High Heat (Hard Hitters #1) (9 page)

“I have to! I have to be professional.” Not to mention sexless. “Do you know how much hell my dad would raise if I showed up at work in high heels and a short skirt?”

“I totally understand.” Tracy’s blue eyes went wide. “But I thought for a social event like this, you’d be more interested in something a little more glamorous.” She gnawed on her lower lip.

Sarah frowned. “I can see you want to say something. Out with it.”

“There are bound to be . . . comparisons.” She spit the last word out after a hesitation, and Sarah’s eyebrow raised.

“Comparisons?”

“You know. Between you and the other women Tom has dated. You’ll be on his arm. People will think about who he’s gone out with before.”

Sarah caught her lip between her teeth. She was tempted. She really was. But she had to remember, this wasn’t a date. It was a work function, one she had no choice but to participate in. Her old blue dress would be fine. She was regular Sarah Dudley, cute in a tomboy way, but not even the prettiest girl at Plainview High. No one would expect her to look like Christina Caputo.

She shook her head. “Thanks, but no. I’m sure you do great work, but my old dress will be fine.”

Tracy shrugged. “Okay, if that’s the way you feel.” She’d disappointed her assistant, she could tell.

After Tracy left, Sarah settled down behind her desk to get some work done. Pulling up the Internet, she visited several of the baseball blogs she monitored regularly to keep tabs on developments in both the major and minor leagues.

At the second site, an ad popped up.

“See gossip about all the star athletes!” blared the headline, superimposed over a picture of Tom ushering Christina Caputo out of a limo. Great. If she wasn’t mistaken, that was the same fashionably tattered black dress she’d been wearing the night of the big hoo-ha reveal.

“There are bound to be comparisons.” It was as if Tracy were standing over her shoulder, whispering a dismal prophecy in tones of doom.

Hating herself, Sarah clicked the ad, which brought up a sports gossip blog. The second heading, after a story about performance-enhancing drug use in football, was a link called “The Women of Tom Cord.”

She really shouldn’t do this. It would make her miserable, and it wouldn’t tell her anything she didn’t know already.

She clicked the link. The first picture in the slide show was from years ago, not long after he’d entered the big leagues. She recognized the leaner build and longer hair from his college days. On his arm at the golf charity event was a busty girl with bleach blonde hair. His arm snaked around her curvaceous hips, right above her brief white shorts.

She clicked again to see a photo of him with Annabella Selinko, the lingerie model. Sarah groaned. She’d nearly forgotten Tom had been involved with her.

Another click brought up a sexy redhead. Three more clicks brought up three blondes in a row. He must like blondes. She eyed her own dark tresses. Dammit.

With a firm click, she closed the slide show. She’d known that was a mistake, but she’d done it anyway. Of course Tom had been with a lot of beautiful women, but seeing the slide show brought it home with visceral reality.

Exhaling slowly, she made a decision.

“Tracy,” she called through the open door. Her assistant appeared in a moment. “Can you come over to my place tonight?”

“Sure.” Her assistant’s brow rose. “Any particular reason?”

Sarah nodded grimly. “Bring your sewing kit.”

Tracy’s face lit up with a smile. “You’ll be glad you did. We’ll make something so sexy for you, Tom is going to lose it!”

The prospect sent Sarah’s heart into a double-time beat. She shouldn’t even want to make a good impression on him, but for some stupid reason, she did. May God help her not to make a complete freaking fool of herself.

***

“Oh my God, this was a giant mistake.” Sarah took a look at herself in the bathroom mirror and made the pronouncement.

“Would you stop it?” Tracy said. “You look fantastic!” Her assistant had taken measurements, suggested alterations, and pinned and marked with an old piece of chalk. After a couple days of work, she’d brought the dress over for tonight’s fitting. She’d transformed the frumpy garment into something even Sarah recognized as truly special.

“Oh, Tracy,” she’d sighed when she’d first seen it. “I think you might be wasting your time as my assistant.”

She’d tried to pay Tracy for her time, but her assistant had refused. During the fittings and alterations, they’d laughed and giggled like two old school friends, not employer and employee.

