Second Thoughts: A Hot Baseball Romance (6 page)

Patience is a virtue,
Nick thought as he turned a dog-eared page on his book. He couldn’t get Olivia out of his mind. No matter how much he’d promised to wait for Jamie to get comfortable, he was ready to meet his daughter now.

At least he’d kept himself busy over the weekend. A bunch of the guys had decided to fly down to Florida at the last minute to take in the division championship. The Rockets might be out of contention, but good baseball was good baseball—especially when you were with a bunch of roughnecks whose sole goal was to blow off a little steam. Between hanging out with the guys and attending the actual games, sleeping till noon and filling the time before cocktail hour with Bloody Marys, Nick hadn’t had much time to think.

He certainly hadn’t had time to screw around on TrueLove. The guys would never let him forget it, if he told them he was on the dating website. Hell, they’d probably make up a bunch of bogus profiles, pretend to be women just to lure him into making an ass out of himself. He’d ignored TrueLove, and he’d ignored the whole tangled mess with Jamie too.

But now that he was back home, he was ready to lean on Twelve a little. He had to be careful. He didn’t want her to drag his ass to court, where he’d be left trying to make his case to a judge. Courts were
so
fond of absentee fathers, not to mention professional athletes who spent half their lives on the road. Right.

Instead, he’d started the day on the Internet, pulling up Jamie’s website and tracking down her email address. His message was simple. The subject was “Can We Talk?” For the body, he’d typed his phone number, and then he pressed Send. After that he’d waited—through his workout, through lunch, through a microwaved dinner that promised him all the nutrition necessary for a healthy, growing boy.

She didn’t call until ten o’clock. He answered on the first ring.

“Is it too late?” She sounded like she hoped it was.

“Nope,” he said, setting aside
The Old Man and the Sea
.

“It took me forever to get Olivia down tonight.” She was trying to make an excuse.

“Is she usually hard to put to bed?” He was asking her to open the door a little, even a crack. He was asking for permission to stake his claim to fatherhood. Jamie could hate him for it, but he
was
Olivia’s father.

He kept his breathing slow and steady. He tried to picture Jamie in some cozy bungalow, surrounded by quilts and throw pillows and all the rest of that interior decorating crap. She’d never have a hip-deep pile of unfolded laundry on
her
couch.

His mind kept playing tricks on him, though. He could only picture her in her freshman year dorm room, leaning back on her narrow bed, feet pointed toward her yellow Formica desk.

“Yeah,” she finally said, rewarding his patience. “She can be a challenge. We read a book together every night, but there are plenty of interruptions for drinks of water, and settling the stuffed animals, and checking for monsters under the bed.”

“It’s the ones in the closet you have to watch out for.”

“She hasn’t thought of that excuse yet. I’m sure they’ll be good for another fifteen minutes of delay, once she does.”

“What book are you reading now?”

“
Misty of Chincoteague
. She’s crazy about horses.”

“I bet her favorite color is pink, too. Or is it purple?”

He could hear Jamie’s grin in her reply. “Depends on the day of the week.”

“I really want to meet her, Jamie.”

“I know,” she said. And then, just as he thought she might hang up, she asked, “Hey? Did you get teased when you were growing up? Because you had red hair?”

He’d been beaten to a pulp more times than he could count—until he’d discovered the weight room at the school gym. “No one ever gave me a hard time twice.”

“Olivia says some of the girls call her names.”

“I’ll teach her a few things to say back.”

“And will you show up at school when she gets sent to the principal’s office?”

“Sure.”

And he meant it. He
would
be there. But he knew Jamie had to be thinking about all the ways he hadn’t been around. Not for Olivia. And not for Jamie either. Still, he pushed. “She deserves a father, Jamie.”

“It’s not that simple!”

“It is.”

“No,” she said, and now he heard real annoyance in her voice. “It’s not, Nick. Olivia will be full of questions—where you’ve been for all these years. How long you’ll stick around. Whether you’ll go to her Fall Chorale at the end of the month.”

“I’ll go.”

