Out of Bounds (Reedsville Roosters #5)

Gary Morstad has had more than his fair share of intimate encounters with married women, and he thought he’d left that promiscuous lifestyle behind when he hightailed it out of the Miami manservant scene. He wants love, not more meaningless encounters. So, it’s just his luck that a greasy mechanic with the charm of a turnip has hooked the only woman Gary has ever wanted to behave himself for.

When the taciturn mechanic—Dean Yeats—vengefully volunteers to chaperone Gary during his mortifying return to his former minor league team, their antagonistic exchanges segue to a smoldering two-way attraction…and then a three-way one.

Gary’s over-the-top antics and larger-than-life personality get Dean loose and laughing in the way Dean’s wife Lorena craves seeing, however Lorena worries their ménage arrangement won’t outlast the season. Gary is endearing and unforgettable, but he’s also reckless. Men like him rarely play by the rules, and she's not so sure she and Dean can help him make the new ones Gary so desperately needs.

Gary Morstad pointed the aluminum baseball bat in the general direction of his cousin Clint and narrowed his eyes. “I want a do-over so I can pick a different team. You’ve got a bunch of ringers on your side.”

Clint leaned against the chain-link park fence, lifted his cap, and then dragged his fingers through the bright red hair beneath it. He wore that damned half-smile that always made their ever-scandalized grandmother reach, muttering, for the nearest Bible. “What’d I tell you about judging books by their covers?” he asked. “I’ve taught you this lesson time and time again. Maybe next time, you’ll listen to the wisdom of your elders.”

Gary scoffed and tapped his foot impatiently. “You also told me not to trust shit you say when you’re looking me in the eyes, so what’s the truth?” He scanned the handful of folks on the field. Half were drunk, a quarter were probably almost there, and the rest knew jack shit about baseball.

The game was supposed to have been a friendly diversion. The cookout had turned a little competitive, maybe, but that happened a lot whenever Clint and Gary were together in a big enough group. The cookout at the sprawling, well-manicured, new park in Wake Forest was actually to celebrate Clint’s daughter Sidney’s first birthday. Gary hadn’t visited North Carolina specifically for the event, but just happened to be there for the occasion. His roommate, Quinn, had moved out of their Miami apartment, and Gary figured the time was as good as any to leave the city. He’d loved Miami, but the scene hadn’t loved him back. If he’d spent much more time there on his own, he probably would have ended up in prison. The manservant gigs he’d been accepting outside of his agency assignments paid well, but tended to be questionably legal.

Definitely illegal.

Gary blew a raspberry, shook off the memories of his former seedy exploits, and turned back to his older cousin. “Do-over.”

Clint shook his head. “Nope. Suck it up and learn a lesson from the natural consequences of your actions. You assumed the girls couldn’t hit, and they taught you otherwise.”

“Heh heh.” Olivia—Sidney’s mother, and something of a stand-in mom for Gary at times—leaned against the fence beside her boyfriend and studied her nails. “Gary, you’re such a sucker.”

Gary growled at her.

“Hey,” she said. “You know Clint’s right. That’s what you get. I mean, we could quit now before Ken gets back from the booze store, and that way there’d be one less witness to the disaster that is your team.”

“I heard that!” came an indignant feminine voice from the general direction of third base.

Gary pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head, not bothering to turn to look.

Lorena Yeats had been busting his chops all afternoon, and he probably deserved every morsel of the woman’s playful derision. Gary was a pretty good player—he’d played in the minor league for the Reedsville Roosters for a while until his “charming demeanor” and certain interpersonal disasters got him booted from the team.

He knew the game and how to expertly bend the rules, but he didn’t make much of a coach. Lorena had been informing him of such for five innings.

Clint pulled Olivia closer and gave her a conspiratorial look. “I think he’ll forfeit from the shame. Don’t you?”

“That stubborn bum?” Olivia asked. “I’m not gonna hold my breath.”

“Thanks a lot, guys,” Gary muttered.

They were right about one thing, though—he didn’t want any more witnesses to the disaster.

Clint and Olivia, along with their lover Ken, had been in a committed ménage relationship for a couple of years. Olivia was the newcomer to the family. Clint and Ken had been together for the better part of a decade before they’d picked her up at a New Orleans kink event called the Den of Sin. She was stunning, smart, adventurous, and willing to call both men out on their bullshit. Exactly what they’d needed, basically.

They were probably going to go home with Ken and yuk it up good about Gary’s big coed baseball fail, and probably while in some state of undress.

