Hot Ticket (28 page)

“Did the train stop moving?” she asked as she dropped her towel and crawled between the sheets.

Tiago followed suit, threw a leg over her, and pulled her close, which she found as heady and comforting, as his beard against her face. “My train is about luxury and relaxation,” he said. “We stable it at night, usually on a spur in some deserted field or other—prescheduled and with permission, of course—so our passengers can sleep.”

“Ah, yes. I read about that. Where are we stabled now?”

“I don’t precisely know—I leave that to the crew—but I can narrow it down to a spot about ten hours from Orlando. We arrive around six tomorrow night, and chartered busses will be waiting to take most of the passengers to a hotel in Fort Meyers for spring training.” He kissed her brow, her nose, and her eyes. “Tell me more about your friends,” he said, “the ones who needed assertiveness training. And then maybe you can tell me why you thought you did.”

She tugged on a chest hair.

“Ouch!”

“That’s what you get,” she said, swirling the spot with slow, soothing strokes to make up for her brutality. “While the six of us waited in line for tickets, we discovered we had a lot in common. We’re all in well-to-do ruts and lack any personal lives whatsoever. When tickets sold out before we got any, we went out for lunch, stayed for dinner, and talked until midnight.

“For a few weeks, we spoke on the phone daily, got together Fridays for supper, bared our souls, and found we were kindred spirits. Then we formed a club with the express purpose of helping each other get lives.”

“How long have you been together?”

“Going on a year.”

“Is it working, the getting lives part?”

“We’ve all taken steps in the right direction.”

“So your friends think this trip is a step in the right direction for you. I wonder why.”

“Beats me, but I
am
having a good time.”

“I’m honored. Does your club have a name?”

“We can’t decide between The Losers Club, because it encourages change, and The Coma Club, because it’s funny.”

Tiago covered her hand with his to stop her teasing swirls, as if he needed to concentrate. “Doesn’t sound funny to me.”

“Our goal is to help each other get lives, but failing that, we still end up old and alone, right? So we have a pact that if any of us goes into a coma, the others come in and touch up roots, pluck chin hairs, give manicures, shave legs . . . you know, keep each other from getting grungy.”

Tiago’s obvious amusement amused her. “Okay,” she said, “so it sounds whacked, but despite our high rate of aborted attempts at social lives, we root for each other and cheer each other on. Plus, we always say something positive about any step in the right direction. I like that rule. I’d like to teach Daddy that rule.”

“So this Derek guy is not your Mr. Right, I take it?”

Quinn choked on a laugh, but despite her fight for air and Tiago’s back-slapping, she savored her power, because he sounded like he might be jealous.

He brought her another bottle of water, and when she could breathe again, he took her in his arms and began to kiss her, making her hot in that special way only Tiago could, until something started beeping.

Tiago got up and fished through his pants, found the culprit—a beeper—read a message, and hit a number on his cell phone. “Emergency?”

Quinn sat up.

“What?” he said. “The Ladybug Lady?” Then he stilled and lifted Quinn’s hand. “Hold on a sec.” He held his phone to his chest. “How long since you’ve been to a circus?”

Quinn cleared her throat. “Um, ah, about, oh, three, four hours maybe.”

He put the phone to his ear again. “We’ll be right there.”

“Get dressed,” he said. “We’ve got a little one crying for a ladybug dance.”

“Okay,” Quinn said, hustling into her clothes as fast as Tiago did, but his silence was telling.

Quinn led the way to the hospital car.

“How’d you get away with it?” he asked before they went inside.

“I was curious. Lizzie
said
I shouldn’t be there, but we hadn’t seen each other in years, and—”

Tiago scoffed. “ ’Nuff said. You and Lizzie always batted for the same team.”

Quinn smiled when he chucked his big-eyed sister under the chin as they went by. “Brat!”

“Hey, Colette,” Tiago said, sitting on her bed and taking her on his lap. “I brought the Ladybug Lady, just like you wanted.”

Quinn drummed her nails on Colette’s knee and Tiago sang:
“Gosh, little lady, don’t you shrug, Tiago’s gonna bring you some ladybugs, and if those ladybugs don’t dance, Tiago’s gonna bring you a box of . . . ants.”

Colette giggled, and Tiago sang a few more weird verses while Quinn kept her fingers dancing.

When the little one got drowsy, Tiago tucked her beneath the covers and kissed her nose. Half an hour later, she fell asleep.

Quinn kissed Colette’s soft little hand and saw Tiago on the opposite side of the bed watching her. “Sweet,” she said.

He reached for her hand. “I always thought so.”

 At the train’s first tentative movement, Quinn woke, her hand still in Tiago’s.

On the other side of the bed, Tiago slept on, his head on Colette’s pillow, her little arms around his neck.

She had never loved him more.

How stupid was that?

They’d be in Orlando in ten hours, and she didn’t hold a lot of hope that they’d see each other much, if at all, after spring training.

