Perfect Pitch (6 page)

She was a musician, at heart. Thinking about tone kept her from speculating about far more dangerous things—the heat of his hand on hers, the dangerous promise of that flick of his tongue.

You’re the one in control here.
No man had ever said that to her before. No man had ever trusted her that much.

And truth be told, she’d never trusted a man enough to take him up on such an open-ended offer. Sure, she’d had her share of boyfriends. She’d dated from junior year in high school on, much to her mother’s worried chagrin. The day Sam donned her Summer Queen crown, she’d had an escort waiting at the edge of the stage, a guy who had thought the entire pageant process was a riot.

He hadn’t been so impressed by the restrictions after she took on her title. Wasn’t willing to give up Friday and Saturday nights at the local bars. Couldn’t accept that she was devoting a year of her life to a job that required her to stay away from public drinking, from public displays of affection—all so that she could make her own dream come true, could bring Musicall to classrooms across the state. He’d walked away nine months ago, and she hadn’t missed him once.

“I’m boring you,” DJ said.

“No!”

“You always smile and nod when a guy talks about slash lines.”

“Truth be told, I don’t actually know what a slash line is. But I can imagine.”

He laughed. “Fair enough. Why don’t we leave it that way, so I can think of myself as a man of mystery. Help me out. Tell me more about this whole Summer Queen thing. What got you into beauty pageants in the first place?”

“At first, it seemed like a good way to pay off my student loans. The crown comes with a major scholarship.”

“So it’s not all high heels and swimsuits?”

She faked throwing her napkin at him. “The Summer Fair has been around for over eighty years. Our work helps local farmers, and we spotlight small businesses in the area.”

He held up his hands in mock surrender. “You sound like the local Chamber of Commerce!”

She couldn’t let well enough alone. “It’s not just business. My position as Summer Queen gives me a platform to promote things I really believe in.”

“Such as?”

He leaned closer as he asked the question. He really
was
interested. And why not? As the father of a musically gifted son, he was the perfect audience for what she had to say. “Musicall. It’s a program to bring music education back to our schools.”

She caught her breath, waiting to see what he would say. Musicall was so important to her. Choir classes in high school had been her safety net—the only place she’d really felt at home as she started in her tenth school, freshman year, and her eleventh school, her junior year. Her singing had given her an outlet at the most difficult times of her life, the times and places she’d felt most alone, most out of touch.

“‘Music education’,” DJ said, “Like band and choir?”

“Yes, but we need to have classes for younger kids, too. Start them off in kindergarten, and keep teaching them as they get older.”

DJ shrugged. “They have a lot to fit into a school day.”

“And music should be part of that! It complements everything else they learn. Music is based on math—the kids can learn their fractions while they’re figuring out whole notes, half notes, quarter notes. It fits into reading, because songs are just poems set to music. It can even be part of science, studying how sound waves travel, how vibrations work.” And then, without realizing she was going to, she said, “Take Daniel for example.”

“Trey?” He looked surprised, glancing at the velvet curtains as if he expected the boy to be summoned by the speaking of his name.

She nodded. “He’d be a great candidate for Musicall. We’re setting up an after-school program for elementary and middle school. Kids participate all school year, and then we’ll have two-week camps during the summer. With his beautiful voice, he’d be perfect!”

“How do you know that?”

“I heard him today. During the seventh-inning stretch.”

He laughed. “Sure, he can sing with a crowd. But when he grows up, he’ll be on the field, not in the stands.”

“What if he doesn’t want to play baseball? What if he’d rather sing?”

DJ shook his head, as if she’d suggested Daniel walk on the moon instead of running a hundred-yard dash. “Any son of mine is going to play ball.”

The words were flat. Not open for debate. She stared in shock, wondering how this hard-bitten automaton could have instantaneously replaced the funny, sexy man she’d been talking to only a moment before.

But DJ’s refusal to yield shouldn’t be a surprise. She’d seen the man correct Daniel’s use of his right hand. He’d told her, right up front, that his own father had forced a similar change onto him.

Still, she couldn’t leave well enough alone. “He could do both,” she insisted. “Play baseball
and
sing.”

