Fair Play (7 page)

For the briefest moment he hesitated in his stride. “If I were you, I’d tread carefully, Wheels, or you might find yourself in a situation you can’t handle.”

Shame made my stomach queasy and brought heat to my face. “Is that what you think happened? You think I toyed with Kyle Pritchard, led him on in some way?”

Noah stopped just as we reached the outside of the cage. His face softened. “Ashlyn, no.” He reached out to me. Fingers grazed my hair.

“Whatever, Noah. Let’s do this.” I dodged away from his touch, the shame shifting over to anger. Being mad at Noah felt awful, but was way better than that sickening, queasy feeling that had rocked my system seconds ago. I headed out to the batter’s cage, then trotted up to the pitcher’s mound.

Once we were in the cage, Noah got out a batting glove, bat, and a helmet, while I did one-armed windmills to warm up my pitching arm. While I was no Olympian like Jenny Finch, I’d been All District in fast-pitch in high school. Still, lacking a bit in self-confidence, I would never have had the nerve to unseat Britney Helmsworth as starting pitcher my tenth-grade year had it not been for Noah’s encouragement.

“How long has it been since you tossed a ball?” he asked.

I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and shrugged.

That wasn’t true. I knew exactly how long. To the day.

“Your grandmother’s funeral,” he said.

Damn him for remembering. And for reminding me there were times he wasn’t a controlling jerk.

“You still miss her, don’t you?”

An adult who thought you were never too old to stomp through mud puddles, gaze at clouds, or chase rainbows? What’s not to miss? I threw a couple of practice balls and simply replied, “Yup.”

The same day we buried her, Noah and I hit the cage, too. He’d found me huddled up in a corner of the cemetery, crying. Without saying a word, he’d grabbed me by the hand and led me to his car. Too upset, I hadn’t argued—had just let him drive us to the batting cages. There, neither of us talked. Just rock, fire, and swing. Because right or wrong, this was where I worked through my issues.

I brushed the unwelcome memories aside and kicked the dirt on the pitcher’s mound. “Batter up.”

Noah stepped into position. The first ball crossed the plate so high and outside it wasn’t worth the effort of a cut. The second was inside, missing Noah’s kneecap by an inch. By the time I got halfway through my bucket, I’d found my groove. They weren’t all strikes, but they were hittable. And Noah didn’t hold back. The effort he put into his swing made it obvious.

“Are we going to talk about Pritchard now?” Noah asked.

“Keep your eye on the ball.” Ignoring the bile now in the back of my throat, I threw another pitch. And another. But I could no longer keep Kyle’s face out of my mind. I kept sending pitches at the plate.

Only now, with each pitch, I heard his whisper in my ear, “Classy girls do it on the first date.” Felt his hands on my waist, moving lower, even as I protested.

Shudders rolled down my spine.

Dammit all, I’d finally gotten everything under control that night. When I’d stopped struggling, Kyle’s hold on me had loosened. I’d been biding my time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to deliver the death kick right to his crotch. But it didn’t work out that way.

Noah had arrived.

I hadn’t been allowed to protect myself. Noah had done it all for me.

I wound up to throw another pitch, Kyle’s face a target in my mind.

“What’re you thinking about, Wheels?” Noah asked, then swung again as the pitch came at him. The ball ricocheted off the top of the cage five feet behind me.

I grabbed another ball and went through the motions. The ball sailed past his head. Then another, which went wide. “What makes you think I’m thinking?”

“You’re losing control. Keep your eyes on the target.”

“What makes you think I’m not?” I threw again. Damn. That ball would’ve smacked his thigh had he not jumped out of the way.

“Are you trying to hit me?” he asked.

Without answering, I sent another, which curved outside the plate. When Noah connected, I had to jump behind the screen to keep from getting my head taken off.

“Back atcha,” he said. Then, bat in hand, he charged the mound.

Irritated, I took my glove off and threw it on the ground. “Why is it in the cage you treat me as an equal, but outside, you think I’m some weak little girl who can’t hold her own?”

“You have it all wrong.”

“No. I have it all right. Stop treating me like I’m seven-fucking-teen.”

Noah ripped off his helmet, threw it against the other side of the cage. The bat quickly followed, hitting the fence with a clank and landing with a clatter. But this time, after his burst of temper, Noah turned to me instead of turning away. His fingers gripped my shoulders.

“Goddamn it, Ashlyn, I didn’t tell you about Pritchard because I didn’t want to see in your face what I just saw. On that mound you were reliving every moment, analyzing every detail. I never wanted you to have to go back to that place with him. Not even in your head.” He pulled me hard against him. His hand wrapped around the back of my neck. “I shouldn’t have left you alone that day,” he said.

“It’s not your fault, Noah.”

