High Heat (Hard Hitters #1) (20 page)

“I need you too. I love you. So much, Tom.” She meant it with all of her heart and soul. Nothing could compete with the way she felt about Tom: the way he supported her, the way he stood up for her. The warmth of his breath warmed her cheek. She reached up to caress his cheek, rough with stubble as usual after a long day without a shave.

He started to speak, but she stopped him with a fingertip on his lips. “I know you’re worried about your dad, like you have some sort of cheater’s DNA that will show up and you won’t be able to stay faithful. But you aren’t your dad. You’re a totally different person. Look how you’ve taken care of your mom! He never did that. It doesn’t matter who you are. No relationship comes with a guarantee, but I’d rather fail with you than succeed with anyone else.”

“I suppose that’s for the best. I can guarantee you will fail.” Her father’s voice from the doorway jerked her head up. She fought the urge to jump out of Tom’s lap like a guilty teenager. He stood in the doorway, his face dark, arms crossed tightly across his chest. He jerked his chin at Tom.

“Paul called to tell me you haven’t torn your ligament. This time.”

“Good news travels fast, I see.” Tom eased Sarah off of his lap and rose, his easy stance betraying not a whiff of the anxiety she felt.

“I wouldn’t call it good news. The way you throw, it’ll be just a matter of time before it happens. You’ll wreck your career, which I don’t give a damn about after you leave this team, but I don’t want you taking my daughter down with you.”

“Dad, he’s hardly going to—”

“Wait a minute,” Tom lifted a hand. “He was talking to me, not you.” He met her father’s gaze, and the confrontation reminded her of a couple of bulls going at it. “Besides, he’s right. You’re right. A lot of people have told me that I’ve brought my injuries on myself, and I’ve always said, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’” His face went grim—this was a million miles from the cocky Tom Cord she knew. “But I have to admit that it’s broken. I thought I could brazen it out, stick with it long enough to win a World Series, and then my arm could fall off for all I cared.”

“You may never win that ring,” her father said. “What’s going to happen if you don’t?”

To Sarah’s surprise, Tom didn’t flinch from the bald question. “I’m ashamed to admit I never even considered it before. It’s time that I did.” He looked at Sarah, eyes warm. “I have some ideas about that, but I need to talk to your daughter about that. Privately,” he emphasized.

“I’m sure you’d like to have all kinds of private conversations with her.” Her father rolled his eyes. “Like the kind you have with that TV floozy you dated.”

“Don’t you ever say something like that again to your daughter,” Tom bit out. Until now, he’d been calm in the face of open hostility from her father, but no more. “You can say whatever the hell you want about me. Whatever you say, I’ve probably done it or been capable of it, but leave Sarah out of it. She doesn’t deserve your contempt.”

Walter Dudley’s mouth tightened. “You’re dragging her down with you. She’s always been such a good kid—”

“I’m not a kid, dad,” Sarah interrupted. “I’m a grown woman, and I need to make my own decisions. I can’t let everything be about the team and the Dudley legacy anymore, especially when you don’t even want me involved. Not really.”

He shook his head. “Your mother would be so disappointed in you.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, speechless not with hurt, but with rage. “How dare you? How dare you invoke her name to suit your ends? Mom would never act the way you’re behaving!”

“That’s not true. She wanted what was best for you.”

“She wanted me to play baseball too, because that’s what I loved, but that never mattered to you, did it?”

He rolled his eyes. “Are we back on that again? Women can’t play in the majors. Universities didn’t even have programs for women back then. It was a dead end!”

“You should have helped me fight that dead end, not crush my dreams and make me give up baseball even sooner.” She took a deep breath. “But that’s over. My point is that you don’t make my decisions anymore, and I’m through with deferring to you, and to the Dudley legacy too.” A bitter taste rose in her mouth. “God! I’ve heard about the Dudley legacy and what it means to this town nearly every day of my life! Too bad the legacy hasn’t done much for me.”

Her father’s chin rose, quivering slightly. “If you don’t care about the legacy, you don’t have to be a part of it. You can clean out your office by the end of the day. You’re fired.”