“You don’t even
know
her! That’s the point. You don’t know that she’s allergic to strawberries. You don’t know that she likes her toast cut into triangles instead of squares. You don’t know that she sleeps with Mr. Fluffy under her right arm, not her left.”

“Then teach me. I want to learn.”

And he did. He’d missed her. A thousand times, he’d considered picking up the phone, calling her, telling her he’d been wrong, that he’d do anything in the world to get her back. But every single time he’d convinced himself it wouldn’t be fair to do that to her. He couldn’t expect her to be there, waiting for him, ready to forgive him, willing to even
speak
to him again. And that was before he knew about his daughter.

Jamie whispered, “I need more time, Nick. Olivia and I both do.”

“Just let me meet her,” he bargained. “You don’t have to tell her the truth, not yet. Just tell her I’m a friend.”

He caught his breath as she weighed the compromise. He was trying to be fair. He was trying to give her an option so transparently
right
that she couldn’t deny him. And it worked. She sighed and said, “I’m shooting Josh Cantor on Wednesday. Come to the park, and we’ll see what happens.”

“Thank you.” He kept the words perfectly neutral, but his pulse had ramped up like he was back in the gym.

“I’ve got to go,” she said quickly. “Good night.”

He stared at the phone after she hung up. He’d won. And he wasn’t at all sure what his next step should be.

~~~

At two in the morning, Jamie finally gave up any pretense of getting to sleep. Contemplating her never-ending parade of disasters had left her tangled in her sheets.

Disaster Number One
: Olivia and Nick were going to meet on Wednesday, and the mere thought made her panic. In the end, Jamie would deal with Olivia the way she always had. She’d tell the truth, breaking reality into child-size pieces and doing her best to be fair. But she could only imagine how many times she’d have to answer the same questions, over and over and over again, because…

Disaster Number Two:
Lauren finally had results from her doctors’ visits. The babysitter’s injury was more severe than anyone had originally believed. The poor woman had to wear a neck brace for three weeks, and she was under strict orders to avoid lifting, twisting, or anything else beyond the mildest physical exertion. In other words, Lauren couldn’t take care of Olivia. The timing couldn’t be worse, because…

Disaster Number Three:
Jamie was frantic to finish the Rockets project. She couldn’t display any of the photos on her website until Anna Benson had signed off on the entire shoot. Getting the players into the stadium was like pulling teeth. She would have thought that guys who spent most of the season traveling would
want
to stick close to home during the off season, but she was amazed at the number of commitments everyone had. And she couldn’t even enjoy her own down time because…

Disaster Number Four
: RoadWarrior had dropped off the face of the earth. After their skinny-dipping flirtation, she hadn’t heard one word from her mysterious TrueLove match. All day Friday, she’d checked her mailbox obsessively. On Saturday, she’d steeled herself to compose a message to him. Ignoring the nerves that made her fingers tingle, she’d kept it brief and flirty, answering the Live Five for the day.

Favorite color: Teal

Favorite cuisine: Italian

Leather or lace: Depends on what part of my body we’re talking about

Age when you lost your virginity: I’m not telling you that!

Favorite sex toy: Eighteen

At least he hadn’t run for the hills in
response
to her answers. The system said he hadn’t even seen them. He hadn’t logged in since Thursday night. Now, she wished she’d had the courage to ask for his phone number, to get his email address so she had some way of reaching him outside of TrueLove.

Part of her worried that something disastrous had happened—he’d been in a car crash or he’d fallen and hit his head and didn’t have any memory of who he was, of ever being RoadWarrior. She knew the chances of those dramatic injuries were slim. The reality was, he’d probably gotten bored with the online game.

But that didn’t keep her from checking her phone every half hour, no matter how many times she vowed she would just forget about the relationship.

Relationship
! Ha! It was hardly a relationship. Just a little electronic flirting. A little electronic flirting that had been the first thing to make her feel attractive in a long, long time.

Frustrated with herself, Jamie scrambled out of her well-tossed sheets. She pulled on an old terry bathrobe and poked her head into Olivia’s room, making sure her daughter was sound asleep. No problem there—the kid was sacked out, lying on her stomach, Mr. Fluffy firmly anchored by her side.

