From Left Field: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 7) (6 page)

“What did that set you back? A couple hundred?”

Two hundred and fifty
. She knew that type of money meant nothing to Adam. He could have the 21 whenever he wanted it. He could afford really rare bottles, ones that ran up to thousands of dollars—at least he could before Reiter pulled his crap.

But Adam knew she couldn’t buy the 21 on a whim. That’s what mattered. That, and the fact that she knew Speyside whiskies were his indulgence of choice. She said, “I want you to understand that I’m serious. I want you to know how much the farm means to me. To Paws.”

He looked at her for a long time. Too long. Her fingers started to feel awkward on the bottle. She began to feel a little silly, holding the ridiculously expensive Scotch while she wore clothes that looked like she’d pulled them out of a discard bin at the nearest thrift shop.

Had Adam’s eyes always been that shade of grey, somewhere between blue and black? Had his five o’clock shadow always glinted against his cheeks, darker than the hair on his head, more prickly, more dangerous? How long had silver shaded his temples?

She swallowed hard, nearly jumping out of her skin when his fingers settled on top of hers. The warmth of his palm seemed to capture the amber whisky in the bottle and reflect it back to her.

“Come on inside,” he said. Without waiting for her answer, he slipped his key into the front door. He reached into the hallway and slapped on a light, then gestured for Haley to precede him.

She brushed into the house she’d visited a thousand times before. Adam had pretty much left it the way his parents had—there was still the familiar flowered wallpaper in the dining room. She’d eaten plenty of meals in front of those antique roses—Thanksgiving dinners, Easter brunches, the chaotic celebrations that came with growing up in a neighborhood that was a picture-perfect replica of Smalltown, USA.

She led the way back to the kitchen, but she waited for him to take down a couple of tumblers from the cabinet beside the kitchen sink. He took his time, and she decided that was permission for her to launch into her carefully prepared speech, the one where she
didn’t
call him an asshole.

“Adam, I’ve been looking for a new property for Paws for over a year now. We need a place zoned for agriculture, with lots of small buildings so we can separate out the animals. We need offices and classrooms and other administrative functions, and the Reeves farm has all those things. It’s perfect.”

She watched his back tighten as she laid out each plank of her platform. “It
is
perfect,” he said to the window over the sink, but then he had the guts to turn and face her. “But I’m broke. Reiter’s screwed me to hell and back, and the kids are the ones who will suffer. The Foundation will shut down in a year if I don’t buy the Reeves place.”

She knew the Sartain Foundation was his heart and soul. Sure, he had financial advisors. She knew for a fact he’d paid off the mortgage on this house they were standing in. But for the past ten years, he’d taken pride in building the Foundation, pouring in every last penny he could manage, far above the limits suggested by his accountants. He wanted to help kids. He wanted to change their lives. And now it was going to cost him more than he’d ever imagined.

“Oh, Adam,” she said. “I’m sorry.” And she was. No one deserved to be betrayed the way he’d been. “It’s just that I thought…”

She felt like an idiot. What the hell
had
she been thinking? That she’d show up here, wearing ragged jeans and a torn sweatshirt, offering up a bottle of whisky like it could make everything better? Or worse, that she was some femme fatale who could convince him to change his mind by the power of alcohol and her sultry request alone?

Forget all that. She wanted to hug him. She wanted to fold her arms around him, to pull him close enough that she could ease the tension from his back. She wanted…

His smile was the old familiar one as he said, “I know exactly what you were thinking.”

God save her, if he did
.

“You were thinking you’d ask a favor, based on all our years of friendship. You were thinking it was worth a try, even if it wasn’t likely to work out.”

“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds like I had one hell of a plan.”

He nodded toward the Macallan. “Go ahead,” he said. “Take the bottle home.”

She shook her head. “A gift’s a gift. And it sounds like you need it more now than ever.”

His gaze turned sharp. “I can’t walk away from the Reeves place now. It might be the last thing I can do for the Foundation, the only way to build the legacy I want. I don’t care what it takes, if I end up bankrupt at the end of this. I’m bidding on that farm for BUNT.”