Sarah had to admit she’d liked that part best. Chatting with a girlfriend felt good. She could laugh and talk about clothes and didn’t have to worry about whether male coworkers thought she was too girly for the man’s world she lived in. Yet Tracy lived and worked in baseball too. When Sarah talked to her, she didn’t have to deal with those expressions of boredom or comments about hot players in tight pants that she always got when she discussed her job with most women.

Not that Sarah didn’t approve of hot players in tight pants. No doubt about it. She just couldn’t let on, or she’d lose her job.

She eyed herself again in the mirror. Objectively, she had to admit she’d never looked better. Not only had Tracy done a fabulous job of overhauling her old gown, but she’d also recommended some delicate, strappy gold sandals and a clutch bag to match from Dodd’s Shoes downtown. She and Tracy had gone together to pick them up this morning.

Sarah enjoyed the outing far more than she’d expected. Some women made shopping a social occasion, going out with their girlfriends or moms, but she’d never been one of those women. She’d always been more of a get-in, get-out kind of shopper, but with a friend at her side, she’d discovered the joys of wandering up and down the aisles, exclaiming over beautiful shoes and mocking ridiculous ones.

It had been fun. The kind of fun she hadn’t even known she’d been missing.

She’d known Elmore Dodd, the shoe store’s owner, since she was a kid shopping for Mary Janes with her mom, and never had she bought anything so . . . impractical. Feminine.

As he’d rung up her purchase, old Elmore had asked a million questions about her “special occasion.” She’d been forced to admit, after an interrogation that would have done Plainview’s finest proud, that she was Tom’s date for the All-Star party. Elmore’s wrinkled face had lit up and she’d known word would be all over town before nightfall.

Good thing she’d already broken the news to her father and Paul.

Her father had erupted at first, predictably, but calmed when she’d pointed out the alternatives.

“You don’t want him showing up with the Bailey twins on his arm, do you? It will be all over the Internet before you know it.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Walter Dudley sighed and shook his head. “That boy’s a fine ballplayer, but I think he may be a sexual deviant.”

She wanted to tell him she was fairly sure Tom wouldn’t actually have a threeway with the Baileys, but bit it back just in time. Some knowledge was better to keep to yourself.

“You make sure you keep it professional, you hear?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Paul had said with a sigh.

She hoped so too.

“What are you going to wear?” she asked Tracy. “Have you whipped up something sexy for yourself?”

Tracy straightened and pulled the pins from her mouth, poking them one at a time back into her pin cushion. “I don’t know if I’ll go. I haven’t got a date this year.” Her disappointment was plain. The All-Star party came mid-season and was the biggest social event the team had all year.

Sarah frowned. “I know the feeling. Eligible bachelors don’t exactly grow on trees around here.” She thought for a moment. “Wait, how about I fix you up with Rich? I know he’s disappointed that he won’t be able to attend this year.”
And gorge himself at the trough,
she added mentally. “It would be perfect for you to go together. Just as friends, of course. I know he’s probably not your type. He’s a few years older than you.”

He was a few years older chronologically speaking, anyway. Rich might only be thirty, but he had the youthful outlook and exuberant spirit of a man of seventy-two.

“Really?” Tracy looked as if she was waiting to hear the catch. “You wouldn’t mind? I thought you guys were serious.”

Serious? About Rich? Did everyone in town have her married off to him in their minds? “No, I wouldn’t say that. I’ll give Rich a call if you want me to.”

“That would be great! I mean,” Tracy continued after a moment, “I’d love to have a date for the party. With anybody, you know. Not Rich in particular or anything.” Kneeling, she brushed a stray thread away from Sarah’s hem.

“Okay. I’ll get on it,” Sarah said, distracted by the view in the mirror. She’d need to make a quick trip to the department store to see what they had in the way of push-up bras. The changes Tracy had made put her cleavage on full display, so it would be nice to actually have some, even if Mother Nature needed a little help.

Not that she wanted Tom Cord to look at her cleavage, of course, but dammit, she had pride. If she ended up in a slide show of “the women of Tom Cord,” she at least wanted to look the part, even if she knew she could never really fit in.

Oh, my.

