Catching Hell: A Hot Contemporary Romance (13 page)

But it
was
the middle of the night. And she didn’t want to talk to Gregory. She’d had enough of him that morning, when he’d lingered in her office like a bad smell, even after she’d explicitly told him she needed to get back to work. He’d demanded that she sign off on the “Ormond Strategy,” the series of steps he’d set up to convince Zach to cash in his no-trade clause.

Small was persistent as a terrier. And he was very, very good at his job. That was why Gramps had hired him in the first place, why Small was still considered the team’s most important front-office asset.
 

So, Anna had signed off on the memo. Even if she thought Gregory Small was a prick .

She just tried to ignore the shiver that plucked her spine when she thought of Zach reading this most recent volley in their escalating war.
Thanks for playing those two games in Pittsburgh, Ormond. Here’s what we really think of you.

Her doorbell rang, jolting her out of her morose thoughts with a crash of adrenaline. Who would be stopping by in the middle of the night? She turned to the door, her heart hammering. Whoever it was leaned on the doorbell again, holding the button down, long and loud.

Anger replaced surprise. Anna crossed the living room at triple speed, flattening her hands against the door as she peered through the peephole.

Zach. Of course.

Even as he shifted tactics to a staccato rhythm, she shot the security chain. He bulled his way in before she’d fully opened the door.
 

“Are you trying to wake the dead?” she asked.

“No,” he said, dropping his duffle bag onto the floor. “Just you.”

“Too bad. I was already up.” She said the words glibly, but she couldn’t take her eyes from the suitcase. She knew what it meant—he’d come straight from the airport.

Fighting the dangerous flare of her emotions, she reached around him to close the door. The last thing she needed was her neighbors eavesdropping on the fight they were about to have.

He didn’t budge, didn’t ease a single inch to the side to make her action any easier. In fact, he was waiting for her when she turned away from working the lock. He planted his hands on the door behind her, creating a cage with his arms. She leaned her head back to look at him, to gauge his anger.

“I take it you got Small’s memo,” she said.

“Got it. Read it. Shoved it in the trash.” He flexed his arms, bringing his body closer to hers. “You think I’m going to walk away from a contract I spent seven months negotiating, because you tell a bunch of high-school dropouts not to pick up my bag from the luggage carousel?
Please
tell me that wasn’t your idea.”

“It’s team policy.”

“It’s bullshit.” He moved his hands closer to her head. His fingers were practically tangled in her hair. Her heart was pounding—leftover adrenaline from hearing the doorbell, she tried to tell herself, but she knew she was responding to more than that. A
lot
more than that.
 

She swallowed hard and was proud when she kept her voice perfectly even. “Luggage handlers are a perk, reserved for players who cooperate with management.”

“Do you actually believe that line?”

She sucked in her breath and avoided answering his actual question. “I’m doing what’s best for the team.”

“Is it, Anna? Is it ‘best for the team’ to keep a starting catcher at the airport for an extra hour, waiting for his goddamn suitcase?” He leaned in closer to her, shifting his weight so one of his legs settled between hers. She resisted the urge to arch against him as he growled. “Wouldn’t it be ‘best for the team’ for me to be out at the farm, tucked into my own bed, getting a good night’s sleep before tomorrow’s game?”

“Well, now that we know
that’s
not going to happen…” Her hands found the cotton of his T-shirt, smoothed over the planes of his muscular back. She made short work of pulling the cloth free from his jeans, and he hissed when she set her palms against his flesh.

“You couldn’t possibly think this new rule would change anything,” he whispered against the corner of her mouth.

“It’s been one day,” she said. “One flight. You might cave in to the pressure if we keep this up. Give it time. ”

“You don’t have any time.” His lips teased hers, feather-soft with promise. “Texas might trade with St. Louis any day.”

She shifted her right hand from his back, cupping the bulge in his jeans that let her know he was every bit as excited as she was. “But look at how we’re already getting under your skin,” she purred.