She wasn’t surprised he was digging in. This was Adam Sartain she was talking to, after all. She made herself laugh. “Then take the Macallan. And every time you look at it, think about how I’m going to beat your ass at fundraising. Make sure you save a shot or two, for solace when Paws walks away with the deed.”

“Oh ho!” he said, and she loved the way his laugh filled the kitchen. “Those are fighting words!”

“That’s because I’m a fighter,” she said.

“I’ll drink to that.” The seal crackled as he pulled the cork, and the whisky gurgled with his generous pour. He held his wrist at a cocky angle as he offered her one of the glasses. “May the best man win.”

She touched her tumbler to his. “Best woman, you mean.”

The flash in his grey eyes sent spears to her belly. He had to have heard her catch her breath. He had to realize her pulse was suddenly racing through her fingertips, through every inch of her. But there was no way she’d let herself acknowledge those sensations, not where Adam Sartain was involved. He had put her dreams for the future in danger, and she was going to fight him tooth and nail until she got exactly what she wanted.

He grabbed the bottle and led the way into the family room. She followed before she’d even made a conscious choice to let her feet move. Without waiting for permission, she collapsed onto the couch, slipping her shoes off with her toes. She pulled her knees up to her chest and cradled her glass against her shins as Adam settled on the far end of the couch. He winced as he stretched his legs out in front of him.

“Hard game?” she asked.

“That missed catch yesterday,” he said darkly. He rotated his shoulders, stretching against an obvious twinge, and then he sipped the Macallan like it was medicine. “It won’t kill me.”

She knew when it was time to change the topic of conversation. And it was best to dig out one of the things they always shared, one of the standby questions that let her remember who she was, who he was, why they’d been friends for decades. If she pretended hard enough that everything was normal, that everything was the way it had always been, then maybe the crazy trembling feeling beneath her ribs would finally fade away. Because it felt a little like the stomach flu, and she didn’t want to live the rest of her life with that type of misery.

“So,” she said. “Tell me more about Florida. You weren’t breaking hearts this year. But I kept reading in the paper about Drew Marshall. Weren’t
you
the one who broke the news of his engagement to the press?”

He relaxed back against the couch. “Funny thing, that.”

And he started to tell her the story. She laughed when she was supposed to. She sipped her whisky while he entertained her. She accepted his offer of another healthy pour, more than she should have, but she didn’t want to give herself any reason to cut short the night and head back home.