Sarah’s mouth went dry at the sight on her front porch. Tom had been right.
That
was not the kind of tux that Junior wore to the prom. The pure white of the shirt against the jet-black suit jacket and vest set off Tom’s dark hair and blue eyes to perfection. And the cut of that fabric across his broad shoulders . . .

Oh.
Her eyes lingered on the expanse of his chest and it left her breathless. Instead of a traditional bow tie, he’d worn a slender necktie, which suited him so much better. It was a crucial touch of Tom Cord irreverence in an otherwise traditional outfit. Her heartbeat settled into a slow thud.

Her vow to keep it professional tonight might be in a teensy, tiny bit of trouble.

“Hi.” His mouth slid into a wicked curve as his eyes took in her dress, lingering at the expanse of leg bared by the short skirt. She might not have a lot to fill out her top, but she had to admit she had lean, sexy legs to spare. “You look amazing.”

“Thanks,” she mustered after a moment, hoping she didn’t sound as distracted and off-balance as she was. She’d expected dressing up to give her some element of control, make her feel like she wasn’t totally out of place and in over her head as Tom’s date for the night. But she wasn’t in control at all. She could hardly take her eyes off of him. He had to have noticed, if the glint in his eyes was any indication, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“Ready?” he prompted.

“Um, sure.” Somehow she gathered her scattered wits enough to lock the door behind her. She followed him to his BMW and tried not to feel like a fraud.

At the Knights of Columbus hall, he grinned as led her to the building. “It’s not exactly the red carpet in Hollywood, is it?”

“Have you been to a Hollywood red carpet?” She winced as soon as the words left her mouth. Of course he had. Among his many girlfriends had been a B-list sexpot with a penchant for dating baseball players. Surely she’d dragged him to a few premieres in her time.

“Yeah, but never with a more beautiful woman on my arm.” His voice was so warm, she forgot to roll her eyes and scoff at the cheesy line. In a moment, they were at the top of the stairs leading into the nineteen thirties–era brick Art Deco building that had been the site of countless Plainview wedding receptions, reunions, and parties.

Her father spared no expense for the annual All-Star party. The overhead lights had been left off, in favor of wall sconces and candles that cast a golden glow. The parquet floor was buffed to a high gleam and threw back the blaze of the candles like a mirror. White linen–clad tables ringed the dance floor. At the front rose a lectern. In a corner, a string quartet she’d hired from Louisville played a soft classical melody. Bach? Beethoven? She could never keep those guys straight.

The K of C hall might not be Hollywood, but on Tom’s arm, she felt like a movie star. As soon as they entered, people she’d known all of her life drifted over, wanting to catch up, say hello, and of course be introduced to Tom. He took it with good grace, although it slowed their progress through the room.

Even with the attention that Tom drew, several old acquaintances did a double take at her plunging neckline. Tom’s eyes strayed there once or twice as well, sending a tsunami of heat up her neck and across her face every time.

They ran into Rich, who stood there glowering as Tracy and Sarah hugged, each exclaiming over how beautiful the other looked.

“What’s up?” Rich nodded sourly at Tom, who shook his hand and gave him a broad grin.

“Not my suspension, unfortunately. How about you?”

“Tom, you know Rich.” Sarah interrupted before Rich could respond. “And you remember Tracy, my assistant. She helped out at the pitching clinic. She also altered my dress for me. Didn’t she do a great job?”

“Yes, she did.” The innocuous words were no match for the gleam in his eye.

She was suddenly immeasurably glad she’d let Tracy talk her into altering her old gown.

“Wait, she altered your dress?” Rich frowned. “That’s the same one you wore last year? Didn’t it have a lot more—” he waved his hand vaguely—“fabric on it last year?” His eyes settled on the plunging neckline, and Sarah gritted her teeth.

Great. Now she’d made it plain to everyone that she’d sexed up her appearance for Tom. “Uh, I wanted something different.

“Oh, look, there’s Reedy and his wife, Tawanda.” She lunged for the couple as if they were a life raft in shark-infested waters. “Let’s go say hi.” She tugged at Tom’s arm.

“Nice escape,” he whispered in her ear as they moved away. His nearness, his heat and breath, sent electricity shivering down her spine, making her forget to respond.