Our foreheads touched. “I’m sorry, Ashlyn. I’m—”

Willing to do anything to stop his apology, my lips covered his and held. One second blended into the next, and the next, and the next, until finally his lips softened beneath mine. And then his lips began to move, slowly coaxing my mouth open. His tongue, tangled sweetly with mine. But what made this kiss different from the others was that it wasn’t about desire, or sex, or even Andy and Caroline. This was about him and me. It was also about comfort.

It went on like that between us for what seemed like endless minutes. Until Noah pulled back.

“We can’t keep doing this, Ash.”

My arms, wrapped around his waist, weren’t ready to let go. “I know.”

“You’re off-limits to me.”

“Because of my brother, or because of the—”

He cut me off from asking him if it was because of the past and instead kissed the sensitive spot just below my earlobe. “Mmm-hmm.”

Breathing stilted, I tilted my head to give him better access. “I don’t tell Quinn what to do in his personal life. He doesn’t tell me what to do in mine.”

“This is different.”

“How?”

“It just is.”

My hand moved to Noah’s chest. “Help me find Kyle Pritchard.”

He pulled away from me then, albeit reluctantly. “No.”

“I just want to talk to him. Alone.” I needed that. Needed to regain the strength I’d lost that night when Kyle had come after me and Noah had gone after him. Leaving me helpless.

“No way in hell.”

“I need to do this, Noah. It’s not your decision.”

He gave one tight nod, but didn’t meet my eyes. He wasn’t listening to me. Noah would never listen.

Chapter Eight

Noah

Ashlyn’s nostrils flared. Getting as far away from me as she could within the confines of the batting cage, she began gathering up softballs and dropping them in the five-gallon bucket. “If you won’t help me look for Kyle, you know I’ll do it on my own.”

Now that I didn’t want. “You need to focus on the play, Wheels,” I said, helping to collect the equipment. “Too much is at stake for you to get distracted.”

“So what? I should just leave Kyle to you?”

“Did I say that?”

I ducked when she threw a ball at my head.

“You are infuriating, Noah. I’ve known you since I was a kid. You didn’t have to say it. I can read your mind.”

I needed to find some way to appease her, to keep her from doing something rash, and to get back the peace we’d found only minutes before. But damn if she wasn’t some kind of fireball. And damn if that didn’t turn me on.

I bent down and tossed the last of the balls her way, including the one she’d aimed at my head. I needed to stall Ashlyn until I could find something on Pritchard to run him out of town. I’d deal with her anger later. “Listen, Wheels, let me look for Pritchard. We’ll figure out where to go from there. The festival’s still three weeks away. He probably came into town for a day or two to check things out, then left.”

I should’ve felt bad about not telling her he’d already been found. And that I knew for a fact he’d spent the better part of yesterday looking at Internet porn. But I justified withholding the information by chalking it up to protecting her safety. I already knew what he was capable of. I only needed a little more time to get him out of town.

“Fine,” she said in that tone women use to tell men it’s anything but. “I’ll give you three days. That’s more than enough time for a man of your resourcefulness to track him down…even if he’s not here.”

Knowing Ashlyn, I’d better get him out of town quick. Because those three days she’d just agreed to? I highly doubted she’d honor the promise.

…

Sitting in my office two hours later, I tried to focus on drafting an e-mail to the city council regarding my deal with Cambridge Hotels, but hell if I could concentrate on anything but Ashlyn. It was the age-old conflict of wanting what you can’t have, and it began long before Andy Rich and Caroline had taken root from the seeds of her fertile imagination. I’d wanted her since the day I’d found her on my doorstep after she’d run away from home.

I’d been friends with Quinn ever since our freshman year at Columbia. Quinn would bring me to Dallas on school breaks since I’d do anything to get away from my father. I’d watched as their father held the reins tight on his only daughter. Hell, he hadn’t just held the reins tight—he nearly had a strangle hold.

When she’d showed up in New York that day, from the outside looking in, I was only surprised she hadn’t run away from home sooner.

The girl had brass balls, that was for sure—which was part of what I admired about her.

My cell phone vibrated with a call. Quinn again.

“Did she break your kneecaps?” he asked.

I’d called him on the way out to the cage to meet Ashlyn, explaining her discovery.

“I’m still in one piece.” For now.

“How’d she find out?”

I had no idea, but it didn’t matter. “The point is she knows he’s here, and she’s given me three days to find him.” I quickly concluded the e-mail and hit send. One more step in the Double Shot’s new direction.

“Let me make sure I have this straight. She knows he’s there, but not that you know where he is?”

“That’s right,” I said. “Which means we need to move soon on phase two before she accidentally runs into him on the street.”

