The Change Up (10 page)

“Yoo-hoo!”

They both turned at the same time to see Ruby Post waddling toward them. She wore a big button on her floral blouse that said, “Festival Committee,” and she carried a neon-pink clipboard. Ruby had taught Rachel in Sunday school once upon a time.

“Hello, Mrs. Post.”

“Rachel.” She smiled, revealing teeth smudged with pink lipstick. “Samuel.” And then she looked back at Rachel again without the smile. “I'm sorry, but I don't have you listed as a vendor, and the committee is very strict about keeping the pool pure. I'm going to have to ask you to stop peddling your wares.”

Why did that make it sound like Rachel was a hooker? Sam must've thought so, too, because he turned his head to hide his smile.

Rachel stood a little straighter and smiled confidently at Mrs. Post. “May I see that list?”

Mrs. Post pressed the clipboard to her massive breasts. “It's confidential. Committee members and vendors only.”

Rachel didn't flinch. “I'm a Reed, Mrs. Post, and the Reeds are on that list.”

“Reed's Re-Readables is on this list, and no one has complained about
them
selling outside their tent.”

“Someone complained?”
Penelope.
Boy, that was fast. “You've got to be kidding—”

“Thank you, Mrs. Post,” Sam interrupted. “We were just heading to the dance, anyway.” He slid his hand beneath Rachel's elbow and gripped it softly but snuggly. A warm tingle heated her skin, and it distracted her enough to let Sam start leading her away from the confrontation. “Have a great night,” he added.

She was letting him lead her.
The minute Rachel realized that, she stopped in her tracks. “I didn't need to be rescued from Mrs. Post.”

“No, but you needed to be rescued from yourself.”

She scoffed. “Hardly. I was just trying to sell some season tickets for God's sake. It wasn't like I was offering cocaine and a hand job in the backseat of my car.”

His right eyebrow raised, followed by a twitch of his lips. “Maybe you would've been more successful with that.”

She socked him in the right arm and was surprised by just how solid he felt beneath the Sutter & Sons sweatshirt he was wearing. Not that she should be surprised. He'd been a professional athlete who did manual labor for a living. Muscles were part of the package.
His package.
From there, it was a one-way ride to inappropriate thoughts.

“Next time, save the rescue for someone who needs it,” she said gruffly, simultaneously stepping backward. She may have been off her game not remembering the Rollins lawsuit, but attending a barn dance? No flipping way.

But he caught her by the hand, gently this time, and some part of her melted at the sensation. When was the last time she'd held hands with anyone?

“Not so fast,” he said. “You owe me a dance.”

“I don't owe you anything.” She didn't sound as convincing as she'd hoped to. “And you're up to something. You're always up to something.”

He grinned. “Nah. It just seems like the least you could do for the man who sold four season-ticket packages for you.”

“You did nothing of the sort.”

“Does the name Dave Little ring a bell?”

Her jaw dropped, but she closed it with as much grace as possible, considering Sam was flashing a high-wattage smile that did ridiculously immature things to her insides.

“I see it does,” he said.

“How? What did you say to him? What could have possibly been more compelling than telling him they'd get twenty-five free tickets if they purchased today?”

“I just told him the truth about the kind of baseball he would see. I told him his kids would have a great time.”

“You took the emotional route,” she said, unimpressed.

“I took the personal route, because the bottom line isn't always the only thing that matters.” He didn't say it unkindly, and Rachel shrugged.

“We're going to have to agree to disagree on that.” As far as life went, she'd done pretty well for forty years focused solely on the bottom line.

“I have faith you'll see it my way one of these days.”

“And why is that? Because all this fresh air and time on your hands makes you enlightened beyond the likes of a big-city, career-obsessed woman like me?”

He chuckled, brushed his thumb along her knuckles, and said, “Not at all. I just know that life eventually knocks everyone down, and when we stand back up, we finally see the little things were the big things all along.”

The little things.
Like holding hands. And staring into a familiar face long enough to see it in a whole different way. They were dangerous thoughts that on any other day and in any other place she never would've entertained.

Rachel pulled her hand away. “So what sort of baseball will Dave Little and his family see here?” she asked, steering the conversation away from those bothersome little things.

A wistful look flashed across Sam's face as he said, “The best kind. The kind that isn't weighed down by big money and league politics. The simple, beautiful game.”

It was another little thing, but one that echoed loudly in her ears until she realized Sam Sutter and his poetic take on baseball might be just what she needed to sell this team.

• • •

Sam caught himself before he dove in and drowned amid the sentimentality. “Now, about that dance.” He still wanted more information about Rachel's father than he'd been able to get from Helen Anne back at the tent, and so far, softening his interactions with Rachel certainly had things looking promising. Maybe he could find out exactly what Helen Anne had meant when she'd said her father was “just under a lot of stress lately.” Maybe that would be something he could use to keep Wes Allen's chainsaws away.

“I don't dance,” Rachel protested as he took her by the hand and led her to the old, rustic outbuilding bedecked with twinkling lights at the park's far end.

But she didn't protest enough to pull her hand away, and he liked that, even though he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because the tables had turned, and Ms. All-Powerful was finally following someone else's lead. Or maybe it was because her hand fit inside his so perfectly, warming him from the outside in.

Since that last thought presented way more trouble than he wanted right now, he pushed it aside and faced her. “I don't dance, either, but how hard can it be?” He lifted her free hand and deposited it on his shoulder. “You put a hand here.” He slid his hand to the curve of her waist. “I put my hand here, and then we sway.” He twisted the hand he was holding, tucked it against his chest, and started moving to the beat of some semi-upbeat country song the DJ was playing.

Rachel barely moved. In fact, her eyes were the most expressive part of her body as she watched him wriggle. “Aren't you embarrassed?”