Arms aching under the weight of a loaded cardboard box, Sarah gazed at the enormous bouquets of roses that covered every surface in her living room—red roses with baby’s breath on the coffee table, tall pink ones interspersed with lilies on the floor, yellow roses clustered with small daises on the end tables.

“Oh my God!” She craned her neck to look at Tom. “Did you do this?”

“Not personally, but I have minions.”

“I didn’t know there were this many flowers in Plainview!” He’d slipped away for a few minutes while she’d been tearfully sorting through her stuff with Tracy’s sniffling assistance. He’d returned with some empty boxes he’d rounded up, but apparently that hadn’t been all he’d been up to. “What’s the occasion?”

Behind her, holding an even bigger box, Tom spoke. “It’s a ‘congratulations on getting fired from your crappy job’ celebration. There’s more to come, don’t worry.”

Sarah laughed, amused despite herself. A man who could make her laugh after the day she’d been through wasn’t one she wanted to let slip away.

She pushed inside the room and lowered the box to the floor, and then buried her nose in the nearest bouquet. The sweet scent of rose came rushing up to meet her, and she breathed deep. It was the first chance she’d gotten to calm down and breathe all morning, and the rush of emotions hit her hard.

Before she could stop herself, the tears flowed. She wiped them away with the sleeve of her blazer. “Dammit, I’m not a crier.”

“I’m sorry, hon. I wanted to make you feel better.” He put down his box and moved to embrace her from behind.

“It does!” she insisted through her sobs.

“Yeah, I can tell it cheered you right up.”

She turned in his arms and whapped him on the shoulder. “It does! It’s been . . . an interesting morning.”

“I’m sorry about those things your dad said to you. I’m sorry you lost your job. He might hire you back after he’s calmed down.” Tom looked so uncertain, her heart reached out to him.

She whapped him again, this time not so gently. “That’s the
last
thing I’d ever do. I have no regrets. None,” she emphasized at the look of doubt on his face. “Well, I regret having a controlling jerk for a father, and I regret letting him get away with it for so long, but that’s about it.”

“What about letting a player into your bed? Do you regret that?” His tone was joking, but the look in his eyes as he waited for her answer told her he truly wondered.

“Not for a moment. You once told me I’d never met a player like you before. You were right.” She cast a glance in the direction of the stairs. “As a matter of fact, I kind of feel like letting a player into my bed right now.”

“Sorry, I can’t do that.”

“What?”

“I can’t wait that long when there’s a perfectly good couch nearby.” He whipped her off of her feet and deposited her on the couch, startling a small scream out of her. Her shock didn’t last long. He hurried her jacket from her shoulders and undid the buttons of her shirt, lighting a fire inside her with them as the flash point. The shirt slipped from her shoulders, and she sat in front of him in her lacy pink bra and trim work trousers. Not the most seductive clothes in the world, but the look on Tom’s face made her feel like a five-alarm seductress. She sat forward and brought her face to his.

“Have I told you I love you, Tom? Because I do.” Speaking those words terrified her, but she couldn’t hold them back anymore. She didn’t want to hold them back. They were true. No matter what happened, even if those words made him run screaming away in fear, at least she was doing what she wanted, and for the right reasons, not to please anyone else.

“I love you, too.” Just like that, he said it, with no hesitating, no equivocating. His lips quirked. “Even though you’ve told me I’m an idiot more times than I’d like to count.”

She smiled right back. “You may be an idiot, but you’re my idiot, and I love you.” She would never grow tired of being able to tell him that she loved him. She’d kept those words to herself for what seemed like forever. She hadn’t let herself even think them, knowing that even acknowledging what was in her heart would make the heartbreak worse when he inevitably left. Now she could say them as much as she wanted. Out loud, without fear of being laughed at or rejected, without fear of having to hold back to guard her heart.

“Let me tell you what I love about you.” He lowered one slim strap of her bra and kissed the soft skin on her collarbone. “I love that you wear sexy underwear under your work clothes and nobody knows it but me.” He did the same to the other strap, sliding it from her shoulders and kissing the bare skin beneath. Her eyes drifted shut, and she let the heat sear through her, spiking at her breasts and in the softness between her thighs.

