Authors: Susan Scott Shelley
Rekindled (2 page)
What could she say? Before she could open her mouth, Adam unzipped
his coat and placed it over her shoulders. She shook her head. "I can't
take your jacket."
"Wear it. You're still shivering." His mouth finally
lifted into a half smile. "Don't fight me, or I'll sic Jocelyn on
you."
"Just wear it, Gem. Adam's tolerance of the cold is as tough
as his head is hard. Let's get some hot chocolate. I have to run back to help,
so I'll see you there." Jocelyn turned away and broke into a jog.
Gemma gripped the coat against her body and turned to Adam. Warmth
seeped into her system. “Thanks.”
People swarmed around them. He gestured in the direction his
sister had ran. “Let’s get there before they run out.”
Walking side by side brought back a rush of memories of their
first meeting at the plunge. She glanced sideways at Adam. Was he thinking
about that, too?
Two little boys cut in front of her. She stopped short and Adam's
arm jerked out, blocking her from impact. His arm grazed her shoulder. Barely
touching, but she could feel it. His chocolate brown gaze met hers. The spark
of electricity that had always crackled between them flared to life so quickly,
her breath caught in her lungs.
No. Not now. This wasn't supposed to happen.
Murmuring her thanks, she lowered her gaze and stepped away.
They reached the refreshments. His jacket smelled like him, a
familiar mix of soap and cologne. Surrounded by warmth, Gemma gathered her courage.
So much needed to be said. When they both had hot chocolate in hand, she faced
him. "I'm sorry about your accident."
He lifted his brow. "Thanks. I survived."
"I'm glad you're okay now."
His eyes hardened, and he stared at the lake. "There's a difference
between surviving and being okay."
"What do you mean? You're not okay?" More than sympathy,
worry. Her hand touched his forearm. Even through the thick fleece of his
shirt, he could feel her touch. Those expressive eyes rounded, and she moved a
step closer to his side.
"Forget I said anything." He swallowed the hot chocolate
and wished it were a shot of whiskey. No way should he have this conversation
with her. No way, not after being apart for so long. No way, but something
about Gemma prompted him to open up.
He shook his head. Not happening. He had to solve his problems
himself.
After spending eight years in minor league baseball, he'd thought
he'd never have a shot at the big league. But opportunity came, and he'd played
so well, the Storm had kept him.
Until his injury.
Dealing with the after-effects of a concussion and bouts of
vertigo was nothing compared to the hellish two months that followed, pitching
like a rookie for a minor league club in Reno for his rehab assignment. His
pitching accuracy tanked and never recovered. His chance of going back to the
Storm faded away.
Stuck in Reno, he wasn't pitching at all by the time his dad had a
heart attack on Labor Day. After bouncing around the minors for so long, he
didn't want to return to riding buses around the country with eighteen and twenty-year-olds.
Asking for a release had made sense. Plus, his family needed him.
"Adam." Water dripped from the ends of her
poker-straight, jet-black hair. Her lush lips pressed together. He could easily
remember how they felt moving under his, and how her figure, with just enough
curves to make a man beg to see every inch of her body, had molded to his like
they were made for each other.
Too many feelings tumbled onto themselves, like a player pile-up
after a game. Anger, frustration, longing, regret, and the steady beat of
desire that shouldn't still exist. He'd spent every off-season in Hunter's
Peak, but as far as he knew, she hadn't come back once since she left for
Hollywood. He'd assumed she'd forgotten all about their little town, forgotten
all about him. What the hell was she doing here? Why now?
Why now, when he had enough on his mind without adding in a sexy
siren whose legs went on for miles, and who left a void in his life that he
hadn't been able to fill in the four years they'd been apart.
"It's fine." His cell phone dinged with a missed call
alert. He pulled the phone from his bag. The name across the display sent equal
parts dread and elation through his system. He'd walked away from baseball but
baseball hadn't forgotten about him. The opportunity to get back into the game
arrived via several teams extending offers for him to show up at spring
training. New York, Miami, Philadelphia, and now Boston, all pushing for him to
try out for one of their starting pitching jobs.
Pitchers and catchers were due to report to training in the middle
of February.
