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  “What Ty’s doing is wrong.” She came right up to him, put a hand on his chest. “But I didn’t reveal where Ty got the stimulants.”

  He paused. “You didn’t expose Red?”

  “Or Tucker. Because I don’t have specific proof that that’s where Ty got it from.”

  “Am I supposed to thank you for that?”

  “You’re supposed to understand that it was going to get out anyway, that I’m merely doing my job. Ty is guilty, Pace.”

  “Jesus.” He jammed his fingers into his hair and turned away from her. “So what do you want from me?”

  “Truthfully?” She walked around him to look into his eyes, her own solemn. “I wasn’t sure until you opened the door and looked happy to see me in spite of the fact that I’ve pissed you off. I want this thing that’s happening between us. I really want it, more than I could have fathomed. But I can see now that’s a silly little dream.”

  His heart seemed to swell against his ribs. “Why?”

  “Because you say you don’t want anyone to walk away from you but you’re not . . . available. You’re baseball. No room for more. Certainly no room for a girlfriend who dares to question some of the practices of your sport.”

  No. She was wrong. He was more than baseball. Or so he’d wanted to be. But she was gone, out the door, leaving himself feeling like he’d somehow just screwed up the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  Chapter 23

  Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things.

  —Robert Frost

  Holly’s article came out the next morning, and by noon, her cell phone was full of unhappy messages.

  “I thought better of you than this,” Sam’s said. “I gave you access to these guys for your articles thinking you’d get some great new angles on the sport and we’d get some coverage, and this is how you repay us? I thought we were friends, Holly.”

  Gage’s was no easier to listen to. “I need you to explain to me what the fuck you thought you were doing when you wrote this article. You might as well have put a big fat red circle around Ty, whose been ordered for drug testing tomorrow instead of pitching for us.”

  Wade wasn’t much happier.

  Or Henry.

  But perhaps the toughest message was the one that didn’t come at all.

  Pace remained silent.

  Everyone was upset with her, and she didn’t blame them. It was Florida all over again. “I’ve screwed up,” she said to Allie via phone.

  “Really? So it’s your fault that Ty was using?”

  “It’s my fault that the whole world knows.”

  “We make our own destiny, Holly.”

  True enough. And she had a feeling she’d just made hers.

  Pace slept in, and when he finally rolled over, he wished like hell that Holly was here with him. Warm. Smiling.

  Naked.

  The sun was pouring in the wide windows and it was nearly noon. He’d actually slept, really slept all night, no pain. He very carefully rolled his shoulder. Twinges, but he no longer felt as though someone was stabbing him with a sharp, fire-hot poker. Cheered by that, he headed toward the shower.

  The house felt . . . empty. Other than a physical therapy session later, where he hoped to do a little throwing, something he was anxious to get back to, he had nothing going on.

  A day off.

  He could do whatever he wanted. Take a drive up Highway 1. Call the kids and coach them. Sit on his ass, if he wanted.

  And yet all he really wanted was one carefully organized, slightly obsessive reporter who’d turned his world upside down.

  And then left him.

  No, he thought, getting into the shower, letting the hot water pummel him—she hadn’t left him.

  He’d left her.

  And he’d been wrong, very wrong.

  “We had so many hits that our server crashed,” Tommy told Holly when he caught her by cell phone later that morning. “Plus three threatening phone calls,” he said proudly. “Oh, and I hear talk of a lawsuit from Ty.”

  “And you’re happy?” she asked incredulously.

  “Hell, yeah. Listen, no one’s going to sue, not successfully. And the threats are just icing on the cake. But I’d watch your back in dark parking lots for a few days, doll.”

  “Gee, thanks.” She remembered how it’d felt to listen to all those messages, all the people she’d disappointed, people who had been her friends.

  “Don’t worry, you’re protected. It’s a blog, for God’s sake. It’s an opinion.”

