Love of the Game

To my brother-of-the-heart, David Vanzura. You're

a shining example of what a good man should be.

Thank you for your support and encouragement and

for always being in my corner.

I
t starts like this: an unexpected spark, instant attraction, the jolting jab of oh-so-you-feel-this-too? Flash fire in the belly. A corkscrew twist in the center of the chest. A physical ache that punches low and heavy and spreads out hard and fast through muscles and tendons, blood and bone.

Heady.

Erotic.

Thrilling.

Physical therapist Kasha Carlyle had felt it before, this hot flare, runaway-mine-train-express that stirred fear in the dark recesses of her mind. She'd resisted it then. Resisted it now.

But
this
? This here? This
was something more.

Stronger.

Bolder.

Scarier.

Coal black eyes melted her resistance, seared it to ash. In that stopwatch moment when her gaze struck, and stuck to the steely stare of the Dallas Gunslingers' most valuable pitcher, Axel Richmond.

He'd just completed a physical therapy session with his trainer, Paul Hernandez, and he was sitting on a bench wearing nothing but red workout pants, his bare chest on display. Every glistening muscle was finely etched. Not a drop of fat on him. He was a splendid specimen of adult male in top physical shape, life and passion oozing from his pores.

The only thing that seemed out of place was the black tattoo over his heart that spelled out
Dylan
.

One look and everything and everyone blended and blurred as white-hot need transported them into their own little world far from the sports medicine facility in North Dallas, where baseball coaches, managers, administrators, and sports medicine specialists surrounded them.

For a split second.

Then pure panic set in.

It was Tuesday, May seventeenth, and the second week of Kasha's three-month probationary period at her new job working with injured major league baseball players.

And she was already falling in lust.

No. No. This simply would not do. Keeping her job was essential.

Now that she had Emma to consider, she urgently needed the bump in salary to pay off the student loans that had gotten her through her PhD. Not to mention the excellent health insurance coverage. Finding out about Emma had changed everything.

Quickly, Kasha peeled her gaze from Axel's and she studied the insignia on the wall above his head—the blue and green Gunslingers crossed dueling pistols logo
—
but she didn't see a darn thing. Purposefully, she slowed her breathing, and forced herself to listen to the conversation.

“I wish we had better news,” Dr. Tad Harrison, the lead physician on the team, said to Axel.

Dr. Harrison had been the one to hire Kasha, and the one to caution her that only thirty percent of probationary employees made it past the first three months. “It takes a special breed to work with these
ballplayers. They're long on arrogance and stubbornness and always think they know best.”

“I have a lot of patience,” she'd said because it was true.

“I heard they call you the Exorcist in your current job,” Dr. Harrison had said. “Why is that?”

She couldn't keep from smiling. “My colleagues say I have a talent for taming difficult clients.”

“And do you?”

“I consider physical therapy a calling.” She folded her hands in her lap, and said without a hint of ego, “I was born for this work.”

Dr. Harrison stroked his chin. “That's what Rowdy said too.”

Rowdy Blanton was the field manager for the Gunslingers. He was also Kasha's brother-in-law, married to her younger adoptive sister, Breeanne, and he'd recommended her for the job.

“If I hire you,” Dr. Harrison had continued, “it will be on your own merits, not your relationship to Rowdy. He got you this interview, but that's as far as nepotism goes.”

“As it should.” Kasha bobbed her head.

The uncertainty of the job was why she hadn't yet rented an apartment in Dallas. Every day, she made the one hundred and thirty-five mile, one-way trek to the stadium from her hometown of Stardust.

While she was optimistic, she was also practical. She'd learned that fate could derail even the best intentions and you had to be ready to flow whichever way the current took you. For the next three months, until she solidified the job, she would keep making that drive.

For Emma.

Her thoughts took off in a hundred different directions at once. Stalled. Spun. Gathered momentum like an encroaching hurricane. Realizing her mind had wandered, she forcefully shut down the unproductive thoughts and directed her attention back to the patient.

Axel Richmond.

One more look and Kasha was on fire and she hated it. The last thing she wanted right now was to meet a guy, especially this guy. Whose stark dark hair was drenched in the heady sheen of sweat.