I heard Quinn sip something, coffee maybe, and then he said, “I can always download some kiddie porn onto his hard drive—so far he’s logged into four…hold on…nope, make that five barely-legal sites since two o’clock today. An anonymous tip to authorities would have him hauled away pretty quick.”

As much as I despised Pritchard, causing him to potentially do hard time for a crime he didn’t commit didn’t appeal to my sense of right and wrong. If only Ashlyn had reported his crime to the cops back then. If she had, dealing with Pritchard today would be a simple matter of appealing to the festival committee and proving a conflict of interest—a conflict she’d have police records to back up. But like so many girls who’d been in her situation, Ashlyn hadn’t wanted anyone to know.

At least Pritchard had left with more than just a slap on the wrist. In fact, he’d been carried out of my apartment semi-unconscious by his limo driver. I’d later found out he’d spent a couple of days in the hospital after an “attempted mugging.” Apparently that was the story he’d gone with.

I didn’t have time to talk about this more with Quinn. Through the video feed on the security monitor, I saw Ashlyn enter the bar.

“Sorry, Q, we’re going to have to talk later.”

After a quick goodbye, I headed down to the main floor of the Double Shot.

I found Ashlyn sitting on her usual stool at the mahogany bar, fourth from the end. She’d showered after the cage. I could tell by the ends of her hair, darker than the rest from still being wet. Her skin also had that fresh, clean glow.

Jesus. What the hell was wrong with me? Since when had I started noticing so much? And not just noticing, but committing the details of her to memory. The tiniest indention in her cheek when she smiled across the bar as Babs handed her a gin and tonic. The smatter of freckles I knew patterned her nose. The way her grin lifted the corners of her eyes. She’d always turned me on, but this awareness itched at my skin.

Soon Ashlyn would be leaving Phair for Broadway. I needed to watch myself. Now that acting out the scenes for her play had somehow opened her up to not quite hating me as much, I worried she could end up with her heart involved. And that couldn’t happen. She’d gotten too connected to me once before, and I had to make sure she didn’t again. Which meant keeping the attraction I had for her under wraps.

As Babs stood behind the counter, smoking her e-cig and chatting Ashlyn up, I didn’t go over right way. Instead, I stopped to talk to the handful of patrons who were beginning to filter in for Happy Hour. I didn’t always get to do this, but I enjoyed it when I could. In another couple of weeks, when pre-festival events were in full swing, the Double Shot would be standing-room only on most nights. But these customers who were in the bar today were the people of Phair. They were my neighbors. Some had even become my friends.

After I circled around to Ashlyn, Babs excused herself to greet customers who’d just walked in.

“You literally know everyone here,” Ashlyn said to me. “But none of them by their
actual
name.”

“Not true,” I replied, a bit surprised at how she’d been observing me. Of course Ashlyn had been listening to me. And watching. It was part of her job in writing her play. Gave her fodder to understand her character Andy Rich. Still, the knowledge did weird things to my insides. But at least she didn’t seem pissed at me over how we’d ended things at the batting cage.

I ignored her look from hell when I replaced her gin and tonic with a Diet Coke. She never could hold her liquor, and until her script was written to Lucas Marshall’s satisfaction, I considered her on the clock.

“Butch over there,” I said pointing to the right, “is actually Dr. Herman Butterfield. His wife’s name is Sally. They have two kids, one at UT, the other at Rice. Sally makes a mean apple fritter and heads up a knitting circle that makes blankets for NICU babies.” I pointed to the pair in the corner booth by the far front window. One was a distinguished-looking bald man, sitting with a frizzy-haired woman with a kind smile. “To me, he’s Daddy Warbucks. Real name is Stan Hughes, insurance agent and star of his church league softball team. Little Orphan Annie across from him is Sylvia, his wife. She’s addicted to QVC.”

“Why all the nicknames? I thought I was the only one—well, and Q. But he’s obvious.”

“I grew up in the bar business. Even as a kid sitting in a corner doing homework, it became a way to keep everyone straight. Remembering a person’s name makes them feel important, but a nickname gives them a feeling of acceptance, like they’re part of a club.”

“Or maybe part of the family?”

Maybe Ashlyn understood me better than I did.

Something I couldn’t yet identify passed between us. Then the door to the bar opened. Without taking my eyes from hers, I raised a hand and called, “Hey, Dusty.”

Ashlyn turned her head, following him with her gaze. From my peripheral vision, I watched Butch pat Dusty on the back. A cloud of red dust rose into the air.

“Dusty, ha-ha. Okay, I get it,” she said.

Just as she started to say something else, the front door opened again. Another regular arrived, this one a mail carrier. I reached for a pilsner glass and pulled the tap on his beer of choice.

“Hey Cliff,” I said.

