Triple Score Read online

  And that was just his face.

  The sheet had gathered around his waist, baring his thickly muscled chest and abs. Her fingers itched to pull it down a few inches and follow the trail of soft, fine hair to the treasure waiting at the end. She balled her hands into fists to resist the temptation. As much as she wanted to jump his bones for the fourth time that night, first she had to know what had really brought him back from his guys’ weekend a day early.

  “Jace?” she whispered again, nudging to his shoulder.

  He opened his eyes. A grin that somehow managed to be both boyish and bawdy spread across his stubbled jaw. “Tired of staring at me?”

  Heat infused her cheeks, and she said a silent prayer that the semidarkness hid her blush. “You were awake this whole time?”

  “Not the whole time.” He propped himself on his elbow and gazed down at her, his whiskey eyes flashing with amusement. “Just long enough to know you were enjoying the view.”

  Her face burned hotter. “A gentleman would have coughed or something.”

  “You should know by now, sweetness. I’m no gentleman.” He cupped her cheek, but she rolled away and sat up, clutching the sheet around her bare breasts. “What time is it?”

  She glanced at the clock on her nightstand. “Almost six.”

  “Good.” He sat up next to her. “I have a couple more hours.”

  “A couple more hours until what?”

  The boyish smile faded to a thin line. “We have to talk.”

  Right. He’d said there was something he had to tell her, but she’d distracted him with the promise of some sexy shower action. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to hear it for some reason. She twisted the sheet in her fingers. “Is it the real reason you ditched your buddies and came back early?”

  He stared down at his lap.

  “I’m going home.”

  “You are?” She stared at him, her heart plummeting. He was leaving. She was staying. Whether she was ready or not, their little interlude was through. “That’s...that’s great. Then you’ve been cleared to play baseball again?”

  “Not exactly.” He threw off the sheet and stood.

  She tried to ignore all the steel and sinew and concentrate on remembering to breathe and understanding what the hell he was saying. “What does that mean? Either you can play or not.”

  “Not.” He bent to retrieve his boxers, giving her a choice view of his mouth-watering ass. “At least not yet. I’ve got some family business to attend to.”

  “Family business?”

  He stepped into his boxers and sat next to her on the bed, stroking her leg through the sheet. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  She shoved his hand away. The sheet slipped below one breast and she scrambled to cover herself. “Don’t patronize me.”

  He ran his fingers through his sleep-rumpled hair. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to be honest with me.”

  “It’s not pretty.” He caressed her cheek with his thumb.

  She leaned into his touch. “I’m tougher than you think. I can handle ugly.”

  “I know you can, Duchess.” His gaze dropped to her mouth and his thumb shifted from her cheek to graze her lower lip. “But you shouldn’t have to handle my ugly.”

  “I want your ugly.” She turned her head to kiss his palm, then took his hand in hers. “Even if it’s the last thing you share with me.”

  He opened his mouth, and for a second she thought he was going to contradict her, tell her this wouldn’t be their last moment together, that they’d make it work three thousand miles apart. But then he pressed his lips together and took a shallow breath. After what seemed like an eternity, he spoke, his voice uncharacteristically flat. “It’s my father. He’s in jail.”

  “He’s what?” She couldn’t have heard that right. From all Jace had told her about his hard-working, blue-collar, single dad, jail seemed like the least likely place for him to be.

  “Something about gambling. I don’t have all the details yet. But I’ve got to get home ASAP so I can bail him out and hire an attorney. My flight leaves in a few hours. Guess I’d better get packing.”

  He stood and picked up his pants and shirt from the floor where they’d landed the night before, only seconds after the door closed behind him.

  “What about your rehab?”

  “Sara’s already agreed to forward my records to the team doc. He’ll set something up closer to home. It won’t be Spaulding, but I’ll make it work.”

  She didn’t doubt that. He approached his recovery with razor-sharp focus and single-minded determination. The same way he’d pursued her.

  “I’ll go with you to the airport.” Still wrapped in the sheet, she shuffled awkwardly over to her bureau and rifled through the drawers for clean underwear and something halfway presentable to wear.

  “Better not.” He pulled his pants over lean hips. “I hate tearful goodbyes. And we wouldn’t want to make a big, dramatic scene at the terminal, where anyone could snap a pic on their cell phone and sell it to the tabloids.”

  She dangled a black lace demi cup bra from her fingers, frowned and shoved it back in the drawer, opting instead for a more demure but still attractive number in seafoam green satin that covered a lot more real estate. No use dressing for sex when she wasn’t going to get any. “I didn’t think you cared about that stuff.”

  “No.” He zipped his fly and shrugged on his shirt. “But you do.”

  Something inside her melted. He might be leaving, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care about her, at least a little. Enough to make sure she didn’t risk her reputation by making a fool out of herself in public.

  But not enough to take their fling to the next level.

  She hip-checked the drawer closed. “Well, if you’re sure...”

  He slipped his feet into his Vans and strode over to her, cupping her face in his hands. “I’ve never been less sure about anything. But something tells me it’ll hurt less if we do this quick, like stealing second.”

