Back in the Game Read online

  One of his hands slid to the small of her back, and he lightly caressed her there until her body grew warm and supple. What was he up to? If he didn’t stop that she’d forget all about this confession. Which was probably his goal.

  Hauling in a deep breath, she took a step back from his distracting hand. “We have a conversation to finish.”

  He gave a short laugh, a dear effervescent sound that lifted her spirits and her hopes. “I should have known I couldn’t derail you with full body contact.”

  “Oh, you derailed me all right,” she said. “All I can think about is tomorrow when we get to the third base of the Rookie Rules.”

  “It’s all I’ve been able to think about all month. You have no idea how hard it’s been for me to hold back. I want you so much, Breezy, that I can’t stand it.”

  “How have you managed to hold on to your control?” she whispered, turned on and fascinated by this big, complicated man.

  “Lots and lots of cold showers.”

  “You haven’t been tempted to call one of your old girlfriends or take advantage of a groupie, or—”

  “No!” he said so forcefully that she startled. He snaked out his hand to pull her up against him again. “You’re the only one I want, Breeanne Carlyle. You got that?”

  She tipped her head back to get a good look at his face, and saw the reflection of the fireworks spectacular in his eyes, just as the finale illuminated the sky behind her. There was no better place to watch fireworks than in his eyes. The air filled with a flurry of whistles, pops, and snaps that reverberated through her body, ringing with joy. He wants only me! Rowdy Blanton wants only me!

  His blistering mouth overtook hers. She absorbed his body heat, moaned softly with arousal, and she enjoyed the kiss for as long as she dared before breaking it off.

  “You’re trying to sidetrack me again,” she whispered raggedly, saying it because if she didn’t they were going to end up making love right there in the grass.

  “You’re a determined little thing.” He groaned and let go of her. “As annoying as that is right now, it’s one of the things I admire most about you.”

  “I’m spoiling the moment, aren’t I?” She ducked her head.

  “It’s okay, Breezy.” He tipped up her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “We’re going to have a lot more moments like this.”

  “Really?”

  “Well,” he said, suddenly looking so uncertain it caused her stomach to slide and dip like a breaking fastball. “I hope so. Maybe you won’t think so after I tell you what I did.”

  The shameful expression on his face drove a cold shudder down the backs of her legs. What on earth had he done? She stroked her palm over his forearm, letting him know she wasn’t the kind of woman who took off on a guy just because he’d made a few mistakes. “Tell me.”

  He chuffed out a breath, spiked fingers up the back of his neck, glanced out over the water, a faraway look in his eyes. “Have you noticed how much the Gunslingers have improved since Potts took over?”

  She nodded against the tightening of her chest. “Before Potts came on board, the Gunslingers rank near the bottom of the league, but that’s not unusual for a young expansion team.”

  “Exactly, and in three years he’s taken them to pennant contenders.”

  “That is a spectacular achievement.”

  “It’s because it’s all smoke and mirrors,” Rowdy said. “He’s cheating.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Baseball is like a poker game.

  Nobody wants to quit when they’re losing;

  nobody wants you to quit when you’re ahead.

  —JACKIE ROBINSON

  Breeanne squeezed Rowdy’s arm. “What do you mean? Cheating how?”

  “How do you think?”

  Was he talking about performance enhancing drugs? Had Rowdy taken them too? Was that why he couldn’t look her in the eye? “Doping?”

  He barely nodded, his chin turned to granite, his eyes hooded.

  “How is he getting away with it?” she asked. “I thought the league was super diligent about drug testing.”

  “Lance Armstrong methodology,” he said. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

  “How does he keep something like that quiet?”

  “He’s got a lot of people in his pocket, unscrupulous doctors, players and staff members who will do anything to win. People who flat-out take bribes to alter laboratory documentation. Or people he has a hold over.”

  “You’re talking about blackmail?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t believe he’s able to pull off something of this magnitude, and have the arrogance to think he won’t get caught.”

  “He’s making people money and he’s getting results so no one is looking too closely. Lance Armstrong got away with cheating for a lot of years, and Potts has learned from Armstrong’s mistakes. He’s sneaky. The man’s a master at gaming the system.”

  “That’s despicable. Doping is ruining baseball!”

  “Not to mention the players.”

  Breeanne put a palm to her forehead. “My mind is boggled.”

  “Imagine how I felt when I found out about it.”

  She stepped back, put a hand to her stomach. “It sickens me.”

  As soon as she said it, she regretted it. What if Rowdy had been involved in the doping? What if that’s what he wanted to tell her, and she’d just made a value judgment?

  “See why I have issues with the way the Gunslingers are being run?”

  “Absolutely, but how do you know all this?” She was about to ask him why he hadn’t gone to the authorities with the information, but bit her tongue. If he were involved with the doping, he wouldn’t want to incriminate himself.

  “From Price. The players involved are caught in Potts’s web. They’re either making too much money off the scam, and in too deep, or they have too much to lose by exposing him.”

  “The blackmail issue.”

  “Yeah. He’ll find a way to put you between a rock and a hard place.”

