Double Play Read online

  “Bat up, smart-ass.” He ducked to avoid getting clocked in the head with it. “River, grab a ball.”

  “Yeah!” the kid said with enthusiasm and leapt back to the mound.

  “Lob it softly,” Pace directed. “Very softly.”

  “I can do it,” Holly protested, and gave a little wriggle to get her stance right. A wriggle that put her butt right up against the button fly of his Levi’s and very nearly had his eyes rolling back in his head.

  “Don’t hold back,” she demanded of River with yet another wriggle.

  Jesus. “Trying to keep you alive here,” he said in her ear. “Go with me on this.”

  She craned her neck and looked at him, the kind of look that turned him on and upside down and inside out, and he had to laugh at her. At him. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Don’t try to kill the ball, just connect with it. And keep your eyes on it.”

  She rolled them first, then nodded to River as Pace backed out of the way.

  “Wait for your pitch,” he said. “Swing level, and follow through.”

  When she connected, she didn’t drop the bat, she didn’t run for first. Instead, she executed the cutest, sexiest little boogie dance he’d ever seen and whirled to him, nearly knocking him out with the bat. “See?” she asked, eyes lit with joy. “Told you I could hit.”

  It was a foul ball that any first baseman worth his salt would have caught in less than four seconds. Hell, Danny caught it, and he was nearsighted, farsighted, and had an astigmatism to boot, but Pace found that looking into Holly’s wide, reveal-all eyes, he couldn’t take it away from her by saying so. Tough as she was, smart and cynical as she was, when she looked at him like that, he also saw a flash of vulnerability, and it scared him.

  He didn’t want to be her soft spot.

  So he turned from her and gestured to the guys to get into their positions. Since he couldn’t even toss the damn ball, let alone pitch to them for hitting practice, he sat on his ass on the sidelines nursing his damn shoulder like a baby while he called out directions. “River, watch that foot. Remember, your foot is your lead.”

  And Jesus, now he sounded like Red.

  Not a bad thing, he had to admit. He’d learned some of his best moves from Red, on and off the diamond. And it’d been from watching Red and Tucker together that he’d learned what a real father-son relationship should be like.

  “You’ll be a good dad.”

  He turned to look at Holly, who’d come to sit next to him. She’d been playing left field, but since no one could hit that far, it was a waste of her dubious talents. But that she’d even tried had been . . . entertaining. Her nose was sunburned, and she had more freckles coming out. “I’m not planning on being a dad in the near future,” he said as something clenched hard in his gut. “Unless you know something I don’t.”

  “We used condoms, Pace. Don’t worry, I won’t show up with a baby and a request for a diamond ring.” She took a look at his face and shook her head. “Okay, I’m teasing you, but clearly I hit a nerve. Did someone try to tie you down?”

  “No.”

  She arched a brow, and he sighed. “I told you. I was with someone I gave brief thought to marrying, emphasis on the brief.”

  “You actually got down on one knee and everything?”

  “I was young,” he muttered when she grinned. “And I didn’t get down on one knee because I’d pulled my ACL that season. Which was part of the problem.”

  “She dumped you because of a pulled ACL?”

  “How do you know I didn’t dump her? Never mind,” he said when she opened her mouth. “Doesn’t matter. It didn’t work out. She refused to deal with me being gone for seven months out of the year, and I refused to quit playing ball. We were young and selfish, and love wasn’t enough. We broke up. Mutually.”

  “It still sucked,” she guessed.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry if you got hurt.”

  “Part of life.”

  She lifted a shoulder.

  “Which you don’t agree with,” he guessed. “Because you’ve managed to avoid such hurt.”

  “Not entirely,” she reminded him.

  “Right. Asshole Alex.”

  She choked out a laugh but fell silent.

  “And if you were pregnant,” he said after a long moment. “I’d want to know.”

  She looked at him. “Why?”

  “Why?” He stared at her, stymied by the question, which he thought was obvious. “Because you shouldn’t do it alone.”

  Her eyes chilled. “I could handle it. I can handle anything.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. Jesus.” He shoved his fingers through his hair. “I just meant . . .” What, genius? You’d meant what? “That no one should have to do it alone.”

  She was running the grass through with her fingers, ignoring him, and he sighed. “There’s one more thing.”

  “What?” Her voice was frosty as she lifted her gaze to his.

  “I’d want to know,” he said quietly. “Okay? I’d want to . . .”

  “Run like hell?”

  “Hey, give me a break here. New territory.”

  “Certainly.” She rose to her feet, brushed off her hands, then cupped them around her mouth. “You guys about done? I’m springing for ice cream.”

  “Holly—”

  She didn’t hear him over the cheers. That, or she ignored him, which was more likely. Pace just looked at her, the woman who could do anything she wanted all by her damn self, and wondered how the hell it was that when he was with her, he sort of wished she needed him, just a little.

  Chapter 19

  Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire’s eye or on the ball.

  —Jim Murray

  Pace slept like crap and woke up before dawn, wishing he could skip the next few hours.

  Surgery day.

  To give himself a few quiet moments before facing that, he read Holly’s latest blog entry. She’d written about the players’ support teams—the wives, girlfriends, and significant others—and the pressures these people faced alongside their famous mates. She’d written about how those pressures led players to do things to keep up with other players that they normally wouldn’t do.

  Things like steroids and stimulants.

  She pointed out how some of these drugs came in varieties so new and unstudied they weren’t yet even on the banned list, but they would be added as the commissioner discovered them, in spite of the fact that these substances weren’t mind-altering like other illegal substances. Nor were they as potentially dangerous as a few too many beers before going on the road, which put other people in danger, not just the athlete. She pointed out the irony of such contradictions, and then brought up drugs that weren’t banned, like muscle relaxants and simple ibuprofen, and posed the question, should those things be added to the list as well?

  As all her articles had been, it was incredibly well written and thought out, and, he was forced to admit, she’d nailed both the glory and the inherent problems of the sport.

  He took a long hot shower, gritted his teeth at the movement required to towel off, then dressed and looked at the clock. Five thirty. He had to be at the hospital in thirty minutes, so he headed out, stopping short at the sight of Holly in his driveway, leaning on her car, arms and feet casually crossed, watching him. On her trunk sat a grocery bag, and she picked it up and held it out.

  “What is it?” he asked warily.

  “Well, it’s not a hammer to hit you over the head with.” Her lips curved briefly. “Which you look like you’re expecting. The kids packed you a care package. Cookies and Dr Pepper, the apparent breakfast of champions.”

  “My favorites,” he murmured, not even trying to hide his surprise.

  “Interesting palette, but yeah, they wanted to bring you a comfort snac