Back in the Game: A Stardust, Texas Novel (23 page)

“I dunno, I don’t remember.”

“But this was a once-in-a-lifetime event,” she said. “How can you not know what she was wearing?”

“It was a G-string thing with pasties.”

“I see. Is that how you like for your women to dress in the bedroom?”

“She was a stripper, Breezy, not one of my
women.
”

“So you don’t like for your women to wear G-strings and pasties?”

“Is this for the book? Because the question seems a bit far afield.”

She reached over and hit the pause button on the recorder, and in a conspiratorial voice murmured, “Actually, this question is for my edification.”

He narrowed his eyes, and studied her for so long that she dropped her gaze. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been thinking about sex . . .”

“Oh you have?” he couldn’t resist teasing.

“Yes. Being with you has shown me that I’ve been missing out on a lot and I just want to understand what guys like so that my first time will go as smoothly as possible.”

“You got a particular fella in mind?” The thought of Breeanne having sex with someone other than him made Rowdy want to smack a ball so hard with a bat that it would fly over Stardust Lake.

“No, no. Just general information.”

He blotted sweat from his forehead with the tail of his T-shirt.

“I’m inexperienced. I want to understand men and what they want. You’ve had a lot of sexual adventures, I figured I could learn a lot from you.”

“You can’t use my life as your sexual playbook.”

“Why not?”

“Well for one thing, every man is different. For another, it would get you into a lot of trouble.”

“I’m ready for a little trouble.”

“Oh no, Breezy, trust me, you are
not.
That would be like turning a toddler loose in Times Square.”

“I’ve never been to Times Square. I’ve not been anywhere. Except to hospitals. I’ve been to plenty of those.”

“Why don’t you tell me about that?” he asked.

She watched him and a sultry expression came over her face and he felt his body stiffen again. Damn it. Every time he was around her, he got an erection.

The scent of his sweat churned the air between. Her nose twitched and her gaze slid slowly down his chest. He forced himself to breathe slow and deep.

“About the birthday cake girl,” she prompted.

He didn’t want to talk about this anymore.
Shut up, Blanton, and tell her what she wants to hear.
If he didn’t talk about sex, he was going to have to talk about Potts and his suspension and he couldn’t risk going there. Not as long as Zach was part of the Gunslingers organization. His goal was to get her to quit the book.

“Forget the birthday cake woman. Nothing happened with her.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. Nolan Ryan got up to get a drink of water from his dish by the back door. She shifted in her chair, crossing her legs at the knee. “Okay. Moving on. What was your grandest seduction of all time?”

He gazed down the hill to the valley below, but all he could see were shapely legs the color of fresh cream.

“Rowdy?” she prompted. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” His tone was as clipped as a GI’s haircut. He heard her click on the recorder again, but he didn’t look over, just kept his gaze trained on the lake, trying his best to tame his erection.

“You’ve had hundreds of exciting experiences. Readers want to live vicariously through you. Don’t hold back. Share your secrets.”

He stroked his jaw with his thumb and forefinger, and cut her a glance from his peripheral vision. She rested a hand beside his, she wanted to touch him, but then she snapped her hand back and tucked it underneath the pit of her other arm.

“Are you still with me?” she asked, her voice tremulous.

“Why don’t we take a break?” he said. “Want some lemonade? I’ll make us some lemonade.”

“Are you embarrassed? Is that it? I won’t judge you if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

He scratched the back of his neck. She was so innocent. He didn’t want to sully her with stories of his wild ways.

“I’m a writer,” she said. “I need details, lots and lots of sensory details. I need to know what you saw and touched and smelled and tasted and heard and thought and felt. I need emotion.”

“You gotta give me a minute,” he said, stalling, unsure of how to handle this. “My memory isn’t what it used to be.”

She rested her elbows on the table, propped her chin in her upturned palms. “How many women
have
you been with?”

Not as many as the tabloids attributed to him, but enough that he didn’t want to tell her, afraid she would think less of him. “It’s tacky to get specific about numbers.”

“What was your grandest seduction?” she pressed.

