Fastball (7 page)

The next half hour passed quickly, with
Maddie probing more deeply into what Jake thought about his career
and his injuries, and about the fact that he’d recently had to
settle for a salary cut and a one-year contract extension. Didn’t
it bother him that the combination of getting older and getting
injured meant losing the top tier status he used to enjoy?

He waved an impatient hand. “The truth is
I’ve never cared about the star label. In fact, I’ve never really
cared a whole lot about the money, either. Maybe that’s going to be
hard for your readers to believe, but I grew up with small town
values that weren’t about how much you made and how much stuff you
could manage to own.”

Her smile was so politely skeptical that he
had to laugh. He leaned over and refilled her wine glass before
continuing.

“When I signed those two multi-million dollar
contracts in my twenties, I didn’t change much about the way I
lived,” he said. “I didn’t see the point, and still don’t. I like
my life as it is, and I don’t envy guys with huge houses and
garages full of expensive cars and stupid toys. That’s just more
crap to take care of, and there are a lot better uses for that kind
of money.”

She smiled and seemed to relax a bit, her
slender fingers curled loosely around her wine glass. “Okay, I know
you live a lifestyle that’s modest compared to other players in
your position. But can you be more specific? You told me earlier
you help out your parents and put aside funds to put your nieces
and nephews through college, but you’ve made a pretty big fortune
over your career. What else do you do with your money, if I may
ask?”

Jake shifted in his seat. How he used his
obscenely high salary—even after the cut in pay—wasn’t something he
felt comfortable talking about. He viewed it as very private
territory, and nobody’s business but his own. He even liked to keep
most of his donations anonymous, so why should he blab anything out
to her?

But a couple of seconds later, he sighed and
mentally capitulated, ruefully acknowledging how much he wanted to
impress her. God, he was an idiot. “I work with a lot of different
charities, Maddie, but I don’t talk about it much. I don’t want to
be seen as a big hero just because I can donate chunks of money to
good causes.”

She frowned. “But why not? It sounds pretty
heroic to me.”

“Giving money is easy. I meet people all the
time who don’t have a lot of money, but they give incredible
amounts of their time and really put their hearts into helping
people. That’s way more difficult than what I do.”

“Give me an example of what you’re talking
about,” she gently urged.

“One really important group for me is the
Alzheimer’s Society. I’ve got a friend back home whose mother
suffered with it for at least ten years before she died. It was
terrible for the whole family—an unbelievably sad story. But my
friend refused to put his mom in a nursing home until the very end.
He and his sister, and his dad, did everything they could to keep
her with them in the family home. When they finally had to
institutionalize her, it just about killed them, even though they
found a great facility. So, a couple of years ago I was asked to
sit on the board of the Minnesota Alzheimer’s Society, and I jumped
at the chance. I try to work in quite a few fundraising activities
for them every year.”

He paused, startled at the change in her. Her
lush mouth had thinned into a straight line, and her complexion had
paled. What the hell had he said?

“Are you okay, Maddie?”

She gave a surprising little shiver, but then
collected herself. “Just someone walking over my grave, I guess. Go
on, please. Why don’t you tell me about some of the projects you
get involved in? You don’t have to necessarily give me the names of
the charities. Just talk about the kind of things that attract your
interest.”

He rambled on for several minutes about stuff
he was currently involved with, but he could tell she wasn’t
focused. And she’d started fiddling with the tape recorder buttons
again. Obviously something he’d said had upset her. That look was
back in her eyes—the same one that had been there earlier when
she’d been talking about her dad.

Jake found himself wishing like hell that he
could make it go away.

* * *

Maddie suspected she was nodding like a
bobble-head doll as she tried to focus on the interview. What Jake
had to say about his charity work would normally interest her, but
their discussion about Alzheimer’s had caught her unprepared. It
cut way too close to home, and she couldn’t seem to regain full
control.

