Hot Target by Lisa Renee Jones
“He has a concussion, and he broke his arm,” he said. “His pitching arm, Katie. It’s a bad break.”
He was alive. “But he’s okay,” she confirmed. “He’s going to be okay?”
“You might have a hard time convincing him of that,” Noah said. “But yes.”
Katie would convince him he was okay. He was alive, and he was going to stay that way. That was what mattered. She started running, rounding the back of the ambulance right before they shut the door, barely blinking at the sight of Malone in cuffs standing next to one of the police cars.
She brought the back of the ambulance into focus. “Luke!” He was on the gurney, his arm splinted, his head bandaged.
“Katie,” he whispered, and tried to sit up.
The EMT pressed him back down. “Don’t move.” The worker motioned her forward.
Katie rushed inside and sat beside him, on the opposite side of the bed from the emergency worker. She touched his face, her chest tight with emotion. “You have no idea how scared I was when I saw the ambulance.”
He tried to smile but couldn’t. “Ah,” he said. “My head.”
“Concussion,” the EMT told her. “He blacked out for about five minutes.”
“How bad?” Katie asked, eyeing the monitor they had attached to him, thankful it wasn’t buzzing with alerts. He appeared stable.
“I have a hard…head,” Luke whispered hoarsely.
“We won’t know until they do tests at the hospital,” was the EMT’s official answer.
The ambulance started moving. Katie bent down and kissed him. “I love you, Luke,” she said. “I love you so much. You and your hard head.”
“Katie,” he whispered, shutting his eyes. “I…am not sure I will pitch again. I…don’t know what that means for me.”
“You will pitch again,” she said, sensing the torment in him. “You will. They’ll fix your arm.”
His lashes lifted just barely, as if he couldn’t get the energy to raise them all the way. “Is that what they told you about…your knee?”
Her heart squeezed with that question because, yes, that was what they’d told her. They’d told her she would dance again. Katie wasn’t going to do that to him. She took his hand. “Whatever happens, Luke, I’m here for you.” He didn’t respond.
His lashes lowered again and Katie looked at the EMT.
“I gave him some pain medicine,” he said. “He’s sleeping.”
So he didn’t hear her vow. She’d tell him again when he woke up. She’d tell him however many times he needed to hear it. No one had been there for her when she’d lost her dancing. If Luke lost pitching, if he lost baseball, she wasn’t going to let it destroy him.
LUKE WOKE to find Katie asleep in the green hospital chair beside his bed where she’d dozed off and on through all the poking and prodding he’d been through. He stared at her, the woman he loved. Pale, perfect skin, smudged with dark circles. Not a stitch of makeup. Her dark hair fell wildly around her face, a rubber band at the back of her neck barely holding it in place. And she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She’d been through so much, and she deserved happiness. He had thought he could give her that happiness. He had thought he would be the man to make her wake up and smile every day. But now—well, the man she thought she knew, the man he knew himself to be, might not be anymore.
“Going to Malone’s house was such an idiotic move,” Luke mumbled under his breath, staring out the hospital window as he waited for the specialist to tell him his future.
“I told you to stop second-guessing yourself,” Katie whispered, obviously awake when he’d thought she was sleeping. She sat up and stretched.
Glancing at the clock, he noted it was midafternoon, almost three o’clock. They’d been at the hospital since midnight the night before.
Katie pushed to her feet and walked to his side. Ran her hand over his face. “No news is better than bad news.” Her voice was comforting. A light in the darkness.
Male voices sounded in the hallway before Rick and Josh appeared. “We snuck in pizza,” Rick said. “We couldn’t let you wallow in hospital food.” He rolled the table in front of the bed and opened the box. “We’d have brought beer if we thought it wouldn’t get us kicked out.”
Luke scooted to a sitting position and shoved the table aside. “I’ll eat later,” he said. “Right now, I’ll settle for either the doctor’s prognosis or maybe Malone’s head on a stick.”