“He’s got Little League practice four times a week,” DJ said flatly. “Not to mention his chores at the ballpark.”

But what does
Daniel
want to do?
Sam started to ask. She’d heard the boy sing. She’d seen the smile on his face.

Everything she’d learned in her tenure as Summer Queen told her she had to be diplomatic in her protest. She had to respect DJ’s opposition, accept that he knew best for his own son, even as she offered up a possible alternative. She should use her smile, her easy grace, to connect with him again, to make him understand that Musicall could be every bit as enriching, every bit as important—

He was completely shut off from her. More distant than he’d been at any other point during the evening.

“Dad!” Daniel shouted, pushing his way through the velvet curtains. Sam had never been more thrilled to hear a child’s voice. “Aunt Mary let me help her make a strawberry pie! The first of the season! And we get to take the whole thing home with us!”

* * *

Great
, DJ thought.
A pieful of sugar. Just what the kid needs.

He reached out to high five his son, though. The boy couldn’t have chosen a better moment to bull his way back into the room. Even now, the kid’s chatter was dispersing the distinct chill that had taken over the room.

What was DJ supposed to say to Sam, though? There was no possible way Trey was going to attend her fancy music camp. The kid had to learn some discipline. When DJ was his age, he’d already been throwing from a mound. He’d even started working on his curve ball, despite his father’s admonitions to protect his arm.

DJ might have disappointed his own father, but he wouldn’t let that happen to his son. Trey was going to have a Hall of Fame career that would make the legendary Dan Thomas sit up and pay attention—if that was the last thing DJ did.

Samantha—
Sam
—wasn’t a fool. She followed his lead and let the tension drift away, focusing instead on Trey’s excitement. She declined her own slice of pie, but DJ felt a proprietary pride when she helped herself to a few bites from his plate. She sipped her chamomile tea like it was some sort of fancy after-dinner drink.

Trey kept things light and easy as they finished their meal. DJ was reluctant as he paid the bill—but only because he didn’t want the evening to end. He’d had more fun sitting here than he had in months of spring training.

And it wasn’t just the superior food. He’d seen the interest kindle in Sam’s eyes when he’d told her she was in charge. He’d registered her initial surprise, but he’d be damned if she hadn’t started to think about a few ways to use the power he had willingly placed in her hands.

Or maybe that was just his wishful thinking.

Wishful thinking
was more than a little distracting as he drove Sam home. She offered directions tentatively, her voice soft enough that he had to lean toward her more than once. He suspected she wasn’t used to bringing strangers to her doorstep.

Pulling into her driveway, DJ automatically surveyed the neighborhood. This was a quiet part of town; the small homes were neat and tidy, with their clapboard siding and well-maintained lawns. Alleys must cut behind the houses; the only car on the street was a black SUV, a couple of doors down.

DJ shoved the gearshift into Park and said over his shoulder to Trey, “You wait here, buddy.” He had crossed around the car to Sam’s door before she could protest that he didn’t need to bother.

He stayed close to her as they walked along the narrow flagstone path to her front door. The porch light was off; she hadn’t planned on getting home after dark. Under the moonlight, her copper hair gleamed like a slow-flowing river. He folded his fingers into an easy fist, reluctantly resisting the urge to gather up the strands, to cup his palm against the back of her neck.

“Hey,” she said, when they stood at the top of the three neatly-laid brick steps.

He waited.

“I didn’t mean to upset you back in the restaurant. You know more about what’s right for Daniel than I ever could.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said automatically. She hadn’t meant any harm. She just didn’t know the whole story, didn’t know how many years DJ had spent trying to make his own father proud.

“Um, thanks for dinner.”
 

Dammit! He recognized that tone in her voice. She was nervous. Uncertain. And the worst thing was, he didn’t know how he could make things right between them.

If she’d been any other woman, he would have made his feelings perfectly clear. He would have tangled his hands in her hair, slanted his lips over hers, given her the type of kiss he’d wanted to give her since the first minute Ormond tossed that newspaper onto the bench in the locker room.

But he’d already told her the ball was in her court. If he even shook her hand, he’d be breaking the contract he’d put between them.