In fact, the whole damn interview had
catapulted too many repressed emotions to the surface, and now she
had to struggle to keep from letting them show. She hated that she
might be coming off as an unprofessional, ditzy female and part of
her regretted meeting Jake in the first place. Her instincts had
been correct—the man posed a danger to her, and not just to her
professional standing with the team.

It took Maddie a few seconds to register that
a heavy silence had fallen between them. When Jake reached over to
take her hand, his big one engulfing her much smaller one, she
flinched with surprise.

Frowning, he pulled back. “I’m sorry, Maddie.
I didn’t mean to upset you. Are you all right?”

She stared at him, suddenly wishing his hand
still rested on top of hers. The warmth of his fingers, the touch
of his rough, calloused palm, had felt good. Shockingly good. Even
worse, she wished he would scoop her up and hold her against him,
offering her the sheltering strength of his body.

Clearly, she was losing her mind.

A wry smile shaped his lips. “Okay, not
talking works, too. But why don’t we get out of here? I think we
both could use some air. How about a walk down to the ocean? After
that we can hail cabs or go over to that hotel down the street.
They have a cab line out front.”

She jerked into speech. “Oh, right. Good.
Yes, that sounds good.”

Lovely. Now she was babbling. The poor guy
must think she was an idiot.

Struggling to regain her composure, she
returned his smile. “Getting a few minutes of fresh air would be
great. I’m satisfied with what I have for the column, so, thank you
for your frankness, Jake. Thanks for everything.”

He smiled as he caught the waiter’s eye and
made a “bring the check” motion with his hand.

Maddie fussed with the recorder, stowing it
away in her bag as she waited for her erratic heartbeat to settle.
Jake’s simple, gentle touch had set off a buzzing sensation along
her nerves and just under her skin. She needed a walk. She needed
to get outside and put some distance between them before she did or
said something really stupid.

Jake was exerting a powerful, almost
irresistible draw on her, and that scared her half to death.
Despite the fact that he wasn’t the type of guy who played the
field, she knew he had to be doing just that right now. No way in
hell would Jake Miller get serious about a woman like her, and
everything in Maddie revolted at the idea that she could become
just another notch on his bedpost. Maybe he could handle a casual
affair or a one-night stand, but she knew for a fact that she never
could.

Especially with a man she could fall for in
an instant, and when such a lapse could cost her everything she’d
worked so hard to achieve.

The fresh sea air carried a chill as they
strolled up Prospect and then down toward the ocean. Maddie wore a
light shawl of some gauzy material around her shoulders, but Jake
could tell by the way she clutched it to her body that she was
getting cold. Taking off his jacket, he offered it to her with a
mock-gallant gesture. She hesitated for a moment before accepting
it with a nod of thanks. Once she had it on, she looked down at
herself, her eyes widening. The jacket swallowed her, coming nearly
down to her knees, the sleeves reaching several inches below the
tips of her fingers. She started to laugh, and Jake couldn’t help
joining in.

“God, I must look like a six-year-old wearing
her daddy’s jacket on Halloween,” she said. “There’s enough
material in here for a whole new wardrobe.”

She was the farthest thing from a little kid
he could imagine, and her sweet laugh utterly captivated him.
Maddie had the whole package. Girl-next-door wholesomeness and lots
of smarts packaged in a scorching hot body sure to give any
red-blooded male a permanent hard-on. The more time he spent in her
company, the more Jake hungered to wrap his arms around her and not
let go for a very long time.

And the release of tension after the jittery
ending to their interview eased the awkwardness between them.

“Hey, Jake,” Maddie said with a shy smile,
“Do me a favor, would you? Let’s move under that light over there.
You can stand next to me and I’ll try to capture the moment, as
they say, with my cell phone. I’d like to have it as a memento of a
very unusual evening. And whenever I need a good laugh, I can pull
it up for reminders.”

He liked that she wanted a reminder of their
evening together, one of the first of many, he was beginning to
hope. “Sure thing.”

