The Change Up (12 page)

“I'm not sure exactly how that relates to this,” she said. “I just want to know how to read these guys. I want to make sure their resumes don't get the best of me. I want to get a handle on who a baseball player would really want to play for so I can recognize it when I see it.”

Sam appreciated the approach. Experience wasn't always the best predictor of personality. Some of his worst coaches had been veterans—jaded, set in their ways. Honestly, he had a lot to say on the topic, but the churning in his gut felt like a longing he didn't want to explore.

“I'm not a baseball player,” he said. “I'm a landscaper.”

“Oh, please.” Rachel gave him a look that said he was full of it, and that simple look rattled him.

“It was a long time ago,” he said, trying to get his bearings.

This time, when she stared into his eyes, it felt like she was seeing everything. The highs. The lows. The pleasure. The pain.

He looked away.

“It wasn't long enough to make you forget everything, Sam. We both know you still think about baseball. Surely, you can tell me what makes a good coach. It would be a big help. And you owe me.”

When he looked at her again, she was smiling, and somehow that went a long way toward soothing his anxiousness.

Fine. If Rachel wanted something out of him, he was going to get something out of her. “We can talk about it tonight over a beer.”

“I'm booked solid,” she said.

“Of course you are.” Despite the sarcasm in his voice, he knew she was telling the truth. He couldn't imagine what it would take to start a baseball team from scratch. And to be doing it in the face of your parent's serious health issues?

Actually, that gave them a few things in common. Ten years ago, he'd been building a career in the face of his mother's illness. For him, it proved to be an impossible situation. Eventually he'd had to choose … Something more than a few coaches had encouraged him to do.
“What would your mother want you to do?”
Amazingly, the answer had been play baseball. Make her proud. Achieve his major-league dreams. Only one coach had ever tried to get him to go home.
Benny Bryant.
“Your mother's going to tell you to focus on your career, because that's what mothers do,” he'd said. “They put their kids first. You ought to put her first.” It had given Sam a lot to think about, and he'd stayed up most of the night doing so. But come morning, when he'd pretty much made up his mind to take a few days off and go home, he'd been called up. Triple-A. One flash in the pan away from playing on the big-league stage.

Damn it.
Sam should've listened to Coach Bryant, because his career had gone downhill from there, and in a frantic attempt to save it, he never did get home—until it was too late.

He clenched his teeth and weathered the memories. “You want to know what makes a good coach?” he asked, letting his gaze land on the white plate behind Rachel. “I'll tell you. It's a man who sees the bigger picture, even while he's studying your micromechanics. It's a man who teaches his guys to play hard and play to win, but not to hold on so tight you squeeze the life out of it. It's a man who knows, in the grand scheme of things, baseball is just a game.”

Rachel was quiet for a minute, looking him over with concern in her eyes, and then she asked, “Do men like that really exist in professional sports?”

Sam nodded. “I've met a few. A guy named Benny Bryant comes to mind.”

“Think you could pick out a man like Benny Bryant from my father's lineup?” She reached into her big, black bag and pulled out a stack of folders held together by a thick rubber band.

Boy, you gave her an inch, and she took an acre. “That's a little more than I agreed to.”

She smiled, and he felt his mood lift again. “That extra dance was bound to be costly.” Then she glanced at his feet but not before she seemed to target the button-fly of his jeans. “Not to mention the little incident with the hose.”

He chuckled. “Couldn't I just pay for your dry cleaning?”

“You could, but this would be a lot more fun.”

“For who?” he asked, even as he reached for the papers.

To his surprise, she placed her hand in his and squeezed. “Thank you. I mean it. You're helping me out more than you'll ever know.” Then she passed him the folders and glanced down at her feet, where the tips of her shiny black heels were speckled with droplets of water. “Your hose is leaking,” she said, pointing to a miniscule spray of water shooting out of a pinhole a foot or so away. “Might want to have someone take a look at that.”

