Off the Hook (11 page)

“Oh, come on, Sporto,” she said. “I know you’ve been away from the game for a while, but surely you recognize catcher’s gear when you see it. Think of me as your Russell Martin.”

Liam had played against Martin a few times, and never once did Martin look like that in his gear.

The leg guards came up well over her knees, meeting the bottom of the chest protector about mid-thigh. The face guard hung a little crooked, and the neck protector wasn’t going to do her a bit of good flapping around like that.

Was it weird that seeing her suited up in that gear did something to him? Softened him, made him smile? Shaking his head clear, he bent to the task of collecting the balls and tossing them back in the bucket.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “I’m pretty much done.”

“But I got geared up,” she said. “Come on, throw me a pitch.”

She was already waddling toward his makeshift home plate, which was actually an old seat cushion from one of the boats; he’d found it in the fish shack and cut it roughly into shape.

“I’m not going to pitch to you, Kate,” he said, laughing lightly. “You could get hurt.”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “I’ve got more equipment on than a linebacker, so pitch.”

“No.”

The fact that she had to tip her head back that far to see out of the mask was pretty much reason enough, but Liam didn’t say that, and good thing, too, given what she said next.

“D’you have any idea how long it took me to get all this on?” For some reason she kept slapping the glove against the equipment, as if that proved how well it worked. “Come on, a couple pitches. Let’s see what you got.”

“What I got?” He laughed. “What are you, a scout?”

It didn’t seem to matter what he said, because she was already crouching behind the plate. Or at least she was trying to, but the equipment was making it a little tricky for her, and twice she lost her balance and almost tipped over.

“Oh, for—” Liam grunted as he set the bucket of balls down. Wrapping his hands around the sides of the chest protector, he pulled her to her feet and turned her so she faced away from him.

“What are you doing?”

“Adjusting.” There was no gentle way to do it, so he tugged, pulled, and yanked on straps from her calves all the way up to her head, until everything was at least snug on her. He hardly gave a second thought to the last time he was that close to her or to how many times over the years he’d remembered what it felt like to run his hands over her skin, so soft, so perfect. And as he tightened the helmet, he hardly paid any attention to how freakin’ good she smelled or the way her silky hair brushed over his hands. Because if he let himself notice that, then he’d remember what it was like to thread his fingers through her hair and…

Fuuuuuuhhck
.

Liam forced the memory away and blinked the helmet back into focus. The whole getup was still miles too big, but at least it wasn’t hanging off her like a tent and she didn’t have to tip her head up to see anymore.

“Oh,” she murmured. “That’s better.”

Liam couldn’t help but smile as he turned her around again.

“All right, then,” she said, punching her hand into the pocket of the glove. “Let’s do this. Bring the heat.”

“Bring the heat?” Liam didn’t move, just stood there grinning. “Do you have any idea what that means?”

“No,” she said with a short shrug. “But that’s what they say, isn’t it?”

Shaking his head again, Liam reached for the bucket of balls and headed to his makeshift mound. If Finn had tried to use jargon on him like that, Liam would’ve beaned him with a ball, but it was too damn cute coming from her.

By the time he set up, Kate was crouched behind the plate again, glove up, free hand tucked behind her back.

“Okay,” she called. “Throw some smoke.”

Snorting quietly, he scraped his foot against the ground and tried to focus. He wasn’t going to throw smoke at her, but he still needed to hit the glove. And he did.

Kate was on her feet like a shot. “What the hell was that?”

He wasn’t expecting that. “What d’you mean? That was a good pitch.”

Hell, in his Little League days, that pitch would’ve had most batters quaking in the box. Fast and straight, right into the pocket of the glove.

“Oh, come on,” she sneered. “I can throw harder than that.”

And as if to prove her point, she hurled the ball back at him. It didn’t quite make it the sixty feet six inches, but it was pretty close.

“I didn’t come out here to humor you,” she said. “I came out here to help, so throw the damn ball!”

“If you get hit, it’s going to hurt.”

Pushing the mask up on her head, Kate took a couple of steps toward him. “If you stick to fastballs, I should be able to catch those; just don’t throw curves or sinkers, ’cause I have no idea where those are going.”

