Reaching First (2 page)

Say that to the guy he beat up!
That’s what Emily was going to say. But she didn’t get the words out of her mouth before there was a sharp double knock on the office door.

“Come in,” Anna called, casting an apologetic look at Emily.
 

Emily knew that look. It meant Anna had decided to act first and ask forgiveness later. Same thing she’d done countless times back at the University of Michigan—dragging Emily out on terrible double dates, securing off-campus housing where the pipes froze in the first winter cold snap, pushing Emily into study groups that just happened to include Anna’s crush-of-the-moment. The two women had met during Freshman Week at the University of Michigan—two North Carolina girls astonished at how far they were from home—and they’d immediately become fast friends.

So Emily wasn’t surprised when the office door opened and two men walked into the room. She even smiled and nodded at the first guy—Zach Ormond—although he only had eyes for Anna. Emily couldn’t help but glance at her friend’s hand, at the sensible, square-cut diamond that glinted on her ring finger. Anna and Zach had been engaged for less than a week, but it already seemed like they could read each other’s minds.

That sort of familiarity, that sort of
love
didn’t seem possible. At least not to Emily. She’d never felt anything close to it before. Sure, she’d had more than her share of boyfriends. She’d gone out on countless dates. She’d even had a couple of long-term relationships, if a month or two counted as long-term. But she’d never felt the absolute trust, the sheer certainty that shimmered off her best friend now.

Emily turned away, her throat thickening with unexpected emotion. And she found herself face to face with Tyler Brock, Criminal Mastermind.

Okay. Not a mastermind. A mastermind didn’t start a bar fight on his last night in town. A mastermind didn’t get slugged in that fight, leaving a pretty remarkable purple bruise along the left side of his jaw. A mastermind didn’t plead guilty in frantically short order, accepting the court’s full sentence, so he could resolve the matter before he moved halfway across the country to his new job. And a mastermind definitely did not scramble for the first community service job tossed his way, desperate to serve his time and erase his criminal record forever.

But suddenly, looking at Tyler, Emily found that not one bit of that mattered. Because the man who had followed Zach into Anna’s office stole her breath away, boiling off every protest left in her arsenal.
 

It wasn’t just those chocolate eyes, so dark that his pupils seemed to disappear. It wasn’t only the unruly black hair, the tousled waves that invited her fingers to tease them back into order. It wasn’t even the edges of the tattoo that peeked from beneath the sleeve of his tight black T-shirt, the tribal markings leaving sharp black points against his tawny skin.

It was the grin.
 

By rights, she reasoned, Tyler should have been nervous. He was meeting the woman—Anna—who was for all intents and purposes the owner of the Rockets baseball team. He’d arrived in Raleigh under a cloud, detained by the legal system for two full days when he should have been playing first base for his new club. The media had been howling since the deal was announced—first with glee, then with bitter condemnation. He’d been called a hothead, a bad boy, a head case just waiting to fall apart at the first sign of serious pressure on his new team.

But with that one grin, he made it clear that none of the media frenzy mattered. Nothing would get in the way of Tyler Brock being Tyler Brock. The painful-looking bruise along his jaw only heightened his devil-may-care appearance. As he shook Emily’s hand, Anna made a bemused introduction.
 

Emily told herself not to make anything of the contact that jolted her heart like a live wire. Her fingers
always
tingled when she met someone new. Her palm
always
felt like it was basking in the sun. Her heart
always
leaped in her chest, strangling her words, flooding her cheeks with a raging blush.
 

Emily lied to herself a lot. At least when it came to the men in her life.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said. Good. Her voice didn’t betray her.
 

Anna wasn’t nearly as affected by her new acquisition. She got right down to business. “Tyler, as you know, the court in Texas has transferred administration of your case to a judge here in Raleigh. Fortunately, the Rockets have some fans on the local bench. We can help you find appropriate community service, so you can complete your sentence and get this entire matter behind you.”