“I once flew a woman to Paris in a private jet,” he said, unable to think of how to stall her. He didn’t want her bringing up Potts again.

“Aw, just like an episode of
The Bachelor
.”

He turned to face her. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t like being whisked off to France in a private jet.”

“You’re right. That was sour grapes. I’m jealous. What was her name?”

He tapped his chin, trapped between his playboy reputation and his fear that she would find him sleazy. Should he come clean or pretend he didn’t remember? Habit and fear of letting her get too close won out.

“Um . . . Lucy . . . no, Lacy . . . no,” he said. “That’s not right.”

She gave him that look. The one that said,
You’re better than this
.

No. No, he wasn’t. But when he was around her, he wished that he were a better man. He wanted her to admire, and respect him.

“You flew this woman to Paris in a private jet and you don’t remember her name?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“How long?”

“I dunno. Nine, ten years?”

“If a guy flew me to Paris I’d remember his name for the rest of my life.”

He felt like a total scoundrel. What was it she’d called him? A bounder? She was right. He was one.

“Laila.” He snapped his fingers. “Her name was Laila. Laila Navinski. She wore a yellow sundress the day we strolled to the Champs-Élysées. The dress had blue polka dots on it, a really short hem, and had those skinny little straps . . .” He motioned toward his shoulders with both hands.

“Spaghetti straps.”

“Yeah, spaghetti straps, and she smelled like magnolias. Her perfume reminded me of East Texas.” He stared off in space for a moment. “I think that’s why I liked her. She smelled familiar.”

“Ooh, keep going.” Squinting against the sun’s glare, she started pecking at the keyboard.

He studied her profile. She had a nice profile, even with the dark glasses perched on the end of her cute little nose.

“This is good,” she said. “Great stuff. Perfect. Exactly the kind of details your readers are looking for. What happened with you and Laila?”

“Nothing. We came home. I went back to Seattle, where I was playing with the Mariners at the time, and she went back to wherever it was she was from.”

She raised her head. “That’s it?”

“What did you expect? I’ve already told you I don’t do long-term relationships.”

“You didn’t see Laila after that?”

He shook his head. “No. Not that I recall.”

She made a noise, half irritation, half exasperation. “That’s just plain sad.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you ever want more?”

“What more is there?” He shrugged, but his gut pitched and rolled the way it had when he’d gone deep-sea fishing. “We had a terrific time.”

“You liked her, she liked you. She smelled like East Texas and you went to Paris together. The relationship should have gone somewhere. Why didn’t it go somewhere, Rowdy?”

Why, because he’d been waiting to feel something monumental, something that he hadn’t felt until now. With Breeanne. But he wasn’t ready to think about that, much less tell her. He had enough on his plate worrying about what Potts might do to Zach. He needed to have his head in the game.

“It’s hard being the girlfriend of a professional baseball player,” he said, giving her the pat excuse. “We’re on the road all the time. Laila wanted somebody who would stay home and work in the garden with her.”

“Do you think Laila found what she was looking for?”

“Why are you so worried about Laila?”

“She sounds nice. You treated her crappy. She deserved happily-ever-after.”

“I didn’t treat her crappy. For crying out loud I flew the woman to Paris. I gave her the trip of her life.”

“And you only remembered her ten years later when I forced you to remember her. Poor Laila. Didn’t she deserve more than that from you?”

“I was twenty-four. My career was just getting started.”

“Then why did you lead her on by taking her to Paris?”

“Believe me, Laila was a big girl. She knew how to take care of herself.”

“I bet you broke her heart.”

“I didn’t.”

“You might have.”

“I
didn’t
.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Look, why do you care? If I had hooked up with Laila I wouldn’t be here with you now, would I?”

“But you’re not
with
me, are you? You’re not with anyone unless you count Warwick. You’re alone, out of a job, your career is over, your brother has taken your place on the mound, and I’m nothing more an annoying ghostwriter who is forcing you to examine your life.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You are.”

He snapped his jaw shut. Pressed into a hard line. He got up and stalked inside the house feeling like a total shitheel.

