Catching Hell: A Hot Contemporary Romance (3 page)

And she nearly cried out in surprise when she saw Zach Ormond sitting beside Cody’s bed.
That
was better than a dose of caffeine to jolt her back to full wakefulness.
 

The catcher looked up, obviously as startled as she was. The lights had been dimmed for whatever passed as a restful night in the hospital, and the soft fluorescents barely glinted off the silver strands at Zach’s temples. His eyes looked black in the darkness. His sudden movement shifted the cotton-wrapped ice pack that slouched over the knuckles of his left hand, but he caught it before it slipped to the floor.

She rolled her eyes and hooked a finger, gesturing for him to accompany her into the hall. The monitors spun out their placid lines for the sleeping Tucker’s heartbeat and respiration as Zach complied. She led the way back to the waiting room, surprisingly conscious of the burly man who shadowed her.

“How you doing, Rocky?” she asked when they got back to the familiar window. She kept her voice low in deference to the deserted hallways behind them.

His smile was rueful as he flexed his fingers into a fist. “I’m fine,” he said, shrugging.

“At least you remembered to hit him with your left fist.”

“The first thing they teach in spring training.” This time, the smile actually reached the fine lines beside his eyes.
 

She tried to think of something else to say, something to keep that amusement on his lips. There really wasn’t anything laughable about the night, though. She settled for jutting her chin down the hall, indicating Cody’s room. “What were you doing in there?”

“Someone needs to stay with him. With that much morphine on board, he won’t wake for a few hours, but when he does, he’s not going to remember where he is, or why he’s here.”

“Spoken like a man who knows.”

He glanced down at his knee, at the ACL he’d torn his fourth year in the majors. She still remembered Gramps ranting about that one, so upset he’d actually neglected to clean up his speech, despite the fourteen-year-old granddaughter working quietly on her algebra homework in the corner of his office. “Yeah,” Zach said. “I’ve been there a few times. I’ll keep an eye on him till his family gets here. I’ll call them around seven. No reason to wake them with bad news when there aren’t any overnight flights.”
 

She shook her head. “I called them from the park, before I came over here. Even then, it was too late for them to grab the last plane, but we got them on the 6:00 out of Logan tomorrow morning. I have a driver picking them up. He can take them straight here, then deliver their bags to the hotel, one of the long-term suites. They’ll want the kitchenette once the immediate crisis is over.”
 

His eyebrows raised. “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”

Something about the simple warmth of his question unlocked the emotions she’d sequestered away since that sickening moment when she’d seen Cody slide. She was astonished to find tears in her eyes, threatening to spill onto her cheeks. What the hell was going on? She wasn’t the type of girl who cried. Ever.

“Hey,” Zach said, and he brushed away one treasonous drop of water with his thumb.

And that gesture broke her.
 

Her sobs rose from somewhere deep inside. Horrified, she raised her hand to her lips, trying to push back the weakness. That simple gesture wasn’t enough, though. She gasped for breath, stunned by her sudden emotion. Rocking beneath the shock, she felt her eyes go wide as Zach stepped closer and folded her into his arms.
 

That embrace was permission. She didn’t need to be the strong one. She didn’t have to coordinate doctors and trainers and a dozen unruly ballplayers. She was freed from playing the controlled business executive, the commander who could crank a publicity machine into overdrive even as she arranged for the transport, care, and feeding of stunned bystanders.

Sheltered by Zach, she could be a
person
, a witness terrified by a sickening injury. She could let herself imagine Cody’s pain, the agony of his ruined foot barely touching the torture of the fear that he might never play again.
 

She had enough presence of mind to keep her sobs quiet. Burying her face against Zach’s chest, she managed to smother the sound, biting back the wail that howled in her own mind. She clutched at the fabric of his shirt, and his arms only tightened, silently telling her she could rely on him. She could show him her weakness, and he would only draw her closer.
 

