Triple Score (14 page)

“What he meant to say is we can’t wait to dine in this charming establishment.” Cooper turned off the engine and pocketed the keys. “Isn’t that right, Professor?”

“Professor?” Noelle asked.

Jace reached over the front seat and slugged Reid on the shoulder. “Genius here graduated from Stanford summa cum laude. With a degree in chemical engineering.”

“Gotta keep my options open. Can’t play ball forever.”

Cooper jerked his head toward the backseat and clocked Reid in the same spot Jace had only seconds before, ten times harder if the pained expression on Reid’s face was anything to go by. “Guess they didn’t teach tact at that fancy-schmancy school of yours.”

“Sorry, man.” Reid rubbed his arm and shot Jace an apologetic glance. “I didn’t mean you were...”

Jace cut him off. “No worries.”

Liar.
Truth was, Jace was worried as hell. His therapy was going slower than he’d expected. Way slower. His last stint in rehab had been a walk around the bases compared to this. Arm strength, range of motion—nothing was where it needed to be if he was going to be back in uniform on opening day next season.

“Come on.” He opened his door, jumped down and extended a hand to Noelle. “Enough of this depressing shit. Who wants to get the party started?”

The inside of Two Dollar Bill’s wasn’t much better than the outside. A huge oak bar with a copper top dominated one side of the room. Red vinyl booths, an ancient juke box and a postage-stamp-sized dance floor occupied the other. The whole place reeked of stale beer and cigarette smoke. But despite the questionable atmosphere—or maybe because of it—the place was wall-to-wall people.

“What, no mechanical bull?” quipped Cooper.

Reid eyed Jace with a raised brow. “Sure you don’t want to reconsider?”

“Twenty more miles, bro,” Jace reminded him.

As if on cue, Reid’s stomach growled.

“What a bunch of babies.” Noelle pushed past them, headed for the hostess station. “I’ll put us in for a table.”

“Damn.” Cooper let out a low whistle. “I like her.”

“Me, too,” Reid agreed. “You’ve finally met your match, Monroe.”

“I haven’t met my anything.” Jace stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Repeat after me: Just. Friends.”

“Repeat after me,” Reid echoed. “Bull. Shit.”

“Now, boys.” Cooper, always the peacemaker, stepped between them. “Play nice.”

“It’s a half hour wait,” Noelle said as she returned, a pager in one hand. “Let’s get a drink at the bar. They’ll buzz us when our table’s ready. “

She shoved the pager in the pocket of her dress and left without waiting for an answer.

“I take it back,” Cooper said, his eyes following Noelle’s gently swaying ass with a gleam of appreciation that made Jace’s teeth ache. “I don’t just like her. I love her.”

Jace clenched his fists almost involuntarily, and Reid chuckled.

“What’s the matter? Don’t want Coop making a move on your friend?” He put air quotes around the last word.

“Douchebag.”

“You’re welcome.”

Cooper cleared his throat. “Are you two going to stand around all day bickering like an old married couple or are we going to join the lady at the bar?”

“Join the lady.” Jace turned his back on his friends and followed in Noelle’s wake. He’d have to do a better job of hiding his emotions, that was for damn sure. He’d keep his promise to keep their relationship under wraps. But that didn’t mean he was going to stand by and let Dumb or Dumber poach his girl from under his nose.

His girl.
When the hell had that happened? And how? He’d never been the possessive type. More of a don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out type.

But Noelle was different from the women he’d dated before. He’d known that going in. He just hadn’t known she’d make him different, too.

“What’ll it be, lover boy?” Reid bellied up to the bar a few feet away from Noelle, who’d struck up a conversation with an older couple in matching I Hiked the Grand Canyon T-shirts. “First round’s on Coop.”

Jace caught Noelle’s eye and they exchanged a secret smile before he muscled his way in between his buddies. “If he’s paying, I’ll have a Glenfiddich. Neat.”

Cooper laughed. “In this joint, you’ll be lucky if they’ve got Dewar’s White Label.”

“Then make it a double. I’m not driving.”

The previously silent jukebox roared to life and George Thorogood’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” blared out. The crowd migrated to the dance floor.

