Strike Out: Mustangs Baseball #6 (17 page)

***

He was still riding high after more interviews than he could count and accepting congratulations from his teammates when he was informed Hannah was waiting in the guest lounge. He rushed through his shower, dressing in record time. He couldn’t imagine why she was here, unless something had happened to one of his family members. They all loved his ex-wife and kept in touch with her. If there was bad news to be delivered, and they couldn’t come themselves, they’d send her. The knot of fear in his stomach turned to confusion when she greeted him with an exuberant smile.

Before he could stop her, she launched herself at him. “Royce!”

Her body pressed up against his was familiar, and at the same time felt all wrong. As gently as possible, he removed her arms from around his neck.

“Hannah.” He set her on her feet. “What are you doing here?”

“I needed to see you.” Once, those words would have been enough for him, but she hadn’t needed to see him in over a year.

“I’ll be back in Dallas in a couple of days. Couldn’t you have waited until then?”

“Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“When have I not been happy to see you?” He was being truthful, but he’d hoped to spend tonight with the woman who’d made his comeback possible. There was no hope for it, though. Hannah had come all this way for a reason. Her elation ebbed, replaced by a serious expression he’d seen too many times in the months leading up to their divorce.

“Can we go somewhere and talk?”

“I’ve got to go back to the hotel with the team.”

“Can’t you come with me? I have a rental car.”

He didn’t really want to be alone with his ex, but he sensed what she wanted from him was something he no longer wanted to give. A discussion away from the hotel where the team was staying would probably be for the best. “Let me tell Doyle I have a ride.”

When had she become so clingy? Because she practically wrapped herself around him as they walked, he had little choice but to swing his arm around her waist as they made their way to the parking lot. Once they were on the road, he directed her to a family-style restaurant in the opposite direction from his downtown hotel.

“We could just go to your room and order room service if you’re hungry.”

“I have a connecting room this time,” he countered. “No privacy to speak of, even with the doors closed between us.” Not to mention, he had no intention of being in a room with Hannah and a bed. Rumors flew faster than fighter jets, and since he had his game back, he didn’t need the media speculating it was due to him getting back together with his ex.

“My hotel, then.”

Any question as to why she had come all this way to see him fled. In Dallas, she’d have no way to corner him in a room with a bed. He wasn’t going to go to her place, and she couldn’t get past the gate at his. He hated to play hardball with her, but she’d left him no choice. “No. Whatever you have to say to me will be said in a public place.”

A few minutes later, she pulled into the parking lot and cut the engine. Royce unfastened his seat belt and reached for the door latch, but her hand on his left arm stayed him.

“I don’t want to go inside.” Once upon a time, the pout on her face would have swayed him to do anything to make her smile again, but now, it only made him angry.

Resigned to having it out with her in the car, he sat back in his seat. “What
do
you want?”

“I made a huge mistake, Royce. I never should have asked for a divorce.”

Hope flared bright for a split second, the flame dying as quickly as it had sparked. A month ago—no, two weeks ago, he would have given just about anything to hear those words from Hannah’s lips. But not now. It had taken a brainy scientist with a dream to show him what had really been wrong in his marriage. He and Hannah weren’t suited to each other. The woman had no ambition. He’d convinced himself they’d grown apart, but the reality was, they’d never been all that great together in the first place. As far back as high school, he recalled always being in charge of their relationship. He’d been the one coaxing her to make good grades so she could go to college with him, but when he’d won an athletic scholarship, she’d gone along with him, only she never registered for classes.

He faced a truth he’d been unwilling to see in all the years they’d been together. Hannah was lazy. “Are you still taking classes?”

Her brows knitted as she processed the change of subject. “No. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to major in.”

There was no way he could suppress the sigh that carried over a year of guilt with it. His career hadn’t held hers back. She’d never had any intention of having a career of her own.

“I see.” And he did—with startling clarity. Hannah was a taker. She’d taken nearly ten years of his life and a chunk of cash he’d given out of guilt during the divorce. “How bad is it?”