Maddie extracted her phone from her bag as
Jake moved in beside her, sliding his arm around her waist. She
made no move to pull away or protest. Instead, she even inched a
bit closer as she held the phone in front of her, trying to
maneuver it at full arms-length to catch them both in the shot.
Jake tried to be subtle, tightening his arm around her waist as she
moved the phone up and down, squinting at the tiny screen. Damn, he
liked the way she felt against him.

She finally shook her head, blowing out an
exasperated breath. “I can’t get enough of us in the picture. I
either cut off your head or everything below my neck. Here, you try
it. With those gorilla arms, you should be able to get a lot more
of us in the frame.”

“Gorilla, huh? You sure know how to make a
guy feel good, Maddie.”

She gave a delicate little snort of laughter
as he took the phone and held it out in front of them. He squeezed
the camera key several times, hoping that one of the shots would do
the trick. When he finished, Maddie retrieved the phone and peered
at the small screen, tilting it under the light of the streetlamp
for a better view. Her face lit up with fiendish glee, and she
broke into laugher again.

The sexy sound of her laugh, the delight on
her gorgeous face made him want to tip up her determined little
chin and devour her with hot, endless kisses. Christ, she
intoxicated him, and he couldn’t remember the last time a woman had
done that. But was it too soon? Was she feeling anything like the
hot rush of energy that coursed through his body? He didn’t know
her well enough yet to read her, but every cell in his body urged
him to find out the answer to that question.

As her laughter subsided into giggles, he
acted on the impulse. He gently turned her toward him, tilted her
chin up with a finger, and leaned into the kiss. Her eyes grew wide
with surprise and her mouth parted in a slight gasp. A split-second
before their lips touched, Maddie’s hands flew up to his shoulders,
holding him off.

“Jake, I’m sorry, but I can’t.” She backed
out of his loose embrace, looking confused and flustered. “We both
know we can’t let this happen. Please, let’s just walk, okay?” She
ducked her head down and lifted a hand to her cheek as she turned
and began walking again.

With spiraling frustration—and an ache in his
groin he’d remember for a long time—Jake nodded, and they started
walking down the hill without saying another word. When they
reached the pier, both remained quiet and stared, side-by-side, out
toward the sea and the tiny lights of one ship, miles off in the
distance. Her face remained hidden in the shadows, denying his
attempts to read her expression.

Nice going, asshole
. Following his
instincts had definitely not paid off in this case. He sensed that
he had scared her pretty thoroughly.

Finally Maddie turned, and the lights from a
nearby apartment building illuminated her face. She shrugged her
shoulders, looking awkward as hell. “I’m sorry, Jake. Please don’t
be angry. And don’t get me wrong, because I’m very flattered.
Actually, the truth is that I’m blown away by the fact that you
seem interested in me.”

He frowned. “I don’t know why you would be,
Maddie. You’re an amazing woman.”

She ducked her head, looking shy. “And you’re
an unbelievably attractive man. And if we weren’t who we are….” Her
voice trailed off and she turned back toward the sea as if to
collect her thoughts. He decided to give her some space.

“You know,” she finally said, sounding brisk,
“getting involved with me wouldn’t do your career any good, but at
least a brief hook-up with me wouldn’t actually hurt you.”

He opened his mouth to object to her
mischaracterization of his intentions, but she held up a hand to
stop him. “My career, on the other hand, would be toast, and we
both know it. There’s no way I could be the Patriots writer, or any
kind of sports reporter for that matter, if I were involved with an
active player. It’s just impossible. You know that.”

Actually, he didn’t know that for certain,
but it was more likely true than not. He’d put her in a
compromising position, ignoring the logistical difficulties in his
selfish desire to get to know her better. Unfortunately, he had a
sense that his desire for her would only grow over time.

Still, she needed to make the call, not him.
“You’re right, Maddie. I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have put
you in a tough position. We were having a great time tonight, and I
blew it.” He exhaled a heavy breath. “I think you’re fantastic, and
I hope we can be friends. Can we just forget this happened?”