“That you can have,” Josh said, ignoring the pizza, as well, and leaning against the wall. “He admitted to everything. The letters, planting the drugs, even paying a water boy to put salt in the canister during practice.”
Luke digested that with less satisfaction than he would have under different circumstances.
“I checked on Jessica while you were sleeping,” Katie interjected. “Her mom is pretty upset. There was a lot of Spanish yelling that went on—I’m pretty sure Jessica will get all the attention and advice she needs from her mother.”
Everyone laughed because they’d all heard Maria’s Spanish exclamations. “I’d hate to be Jessica right about now,” Rick said, laughing, before motioning to Luke. “Coach said he’d be by tomorrow after you have time to recover a little more.”
“You mean after he knows if I’m going to be able to pitch anymore,” Luke said. Two of his doctors came into the room: Dr. Reyes, an orthopedic specialist with gray hair and a trim, medium build; and Dr. Willis, a forty-something neurosurgeon with dark hair and a mustache. Luke was pretty sure two for one was not a good sign.
“Can we please be alone with Luke?” Dr. Willis asked.
“Sure thing, Doc,” Rick said, moving toward the door. Josh quickly followed.
Katie went to Luke’s side and kissed his cheek. “I’ll be nearby when you need me.”
Luke grabbed her hand. “Stay.” She glanced at the doctors, who nodded their acceptance.
Thirty minutes later, Luke was about to be rolled down the hall for more testing, and Katie would have to stay behind. He had a twenty-five percent chance of full recovery. In other words, he wasn’t likely to pitch again.
“If you want to play ball, Luke,” she said, “fight for it. Screw the odds.”
“Is that what you did?” he asked. “Did you fight for it?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “And I regret it. Don’t regret, Luke.” She squeezed his hand and then let it go, and they rolled him away. Somehow, he felt as if he was leaving her behind forever when she was simply down the hall from him. It was a feeling that ground through his gut and wouldn’t let go.
KATIE WATCHED Luke disappear through a set of double doors, exhaustion tearing her down. Worry for Luke was worse than the exhaustion.
Ron stepped by her side. “Go home, Katie,” he said.
“Nice to see you, too, Ron. Aren’t you going to ask how he is?”
“Bad,” he said. “I know. I talked to the doctors. I’m here now.” He repeated his order, “Go home, Katie.”
She shook off the suggestion. “Noah is bringing me a change of clothes,” she said. “I’m staying.”
“No,” he said. “I mean go back to New York. The job is done.”
She blinked, turned to him. “What?”
“Luke has a tough path ahead of him, and he has to focus. Not on you. On him. On his career. If you think he can do that with you around, you’re wrong. He’ll worry about you accepting him. He’ll worry about you, not him.”
“I…” She shut her mouth on the objection. Ron was right. Luke would worry about her. He was always worried about her. The glory of Luke was that he wasn’t a self-centered egomaniac. She tried to breathe but couldn’t seem to fill her lungs. The idea of leaving him all but killed her. Didn’t he need her? “I’ll talk to him.”
Ron shook his head. “No, Katie. You talk to him and you’ll both convince yourselves that you staying is the right move. Let him get well. Let him be about baseball.” He studied her. “Do you lov
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. I love him.”
“Then walk away.”
She stared down that hallway, to the empty space where Luke had been only a minute before. She pressed her hands to her face and tried to fight the tears. She’d lost her dancing. Her dream. Her life. She couldn’t be the reason Luke lost baseball.
14
THREE MONTHS and Luke still couldn’t walk through his own house without memories of Katie punching him in the gut. Right when he thought he’d recovered, it would happen again. Like now. Luke poured a cup of coffee and turned toward the kitchen table, and the memory sped at him like a bullet. Katie naked on top of that counter, legs wide, him between them. The kisses. The passion. The moans.
“Damn it,” he cursed, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose. Why did he keep doing this? He wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t a loser. Not even without his pitching arm. Katie had left without so much as a goodbye, deserted him in his hour of need. And proved she wasn’t what he thought she was. Her “I love you, Luke” in that ambulance had either been a hallucination from his head injury or a bunch of crap. So why couldn’t he get her out of his head? Why did he feel as if he was missing something he shouldn’t be missing?
