Center Stage: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 8) (12 page)

So she was still on her rebel kick, still proving she didn’t have to be a jilted bride for the rest of her life. That was great—he
wanted
her to get over that asshole, and all the other jerks she’d ever known. But he didn’t want her just using him, just keeping him around long enough to get her life back on track—especially when her recovery plan apparently meant pissing off her brother.

There had to be some reason Lindsey had chosen tonight to pull him into the laundry room, especially when she hadn’t even picked up her phone when he’d called her three times the day before.

And she knew it too. He felt the moment her hand relaxed in the circle of his grip. She froze, apparently realizing she’d plastered herself against a sweaty, orange-soaked stranger. She pulled away, even though her feet never shifted, even though her body never moved. “I’m sorry,” she said. And now her voice wasn’t throaty, wasn’t flirty at all. She sounded miserable, soft and broken and shy.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said, and he slid his palm up her arm. Now she was collapsing in on herself, shrinking away, but he didn’t let her go. He realized that he was holding her upright, that she might have fallen if he wasn’t there. “What’s this all about, Lindsey? Why didn’t you answer my calls yesterday?”

“I was at an audition.”

He barely heard her answer. But he asked, “And how’d that go?”

“It was terrible!” Her voice caught, hard enough that he knew she was crying. “I—” She swallowed hard. “I went in, thinking I’d be reading for Blanche. But the director said I don’t have the experience for that. He’s Darryl Markham, the best director in Raleigh, and he wanted me to read for a pre-show cabaret. He basically wanted me to wait tables before the real show, to take drink orders with a New Orleans accent!”

Christ. He didn’t know the first thing about acting. He sure hadn’t read the play she wanted to be in. But not even being allowed to try out for a real role at all? That was pretty shitty, after they’d gotten her hopes up. Shitty enough that Lindsey was breaking apart in front of him.

She might have pulled him into the laundry room with a plan to jump his bones, but now that he’d taken that off the table, she seemed totally lost. He heard her catch her breath, and then she sniffed, hard. “Hey,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to do, and that one word was enough—she started to cry in earnest.

He folded his arms around her, pulling her close to his chest. She turned her face to the side, nestling her head against the hollow beneath his clavicle. He tangled his fingers in her hair, flexing his wrist to cradle her closer. Her shoulders surged beneath his arms, and he felt her stifle a sob, biting back her sorrow. “Hush,” he said by reflex, and then she really lost it.

He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t tell her she’d get some role she wanted, that better plays would come along, that she’d be the actress she’d always wanted to be, because he didn’t know shit about theater. But he understood what she was feeling; he knew the gut-check terror that he wouldn’t always be able to play the game, that he’d end up too old, too slow, too broken to do the only thing he’d ever wanted to do.

And so, he held her. He held her while her tears made her cheeks grow slick, while her neck grew hot beneath his palm, while her shoulders hiccuped in a series of broken sobs. He braced his legs, and he tightened his arms around her, and he smoothed her hair and told her everything was going to be all right, even though he didn’t have the first clue how to make that happen.

Finally, she wore herself out. She wore herself out, or she ran out of tears, or she decided she just couldn’t keep standing there and sobbing. She took a deep breath, held it for a count of ten, and exhaled slowly and evenly.

He knew she would pull away from him. But it still felt like he was losing something when she did. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“I’m such an idiot.”

“No you’re not.”

She sniffed, hard, and he wished he had a handkerchief to hand her. He fumbled behind him for one of the shelves, closed his hand over a stack of terry towels. He shook one out and passed it to her, regretting when she took it, when she stepped even farther away.

“You know what? Screw Darryl Markham. Screw Blanche Dubois and screw Tennessee Williams and screw the Vantage Playhouse.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“If he casts me as a goddamn waitress, I do.”

“When do you find out?”

“Thursday.”

Good. The team would still be in town. If she got the role she wanted, if some miracle happened and Markham changed his mind, they could celebrate. If she didn’t, he’d convince her she needed to drown her troubles, needed to do
something
to put the past behind her. Something more than cry her brains out in a pitch-black room.

