Fastball (13 page)

Martha leaned over and took her hand in a
comforting grip. Maddie squeezed back and finally let out a
strangled, bitter laugh. “Could my luck get any worse? I didn’t
know Jake would be here at all, much less that he would turn up in
our foursome. God, what were the odds?”

She kept breathing deeply, trying to keep the
conflicted emotions that had plagued her all week at bay. Of
course, she shouldn’t want to be anywhere near Jake, but try
telling that to her stupid body and her even stupider emotions.
Already, she could feel herself tensing with some kind of excited
anticipation at the thought of being close to him again.

Oh, man. She’d better shut
that
action
down fast.

Martha gazed at her with concern. “Maddie, do
you want to just bag this? We don’t have to stay, you know. We can
head to our cars and get out of here. Go do something else for the
day, maybe head to the Jersey shore. I won’t mind, honestly,
kiddo.”

Maddie shook her head firmly. “No. I’m not
going to go into hiding and miss out on things I like to do just
because Jake Miller is around. I can’t live like that. I just have
to get over this, so maybe it’s better to confront it right
now.”

Martha gave her a thumbs up. “That’s the
spirit, girlfriend. You’re strong and smart and you’ll get though
this fine. I know it. And I’ll kick Nate Carter’s fine ass when
this day is finished,” she ended with a mutter.

“What are you talking about?” Maddie asked
with a frown.

Martha waved a hand. “Oh, nothing. Let’s just
play hard and beat these guys.”

“Amen to that. We’ll show those bozos how to
play some golf,” Maddie said.

Oh, hell. Who was she kidding? Her stomach
was currently doing its best to climb into her throat, and she had
no idea how she’d get through the long round ahead. If ever there
was a time to fake it, that time was now.

As Martha pulled a u-turn and headed back
toward the first tee, Maddie spotted Jake and Nate lounging in
their golf cart, two over-sized specimens of hunky masculinity.
Jake was scanning the path from the clubhouse to the tee, looking
almost as tense as Maddie felt. It suddenly occurred to her that he
might be as unsettled by the unexpected situation as she was.
Somehow, that slightly eased the anxiety crawling along her
nerves.

When Martha braked to a stop just behind
their cart, Nate and Jake studied them in silence, looking for all
the world like two big predators on the lookout for their next
meal. Jake’s eyes locked on Maddie’s face, and she could feel the
blush rising up over her cheeks. There was enough nervous and
sexual tension swirling around the four of them to scorch the
turf.

Finally, Nate unleashed one of his bad-boy
grins. “Martha, you always drive a cart like you’re in NASCAR. Then
again, you’ve always been a fast mover.” He capped his remarks with
a comic, exaggerated leer.

Maddie smiled, glad Nate had broken the ice.
She liked him a lot, even though he had left Martha in a bit of a
mess after their brief, thermonuclear affair several years ago.
Fortunately, Martha was long over Nate, and the two of them had
developed into best friends. But that didn’t stop Martha the steel
magnolia from glaring down her nose at him with mock disdain.

“You are so full of crap, Nate Carter, since
I know for an absolute fact that
you
drive like a Tasmanian
devil on steroids. Now get your butt over here and help a lady with
her clubs.”

“Oh, baby, you are such a sweet talker,” Nate
said as he sauntered over to their golf cart. “If I help you with
your club, will you help me with mine?”

Martha began scolding Nate for the incredibly
lame joke, and within seconds the two friends had dropped into
their usual bickering banter. It seemed to defuse some of the
tension, but it left Maddie to face Jake on her own.

“Hey, Maddie,” Jake said quietly as he got
out of the cart. He strolled up, looming over her. She’d almost
forgotten how big he was up close and how
handsome
. Her
breathing kicked into a shallow, rapid rhythm.

He extended his hand for a shake. She
instinctively started to pull back, but then mentally kicked
herself for acting like an immature schoolgirl. Smiling, she took
his hand, then almost jumped when the same charge she’d experienced
in La Jolla rocketed through her body. Jake Miller was the most
masculine, attractive man she had ever met, but even that didn’t
explain her visceral response. All she knew for certain was that
whenever they touched, some devastatingly powerful force arced
between them.