He smelled of soap and shampoo, and she realized he’d taken a shower between stalking from the game and coming to the hospital. The shirt beneath her palms was soft cotton, a blue workshirt that had been laundered countless times. She clutched it between her fingers, gathering him even nearer.

It felt so good to stand there. So safe. She was desperate and frightened and endlessly sad, but he was holding her, and she was going to survive.

Slowly, she became aware of his stroking her back. His palm was steady, and his touch was light. She turned her cheek against his shoulder, and she felt him shift, adjust his stance to better support her. His hand rose to the nape of her neck, and his fingers found the pressure points at the top of her spine. He pressed gently, steadily, and she relaxed against him, letting the tension flow away, seeping down her back.

Tears still leaked from beneath her eyelids, but her gasping sobs had died. Now, she felt exhausted, as if she’d been up for five
days
, instead of five hours past her normal bed-time. With her eyes closed, the room began to spin again.
 

Zach slipped his hands down her arms, supporting her by her elbows. He guided them both to the nearest bench, easing down beside her. He reached around her and corralled one of the flimsy boxes of tissues that stood sentinel around the waiting room. He plucked two and slipped them into her hand.

God, he must think she was an idiot! Her embarrassment was enough to shock her away from the last of her tears. She glanced at him, just quickly enough to see that the front of his shirt was soaked.

Mortified, she mopped at her face. He fed her another tissue, and she pretended it was possible to be delicate while blowing her nose. A fourth white square let her swipe beneath her eyes, issuing grateful thanks to whatever deity was on late-night hospital duty that she never wore mascara.
 

Appalled by her behavior, she balled up the tissues and shoved them into the pocket of her jeans. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what that was all about.”

She felt him shrug, but she couldn’t meet his gaze. His voice was perfectly noncommittal as he said, “We all react to stress differently.”

She laughed awkwardly. “That was a pretty extreme reaction.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Some of us get into fistfights. Start a bench-clearing brawl.”

Despite herself, she laughed. She felt him shrug again, and this time the easiness of that gesture gave her the courage to meet his eyes. Here in the full light of the waiting room, they looked more green than brown, a forest color that belonged far away from the antiseptic white hallways.
 

His gaze was steady. Infinitely patient. Infinitely calm. Her fingers itched to touch the soft lines beside his eyes, the crow’s feet that were his right after so many years of staring out at a pitching mound.
 

Instead, she curled her fingers into fists. She had no right to be touching Zachary Ormond. Not beside his eyes. And certainly not anywhere else—no matter how much the thought made her belly swoop.

She raised her chin and pretended like she was the successful heir-in-waiting for the Raleigh Rockets empire. “Thank you,” she said.

“Any time.” His smile was amused. Tolerant.

“Go home,” she said. “I’ll sit with Cody.” He shook his head, but she cut him off before he could protest. “You need a new shirt, at least. You’re soaked!”

“I’ll dry.” As if to demonstrate, he plucked the cotton shirt from his chest.

“It’s ridiculous for both of us to stay up all night.”

“You’re right. Go home.” But he smiled as he said it, and she knew he wasn’t really ordering her away. Instead, he fished his wallet out of his back pocket and nodded toward the vending machines on the far wall. “How do you take your coffee?”

She wrinkled her nose. “As ice cream, or not at all.”

“Soda, then?”

“Coke, please.”
 

When the bright red can clanked free of the machine, he tapped the top twice before opening the tab. She blushed as he handed it to her. Something about the gesture felt too intimate, as if he’d just ravished her in the shadowy confines of his man-cave, instead of letting her ugly-cry against his chest in the center of the very public hospital waiting room.

She wondered if he could read her mind, because he said, “There’s no shame in being tired, Anna. Go home. I won’t think any less of you.”

Reflexive defiance stiffened her spine. “I could say the same to you, prizefighter.”

He winced. “Yeah. Sorry about that. More crap to deal with tomorrow.”

She shrugged off his chagrin. “We’ll brush it under the carpet when we issue an update about Cody’s status. Tell everyone we’re appealing your suspension, and you’ll play for the interim.”

