From Left Field: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 7) (2 page)

He nodded. “Time for me to get back to my place. Through the dark. And the cold. All the way across both yards.”

“You poor thing.” She was laughing, which had been his intention.

“Up all those stairs to my bedroom.”

“Smallest violin in the world,” she said, rubbing her fingers together.

“With nothing to look forward to but a cold shower in the morning.”

“With nothing— Cold shower? Why?”

“Goddamn water heater must have blown out during the week, some time after Jason stopped by on his regular rounds. I found out last night when I got home. There’s a foot of water down there.”

So much for having someone look in on the place while he was gone. His manager, Jason Reiter, was supposed to watch over the house. The guy had an eagle eye for details; that’s why he was in charge of all Adam’s money. It was unlike him to miss a leak. It was even more unusual that he hadn’t responded to Adam’s texts all day.

“You can’t sleep there if your basement’s full of water!”

“Why not? I’ll be upstairs.”

“What if there’s an electrical short? What if the house burns down?”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s had plenty of time to do whatever it’s going to do. I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You’ll stay here tonight.”

“It’s no big deal.”

“You’re right,” she insisted. “It isn’t. The bed in the guest room is all made up.”

“I’m not a charity case.”

“No,” she said, sounding like he was the biggest idiot she’d ever met. “You’re a friend.” When he still didn’t respond, she said, “Come on, Adam. I’m just being neighborly.”

And that was it, the code from their childhood, passed down from their parents, time and time again. It was
neighborly
for him to mow the Thurmans’ lawn, in exchange for the chocolate chip cookies Haley baked. It was
neighborly
for her to pick up groceries for his mother, once Mom’s arthritis had made daily errands painful. It was
neighborly
to do a dozen different favors, whatever was needed at the time.

Well, the prospect of waking up to a hot shower had a certain amount of charm. And it wasn’t like he’d never spent a night in this old house—he’d practically lived here when he was a kid. Besides, he knew that look of determination in Haley’s eyes.

