Center Stage: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 8) (18 page)

“You heard him. He said—”

“Like you’ve never said a bunch of macho crap, when you didn’t get your own way?” Dad laughed, though, to take the sting out of the comment. He settled back in his recliner, forgetting about the laundry. “Do you remember, son, when you played in your first Little League tournament?”

“Yeah. I got creamed by the other team. I walked off that field thinking I’d never put cleats on again.”

“And do you remember sitting down to dinner when we got home?”

He did. Mom had hauled out cold fried chicken and gallons of potato salad, along with a peach pie she’d baked before she ever left for the park. It was like she’d known he’d want pie, no matter what happened—celebration or consolation prize. “Yeah,” Ryan said, wishing his mother was there now, wishing he could hear a woman tell him he wasn’t a total fuck-up.

“And do you remember telling me you wanted to quit?” Dad asked. “That you wanted to stop playing baseball?”

“Yeah. And I remember you telling me I could walk away any time I wanted. That if I quit that just meant baseball wasn’t important to me. If I could leave it behind, then I never really loved it. But if I did love it, then I wouldn’t let anything else get in the way of it, ever.”

“Even if the thing getting in the way of it seemed huge and impossible,” Dad reminded him, quoting his own words from decades before.

“Okay!” Ryan said, but he couldn’t help laughing. “You don’t have to draw me a road map. I get it. You can forget about dragging out the violins, or the Hallmark cards, or whatever else you’ve got piled up back in the kitchen.”

“She’s worth it, son.”