The doorbell rang and he let Maria answer it. He was in a foul mood this morning. Again. The again being Maria’s opinion. That wasn’t true. He was now in a fine mood after his morning coffee. It was simply a new routine. Wake up and be foul like the rest of the world. Drink coffee and perk up. He kind of liked it, too. And as much as he missed pitching, the morning coffee and no-pressure-to-perform thing wouldn’t be so bad if he had the slightest clue about what he was going to do with the rest of his life.
He sat down at the kitchen table, away from the television and freaking SportsCenter. He didn’t want to hear about baseball. Or football. Or even flipping volleyball. Whatever he did was not going to have anything to do with sports. Everyone expected him to be involved with sports. Open a bar. Hang all kinds of sports crap on the walls. No. Bar.
“Luke.” It was Ron. “How’s it going?”
“Thinking about opening a bar. You know. Sticking sports crap on the walls. Build-it-and-they-will-come kind of thing.” He lifted his out-of-date newspaper with the crossword puzzle he’d been doing for well over a week. “And I’m looking for a four-letter word for ass. Any ideas. And don’t say Luke.”
Ron stared at him and then said, “I’d say mule. But then again, I hear Rick is dating Libby again.”
Luke snorted and grabbed his pencil. “Rick, it is.” He tossed his pencil down and leaned back in his chair to study Ron over his coffee cup. “What’s on your mind?”
“A coaching job,” he said.
“And here I thought management was your forte,” Luke quipped. “We’ve had this conversation. I don’t want to be stuck in a tie commentating sporting events on some news channel. And I don’t want to coach the sport I wish I was playing.” He irritably tapped his fingers on his mug.
“Not even if you’d be coaching in New York?”
Luke felt the tension spiral down his spine. “Why would I want to go to New York?”
“Because I sent her away, Luke. I told her she would distract you. I told her you couldn’t fight your injury and would worry about pleasing her. I pushed her to leave and I pushed her hard.”
Luke set his coffee mug down, liquid slopping over the sides. “When?”
“While you were having your tests,” he replied. “At the hospital. It was the right thing to do, Luke. I am your manager, and—”
“Were,” Luke said, standing up. “Were my manager.”
Ron reached in his pocket and slid a card onto the table. “If you want the job, I believe it can be yours. They want you bad.”
IT WAS Saturday and Katie blinked awake to the rumbling of thunder, rain splattering on the windows of her New York apartment. She tugged her white down comforter to her chin as the memory of another storm assailed her. She’d been in Luke’s kitchen when he’d come home from practice, a storm rolling in that had set the mood for the stormy encounter they’d shared, the passion that had followed.
She snuggled down in the blankets and covered her head with her pillow. She was definitely going back to sleep. And waking up when it was nice and sunny. “Rain, rain, go away,” she murmured.
Rolling to her side, she tucked the pillow under her head and pounded it. Promised herself she’d stop thinking about Luke. He hated her, she was sure. And with good reason. She should never have listened to Ron and left Luke. And now he wasn’t playing ball. He’d lost baseball, and she hadn’t been there to help him get through it. But she’d made her decision. She had to live with it.
“Grr,” she muttered into the pillow. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep. She tossed aside the covers, shoved her feet to the floor. She was up but she wasn’t getting dressed. Boxers, a tank top, coffee and a book. That would be her new thunderstorm memory. A nice, relaxing, peaceful day.
She started the coffeepot, and then washed her face and brushed her teeth. Scanning her bookshelf, she chose a thriller, a scary story to fit the weather.
A glimpse in her full-length vanity mirror drew a grimace. Donna was right. She was skinny. She hadn’t been eating. For a moment, she contemplated stepping on the scale, but then decided against it. She didn’t want to know. She’d eat. Lunch. Later.