For answer, he covered her hand with his own, leaning in close as he caught her lower lip between her teeth. She gasped, and then he was sucking on her lip, teasing, driving her to stretch against him for more, for pressure, for release. He laughed deep in his chest as he pinned her against the door, holding her with his legs and his body, even as his hands tore through the buttons on her shirt, as he ripped open the zipper of her shorts.

The rasp of his jeans against her thighs nearly made her explode, and her fingers curled in their own exploration.

“No,” he whispered, locking her hands against her sides. “Not this time. Tell me I can do this. Tell me I’m in charge.”

“Here. Now. I’ll do what you want, Zach, because I want it too. But once we walk out this door…”

“It’ll be
hours
before we walk out that door.” And he settled down to show her exactly what could be accomplished in the time before either one of them had to report to Rockets Field.

* * *

Less than eighteen hours later, Zach knew one thing for sure. He had played like shit. The team had played like shit. They’d been no-hit into the eighth, and Washington ultimately crushed them with eleven runs.

Standing under the needle-like shower in the clubhouse hadn’t begun to ease the ache in his knees, no matter how hot he made the water. A nasty bruise bled across his thigh—testament to one wicked foul ball in the third—and a knot was rising on his forearm from another in the fifth.

Three different guys had turned their backs to him when he’d limped into the locker room at the end of the goddamn game. He wasn’t surprised.
 

If they’d managed to win, he might have laughed at the debris they shoved into his locker while he was taking his shower—empty bottles of Gatorade, crumpled wrappers from protein bars, an empty box of bubble gum.

But the team hadn’t won. And he hadn’t laughed. Instead, he’d pulled on a collared shirt and run a comb through his hair, doing his best to look like a professional ball-player. A guy who wasn’t down on his luck.
 

Yeah, the team was pissed. And Anna was proving true to her word—she was going to do everything she could to push him to the limit, to deliver Tyler Brock for her team.

But for the first time since this goddamn circus had begun, he was shaken. He had never expected Coach to turn on him. He had never thought Jimmy Conway would send him in to face the lions alone.

Taking a deep breath, Zach opened the door to the press room. The reporters swarmed like iron filings drawn to a magnet; the hum in the room sharpened as if someone had turned up an amplifier. Zach made his way to the cloth-covered table at the front. He took his time pouring a glass of water from the plastic pitcher, and then he pointed at the beat writer from the
News & Observer
. “Bob,” he said, hoping for mercy because he was letting the guy take the first shot.

“We’ve been hearing all sorts of rumors about unrest in the clubhouse,” Bob said. “And your name is the one that keeps coming up. Is it true that Rockets management has eliminated all free food and drinks for players, and you’re the reason why?”

Zach made sure his voice was perfectly even as he answered. “There was a memo on the door when we got to the park today. From this point forward, we pay our own way.”

“Surely players aren’t bringing
lunch money
to the clubhouse?” That was the new girl, the one from the cable morning show.

Her chipper disbelief exasperated him. “They hired a moth—” He cut himself off. No reason to have his insults repeated on the late news, honed for the morning edition of the paper with his expletives neatly sliced away, replaced with polite words in square brackets. “They hired a clerk. He’s happy to make change, if any player doesn’t have exact payment.”

“But why the new policy?” came another voice, another woman. He craned his neck, saw that it was Cindy Macon, from
Wake Up Wake County
. “Is it true this is all based on a contract dispute between you and the team?”

What the hell. He’d known for days now that things were getting rough. No time like the present to advance the runner. “Yeah,” Zach said. “We disagree about a clause in my contract. They’re going by the letter on everything else until we get things worked out.”

Cindy homed in on the blood in the water. “What clause would that be, Zach?”

He found the camera, stared directly into its mechanical eye. “The team wants me to waive my no-trade clause. I want to play for the Rockets, the way I have for the past fifteen years. I want to leave this league the way I came in—wearing red and blue and number 33.”

The room exploded over that. Half a dozen questions competed to drown each other out. Where did the team want to send him? Was this a reaction to his recent suspension? What other steps had the team taken to make its position clear?