“How bad is what?”

“Never mind.” He opened the door. The overhead light came on, casting Hannah’s face in harsh shadow. She wasn’t happy with him, but he’d grown used to the sentiment. “Your financial mess is no longer my problem.”

He leaned back in before shutting the door. “We’re through, Hannah. The divorce was final months ago.” Giving the door a shove to close it, he strode to the front door of the restaurant. He’d have a cup of coffee while he waited for a cab to pick him up. With a little luck, Tricia would still be awake when he got back to the hotel. If not…. He smiled, thinking of ways he could wake her body and her mind.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Tricia squirmed in her seat. In the early innings, she’d been all nerves and barely able to sit still long enough to follow the data streaming in. Only her belief that today was the day Royce would find the groove he’d lost months ago kept her in her seat. He’d been so close in the first inning. Like planets aligning, she saw the graphs merge one by one until only two were left. He hadn’t been maximizing his thigh muscles.

Now into the seventh inning, he had eight strikeouts and a total of two hits for the game. Knowing he was done and the manager would go to the bullpen for the final two innings, his teammates mobbed him as he returned to the dugout. While her laptop was powering down, she took the opportunity to wipe tears from her eyes as she bent to retrieve the old canvas tote she used as a computer bag.

The special pass hanging around her neck would allow her access to the lounge where family and invited friends gathered to wait for the players, but since Royce hadn’t issued an invitation, she decided to wait for him near the staff exit. There was no need to hurry. After the game he’d just had, there were bound to be reporters lined up to interview him.

Realizing she hadn’t eaten since early morning, Tricia stopped at one of the snack bars. The vendors had just quit serving beer a few minutes before she got in line, so she ordered a soda to go with her hot dog. Royce would probably want to celebrate with champagne anyway, so forgoing the beer was probably for the best. She found a high-top table where she could watch the remainder of the game on an overhead monitor. She wanted to smile, but kept her expression neutral as hometown fans began to stream out of the stadium after the Mustangs added two runs to their total in the top of the eighth inning, virtually assuring a win.

Almost giddy with excitement, she ordered popcorn and nibbled on it until the game ended. Only then did she make her way to the heart of the stadium to wait for Royce.

Tricia chose a spot off to the side of the player exit, close enough to make out the faces of the people leaving, but not so close Security would wonder who she was or why she was standing there. Fans weren’t a problem as long as they kept their distance. One by one the Mustangs’ players filed onto the bus waiting for them. When it pulled away, her heart sank. She’d missed him somehow. She was about to head to her rental she’d left in the adjacent parking lot when a familiar silhouette moved into the light.

Royce. Only he wasn’t alone. He had his arm around the waist of a petite, dark-haired woman. Too young to be his mother, and from the way she clung to him, not a sister either. Tricia stepped back into the shadows so he wouldn’t see her. The couple seemed oblivious to their surroundings. Nothing could have brought home the fact she’d meant nothing to Royce more than watching him give his undivided attention to another woman.

He had every right to celebrate with anyone he wanted. She told herself she was happy for Royce, and she was, but deep down inside, she felt as if he’d ripped her heart out and stomped on it.

He didn’t need her anymore. It didn’t take a neuroscientist to figure out what that meant. She knew getting involved with any of her test subjects was wrong, but when it came to Royce Stryker, her body had overruled her brain.

She had no one to blame but herself. Everything that had happened between them was her fault, from the first blow job to the nights she’d spent in his bed. It wasn’t his fault she’d given more than her body and asked nothing in return. He’d never offered more than physical release, and she’d been too weak to say no.

Tomorrow, she would be back in Dallas, reassessing her project, trying to find a reason to continue. She couldn’t tell anyone about her success with Royce. Doing so would invite questions neither of them wanted to answer. No self-respecting researcher took advantage of a test subject the way she had, and Royce certainly didn’t want to tell team management he’d been fucking her.

Fucking. The word was like a hammer, shattering her heart into a million pieces. She’d been nothing more than a willing body for his pleasure while she’d gone and fallen in love with him.