He had three weeks to decide. Three weeks to fix a problem that
refused to go away.
He pocketed the phone and faced her. The wind billowed, and her
coat flapped open. The familiar logo on her sweatshirt, faded from many
washings, distracted him. Why had she kept it?
"I know you asked the team to release you, but I thought that
was because your dad got sick. Is your injury still…are you still hurt?"
Biting her lip, eyes earnest, she leaned closer. Her hand reached up, as though
to touch his face, but she pulled it back to her side and blushed.
Her concern cut into him. On some level, she might still care. He
never stopped. "I'm fine."
Faint lines appeared on her forehead, and her stare fixed on his
scar. "Really?"
"Really." Pushing aside thoughts of his fall from
celebrated major-league starting pitcher to a minor-league rehab assignment
that ended with riding the bench in the dugout, he offered her a smile.
"How's Bear doing?"
A dazzling smile spread across her face. "You wouldn't even
recognize him now. He's so big."
Soon after they'd adopted the puppy, he'd received the call he'd
waited for since the first time he picked up a baseball. A shot with a major
league team. A move that had sent him across the country. A move that had cost
him Gemma.
She'd taken off for Hollywood after he left. Between her acting
lessons, auditions, and catering job, and his games, practices, and travel
schedule, their relationship fizzled to sporadic phone calls, and then finally,
nothing.
He downed the rest of his hot chocolate but it didn’t ease the
hollowness in his gut. A few members of his construction crew milled around,
waiting to take down the banners. He waved to catch their attention, nodded for
them to begin, and then turned back to Gemma. "I need to help my guys
clean up."
Her smile dimmed. "Listen, about what you said earlier…"
The desire to touch her hand or her cheek was so strong, he had to
force his hand into his pocket so he wouldn’t reach out. "Good seeing you.
Take care."
The words sounded so formal, so polite, so not the way he wanted
this to end. But his men needed him and he needed to get away before he made a
mistake. One step separated them, then another, and another.
"Wait, you need your jacket." She moved toward him, and
everything in him demanded he close the rest of the distance.
Resisting the urge shifted his voice into a growl. "Keep it
on. Jocelyn will get it back to me later."
Before he did something stupid, like saying he missed her, he
walked away.
"Any time." Jocelyn reached down and rubbed Bear's fur.
The Akita stretched and yawned. "He's such a good boy."
"He's using his best manners for you," Gemma joked and
then turned her head as the tickle in her nose turned into a sneeze.
"I told you jumping into freezing water wasn't smart. You're
probably coming down with some weird lake disease." Jocelyn wrinkled her
nose, and formed her arms into the shape of a cross. "Keep your germs to
yourself."
Gemma laughed when Bear's sneeze echoed hers. "Please. I'm
fine. There's too much pepper on my soup, that's all."
The television droned on in the background. Jocelyn switched the
channel from a sports network to a popular celebrity gossip show.
"Oh God, please tell me you don't watch those voyeuristic
shows. They invent half of their stories and speculate on the rest until the
truth is completely skewed." Gemma turned away from the screen. Except for
the occasional party or event, her experience with the paparazzi was limited to
her volunteer work at a yearly celebrity-run pet adopt-a-thon. But, she'd seen
first-hand how careers and relationships could be ruined by a suggestive photo
or a microphone thrust into an actor's face in a heated moment.
Jocelyn shrugged. "I have to watch these shows in case you're
ever featured on them. You'd want to know right away, wouldn't you?"
"So, you watch them every day solely for my benefit?"
"Absolutely. What are friends for? It's a burden seeing the
all those hot actors, like Tyler Gregson, but it comes with the job."
Grinning, she wiggled her brows.
Gemma shook her head and picked up her mug. She glanced at the
screen again and almost choked on her tea. Sputtering her sip, she lowered the
mug. On screen, in vivid color, were photos of the first few days of filming
from
Starlight
, the upcoming summer blockbuster movie she'd
auditioned for and lost out on. Too many times, she'd been told she
"wasn't quite right for the role." And lately, the rejections cut
deeper than they ever had before.
Jocelyn switched the channel back to the sports network and
lowered the volume. "I'm sorry. If I'd known they were going to show shots
of the filming, I'd never have turned it on."