“Fine,” he said. And then, because he sounded like a seven-year-old boy who’d just been tricked into eating his vegetables, he added grudgingly, “Thank you.”

~~~

Haley tried not to gloat. “Go on upstairs. I’m just going to lock up.”

Of course, he didn’t leave her. He followed her into the kitchen as she checked that the dogs had plenty of water in their bowls. He watched as she tested the lock on the back door. He stood beside her in the front hall as she flipped the deadbolt and turned off the porch light.

Back in the family room, she ignored the old adage and knelt beside her sleeping dogs. She pulled gently on Darcy’s ears, evoking a series of snorts as the ancient beagle settled to a more comfortable position at the bottom of the canine pile. She rubbed Heathcliff’s belly, setting off a few half-hearted tail thumps against the floor before the shepherd mix sighed back to sleep. She scratched Killer from the top of her head to the tip of her tail, reminding the mutt that she didn’t need to wake up before sunrise.

She knew Adam was laughing at her. Everyone laughed when she talked to her dogs. But that would never keep her from carrying on the conversation. After all, the dogs were there for her every morning and every night.

Which was a hell of a lot more than she’d been able to say about Dylan. Or any other man she’d dated.

Adam followed as she led the way up the stairs. They both knew to avoid the center of the squeaky one, three steps from the top—habit now, because they didn’t have to worry about waking her parents, who were presumably sleeping soundly in their Florida condo. Not like when she was growing up, when Mom and Dad threatened to chain the doors shut against rule-breaking kids who only found new ways to get into post-curfew trouble.

Smiling at the memory of some rather spectacular displays of
trouble
, Haley pulled open the door to the linen closet. She’d told the truth when she said the bed was all made up—she always kept the house ready for any of the Thurman clan to stop by. She made short work of digging out a towel and a washcloth. It took her a little more effort to find a toothbrush at the back, but she managed.

“There you go,” she said.

“Thanks.”

She watched him slip into the guest room, the one that used to host her brothers’ bunk beds. He gently shut the door behind himself, and she took the chance to duck into the bathroom, to brush her own teeth, to splash water across eyes that were suddenly grainy.

It was a ton of work to put on the Opening Day party. She’d cooked all weekend, getting things ready. She’d worried about the weather for twenty-four straight hours. She’d barely been able to concentrate on the afternoon game because she’d been thinking about timing, about making all the food come out in the proper order.

She rolled her neck, trying to loosen her muscles. Adam had done a killer job on her feet. She could still feel his firm, confident fingers on her calves. She should have pushed for a back rub.

She still could.

Yeah, right. Adam had to be as tired as she was. More—he’d just gotten back from Florida the day before, and he’d
played
the game she’d watched with one eye. Played it, and been interviewed, and then come over and talked to everyone at the party. She should let the guy get some sleep.

Shaking her head at her own selfishness, she went into the master bedroom, the one that still felt like it belonged to her parents. Leaving the door open a crack so patrolling dogs would know she hadn’t been abducted by aliens, Haley shimmied out of her clothes. She found her nightshirt under her pillow, the oversize T she always wore. As she slipped into bed, she pulled the blanket and comforter up close beneath her chin. This early in spring, it was cold in the old house.

The guest room would be freezing. There was only a thin cotton blanket on the bed. What sort of hostess was she, inviting Adam to freeze to death?

Shaking her head at her own stupidity, she climbed out of bed. Now, the house seemed more quiet than before. The door to the linen closet squeaked as she opened it, and she sounded like a marauding bandit as she excavated a quilt from the bottom shelf.

She didn’t want to knock on Adam’s door, in case he’d actually managed to fall asleep. Instead, she twisted the doorknob with painstaking care, adding just enough pressure to ease the door open.

Moonlight washed in through the pair of windows, supplementing the soft fall of light that barely made it down the hall from her own bedroom. She’d replaced the boys’ bunk beds with a single queen, making a decent room for visiting adults.

Adam lay on his back when she opened the door, but he pushed himself up on his elbows when she hovered on the threshold. The sheet and blanket slipped down his chest, making him look like some sort of Roman statue. “Haley,” he said, his voice low and throaty.

She was totally unprepared for the wave of emotion that hit her. Her belly swooped down to her toes—the same toes he’d been rubbing not an hour before. No, that wasn’t her
belly
doing the swooping—it was something distinctly lower. Something that hadn’t been involved with thoughts about Adam Sartain for fifteen years or more. She caught her breath in surprise at her body’s reaction.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, pushing himself up further.

But that only caused more of a problem, because it made the sheet fall farther, made the blanket drape across his lap. She caught herself looking at that lap, wondering if he was wearing underpants or if he’d stripped completely for a quiet night’s sleep. She didn’t know what type of shorts he wore. Her brothers had both switched to boxers as soon as they were able to voice a preference, so she assumed Adam had too, but maybe not. Maybe as an athlete—

“Haley?” he asked, and this time, the growl was gone from his voice, replaced by naked concern.

No. Not
naked
. She had to stop thinking of
naked
.

“Here!” she said, barking out the word at full volume. Then she cleared her throat and said, like a normal person, “I thought you might be cold. It’s a quilt. You know. In case you’re cold.”