Shaking his head, Liam slapped his glove against his thigh. “Come on, Kate, this is crazy.”

“Did you or did you not tell Finn last night that your fastball’s not where you need it to be?”

That was exactly what he’d said, but he didn’t know she’d been paying attention.

“Fastballs are straight and fast, Sporto. If you hit the glove, we’re all good. If you don’t, that’s what the gear’s for, right?”

Liam inhaled a long, slow breath. He’d never pitched hard to a woman before, and he wasn’t actually sure he could do it. What if she got hurt? What if he broke something on her—then what would they do? How would he explain that not only to his brothers and Jessie but to Paul Foster, who was expecting to get his employee back in one piece?

But Kate didn’t look as if she was going anywhere until he threw her a few pitches, so after a few seconds he sighed and nodded.

“You sure about this?”

“Piece of cake.” Sliding the mask down, she resumed her position behind the plate and lifted her glove. “Let’s have it.”

Liam took a couple of seconds longer in his windup, knowing he wouldn’t throw hard but he’d throw harder than he had.

“Better,” she yelled as she threw it back. “But, come on, I’m not made of glass, Liam.”

A few pitches later, he was working his way up to normal speed, but he wasn’t going to throw it hard without warning her first.

“You’re sure? Really?”

Kate didn’t even flinch. “Bring it!”

So before he could talk himself out of it again, he inhaled, went into his windup, and hurled it at her as if she actually were Russell Martin. He loved the sound of the ball slicing through the air almost as much as he loved the sound of it smacking into the leather behind the plate.

What he didn’t love was the sound of her squealing as she fell backward.

“Kate!” Charging toward her, he slid to a scrambling stop just as she pushed herself upright.

Ball still tucked inside the glove, her eyes wide behind the mask, she sat there laughing.

“Holy shit,” she cried. “
That’s
what I’m talking about!”

Liam curled his fingers through the mask and tugged it up and off her head. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine! But, holy shit, that was hard! Is that how you always throw them?”

“Unfortunately,” he grunted. “Yeah. That’s why I need to keep working on them. I’m only clocking in at eighty-eight and I need to get up to at least ninety.”

“That was awesome. Do it again.”

“What? No!”

But Kate was already handing him the ball. “Yeah, come on, couple more times.”

She let him help her up, then waved her glove toward the mound. A couple of times turned into a dozen until Liam flatly refused to throw another one, because every pitch sent her flat on her ass.

“That was so cool.” Laughing, she waddled beside him up to the lodge, where he helped her ditch the gear.

She tried to hide it, but Liam saw her flex her catching hand a few times as they headed into the kitchen for some water. Without a word, he picked up the same plastic bag Finn had used and washed out a few nights back and refilled it with ice.

When Kate set his glass of water on the table, Liam caught her by the wrist, flipped her hand over, and pressed the ice into her palm. Her eyes flew wide, no doubt from the shock of the cold, but when she started to pull away, Liam tightened his hold a little.

“Keep it on there,” he said, forcing his thumb still even though it was itching to slide over hers, to get to know the softness of her hand the way he had in Vegas.

“Uh, y-yeah,” she stammered. “Okay. Thanks.”

Liam didn’t know how long his brain screamed,
Let her go,
before it finally registered that he was still holding on to her.
Shit.

Shuffling back a few steps, he wiped his hands against his jeans as if that would somehow erase the feel of her. It didn’t. It couldn’t, because that feeling and the memories that went with it had buried themselves so deep inside him that even now, ten years later, he couldn’t shake them.

Looking a bit confused, she dropped her gaze to the bag of ice as she slowly curled her fingers around it. A second later, she gave her head a brief shake and blinked up at him.

“Anyway. Where d’you suppose Jessie and Finn are?”

With a slight tip of his head, Liam motioned for her to keep her voice down and led her toward the doorway to the great room. They peeked around the corner and there was Finn, stretched out on one of the couches, his head on the armrest, a Lee Child novel propped on his chest, while Jessie sat curled up in one of the huge armchairs, blanket over her lap, completely engrossed in one of the new Caroline Linden books Finn had brought her.