Tricia returned to the hotel, packed her things. She needed to put as much distance between her and Royce as possible, and do it quick.

The trip home seemed to take a lifetime. She watched reruns of the post-game interviews on the television in the airport. Royce’s comeback was big news, even for the local reporters who lamented about it happening in their town, against their team. The national news outlets speculated on the Mustangs’ chances at winning the pennant this season, one even going so far as to predict a trip to the World Series now that Strikeout was back in action.

Every time she saw his smiling face on the screen another piece of her shattered heart broke off. But as painful as it was to watch the coverage, she couldn’t tear her eyes away. In a perfect world, she would have celebrated with him, and he would have told the world how her ground-breaking research saved his career. But this wasn’t a perfect world.

She used to imagine what it would be like to have the eyes of the world on her, to be acclaimed as a shining star in the world of neuromuscular research. She’d wanted to rise to the top of her profession, but more importantly, she had wanted to help people.

Now, all she wanted was for Royce to hold her in his arms, to tell her she meant something to him. Something beyond a means to an end.

But that’s all she was to him. He got what he wanted from her. He had his career back. He’d moved on, and so would she. It was time to see what, if anything, she could salvage from the data she’d gathered.

Arriving home in the wee hours of the morning, she texted Tony Ramirez to let him know she wouldn’t be working with him until he returned to Dallas. She left off telling him she wasn’t sure they would continue even then. What did she have anyway? After weeks of working with the two players, she had a success she couldn’t tell anyone about and a briefcase full of charts and data on another player who seemed to be perfection on the field. There wasn’t a scientific researcher in the world who would say she had enough to warrant continued study.

***

Where the fuck is she?
Royce pounded on Tricia’s hotel room door until a man in a neighboring room poked his head out and threatened to call security.

His life was back on track, and it was all because of Dr. Reed. Throughout the interviews following the game, he kept expecting her to show her face, but she never had. They’d discussed the reasons he couldn’t acknowledge her part in his comeback, if he ever got there, but still, he thought she would have wanted to be there with him, to share the triumph. How he got there would have to be their secret, but he still wanted her there.

Backtracking to the lobby, he approached the front desk. “I’m looking for Dr. Reed in room 1416. She’s not answering her door.” Royce drummed his fingers on the marble counter while the woman wearing a black hotel uniform and a brass pin that said, “Rhonda - Assistant Manager,” typed. Stopped to read. Typed some more. Every passing minute was another he wasn’t with Tricia.

“Dr. Reed checked out earlier this evening.”

Panic gripped his gut. She had to be here. She had to be. He needed her. “There must be some mistake. We’re here. The team is in town for three more days. Check again.”

The woman shook her head. “There’s no mistake, sir.”

“Did she give a reason? Was there something wrong with her room? Maybe she went to a different hotel.”

Rhonda’s eyes shifted from side to side as she scanned the computer screen in front of her. “That doesn’t appear to be the case, sir. No complaints were registered. Had there been a problem, we would have moved her to a different room.”

“Then, where the fuck is she?” There weren’t many people in the lobby, but it seemed every one of them froze at his outburst. Great. All he needed was for someone to post a video on the Internet of him going nuclear on a hapless hotel clerk hours after one of the best games of his career. He flattened his hands on the counter and stepped back an inch. Taking a deep breath then letting it out, he forced himself to appear calm on the outside. “I’m sorry. I was out of line. Please accept my apology.”

He couldn’t breathe. Acting like everything was fine when his insides were twisted in knots was going to asphyxiate him before he got back to his room. In the elevator, he closed his eyes and went through the mental exercises Tricia had taught him, only in reverse. He willed each muscle group to relax until the paralysis in his lungs eased. Making a scene in a five-star hotel in the middle of the night wouldn’t help him find Tricia.