“Great choice,” Reid shouted over the music. Jace followed the first baseman’s gaze to Noelle, who was signing a bar napkin for the Grand Canyon couple. Baseball might be America’s pastime, but ballet apparently had its fans, too, even in copper country. “Maybe I’ll ask your famous friend if she wants to join in on the fun with me.”

“Do you even know how to line dance?”

Reid handed Jace his bourbon and took a sip from his own drink. “I’m a quick study.”

Jace took a slug and thumped his glass down on the bar. “A little too quick, if you ask me.”

“Do I have to separate you two again?” Cooper handed a pair of twenties over to the bartender. “Reid, stop needling Jace. And Jace, man up, admit you like the girl and ask her to dance. What are you afraid of? It’s one song, not a lifetime commitment.”

“Fine.” Jace ran a hand through his hair and looked over at Noelle, who was engulfed in a bear hug from Mr. Grand Canyon. “Just don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“Seems like you’re the one doing that.” Cooper smirked and sipped his Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Jace couldn’t disagree with him. Besides, the more he protested, the more his friends would suspect he and Noelle had already gone way past dancing. The best way to keep them in the dark was to shut up and play along.

Plus, he owed it to Noelle to rescue her from Huggy the Bear.

He strode over to the trio and laid a hand on Noelle’s shoulder. Huggy reluctantly released her and stepped back.

“Sorry for the interruption.”
Not
. Jace gave the couple what he hoped was his most charming smile. “But I believe the lady owes me a dance.”

“I do?” Noelle looked up at him with eyes so blue and wide and innocent his gut clenched.

He was in trouble. Big trouble.

He shoved the unsettling feeling aside and bent to whisper in her ear, so close he could practically taste her grapefruit shampoo. “You do. Unless you’d rather stay and chew the fat with your geriatric groupies.”

“Not nice,” she hissed under her breath. But out loud she said, “That’s right, I do.”

Jace smiled into her hair.

Noelle straightened and addressed the couple. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not, dear.” The older woman patted Noelle’s arm reassuringly. “You’ve been more than generous with your time. Go dance with your young man.”

“Oh, he’s not...”

“Let’s go, Duchess.” Jace grabbed her hand and tugged her toward the dance floor. “The night is young, but it won’t last forever.”

12

N
OELLE
SAID
A
quick goodbye to the Kirbys, the lovely if demonstrative couple who had sold their Westchester home and were traveling across the United States in an RV. After a quick glance around the bar to make sure there weren’t any other rabid fans with her or Jace in their sights, she let him lead her into the fray. “Take it easy on me. It’s my first night out of the brace. And Sara says my knee’s only eighty-five percent.”

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t want to anger the dragon lady.”

Just as they found a square foot of free space on the dance floor, the music shifted to a slow number. Noelle hesitated, but Jace snaked an arm around her back and pulled her to him with authority, wedging a leg between hers and moving with the music. “Now they’re playing our song.”

“‘Concrete Angel’ is our song?” She pressed her lips together, fighting a smile.

“Is that what this is?”

“Kind of depressing, isn’t it?”

Jace threaded his fingers through hers. With his other hand, he traced her spine from between her shoulder blades to the dimples at the top of her butt, sending a now familiar tingling sensation straight to her girly parts. Even the most innocent touch and the damn man had her panties damp. So much for a certain Russian choreographer’s theory that she was, in his words,
a frigid bitch
. Words he’d spat at her in front of the entire company.

She let herself relax, resting her head on Jace’s warm, broad chest. He smelled of sandalwood and spearmint and his heart beat under her ear like a distant, steady drum, keeping time with the music. She half wished Yannick could see her now, in a dive bar, dancing to an overly sentimental Martina McBride tune he’d hate more than a badly executed tendu, in the arms of a guy he’d cross the street to avoid. He’d die of shock. Or laughter. Either way...

“I wasn’t listening to the lyrics,” Jace admitted, interrupting her thoughts. “Just digging the rhythm. Nice and slow. Perfect for this.”

The hand at the small of her back pressed her to him. She gasped at the pressure of his erection against her thigh. Over his shoulder, she caught Cooper and Reid eying first her and Jace, then each other. “What will your friends think?”

