The Change Up (14 page)

And that scared the hell out of her. She couldn't remember another time in her life when she'd felt so off-kilter.

“I think it's cool,” Liv said. “He's hot. For an older dude. I think you should go for it, Boss.”

Leave it to someone dressed in a crinoline skirt and Betsey Johnson platform heels to think that. Was this what things had come to? Spilling her guts about her sex life to her assistant in the middle of a strategy meeting? “It is not cool.” Her voice turned steely. “It is unprofessional, and it has become a distraction. I don't do distractions.”

“Everybody deserves a distraction now and then, especially you, especially now. I don't see what the big deal is. He's not married, and he's not that much younger than you.”

Rachel groaned. “Enough! How the hell did we get so off topic?”

Liv bobbed her brows. “Just one more question.”

Rachel decided to allow it. She looked at Liv expectantly.

“Is he a better kisser than his brother?”

Rachel was the one to laugh hard that time. “No comparison. When I kissed Luke, I kissed a boy. When I kissed Sam, I kissed a man.” She absentmindedly touched her lips. “It was amazing.”

“Then I say kiss the man whenever you want, because you look happier talking about this than you've looked talking about anything else since I met you …” Liv gulped suddenly, as if her own candidness had taken her by surprise. Then she added a somewhat chastened, “Boss.”

Rachel rolled her eyes and snatched back her iPad, but couldn't suppress a smile. “Maybe you're the one who's cracking up after too much time with Richard.”

A visibly relieved Liv made a gagging sound while Rachel scanned the article again.
This
was her best plan yet. “I just need to find a way to confirm that Sam still has the skills, and then I have to convince him it's in his best interest to play again.” She shot a pointed look at Liv. “I am definitely talking about baseball here. I don't need to kiss him again to accomplish any of that.”

Liv chuckled. “Whatever you say, Boss. But if I were you, I'd use any excuse I could to let him into my batter's box again.”

• • •

Monday morning, Sam drove the utility cart along the warning track, the rubber band-bound stack of unread folders on the bench beside him. If Rachel came down to talk to him—like he expected her to—he would give them back and apologize.

He'd considered lying, telling her he didn't see anything worthwhile in the stack, but that wouldn't be fair to the guys hoping to coach this team. Instead, he would tell her she was right and, in an effort to keep things strictly professional between them, he was returning the folders unread. It seemed like a reasonable explanation to him.

But two hours later, when Rachel strutted down the warning track with a glorious smile on her face, nothing seemed reasonable anymore. The woman was mouthwatering.

“Good morning,” she said. Two simple words, and his pulse raced. The sheer blouse, showing hints of lacy bra, didn't help.

“Morning.” He took a step closer and told himself he was dead if he took another one.

He didn't have to, because she came to him. “How was your weekend? Relaxing, I hope.”

You know what was relaxing? Orgasms. Slow-building, long-lasting orgasms that left you spent in the end. Too bad he hadn't had that sort of weekend. With her.

He cleared his throat. “My weekend was good. How was yours?”

“Mine was good, too. Did you have a chance to look over those resumes?”

And there it was, the real reason she was talking to him, the only reason he should be talking to her about anything outside of field care. “I did not,” he said. “I got sidetracked.”

“Oh,” she said, her beautiful face momentarily crumbling, but when she regained her composure, her expression hardened. “I was counting on your input, Sam. This puts me in a real bind.” She glanced away from him and was silent for several seconds.

As he stood there trying to think of a way to better justify his behavior, she added, “Could you look them over quickly at some point today, and then”—a solitary eyebrow rose suggestively—“we could discuss it tonight?”

Between the brow raise and lowered voice, Sam figured their discussion would turn into other things—things he'd been dreaming about for weeks now, things he was still dreaming about despite his father's announcement and his brother's suspicion that baseball was going to drag him away again.

“I'll see what I can do,” he said, but there was more ambivalence behind those words than he'd wanted.

She must've detected it, because she nodded and took a step back. “Thanks for even considering it.”