But then, impossibly, she was moving closer to him. One hand brushed against his jaw, the long fingers tracing another eloquent, unnecessary apology. When he caught his breath, swallowing the honey and cinnamon scent of her, she closed the distance between them. She tilted her head up, sweetly, chastely, and he pressed his lips against hers, as cool and respectful as he’d managed to be before the game, in front of all those cameras.

Despite his most honorable intentions now, his dick leaped up, refusing to accept the possibility of a world where it wouldn’t be summoned to immediate service. Sam wasn’t a fool. She had to feel his immediate response. She laughed deep in her throat and—impossibly—wriggled closer to him.

His fingers closed around her hips, warning her, holding her steady. She pulled back just enough to look into his eyes. There were questions in her gaze, a hint of indecision.

But she was the one who stepped closer to the unmistakable tent in his jeans. She was the one who slipped
her
hand behind his neck. She was the one who tightened her fingers in his hair, pulling him back into a kiss that was a thousand degrees hotter than before.

She teased his lips with hers, urging him to hold her closer. Her tongue was quicksilver fast, darting out as if she’d discovered a new toy. He growled at the invitation and shifted his lips to the sensitive hollow beneath her ear. She moaned—a sound that he’d only heard before in a bedroom—and her head lolled back, giving him better access, exposing the long line of her throat.

Flash!

The light was so bright, he was blinded. He slammed his eyes closed, even as Sam stiffened in his hands. She cried out, and she tried to pull away, but his instinct was to wrap his arms around her, to protect her with his body.

Flash!

Another brilliant stroke of light, and his hormone-staggered brain finally recognized the flash of a camera. He heard the click then, braced for the next explosion just a second before it came.

“Goddammit!” he shouted, even as a shadow detached itself from the darker shapes of the shrubs beside the front porch. “Come back here!” He could have thrown himself down the steps, but that would have meant shoving Sam aside, tossing her away.

A car door slammed, and the SUV came to life with a roar. The headlights were nowhere near as bright as the camera flash had been. Tires screeched as the driver took the corner at breakneck speed. DJ could do nothing but stare as the vehicle disappeared into the cool April night.

Getting to First!
shouted the headline.

The
News & Observer
featured a thumbnail picture on the front page, sending readers over to the Life section. There, a huge photo occupied most of the space above the fold—Sam’s face turned up to DJ’s as their lips locked. Her eyes were closed, and his left hand was splayed across the back of her head. They looked like a classic couple on the cover of a trashy romance novel.

The newspaper’s wittiest writers had summarized a dozen scandals for past beauty queens, ranging from multiple drunk driving busts to shoplifting convictions to becoming pregnant in the middle of a reign. The paper concluded that Sam being caught kissing a sexy, unmarried baseball player was hardly the worst thing that could have happened.

But Sam knew the truth. In the world of the Summer Fair, a picture spoke infinitely more than a thousand words. Judith Burroughs wasn’t going to care that Sam hadn’t been intoxicated, that she hadn’t stolen property, that there was no possible way she could be pregnant.

Sam’s worst fears were confirmed by a phone call at seven o’clock sharp. That made two mornings in the past week that she’d been responsible for getting Judith out of bed before noon. Somehow, she was pretty sure the consequences would be worse for a second violation.

Sam wasn’t disappointed. Walking through the hallways of the Summer Fair offices, she tried to hold her head high, but she couldn’t overlook the clusters of gossiping staff members. Two people here. Three over there. As Sam drew near, the whispers trailed off. One enterprising woman managed to change the tone of her speech dramatically, pretending to deliver the punchline to a joke.

But Sam knew she was the only real punchline that morning.

Judith was waiting in her office.
 

As the director of the Summer Fair stood, the reek of cigarette smoke wafted off her suit. Sam would have been grateful to see an ashtray in the vicinity—a few good draughts of nicotine might take the bleeding edge off Judith’s fury. But no cigarettes were visible. No Bloody Marys, either. Instead, a half-filled coffee cup glared from Judith’s desk, the woman’s blood-red lipstick contrasting wildly with the black logo of the Fair.