It was difficult, but he managed to refrain from suggesting she take a good, long, close-up look herself … any time she wanted. He had a crew in the outfield watching his every move.

Still, she was tempting. And no matter what she said or how she deflected, she was interested in him, too. He could tell. He'd been flirted with as a means to an end before, and while he was certain some of that was going on here, there was something else, too. Something more. Something he couldn't wait to explore.

The question was: When and where?

“Boss man, we're loading up!” Ian yelled.

Rachel stepped away from Sam, who was dishing out the most intense eye contact she'd ever received, before she blurted out the proposition she'd been contemplating these last few days. The one that had nothing to do with baseball.

“You're being paged,” she said.

Sam nodded and waved at Ian without taking his eyes off Rachel. “I'll be right there.”

Which was probably a good thing, because the middle of a workday was not the best place to proposition someone who worked for you.
Temporarily
, she reminded herself. Indulging in a little fling with Sam wasn't going to cross any ethical lines as far as she was concerned. Still, she could be patient. Although, it would be a lot easier if he didn't look so good in those jeans.

He left her for a minute, placing the folder full of resumes on the seat of a utility vehicle otherwise weighed down with various field supplies, and then he walked back and said, “How's your dad? You mentioned he wasn't up to helping you make a new list. That doesn't sound good.”

Talk about a change in topic. “He's, uh, good.” But he wasn't.

Sam held her gaze with a tilt of his head and an “I'm not buying it” look. Just like she had when they'd been dancing, she opened her mouth and spilled her guts. “He's not good. I went to a doctor's appointment with my parents and learned he's had Alzheimer's for two years. Can you believe that? I just found out two months ago. It's infuriating.”

“I bet,” he said.

“If I'd known two years ago, things would be different now.”

“How so?”

“Better doctors. Better medicine. Anything and everything. I wouldn't have sat around and accepted things the way they were.”

“You still won't. You're not that kind of person. And the way I look at it, it's better late than never. The bottom line is”—the most beautiful smile punctuated his words—“you being here is a good thing. A great thing, actually.”

She thought about that for a minute, thought about him, standing there, looking at her like she was the only woman in the world, and the heat was undeniable. The attraction unmistakable. Sam Sutter was a mouth-wateringly beautiful man. Five years younger and without a discernible life plan, but, damn it, libidos didn't care about those things. And honestly, the only thing holding her back from taking out all her recent frustrations on his blessed body right now was the fact that his crew was just outside the left-field wall.

To neutralize the lust bubbling in her veins, she asked, “Do you miss baseball?”

He looked blindsided by the random question and didn't rush to answer.

“I know that came out of left field”—she grinned at her cleverness—“but I've been wondering about it ever since the festival. When my dad was asking you about baseball, you looked very uncomfortable.”

His gaze shifted away from her and anchored onto something in the grandstand, but then he shrugged like she hadn't hit a nerve. “I was uncomfortable because I was worried about your father. I wasn't sure what was going on. That's all.” But his jaw pulsed, and she knew better.

“Sam …” She stepped closer, narrowing the space between them. “I saw that same look a minute ago when I asked you to help me out with the coaching prospects. You miss baseball. It's okay to admit it. If you didn't, you wouldn't be human. God, you played every year of your life until you were how old? Just because you were ready to hang it up professionally doesn't mean you don't miss the game personally.” He looked at her then with a hurt in his eyes that seemed to be saying maybe he wasn't as ready to hang it up as he pretended to be.

“I miss some things more than others,” he said. “There's a rush you get from playing the game.” Silence stretched out between them as the warm wind wrapped them in the sun-dried fragrances of spring. All the while, his eyes roamed her face until they focused on her lips. “Fortunately, you can get that rush from other things.”

“Like?” she asked breathlessly, knowing damned well she was encouraging him.

“This,” he whispered before he leaned in and kissed her, a brush of his lips, soft as the breeze that carried the heated scent of his skin to her nose and then to her brain.