The stilted interaction bothered him all day.

“She's got nice legs,” Ian said as they raked the clay between the dugouts and home plate.

“Who?” Sam asked.

“Her.” Ian lifted his rake and pointed the handle toward the outfield bleacher seats, where Rachel and Liv were staring up at the scoreboard.

“Which one?” If Ian said Rachel, Sam might have to hurt him.

“The little one. What's her name? Liz?”

“Liv,” Sam said with a shake of his head. “And how can you tell how nice her legs are from all the way back here? I can't even tell it's a woman.”

“'Cause you're old, man. You need glasses. Like the kind my grandma wears around her neck on a chain.”

“Those are bifocals, idiot, and they're for reading. I can see just fine. I was exaggerating.”

“Oh yeah? Can you read the number on the center-field wall?”

“Four hundred and ten feet,” Sam said without looking. He'd memorized the number after spying it for the first time two weeks ago and wondering if he still had it in him to crank one that far.

“How about the words on that faded advertisement?”

“Shut up and rake,” Sam said. “I'll go get us some waters.”

He snatched a bottle from the cooler strapped to the flatbed and called a heads up to Ian before he tossed it his way, then he cracked open another bottle and sucked down more than half of it. All the while, those folders kept calling his name. Taking a look at them was the only way to assuage the feeling that he'd let her down. Sam sat behind the wheel with the cart top shielding him from the afternoon sun and pulled the stack of resumes onto his lap. Contrary to what Luke thought, it didn't mean he was heading down a slippery slope toward a job in baseball. Sam was just keeping his word and helping a friend—if that's what he could call her.

He had no idea how long he'd been sitting there leafing through the papers before Rachel called his name. It must've been a decent chunk of time, because he was more than halfway through, and as he pushed the stack off his lap and back onto the seat, he felt a little dazed. The feeling only multiplied when he saw her. She was standing amid the seats behind home plate with her long fingers curled into the protective netting, and she wore a wide-eyed look of anticipation that had him more than a little curious.

He went to her and asked, “What's up?” in a calm voice he hoped covered the havoc she wreaked inside of him.

“We never made specific plans to talk. What time's good for you?” Her mouth was perfectly framed by an opening in the net, and he imagined leaning up to kiss her. After a hit. A walk-off home run. With the crowd cheering and his teammates gathering. He would cross home plate, high-five his teammates, and end up here, with his mouth on hers. The perfect ending to a perfect game.

“What time?” she asked again, and he snapped out of the disturbing fantasy.

“Now?”

She glanced at Ian, who had moved down the third-base line to talk with CJ, who was watering the base path. “Well, I'd like to talk alone. Can you hang around after they leave?”

His lips twitched, because professionalism be damned, he liked the sound of being alone with her anywhere. “Whatever the lady wants.” And when she returned his full-wattage smile, he had a feeling he was about to get very lucky.

It took forty-five minutes for the guys to get cleaned up and off the field. Sam did more work than he normally would have simply so he could get them out of here. When he made his way back into the stadium after helping them load up CJ's truck, he found Rachel standing on the mound. Wind tore at her hair and her dress clothes, plastering the flimsy blouse to her breasts.
Jesus.
Sex on the pitcher's mound? He had to fight his legs from breaking into a dead sprint.
Keep it semi-professional, okay, man?

“So, I've been thinking,” she said, when he was a few feet away.

“So have I.”

“I have a proposition for you.”

With his skin tightening and his heart rate climbing, he glanced around the empty stadium, wondering if any witnesses were left.

“If you hit a home run off me, I'll spare your trees.” She brought her hand out from behind her back, and in it was a baseball.

Her words hit him like a fastball meant to maim. “And why would you do that?”

She smiled. “I have my sights set on something even bigger than a parking lot.”

Him? The way she was staring him down with laser-beam intensity made him think so, but there was no need for some half-assed home-run derby to get him into bed. Another kiss would have him hauling her home faster than a lobbed pitch could travel 410 feet.