He was as sexy as ten kinds of sin, and twice as handsome, and he was studying her through heavily lidded eyes as if she was the most fascinating creature he'd seen in years.

Um . . . yes . . . that's why her mind had wandered. To keep from dealing with the feelings his hot-to-trot gaze churned inside her.

She let out such a long sigh that everyone in the room swiveled to stare. She kept her face blank and examined her fingernails, pretending she'd discovered a ragged cuticle.

From the moment Axel had strolled into the therapy room with his pro-athlete swagger and princely sense of entitlement, she'd been mesmerized.

Spellbound by the way his fitted T-shirt hugged his intricately muscled body. Then he'd stripped off the shirt, giving her an even more arresting view. A thick head of lush brown hair curled around his ears, and those powerful thighs strained at the seams of his workout pants.

Whew.

It wasn't like her to ogle hunky guys. Okay, yes, she could appreciate the perfect male specimen as much as the next woman. But normally the sight of a well-constructed body didn't carry her away.

For one thing, as a physical therapist, it was unprofessional. For another, just because a guy was hot didn't mean he had a lick of substance.

But sometimes, the visual was too compelling to ignore. Case in point, Axel Richmond.

She was glad she was merely here as a trainee observer, and not his physical therapist.

Big. Darkly tanned. Rugged. Hard-edged. He exuded a savvy, urban, streetwise vibe that blasted a shiver up her spine. He was the kind of man who could seriously derail a woman's life if she gave him half a chance.

Especially a woman who'd grown up in the safe cocoon of a town called Stardust, where houses were charming and colloquial, yards were tree-shaded and expansive, fences were white-picket, and most of the townsfolk had Texas roots that ran five generations deep, but spiked with Louisiana flair. From crawfish boils to boggy swampland to the way people pronounced “praline.” (
Pray-leen
for the rest of Texas,
prawl-een
in the eastern border counties.) Stardust was a perfect place to stay in a haunted B&B, catch lightning bugs in a jar on a muggy summer's evening, celebrate the Fourth of July, trade tall tales with the locals, and watch pine trees grow.

In the best Bugs Bunny imitation Kasha had ever heard, Axel said with a sarcastic tone, “Aww, what's up, Doc?”

Kasha hid a grin and Axel caught her hiding it. And his gaze turned knowing.

Snap!

The sizzle between them was as volatile as dynamite and just as dangerous.

Dr. Harrison pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, rubbed the spot between his eyebrows with
the pad of his thumb. “Your recovery is not progressing as quickly as we'd hoped.”

Axel struggled to contain the ghost of a wince, layering a smile on top of the hurt as if over-icing a lopsided cake, trying to make it look better.

“How's that possible? I've been pushing myself to the limit. Working out eight, nine hours a day. I'm ready to get back out on the mound. More than ready. Hell, I'm
desperate
.” Axel said the last word as if a dentist had wrenched it from his mouth.

A painful truth.

Dr. Harrison darted a glance at the Gunslingers' general manager, Truman Beck. The GM shook his head. Both Beck and Harrison exchanged concerned looks with Rowdy, who stood to one side, arms folded over his chest.

Rowdy knew what it was like to be in Axel's position. His career had ended abruptly after a baseball bat–wielding assailant had attacked him outside a Dallas nightclub three years earlier.

“What?” Axel demanded, a dismal note in his voice. The guy might be a typical cocky jock, but he was aching. “What aren't you telling me?”

Dr. Harrison cleared his throat. “Your range of motion has actually worsened since your last exam.”

Axel's face crumpled as surely as if he'd taken an uppercut to the jaw from the fist of a heavyweight prizefighter. To his credit, he recovered quickly, shaking it off, hardening his chin, straightening his spine. Tough. He was tough.

His right hand clenched closed in his lap, his left palm lying open on his knee. He licked his lips, an I-freaking-hate-being-vulnerable glaze clouding his eyes. “So where do we go from here?”

Another tense, three-pointed exchange of glances between Dr. Harrison, the general manager, and Rowdy.

Kasha's stomach tightened.

