Reaching First (3 page)

“Mr. Brock, I understand if you’re not interested in helping out with Minerva House. It really wasn’t fair for Anna and Zach to put you on the spot this way.”

There was fire beneath her words. Pride. She was blushing again, and the color looked good on her cheeks.

Shit. He’d just have to make sure the hundred hours ended before the physical work was done. Shoving down his own nerves, the flash of cold fire that ate away at his gut when he thought about all those computers, all those books, he said, “Shoot. I’ve got to do something to satisfy the court. We can make this work. Just don’t call me ‘Mr. Brock.’ I’m Tyler.”

Her sudden smile caught him by surprise. She wasn’t just some random woman who could sign his papers and get him out of jail, free. She was
beautiful
. Beautiful enough that his jeans suddenly felt too tight. Eager to disguise his cock’s version of being a reliable worker, he stepped forward and offered up a handshake. “I’m game, if you are.”

* * *

Game
. Emily’s girl parts jumped at the word. But she was building castles out of a scattering of words. Tyler wasn’t inviting her to play. Not in the way her pounding heart wanted to, anyway.

She had enough presence of mind to shake on the deal before she turned back to Anna’s desk and accepted the paperwork Zach handed her. There was a log to monitor Tyler’s hours, and a draft affidavit to submit to the court, along with half a dozen other forms.

Anna frowned as Emily started signing the official pages. “I don’t want things starting off on the wrong foot,” she warned Tyler, sounding every inch the team owner. “Just last year, Rick Thomas got community service after his DUI. When he failed to complete his hours, he ended up in jail. For his full sentence.”

“That won’t be a problem here,” Tyler said.

“Your new contract is contingent on your completing this service.”

“I will,” Tyler said, his voice tighter than before.

“We’ll have to satisfy a judge, once you’ve finished all one hundred hours.”

Tyler swallowed hard, bowing his head and looking humble. “You don’t have to worry, Ms. Benson. I won’t embarrass you or the Rockets in front of any court.”

Emily heard the promise, and she saw Anna nod in tight acceptance. All the while, she kept thinking,
one hundred hours
. One hundred hours, to spend in the company of the most gorgeous man she’d seen in ages. One hundred hours, to get her own life back on track, to finally put her lay-off behind her and get back to her social work career. One hundred hours to finish Minerva House.

It seemed like all the time in the world. And like it could never be enough.

This was bullshit.
 

Tyler was lost in the middle of Raleigh, even though he’d done exactly what he’d always done in Texas. He’d listened carefully when Zach Ormond gave him Emily’s address. He’d repeated it back, setting it in his memory. He’d spoken it into his phone the first chance he got, clearly and precisely, and he’d watched the map spin out across the Raleigh metro area.

And he’d gotten hopelessly lost driving the goddamn surface streets to goddamn Aunt Minnie’s goddamn house. He’d stopped at a gas station for directions, then asked some woman who was walking along the sidewalk with a baby stroller that looked like it had a better chassis than his crappy rental car. When he finally pulled up in front of the house, he was fifteen minutes late.

Way to make a great first impression.

He swore and parked behind a white panel van. Rolling out of his car, he squared his shoulders and checked out the place. It needed a lot of work. The windows were canted in their frames, and all the exterior paint was peeling. He reached for the doorbell and found a bunch of curling wires, tipped with filthy plastic caps that looked like they’d been there for twenty years. He picked up the heavy brass knocker instead and let it fall a few times.
 

The door flew open, and he was face to face with Emily. She was even prettier than he remembered from Ms. Benson’s office. Her blond hair was tangled, like she’d just climbed out of bed a few minutes before. Her green eyes sparked the instant she saw him. She caught her breath in a little sigh, and he could just make out the white line of her teeth as she caught her bottom lip. That plump bottom lip. That extremely kissable bottom lip.
 

He grinned and gave her a mock salute, saying, “Tyler Brock, reporting to duty.”

“You’re late,” she said.