Lucky bastards.

Drumming his fingers against the sides of his thighs and clucking his tongue, Gary pulled his gaze from the parental pair at the fence, scanned his team again, and sighed. “Daisy-picking something-or-others.”

“I’m multitasking,” Lorena called out, and held up a yellow weed. “And that’s actually a dandelion. Learn your flowers, bro.”

Gary pinched the bridge of his nose again, stifled a laugh, and then called out, “I quit. No way in hell we’re gonna catch up.”

The score was five-to-one.

The lushes in the field obviously agreed, and thus began to stagger, shamble, and lurch toward the fence.

Clint gave Gary a condescending pat on the shoulder. “Don’t feel bad. You may be a player, but you’re not a master like me.”

Gary rolled his eyes. “All right, old man. At least all my body parts still work the way they’re supposed to. How’s forty looking?”

Clint gave Gary’s shoulder a “light” punch that made Gary pee a little. “I’m not forty
yet
.”

Gary leered at him and rubbed. “Close enough. I’m sure all your various ligaments and cartilages behave as if you were.”

“With that mouth, I see now why you got tossed from the team,” Lorena said, shaking her head.

Gary threw up his hands. “Does everyone know about that? Is a man allowed no secrets?”

“I’m sure you’re allowed a few.” She waggled her eyebrows and reached into one of the beer coolers. After rooting through the ice for a while, she actually found a can of Natty Light, and probably the last one. “You’re one of Olivia’s favorite conversational nuggets.”

He cut his gaze to his little cousin’s former incubator. “Oh?”

Olivia shrugged and shifted Sidney to her other hip. “You know how things go at work. Whenever I fly in or out of RDU and Lo’s working a gate, we grab a meal in the food court. The choices are to either talk to each other or stare lamely at our phones. Gossiping is more fun.”

“And you talk about
me
?”

Olivia pinched his cheek. “You’re just so interesting, sweetie.”

“I’m glad someone thinks so.”

Clint chuckled. “Lots of people think so. Our grandmother, for one.”

“I don’t think
interesting
is the word she used, cuz.”

“I can’t remember precisely, but whatever language she used was still far more flattering than anything she’s called me in the past twenty years.”

“Well, you can’t deny you set a bad example,” Gary said.

Clint gave Gary an eloquent stare. It was a warning, and Gary knew better than to push the one person who always had his back.

Clint’s name had been dragged through the mud in the Morstad clan for going on twenty years over his decisions—personal and professional—and few people could accept that he did what he had to in order to be happy. Personally, Gary respected him for his bravery. At times, Gary wished he could be more like him, but he just wasn’t as good at planning and thinking. Gary always needed someone telling him what to do.

“Sorry man,” Gary muttered.

“Don’t sweat it.”

“I think you get in plenty of trouble all by yourself,” Lorena said to Gary. She cocked her head coquettishly and wore what
had
to be her customer service grin.

“Are you gonna bust my chops all damn day?” he asked Lorena.

She nodded. “It’s fun. And relaxing.”

“Maybe for you. What about me?”

“What
about
you? No need to be selfish. You should be more giving. Be a better person.”

Gary’s eyes goggled, and he ran his hand across them. He wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of playful ragging, and he
certainly
wasn’t used to getting his balls busted by a woman, except Olivia. In the past year, most of the women he’d been in the company of couldn’t tell a joke even if the text had been printed on the side of their wine glasses for them to read aloud.

He hadn’t cared much that they weren’t funny, though. They paid well, and
on
time.
The fact that most of his company as of late were only around him because they’d paid for a certain service grated at him, but he couldn’t help being what he was. He wasn’t a relationship kind of guy. People couldn’t stand him for that long.

Hell of a life.

He dragged his hand across the day-old stubble on his chin and fixed his gaze on the tease tossing a baseball from one hand to the other.

So damned cute.

He kind of liked cute. He hadn’t known he liked cute. His usual clientele tended to fall squarely into the category of “red-lipped vipers,” but Lo wasn’t a client.

Maybe that’s what makes the difference.

He opened his mouth to offer her another ball to fondle—because he was Gary Morstad and that was the kind of shit that regularly came out of his mouth—but didn’t have time to get the words out.

The loud growl of a Dodge Ram engine cut across the lot, and then doors opened and slammed. Ken and his friend were back with the beer infusions.

Ken carried a case beneath each arm with his friend following at his heels carrying the same.

“Game over already?” Ken asked. “We couldn’t have been gone for more than two innings.