He nodded, and she sensed that her measured reply had pulled them both back from an edge they hadn’t meant to approach. This was
business
, after all. They might be stranded together in the middle of the night, caught up in a strange sea of exhaustion and emotion, but they worked together for a common, professional cause.

She stood straighter, steadied by the familiar calculations of baseball management. Zach’s suspension was inevitable. The only question was how many games he’d get. At least he’d pulled his punch when he realized the ump was standing right in front of him. He’d get five games. Maybe ten, if they were intent on making an example of him.

Numbers. Neat, uncomplicated numbers. She could handle that.

She watched him measure her response, saw the moment he accepted that she was capable of lasting out the night. “You ready for this?” he asked, nodding back toward Cody’s room.

She took a sip of Coke and squared her shoulders. “Let’s do it.”
 

Once again, she was conscious of him walking behind her, all the way down the corridor. But as much as she wanted to feel his hand brush against her, his chest crowd against her back, his fingers on her neck one last time, he took care to keep a perfect, respectful,
professional
distance between them.
 

She shoved down her disappointment and focused on being the face of Rockets ownership for the rest of the long night.

Anna huddled in the back of the coffee shop, slouching low in her seat and watching the door. Every time another patron entered Club Joe, she jerked to attention. Each time she realized she didn’t know the newcomer, she settled unhappily, eyeing the cooling latte that sat across from her.

She sipped from her own soda, sniffing a little when the ice-chilled bubbles tickled her nose. The Coca-Cola burned down her throat, and she wondered if she’d broken her own record. This was, what? The third Coke she’d had since midnight, and it wasn’t nine o’clock yet. She shook her head, forbidding herself to think about how tired she was.

The door opened, and Anna repeated her ritual. This time, her vigilance was rewarded. Emily Holt stepped over the threshold, blinking as she made her own quick survey of the tables. Her face brightened as she located Anna, and she actually laughed when she saw the thick-foamed latte on the table.

“Thank you,” Emily said as she collapsed into the empty seat. “A million times, thank you!” She lifted the cup in both hands, breathing in the coffee scent as if it were a life-saving serum. She savored a single sip before she returned the cup to its saucer and leveled a concerned gaze on Anna. “Okay. I’m here. In record time, I might add—for you, I got ready in fifteen minutes. Now, will you tell me what’s going on? I’ve been imagining the worst, since I got your call.”

“It
is
the worst,” Anna said grimly.

Emily swallowed hard. “Who exactly are we talking about here? All you said was
he
on the phone.”

Anna could not hold her friend’s intense gaze. Instead, she slipped her fingers down the sides of her glass, collecting the droplets of water that were condensing there. There’d been moisture on the can of soda Zach had handed her the night before, pooling into drops where his fingers had touched the metal…

“Anna!” Emily prompted, sliding a knife’s edge of concern into her voice.

“Zach Ormond.” Anna could barely say his name out loud. Even as she whispered, her belly tightened. The night before, she’d had hours to study the catcher, to memorize every line of his face. They’d sat together until the sun rose outside the narrow window in Cody’s room, until the young player had roused from his drugged sleep, confused and in pain.
 

Zach had been the one to calm Cody, to remind him where he was, to reassure him that everything possible was being done to help him. The catcher had answered every one of his teammate’s questions, truthfully saying they didn’t have a prognosis yet. And Zach had repeated himself, carefully, patiently, every time Cody made the same demands, slipping in and out of his morphine daze.
 

“Oh. My. God,” Emily said, her enthusiasm jarring against Anna’s somber memories. “You finally did it!”

“Did what?”

“Told Zach how you feel about him. At least I
assume
you told him.” Emily’s eyes widened as she set her cup on her saucer. “You didn’t tell him? You just decided it was finally time to jump his bones? Get him into bed first and worry about confessing your lifelong crush in the morning? But you said it was the worst. What happened? Was it too fast? It couldn’t be too fast. He’s thirty-seven years old. Oh my God, Anna. Was he not able to get it up? Did he—?”