Hardball (22 page)

“Interesting,” she said cautiously. “But I don’t usually pick up like that on impulse.”

“Why not? Let’s just do it. Today. We’ll just pack suitcases and blow this town.” He cast her a devilish, seductive grin.

Holly held up a hand, trying not to get swept up in the need to escape her troubles. “Hold on, Romeo. You might be paroled from work for a while, but I’m not. And where are you thinking of whisking me away to, anyway?”

“My condo in Florida. But we could go anywhere you want. Anywhere in the world, if you can find the time.”

A fierce longing rushed through her. It would be heaven to get away from everything that pulled her down. even for a couple of days. And to be alone with Nate twenty-four seven...that was a powerful temptation, more powerful than she cared to admit.

At a stop light on Tenth Street, he glanced across at her. “You could use a few days away from all this crap.” He reached out again, putting his hand on her thigh. Its warmth and strength felt wonderful. Just what she needed.

Well, actually she could use a lot more of his touch, but that would come soon enough.

Taking a deep breath, Holly nodded. It would never have occurred to her to do something so impulsive, but Nate had somehow sensed that a spontaneous getaway was what she needed.

“Let me think about it for a few minutes,” she said.

Her mind furiously raced through the logistics of rearranging her schedule. The idea of running away for awhile appealed to her more than she would have believed—so much so that she was determined to make it work. But even managing to do it tomorrow would be a stretch, as there were at least two appointments she couldn’t reschedule.

She squeezed his hand for a moment before the light changed and he had to withdraw it and grab the steering wheel. “I’d love to go right now if I could,” she said. “Leave today. But I just can’t. I might be able to manage it tomorrow, though. Could we leave late in the day? I couldn’t get away until three, or maybe even four o’clock.”

“No problem,” he said. “I’m instrument rated, so we can leave as late as you want. And I actually like flying at night. The lights are amazing, and it’s easy to see where you’re going if there’s no cloud cover.”

She’d forgotten that she’d read on the Internet that he owned a small plane and flew it himself. He’d never mentioned it to her. “You’ll fly us down in your plane?”

“Of course.” He eyed her with a
what the heck else would we do
look. “Air Carter offers door to door service. An Aston Martin to pick you up at your door and another luxury vehicle to drop you at your vacation destination in Ponte Vedra Beach. Refreshments will be provided, of course. Although you might not want to drink too much because the bathroom facilities are limited.” He smiled. “Actually, they’re non-existent.”

Holly couldn’t help laughing. God, the man could charm the birds from the trees. Combine that with the looks, the athletic ability, and the money, and it was no wonder women flocked to him. She still wondered why he’d been so intently focused on her from their first encounter.

The more she thought about getting away, the more the knot in her gut unraveled. “It sounds too good to be true, especially after today. I think I must be dreaming.” Then a worried thought struck her. “Are you sure you’ll be able to fly with your arm out of commission?”

He snorted. “Babe, it’s a bone bruise. It’s not like I can’t use it at all. Just leave everything to me. We’re going to forget everything that’s going on here and have a lot of fun.” He shot her a cartoon leer. “A whole lot of fun.”

Holly laughed again. Okay, she would surrender to the impulse. It wouldn’t be the first time with Nate, and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last.

* * *

The next day, as Holly tried to focus her mind on her afternoon meetings, vivid memories of the previous evening kept breaking into her thoughts.

She’d slept at Nate’s apartment because she’d felt uncomfortable about the prospect of going home and stewing about Arnold all night. She shut off her cell phone, didn’t check her home voice mail messages, and spent a relaxing evening snuggled up with Nate on his butter-soft leather sofa. They’d planned on watching a DVD, but never made it that far.

They’d started with Vietnamese takeout, deliberately avoiding any mention of the day’s events while they ate. After they’d finished, and Nate had finally found a comfortable position lying on his right side on the sofa, Holly had slipped into place in front of him. She molded her body to his, wriggling her bottom against his groin. The pressure of his stiffening cock on her ass made her weak with passion in a heartbeat. It hadn’t taken long for things to get scorching hot between them.

Just thinking about it now, sitting at her office desk, made her flush with prickly heat. The long and short of it was that Nate had taken over, despite his painful shoulder. He knew exactly how to please her, and to guide her in pleasing him.

At the end, he lay on his back, stripped from the waist down, his shirt wide open. She was poised above him, her legs spread and her palms carefully flat against his rock hard chest. When he finally sank his shaft deep inside her, thrusting upward into her waiting, wet flesh, Holly had cried out in a kind of delicious agony that she hardly believed existed. After all the staggeringly hot foreplay, she’d been out of her mind with the need to have him inside her. And when it happened, it had felt as if they were created only for each other, their bodies designed to fit in a perfect lock. Quickly, she’d shuddered into an explosive climax that left her gasping for air.

Holly snapped out of her reverie when the department secretary buzzed to announce the arrival of the first of her two appointments. She pushed her daydreams aside and zeroed her focus on the case files in front of her.

An hour later, she was done. Both appointments had gone smoothly. She had even managed to forget about Lance Arnold. Like the two couples she’d just seen, almost all the parents she’d met over the years had been wonderful. Understanding, brave, determined, and trusting of their physicians. She admired them and felt a bond that would support them all through the trials ahead. It reminded her of why she did what she did in the first place. No matter what, the Lance Arnolds of the world could never diminish that.

As a bonus, both sessions finished up in less time than she’d allotted for them. She would never rush a parent out of her office, and hadn’t in either case, but the truth was that she couldn’t wait to get home to finish packing for Florida. In just a few minutes she was out the door and fast-walking to the High-Speed Line for the short trip to the Jersey suburbs.

