paused, realizing he’d run together three sentences in the time it would normally take to say one. But Ormond wasn’t scowling. He wasn’t pounding the button for the elevator or opting to take the stairs instead, anything to get away from a freeloading bastard. Instead, he looked thoughtful. Intrigued, even.

  Ryan took a deep breath and focused on getting the words out. By the time they reached the parking lot, Ormond was nodding in agreement. But Ryan didn’t truly believe anything could work out until the other man said, “Let me talk to Anna. Let me see what we can do.”

  And that was when Ryan’s phone rang, vibrating deep inside his pocket.

  ~~~

  “Hey,” Ryan said, and Lindsey felt her lips curl into a smile at how quickly he’d answered the call.

  “Hey, yourself. That was a great catch.”

  “Um, thanks.”

  There it was again. The same distance she’d felt the night before. The same challenge for her to string words together, to figure out what to say next, to bridge an impossible gap that hadn’t been there at the farmhouse, at Will’s house, at the beach.

  But there was something else going on—she heard a voice in the background. “See you tomorrow,” someone said to Ryan.

  No. Not someone. She’d know her brother’s voice anywhere. She asked, “Are you talking to Zach?”

  There was a pause, and she heard a car door open, then close. “Not any more.” Ryan’s relief was obvious.

  “You were talking to Zach! And you didn’t want him to know I was on the phone!”

  “Well…” he said, and she could picture him squirming. She could see the wincing smile on his lips, the sideways glance as he tried to judge her reaction.

  “I’m going to call him right now! I’m going to tell him that you and I talk every single night. I’ll say—”

  “You didn’t tell him we went to Chester Beach.”

  That took the breath right out of her lungs. But Ryan was right. She hadn’t told Zach about the impromptu road trip, or about TPing Will’s house, either. She’d let her brother think she’d spent four straight days at the farmhouse, licking her wounds, putting the disaster of her non-wedding behind her.

  And she didn’t want t
o think too much about why she’d kept her actions secret. It had something to do with the way Ryan had kissed her, she knew that. And it had even more to do with the way she’d kissed him back, when she was supposed to be in mourning, when she was supposed to be lost and dazed and confused about the way Will Templeton had just left her at the altar.

  But that wasn’t all.

  She hadn’t told Zach because she didn’t want him to think she was just like Beth. Not that her circumstances were anything like her sister’s. She wasn’t in high school, for one thing. And she hadn’t done anything illegal. Maybe not even anything immoral.

  Reminding herself of those differences, she made her excuses to Ryan. “You’re right,” she said. “I’d tell him, if there was any reason for him to know. As it is, he’d just worry about me. Because of the wedding,” she hurried to add. “Not because of you.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second.”

  “You don’t believe I’d tell him?”

  “I don’t believe he wouldn’t worry if he knew about me.”

  Lindsey’s laugh was unsteady as she wiped her palm against her jeans. She had to admit, Zach would go ballistic, if he ever found out what they’d done. Zach had made his rules pretty clear, ever since he’d told her Jesse Barton was no good for her. He’d acted like the pitcher was a serial killer, just because they played on the same team. Truth be told, though, Jesse’s intensity had freaked her out a little bit. The way he’d pushed her up against the wall that time… The way he’d shoved his hands under her shirt, even when she’d told him to stop…

  Zach had made the rules, and they were good ones. They’d kept everyone safe—everyone but Beth—for years. They’d let everyone avoid conflict and drama and angst.

  But rules changed over time. Rules could be broken.