Inhaling a deep breath, Gemma tucked her hair behind her ears in
an effort to quell the frustration burning in her blood. "When I arrived
in L.A., I told myself that if I hadn't made my big break by the time I turned
thirty, I'd pack up and go home. I have one month left."
"You don't have to end your dream just because of an arbitrary
deadline you invented."
"Not all dreams come true. And maybe it's time for me to face
that mine might not either. I don't want to be a struggling actor anymore. L.A.
is so expensive. Making ends meet is hard, even with the catering job, and now,
I don't even have that. I don't know what to do." Something brushed
against her leg, and then Bear's head bumped her knee. She reached down and
petted his soft fur and accepted his comfort.
"I'm sorry." Jocelyn watched her for a moment, brows
drawn together. Her fingers drummed against the wooden table and then, with a
slowly-forming smile, she set her mug on the table. "For as long as you're
here, you can come to work for me."
An image of herself in a hardhat and workboots, carrying around a
two-by-four, flashed through her mind. "I don't have any experience
swinging a hammer."
"No, silly, not as part of the construction crew. We provide
lunches to them when they're working on one of the Caring Home Repair houses.
I've been handling the job for my aunt while she recovers from hip surgery. You
can take over making the food. Since you have experience in catering, your
stuff will taste a lot better than what I've been slapping together. It really
would help me out a lot, and it will give you a paycheck."
Adam's jacket hung on the back of her chair. Her fingers plucked
at the down fabric. Lending her a coat was one thing, letting her work for his
company was another. "I don't know. What do you think Adam will say?"
"He'll be fine with it. Don't worry about him." With a
careless toss of her hand, Jocelyn stood and cleared the soup bowls from the
table.
But she did worry.
There's a difference between surviving
and being okay.
His words at the plunge echoed through her head.
Something was wrong, she could feel it. On the television, the image of a
baseball diamond filled the screen. "Now that your dad is doing so well,
do you think Adam will head back to Sacramento?"
Jocelyn shook her head and then shrugged. "I asked a couple
of times about spring training, but he's been very noncommittal about it. I
don't know, maybe he's worried about my dad taking on too much again at
work."
"Maybe." But she didn't think so. His pained expression,
hardened stare, and sharp words all hinted at something more. Even though they
weren't together, she couldn't turn off her old feelings like she hoped she
could. Her need to care for him, to care about him, lingered like his
aftershave on his jacket.
The next day, after a morning spent in Jocelyn's kitchen, she
pulled her rental car up to the address her friend had scrawled across the back
of an old receipt. A flurry of activity spread out before her. Two men fixed a
broken porch, while several others replaced windows. A few glanced her way,
then went back to their duties. She opened her door and turned to Bear in the
passenger seat. "You wait here while I unload the food. Then we'll
introduce you to the crew."
Jocelyn's SUV pulled up a minute later. She climbed out and pulled
a small table from the back. "We'll set up right here. It's out of the
crew's way."
Gemma carried the sandwiches to the table. Rolls stuffed with
turkey, chicken, and ham lined her trays. A far cry from the fancy food she'd
help create for events and parties. Then, she pulled out two kinds of pasta
salad, a green salad, a carafe of coffee, and a cooler filled with sodas and
bottled water.
"Whoa," Jocelyn's eyes rounded. "After seeing this
spread, the guys are never going to want me making lunches again."
"Too much?" Scanning the workers, she spotted Adam at
the window on the second floor, talking to another man. When his face creased
into a smile, her heart beat a little faster. To see that smile again… If only
it were aimed at her. "Adam was okay with me working for you guys?"
"I, ah, didn't get the chance to tell him yet." A blush
stained Jocelyn's cheeks. She grabbed a can of soda from the cooler.
"Jocelyn." The wind carried away her sharp whisper.
Gemma pushed her hands through her hair. Discomfort crawled through her
stomach.
Beaming a smile at the workers, Jocelyn waved them over to the
table. "Adam will be fine. You working here won't be a problem for
him."
Gemma returned her focus to the window and right into Adam's
stare. From the tight expression darkening his features, he obviously had a big
problem with it.