So much for kissable. She was pissed off. Well, kissing was a bad idea anyway, when the woman in question had control over his entire future. It was better to play by the rules. He’d show up, put in his time, be done with the damn community service and back to what mattered—baseball. Even if his dick had a distinctly different idea of how he should spend his first few days in Raleigh. Shifting to ease the distinct pressure he felt down below, he shrugged. “I got lost. Haven’t learned my way around town yet.”

She sighed and stepped back. “Well come in. There’s no reason to air condition all of Raleigh. We’re working in the living room.”

He stepped inside the dark foyer. A massive staircase hulked in front of him, spinning up toward a second floor lost in shadows. He could make out four large rooms on the ground floor, two on either side of the hallway. The closest ones had windows facing the street. They were gloomy with faded wallpaper. Each had a dusty hardwood floor, marred with scuffs and dull with age.

But a man stood in the room to his right—Emily’s famous handyman, by the look of his spattered T-shirt and jeans. The guy was snapping a tape measure back into its plastic housing as Emily guided them into the room. “Tyler Brock,” she said by way of introduction. “This is Will Martins.”

Will looked startled; he clearly recognized Tyler’s name. Next would come the pleased smile, then a couple of questions about the game. That’s how these conversations always went.

Emily broke in before Will could say a word, explaining to the handyman, “Tyler will be helping out around here for a few weeks.” The guy shrugged. He seemed used to taking orders from nervous, temperamental homeowners. Emily nodded tersely and said, “I’ll let the two of you get to work. I have some things to take care of back in my office.”

“I’ll holler if I need anything,” Will said. His easy North Carolina drawl did nothing to raise a smile on Emily’s face. Tyler wondered if it was
possible
to raise a smile on Emily’s face, at least today.
 

She’d certainly seemed willing enough back in Ms. Benson’s office. Probably still would be, if he hadn’t screwed up getting to the house on time.

Before he could decide whether it was a good idea to follow her to the back of the house, whether he really should offer another apology or if his cock just wanted another chance to make its demands known, the painter said, “What sort of woman gets a professional first baseman to work as her handyman?”

Tyler offered up the easy shrug he’d rehearsed in his own mind. “We’ve got a mutual…acquaintance. Emily needed some help, and I have some spare time, so… How can I help?”

Will looked like he wasn’t buying the story, but he wasn’t about to pass up a chance to shoot the shit with a real ballplayer. He gave a cursory nod to the sagging millwork on the far wall. “We’re tearing out those cabinets. Not saving anything, just taking ’em to the dump. Come on. You can help bring in stuff from my truck.”

The heat and humidity slapped Tyler in the face the instant he stepped out on the porch. Apparently oblivious to the North Carolina summer, Will led the way to his van. He keyed open the back door and started to shift a collection of pry bars into a five-gallon bucket.

“So, they weren’t lying on the news,” the painter said. “You really were in a bar fight.”

Tyler shrugged, rubbing his hand across the painful bruise on his jaw in reflex. “You should see the other guy.”

Will laughed. “They putting you on the disabled list?”

“No DL for me. Have to work for a living, like every other honest man. God, it’s hot out here. And a lot more humid than Texas.”

The painter reached into the truck and tugged on a cooler, sliding it even with the bucket. Pushing back the lid, he fished around in some ice water until he found two bottles of water. “Here,” he said. “Demo’s thirsty work.”

Tyler grinned as he cracked open the bottle, saluting Will as if he’d just bought the first round in a bar. Both men moved around the side of the van, finding the deepest shade while they drank.
 

Will shook his head. “Tyler Brock… You really got screwed in that last game against San Francisco. There’s no way you were out at third!”

“The ump sees what the ump sees,” Tyler said, trying to sound philosophical. But Will was right. The call had been crap.
 

The painter launched into a spirited discussion of the piss-poor job the umpires had done all season. Half a dozen games had already turned on bad calls in late innings.
 

Tyler agreed. “The real problem is the guys who can’t get it into their heads that the game isn’t about them. They’ll toss a player for looking the least bit sideways at a crappy call. Won’t even let you
ask
if a pitch was a ball or a strike.”

“You got tossed, what, two weeks ago? Against Philly, wasn’t it?”