“We’ll have to wait till Thursday then.”

“We?” she asked. “Like you’re ever going to talk to me again.”

“Oh, I’ll talk to you,” he said, and he imagined she might even smile at that. “It’s not every night I hit a walk-off home run and celebrate like this.”

Good. That made her laugh. A bit shaky, still unsure of herself, of him. But she laughed.

“Come on,” he said. “I need to hit the showers. And you need to get out of here, before anyone catches you on this level.”

She was the one who found the door first, who turned the deadbolt. As she opened the door, the light from the corridor seemed blinding, as bright as noon sun. He bent down and scooped up his soaked jersey, balling it up in his hands so he wouldn’t get any stupid ideas about other things his fingers could be doing. He caught the door from her and gestured for her to move into the hall.

But she only got two steps before she froze. His bare chest came up close against her back. His legs trembled against hers. But she wasn’t moving, not at all. Because she was staring straight into the face of Zach Ormond.

Lindsey recognized that look on Zach’s face. It was the same one she’d seen when Grace had sneaked in after prom, coasting down the driveway in the dark with the front fender of the old Chevy crumpled. It was the one he’d given Rachel when he’d caught her and Tommy Markowitz giving each other tonsillectomies up in the attic one Christmas break. It was the way he’d stared down Dane, when her brother had admitted his girlfriend was pregnant, even though they’d used protection, even though she’d promised she was on the Pill. It was the way he’d glared at Beth a million times, after a million disappointments.

She barely resisted the urge to reach behind her, to twine her fingers with Ryan’s.

That wasn’t going to help. Instead, she told herself to breathe, to take a step forward, to move away from the comforting warmth of Ryan’s chest, from the trembling alertness she felt in every line of his body that pressed against hers. She glanced over her shoulder and jerked her head toward the locker room. “Go ahead,” she said.

“I’ll stay.”

“I’m fine,” she asserted.

“I know that.”

Men!
Lindsey almost screamed the word out loud. Instead, she turned to Ryan, making sure their eyes met. She read the fierce determination in his gaze, the absolute certainty that he would protect her, that he would keep her safe.

But Zach wasn’t any threat to her safety. He never had been. He never would be. He was the older brother who loved her, who shielded her, who nurtured her when she needed someone who absolutely, unequivocally had her best interests in mind. Even if he was as stubborn as a mule.

She raised her hand to Ryan’s jaw, letting her fingertips tingle against the rough growth of his new beard. “Please,” she said.

And he listened to her. He clutched his own fingers tighter in his orange-stained jersey; she felt the movement ripple up his arm, through his shoulder, into the tight line of his clenched jaw. But he turned his head to the side, brushing his lips across her palm. And then he stalked off toward the locker room, not looking back.

Zach’s voice was steady as he said, “You’re not supposed to be down here.”

“I was just leaving.”

He let her take three steps before his voice shut her down. “Don’t do this, Lindsey.”

She whirled back. “Do what?”

She thought he might back down if she confronted him directly. But he didn’t. Instead, he sighed and shook his head, looking more like their father than she’d ever seen him before. “Take some time for yourself. Figure out what
you
want. Don’t go jumping in to some new relationship before—”

“Before what, Zach? Before I’m ancient and dried up and grey?”

“You’re twenty-five years old, Linds. You’ve got time.”

Dammit! She wanted him to react. She wanted him to get angry. She didn’t want him to sound all calm and understanding and logical. “I’m a big girl, Zach,” she said. “I can do whatever I want to do.”

“Yep,” he agreed. “But I don’t want to be the one to pick up the pieces.”

“Have I
ever
asked you to pick up the pieces?” She heard the shrill edge in her voice, the frantic bite of anger. Consciously, she dialed back her tone, applying all her skill as an actor, everything she’d ever learned about sounding sincere, about projecting certainty and calm and control. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me. But I promise you, I’m fine. I’m doing exactly what I want to do. When I want to do it.”

Zach nodded, just like he believed her. “Great.”