“That I’m smart.” Jace spun her around so her back was to the bar—and the boys. “And lucky.”

“I don’t know.” She bit her lip. “Isn’t PDA outside the scope of our agreement?”

“Look around. No one’s paying a lick of attention to us. I’d be surprised if anyone other than your buddies Fred and Ethel even knows who either of us are.”

Her eyes flitted from dancer to dancer. Jace had a point. Everyone else was too into the music or themselves or their partner to be bothering with yet another random couple who couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

“Besides,” Jace continued. “You can’t leave me hanging out here.”

“What do you mean?”

He rubbed against her, his erection digging into her thigh. “That’s what I mean.”

“And how is dirty dancing going to take care of your...problem?”

“It’ll give me a few minutes to get it under control.”

“What are you going to do?” She tipped her head to look him in the eye. “Wish it away?”

“It would help if you’d stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you haven’t eaten in days and I’m a thick, juicy steak.”

She shook her head and pushed back her hair. At the last minute, for reasons she didn’t fully understand or want to, she’d opted to forgo her daytime ponytail and leave it down tonight for a softer, looser—dare she say sexier—look. “I prefer chicken. Less saturated fat and cholesterol.”

“That’s the ticket.” He twined a finger in one of her curls that had fallen forward again, refusing to stay off her face. “Talk nerdy to me. The stock market. Black matter. Dr. Who.”

She settled on what she thought was a nice, safe, if not particularly nerdy topic. “Your friends seem nice.”

“They’re okay, if you like arrogant, adolescent assholes.”

“I like you, don’t I?”

“I don’t know, do you?”

Yeah, she did. They may have only known each other a few weeks, but their forced proximity meant she’d spent more time with him than she had with Yannick in months—outside work, of course. And she liked what she’d seen. His easy, joking way with the staff at Spaulding. His weekly phone call to his father, who’d raised him pretty much single-handed. How he’d taken Dylan under his wing, working out with the teenager and patiently listening to endless baseball statistics and questions about every play-off game since the turn of the century. Not to mention all the trouble he’d gone through to take her to Fright Fest.

And therein lay the problem. There more she knew about Jace, the more she fell for him. There was a lot more to him than the womanizing, hotel-room-trashing image perpetuated by the tabloids.

And she ought to know better than most how wrong reporters could be.

But this wasn’t supposed to be about falling for the guy. It was supposed to be about no-holds-barred, down-and-dirty sex with Mr. Right Now, not finding Mr. Right.

Then again, as her mother liked to say, sometimes it was easier to find something when you weren’t looking for it.

“You’re awfully quiet.” Jace wound another finger into her hair and tucked the stray strands behind her ear. “Should I take that as a no?”

“No.” She smiled at his puzzled expression. “I mean you shouldn’t take it as a no. Not that my answer is no.”

“So you do like me?”

Like and then some, but she was so not going there. Not now. Not ever.

“I don’t make a habit of sleeping with men I don’t like.”

“Good to know.”

He seemed satisfied with that answer, twining his fingers with hers and steering her around the floor. They danced in silence until the song ended and Big & Rich’s “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)” took its place. Whooping and hollering, the dancing couples broke apart and lined up for the two-step. Noelle moved to join them, but Jace held her tightly to him.

“I think we’re supposed to get in line for this one,” she said.

But instead of releasing her, he lowered her into a dip, his face only inches from hers. “I’ve always been a rule breaker.”

The movement of his lips so close to hers mesmerized her, and it took her a beat to respond. “You don’t say?”

He hauled her up with a teasing laugh, breaking the spell. “Want the truth?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Once we leave this dance floor, I won’t have a second alone with you until Cooper and Reid are out of our hair.” He subtly maneuvered them to a quiet corner of the dance floor as he spoke. “Won’t be able to touch you like this.”

The hand on her back drifted down to cup her ass, squeezing.

“Or kiss you like this.” He brushed his lips against her cheek in a way that should have felt chaste but didn’t.

“Or do any the ten thousand other things I’m thinking of doing in public that would get me arrested. So forgive me if I’m not ready to let you go just yet.”

“Oh.” Had she said she was falling for him? Make that fallen, past tense.
Fait accompli
.