CHAPTER
17

I let the other guys handle the talking. I love playing.

—
A
NDY
P
ETTITTE

She’d pushed too far.

Breeanne tucked her computer under her arm, and ran after him. “Rowdy, I’m sorry.”

He didn’t look back. Disappeared into the house.

She found him in his office rummaging through his desk. She closed the door behind her. He didn’t look at her. Her stomach slunk into her throat.

“Did you hear me? I said I’m sorry.”

Frowning, he dug deeper into the drawer.

“I pushed you to talk,” she said, “and when you opened up, I got judgmental. That wasn’t fair and I have no right to judge. Who am I to judge anyone? I’m just a spinster virgin. What do I know?”

He pulled out a stack of baseball cards, closed the drawer, sat and shuffled through them as if they were a Hoyle deck.

Sinking into the chair opposite his desk, she watched him. What was he looking for?

Rowdy found the card he was searching for, tossed it across the desk. It landed upside down in her lap.

She turned it over. “Joe Renner. Who’s he?”

“Read the card.”

“Shortstop for the Florida Marlins from 2005 to 2008.” Glanced back up at him. “And?”

“Have you ever heard that old Simon and Garfunkel song ‘Cecilia’?”

“I think so. Is it the one about a guy who is making love to his girlfriend one afternoon and he gets up to go to the bathroom and when he comes back she’s with another guy?”

“That’s the one.”

“So . . . Laila and Joe Renner?”

“In Paris.”

Sympathy for him pushed at the seams of her heart, in a way that she found alarming, and she rubbed her chest with the heel of her palm, shook her head. “No, Rowdy, no.”

“Two in the morning Laila gets a craving for quiche from an all-night restaurant on rue St. Dominique where we’d gone earlier in the week. It was halfway across town, but I went because it made her happy.”

“Aw, dammit. I am so sorry I pried.”

“I came back to the hotel. I had just stepped off the elevator, carrying quiche Lorraine, whistling ‘King of the Road,’ because life was good and I was in Paris with a pretty girl.”

Breeanne tensed, gripped the arms of the chair, and leaned forward, dreading to hear what he was going to say next.

“And there in the middle of the night, our hotel room door opens and out saunters Joe Renner with a shit-eating grin on his face as he zipped up his pants.”

She longed to plug her ears, but she had started this. She had to see it through.

“Renner takes one look at me and lights off for the stairs, running faster than he ever ran bases.” Rowdy paused. “That enough detail for you, Breezy?”

“That bitch!” Breeanne smacked the desk with her fist, sending the pencil holder jumping.

“Simmer down, sweetheart, it was almost ten years ago.” He chuckled. “Laila was playing by the rules I set up. No strings. No commitments. No emotional attachment. Keeping things light and easy. How could I blame her for playing by my rules?”

“The woman lacked decorum. She sent you on a fool’s mission so she could cuckold you.”

“Cuckold?”

“Traditionally, the term refers to the husband of a flagrant adulteress. I used it in this case because she was damn brazen with her cheating. Why didn’t she just suggest a threesome?”

“You’ve got strange ideas about me, Breezy. Just because I like to have fun and enjoy spending time with women, doesn’t mean that I’m up for anything. I might not be into long-term commitments, but when I’m with a woman, I’m with her and only her. She, and she alone, is my focus.” His hot gaze sizzled. “Got it?”

“Got it.” Her hands were trembling. “Still . . . for Laila to go all ‘Cecilia’ on you? Uncool. Totally uncool.”

He shrugged it away as if he were rinsing soap off his back in the shower. “I should have known something was up. Laila liked taking risks and having sex in places where there was a chance of getting caught.”

The idea of making love outdoors thrilled her. Then again, the idea of making love anywhere thrilled her. “Name places where you guys had adventuresome sex.”

“We did it in the ladies’ restroom at the Louvre. You can put that part in the book, but do me a favor and leave out the Joe Renner thing.”

“Whatever you say. But Laila deserves to have her dirty laundry aired.”

“To tell the truth, it would probably make her day.”