With coffee and book in hand, she headed back to bed and the expensive, snuggly, down comforter she’d bought on a whim and never regretted. She had managed to get through page one of her book when her cell phone jangled on the nightstand. She considered ignoring it. Her sister was fine, even dating a nice, respectable doctor. A real change from her ex.
She snatched up the phone and noted the caller ID—Donna, of course. She answered. “Hello.”
“Turn on ESPN,” Donna ordered.
“Are you going to say hello?” Katie asked, rolling her eyes.
“Do it!” Donna demanded.
Katie sighed and grabbed the remote, also on the nightstand, and did as she’d been told. “Cable’s out,” she said. “What can possibly be so urgent on ESPN? Because if you want me to ogle some guy’s backside, I have to tell you, I prefer the novel I just started.”
“Oh, you want to ogle this backside, honey,” Donna said. “Guess who just took a coaching job with the New York Comets?”
Katie sat up, tossed her book aside. “Luke?”
“That’s right, sweetheart, and he’s in town,” she said. “ESPN interviewed him live here this morning.”
Her doorbell rang. “Someone’s at my door. I… You think? No. No. It can’t be.” It rang again. “I have to go.” She hung up and tossed the phone onto the bed. “It can’t be him.”
Katie started for the door, but stopped. She wasn’t dressed. Robe. She needed a robe. She grabbed the one at the back of the bathroom door, and made the mistake of looking in the mirror. Cringing, she reasoned, “It’s not him anyway.”
Whoever had been ringing the doorbell was now knocking. She pressed her hands to the door and forced herself to calm down. “Who is it?”
Silence. “Katie, it’s Luke.”
She couldn’t seem to find her voice. And she tried. She tried so damn hard. She gave up and yanked the door open. “I… Luke.” He was as gorgeous as ever, maybe thinner by a few pounds. His hair a little longer than she remembered, curled a bit over his brow. “You look good.” She thought of that image of herself in the mirror. “I was in bed.” He smiled.
“I mean. Reading. I was reading in…”
He arched a brow. “Bed?”
What was she supposed to say? Care to join me? Of course he wouldn’t. Not after all that had happened between them. She stepped back to allow him entry. “Come in.”
He stepped into the room, inspecting her little apartment, which was about the size of his kitchen and den and nothing more. He still had that sexy Texas saunter that made his nice, tight backside oh, so drool worthy.
“Coffee sounds great,” he said.
She rushed to her sparkling, all-white kitchen and grabbed a coffee cup. When she was done, she set his mug on the counter. He took a sip. “You remember how I like it.”
She remembered a lot of things. Couldn’t forget, no matter how hard she tried. They stood there at her kitchen counter and stared at each other, and Katie was melting. Melting and she didn’t know what to do about it.
“I just heard congratulations are in order. You’re coaching. That’s wonderful, Luke. Really wonderful.” She studied him. “Is it wonderful to you, Luke? Are you happy about it?”
“I think it has the potential to be wonderful,” he said after a short pause.
“Good. That’s good.”
“I’ve missed you, Katie.”
Her heart squeezed. “I’ve missed you, too, Luke.” She wanted to explain about leaving, but she didn’t know how, and wasn’t sure she should.
“Ron told me why you left,” he said.
She swallowed hard. “He did?”
He nodded. “Now you tell me.”
“Because I didn’t want to distract you. Because I didn’t want you to lose baseball. Because…” Emotion welled in her chest. “Because I was an idiot to ever listen to that man. You lost baseball anyway, and I wasn’t there to help you get through it. But you did. I’m glad you did.”
He didn’t move, didn’t immediately respond. “I’m not through it, Katie. Some days, I’m hanging by a string. But I’m trying. I’m getting there.” Thunder rumbled again, shaking the windows. “The rain makes me think of that day—”
“In your kitchen,” she said softly, awareness fluttering in her stomach, sexy images of them making love teasing her mind. “I woke up thinking about it this morning.”
His eyes warmed. “What if I told you I could have coached in Los Angeles, but I came here for you? So you could be close to your sister and I could be close to you.”
Her heart tripped and then raced. “How close, Luke?” she asked. “How close do you want to be?”