Julia London (13 page)
Authors: Lucky Charm
What needed to change was his morning station of choice. He’d
try to remember to do that.
That night, the Mets loaded the bases with one out in the
ninth. The go-ahead run was on second base. It looked as if the Mets would win, but the
Yankees changed pitchers and brought in a
closer who induced a double
play and escaped the inning with a save and a game victory.
In the locker
room, the Mets were pissed. They didn’t want to go back to Shea without at least
one
win over the Yankees.
The next day, the mood was tense in the locker room. No
one was talking. Over their heads, ESPN ran a teaser for Kelly’s show. In this clip, she
lifted a glove and said, “Hey, Parker! Got game?” and then smiled so prettily that
Parker’s heart ached with it.
“Oh, that’s just great,” Pablo Rena, the first baseman said
next to Parker. “Guess that means you’ll be too freaked out to do us any good
tonight.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Parker snapped.
Pablo rolled his
eyes. “You know how you are—the least bit of criticism, and you fall apart.”
“Hey, dude, I
don’t
fall apart,
” he shot back. “Keep your mind on your own play, all right? You
weren’t exactly hitting off the hook with your bat last night.”
“Hey,” Pablo
said, throwing up his hands, “I’m just saying. You’re really sensitive when your girl
talks a little smack.”
“She’s not my girl,” Parker muttered, and slammed his locker
door shut, walked out of the locker room, and onto the field.
But something
Pablo said kept pricking at him as he warmed up. He
was
sensitive. He’d built it up
in his own mind that everything that happened on the ball field was fate, but it was
really more along the lines of what his mom used to tell him—he could be a Big Baby
sometimes.
Maybe that was it after all and Kelly had nothing to do with it. Look at
it—he’d played pretty well this series, in spite of the way he was feeling about her. And
to prove it to himself that night, he went out on the field, had two double plays, two
based hits, and one RBI, driving in the run that won the Mets the game.
That night, as
he drove home, he thought it was strange that a man could play baseball all his life, and
at the ripe age of thirty-two, realize that it wasn’t the forces of nature or the heavens
that
influenced his play. It was just him. He was in full control of his
actions. It was an honest-to-God epiphany.
The next morning when the alarm went
off, no one was home to turn it off, and Kelly’s show blared throughout the house for two
hours until Marie, Parker’s housekeeper, showed up and turned it off, shaking her head at
the volume.
That was because Parker was in the city, standing out in the hall where
Kelly’s show was being aired, pacing back and forth because the receptionist wasn’t there
yet to let him in. But it was so early and quiet that he could hear the show over the
speakers piped into the reception area. There was some talk of the game and a little of
Parker’s performance, but mostly they talked about the relief pitcher who had come in and
saved the Mets’ collective ass by getting them out of an inning in which the Yankees had
put on two base runners.
When Kelly said, “Let’s go to the phones,” Parker hit the speed
dial on his cell.
After about three tries, he got the producer. “Hey,” he said, “this is
Parker Price.”
“Right. And I’m Arnold Schwarzenegger,” the producer said, and clicked
off.
“That’s right, I forgot you are an ass, you little pinheaded geek,” Parker
muttered and dialed again. It took him several more tries to get through, but when the
pin-headed geek answered, Parker said, “Yo, lemme talk to Kelly.”
“What’s your
name, and what are you calling about?” the producer asked.
“Jeff Renteria.
And I’m calling about the Mets. She’s talking about the Mets, and they’re, like, my
favorite team ever.”
“Hold, please,” the producer said and clicked off. Parker
grinned.
A moment later, he heard, “You’re on
Sports Day with Kelly O’Shay
.
What’s your name?”
“P-Pete,” he said.
“Hi, Pete. What
do you want to say?” she asked cheerfully.
“I want to say that I think some
baseball players are stupid, superstitious idiots,” he said.
Kelly didn’t say
anything, and there was a moment of dead air until Guido jumped in. “Ah . . . we hear you,
pal. They’re like,
ridiculous
, man! Won’t wear their socks a certain way, won’t bat
with the same bat twice, have to do a little dance in the batter’s box before they hit.