  Her heart latched onto his admission that leaving would hurt. It was a thin thread of hope she could cling to when she was lying alone in her bed at Spaulding, something she hadn’t done much of since they’d first hooked up. “Will you call and let me know you got there in one piece?”

  He kissed her. Long and lingering, like he was savoring one last taste. When he was done, he stepped back and thrust his hands in his pockets. “I’ll try. Things are going to be kind of crazy with my dad.”

  “It’s okay. I understand.” She did. She really did. His father had to be his priority right now. And what they’d had was only temporary. She’d known that from the start. Not that any of that made his sudden departure any easier. “I hope everything works out.”

  He crossed back to her and kissed her again, hard and fast this time, putting a period on their relationship. “So do I, Duchess. So do I.”

  She watched him turn and go, the door swinging shut behind him, clicking closed with a finality that echoed the emptiness in her chest.

  14

  “HERE.” JACE SET a bowl down in front of his father. “My specialty. Chicken noodle soup. From a can.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jace leaned against the counter and watched his father slurp his soup. Nothing much had changed since he’d been at his dad’s place last. No new refrigerator. No drainage system. No sump pump.

  Of course, now Jace knew where all the money he’d been sending had really gone—into the pocket of one Light Fingers Lenny. The guy was the biggest bookie in the greater Sacramento area, and the authorities wanted his father to testify against him in exchange for a reduced sentence.

  “Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t heard what it’s going to cost you.” Jace grabbed a Rolling Rock out of the refrigerator, popped the top off and took a seat across the table from him.

  His father laid his spoon down. “Cost me?”

  “When you’re done eating, we’re going to talk.
”

  “Didn’t we do that a few hours ago at the police station?”

  Jace took a swig, grimaced and thunked the beer bottle down on the table. “I don’t want the crap you gave your lawyer. I don’t care about the where or the when or the how. I want to know why. Why the hell were you gambling? Did you need money? Were you betting on baseball? Please tell me you weren’t betting on baseball.”

  “That’s a lot of questions.”

  “I need some answers, Dad. Were you betting on the Storm?”

  “No.” His father slumped in his seat. “I didn’t bet on the Storm or any other baseball team. I’d never do anything to jeopardize your career. You know that.”

  “I don’t know anything anymore.” Jace clenched and unclenched his fists under the table. “Why, Dad? I would have given you whatever you needed.”

  His father seemed to slump even further. “A man’s supposed to support his son, not the other way around.”

  Jace didn’t bother to point out that he’d been supporting his father bit by bit for years. No use kicking him when he was down, no matter how pissed off Jace was. “You supported me for eighteen years. All by yourself, I might add. What’s the big deal if the tables are turned now?”

  “It wasn’t about the money. At least not at first.”

  “Then what was it about?”

  “Having something to do with my days. Not being bored out of my ever-loving skull. So when the guys asked me to go to the track...” His father’s voice trailed off and he tugged at his ear, a sure sign Jace was treading into dangerous—or at least uncomfortable—territory. “It just kind of snowballed from there.”

  “What do you mean, bored? You’ve got the repair shop to keep you busy.”

  “I haven’t wanted to tell you, but business has been dropping off steadily for the past year or two. Half the time things aren’t worth fixing. Everything is disposable. It’s cheaper to buy something new. And the other half of the time I’m dealing with newfangled electronics that are so complicated, I couldn’t fix them if I wanted to.” His father let out a heavy sigh and buried his head in his hands. “I’m a dinosaur, Jace. A relic of a bygone era.”

  “What about the Wurlitzer?”

  “Done. And it was the only project I’ve had in the last two months, except for fixing Mrs. Robertson’s ancient toaster that she refuses to part with.”

  Jace’s wanted to kick himself into next week. This was his father. How could he not have known he was struggling? He was too obsessed with his own damned career, too busy getting wasted and chasing tail, that was how. He was glad his father’s head was down, because he couldn’t look him in the eye. “You should have told me.”

  “Pretty damn humiliating, admitting to your offspring that you’re a failure.”

  “You’re not a failure, Dad.” Jace ran a finger around the lip of his beer bottle. “And I’m not Mom.”

  “I’m well aware of that.”

  “Are you?” Jace leaned back in his chair and sipped his beer. “You raised me. Fed me. Clothed me. Got me to practice on time. And God knows, I was no angel. I’m not going to abandon you just because you fell on hard times or made a few mistakes.”

  “More than a few.” His dad picked up his spoon, swirled it around in what remained of his now room temperature soup, then let it clatter back down on the table. “I’m sorry, son. I should have come to you when it got out of hand. Then I wouldn’t have had to run bets for Lenny to pay off my debt.”

  “You should have come to me before it got out of hand. But it’s okay.” Jace backpedaled at the stricken look on his father’s face, reaching across the table to cover his father’s hand—more wrinkled than Jace remembered. “I’m here now. We’ll get this fixed. Like the DA said, you’ll testify against Lenny, plead to a lesser offense and get probation.”

  “Will I have to move?” His father pulled his hand away. “Lenny’s got a lot of friends. Dangerous ones. They’re not gonna be too happy with me if I help put him behind bars.”