  “I quoted the guys,” she reminded him. “All of whom said they weren’t interested in banned substances, and then the one who said he doesn’t see a problem with it. In Gage’s words, I put a big red circle around him.”

  “Ty drew that circle himself.”

  “And if he tests positive, he faces a suspension.”

  “Maybe he’ll learn to play by the rules. Listen, Pace’s retest results came in, inconclusive. Thought you’d want to know, he’s in the clear.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Jesus Christ, Holly, are you listening to yourself? What’s happened to you?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know. No, I do know. I want to do things differently next time. I want to do something softer. Something that helps people.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I mean it. And I want to stay in Santa Barbara, and grow roots.”

  “Roots? Are you not a brunette?”

  “Roots like a tree, Tommy. A solid, happy, healthy tree. I want a home base, a place of my own to settle down into.”

  “Crazy talk, but fine with me. I don’t care where you live.”

  “I want that in writing.”

  “The crazy-talk part?”

  “Tommy.”

  “Doll, you can have whatever you want. Just keep writing for me.”

  Three days later, Pace took himself to the bullpen to throw, improving his confidence and renewing his hope that he didn’t totally suck. He wasn’t done playing ball. Hopefully he wasn’t done with a lot of things. Or people—like Holly. Turning, he found Red quietly watching him. He looked uncharacteristically solemn.

  “Looking good,” Red said.

  “Thanks.” They’d been avoiding a real conversation all week, but Pace was done with that. “You saw Holly’s article.”

  “Whole world saw it, didn’t they?”

  “Is it true?” Pace asked him. “And are you the one supplying Ty?”

  A muscle jumped in Red’s jaw, but he said nothing. His damn pride. One of these days he was going to choke on it.

  “Jesus, Red.”

  “You gonna believe the word of a reporter over me?”

  “You didn’t give me any words. I’d love to hear your words.”

  “You’ve already judged me. I have no words for you.” And with that, he walked away.

  Damn, if Pace wasn’t tired of that. He went home, showered, and called Holly. “Can we talk?”

  “I’m in LA.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  She paused, and his heart dropped. “Are you not coming back?”

  “Tomorrow night,” she said.

  Ah, hell. “I leave with the team in the morning.” He let out a breath. “When I get back then?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I’ll be here.”

  A sentiment that meant far more than he could have imagined.

  Chapter 24

  You can’t sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You’ve got to throw the ball over the goddamn plate and give the other man his chance. That’s why baseball is the greatest game of them all.

  —Earl Weaver

  The Heat went on both the road and a losing streak. Holly watched the games on TV, hoping for glimpses of Pace on the sideline, and for a change in their luck.

  She got neither.

  She kept busy. She still owed Tommy one more article on her baseball s
eries, and needed to be working up her next series idea, but she was so unsettled and unsure. She couldn’t concentrate on anything. She knew that the guys were still pissed at her, leaving her in a state of . . . suspension. As for Pace, she was even more uncertain. He’d wanted to talk, she just didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.

  “Get a kitten,” was Allie’s suggestion when Holly called.

  “A kitten? Are you crazy?” Holly looked around her leased condo. “This isn’t even my place.”

  “Sure it is,” Allie said calmly. “You’re happy there. You love Santa Barbara. You love the people. You love it all.”

  “I’ve screwed it all up.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  Holly opened the sliding back door of the condo and looked out at the Santa Ynez Mountains, the glorious, craggily, beautiful peaks that made her sigh every time she caught a glimpse. She did love it here. So much.

  “Get yourself a kitten,” Allie said again. “Make plans. Stick around awhile. Just try it, Hol. There’s more to you than being an investigative secret hound.”

  “Yeah.” For the next few days, she thought about little else, especially as the Heat lost four more games in a row.

  The press was still clobbering the team. She hadn’t gotten any more death threats, but neither had anyone from the team spoken to her. On the morning of the Heat’s first home game in ten days, and also the poker night event, Holly got up early. The guys had probably gotten home late and she wasn’t sure what that meant for her, having them back in town. They were only going to be in Santa Barbara for one day, and then they were off again on another road trip.