Oh my God. She must be drunk. But she wasn’t drunk—she hadn’t had a sip of alcohol since that one beer with dinner.

He started to push back the covers, but she wasn’t prepared to let him do that. Instead, she closed the distance between them, practically throwing the quilt onto the bed. She turned on her heel and fled back to the doorway, trying not to think about how hard her heart was pounding.

“Thanks,” he said behind her, and she thought she heard him laughing.

“No problem,” she said, and she hurried out the door, pulling it closed all the way and practically running to her own room. She hurtled herself into her bed and pulled the blanket up to her nose.

No problem
, she’d said. But she’d lied. There was very much a problem.

Adam Sartain wasn’t one of the untrained puppies in the Thurman pack. He was a man. A man who might very well be lying naked in the next room. A man who had given her a foot massage and made her moan like Hollywood’s idea of a woman in love. A man she’d known all her life, but who she was suddenly seeing in a very new light.

She told herself she was an idiot. It was absurd to tremble like she was. She’d drunk too much, or she’d put too much cayenne in the barbecue sauce, or she’d dumped too much sugar into the banana pudding.

She was
not
going to have a crush on Adam Sartain, not now, not after all these years.

But she wasn’t very good at listening to herself. And she had a hard time falling asleep. Because all night long, she listened for the guest room door to open. She waited for Adam to read her mind. And she fought to smother her disappointment when he didn’t.

After a long, restless night, Haley had to make a conscious effort to brighten her voice as she spoke to her neighbor over her breakfast table. “Mr. Reeves,” she said, “Let me get you some cream for your coffee.” She managed to turn smoothly in her practical pumps. She was actually pleased with the outfit she’d chosen for this business meeting. Because that’s what today’s breakfast was—a meeting—even though Mr. Reeves was a neighbor she’d known for fifteen years.

She’d debated what to wear that morning, trying on three separate outfits, all the time aware of Adam sleeping down the hall. She’d discarded her first choice—her usual work clothes of jeans and a T-shirt—as far too casual for what she needed to accomplish. She’d thrown out her second choice—a tailored skirt and fitted jacket along with requisite high heels—as much too stuffy.

Like Goldilocks, she’d settled on her third outfit—slacks and a comfortable silk blouse, finished off with low navy pumps. The clothes made her feel professional, like she had every right to be discussing prime Raleigh real estate with a motivated seller. She couldn’t chicken out now. Not when Paws for Love needed her to be strong.

Paws was the reason she’d gone out of her way to buy Peet’s Coffee, instead of the usual cheap stuff she swilled by the gallon. Paws was why she’d splurged on actual cream, instead of the skim milk she usually splashed into her own mug. She’d even stopped by the bakery on her way home, picking up a dozen petit fours, which she’d taken care to arrange on a serving platter and kept away from the ravening hordes at the barbecue.

Now she pushed that plate closer to Mr. Reeves, and she took a seat at the table. “I really appreciate your coming all the way over here, sir.”

He snorted. “I just climbed over the fence,” he said, belying his eight decades with the glint in his eye.

“All the same, I appreciate it,” she repeated. She waited a moment so her next words would sound respectful instead of simply eager. “It’s a shame you have to sell the farm.”

“Maggie and I knew we couldn’t stay forever when we moved in. Now that she’s having so much trouble with her breathing, we really need to move out to New Mexico. It’s just hard to think of letting go of a farm that’s been in my family for nine generations.”

Haley reached out and patted his hand. “I can only imagine,” she said. “The place has looked better these past fifteen years than it ever did when you rented it out.”

The old man took a healthy swallow of coffee. “That’s part of the reason we’ve decided to sell it. Renters won’t keep it up the way we want it to be kept. We’d rather find someone new, someone who can really do the farm justice.”

Haley tried not to smile too broadly, but she loaded enthusiasm into her words. “Well, Paws for Love is
exactly
that type of someone, Mr. Reeves.”

“Tell me more about your group,” he said. “Oh, don’t mind if I do,” he added, as Haley pushed the plate of miniature cakes closer to him.

She waited until his mouth was full of chocolate cake and ganache, and then she launched into her standard spiel. “Paws for Love is a no-kill animal shelter. We take animals who would otherwise be put down—strays found on the street, pets whose families can’t keep them for some reason, sick or injured animals whose owners can’t pay for treatment. We provide medical care to the ones who need nursing, and we work on socialization and obedience training for every animal that’s adoptable. We do our best to find them all forever homes, but we guarantee a future for every animal we accept into our system.”

Mr. Reeves nodded, not bothering to seek her approval as he reached for another petit four. Before he popped the vanilla cream into his mouth, he asked, “What exactly do you want with a property like mine?”

Of course, Haley had practiced her answer to that. “Right now, we operate out of a storefront in a strip mall. Zoning limits the number of animals we can have, and the building itself has severe limitations. We have a handful of kennels for dogs and a single room for cats, another for small companion animals like rabbits and ferrets, all kept in cages. But every day, we need to turn away deserving animals, good creatures who deserve a better chance. With a property like the Reeves Farm, we could expand every one of our programs. We could take in more animals, provide better medical care, socialize more dogs and cats so they can be adopted, and train animals who’ve already found their lifelong families.”