That stuff just messes with their heads.”
“Yeah, I know. You pay these guys
millions of dollars to just get out there and play ball, and what do you get? A bunch of
sissies afraid of their own shadow.”
Guido hit the laughter button.
“You know what I
think?” Parker pressed on, just as the receptionist walked up and looked at him curiously.
“I think a couple of them are real
jerks
.”
“Why?” Kelly asked, her voice not
quite as bubbly as usual.
“Well,” Parker started as the receptionist opened the door and
let him in, “Sometimes, they get some idea in their head that makes absolutely no sense,
like maybe, you talking about them on your show affects the way they play.”
“Who said
that
?” Guido scoffed.
“Parker Price. He’s the biggest idiot of them
all.”
“He is?” Kelly asked, her voice soft. Parker started striding for the
booth.
“Sir!” the receptionist yelled. “You can’t go back there! Stop! If you don’t
stop I am calling the police!”
Apparently, the receptionist came in loud and clear, because
Guido asked, “Hey, where
are
you?” as he hit the sirens button.
“Like I was
saying, take Parker Price. He got it in his pea brain that some of the things you were
saying about him were affecting his play. But then he figured out that was just dumb—he
was the only one on that field, and if he wasn’t hitting, it was because his swing was off
or he wasn’t concentrating. Not because of you, Kelly.”
“Uh-huh.
Well . . . I guess I’ve been a little too harsh,” Kelly said as Parker rounded the corner.
He saw her then, sitting on her stool, the enormous earphones on her head, staring at the
windowed wall while Guido manned the phone lines. The moment she saw him, she sprang off
the stool.
“No you haven’t. You’ve been funny and dead on. If a player doesn’t play
well, that doesn’t give him license to blame everyone else,” Parker said outside the
window.
“Do you mean to say that Parker Price should hold himself responsible for
his performance, both good and bad?” she asked.
“I’m saying,” he said, putting an
arm up on the glass wall that separated him from Kelly and leaning against it, “that I
made a huge mistake, Kelly. I was a jerk. I tried to blame you for my own shortcomings. I
forgot that I fell in love with you, and it had nothing to do with baseball. I mean, there
wasn’t anything there that day but me and you—no baseball, no ESPN, nothing but us,” he
said, as the producer and receptionist suddenly flanked him, their hands on his
arms.
Parker ignored them like a couple of gnats. “I fell in love with you because
you’re beautiful and funny and smart and you make a mean spinach lasagna. I fell in love
with you because you don’t like Broadway but you like old movies, and you think my charity
is cool, but you don’t think I’m so cool that I am better than the dreams you have for
yourself, and a whole bunch of other reasons I swear I’ll never forget again. I love you,
Kelly.”
Guido, he noticed, had almost fallen off of his chair.
“Ooh, that is so
hot
,” the receptionist whispered. And Kelly . . . well, Kelly was gaping at him
with eyes as big as home plates. And then she was trying to pull the headphones off at the
same time she was climbing over Guido.
“Hey,” Guido said, as Kelly threw
open the door, then went out and slammed it behind her. “That’s pretty sweet stuff from a
guy who’s scared of his own shadow. But everyone likes a good love story, right,
gang?”
Whatever else he might have said, Parker didn’t hear, because
when Kelly launched herself at him, she knocked his cell phone from his hand.
She threw her
arms around his neck and buried her face in his neck as the receptionist and producer
threw themselves at the glass, gesturing wildly to Guido. “I didn’t think you’d ever come
back,” she breathed, then lifted her head, kissed his face a thousand times. “I’ll quit
ESPN. I don’t care—I love you, too, Parker, and that night you walked out of my apartment,
I thought I would just die. Nothing mattered but you—not ESPN, not radio, nothing but you.
I’ll quit, I’ll quit—”
“Are you kidding? You’re fabulous, baby. You deserve to be on
ESPN. You deserve to anchor the nightly news or whatever you want to do. Just promise me
you won’t go without me. I can’t stand to be away from you, and it’s not because of my
game. It’s just because I need you.”
