Slow Heat Read online

  Oh, God. Her mother’s pin. She took it and brought it to her heart. “Okay, now I feel like a mean, bitchy idiot.”

  Wade shook his head. “Definitely not mean. And definitely not an idiot either.”

  And as he walked off, he actually left her with a laugh. Because he was right. She was bitchy.

  Dammit.

  Chapter 13

  Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.

  —Frederick B. Wilcox

  Wade walked away from Sam’s office, through the Heat’s huge facility, telling himself to just go home and hit the sack and sleep off this odd sense of restlessness.

  It wasn’t his usual MO after a game, especially after a win, but though he was stopped by Joe and Henry, and then Mason, each of them inviting him to several different parties, he didn’t feel like partying.

  He didn’t know exactly what he did feel like doing . . .

  Okay, lie. A big, fat lie. He knew exactly what he wanted to be doing, or more correctly, who he wanted to be doing.

  One sweet and fiery and sexy Samantha McNead.

  He thumbed through his iPhone as he walked the hall, heading out. A hundred and thirty-five unread e-mails. Ignoring most of them, he went straight to the few that mattered. Pace had sent him more pictures from Mark’s wedding, including a different one of Wade and Sam slow dancing. Her back was to the camera. He couldn’t see her expression but her head was cocked up at him, a little tilted.

  He most definitely had her attention. He was smiling down into her face, his expression a little too open for his own comfort. He saved the e-mail and moved on to the next, from his father.

  I’m breaking out, and thinking of heading south.

  His father was free to do whatever the hell he wanted. He wasn’t a prisoner and never had been. But Wade sighed and called the center to check on him and he was promptly assured that John O’Riley was fine and well and still on site, though he had somehow sneaked in a fifth and had gotten the guys on his floor bombed, then proceeded to win more loot from them at poker.

  Nothing about this surprised Wade. He apologized to the nurse and hung up, shaking his head.

  But it was the next e-mail that really grabbed him—from Sam dated very late last night. Which meant she’d written it after the wedding and he’d somehow missed it earlier. She typed formally as if they hadn’t had each other up against the bathroom wall.

  Wade—I need your assistance for the carnival. I’m putting your name on the ticket. If you have a problem with this, please respond. Otherwise I’ll assume you’re onboard.

  Samantha McNead, Heat Publicist

  He shook his head with a grim smile. Look at her, all professional, being a pain-in-his-ass.

  Good strategy. Hell, it was an excellent strategy.

  And if he hadn’t watched her come for him, multiple times now, thank you very much, each of those times panting his name like he was the be-all-of-the-end-all, he might have even bought the ploy. “But I’m on to you,” he murmured, and forwarded the picture of the two of them dancing to her. He thumbed in a message to go with it.

  Had a great weekend, Sam, pretend or otherwise. I still have your bathroom bag and a sexy little lace bra. You can come get them, or I’ll bring them to you. Oh, and if you have a problem with this, please respond. Otherwise I’ll assume you’re onboard.

  With a small smile, he slid his phone away. Yeah, that was going to chap her sweet ass but good. In the main hall now, he walked past huge boards plastered with press from the past three years of the Heat’s existence, pictures of the team members, their bios, and some of the available merchandise.

  He came face-to-face with his own publicity photo blown up to life-size. In six-foot-plus full-color print, he wore his Heat jersey. He was holding his mitt and bat, smiling easily and confidently into the camera, like he didn’t have a worry in the world.

  Wade looked at himself and suddenly wondered who the hell that was, because he wasn’t feeling so easily confident. Despite the very satisfying win, he was feeling a little off his game.

  Okay, a lot off his game, and it had nothing to do with baseball and everything to do with—

  “Sam.” He stopped in surprise at the sight of her ahead of him. She’d clearly come down the opposite end of the hallway, probably having taken the elevator, not the stairs as he had. She was staring at a kid, who was in turn staring at her, both of them looking like they were watching a horror flick, braced for the psycho villain to pop out any second.

  Sam’s job as publicist often brought her in close contact with kids. Hell, half the Heat’s fans were underage, and Sam had always made a point to cater to them, using child-oriented events to make the Heat’s players accessible to them. On top of that, she pretty much single-handedly ran the 4 The Kids charity that the Heat sponsored, and by all accounts, she loved both the work and the kids.

  So this was odd. It’d only been five minutes max since Wade had seen her in her office, since he’d gathered his stuff, said good-bye to the guys, and walked through the facility. But Sam’s expression said it’d been a rough five minutes. Really rough.

  “Hey,” he said, coming up to her side, sliding a hand to the small of her back. “You okay?”

  She jumped a mile. “Yes.” She nodded wildly. “Absolutely. Yes. Yes I am.”

  He looked into her wide eyes. “That was a couple too many yeses.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She didn’t look fine. She looked . . . panicked. Ditto for the kid. Wade tossed an easy smile at him, but he didn’t respond. He looked to be around ten and had wheat-colored hair that fell over his eyes. His jeans were new but too long, frayed at the cuffs over a set of brand spanking new Nikes. His T-shirt was standard kid-issued and had X-Men splayed across the front. “Hey, man,” Wade said to him. “Gotta name?”

  “Tag.”

  “You watch the game today?”

  “No.” Tag paused, then spoke quietly but with a little defiance in his tone, as if he was scared to death but hell if he was going to show it. “Dad says we only watch the Heat if they’re getting their asses kicked.”

  Sam let out a choked laugh.

  Wade eyeballed her, then turned back to Tag. “So you what, kept your eyes closed during the game?”

  Tag shoved his hands into his pockets and looked at the floor. “I sat in the car with the babysitter on accounta she didn’t answer her phone.”

  No doubt as to who the she was, and above him, Sam made a sound of distress.

  “My phone was off during the game,” she said quietly. “I’m very sorry, Tag. I didn’t know you were coming.”

  Tag jerked a shoulder, doing his best impression of someone who could give a shit.

  But his eyes, big and full of hurt, gave him away. “Are you here to meet the players?” Wade asked him.

  “No,” Sam said. “He’s—”

  “My dad went to rehab,” Tag muttered, again to his shoes. “I have to stay with my Aunt Sam.”

  Aunt Sam. So Tag was Jeremy’s kid.

  “Tag.” Sam put her hand on his shoulders, the kid who was in that awkward stage between child and teen. “We’re going to be fine,” she said, not sounding like she really believed that.

  Tag executed another jerk of his narrow shoulders that dislodged Sam’s hand and tugged hard at Wade. God, he’d been there, right there where this kid was, pissed at the world, with parents who could give a shit, feeling about alone as one could get.

  Tag turned his back on the both of them and stared out the ceiling-to-floor windows to the front parking lot, his fingers resting on the glass, his breath leaving a foggy circle, his shoulders sagged.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you landed,” Sam told him, at a loss in a way Wade had never seen from her before.

  “My dad told you I was coming.”

  Sam closed her eyes, then opened them, looking at Wade with a slow shake of her head, helpless.

  She hadn