His acceptance threw her. She made herself straighten her shoulders. She raised her chin. She knew how to convey
confidence
to the very last row of a theater, when she put her mind to it. “Fine,” she said. “Thank you for treating me like an adult.”

He started to say something. Started to reach out, too, like he was going to tug on her hair, the way he’d done ever since she’d worn braids and gotten in his way when he was racing his bike up a ramp on the driveway. But he stopped himself as if he knew she’d bristle at the old, protective gesture. Instead, he jutted his chin toward the end of the hallway. “Go on,” he said. “Get out of here.”

“I’m going.”

“And if security catches you down here again, you’ll be banned from the park.”

Yeah, yeah.
She thought the words, but she didn’t say them. Because she knew Zach had his limits. She’d pushed every one of his buttons, and she’d won this round. It wasn’t often she could say that about the world’s most over-protective older brother. She was going to revel in her victory.

~~~

Less than twenty-four hours later, Ryan found the note on his locker. Two words: “See me.” And the initials Z.O.

He glanced at the giant clock on the wall, safe behind its wire screen. Two hours before batting practice officially began. No excuses. He took the elevator up to the executive offices.

Ormond looked up from a stack of paperwork, as if some sixth sense had told him Ryan was approaching. “Close the door,” he said, climbing to his feet and walking around his desk. Ryan obliged, and then he crossed the office, planting his feet like he was stepping in at the plate against the league’s hardest-throwing closer.

“Leave my sister alone,” Ormond said, each word steady and even.

“Lindsey isn’t a child.” Ryan’s fingers wanted to curl into fists.

“No. She’s a woman. A fragile woman who had a terrible shock a week and a half ago. On top of a bad one two years ago.”

“She’s not as fragile as you think she is.” There hadn’t been anything fragile about her—not the night she drove away from her disastrous wedding, not the night she’d wrapped herself around him underneath the pier. Even last night, in the locker room—sure, she’d ended up crying, but she’d been the one to get things going, to sneak into the clubhouse, to lure him into the laundry room.

Lindsey was messed up—two different men had been shitty to her, and that director wasn’t doing her any favors, telling her she wasn’t good enough to even try out for the role she wanted. But she wasn’t the china doll her brother made her out to be. Far from it.

Ormond shifted his weight. “You don’t get a vote, Green.”

“But Lindsey does.”

“Fine. Let me put it this way. Cut it out with my sister or your father’ll be out on his ass with the Satellites.”

Ryan had expected Ormond to throw his best pitch. But he was amazed by the steady flame that kindled in his gut, by the grim defiance that buckled around him as he realized this battle wasn’t going to disappear any time soon. “You wouldn’t do that,” he said, pretending a certainty he didn’t feel.

“Try me.”

“My father’s a great hitting coach. The Satellites are lucky to have him.”

“Your father coached a Little League team and helped out at your high school. He’s literally out of his league down there.”

“The Sats’ record improved the second he got to work.”

“The Sats got back from a killer road trip.”

Ormond met his eyes. That was the same steady gaze Ryan had seen on the baseball diamond for years, the cool analysis that guided skittish pitchers through tough at-bats, that led the team season after season, inventing new ways to compete, new ways to win.

“Don’t test me, Green. Lindsey needs to get back on her feet. She has to get her life straightened out, without another asshole jerking her around. Leave her alone, and your father keeps his job. It’s that simple.”

Ormond took a step back, sending a message as clear as day. He was dismissing Ryan, showing he was in absolute control—of this meeting, of the team, of Lindsey’s life. “Now get your ass downstairs and suit up,” he said.

And Ryan obliged.

But as he tugged on his cleats, he told himself he wasn’t about to concede to Zach’s demands. He yanked the laces tight and vowed he’d get his way.

He’d call his father tonight, first thing after the game, warn him to buckle down. And then he’d get to work himself, getting a hell of a lot more creative about how he spent time with Lindsey.

Because if there was one thing he’d realized, standing there in that air-conditioned office, with the mahogany desk, and the pictures of Rockets Field framed on the walls, it was this: Ryan wasn’t leaving Lindsey. And there wasn’t a goddamn thing her brother could do about it.