She promised with a kiss so hot that Guido felt
compelled to turn on the smooch button that sounded like a giant bottom feeder having
lunch. And then they cut to commercial, and the producer sagged against the wall, Guido
fell back in his chair, and the receptionist ran to get the phones, which were ringing off
the hook.
Two weeks later,
when they flashed Kelly’s image up on the Jumbotron before a record crowd during the
pre-game, the fans got to watch Parker climb up in the stands and go down on his knee,
asking her to marry him in front of millions.
The next morning, the airwaves were
full of commentary about his form. Some of the sportscasters thought he really didn’t
bring enough emotion to it and should have done a little more genuflecting. Others—mostly
Mets fans like Mrs. Frankel—argued that it was a home run, that they’d never seen anything
more beautiful than that proposal in the annals of baseball history.
No one knew what Parker and Kelly thought. After the game, they locked
themselves away behind his gates and weren’t coming out for a few days, no matter how hot
Kelly’s show was or how hot the Mets suddenly got. The world could go on without them for
a time.
Keep reading for a preview of another romance by Julia London
THE VICAR’S WIFE
Available now from InterMix
London, 1816
On the chilly December night that Darien, Lord Montgomery, hosted a holiday soiree in honor of his sister’s recent nuptials, some happy culprit seasoned the cranberry punch with an entire bottle of gin.
The crime was established quite early when the offending bottle was found, sans contents, beneath the sideboard where the punch was being served. Or rather, had been served, as it had proven to be a popular refreshment.
Any and all would acknowledge that it wasn’t entirely unusual for a little sauce to be covertly added to the punches at lively affairs in Mayfair’s finest homes—particularly when the invitation list included some of the ton’s most notorious revelers—but it was unusual for the ton’s least-likely revelers to be in attendance, and on this night, the results of mixing those two crowds with a little gin proved to be…well, interesting.
Particularly for Montgomery. Not that he’d been among the revelers to have overindulged in the punch (more was the pity, but because he’d been occupied with tending to the comfort of his nearly one hundred guests, as well as ensuring that his good friend, Lord Frederick (otherwise known as Freddie), did not scandalize every young lady beneath the mistletoe as he seemed bent on doing.
In light of that, it was an ironic twist that Darien himself would be the one to do the scandalizing.
In hindsight, he could not begin to describe how it might have all happened, other than to note that he did indeed own a reputation for being something of a notorious bachelor. His favorite activity, after all, was women—flirting, seducing, making love—followed closely by hunting and equestrian sports.
He was not, in his own estimation, the sort of chap to pass up an opportunity to gaze at a young lady’s décolletage or take a kiss… or more, were the lady so inclined.
But that evening, he had enough to do just playing host.
All right, then, to be fair—he had indeed made a trip or two to one half a dozen sprigs of mistletoe he had hanging about the grand salon of the old Montgomery mansion on Audley Street, both times hoping to catch the vicar’s wife below it.
Oh yes, he’d certainly noticed the vicar’s young wife, along with every other man in attendance. How could he not? She was lovely. She had a glow about her, the sort of complexion one associated with the good health of the country folk. With her pretty green eyes and reddish blond hair, she was quite remarkably pretty, especially when compared to the pale-skinned debutantes who stocked the streets and parlors of London.
But the most remarkable thing about the vicar’s wife was her vivacious smile. When she spoke, her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. When she smiled, it seemed as if her entire body and those around her were illuminated with the brilliance of it. That smile was the one that in that compelled Darien to attend Sunday services each week, and not, as he had professed, the vicar’s rousing sermons.
And Darien imagined that lovely smile was what caused the good vicar, Richard Becket, to return last sprint from his annual trek home to Bishop’s Castle in Shropshire, quite unexpectedly, with a wife. Darien would have been sorely tempted to do the same, had he been in the vicar’s shoes.
This December night, she arrived dressed in a deep green velvet gown that was the exact color of her eyes, and Darien could not seem to keep from looking at her. As the evening wore on, and the guests grew livelier (thanks to their gin-soaked libations), her smile seemed to grow brighter, warmer, and on more than one occasion, it seemed to be aimed directly at him.