  “Like he’s done to you with Zach. He’ll do something to harm Zach and his career if you don’t stay silent.”

  “You got it.”

  “Was Price in too deep, or was Potts holding something over his head?” she asked.

  “Price and I didn’t know what was going on at first. We just wanted to play baseball, and when we found ourselves on a winning team together, so close to home, we thought we’d landed in a honey pot. Little did we know we’d landed into the honey pot from hell.”

  Breeanne laughed. Not because it was funny, but simply to lighten the tension that stretched her muscles taut.

  Rowdy smiled, his teeth flashing white in the night. “Yeah, it’s a case of you have to laugh to keep from crying.”

  “And Price?” she prompted. “What caused Potts to cut him?”

  “Potts approached Price because he’d been in a slump. Offered him a way to boost his performance. Price told him to shove it nine ways to Sunday and that’s when Potts cut him.”

  “And that’s the real reason you walked out.”

  “Yeah.” He pressed his lips together in a thin line.

  “Why didn’t Price go to the authorities and report Potts?”

  “Because he threatened him. Price has a wife and three kids. He couldn’t afford to take the hit, buck the system.”

  “What did he have on Price? Do you know? Can you say?”

  Bleak eyes landed her on, searched her face, an explorer looking for something he wasn’t expecting to find. It was an expression she’d never expected to see on this laid-back man. “The same thing he had on me.”

  “This is what you don’t want recorded.”

  “Yeah.”

  A frigid chill seeped into her bones. What it would take to warn her again? “Did Potts ever ask you to use banned substances?” she ventured.

  “No. I was a top performer without them. Plus he knew I pride myself on having a strong sens
e of fair play, and I wouldn’t go along with his scheme. But Price . . .” He shook his head. “Since Price’s game was slipping, and he had a family to support, he was the logical choice for Potts to try and corrupt. And I suppose he was counting on that if he reeled Price in, I’d follow.”

  “Ah, I see the big picture. You couldn’t go to the media with this information because it was secondhand, and you couldn’t reveal the source of the information or you’d put Price’s secret at risk.”

  He nodded laboriously, as if it hurt to move his head. He got quiet for a minute, his eyes went distant as if lost in the past, or regretting the present. Regretting what he had to tell her? Worried that his confession would end them? Would it?

  Breeanne made a fist. Pressed it to her mouth. He didn’t say anything else, so she forged ahead. “With no other real option, you walked out in protest over Price’s getting let go instead.”

  “It was the only play I had. I was hoping I could force him into reinstating Price.”

  “But it didn’t get you anywhere, did it?”

  “Where it got me was busted up.” His award-winning smile was bright, but there were no teeth in it. His right arm went to his left shoulder. Gingerly, he fingered the seam of his shoulder joint.

  “You weren’t falling into line. He couldn’t have a loose cannon roaming around that he couldn’t control.”

  “I’ve been called high-spirited more than once.” He held his palms up at his sides, shoulder-width high. “Usually by my mother.”

  “This thing Potts had on you and Price, are you ever going to tell me what it is?” She tilted her head, offered him what she hoped was a trustworthy smile.

  “Give me a kiss first,” he said. “After you find out my deep dark secrets, you might not want to ever kiss me again.”

  What on earth had he done?

  She took a deep breath to quell the fear gelling in the pit of her stomach, added arrowroot to her knees, hoisted up a faded smile.

  They stared at each other. The only sounds were the chirrup of insects, the shriek of tree frogs, and the slap of fish tails against the water. The wind kicked up, sending the pine trees swaying overhead, blurring the star canopy in the sky.

  She went up on tiptoes and raised her head for his kiss, loving him anyway, whatever his secret might be. Not caring what he’d done, or who he’d been in a previous life. She loved the man who was standing in front of her now.

  He lowered his head, captured her mouth with the sweetest of kisses. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulled him down to deepen their joining, but he gently reached around and unlatched her hands from his neck. “No more for now. I have to tell you before I lose my courage.”

  She dropped her hands to her sides, felt her fingertips brush her bare thighs, and wished she’d worn more coverage. She wasn’t used to being so exposed. “You’re scaring me. What did you do? It can’t be as bad as you’re making it out to be.” Her voice quivered. “You didn’t kill anyone, did you?”

  He laughed. “It’s not as bad as all that.”

  “Then just tell me.” The extended lead-up was causing her to imagine all manner of awful things.

  He let out a shaky breath, leaned back against the Escalade again. “I’ve told you how sick my father was for years. How broke we were.”

  She nodded. She’d seen where he was from. Understood that desperation might have driven him to do socially unacceptable things. She braced herself for what he had to tell her, planting her feet solid in the grass strewn with pine needles.

  “I was sixteen when Mom called me home from Houston. And like you said, I’d got into trouble down there because Uncle Mick let me get away with everything. Hell, he even bought me a beer on occasion.” Rowdy shook his head. “I’m not gonna lie. I was a cocky kid.”

  She rubbed her upper arms, watched his face as he spoke.