Finally they settled at the owners’ table, where Paul and his girlfriend, Susan, waited. Paul and Tom greeted each other with a slap on the back and a handshake, but she noticed a touch of reserve, mostly on Paul’s part. No doubt it was due to his fears that she would let big, bad Tom Cord steal into her heart—or at least her bed.

Those totally crazy, totally irrational fears. Ha, ha! Boy, was her brother dumb.

“Susan, you look lovely.” Sarah greeted the other woman with a wave. Susan always looked gorgeous, but it didn’t seem to matter. She guarded her boyfriend’s heart, and probably a few other body parts Sarah didn’t want to think about, with the zealousness of a big-tent preacher. Susan smiled, her long, blonde hair gleaming in the candlelight. Her warm smile dimmed a few degrees when she took in Tom, however.

Paul looked handsome as usual, in a sharp-fitting tux, and he’d had a recent haircut that Susan must have urged on him—but Sarah had to admit, Tom put him in the shade.

“Where’s Dad?”

“Working the room, as always. Talking to the players.”

“Did he bring Phyllis?”

Paul rolled his eyes. “No. He’s alone.”

Why her father always chose to attend the party alone, Sarah couldn’t fathom. She’d known for years that her father kept company with Phyllis Milton, the town florist and a widow who had lost her husband more than a decade ago. She supposed her father liked the image of the grief-stricken widower who had buried his heart with his late wife, but it wasn’t necessary. Neither she nor her brother begrudged her father a little companionship.

Perhaps he feared that acknowledging the relationship would mean admitting that sometimes he left his Ford Explorer parked in her driveway for an overnight visit. That was something else that Sarah didn’t begrudge him, but didn’t necessarily want to talk about either.

“What goes on at this thing, anyway?” Tom asked.

“You mean Sarah didn’t tell you the delights of the All-Star party?” Paul said. “Speeches. Awards. PR blather.”

“Hey, that PR blather is my job,” Sarah protested.

“Yeah, and everyone at this table knows how much you love it, little sis.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “Anyway, the only highlight is the food.”

“Does anyone like anything about this party other than the food?” Sarah wondered aloud.

“No.” Paul snagged a canapé from a passing waiter and popped it into his mouth.

Leave it to a brother to be brutally honest. Maybe she’d have to shake things up for this party next year.

Next year. Realistically, she’d probably still be in this job a year from now. Another year spent planning the same old events, running the same old promotions, attending the same dull meetings . . . the prospect made her heart sink.

No. She wouldn’t be a defeatist. It would be a long off-season, with plenty of scouting and personnel decisions to be made. Her brother always asked her advice informally anyway. Maybe she could ease her way into a more meaningful role then.

“That’s not all,” Susan said. “Later they’ll clear away the speaker’s dais and the string quartet and we’ll have a DJ for dancing.” Susan squeezed Paul’s arm. “We never danced at my cousin’s wedding, so you owe me at least two slow dances.” Her brother winced.

“I want everybody to see you’re with me.” Susan moved her chair a nudge closer to Paul, and Sarah could see her brother’s jaw tighten. Susan would chase her brother away if she continued being so possessive, but that was their business, not Sarah’s.

“I like to dance,” Tom put in unexpectedly. “What do you say?”

“Who, me?” Sarah shook her head. “No, thanks.” The grace she displayed on the baseball diamond somehow always deserted her on a dance floor.

“Oh, I think you will.” The gleam of his grin was confident. Cocky even. “I can be pretty embarrassing if I don’t get what I want.”

“You can be pretty embarrassing even if you
do
get what you want.” Before he could respond, the waiter arrived with their dinner. As the server distributed the beef bourguignonne, her father stepped to the lectern to welcome everyone and introduce the first speaker, a vice president of the local bank that sponsored the Thrashers’ Community Player of the Year award.

Coco Jackson, the team’s longtime backup catcher, won—to no one’s surprise—and gave a warm and hilarious speech that somehow managed to use more profanity than the last HBO movie she’d seen.

In between speakers, the conversation flowed. She began to relax into the evening. Paul and Tom reminisced about college days—a highly edited version of events, Sarah suspected. With Tom safely on the arm of another woman, even Susan relaxed in his presence. Tom made them all laugh with his stories of life in the big leagues, and didn’t say anything too outrageous.