  “Maybe,” Jace admitted, figuring it was better to be honest from the get-go. That way his dad could start mentally preparing himself for the possibility that he might have to relocate, maybe even go into witness protection. Jace didn’t even want to think about the complications. “But we’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it.”

  His poor attempt at humor was rewarded with a wry chuckle.

  “You’re a good kid, Jace. A good man,” his father corrected, pushing back his chair, picking up his still half-full bowl and carrying it to the sink.

  Good? Jace wasn’t so sure about that. And his father would probably think differently, too, if he read the tabloids.

  “If I am, it’s because of you.” He polished off his beer and grabbed two more from the fridge. Popping off the tops, he offered one to his father and checked the clock on the stove. “The Storm’s playing Milwaukee in ten. Wanna watch?”

  His father took the bottle and drank. “It doesn’t bother you, watching the team while you’re on the sidelines?”

  “Nah.” Jace hoped to hell the lie sounded convincing. Bothered was a mild word for what he felt about that wet-behind-the-ears pissant Hafler in his place at short, lighting it up at the plate and in the field. But the best way to beat the competition was to know them inside out, and that meant studying Hafler’s every move so he’d be ready to take him on in spring training.

  “Come on.” Jace slung his good arm around his father’s shoulder. “Let’s watch on the big screen in the den. We can order some pizza.”

  “Are pizza and beer on your rehab diet?” His father’s graying brows knotted. “I wouldn’t want you to go against doctor’s orders. Bad enough I dragged you away from that swanky center the Storm sent you to.”

  “It won’t hurt me to indulge a little.” Jace steered his dad out of the kitchen and down the hall to the den. “And I’m meeting with the team physician next week to talk about transitioning my treatment to an out-patient facility in Sacramento.”

  “You mean you’re not going back?” His father stopped short in the middle of the hallway, and Jace had to do the same to avoid crashing into him. “I thought once...”

  “You thought wrong. It’s okay, Dad,” Jace reassured him. “I can finish up my rehab just fine here. And you and I can spend some real time together for a change.”

  Both were true, to an extent. The team would hook him up with some perfectly acceptable facility. And he did want to see his father more, help him sort through not just this legal mess but his business problems, too. Maybe he’d even stay with his dad for a while.

  But even more true was the fact that Jace couldn’t go back to Spaulding given the way he’d left things with Noelle. Hell, he hadn’t even contacted her since he’d left except for a brief text letting her know he was home safe, which she’d acknowledged with an equally brief thanks. It wouldn’t be fair to her to show up on her doorstep expecting to pick up where they’d left off. Unless he had something more to offer her. Like commitment...

  “What is it?” His father ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “The game’s about to start.” Changing the subject was a legitimate avoidance strategy, wasn’t it? Jace clapped his father on the shoulder and continued down the hall into the den. “What do you want on your pizza?”

  His father followed him. “Your arm’s worse than you’re letting on, isn’t it? Or my case isn’t as open-and-shut as you’re leading me to believe.”

  “It’s nothing like that. I swear.” Jace sank into the nut-brown butter-leather sectional he’d bought his dad last Christmas and hunted for the TV remote.

  “Well, if it’s not baseball and it’s not my legal troubles, there’s only one thing it can be.” His father sat next to him, giving him the same penetrating look he’d given him as a seven-year-old when Jace had taken a permanent marker to his dad’s prize possession—a baseball signed by Brooklyn Dodger ace Sandy Koufax
. “A woman.”

  Looked like full-on denial was up to bat next. Hadn’t worked all that well with the Koufax ball, but it was all Jace had left up his sleeve. Bad enough Cooper and Reid knew about Noelle. No way was he discussing his love life with his father.

  “Just one?” Jace propped his feet up on the coffee table, trying to project ladies’ man and not big fat liar. “Not likely.”

  “Fine. I understand. Don’t want to talk about it with your old man. Can’t say I blame you, given my track record with the fairer sex. But if you don’t mind one piece of advice...”

  Jace shrugged and sipped his beer. “Shoot.”

  “Women aren’t mind readers, as much as they’d like us to think they are. If you love her, tell her. Don’t wait until it’s too late.”

  “Was that what happened with Mom?” They’d never really talked much about her. Jace had only been five when she’d left without looking back, right about the time his dad had quit playing ball after toiling for years in the minors. He’d always assumed the two were connected. But maybe there was more to the story.

  “I’m not sure.” His father took a long, slow pull of his beer, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. “Your mother was never really happy as the wife of a small-time ballplayer. And she wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea of me as a handyman. But I’m not the most demonstrative guy. Maybe if I had paid more attention to her, been a little more affectionate...who knows?”

  Jace knew. He’d tried being the perfect son—quiet, neat, obedient—thinking it would put a smile on his mother’s face for a change. It hadn’t worked. And nothing his dad could have done would have kept her from bailing on them, either.

  But his father had a point. Jace had up and left Noelle hundreds of miles away without manning up and admitting that, when it came down to it, he didn’t want their relationship to have a time stamp. He wasn’t ready to call it love, but he wasn’t ready to call it quits, either.

  Now he just needed to figure out how to make things right with her.