  One day.

  Having no idea what the day would bring, she killed some time in the grocery store getting some comfort food. On impulse she grabbed a cute little plant from the garden aisle.

  Not exactly a kitten, but hey, it was alive.

  She went back to her condo, set the plant next to her laptop on her kitchen/office table and opened Word. She looked at her next article—or the blank page masquerading as her next article. Giving up, she closed the document and opened iPhoto instead. The first picture that came up was of her and Pace back in Atlanta. The Heat had just won. Holly was up against Pace, all snuggled in like she belonged there, and he was grinning down at her with an abundance of emotion in his eyes.

  Throat tight, she hit Print, then leaned the photo up against the plant. Her own little corner of home, she decided, and forced herself to go back to her Word program.

  Two hours later she’d gotten a great start. She drove to the stadium where she paid for a general admission seat. At the sight of Pace in the dugout, her heart seemed to swell in her chest. He wore warm-up sweats, not his uniform. He didn’t have on a sling, but from beneath his T-shirt she could see an elastic bandage around his bicep and shoulder, a horrible, gut-wrenching reminder of what he’d been through. Using his right hand—it was working!—he shook someone’s hand and then turned to look in the stands as if he felt her eyes on him. He looked a little leaner than when she’d seen him last, and he had at least a day’s worth of stubble on that strong jaw. He looked so good her heart kicked hard. She waved, but the sun was in his eyes. He couldn’t possibly see her.

  Or so she told herself when he didn’t wave back.

  The game was a rough one. Henry took a fly ball to the chest and got the air knocked out of him. Wade got kicked in the face when a player slid home, causing a tussle that the ump had to break up. The game ended at a painful fifteen zip, the worst in Heat history.

  Holly went home, grabbed a change of clothing for the poker night fund-raiser and headed to the hotel where it was being held, knowing Sam would need help setting up. Indeed she found the publicist looking a little harassed and most definitely overworked.

  “Hey.” Holly’s heart pinched at the way her friend looked at her, as if Holly had run over Sam’s dog. Twice. And then backed over it.

  “Holly. You didn’t need to—”

  “I thought you could use help.”

  “That’s . . . generous of you,” Sam said softly.

  “Not generous. Greedy. I wanted to see you and the others.” Holly stepped close and reached for her hand. “How are you?”

  “As you’d expect after a horrific nine-game losing streak and a wave of bad press that always seems one step ahead of me.”

  “I’m sorry about the losses, more than you know.” It’d been devastating to watch from afar; she could only imagine how it felt from the inside. “I looked for you at the game today. I’d hoped we could talk.”

  “Yeah. I was with Jeremy, actually. He’s in town for this thing tonight.” Sam’s face twisted in indecision. “Holly—”

  “No. Listen,” Holly said quickly. “I get that you’re hurt and furious, and I understand how bad the press has been, how ruthless. I know, and I’m sorry. But I miss you, Sam.”

  “I miss you, too,” Sam whispered, squeezing her hand. “So damn much.”

  “I know you think I betrayed you, but all I did was expose a truth that would have come out eventually. I’m not your press leak. I’m not a spineless coward. I sign my name to my writing.”

  Sam rubbed her eyes, looking so weary she could hardly stand. “I want to believe that.”

  “Then believe it. You were my first real friend here in Santa Barbara, Sam. Please believe that, too.”

  Sam looked away for a moment, then turned back, her eyes shiny. “It’d be great to have another set of hands right now, especially someone who created the floor plan and knows what she’s doing.”

  “Done.”

  Sam closed her eyes, then opened them and hugged Holly hard. “Thanks.” She pulled back. “I believe in you. I do, but you should also know that others aren’t so sure.”

  Even though Holly had known this, it still hurt. “I understand.”

  Sam squeezed her hand and walked off, and with a deep, fortifying breath, Holly turned to face the ballroom.