And if that kept up, she was in a world of
freaking trouble.

“Good to see you again, Jake.” Maddie
silently thanked God her voice wasn’t shaking. “I wonder how the
four of us managed to end up in the same group today?”

Nate’s attention veered over from Martha.
“Good question. I was asking the same thing myself. Some lucky
coincidence, huh?” The corner of his mouth twitched, like he was
suppressing a laugh.

Maddie frowned and narrowed her eyes on Jake,
who returned her suspicious gaze with an unreadable smile. She was
pretty sure Nate and Jake were up to something, but there was no
point in raising a fuss. She’d better just get on with it and fight
her way out of the emotional sand traps as the day proceeded.

“Looks like our group’s up, Nate,” she said
abruptly as the course marshal waved for their foursome to step up
onto the tee. She grabbed her driver and went to stand beside
Martha.

After Jake and Nate both hit booming though
slightly errant drives, one in the rough on the left and one in the
first cut on the right, Martha and Maddie moved up to the ladies’
tee and took their turns. Martha clobbered her ball into a
screaming line drive straight down the middle of a fairway.

Maddie studied the hole in front of her,
which was lined with magnificent and very tall oaks and sycamores.
The trees were beautiful to look at, but they could pay havoc with
a player’s game—especially one whose concentration had deserted
her.

Determined not to be intimidated, Maddie took
a few practice swings and then promptly stroked a near-perfect
drive that rolled three or four yards past Martha’s ball. As the
guys whistled their appreciation, she dipped a mock curtsey before
following Martha back to their cart.

After several seconds of laden silence,
Maddie sighed. “We’d have to be morons to think this little
arrangement was luck of the draw, Martha. Those guys somehow set it
up.” She stared straight ahead, trying to sort out how she felt
about that.

Martha snorted. “No kidding. But look at it
this way, now you know exactly how much Jake wants to be with you.
Look at all the trouble he went to figuring out how to do this, and
then making it happen. He isn’t giving up, which frankly doesn’t
surprise me at all. Jake’s one of the quiet types, but when he
wants something, he goes right after it.” She cast Maddie a sharp
glance. “How does that make you feel, hon? It’s complicated,
right?”

“Complicated doesn’t begin to describe it,”
Maddie said grimly. “I’m terrified, if you want the truth. I
thought I could just get on with my life and stop thinking about
him, but every time I see him I feel like I’m sinking. I just have
to look at him and my resolve melts like ice cream under a broiling
sun. If I can’t get away from him completely, I don’t know what’s
going to happen.”

“What do you mean?” Martha asked in a worried
tone as she braked the cart to a stop not far from their balls.

“That’s just it. I don’t know what to do.
It’s crazy, but I don’t think I can be around him every day for
much longer, which would pretty much send my career down the tubes.
You know how much I love covering baseball, but I feel like I could
do something really stupid if I don’t figure this out, and soon.”
She bit her lower lip, fighting back the uptick in panic that even
thinking
about leaving her job created within her.

Martha put a gentle arm around her. “Don’t
you start thinking like that. You’re talking about life-changing
decisions here, and all you had was one dinner with the man! Yeah,
Jake’s the hottest thing since You Tube, but it was one damn
dinner. That’s all.”

“But that’s just it—”

“No buts, Maddie. You can get over him, I
know you can. It took me a while to get over Nate, but soon enough
I figured out that we would never have been right for each other,
anyway. Maybe you’ll know in a while that Jake isn’t right for you,
either.” She scrunched up her face, as if thinking hard. “Or, look
at it the other way. Maybe he really
will
be the one. Maybe
you’ll end up being happy to change your life to be with him, or
he’ll change his for you.”

Maddie blinked, stunned by the very notion
that she and Jake could actually have some kind of future together.
She opened her mouth, almost afraid to give voice to such a
thought, when they heard Nate yelling from the other side of the
fairway.

“Hey, you two, are you going to hit the ball
or just sit there yakking all afternoon like you’re at some book
club meeting?”

Martha turned and gave him a withering look,
then stuck her tongue out at him. Maddie had to laugh as Nate
staggered back, clutching at his chest. She knew how he felt,
because Martha had just rocked her world, and she was mentally
staggering.