He reached behind her and unclasped her bra, his face going reverent when her breasts were bared to him. “I love that you have the most beautiful breasts I’ve ever seen, and one of the nastiest sliders too.” Her shoulders shook with silent laughter, but he startled her back to seriousness when he took a nipple into his mouth.

She ran her fingers through his hair. Her nails scraped across his scalp, eliciting a soft groan. She loved the sounds he made when they made love. He didn’t hesitate to show her when he liked something she did. He moved to her other breast, nipping and sucking, and then moving to the center to kiss the soft space between.

“I love that you don’t wear perfume, but you smell like flowers anyway.”

His words wove a spell she could fall under for a very long time. Restless and eager to see his skin, she yanked his T-shirt over his head. As always, the sight of his bare chest left her breathless and dry-mouthed.

“Feel free to jump in any minute to tell me all the things you love about me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Your incredible modesty.”

“Yes, I’ve been told it’s awesome. Go on.”

Ignoring his laughing eyes, she leaned forward to take his nipple into her mouth, letting her tongue toy with the nub. “Mostly I love you because you have an amazing body,” she teased. Okay, that wasn’t true, but she didn’t feel like conversation right this minute. He’d kindled a flame in her and she needed him to give it some attention. “Why don’t you close your mouth and put it to some other use?”

“Ah, a woman who is direct about what she wants. I love that, too.” Together, they slipped off the rest of their clothing, pausing to kiss and touch at every opportunity, like a magnet and metal that couldn’t be kept apart for more than a few seconds.

He slid two fingers inside her, and her body hummed with life. Leaning back, she braced herself on the couch, biting her lips to hold back a cry.

“Let go, Sarah. No one here but me. Yell as loud as you want.” She did, letting go with a cry as he drove her over the brink.

She tried to pull him atop her, but he resisted and reached instead for a condom in his discarded jeans. When he’d donned it, he ignored her outstretched arms and sat beside her instead, and then pulled her atop him. “I want to watch your face,” he whispered. “You’re beautiful when you come.”

Pleasure bloomed in her as she rose to straddle him. “You’re the only man who has ever told me I’m beautiful.” She ran a thumb over the stubble of his cheek.

“Then you have clearly been hanging around with even bigger idiots than me.”

She laughed, a sound that changed to a groan as he slid deep inside her. Self-consciousness vanished. How could it not when he whispered how beautiful, how sexy, how hot she was, and the truth of every word was written on his face?

When she went over this time, he came with her, his fingers digging hard into her hips to hold her tight. She didn’t mind. She didn’t ever, ever want to get away from Tom Cord.

***

Three weeks later

“You looked good tonight,” Sarah said from the passenger seat. She looked cute in a geometric-print dress, nearly covered up by the bulk of his official White Sox warm-up jacket. He’d told her she’d be cold dressed like that in the early autumn night air of Chicago, but she hadn’t listened. He wasn’t the only one who could be stubborn. After the game, he’d seen her goose bumps and draped his jacket across her shoulders, ignoring her protests. She’d shut up and drawn it tighter after a few minutes, he’d noticed.

Tom shot her a grin from behind the wheel of his Range Rover. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

“You’re sweet-talking me to get up my skirts.”

“Honey, when I don’t want up your skirts, better check my pulse, because I might be dead.”

She grinned. Their easy camaraderie felt good.

A lot of things felt good these days. His elbow, for one. His place on the team, for another. He’d learned something lately. He didn’t have to do it all. Sometimes someone else could help him. Sometimes it would be Sarah, sometimes it would be a teammate. Taking that attitude into the clubhouse had won him more friends than he’d ever had on a team before.

He’d always had buddies, sure, and admirers who looked up to him because he won. Now he was making real friends on the team, though, and that felt good.

Last week, at his suggestion, the White Sox had called up Coco Jackson from the Thrashers when their backup catcher went down with a knee injury.

It had been good to pitch to a familiar face.