They were free agents, both of them, going in such entirely different directions, it was laughable.

At the end of the day, his course was set . . .
Tiago Steals Pants Off . . . Anybody.

Quinn left the hospital car before Tiago woke. She wasn’t ready to face the realization herself that she loved him, never mind facing
him
with the knowledge.

In her suite, she threw on the terry robe and skipped the farewell brunch. It had started forty-five minutes ago, anyway, so she went up to the hot tub. Tiago had evidently not yet returned to his room.

She liked sitting in the bubbling water watching the tops of trees, the bottoms of bridges, and the people in high buildings looking down at her. She waved, but nobody waved back.

She understood why Tiago loved his train. She loved it, too—its history, its healing properties, and not only in the hospital car, though that was something else. Who knew Tiago had it in him?

Ah, what was she thinking? She’d always known the kind of heart Tiago hid from the world, which probably meant she’d been in love with him, like . . . forever.

Quinn sighed, laid back, shut her eyes, and let the movement of the train and the tub’s jets ease her frustration and lull her into a half sleep.

When she woke, the ancient perpetual calendar clock on the stair wall indicated that a great deal of time had passed, and still Tiago hadn’t found her. He either hadn’t thought to look up here, or he hadn’t cared to.

She needed to get dressed for lunch. Today was the penultimate day of the trip. Tiago said their late luncheon would be a lavish affair with speeches and such. He would play the ultimate, charismatic host, which he had not said but she knew.

Her fantasy trip was nearly over. Damn, but The Losers had been right. She missed Tiago already. “And you’d damned well better get used to it, Loser,” she told herself as she stepped from the tub.

“Who’s a loser?” Tiago asked as he came her way, so gorgeous in charcoal pinstripe dress pants and gray silk shirt she could eat him up with a spoon.

“Nobody who took
this
trip,” she said, wrapping herself in a towel as if to protect herself from hurt. As if it wasn’t already too late.

Back in her suite, after her shower, Tiago pulled Band Aids from his pockets and put them over her nipples. “So they don’t pop out,” he said, “to solve what
you
think is a problem and
I
think is an asset.”

After that, she let him sweet-talk her into going braless beneath a faced, black lace jacket, held together by a hook—
one
hook—between her breasts. With a muted teal corset skirt, the outfit looked great. Her ankle-wrap stiletto sandals didn’t look bad, either.

Quinn liked being on Tiago’s arm, except she knew this was good-bye . . . the end of the fantasy. He’d be too busy playing ball during spring training to notice her, and she’d be in the stands with Jesse, unable to get near the ballplayers.

The farewell lunch might have been delicious, but the chasm already forming between them dulled Quinn’s appetite. When she lost Tiago in a crowd of well-wishers, she went back to her suite to pack her vixen clothes. She found a “Stolen by Tiago” bag in her closet where her broken bag used to be.

 Before the train came to a full stop, she saw Charlie, waved, and called his name. He met her halfway, caught her in his arms, and gave her a big bear hug and a smacking kiss before he paid a red cap to take her bags. “Penny and I can never thank you enough for taking Jesse for the next two weeks, Quinn. But I’m warning you, he’s not happy about having a new mother.”

“No kid who lost his real mother is, Charlie. Give him time. He’s a good kid.”

“You’re right. He bought you a present, though he probably won’t give it to you until he finishes being a brat, after we leave you in Fort Meyers.”

“I’m ready for him,” Quinn said, searching the crowd as Charlie talked, but when she spotted Tiago, he was getting pulled into a white stretch limo by a tanning-salon blonde whose top-heavy silicone boobs were about to spring from her lime sundress.

Quinn put her head on Charlie’s shoulder, so he placed an arm around her to lead her away. “Tired?” he asked, and she nodded.

She wished she’d known, back in the sandbox, that Tiago would grow up to break a million hearts, hers included.

 Tiago saw genuine affection pass between Quinn and the guy with salt-and-pepper hair manhandling her on the platform. Was
he
the new direction her life was taking? A guy fifteen years older than her?

What an idiot he was, Tiago thought, to imagine for half a minute that he had a shot in hell with a Murdock. “Give it a rest,
June,” he told his obsessive publicist when he sat beside her in the limo. “We’ll make the promo shoot with time to spare.”

Why would Quinn sleep with
him
, Tiago asked himself, if a guy she cared about was meeting her in Orlando? That wasn’t the Quinn he knew. “It doesn’t make sense. I’m missing something,” he said. “Wait a minute. I need to go and talk to—”

“Drive, Max,” June said, and Max drove . . . like a maniac, but not so fast that Tiago didn’t see the kid running up to Quinn and throwing his arms around her legs. “Son of a—” He’d blown his shot. So much for the fantasy.

“No, damn it! I’m
not
giving up without a fight.” He speed-dialed Lizzie on his cell.

 Three days later, when the team and the media were prepping for a promo exhibition game with a bunch of local kids looking to raise money for a field, Tiago had reason to notice Quinn.