From Left Field: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 7) (13 page)

Her lips pursed in a fake kiss. “It’s about the farm.”

Of course it was. But he couldn’t really blame her for keeping her focus. Couldn’t really blame her for buttering him up. He leaned back and serviced his Guinness as she told him about her latest brainstorm, some new event she was calling Pups at the Park.

“And the team already gave permission?” he asked when she was done.

“They thought it was a great idea. Public outreach, and all that.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“Be there for the first hour of the event. You and some other players, as many as you can convince to join us. We’ll start early, so you’ll have plenty of time to get to batting practice before the game.”

Shit. He could sign a few autographs, shake a few hands. That was his own decision. But the second he asked the rest of the guys to help out, they’d feel obligated. He’d be cashing in a lot of his chips. He started to prevaricate: “I don’t know…”

Haley shifted her feet in his lap, digging one heel into his thigh and flexing all ten toes. The motion tightened his own muscles, practically
forced
him to speculate on the shadows he couldn’t quite make out at the top of her thighs. At the same time, his dick announced that it had a damn good idea what to do to complete the investigation.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” Haley said, and she batted her eyelashes at him in a perfect dirty-girl imitation of innocence.

“Yeah,” he grunted, leaning forward to take away her beer. “I bet you will.”

And she did. Twice more before morning.

~~~

Haley surveyed the blacktop, making sure her staff was ready. A few baseball fans had already drifted by, wearing jeans and long-sleeve shirts in deference to the cool morning air. The game didn’t start for a few hours, but the adoption crew was ready early.

Kate stepped up with a clipboard. “I thought you said the baseball players would be here?”

“I thought they would be.” Haley cast a worried look toward the players’ parking lot. Just that morning, she’d awakened with Adam in her bed. She’d rolled over, taking half the covers, thinking he’d play along to get them back, but he hadn’t bitten. Instead, he’d shoved off from his side of the mattress, bending down to collect his clothes from the floor where they’d landed the night before.

She shook herself back to the present. “We can’t wait for the guys. Let’s go ahead and take out the dogs. People are a lot more likely to stop if we’re playing with them when they walk by.”

The staff had focused on bringing the friendliest animals from the shelter. They’d purposely chosen dogs who were great with people, laid-back animals that wouldn’t mind the hustle and bustle of crowds. Haley positioned herself by a long table, checking and double-checking the clipboards that held Paws’ adoption information along with the brightly-colored flyers that explained about the Reeves farm, about the fund-raising they had to complete by the first of June.

Soon, potential owners gathered. Haley found herself explaining Paws’ philosophy to an interested young couple, talking about how the group did its best to socialize every animal in its care, working hard to build perfect family members. “We also take into account the personalities of all our animals. That border collie over there, for example.” She nodded toward the animal Kate was currently displaying. “She’s one of the smartest dogs we have. She can learn just about any trick we throw at her, but she needs a family who can spend time with her, take her out for long runs, keep both her body
and
her mind exercised.”

The couple was intrigued, and they went over to talk to Kate. Haley smiled as the young woman knelt down to offer the back of her hand to the dog.

“You’re good at that. Matching people and animals.”

Of course she recognized Adam’s voice before she turned around. “I should be. I’ve had a lot of practice.”

He was wearing dress clothes—nice slacks, an open-neck white shirt. If she hadn’t known better, she’d think he was a lawyer who’d strolled over from one of the nearby office buildings. Or maybe a stockbroker.

But lawyers and stockbrokers would take care to hide their frowns from potential clients. They wouldn’t let people see the lines of stress etched beside their eyes, the tight draw of the muscles in their necks.

Haley said, “I’ve had practice reading a few people before, too. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Right,” she said, but before she could get him to open up, a man approached the table.

Adam looked up at the same time she did. But while Haley pasted a smile onto her lips, Adam just said, “Shit,” and looked like he’d bitten into a lemon. She glared at him as the man stopped in front of her.