“Against Philly,” Tyler agreed.
 

Will swore enthusiastically about the city of Brotherly Love. Tyler drank deeply before he started to offer his own opinion about which teams in the league had the worst management, the dirtiest players, the most obnoxious fans.
 

Half an hour later, they were disagreeing good-naturedly about Texas’s chances of making it into the post-season. “Maybe if they had Ormond down there catching,” Will said. “But once he retired and decided to stay in town—”

Tyler interrupted. “They can get by on their own catching staff. It’s the bullpen that needs help. A left-handed—”

“Gentlemen!”

Both men jumped like kids caught smoking cigarettes in the school bathroom. Tyler whirled around to find Emily Holt standing by the back of the van.
 

“Sorry,” Will said, and immediately pushed past him. He made a lot of noise gathering together his tools. More noise than was strictly necessary. Enough noise to cover up the sound of Emily’s tirade as she pulled Tyler toward the driver’s door of the van.

* * *

“Don’t do this to me,” Emily said. Anger tightened her throat, and her words came out a lot shakier than she meant them to.

“Do what?” There was that easy smile, the one she’d seen in dozens of online photos the night before. She’d never admit how many hours she’d spent looking up exactly who Tyler was, trying to figure out exactly what she’d gotten herself into. The guy had to know precisely what he was doing. He had to understand how her heart skipped a beat as he looked down at her, how her lungs forgot how to breathe.

The thought that he delivered that smile all the time to a million different women forced some of her rage back into her words. “Don’t screw this up, Tyler. You
know
I have to report on the hours you’ve worked. I have to swear in a court of law that you’ve completed your community service.”

“I’ll work my hours,” he said, unperturbed. Damn, his voice was smooth, like an aged bourbon, soft and husky. It was a voice that belonged in a bedroom, a voice that should never rise above the most seductive whisper.

“Stop it!” she said. “I’m not one of your squealing baseball fans, waiting outside the stadium after a game. Just stop it!” she said again, pulling away as he tried to settle a pacifying hand on her arm. “I agreed to do this because Anna’s my best friend. She needs you on her team. I don’t care what happens to you, Tyler Brock, but I’m not about to let my best friend fail because you can’t complete your sentence.”

He looked shocked. Stunned. Like no one had ever failed to swoon before those storm-dark eyes, no one had ever resisted the chance for Tyler Brock to smile his easy, aw-shucks grin.
 

“You’re right,” he said, his voice truly dipped in remorse. “I wasn’t thinking.”
 

He refused to meet her gaze. He actually seemed upset, no,
devastated.
It was like she’d popped some invisible balloon that had hovered between them. She’d destroyed his confidence, shredded the swaggering attitude that had melted her the first time she saw him.

And
that
was why she was still a virgin.
 

The thought almost made her reel. She was living the same pattern, over and over again. A guy liked her. A guy did his level best to seduce her. A guy got her
this close
to losing control.

And then she snapped back to reality, like a binder clip clamping down on a stack of papers.

The first couple of times it had happened, she’d been proud of herself. She’d known her parents would approve. Even Aunt Minnie would be proud. Emily had let logic rule over her emotions. She’d remained in control despite the fire of hormones, the roller-coaster swoop of desire. She’d sent home her disappointed dates, knowing she’d been true to her own beliefs.

But Caden Holloway hadn’t gone home quietly. The day after prom, half the class was calling her Bluebell. She knew it was because she’d left the high-school quarterback with blue balls. His only revenge was taunting her with a nickname she hated, a sweet-sounding joke that made her hate the end of her senior year.

In college, she’d done a lot of dating. She eased her restrictions—a lot. There were plenty of ways to have fun that didn’t involve actual
intercourse
. But whenever she’d felt herself slipping out of control, she’d stepped away. She’d always preserved the Virgin Technicality. Even if she’d ended up with an ironic reputation as the girl who broke a million hearts.

And here she was, twenty-six years old, throwing up that familiar wall all over again. Tyler Brock could smile, and he could glance up at her through his eyelashes, and he could look all rueful and remorseful and downright pitiful with the bruise that spread across his cheek.