Moving more quietly than was strictly necessary, Jamie settled on the living room couch, curling her feet beneath her. She picked up her computer from the edge of the coffee table. Maybe she’d play a few rounds of an online game, lull her brain to sleep with pure animated boredom.

Her fingers moved of their own accord, though. The TrueLove site looked bright and cheerful. The “Welcome, Shygirl6!” message made her breath come faster, especially when she saw the pulsing heart icon over her inbox. She had one message. A quick glance confirmed it was from RoadWarrior.

She thought about deleting it unread. Her rapid heartbeat was reason enough—she didn’t need to do this to herself, didn’t need to get her hopes up. She should just log out of the account, let it lapse at the end of the month, tell Ashley she’d tried, but TrueLove just wasn’t for her.

She clicked on her inbox.

“Sorry,” RoadWarrior had written. “Things got
insane
at the office. I got called out of town at the last minute, a command performance I couldn’t break away from.”

She shook her head. It was stupid to get involved with a workaholic.

But she had to be realistic. There were plenty of times she’d gotten wrapped up in her own job, let things slide for a weekend or even longer. Hell, when Olivia had one of her ear infections, Jamie could lose an entire week. The guy deserved a second chance.

“How are you going to make it up to me?” She clicked Send before she could second-guess herself.

Her computer chimed before she could open one of her games. “That depends. Flowers are too obvious. A greeting card isn’t personal. And I
want
to be personal, if you’ll give me half a chance.”

Damn. The sudden pulse between her thighs told her she was willing to give him more than that. What was it about this guy? Maybe she was just turned on by the anonymity of TrueLove. She could type anything she wanted, and she didn’t have to be ashamed. The online forum was like an extension of the music clubs she’d loved in New York. There, she’d hidden herself behind leather and steel-studded belts, behind her camera. Here, she was protected by her keyboard.

Taking a steadying breath, she typed, “You never did tell me your idea of a perfect first date.”

There was a pause before another chime told her he’d responded. “There’s no such thing as a perfect first date. We’re always too aware of the potential. Too afraid we’ll fail.”

“That’s a cop-out!”

“Dinner,” he wrote, so quickly that she laughed out loud. He followed up with, “We’ll skip dessert and find a place with live music, not to dance, but to listen. And after listening…”

He trailed off, but she had no problem completing the thought in her own mind. After listening, he’d ask her back to his place. She’d refuse, of course, because she had a babysitter waiting.

She tried again. After listening, they’d head to his car, where they’d make out like a pair of hormone-crazed teenagers.

Not a lot better. All right, then… After listening, she’d invite him back here.

But Olivia would be here. Olivia, who’d never met one of the men she’d dated—not a huge sacrifice on Jamie’s part, because not one of those dates had progressed to a second or third or, God-forbid, fourth night out, but still…

“How am I doing so far?” RoadWarrior wrote.

She shook her head. She was going to lose him if she couldn’t even concentrate long enough to respond to his message. “Not bad,” she said. “Maybe we could start at a museum before dinner. Or an art gallery.”

A pause, and she wondered if she’d blown it. He clearly was waiting for her to come up with some sexy after-dinner fun. Hell,
she
wanted to come up with some sexy after-dinner fun, even if she blushed just thinking about typing the words. He finally responded, “I don’t know anything about art. But you could teach me. And after listening…”

She laughed. “You’re incorrigible!”

“Pretty much,” he typed.

Once again, though, she deflected. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

“Clearing through the backlog of things I didn’t get to because of that work trip. You were at the top of the list.”

He could be lying through his teeth. “I bet you type that to all the girls.”

“Only the ones who kept me distracted the whole time I was traveling. I’m going to find out about that favorite body part, you know. That favorite position, too.”

Type
! she told herself.
Something flirty. Something funny.
She stared at the blinking cursor on her screen. Absolutely nothing came to mind.

After an eternity, where she imagined him signing off, pictured him creating an entirely new profile so she’d never be able to track him down, saw him leaving TrueLove behind forever because she was such a loser, he wrote, “Then again, I could just be polite. Why are
you
up so late?”