But no matter how much she listened, how often she launched into her own entertaining stories, how many times she painted the orange and spice of the Scotch against the back of her throat, she couldn’t still the fluttering sensation around her heart.

~~~

“God,” Adam said, glancing at the clock on the DVR. It was 3:30 in the morning. If he’d guessed, he would have said it was a couple of minutes past midnight.

“You’re a bad influence on me, Mr. Sartain.” Haley leaned forward and put her glass on the coffee table with a tell-tale precision.

He looked back at the bottle of whisky. They
had
made a dent in it. He’d poured the first two glasses, but she’d had a heavy hand herself, pouring the third.

He reminded her, “
I’m
not the one who showed up bearing gifts.” He pushed himself to his feet. He wasn’t drunk—it took more than a few shots spread over several hours to do that. But he had to admit he was feeling the effects of the alcohol—wonderful effects, he thought, as he realized the throbbing in his side had faded to a dull ache.

He offered Haley a hand. “There you go,” he said, stepping back as he pulled her to her feet.

Either he pulled too hard, or she was a lot more unsteady than he was. In any case, she tumbled toward him. He just caught a look of surprise on her face, and then she was pressed against his chest, her arms wrapped around him like he was the last tree standing before she went hurtling off a cliff. “Oh!” she breathed, as he automatically clutched her close.

She smelled like Scotch. But she smelled like Ivory soap too, and there was something else, something warm and soft, like fresh-cut grass, rising from her hair. He lowered his head and took a deep breath, liking the scent of her.

She was soft in all the right places, and her head was just the right height to tuck into the hollow of his collar bone. He could feel the body beneath that shapeless sweatshirt; he could run his hands down her back and feel the lines of her bra.

His cock twitched, and he leaped back a full pace, barely keeping his arms extended to hold Haley upright. He was
not
giving in to his little head, not where Haley was concerned. She was his neighbor. She was his friend. They had over thirty years together, and he
would
be an asshole if he threw it out because of one night’s drinking.

“Let’s get you home,” he said, once he was certain his voice wouldn’t make a fool out of him.

He supported her forearms as she slipped her feet back into her shoes. He hooked his fingers against her elbow as he helped her down the hallway, making sure she stayed upright as he opened the lock on his front door. He tightened that grip as they walked through the grass, as dew soaked into the hem of his jeans, making the denim heavy.

She was silent as they walked up the steps to her front door, so quiet that he knew she had to have felt his cock move, had to have known he’d been ready to jump her bones, right there in the middle of his family room. Jesus God, he was ready to melt into the floorboard of her porch. A chorus of barks started inside her house, the deep, throaty challenge of Heathcliff, the excited baying of Darcy, and the chatter of the over-excited Killer, and he wondered if her dogs would tear him apart, limb from limb, if she gave them half a chance. He deserved it. Whatever they dished out, protecting their mistress, he deserved it.

She retrieved her key from her pocket without any trouble, but the lock wasn’t as cooperative. She stared at it, eyes narrowed, carefully placing her index finger as a guide. The key slipped on the brass, though, refusing to go in.

He let her try two more times, before he took it away from her. “I can get it,” she said, with the sort of precise dignity that let him know she never would.

“Let me pretend to be a gentleman,” he said. He got it on the first try, turning firmly. He knew better than to push the door open, if he didn’t want to be pelted by her over-excited mutts. Instead, he dropped the keyring into her waiting palm and watched as she returned it to her pocket.

“Thank you for a lovely evening,” she said, drawing herself up straight, all prim and proper.

He had to laugh. “Do you need any help?” He wanted her to say yes. He’d kill himself in the morning if she did.

She thought seriously for a long moment before she shook her head. “No,” she said. She folded one hand around the doorknob. “The dogs will make sure I’m okay.”

“It’s no problem,” he assured her, even though it was. Even though she might have just become the biggest problem of his life, bigger even than Jason Fucking Reiter.

She turned to face him, and he realized he was standing a hell of a lot closer to her than he should have been. His dick told him to close the distance, to close the deal altogether.

But Haley smiled up at him, her lips closed, her eyes all soft, like she was just waking up from a dream. She rested her palm against his jaw, her fingertips brushing the pulse point beneath his ear.

Down, boy
. And he wasn’t thinking about any of her damn dogs.

“I think it might be,” she said. “A problem.” And then she took her hand away. Took it away, and it was everything he could do not to grab her fingers, not to grab
her
, not to push her back against the unlocked door and shove his hands beneath that crappy sweatshirt and find out if she was anywhere near as turned on as he was.

But she took a step back and let cool air wash between them. She raised her chin, like she was seven years old and refusing to king him in a game of checkers. She swallowed hard before she said, “I’m not going to let the farm go, Adam.”

He nodded. “I’m not either.”

He was stunned as hell when tears filled her eyes. “I’m serious. I’m not giving up, even if you did bring me taffy.”

“If it’ll make you feel better, I can eat half your candy. Like you just drank half my Scotch.”

She blinked. At least she didn’t look like she was going to start crying any more. “That was one hell of a gift I gave you.”

“It was one hell of a bribe. Too bad it didn’t work.”

She nodded slowly before she enunciated, “Go home. I have to get to bed. Tomorrow, Paws will start fundraising, so we can kick your ass when it comes to bidding on the farm.”

He didn’t have the heart to tell her she was slurring her words. “We’ll see about that. As you said earlier tonight, may the best person win.”

He didn’t feel like the best person as he watched her turn back to the door. He didn’t feel like a good person at all. Instead, he was a person who wanted to rip her clothes off, who wanted to bury his face against her soft skin, who wanted to breathe in that soap and shampoo scent as he figured out why it had taken him so many years to realize that Haley Thurman wasn’t just one of the guys.