Zach wasn’t surprised when the press room door opened. Jimmy Conway rolled into the room on his barrel legs, already raising his hands to calm the raging journalistic storm. “Come on, y’all,” Coach said, in his best disarming drawl. “Don’t be gettin’ the wrong idea here.”

Coach glared at Zach across the table, sending a crystal clear message. Sit down. Shut up. And don’t feed the dogs another bite.

Zach shrugged and leaned back in his chair. His battle was with the Bensons. The Bensons and Gregory Small. Coach was just another game piece on the chess board.
 

Shit.

As the older man cleared his throat, obviously searching for a way to bring the press conference back to heel, Zach leaned forward and grabbed the mike. “Before Coach takes over, I just have one thing to say. First and foremost, baseball is a game. We play it because it’s fun to play. Sure, there’s money at stake, and we all have lawyers to argue over every last syllable, making sure our contracts are airtight.”
 

There. They were glued to him. Recording every word.
 

Zach forced himself to shrug his aching shoulders. He smiled like he was telling his favorite joke. “When rookies come up, we haze them. Make ’em wear tutus in the airport, carry Cinderella backpacks out to the bullpen. This thing in the locker room, this dispute over
snack food
. It’s another form of hazing.”

As a pack, the reporters nodded. Several even grinned. He was feeding them their stories, practically writing the human interest crap for them.

Zach leaned forward, bringing every last one of the writers into his conspiracy. “I’m here tonight to tell management that I can take whatever they dish out. Clubhouse snacks are on me for the rest of the season. Drinks too.” Zach reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, displaying the worn black leather for nearly a minute as the room lit with flash bulbs. “Why don’t y’all stop by before tomorrow’s game? I’ll tell ’em to put some extra soft drinks on ice. Your choice.”

That did it. The reporters started laughing. A few called out special orders, wanted to know if he’d serve up nachos and beer. Coach leaned back in his chair, a smile on his face, even if Zach could read another story in the man’s narrowed eyes.

The questions turned to what went wrong in the game, when Coach knew his pitcher didn’t have control over his curveball, why they’d tried to bunt in the bottom of the second. Zach kept his mouth shut. His work here was done.

It would cost him a bit, but it was done. The guys would be on his side before they got back out on the field. More than one article would come out tomorrow, letting Raleigh know that Zach Ormond wanted to be its catcher for the rest of his career.

His phone was ringing the instant he stepped out of the room. “Ep,” he said, after glancing at the screen.

“Well done,” the agent said. “Best ten thousand dollars you ever spent.”

“Ten if I’m lucky. I’m pretty sure the guys’ll find some very expensive food they can’t live without.”

“You’re refusing to play the Bensons’ game, though. That’s what matters.”

Zach paused beside his car. “Can you do something for me tonight, Ep?”

“I live to serve.”

“Track down the local Coca-Cola distributor. Have them deliver one hundred cases to Anna Benson’s home. Charge it all to me.”

“One hundred—Are you serious?”

“Dead serious,” Zach said. And he gave his agent the address.

* * *

Anna sat on the edge of her couch, staring at her front door. She’d started the evening like every other one that week, reviewing notes for the next day’s management meeting. Gramps had rejected her plans for the season-ticket promotion, saying she was thinking like a business school student, not a baseball fan. The comment had stung—especially with everyone from Gregory Small to her office assistant looking on—but she’d promised to come up with something new.

But she couldn’t keep her mind on her work that night. Not after watching the team lose another game. Not when she had nodded at Small as she left the owner’s suite, giving him permission to deliver his next packet of papers to Zach in the locker room. Not when every rustle in the hallway made her think Zach was coming to protest her action.
 

The team’s action.

That’s what it was, she reminded herself. They were playing a game. A game with high stakes, one that she would hate to lose. But a game, nonetheless. At least that’s what she had to believe when she looked at the 2400 cans of Coke that filled her entire foyer, that spilled into her living room, crowding her space with neat red-and-white cardboard boxes.

He knocked, instead of ringing the bell.