With a soft nudge, Liam motioned for Kate to follow him back toward the kitchen.

“Jessie’ll kill us if we interrupt,” he joked. “She likes to read them in one sitting, which means she’ll be up late and cranky as hell in the morning.”

“What about Finn?”

Liam snorted softly. “He’s the type who can read and talk at the same time and not miss anything in either one. Hell, he usually has three or four books on the go at the same time; he just leaves them lying around so he always has one handy wherever he goes. I don’t know how he keeps them all straight.”

Kate’s mouth curled up into a smile.

“Not gonna lie,” she whispered. “I would’ve thought he’d be more a
Calvin and Hobbes
kind of reader.”

Liam managed to stifle his laugh, but only barely.

“He plays the fool pretty well,” he said. “But that kid’s a hell of a lot smarter than most people think.”

Nodding slowly, she looked down at the bag of ice in her hand, then lifted both her shoulders.

“Okay, well, I guess I’ll head down to my cabin, then.”

He could actually feel the smile slide from his face. If she left now, it’d be another eight hours before he’d get to see her again. Eight long, dark hours. Sure, he’d gone ten years without seeing her, but now…well, now he didn’t know what the hell his problem was, but the thought of going a mere eight hours was too much.

Shit
.

Licking his suddenly dry lips, he thumbed over his shoulder. “Yeah, I’ve got some…stuff…I need to be doing so, uh, I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Need some help?”

Say no. Don’t hesitate, you idiot, just say no!

“Sure, that’d be great.”

After grabbing their jackets, he hunted down some paper and a pen in the office, then led her out the front door and down toward the dock.

“What are we doing?”

“I need to get some measurements in the fish shack.”

It wasn’t a lie; he really did need the measurements, but it wasn’t necessarily a two-man job.

He’d wanted to start ripping the thing down after they finished roofing the cabins, but Jessie and Finn had insisted the plumbing needed to be worked on first. And since Jessie had been right about the weather turning to crap, it was better to be inside anyway, so he’d spent the last two days working with Finn on replacing what they could and adding to the list of things they’d need to pick up the next time they went over to Hardy.

Now that the rain had stopped again, he was going to start on the shack first thing in the morning, no matter what anyone said, because he wanted it up and finished before Ro got back.

“Watch your step,” he said as he pulled the door open and hit the light. “The structure itself is going to be basically the same, but I need to graph out an area for a bigger freezer, and we need more cutting space and a bigger sink. I found the fixtures I want, but I need—what’s wrong?”

Kate had stopped moving right inside the door. “Nothing; it’s just that I got the distinct impression the other two don’t really consider this a priority, so maybe we should—”

“I don’t care,” he said, a little harsher than he meant to. “It’s a priority to me.”

“Why? I mean, aside from that big gaping hole in the wall there, it looks like it’s in okay shape.”

He didn’t have to tell her, he could have given her a simple “because I want to” answer, but if he was going to steal her away from the list Jessie had—which would no doubt cause problems—she at least deserved to understand why it was so important and why he wanted it done before Ro got back.

Liam tugged his ball cap off, scraped his hand over the top of his head, and put the cap on again.

“Okay,” he said, blowing out a long breath. “After Ma left, things were pretty messed up. I don’t know why, but the old man missed her something awful, and I guess he figured the best way to get over her was to drink, and…well…he wasn’t exactly what you’d call a happy drunk.”

Kate paled just enough to stop Liam and make him rethink how much he needed to tell her. Clearly, she got the gist of it.

“Once he got going, there wasn’t much the three of us could do except get the hell out of his way, and Ro usually got it the worst, probably because he looks so much like Ma.” He couldn’t look at Kate, not when her eyes were so wide, so worried. Instead, he leaned back against the sink—which would be the first damn thing he ripped out—and crossed his arms over his chest.

“It was Ro’s nineteenth birthday and the old man was on a tear; he’d been drinking since breakfast, put his fist through the wall in the mudroom, that kind of shit. He was riding Ronan pretty hard that day, and when I…uh…”