Nothing in his life felt more right than Sarah, though. He’d talked her into coming to live with him at his penthouse in Chicago. “Just until you figure out what you want to do,” he’d said, not wanting to pressure her. Secretly, he hoped she’d never leave.

To his surprise, she’d agreed. She’d moved out of the Victorian duplex in Plainview and bid Paul a tearful farewell.

“I don’t know if you’re doing the right thing, but Mom would be proud of you for striking out on your own.” Paul’s voice had gone gruff when he hugged her.

“Thanks, bro.”

He’d given Tom a loose hug and a clap on the back. “Take good care of her or I’ll kick your ass.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Tom said with a laugh. “Not that you could kick my ass anyway.”

“Maybe not, but I’d damn sure try.”

Tonight, at U.S. Cellular Field, Sarah had watched Tom’s first start as a member of the Chicago White Sox. He’d pitched seven innings and won.

Of course he had.

He parked his car in the underground garage, and they rode the elevator to his penthouse in companionable silence.

“Have you talked to Dr. Latimer yet?”

Tom nodded. “I called him yesterday. They’re booking me for time at the institute in the off-season for a complete mechanical evaluation. He says he has some ideas that he thinks will help me avoid injury.” The idea of tinkering with his throwing motion still engendered a “Hell, no!” response somewhere deep in his brain, but he had to move past that. For Sarah, and for his own sake.

She squeezed his hand. “It’s the right thing to do. I know.”

Not only was it the right thing to do, but it was necessary to keep Sarah happy. That was okay by him. Having her in his life made him a better man.

He lifted her hand to kiss the knuckle. “Better be. If he screws up my throwing motion and torches my career, it’s your ass.” He scowled, but he didn’t mean it.

She snorted with laughter. “Please.”

He nodded to the uniformed guard in the entry suite just outside the elevator. There was something so nice about coming home together. It was like they were married or something. Deep down, he knew they weren’t. She was staying until she could decide on her next move. She’d been on the phone this morning to a minor league team in Nevada that was interested in hiring a VP of operations.

Nevada.
Nevada.
The opposite freaking side of the country. This thing they had going was the best thing that had ever happened to him. How could they keep it going if she was on one side of the country and he was on the other?

He pushed the thought aside as he deactivated the alarm and then went inside. He threw his keys on the granite island in the spacious kitchen and got a bottle of water out of the fridge. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the lights of the barges on Lake Michigan flickered in the darkness. It might not be South Beach, but his Gold Coast penthouse had a damn fine view all the same. “Want anything?”

“No, thanks.”

Sarah wandered into the living room and turned on the gas fireplace, sliding his warm-up jacket off of her shoulders.

She pulled a leather ottoman over to the front of the hearth and sat down, stretching her hands out to warm them at the blaze. She hadn’t bothered with the overhead light. The warm, golden glow of the fire washed over her, picking up reddish glints in her hair he’d never noticed before. She looked beautiful. She looked like what he’d always wanted but hadn’t known. She looked like home.

He leaned against the island and drank his water, thinking.

He finished the bottle and tossed it in the recycle bin. Before Sarah had come to stay with him, he never would have even thought about a recycle bin. He still forgot to use it half the time, but still. She had him thinking about the future in ways he never had before.

A thought struck him, so perfect that he wondered why he’d never considered it before.

He moved to the living room to stand behind her, pushing her long hair to one side and rubbing her shoulders. His movements elicited a groan from her, but he kept his eyes on her hair. He loved it when she wore it down like this. She’d taken to doing it more often because she knew he liked it.

“How’s your job hunt going?” Her shoulders stiffened at his words, and he wanted to kick himself.

“I don’t know. I’ve got a few leads, I guess, but nothing concrete.” She went silent for a second. “Why? Did you want me to move out?”

“Hell, no. I thought I might have an attractive counteroffer.”

“Counteroffer?” She sounded wary, but at least her muscles softened under his touch. “What’s that?”

“Remember how when I first came to Plainview, you made me show little kids how to pitch?” His hands slid closer together to massage the back of her neck.

She laughed softly. “Yes. I was trying to rehab your image. I should have known it was impossible.”