But Darien lost track of her altogether when Lady Ramblecourt had a nasty encounter with a chair, after, having observed that fiasco, what with the wailing and whatnot, the natives began to root about for more of the punch. Darien’s butler, Kiefer, was nowhere to be seen, so Darien hastened to the wine cellar to bring up more gin, lest he have a mutiny on his hands.
He was quite pleasantly surprised to find Mrs. Becket on the lower floor, propped up against one side of the stone wall that formed the narrow corridor leading to the cellar stairs, fanning herself. She glanced up when he landed on the last step and smiled prettily.
“Oh, my Lord Montgomery!” she demurred, her gloved hands fluttering near her face. “I pray you will forgive me, but I found it necessary to seek a cool and quiet place for a time.”
She did seem rather flushed. “You are more than welcome to any inch of my house, madam,” he said sincerely, clasping his hands behind his back. “Or my orangery, or my livery. Whatever you desire you may have, Mrs. Becket.”
She laughed lightly and pushed a loose strand of that glorious red-gold hair that hung across her eye. “How gallant! You are too kind,” she said, and closed her eyes.
“Are you quite all right, Mrs. Becket?”
She opened one eye. “Do I seem unwell?” she asked, wincing a bit. “I’m afraid I might have drunk too much of your delicious punch.”
“Quite the contrary, actually. You seem, at least to these eyes, rather well indeed,” he said, and let his gaze casually peruse the shapely length of her. “In fact,” he added, lifting his gaze languidly, “there has been many a Sunday morning that I looked at you and thought that perhaps I was gazing upon one of God’s angels, you look so well.” He smiled provocatively.
Mrs. Becket opened the other eye and lowered her head, gazing up at him through long lashes with a suspicious smile. “My husband has warned me about men like you, sir,” she said pleasantly. “In fact, he’s warned me several times of you in particular.”
“Has he indeed?” Darien asked, cheerfully surprised that a man like Becket would have discerned the subtle smiles and greetings Darien had freely bestowed on his young wife. “ And what has he warned you?”
Now she lifted her chin and filled the corridor with a soft, warm laugh. “That a rogue, by any other name, should smile as sweet, but is still a rogue.”
Darien couldn’t help his appreciative laugh. He took a step closer and asked low, “A philosopher, is he? And what does the good vicar say about beauty, Mrs. Becket? Does he quote Petrarch?”
“Petrarch?”
“An Italian philosopher, long dead and buried,” Darien said and casually reached out, tucked the loose strand of Mrs. Becket’s hair that had once more slipped over her eye behind her ear. His finger grazed the plump curve of her ear, and he lingered beneath her crystal earring, toying with it. “Petrarch said that rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.”
Mrs. Becket lifted one brow, then smiled fully, touched the strand of hair he had pushed behind her ear. “Mr. Petrarch sounds a rather jaded man. But I’m hardly certain if you mean to imply that perhaps I am a great beauty, my lord? Or possess great virtue? In either case, I should hardly know if I am to be insulted or pleased.”
“I am certain you are in firm possession of both,” he said with a slight bow, but he smiled a little crookedly. “I can see the great beauty. And I trust the great virtue.”
Mrs. Becket laughed low and pressed her gloved palm to her cheek. “My, it seems rather warm, even down here, does it not, my lord?”
“Quite,” he said. “I was just to the cellar to bring up a bottle of gin. Perhaps you might help me select. I am certain you will find the cellar much cooler.”
She glanced at the stairs leading to the cellar, then at him. “Ah, but that would be less than virtuous to accompany you to the cellar, would it not?”
“Absolutely,” he readily agreed. “But then again, there’s little harm in being slightly less virtuous in exchange for comfort.” He winked, held out his arm to her.
She looked again at the cellar stairs, and after a moment, nodded resolutely and pushed away from the wall. “You will find that I possess great virtue above the cellar, and in the cellar,” she said with a bob of her head, and put her hand on his arm.