“We're just as anxious to get you back on the field as you are to get there,” said Truman Beck. “Dr. Harrison has consulted colleagues across the country about your case and . . .”

“There is a cutting-edge procedure we'd like to try.” Dr. Harrison fiddled with his tie.

“Why haven't we tried it already?” Axel shoved a hand through his hair, his frustrated brow cleaved.

“Because,” Rowdy said, “although the surgery has rapidly restored functioning in some people, in other cases it's actually made things worse.”

“Ah shit.” Axel pulled a palm down his face.

Dr. Harrison gave Axel a booklet. “All the statistics are here, and of course we would use the doctor who invented the procedure, which increases the chances for a positive outcome.”

Beck stuck his hands in his front pockets and rocked from the balls of his feet to his heels. “It's your best option.”

Using the TV monitor in the corner, Dr. Harrison started a PowerPoint presentation on the innovative surgical procedure. Axel stared at the screen, but Kasha could tell he wasn't absorbing much of it.

Her sympathy shifted, bloomed to full-on empathy.

Axel's gaze smashed into Kasha's so sharply she softly gasped at the impact. The sultry expression in his eyes said,
You, me, another time, another place, fireworks!

Thank God it wasn't another time or place. Kasha didn't do fireworks. Ever.

Purposefully, she schooled her face, making it unreadable. She wasn't going to let Mr. Hotshot Pitcher know how much he affected her.

When the presentation was over, Dr. Harrison switched off the television and turned his attention back to Axel. “So when should we schedule the surgery?”

Axel grunted. “Why do I feel like I'm being railroaded?”

Dr. Harrison raised his palms. “Mr. Beck needs to prepare for the future—”

“And you want to know whether to move me to the sixty-day disabled list or not,” Axel said flatly.

“Yes,” Beck confirmed.

Axel jumped to his feet, his hands clenched by his side. “You don't have to put me on the sixty-day DL. Give me a shot at the mound. I can play through a little pain.”

“We tried that two weeks ago against Denver, and not only did we lose the game, but apparently it set back your recovery.” Beck slowed his speech as if talking to a wayward child, pausing to let the news sink in. “The key question here is whether you can get better without aggressive intervention.”

Axel's face paled and he looked as if he might throw up. “And if I refuse to have the surgery?”

“Then I can't guarantee your future with the Gunslingers.”

“You say that like anything is guaranteed in baseball.” Axel's laugh was harsh, humorless. “Let's be straight up about it. What you're really suggesting is that if I don't have the surgery, I'm out.”

“Not at all.” Beck backpedaled. “I'm saying you have some important decisions to make concerning your career.”

Axel sank back down on the bench where he'd been sitting, grim determination stretching his lips taut. He shot a glance at Rowdy. “I know
they
want me to have the surgery.” He nodded at Beck and Harrison. “But you've been where I'm at. What's your opinion?”

Rowdy rubbed his jaw. “It's not my decision.”

“But do you believe the risks of the surgery outweigh the rewards?” Axel pushed, intensity vibrating off his hard-muscled body. He seemed a lone warrior, carrying a bedraggled shield, raising it to his chest for another round of exhaustive fighting.

His weariness plucked something inside Kasha, and she had the strangest urge to touch him, soothe him, reassure him that he was not alone.

“You have to weigh the odds,” Rowdy said. “Does the surgery give you a better chance of getting your pitching arm back over more traditional methods?”

Axel picked up the booklet Dr. Harrison had given him, and glowered at the data as if he were to scowl hard enough it could change the facts. “According to this, the surgery ended the career of thirty percent of the players.”

Dr. Harrison cleared his throat. “But forty percent returned to the game with improved pitching stats. As you can see for yourself, the remaining thirty percent returned to their previous level of performance. Odds are in favor of the surgery.”

Beads of sweat popped out on Axel's brow. He raised his head, swept his gaze around the room, and landed on Kasha again.

She made the mistake of meeting his deep brown eyes, and stumbled over the sharp desire in those dark depths. She braced herself not to react, even as she felt a hot flush pinch low in her body. She drew herself up tall, stretching out all of her five feet, eleven inches.