“I know she is.” And as Ryan said the words, a band eased across his chest. Lindsey was worth it. Lindsey was worth everything. All he had to do was figure out a way to tell her that.

~~~

Lindsey settled her purse on her shoulder as Dominic wrapped up the last of his comments. “That first read-through was brilliant! We have a lot to work with here, a lot to explore. I look forward to seeing Medea and Jason at rehearsal tomorrow.” Lindsey smiled across the table at her co-star. She didn’t know anyone in this cast, as distant as they were from Children’s Repertory Theater, but she’d been thrilled by the directions people took in their first reading. And she’d been pleased at how receptive they were to her vision for the vengeful Greek queen.

She collected her script and headed toward the door with the rest of the cast. One person suggested they head toward Mike’s for an all-cast dinner; another thought Capodimonte’s would be great, a real celebration to mark the beginning of the new play. Her heart squeezed a little when she heard the name of the Italian restaurant, but she consciously told herself to relax. Sure, she and Ryan had eaten there. But she had the rest of her life to reclaim places they’d been, things they’d done.

In any case, Mike’s seemed to win out, by general cast acclaim. It was just a block away; no one needed to move their cars. Lindsey was just shifting over to talk to the woman playing the Chorus when a shape detached itself from the building.

No. Not a shape. A man.

Ryan.

She stopped dead. All of the sensation in her fingers and toes drifted away, and she couldn’t be sure she was still holding on to the strap of her purse. Her feet didn’t seem anchored to the ground.

“Lindsey?” Dominic called over his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said. And she was grateful she already had the role of Medea, because no one in his right mind would ever have believed the acting job she packed into
that
lie. The Chorus and Jason dropped back, but Lindsey held up a hand to stop them. “No,” she said, and her voice was still weak, but she had the presence of mind to shake her head. “I really am fine. I’ll catch up to you in a minute.”

At least they didn’t treat her like a child. The cast rolled on down the street, lapsing into a spirited discussion of
Medea
’s place in the canon of Greek tragedies, its relative worth as a play, as a statement about the human condition.

“You got the role,” Ryan said quietly.

It wasn’t a question. She didn’t answer. Instead, she asked, “What do you want, Ryan?”

“To say I’m sorry.”

That surprised her; she’d expected him to beat around the bush, to pretend there was something else that might possibly bring them together. But it wasn’t enough. It didn’t make up for the last two weeks. It didn’t begin to erase the searing pain she’d felt when she’d looked from the man she loved—the man she
thought
she loved—to her brother. It didn’t wash away the bitter truth of realizing she was just a pawn to both of them, a piece to be manipulated like every opposing player they’d ever hit against in a ball game. “Great,” she said. “Got it.” She pressed past him to catch up to the cast, to her new life.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think you do.”

He tried to match her, stride for stride. He limped though, his gait hitching sharply as he tried to use his right leg. She didn’t have the heart to power-walk past him. Instead, she turned to face him, filling her lungs with a deep breath in desperate hope that the air would stop the dizzying buzz that filled her head.

“Okay, Ryan. You’re sorry. I hear that. But are you sorry you lied to me when you said Zach knew about us? Or are you sorry you chose your father instead of me? Or are you just sorry you got caught?”

He winced, and she couldn’t tell if the pain was in his leg or from her words. He leaped into the silence, though, when she stopped for breath. “I was wrong,” he said, before she could load fresh ammunition. “Every time I made a choice, I thought I was doing it for the right reasons. And every time, it just made everything worse. I promised my mother, literally on her death bed, that I’d take care of my father, and I didn’t. Not until it was almost too late. Not until there was almost no bringing him back.”

She listened to his words. But she
heard
the emotion behind what he was saying. She heard his voice thicken as he barely swallowed tears, as he fought to push down the feelings—frustration, sorrow, guilt—that flashed across his face.

“And I was wrong when I didn’t tell Zach about us. At first, I told myself it was none of his goddamn business. He was my teammate, not my priest. And you’re his sister, not his daughter. He didn’t have a right to tell us what to do. But he did it because he loves you. He wants to protect you, and I know that, I understand that.”

She didn’t want to hear his voice soften. She didn’t want to listen to him being kind, being good. Because if he was a good man, if he was doing the right and honorable thing, then it would hurt a million times more to walk away from him, to leave everything they had behind.

“But most of all, I was wrong at the airport. I should have stopped everything there. I should have stood up for what I knew was right, for how I knew I felt. I didn’t want to hurt my father. I didn’t want him to think the team had just hired him as a favor to me. And I didn’t want to hurt you. You have to believe me, Lindsey. I never meant to hurt you. But there wasn’t enough time. There weren’t enough words.”

“I want to believe you,” she said. “But I just don’t trust myself. I don’t trust you. I’ve screwed up too many times before—with Doug, with Will.”

“I’m not those other guys.” He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. He licked his lips, then swallowed hard. He waited until she was looking at him, until she was drowning in the dark pools of his eyes. “It took me two weeks to figure out the only words I needed, back there at the airport, the only thing I should have said. I love you, Lindsey.”

She caught her breath and started to pull away.