Tyler shoved his hands into his pockets. The action made his shoulders ripple—shoulders that were emphasized by the tight lines of his shirt. He had to realize what he was doing. He had to know he was making Emily’s belly swoop low, as if she’d just plunged down the slope of the world’s highest roller coaster.

Anna continued, as if she were impervious to the sinful waves of attraction washing off the ballplayer in front of her. Which, come to think of it, she probably was, with her own true love watching attentively at her side. “The team thinks it’s important, Tyler, for your community service to be highly visible. We need you helping the citizens of Raleigh, showing that you have the best interests of your new home in mind. I’ve asked Emily here because she has a project that meets all of our needs.”

Anna flashed her a broad smile, gesturing with one open hand as if to say, “The floor is yours.” Emily barely resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose, to roll her eyes, even to stick out her tongue. Wasn’t it just like Anna to put her on the spot like this?
 

But truth be told, Emily had played plenty of her own manipulative games in the past. Just a few weeks ago, she’d forced Anna and Zach into a conversation that neither of them had wanted to have—and look how things had turned out there! She might as well embrace the opportunity Anna was giving her.
 

Easier said than done. Her cheeks were on fire. She wanted to run her fingers through her hair, but she knew that would make her look like she was five years old—the curse of having shoulder-length blonde curls. She’d give anything for something to hold in her hands, something to keep her fingers busy.

But three pairs of eyes were on her. She could ignore Anna and Zach. But not Tyler. He might be the one person who could help her achieve her dreams. She took a deep breath and forced herself to look directly at him as she explained.
 

“About a year ago, my Aunt Minerva passed away,” she said. “Aunt Minnie was…a strong-willed woman, bless her heart.” She paused, to see if Tyler understood that Minnie had been an unrepentant pain in the ass.

He nodded, his lips twitching. And suddenly she wanted to keep on talking, to ramble on forever, if that’s what it took to make him smile again.
 

“Long story short, Minnie wanted her fortune to help veterans and their families. She left me her house and her bank account, but only for one year. After that, her executor will decide if I’ve used her legacy sufficiently. If I haven’t, I’ll have to move out of the house, and any remaining funds are forfeit to a rescue program for cockatiels.”

“Cockatiels.” He stretched the word with a soft drawl she hadn’t noticed in the flurry of their introduction. “Doesn’t sound like she was serious.”

“She was
deadly
serious,” Emily assured him. “She owned one of those birds, loved it more than her human family. The damn thing terrorized me every time she let it out of the cage.”

“So, she was trying to motivate you.” There was that hint of a smile again, causing something to spiral loose deep inside her.

“And it worked,” she said, reminding herself to focus. Anna might have dragged her here against her will, but she’d be a fool to let this opportunity go by. The sexy, wayward baseball player in front of her just might be the key to meeting Minnie’s impossible demands. “I’ve spent the past year trying to figure out what to do with the money. I meet with Ethan Samson, Minnie’s executor, once a month, every month. First, I was going to open a day care center, but Mr. Samson ultimately decided there were plenty of options for child care on and near the base. Then, I was going to open a library, but Mr. Samson shot down that idea, saying Wake County’s public libraries are more than sufficient for our veterans’ needs. For three months, I was going to build a health care clinic, but there’s the VA hospital right here in town.”

Emily let some of her frustration wash into her words. She’d worked hard on each proposal, done her research about the community, about its needs. Mr. Samson was a fussy old man with as much imagination as a stick.

“Sounds like you’re running out of time,” Tyler said.

“I am. And I’d almost be willing to give up, to walk away from the whole damn thing, except I finally hit on an idea that works. Mr. Samson signed off on it last month.” She took a deep breath, still not used to sharing her concept with strangers. “I’m converting the building into Minerva House. It’ll be a clearinghouse for veterans’ spouses, a one-stop center to get the support they need. We’ll have a resource room with computers and a separate classroom space, for group training sessions. We’ll have a lending library for all sorts of specialized books—everything from cost-efficient household management to non-traditional education to mental health care. We’ll have quiet rooms, where people can meet with others in similar situations, a safe space to talk about the challenges everyone is facing. And we’ll have a room for kids, with educational toys and projects, all sorts of things to keep kids interested while their parents take advantage of everything else we offer.”