Not enough
, it said.
More.

She grabbed his shirt, pulled him closer, and touched her tongue to the seam of his lips.

He opened, tangled his tongue with hers, slipped his free hand to the small of her back like he had when they were dancing, and held her body tight.

More
, she thought, even as the blood pulsed in her ears and her skin buzzed with pleasure. And the minute she felt him hard against the soft of her belly, she knew exactly what it would take to satisfy her. All of him. Too bad she wasn't naïve enough to think this was the time or place.

Rachel took one last lick of his lips and pulled away. The world was spinning. She took a deep breath and blinked a few times to steady herself. Maybe she'd forgotten to eat. Maybe she'd been so wrapped up in selling this team and, before that, selling whatever she could get her hands on in Philadelphia, that she'd neglected her physical needs. Because this was a bit melodramatic as far as post-kiss reactions went.
Spinning?

“Damn,” he said in a raspy voice that made her world teeter again. “I was curious. I'm even more curious now.” He reached for her.

“Sam.”

“Don't Sam me,” he said with a grin. “You felt it, too.”

“Of course I did. I'm not dead.” She tried to make light of the situation, but her face burned from the body heat, and her lips ached for one more taste.

“Then why don't you satisfy my curiosity?”

“Because your crew could walk back in here any minute.”

“Then let's find someplace else.”

Now
that
was a dangerously attractive invitation. But over Sam's shoulder, Rachel saw Ian coming through the left-field gate. Perfect timing. Mostly. She stepped back and shook her head. “Not today, Romeo. You're holding up your crew, and I'm booked solid. Remember?”

“Dude, should we leave without you?” Ian asked.

“Yes,” Sam mouthed at her.

“No!” she yelled to Ian. “He'll be right there.”

Sam looked frustratingly sexy when he asked, “Are you busy tomorrow?”

“I am.”

He bent down, picked up the hose at his feet, and pulled it back toward the dugout. “You can't be busy forever, Rachel.”

“You don't know me very well.”

“You should let me get to know you.”

Meaningful conversation was an unnecessary step when it came to the casual sexual relationships she was used to, and come to think of it, that kiss was anything but casual. She glanced at the stack of folders sitting on the seat of the utility vehicle and knew there was a lot to lose if she made a misstep here. Yes, she was a grown woman who could handle a work-related fling, but something was telling her this time, she shouldn't let it go that far. “You know, maybe we should forget this ever happened.”

He looked at her pointedly. “That's not possible.”

Exactly.
Her hands were still shaking.

“In fact,” he added, “I'm going to remind you about it every day for the rest of the time you're here, and by the time you leave, you won't be able to forget me if you tried.” He wiped his hands on his glorious jeans and gave her a wink and a smile before he walked off to join Ian.

She admired him all the way around the warning track.

Great.
Another challenge. One more thing she could add to her to-do list while she was in Arlington: don't get sucked in by Sam Sutter.

• • •

Sam didn't feel like entertaining tonight. He had a stack of applications to go through on his kitchen counter and some serious rehashing of the hottest kiss he'd ever laid lips on to do. Not to mention brainstorming a plan to get Rachel to let that damned guard of hers down so next time they could take things a little further.

So much for being a man without a plan. He touched his beer bottle to his bottom lip and smiled.

“What are you grinning at?” his father asked.

“Just thinking about something Ian said at work.” He knew that would be enough to squash the line of questioning.

“Speaking of work …” His father leaned forward in his Adirondack chair and poked a stick into the fire. “I have something to tell you boys.”

Luke dug in the cooler of beer, fished out a bottle of Bud, and asked, “Anyone else need a refill?”

“I'll take one,” Sam said. Something about the way their father had called them together for a guys' night and then waited until they were all good and relaxed to make an announcement had Sam thinking he might need the extra drink. Surely, his father wasn't going to drop something crazy on them, like getting remarried. No way. The guy didn't even date. At least Sam didn't think he did.