Ashlyn’s head swiveled Cliff’s way, then grinned. I sent her a wink, pleased she’d caught the obvious reference.

He reached for the drink when I slid it across the bar, then took a swallow. The head stuck to the edges of his mustache. He nodded politely to Ashlyn when she smiled and handed him a napkin. “Hey, you’re that girl from the theater, right?”

“One of many,” she said.

“You’re the writer. I remember seeing your picture in the paper. My wife made me take her to see one of your shows a few months ago for date night. It wasn’t half bad.”

Her grin broadened. “That’s a glowing review.”

Cliff wiped his face and smiled back. “It is, actually. I’m not much of a theater guy, but my wife grew up here in Phair. She and most of her family have seen every single production the Marshall’s have put on since they were kids.”

“I’ll pass that along to Lucas,” Ashlyn said. “He’ll appreciate hearing it.”

“See?” I said, leaning toward her over the bar. “The Marshall Theater isn’t just about tourists and commercialism. It’s about generations of people, of family coming together for a few good hours of mind-off-their-troubles entertainment.”

Cliff nodded agreement. “Some of the wife’s best memories stem from that place. My kids’, too.” He raised his beer to us both then headed toward his friends gathered at the other end of the bar.

“I understand how important the theater is,” Ashlyn said. “But I’m not the one who walked away yesterday. Whether either of us like it or not, Noah, the improv is working. After the new material I gave to Lucas earlier today, he’s more convinced than ever he made the right decision forcing us to work together.”

The cook came out from the kitchen, carrying two heaping plates of nachos, one of which he gave to Butch, the other he set in front of Ashlyn.

Ashlyn dug into her food and reached for her Coke. “You know what I think?”

The way her lips closed around the straw, I couldn’t keep my mind from going where it shouldn’t, from wishing it were me she sucked deep into her mouth. And the way my cock stirred at the sight, I lacked the brain power to care much about anything she thought.

“The way you acted outside my door yesterday after our improv tells me Andy Rich is forcing you to face yourself,” she said.

I doubted my issues were the same as Andy’s.

A burst of rambunctious laughter sounded from the other end of the bar, saving me from acknowledging Ashlyn’s remark. Babs had made her way that direction and stood, with one arm propped on the counter, the opposite hand waving that damn cigarette. I could tell she’d been the instigator of the noise.

“You’ve really found something special here, haven’t you, Noah?” Ashlyn watched Babs, too. “No disrespect to your father’s memory, but I don’t remember ever seeing Babs this happy.”

No disrespect taken. Ashlyn was right. These last eighteen months in Phair had brought Babs back to her old self, to those carefree days when I was ten—after she and my father had first married. Before things went bad.

“It was her idea to come to Phair,” I said, watching Babs through Ashlyn’s eyes. “Our Houston location has thrived for years. After my father’s death, I started scouting for other Texas options. Babs heard about Phair while talking to some tourists one night at the River Walk in San Antonio.”

That was also the night I got the call from my realtor. The Upper East Side penthouse where I’d grown up and where Babs had lived, too, had sold. Neither of us had any qualms about selling the apartment. The bad memories there out-shined the good.

When I was seven, my mother got fed up with my father’s drinking and his temper. She left both me and my dad, causing the brunt of his anger to fall to me. Then Babs came along. Things got better for a while. But a couple of years after he married her, things went south again. It didn’t take long before Babs stepped in, bearing the burden of his rage that I knew was meant for me. I’d forever feel guilty for not being stronger.

Ashlyn pushed her food away, pulling me out of my thoughts. When her blue gaze met mine she had that look, like she’d heard everything I hadn’t said. “You came to Phair for Babs, didn’t you?”

“No. Buying this location was a sound investment that matches the new vision I have for the Double Shot enterprise.”

Ashlyn leaned forward. “Forget the business justification. You feel like you owe her.”

Damn straight I owed her. But it wasn’t the kind of debt I’d ever be able to repay.

The night I turned eighteen, I came home to find my dad going after Babs with his fists. When I couldn’t stop him, I reached for the one thing that would—my baseball bat.

Babs had covered for me when the police and ambulance arrived, making sure my name wasn’t affiliated with reports that could jeopardize my college admission. She’d claimed she’d acted out of self-defense.

Breaking eye contact with Ashlyn, I reached for a bottle of gin. Time to switch up the subject. “I’ve come up with a new recipe I think you’ll like.”

Aware of the contradiction I was making against my earlier statement about drinking, Ashlyn glanced down at her Coke and said, “Okay.”

Grabbing a shaker, I experimented with a few ingredients. Adding here and mixing there, I took the top off and poured the liquid into a martini glass. Then I sipped. After making a mental note to go lighter on the gin next time, I added a touch more lime, a ginger leaf, and slid the glass across the bar.