“Haley Thurman?” he asked. When she nodded, he held out a hand. “Ross Parker, from the
News & Observer.
” The reporter inclined his head. “Adam.”

Adam grunted. Haley didn’t have to apply her great skill at reading people to know that Adam didn’t want to talk to the reporter. Parker didn’t seem particularly perturbed, though. Instead, he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small notebook. “Do you have a moment to answer a few questions?”

“Of course,” Haley said, at the same time Adam snapped, “This isn’t a good time.”

Parker looked back and forth between them, before he settled his cool gaze on Haley. “I read some of your promotional material for this event. I thought there’d be ballplayers here. Other than Mr. Sartain, I mean.”

Adam answered before Haley could. “Skip called a team meeting, as I’m sure you’re aware. In fact, I just came out to tell Haley we can’t help out, and I need to get back to the clubhouse.”

 
A team meeting. That explained why Adam was stretched tighter than a wire. Now that she knew about it, she couldn’t really say she was surprised. The Rockets had lost eleven out of their last thirteen games. They had one game left at home before they traveled out to California for a crucial ten-day road trip. There couldn’t be a better time for the manager to give them a pep talk.

Or, more likely, tear them all up one side and down the other. The Rockets’ crusty old manager wasn’t known for holding his players’ hands. And Adam looked like a man about to face the gallows.

He turned to her now, intentionally ignoring the reporter. “I’ll talk to you after the game, all right?”

“Of course,” she said, because what else was she supposed to say?
I’m disappointed in you. You said you’d help. Do you realize how much we need this event to work?
“Have a good game.”

Parker, though, wasn’t about to be cut out of the action that easily. “Before you go, Adam, just a couple of questions?”

“I’m late already.” There was a flatness to Adam’s voice, a rudeness she’d never heard him use before.

But Parker didn’t seem put off. Instead, he raised his pad of paper and asked, “You and Ms. Thurman are making quite some names for yourselves, each of you raising money to buy the Reeves farm. How can you possibly be in a position to make such an investment when Jason Reiter has yet to be brought to justice?”

“No comment,” Adam said. The cords in his neck sharpened, but his voice stayed perfectly even.

“Is it fiscally prudent to invest in an agricultural property when all other assets of the Sartain Foundation were liquidated without your knowledge or intent?”

“No comment.” But this time, Adam’s fingers curled into a fist.

“There’s a rumor going around that you and Mr. Reiter have another corporation on the side, something set up under the laws of the Cayman Islands.”

Adam waited for an eternity, before he asked, “Is that a question?”

“Let’s try this: Have you and Mr. Reiter depleted the Foundation accounts so you can access those funds through a separate corporation chartered outside the tax laws of the United States? Is this thing with the Reeves farm all an elaborate sham to draw attention away from your true actions?”

“That’s a lie, and you know it,” Adam said, taking a threatening step forward.

Even as Haley raised her hand to interrupt, Parker shook his head. “It’s a lie that you’re working with Mr. Reiter? Or a lie that you’re doing everything in your power to take control over the Reeves farm? That you are willing to run Paws for Love into the ground as a screen for the real financial games you’re playing?”

Haley caught her breath at Parker’s questions. Adam’s face twisted into a dark mask, and she actually believed he might take a swing at the reporter. At the very least, she expected him to go for the notebook, the pad where Parker was recording his evidence. Instead, though, Adam spat out an answer. “Fuck you, Parker. And you can quote me on that.”

He turned on his heel and walked away before anyone could form a reply.

~~~

Adam slammed his bat against the on-deck circle, knocking lose the lead weight he’d used to warm up. He stalked to the batter’s box and dug in, grating his cleats against the fine red dirt. He braced himself to focus on the pitcher, to measure the ball as it left the guy’s fingers, but he missed the fastball by a mile.

“Strike!” the ump bellowed behind him, like he was determined to be heard in the last row of the bleacher seats in center field.

Adam knew he had to concentrate, had to keep his mind in the game. He’d struck out his first time at the plate, and he’d fucked up an easy catch in the top of the third, earning himself yet another error. The Rockets and this game had to take top priority. Parker didn’t matter. Haley didn’t matter either, not right now. Not with another ball hurtling toward the plate.