Clint scoffed. “Bunch of quitters. They didn’t like the score so they gave up.”

“Wasn’t
me
,” Lorena said. “I would have kept playing. I was on base! I could have run home.”

Gary nodded and grinned at her. “Yes, but we still would have been losing. Maybe I’m no psychic, but I’m pretty sure with only three innings left, there was no way in hell we were going to catch up at the rate they were hitting.” He glowered at Clint. “Buncha ringers.”

“I gave you first pick,” Clint said. “You should have been suspicious. I’m not usually that kind.”

“You’re right. You’re not. Asshole.”

Lorena gave Gary’s arm a slug. “Be nice! Did you not hear what I just said about being a better person?”

“Ow!” He rubbed his arm and put on his most enticing pout.

That pout worked with his clients. He figured it’d work on bossy customer service types, too.

She wagged a finger at him. “Be good.”

“Oh, honey, I
am
good.”

“And cocky, too, I see.”

“You’re not gonna cut me an inch of slack, are ya?”

“I think you’ve been given too much slack and that’s why you’re the way you are.”

“Yeah?” He folded his arms over his chest and pushed up an eyebrow. “And how am I?”

“Entitled. Spoiled. Aggressive for no good reason.”

“Well, don’t hash your words or anything. Tell me how you really feel.”

She smiled and turned her sweet face up to him, wriggling her eyebrows. “Oh, I could tell you lots of things about yourself, but I’d like to be friends with Olivia tomorrow. We do have to work together, and offending her man’s cousin probably wouldn’t earn me any favor.”

“I don’t care if you do, Lo,” Clint said.

Gary turned to him and pointed. “Remember that thing about setting a good example?”

“That ship sailed a long time ago. Don’t look to
me
for your good example. You might end up a tragic case like me, living with a man and, worse, sharing a bedroom with him.”

“So, I’m on my own here,” Gary said. He clucked his tongue. “Typical.”

Olivia gave his shoulder a playful squeeze. “Aw, I won’t let them gang up on you. Much. Even if you deserve half the shit you get.”

“Thank you. I’ll remember this. And here I was thinking I’d offer to babysit your kid so the three of you could get away for a bit, but now I’m leaning more toward, ‘Nah.’”

Olivia’s eyes went comically round, and she whispered, “How long were you thinking?”

“Doesn’t matter now. I’m not doing it.”

“Oh, come
on
! You know we don’t trust anyone to babysit. Our schedules have worked out okay up until now that there was always one of us at home with her, but we haven’t had much alone time in a year.”

“Yeah? How much would the service be worth to ya?”

“What do you want? Money? My eternal devotion?”

“I wouldn’t offer that, if I were you,” Lorena said, sticking her head into their little huddle and smiling in her know-it-all way. “Gut feeling—this guy would squeeze every last favor out of you that he can between now and the end of the world.”

“Gut feeling, huh?” he said, eying her up and down.

The only thing he liked more than her cute face was her chest. She had on a hot pink V-neck shirt that had way too damn much cling. He wanted to bury his face in her cleavage as she condescendingly patted his hair or something.

She pulled one side of her lush lips up into a playful smirk. “I know your type all too well.”

“That tells me that you’re the same type or else that you
like
my type.”

She blinked. “I’ll never tell.”

“That won’t stop me from asking. And you’re going to tell me. I’m charming—
irresistible
, even.”

“Sounds like you’ve gotten lots of practice. Most ladies would say that’s not a good thing.”

“The ladies I hang around like that well enough.” He leaned in and whispered, “Less fumbling, you know. They like having a man who knows what he’s doing.”

“And do you know what you’re doing?”

“More often than not.”

“And you’re paid very well for what you do, I hear.”

“Depends on what they want. And depending on what
you
want, I may not even charge.”

At her sharp pull of air, he leaned back.

Her dark olive skin flushed red and lips parted with uneven breaths.

Gotcha.

If he’d had a spare five bucks to bet, he would have put money on her being in his bed later on.

Ken’s friend Dean walked over, his mouth pressed into the tight line it’d been in all afternoon and his hands jammed into the pockets of his shorts.

I was here first, bud.

“You must not have gone very far,” Lorena said to him.

Dean shrugged and crooked a thumb in the general direction of the highway. “There’s a new strip mall that has a beer and wine store. Maybe a five-minute drive from here. We were in and out.”

“That’s exactly what we need around here. More places to get wine. Did you get the repeat customer savings card?”