“Thanks, Martha. I’ll figure it out. I hope.”
She sucked in a deep breath and reached for her seven-iron.

* * *

Jake savored watching Maddie as she took a
smooth, controlled swing at the ball. It always struck him what an
incredible package of femininity she was—beauty and grace combined
with natural coordination and strength. She was a born athlete and
a fighter, too. He suspected she was waging a pretty fierce
internal battle right this moment, trying to keep her cool and not
react, when he figured that every part of her wanted to respond to
him the same way he wanted to respond to her. He could see it in
the pink flush that stained her cheeks when she shot him those shy,
sideways glances, and in her sharp little intake of breath when
he’d brushed past her on the way to the tee.

Yeah, he no longer had any doubts. Maddie
wanted him as much as he wanted her.

Good thing, too, because he couldn’t take his
eyes off her. She had chosen to dress in pink from head to ankle
today in a matched Nike golf shirt and skirt along with a visor and
ankle socks in the same shade. The outfit suited her, setting off
her pristine white golf shoes and glossy black hair to stunning
effect. She looked absolutely fucking radiant and delicious, and he
wanted nothing more than to get his hands on her.

As he and Nate got back in their cart and
drove ahead to where their drives had ended up, Nate shook his
head. “I totally get it why you’re all moonstruck over her. I’d
never paid much attention to Maddie before, what with her
reputation, but when I look at her now in that pink outfit, I’m
thinking I wouldn’t mind squeezing that sexy little ass.”

Nate was just yanking his chain, but it still
raised Jake’s hackles. “Don’t even think about it, horn dog. And
I’d appreciate it if you kept that kind of comment to
yourself.”

Christ.
Now he sounded like a
possessive moron. There was no doubt Maddie was messing with his
head, big time.

Nate shot him a concerned glance. “Easy, pal.
You know I was kidding. But you’ve got an uphill climb there, from
what I know about her. Not to mention all the bullshit you’d
probably catch from management if you go there.”

Jake crossed his arms over his chest,
maintaining a stony silence. Nate finally laughed. “Okay, man,
we’ll play it your way. I’d say there’s something there, all right.
Maddie’s trying real hard not to show it, but you got to her.”

Now Jake liked what he was hearing. “I
thought so, right from the first time we met. But she’s
worried—afraid, even—and I can’t really blame her. She figures that
in the end it would have to come down to a choice between her
career and me.”

Nate frowned. “Jesus, isn’t she getting way
ahead of herself?”

“Because we barely know each other? Yeah,
sure. But she probably doesn’t want to start something she might
not be able to finish. I’m not sure she’s totally right about the
potential impact on her career, but I get where she’s coming from.
Still, I think it could work if we set some ground rules and were
careful. And I’m pretty sure I could bring management around to the
idea at some point if it turned into something important. I just
want to be able to talk to Maddie about it.”

That much was definitely true. But what he
really wanted to do right now was pull her into the shelter of the
trees, back her up against one of those big oaks, and kiss her
until she forgot her own name.

And until she forgot every last qualm about
seeing him.

Jake and Nate hit wedges onto the green, with
Jake’s ball skidding past Maddie’s and coming to rest four feet
away from hers. When the four of them reached the putting surface,
Nate grabbed the flagstick and laid it aside, winking
conspiratorially at Martha as he walked by. Martha’s eyes widened,
but then she darted a considering look in Jake’s direction.

Jake sidled up to Maddie. “Beautiful shot
there. You’re practically a pro.” All while looking totally hot, he
wanted to add. Naturally, he kept that to himself.

She blushed again, which he found insanely
appealing. “Hardly. I struggle to keep a four handicap. And the way
you two giants pound the ball sixty yards past mine, it’s going to
be hard for me to keep up with you.”

“No way,” Jake said with a grin. “My short
game sucks, as you’re about to see. Put a putter in my hands and
they turn to steel.”

She smiled at him, looking genuinely
friendly. Clearly, she’d softened up since the first tee, where
she’d looked ready to fly apart from the tension. He couldn’t even
guess what she and Martha had been talking about back there on the
fairway, but whatever it was, Maddie’s mood had clearly lightened a
little.