“Strike!” the ump called again. Adam hadn’t even lifted the bat from his shoulder.

If Parker printed a word of his speculation, Adam would slap him with a libel suit so fast the asshole wouldn’t know what hit him. His lawyers were good for that, anyway, even if they hadn’t figured out a way to drag Jason Fucking Reiter back from his rumored retreat in South America, even if they hadn’t figured out a way to insulate the Foundation from a horde of screaming creditors, to protect what little was left of the organization’s reputation now that its assets were shot to hell.

Ten years in the majors, and it came down to this. A team everyone had said was a shoo-in for the play-offs, fighting to stay within sight of .500. His batting average down to the low two hundreds, fifty points south of what he should be able to deliver. He’d made his fourth error of the season, and it was only the middle of May.

Some face of the franchise he made. His game was shit. His Foundation was stranded. And he wasn’t about to think about the look on Haley’s face when she heard that dipshit’s accusation, the question she shoved down so quickly he almost missed it. But he’d seen that flicker of uncertainty. And he’d watched her turn to him, asking for an explanation—one he couldn’t give, because his people hadn’t gotten anywhere close to dragging Reiter back and pinning his ass to the wall.

Bottom line, Parker was a tick, sucking him dry to sell more papers. But the fact remained: Adam had to do something. He had to act fast if he was going to save the Foundation. And the only way he could do that, the only way he could preserve anything approaching the legacy he wanted, the one he
needed
, was to buy the goddamn farm.

“Strike!” the ump shouted, pumping his fist and calling the out as another fastball scorched by Adam’s chest.

The ball was high, and Adam whirled to protest. “Any ump with two good eyes could have seen that, cocksu—”

“You’re out of here!” The ump shouted, jerking his thumb toward the dugout.

Blinking his way through a red curtain of rage, Adam threw down his bat and stomped out of the batter’s box. He slammed his batting helmet onto the shelf in the dugout, and he smashed a water bottle against the back wall. He was just building up a perfect head of steam, grappling his arms around a cooler, ready to toss the entire thing to the ground, when Drew Marshall approached him—hands held high, lips pursed in a warning whistle.

“Get out of my way,” Adam snarled, chest heaving.

“Leave it, buddy,” Marshall said.

“I said—”

“Hit the showers, man. Don’t make them go any further. The last thing you need, the last thing the
team
needs is for you to be suspended.”

Adam swore a blue streak as he shouldered past the shortstop. He slammed into the empty clubhouse, still flexing his fists in rage. At least he could kick his locker door hard, without anyone telling him what to do and when to do it. He damn near broke his toe, but that didn’t keep him from kicking again and again and again.

~~~

Haley waited by the players’ parking lot, having left the Pups at the Park program in Kate’s competent hands. Truth be told, the event had netted a lot less interest than Paws had hoped. That might be the result of choosing the wrong place at the wrong time—people going to a ball game just weren’t thinking about bringing home a new pet. It could also be the result of the team wimping out—animal lovers who had hoped to meet their favorite players before batting practice had just walked past Paws when the players weren’t there.

Sure, she was disappointed. Paws needed funds. And Adam had promised he’d deliver the guys, at least enough of them to make a real impression.

But more than that, Haley was concerned. She’d followed the game on her phone; she knew Adam had been thrown out. A quick scan of social media described the scene at the plate, the way he’d thrown himself around the dugout. And that wasn’t like Adam. He didn’t lose his temper. He didn’t have a temper to lose.

At least that’s what she thought when she caught him slinking out the door from the clubhouse, heading toward his car with his shoulders hunched and his fingers gripped tight around his keys.

“Adam,” she called through the fence. She hadn’t even tried to get past security. They had no reason to let her in among the valuable vehicles.

He heard her. She saw his shoulders stiffen, saw the way he checked himself as he started to turn toward the fence. But he stopped before he looked at her, went back to his car, and fitted his key to the lock with precision.