He only tightened his grip on her fingers. “I think a part of me always loved you, from the second I saw you at the stadium, when you were only Zach’s kid sister. Because it feels like I’ve known you forever, like we’re supposed to be together. That’s why I was at the wedding. That’s why I followed you out to the farmhouse. I love you now, and I loved you then, but it wasn’t until I lost you, until I thought I’d never see you again… God, Lindsey. I had to come here today. I had to try. I’m sorry for all the mistakes I made, all the crap I said, all the things I didn’t say. The only three words I ever should have said were
I love you
.”

His fingers tightened around hers, and she realized she was trembling. Emotion shook her entire body, like she was a sapling caught in a monsoon, like she was about to be lost in a maelstrom she could never, ever control.

But Ryan
was
different from the other men. He’d first watched over her because he thought she needed to be protected. But he’d awakened something in her, sparked to life her own fierce will to protect herself. He’d taught her how to stand up in an audition, how to set aside her past as a protected little girl and claim her own power as a woman.

That’s why she’d come to him in the middle of the night, daring to bare her soul, a greater risk even than baring her body. That was why she’d taught herself to use her words, to say what she meant, what she wanted.

She loved Ryan. She had loved him from the moment she first kissed him, before that even, from the instant they were first joined together—in the closed capsule of his sports car as he sped away from the TP job at Will’s house. So she lifted her free hand to cup the strong line of his jaw. “Ryan,” she whispered, but then her voice gained strength. “I love you too.”

He didn’t look away as he reached into his pocket. Instead, he raised his palm between them, urging her a heartbeat closer as she stared at the treasure he held. “It isn’t a modern setting,” he apologized. “You might hate it. You might want a bigger diamond. I understand that, and I promise you, whatever you want is yours. But this was my mother’s engagement ring. And I’d be the happiest man on earth if you’d agree to wear it. If you’d agree to marry me, Lindsey Ormond.”

As she stared, the white gold circle blurred. The marquise diamond swam like it was under water. Only when she blinked did she feel tears whispering down her cheeks.

And even though Ryan loved her, even though he’d freed her, opened up a path for her that she’d never walked before, he failed to understand her tears. She heard his voice tighten as he said, “You don’t have to take my word for it. Call Zach. He knows I’m here. I told him I was asking you to marry me. I’m not hiding anything any more.”

She shook her head. She hadn’t been thinking of Zach. She hadn’t been worried about what her brother thought, how he wanted to keep her safe, what he thought she needed in her life. “No,” she said.

But Ryan cut her off. “Call him. Please.”

She could stand there on the sidewalk forever. She could protest that she didn’t need to call. She could insist she was her own woman, that no one controlled her, that she wasn’t some chattel to be passed from her brother to the man she loved.

But Ryan needed her to take some action. He needed her to make the call. He needed to be absolved from the mistakes he’d made, from the way he’d hurt her so badly in the past.

So she took out her phone. She thumbed the screen to life. And she laughed when she saw the text message, bright as the noonday sun, short and to the point, because that’s the way Zach always was. “Be happy. You and Ryan both.”

Ryan’s laugh was louder than her own when he read the message. But then he grew serious as he looked back at the diamond ring he still displayed on his palm.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, and she let him place it on her finger. His hands were gentle, as if he were afraid the ring would break, that
she
would shatter.

She couldn’t let him treat her like she was made of glass. And there was one quick fix for that. She slipped her arms around his waist, pulling him close. When he resisted, when he looked to the street, glanced up and down the sidewalk, she only arched her back, leaning into the automatic circle of his firm, supporting hands, matching her hips to his in a way that telegraphed just how badly she wanted him. How much she needed him.

When their lips met, her heart skipped a beat. She drank down strength from him, felt his balance and confidence and certainty flow into every corner of her body. His pulse, strong and steady, thrummed through her veins. She forgot they were on a sidewalk, forgot the cast was waiting for her, forgot they had anywhere else they could ever need or want to be.

But when she finally pulled away, just enough to trace his lips with a fingertip, she felt the real world shift back into place. The real world—with its rehearsal schedules and baseball series, with its performances and games.

“This time,” she whispered, “let’s forget about a church. Let’s just find a justice of the peace. We can invite your father, my sisters and brothers. Our families, and the two of us, that’s all we need. That’s all we ever needed.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” he said. “I even have a decent bottle of champagne for us to toast with. A Dom Perignon.”

She laughed, thinking that it had been a lifetime since she’d handed him that bottle. The best night of her life—she just hadn’t known it yet.

He reached for his own phone. “I haven’t told Dad yet. We should give him a call.”

“Better yet,” Lindsey said, “let’s drive out to Chester Beach and tell him. Just hand over the keys, Hotshot, and show me where you parked the car.”

“You’re killing me,” he said, laughing.

“That’s the idea,” she countered. And she held out her hand until he dropped the keys into her palm.

Read on, for a sneak peek at the next Diamond Brides romance,
Always Right
!

~~~

It was a beautiful day for a baseball game—right up to the moment Kyle Norton heard the crunch of titanium and plastic under his right cleat.

The stadium looked like it belonged in some kid’s drawing. The noon sun blazed out of a bright blue sky, and huge white clouds floated high above Rockets Field. Batting practice was in full swing, with the Rockets’ power hitters behind the plate. Kyle was shagging fly balls in right field, keeping an eye on the practice pitcher throwing strike after strike, watching his teammates pound balls to the outfield.