When she was young, Holly had spent all kinds of time at Jacksonville area beaches, including Ponte Vedra. It thrilled her that she and Nate were traveling together to one of her favorite places. She’d also make sure they had time for a visit to her mother in Jacksonville. Nate had readily agreed to go with her. That felt like an important step forward in their relationship, even though she hadn’t made a big deal of it when she’d brought it up. But Nate seemed fine with the idea, and that secretly thrilled her, too.

Not that it came without its worries, though. There was no telling how her mother would react when a sexy ballplayer strolled through her door with her daughter. Aristocratic in style if not by birth, Jacqueline Villiers Bell was not going to be overjoyed to see her bring home a professional athlete. Not even a rather rich and famous one. In fact, Nate’s fame would probably be a strike against him in her mother’s eyes. She’d no doubt see it all as rather crass.

Holly could only say a prayer that her mother would be on the good side of insufferable that day.

Once she got home, she quickly packed and piled her luggage by the front door, ready for Nate to pick her up. One thing she still had to do before leaving, though, was check her home voice mail. She’d just noticed the message light blinking.

There were three new messages on the machine. The first was from her mother, her voice decidedly lukewarm in reaction to Holly’s news about their upcoming visit. That made her wrinkle her nose, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected.

The second was from the cable company trying to sell her an upgraded package. When she deleted that one and the third message kicked in, Holly almost dropped the phone. She instantly recognized Lance Arnold’s gruff voice—not surprisingly, since she’d replayed their conversations in her head so many times.

She concentrated on her breath for a couple of moments, in and out, belly-breathing, long exhalations. It quickly calmed her. She didn’t want to listen to the message, and briefly considered waiting until Nate was with her. Then she mentally scolded herself and started the message again.

His voice was icy, sneering. “I know you’re not at home, Doctor Bell, but I thought I’d send my regards. Say, you’ve got a real nice little house there. Quite the fancy town you live in, too.”

Shit!
A stab of panic shot through her. She put a hand onto the kitchen counter to steady herself. How did he find out where she lived? She wasn’t even listed in the phone book.

Another thought made the breath catch in her throat. The monster might have followed her home one day. Maybe he was even outside right now.

The message played on, chilling her to the bone. “Think about what I said about the surgery and the court order. Think real hard, okay?”

Her legs were suddenly so shaky that she had to sit down.

She could hear his heavy, raspy breathing for a couple of more seconds, then his voice kicked back in. “I know you went to the cops. But I’ll bet they told you to get lost, didn’t they? Cops are too busy to deal with your kind of paranoia.” His clipped laugh was as menacing as his words.

But mixing in with her fear, now, was growing anger. Arnold was taunting her. Gloating.

“Make it easy on yourself, Doc. Forget about the surgery. Let Tyler go home.” The message ended.

Sure, let the boy go home and die. That’s really what you really want, isn’t it, you sick son of a bitch.

She slammed the phone down onto the table. Panting, she grabbed her bag and rummaged through it for the business card the detective had given her yesterday. She found it, but it took her three tries before she finally punched in the number correctly. The detective had a direct line, and he answered in seconds.

“Detective Rich, this is Dr. Holly Bell,” she said, almost breathless. “You said to call back if Lance Arnold harassed me again. Well, he left a threatening message on my voice mail late last night.”

“No, but he knows where I live, so I’m assuming that’s how he found out. And he also knew I had gone to the police,” she said, both worried and exasperated. “What can you do to help me?”

Rich paused, clearly thinking. “Okay, he’s crossed the line now. We’ll go talk to him. I’m prepared to cut him some slack because of the kid—I’ve got a son of my own around that age. But he’s got to stop contacting you outside the hospital. Enough is enough.”

“Doctor, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this, but the next time you see Arnold at the hospital, make sure you have security with you.”

No kidding.
“Have no fear on that score, Detective.”

* * *

Nate drove through the gate of the local airport where he based his plane. Passing into the private hangar compound, he parked on the grass strip beside the four-unit structure that contained his hangar.

As Holly helped him push open the heavy sliding doors, her eyes widened at the sight of his brand new Beech Bonanza G36, its gleaming white and blue paint reflecting the late afternoon sun that angled through the hangar door.

“Wow,” she said, her eyes locked onto the Bonanza’s sleek fuselage, “that’s one gorgeous airplane.”

“Thanks,” he said, pleased by her sudden enthusiasm. On the drive to the airport, she’d gone back to being jumpy and nervous, disappearing into her own little world. They’d only been dating for a few weeks, but it bothered him like hell when she shut him out like that. He hoped the flight—and getting out of town—would lift her spirits out of the tank they were in.

“It just came off the line in February. I took delivery myself at the factory in Wichita, and then I flew it straight to Clearwater for spring training.” He stroked the leading edge of the wing. “Flies like an angel.”

Holly gave him a saucy smile and sashayed over to join him. “You almost sound like you’re in love. Should I be jealous?”

He felt better instantly to see some of her playfulness make a return appearance. “You know,” he said with a grin, “boys and their toys.”

She gave him a playful nudge on his good shoulder. “You men are all the same.” She perked up even more as he began his pre-flight inspection. “It’s about four hours to Ponte Vedra from here, you said?”

“More or less.” He opened the cowl for the engine check, tested the tires, struts and prop, made a full circle around the plane to check all surfaces, and then drained a little gas from the wing tanks to look for any deadly air bubbles in the fuel. Holly trailed behind, quiet, but watching him with avid interest. He loved the curiosity in her, the way she wanted to learn new things.