Back in his room, he dug around in his game bag for his cell phone. Maybe she’d left him a message explaining her disappearance. He stared at the blank screen. Nothing. No messages. No missed calls. He dialed her number, pacing the room while the signal bounced from tower to satellite to tower, trying to locate her phone. When the connection went straight to voicemail, he swore under his breath.

“Patricia. It’s me, Royce. Where the…? Call me.”

He chucked the phone at the bed. It bounced once before landing on the floor with a thud. She would call. She would explain herself. She had to. He was dying inside. If anything happened to her…. No. That didn’t bear thinking about. It was late. She had simply changed hotels for whatever reason, and she’d be at the stadium tomorrow. He’d catch up with her then.

Suddenly, he was too tired to go on. The adrenaline he’d been running on had finally worked its way out of his system. He ached from head to toe—not an uncommon thing after hours of physical exertion followed by more time being the personality the media expected of him. Exhausted, he stripped and headed to the shower.

Hot water helped ease all the aches but one—the one he’d hoped to ease in Tricia’s arms. He missed her with an intensity he wouldn’t have thought possible. From the very first moment he met her, he’d told himself to stay away from her, but keeping his distance proved impossible. She was so damn sexy. He loved the dance of intelligence behind those blue eyes of hers, loved driving the brainy scientist to the point where she couldn’t form coherent sentences. Yeah, he loved her body and her mind, but he loved her heart more.

Ah, fuck.

Royce braced his hands on the shower wall and dipped his head, letting the water stream over his head and down his back. His balls hung heavy between his legs like ballast for his engorged cock.

When had he fallen in love with Tricia?

He thought back to their first meeting and the way she’d teased him about his aversion to blood tests. She hadn’t been intimidated or impressed by his status as a professional athlete. All she’d wanted from him had been his body. A groan rose from his chest. She’d gotten what she wanted. The stunt in the storage room, going down on her knees—she’d taken him by surprise then taken his clubhouse virginity.

Her passion for her job stuck a fork in his heart. When she’d explained about how her research could potentially help wounded soldiers and others with catastrophic injuries, he’d fallen hard.

Now that she’d accomplished her goal, gotten him back in the game, was she through with him? Had he been nothing more than a lab rat to her?

It wasn’t possible. There had been more between them than great sex and research. The way she’d responded to his touch, trusted him, gave her body and her orgasms even when he behaved like an ass. He’d never forget the night he took her to his house and spanked her. Fuck, she’d been magnificent, and he hadn’t done anything to deserve her trust.

What they had was real. He knew it, but did she? He’d never told her he loved her, and she hadn’t said the words to him, though her actions indicated deeper feelings. He’d only known her a short time, but he knew she didn’t sleep around. He hadn’t been her first, but her passionate responses had been sweet, as if she were discovering the wonders of sex for the first time.

He’d been in a state of semi-arousal ever since she placed her lips against his thighs earlier. After the game, anticipation of spending the rest of the night buried deep inside her had run in the back of his mind, fueling his need to get through the interviews as quickly as possible. He couldn’t deny his physical desire to be with her, not with his cock demanding attention, but besides his baser needs, he wanted to talk to her. He wanted to tell her how it felt to be back in the game, wanted to share his euphoria with the one person who knew what it had taken to get there. Tonight’s success was as much hers as it was his, even if they couldn’t tell anyone how it had come about.

Damn Hannah.
If she hadn’t waylaid him, he might have gotten back to the hotel in time to stop Tricia from leaving.

He’d talk to her tomorrow, but waiting wasn’t going to work for him. He wanted to talk to her now—no, two hours ago—before his ex had waltzed in and stolen the glory from the evening.

But instead of holding Tricia in his arms, instead of kissing her, instead of sharing his triumph then making love to her, he was standing in a rapidly cooling shower, his hand wrapped around his dick, easing the pain the only way he could.

***

“Have you seen Dr. Reed?” Royce stopped Tony in the hallway outside the clubhouse door.

“Nah. I don’t think she’s here. She texted me last night, said she’d see me when we get back to Dallas.” He waved Royce away from the doorway. “We need to talk.”