He glanced back at the white number on the center-field wall and felt his palms itch. “I'm not sure what's going on here. I thought we were going to talk about coaching staff.”

“Do you want to save the trees or not?”

“Of course I want to save the trees, but I don't want to sell my soul in the process. What are you up to, Rachel?”

“I'm just trying to prove a point,” she said, tossing the ball into the air a few inches and catching it. “I think there's still some good baseball left inside you.”

Sam's muscles tensed. “I'm sure there is, but I don't see why that matters.”

“It matters if you want to save the trees.”

He shook his head. “I'll pass. Something doesn't feel right.” He looked past her to home plate, where six bats lined up against the fence. Waiting for him.

Again, his palms itched.

“Are you afraid I'll strike you out?”

“No. I doubt you can literally throw a changeup. I would be more afraid of me taking your head off, even with the pitching screen. There's no way in hell you can make the throw from anywhere near this mound. You'll have to be right on top of me.”

She grinned. “Sounds good to me.”

“What the hell are you up to?” he asked again, but his eyes were trained on the lineup of bats, and already his hands were flexing in preparation of picking the perfect one.

“How about it? Home run for the trees?”

“You're serious?”

“Absolutely.”

“And there are no strings attached?”

“None. I just want to see you hit.” She bobbed her brows like maybe this was some warped version of foreplay.

“You might be disappointed.”

“I highly doubt it.” She gave him the once-over. “You don't look like the kind of man that could ever disappoint a woman.”

This was crazy. Rachel wasn't making any sense, and still he was considering playing her game. Because he wanted sex? Hell, he could get it a lot easier and a lot less twisted than this. But apparently he liked twisted, because his blood was already pooling between his legs.

“I want it in writing,” he said.

She laughed. The sounded carried on the wind, filling the charged air between them, stoking the heat in his belly. “I figured you might say that, so”—she reached behind her back and pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket—“I brought this.” She stepped off the mound and offered him the paper.

When he took it, his fingertips dragged across her palm, and her body shuddered. So help him God, he was going to get more than a few acres of trees out of this deal.

“Good enough?” she asked when he'd unfolded the paper and read her loopy handwriting.

“Good enough for me.” He refolded it and stuffed it into his back pocket, then he eyed up the bats again and took a deep, settling breath. “How 'bout you throw a few warm-up pitches so I can get a feel for you?”

Her eyes twinkled as she took her place behind the pitching screen, where a bucket of balls waited. “Feel away.”

He almost detoured to where she stood just so he could take her up on the offer. Instead, he watched her toss a ball overhand toward home plate and thought,
Not bad
. “Aim for the dirty smudge on the padded wall.” If he could get her consistently throwing strikes at that slower speed, he should be able to hit a home run with no problem.

She bent down and snatched another ball from the bucket, her eyes trained on the smudge behind home plate, and then she released a pitch that landed a foot off its mark. “How many warm-up pitches do I get?”

“As many as you need.” He was already wondering how many warm-up swings he was going to need to get used to the feel of a bat in his hands again.

As another pitch popped against the padding, Sam reached for the shortest bat in the lineup, but right before his fingers reached the grip, he pulled back. His heart thrashed around wildly, his tongue glued to the roof of his dry mouth.

Pop.
Another pitch. And then she whooped. “That was definitely a strike!”

Another deep breath and he reached out again, telling himself he was saving the trees. But the lump in his throat wasn't there for the sake of some birds. No, the lump was about the boy who still loved this game.

He grabbed the bat and steadied his breathing. All good. Nothing to fear. It was heavier than he remembered. Powerful. He took a few light swings with nothing more than a flick of his wrist. Back and forth. Back and forth. Lulling him into a trance. Before long, he was swinging the bat behind his shoulders, rotating his wrists in a familiar warm-up pattern. He set his feet, squared his hips, and settled his gaze on the ball as it left Rachel's hand.
See it. Hit it.
He swung, sending the bat whizzing through the air in a warm-up swing that knocked the breath out of him.