After dinner ended, staffers cleared the tables while the DJ prepped for his set. Her father paid them a brief visit, looking askance at Tom and even more askance at her neckline. Luckily for them both, he said nothing about either. Instead, he thanked Tom for coming to their “little get-together,” as he called it, and then huddled with Paul for a few minutes to discuss some cost-saving plans he wanted to implement next season.

Someday, maybe, Sarah would get used to being left out of conversations about team business, but today was not that day. She tried to look unaffected and took another sip of wine. She looked up to see Tom watching her.

“What?” Her fingers tightened on her wineglass.

“I’m just deciding whether to make you dance a slow dance or a fast one. Do you know how to Dougie?” He gestured to the dance floor, where the DJ was playing a dance song she didn’t recognize.

She nearly choked on her wine. “Um, I’m more of a slow-dance kind of girl. There’s less room for making an idiot of myself.”

“I can’t imagine you looking like an idiot.” His eyes dropped to linger on her curves. Her mouth went dry and she took another sip of wine. Parts of her body she’d practically forgotten about heated in response to the gleam in his eyes. “Especially in that dress.”

She nodded in thanks, not trusting herself to speak around the knot that had formed in her throat.

The fast song ended and Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” came on. “I love this song,” she said.

“Let me guess.” He tapped his chin. “When John Cusack held the boom box over his head and played this song in
Say Anything
, you cried.”

“No way,” she lied.

Of course she had cried. How did Tom know that? Crying over a movie didn’t fit the no-nonsense image she tried to project, but he’d seen through it.

He pulled her to her feet. “They’re playing our song.” On the dance floor, she settled the curve of her body into one of his arms and clasped his other hand. His muscular shoulder was warm and hard under his suit jacket, and the music swept over her. Unaccustomed to dancing in heels, she slipped for a second on the highly polished parquet. He grabbed her and didn’t let go.

“You okay?”

She nodded, unable to speak around the nervous constriction in her throat. He released her slightly to resume dancing, but kept her close. She didn’t mind. She needed the stability—either the wine or the heat in his gaze had her feeling slightly drunk.

Surely the wine had caused the fizzy heat in her veins. She’d had three glasses, after all.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have confessed her love for this song quite so readily. It was easy to move to, but it was also easy to
feel
to. A song that talked about finding completion in your lover’s gaze wasn’t the kind of thing she could tune out when a beautiful man was holding her close.

It wasn’t anything special about Tom, though. No doubt it would be the same if any reasonably attractive man held her and moved in time to this song.

No doubt.

The pulse of the music settled deep in her body. She didn’t know whether he pulled her or she leaned in, but somehow, her breasts brushed against his chest, sending her gaze skittering upward.

She was used to him making a joke of everything, but not this time. He didn’t crack a smile.

She stared at his strong, straight nose, that cleft chin, the dusting of dark whiskers that made themselves known on his cheeks in the late afternoon. He probably should have shaved a second time before an event like this, but she was glad he hadn’t. Her hand wandered up from his collar and brushed his jaw, and her eyes drifted half-shut at the sensation of her fingertips against his warm skin.

Peter Gabriel sang about a moment that kept slipping away, and Sarah swallowed hard. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Tom’s. She’d fallen into that hot gaze and didn’t know if she’d ever find her way out, or if she even cared.

Once she’d had a crush on him, but now she was on the verge of something much bigger, much deeper. Something she couldn’t easily walk away from.

Oh, God. It was just the wine. Please, God, let it be the wine.

“Sarah, I need to speak to you.” Her father’s voice rushed over her like a splash of cold water, snapping her back to unsexy reality.

“Excuse me, Tom.” Her dad gestured for her to follow him, and she did, walking down a long hall to a deserted coatroom. Her father wanted to talk now? He hadn’t paid her a blind bit of attention during the dinner; he’d been too busy talking business with Paul.

He flipped on the light, slammed the door behind them, and turned on her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, hanging all over him?”

She blinked, going stone-cold sober in a flash. “You told me to keep him out of trouble.”