“What a pity,” Darien said congenially, and led her to the top of the stairs. Next to the stairs was a small alcove from where he picked up a candle, lit it from one of the wall sconces, and turned toward Mrs. Becket. Still smiling, he took her hand in his and led the way down into the wine cellar.
At least he’d been truthful about the cellar; it was cooler the deeper they walked in between the shelves of wine and fine liquors.
“It’s delightfully cooler here,” Mrs. Becket said. “I am feeling quite renewed,”
“Ah,” he said, finding the shelf with the gin. “Here we are.” He put aside the candle and picked up a bottle to inspect it. Mrs. Becket peered over his shoulder. He turned toward her, the bottle in hand, and smiled at her sparkling green eyes. “Rather a good year for gin, I think.”
“I wouldn’t know, personally,” she said with mock superiority, “other than to say the addition of gin to a cranberry punch is most delicious.”
“I’m glad you found it to your liking,” he said. “It was quite unintentional.” And as he moved to put the bottle back and find another, he heard the scurrying feet of a rodent.
Mrs. Becket shrieked at the sound of it and lurched into his chest, grabbing his lapel in one hand. Darien grasped her firmly by the arms before they toppled into the shelving. “A mouse,” he said soothingly. “A little mouse as frightened of you as you are of it, I assure you. No doubt the tiny devil has already returned to his den.”
“A mouse,” she echoed and closed her eyes a moment as she sought her breath. But she did not let go his lapel. When she opened her eyes again, she was looking at his mouth. Her lips parted softly with a sigh of relief, and she drew a ragged breath.
In the dim golden light of that single candle, Darien saw the rosy skin of her cheeks, the smooth column of her neck, the rise of her bosom, and a look in her eyes that he felt deep to the very depth of himself. In a moment of madness, without thought, without so much as a breath, he let go her arm, put his hand around her waist, and pulled her tightly to him at the same time he put his lips to hers.
She did not resist him; her hand loosened on his lapel and slip up to his neck, to his jaw. Reverently, he kissed her, sinking into a vague feeling of remorse for having done it at all. But she wore the scent of gardenias in her hair and on her neck, and the scent filled him with an almighty lust. Remorse was swallowed whole by desire spreading through him.
His hand tightened at her waist; he touched his tongue to hers, and she easily opened to him. He had an image of her body opening much like that, and his desire got the best of him. He kissed her madly, his tongue in her mouth, his teeth on her lips, his hand drifting to the swell of her lovely bum, grasping it and holding her against him.
Her hand sank into his hair, the other clinging tightly to this shoulder, fingers digging through fabric to bone, her desire as stark as him. His cock grew hard between them, and he pressed it against her. Mrs. Becket responded by moving seductively against him, her pelvis sliding against his, her breasts pressed to his chest. It was a wild kiss, full of elicit pleasure, hot and full of longing and anticipation.
But then suddenly, she jerked away, pushed his hands from her body, and stepped back. Her eyes blazed with passion and fear and a host of other things Darien could not identify. She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth, then pressed it against her bosom, over her heart. “Oh my God,” she whispered, staring at him. “Oh dear God, what have I done?”
“Mrs. Becket,” he said, reaching for her, but it was too late. She’d already turned on her heel and fled the dark cellar. He could hear the click of her heels against the stairs as she fought her way up to the surface.
Darien stood there until he could not longer hear the sound of her shoes.
He’d just kissed the vicar’s wife. A bloody rotten bounder, that’s what he was.
Idiot.
With a sigh, he straightened his clothing, adjusted his trousers, and ran his fingers through his hair. When he was convinced he had returned quite to normal, he picked up a bottle of gin and his candle, and strode from the cellar.
He did not see Mrs. Becket again that night. Nor was she in church the following Sunday. And every Sunday after that, she pretended not to see him. But Darien saw her. He did not press his case, but he saw her, for he could not take his eyes from her.
A few months later, in a tragic collision of his horse and a rogue carriage, her husband, the vicar, was thrown off Blackfriar’s Bridge to the murky Thames below.
His body was not recovered for several days.