He laughed and exaggerated his sways even more, pulling her along for the ride. “Hell, no. I'm dancing with the prettiest girl out here.”

The look on her face … Wide eyes. Open mouth. Complete shock. He sort of felt that way in his gut, too. Calling her the prettiest girl probably wasn't the smartest thing, considering he was only trying to soften her up so she would see things his way. And yet, a part of him wondered if he wasn't kidding himself. He certainly wasn't joking about her being pretty, and he was starting to realize there was more to her than the haughty personality and sharp barbs she threw his way. He'd seen something softer in the office when she'd talked about his mom. He'd seen it again mixed with worry for her dad. It made him curious about her, made him think he may have misjudged her all of these years. One thing he knew for sure, though … there'd always been something about Rachel Reed that had gotten under his skin.

“I'm not a girl, Sam,” she said, straightening.

He stretched his fingers to grip more of her waist. “No, you're not.” She was soft and warm at the very same time she was strong and cool. A girl couldn't pull that off.

“I'm as old as your brother, which makes me considerably older than you.”

Sam shrugged and spun her around. “Doesn't bother me.” When her brow quirked, he added, “I was taught to respect my elders.”

Finally, she smiled. Small at first, but when it reached her eyes, the spark was pure magic.

“I'm thirty-five,” he said. “That doesn't count as considerably anything to me. Besides, I have a lot of hard life experience on me.” He rolled her fingers around in his hand. “Feel those callouses? Those are at least the callouses of a forty-five-year-old man.”

Her smile turned into a smirk. “Nice try, buddy. I still have seniority here.”

He spun her around a couple more times, touched his cheek to her temple, and whispered, “Then why am I leading?”

She surprised him with a laugh, and when he saw it light up her face all he could think was,
How beautiful
…
and how inconvenient
. This was not a woman he should be interested in. He'd already drawn the battle lines—at least in his head. Besides, she was his brother's ex. Twenty years didn't erase that sort of bro code. Did it?

“Thank you for speaking up on behalf of the team today,” she said. The thoughtful way she was looking at him reminded him of the way she'd looked at him in her office when she'd questioned him about the trees.

Expect the changeup.
That had certainly become his MO when dealing with Rachel Reed.

“You're welcome,” he said.

“Apparently, I …” She cleared her throat and squirmed a little. “I need the help, which is not something I like to admit.”

She looked pained, so he smiled and said, “Your secret's safe with me.”

The second he said the words, the music slowed, and her face read complete confusion—
Should I stay or go?
The latter seemed like a waste of a perfectly good song, so instead of letting her end it, he pulled her in. Closer. Sliding his hand from her hip to the small of her back.

To his surprise, she stayed in his arms, and a few beats later, she surrendered completely, laying her head on his shoulder, where he could smell the sweet, citrus scent of her hair.

“What's going on with your father?” he asked, thinking it best to get back to the main reason he'd brought her out here.

Her body stiffened, and then she lifted her head from his shoulder and glanced around.

The dance floor was packed, but the dancers must've been preoccupied enough to satisfy her need for privacy, because she simply said, “He has Alzheimer's.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

She nodded. “He's only told the family and a few very close friends at this point, but after what happened today, that's going to have to change.”

It made a world of sense. “So that's why you're here?”

“Exactly. He can't consistently and competently take care of business, including the team. And, because he's such a control freak”—she offered a small smile—“like me, he didn't ask for help until it was almost too late. I'm here for the short-term to …” She hesitated. “Get things stabilized until the new GM can get here.”

“What about Philly?”

“It's still there, going on without me for the next week or two. Believe me. He has plenty for me to do when I get back there. He gave me a grand plan in the form of a seventy-five-page, single-spaced document.”

“Wow,” Sam said.

“I can handle it.” There was that hard, capable edge.

“I don't doubt that for a minute.” He pulled her closer, letting the warmth of her body sink in, and considered how this news about her father's illness changed things.

Talk about a changeup.

Rachel's hardheaded inconsideration of his trees was because she was under a lot of stress and following someone else's plan.
Seventy-five, single-spaced pages.
He didn't even know what that looked like. And as much as his mother had loved those trees, hadn't she also taught him not to add to another person's pain? His mother, of all people, would've given more credence to the story than the bottom line. People came before trees. Just like people came before baseball—
should've
come before baseball.

Sam had made his mistakes. And while he desperately wanted to make up for those mistakes, it didn't seem right to back Rachel into a corner where she might have to choose between her father's instructions and those trees. And speaking of fathers … Sam's had been as proud as a puffed-up peacock today, telling passersby about their involvement with the baseball field. How could Sam mess with that? He couldn't. He would rather live with a baseball stadium lurking outside his kitchen window.

All signs seemed to be pointing to a concession here.

When the song ended and the DJ took a break, Rachel slipped out of Sam's arms. “I have to go,” she said. “Thanks for the dance.”

And with one look, he knew something had changed between them. He could see it in her gentle expression and the way she didn't flee.

“Thanks for the
dances
,” he said with a smile. “There was more than one.”

“True. There were two, and I only owed you one.”

“Well, you owed me four if you count each individual season-ticket package I sold.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don't, so that means you owe
me
one.”

He raised his brows suggestively. “One dance?”

“If you're offering something else, then let me think about it.” She grinned. “I may have something in mind. I'll be in touch.”

He didn't know what had gotten into him, but he wouldn't mind if she followed through.

In the middle of the week, Rachel took a break from staffing the stadium, hiring coaches and trainers, and dealing with equipment companies, so she could accompany her mother and father to a doctor's appointment. Helen Anne had been right—one of them needed to be there to get the whole truth and nothing but the truth, especially after their father had gotten lost at the festival.