  “My dad didn’t have long to live. A week max, so Mom brought us home in time to say good-bye.” Rowdy paused, stared out across the lake. “But I . . . I . . .” The remainder of his thought unstitched into the empty space between them.

  She pressed her palm against his, interlaced their fingers.

  He squeezed her hand, swallowed, and finished the sentence. “I wasn’t prepared.”

  “I can’t imagine what that must have been like watching your father die.”

  “And I can’t imagine what it was like for you, a little kid having those major surgeries.”

  She lifted a shoulder in a water-off-a-duck’s-back gesture. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “Unless it kills us,” she said. “Then it doesn’t make us stronger.”

  He laughed, and it made her happy to bring an honest smile to his face, especially in this tough moment. “I go into my dad’s bedroom. It’s dark, and smells bad. He can barely move his hand, but he motions me into the chair beside him.”

  “You don’t have to go into detail.”

  “I need you to understand my choices. I’m not making excuses, just putting it in context.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I sat down beside my dad, and for an instant his face cleared and his eyes were bright, like he’d been waiting for me to come home so he could give me this speech.”

  A breeze blew across the water, sending a chill through Breeanne even though the air was warm.

  Rowdy moistened his lips. “He told me how much he loved my mother and us kids.”

  “That’s so sweet, and so sad.” She traced an index finger over his cheek, and his muscles tensed beneath her touch. He shook his head and she dropped her hand, feeling chastised for touching him, even though he knotted their joined hands into a mutual fist.

  “Dad motioned me to closer. I edged over. He grabbed me by the neck of my shirt, and pulled my head down to his face. He was so thin, and his skin is stretched tight over bones so that he already looks more like a skeleton than my dad. I’m scared shitless. I’m at the stupid age where I’m thinking crazy things. Pod people kidnapped my real dad and replaced him with this replica, stupid crap like that.”

  He paused a moment to watch her face. She was careful to control her response, kept her expression neutral. She didn’t want to make a mistake. “Dad told me, ‘Son, don’t tie yourself down. Life is full of adventure and I missed out on all of it. I got married too young, had too many kids. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Be like your uncle Mick. Do what you love. Play baseball. Make love to as many women as you can. Drive fast cars. Go out there and grab life by the throat. Live for me.’ ”

  “Wow,” Breeanne said.

  Behind them, something made a big splash in the water. The smell of spent fireworks still lingered in the air.

  Rowdy lowered his voice. “My parents were high school sweethearts and Mom got pregnant in her junior year. They both dropped out of school, got jobs. Their whole life was about nothing more than struggle, and raising kids. Dad never got to enjoy a damn thing in his life. It wasn’t fair, Breezy. It damn well wasn’t fair.”

  Here was the link into Rowdy’s psyche she’d been searching for. The thing he’d been hiding from her. The reason he was so afraid to get serious about relationships. He was afraid of ending up trapped and in pain.

  “Everyone has regrets, Rowdy. It’s a shame your father chose to express his doubts so vividly, at such a dramatic time to a confused teen. It marked you,” she whispered.

  “Yeah,” he admitted, and rubbed a palm down his face. “Any time I got the slightest urge to take a relationship beyond that initial thrill, I’d break things off.”

  “You won’t end up like your father, Rowdy. You’ve got enough money to last you a lifetime. You’ve had your share of fun. Marriage and kids wouldn’t wreck your life.”

  “I’m finally starting to realize that.” He peered deeply into her eyes and her heart gave a berserk thump. “Tell you the truth I should have been in therapy. My whole family should have, but we were on that u
gly ridge of the income level, a hair over the poverty line. We didn’t qualify for freebies, but neither could we afford the luxury of mental health care.”

  “Still,” she said. “You’ve managed to not only survive, but thrive. Look at where you came from and all you’ve accomplished. Baseball saved you. Be proud of yourself.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “Because it’s all based on a lie.”

  His dark secret. They were finally getting to it. Cold clung to her bones.

  “After my dad died, I was so desperate to get out of my neighborhood, to get out of Stardust, and do something big with my life. I was already a pretty damn good ballplayer. Playing ball is all I did. And being a lefty gave me an edge. But it wasn’t enough. I had to make certain I got out of here.”

  She wondered where this was headed, but she wasn’t going to guess or press. It was his story. He was in charge of telling it his way.

  “Price and Warwick . . .” His voice cracked. “They felt the same desperation. They wanted out as badly as I did. My situation was bad, but at least my parents loved me. Neither Price or Warwick had that.”

  She wrapped her arms around him again, put her ear against his chest once more, and held him to let him know his secret didn’t scare her.

  He squeezed her tightly. After a long time he finally went on. “In our neighborhood, getting your hands on illegal substances wasn’t all that hard. A baseball scout was coming to town.”

  Silence dripped like spilled milk oozing off a breakfast table.

  “I took steroids. I did drugs.” Sandbags of regret weighted his voice and he loosened his arms from around her.

  Breeanne stepped back so she could see his face, settled her hands to her hips, knocking the recorder off her waistband. She’d forgotten it was there. The recorder clattered to the ground. She picked it up, checked to make sure it was turned off, and stuck it into the back pocket of her shorts.