“So, basically, you’re taking all the individual things this Samson guy wouldn’t accept and combining them into one. You’re doing a day care center and a library and a health care clinic.”

He was laughing at her. Her cheeks heated and she glanced at Anna and Zach, but she kept her voice even as she said, “If the shoe fits… I’m trained as a social worker. I know how to work systems, how to get people the individual care they need. Minerva House will give me a base of operations, a jumping-off point for everyone.”

“Sounds like you have your work cut out for you.”

“I do. I have seven weeks left before Aunt Minnie’s deadline.”

“Seven weeks before everything goes to the birds.”

Yeah. He was
definitely
laughing at her. But she forced herself to shrug like she didn’t really care. “Because Mr. Samson dragged his feet for so long, I can’t get a reliable contractor to take on the job in the time that’s left.”

“And how am I supposed to help?”

“I have a handyman who can do most of the work. But he needs another pair of hands for a lot of it. The house is a gorgeous old colonial, but Aunt Minnie didn’t put much into it for…decades.”
Ever
, she thought.
 

Emily had been living in the house for a year, and she was used to its eccentricities. So what if it took the water fifteen minutes to heat up for a shower? What if a strong north wind sliced through the gaps between the windows and their sills, forcing her to sleep beneath a pile of blankets in the king-size bed on the second floor?

She continued. “There’s a lot of straightforward physical stuff that needs to be done—upgrading the electricity, reworking the plumbing. The floors need refinishing, and the house has to be painted top to bottom.”

“And you think I’m the man for the job.”

She thought he was the man for
some
job. She bit her tongue to keep from making that utterly inappropriate suggestion. Instead, she nodded toward Anna and Zach, who had observed their entire exchange with palpable amusement. “
They
think you’re the man for the job. If things were left to me, I’d hire a second handyman.”

Anna waved off her skepticism. “Tyler owes the court one hundred hours. He has three months to complete his service, but there’s no penalty if he wraps things up early.”

* * *

That was Tyler’s cue to say how hard he was willing to work. But instead he found himself saying, “Sorry. Sounds like you need someone else to do the job.” He saw Ms. Benson frown, and Ormond looked pissed, but they’d have to get over it.

Sure, Tyler could do the handyman crap. He’d learned all that and more, working with his daddy. One advantage of having a hard-ass father who made him do his chores before he could get out of the house for practice, day in, day out, the entire time he was growing up.

But what would happen after the painting was done? If he still owed time, she’d ask for help setting up the computers. Putting books on shelves. Doing a hundred things he couldn’t do.

Shit. If he was going to fuck up, he might as well do it right now, instead of letting six weeks go by. Instead of letting Emily Holt get to the very edge of her deadline, then telling her she was screwed.

Because suddenly, inexplicably, he really didn’t want to disappoint Emily Holt.

Not when she was standing there, looking like he’d just taken away her favorite stuffed animal. Not when her eyes were welling up with sudden tears, when she was staring straight ahead with an obvious determination not to blink. Not when her lower lip was trembling.

And that was a damn sexy lower lip. He could picture himself reaching out to touch it with his forefinger. Her mouth would be warm,
hot
, like her palm had been when they’d shaken hands.
 

Community service was supposed to be a punishment. He knew that. It would force him to take time away from the ballpark, from the team, from settling into his new life in Raleigh.

But community service didn’t seem nearly as bad, if Emily Holt was his jailer.
 

There. She was pulling herself together. She barely took a heartbeat to press her manicured nails right beneath her eyes, obviously forbidding herself to cry. She licked her lips—
damn!
—and she raised her chin with a look of defiance that was only underscored by the shake of her blond curls.