And yes, maybe now she was a little tough, a little jaded, and a whole lot mistrustful, but she had her morals firmly in place, instincts honed sharp.

Which is how she screwed up enough courage to call Tommy.

“Finally,” he grumbled. “I was getting ready to send out a search party. You don’t return calls now?”

“I’m sorry. I need to talk to you.”

“Well, I need to talk to you, too, doll. I need you to get me your article ASAP. I’m running it tomorrow.”

“It’s not due until Monday.”

“I know, but Alicia crapped out on me and now I have a spot to fill. You’re it.”

“I need some more time.”

“What do you mean you need more time?”

“Actually,” she said with a glance at her blank screen, “I need to change subjects. I’m thinking ice dancing.”

He laughed good and hard. “Oh no you don’t.”

He had no idea. She had to change subjects—she’d kissed hers! “I have a little conflict of interest.” A six foot two conflict of interest . . .

“Huh?”

Tommy had given Holly a chance when no one else would, so she felt she owed him for that, and she gave him the truth that meant so much to her. “It’s possible that I’m developing a very small . . .”

“Zit? Parasite? What?”

“Crush. On one of the players.”

“So?”

“So . . .” The last time she’d dated someone related to her work, it had ended badly. Very badly. So badly Alex was probably still wishing her dead, and she was still wishing she’d never faked an orgasm for him.

She didn’t intend to date Pace, or to kiss him again for that matter, but she had to face one fact. “It’ll be hard to be objective.”

“I’m not paying you to be objective,” Tommy said. “This isn’t a series about baseball facts. This is a personal commentary. Your opinion matters, so if you’re getting close to them, then so much the better. And hey, I hear the players all do tons of charity work with kids. Get me pics of that, pronto. It’ll go good alongside whatever tough-hitting stuff you write. We’ll tug on the heartstrings, then rip out their guts.”

“You are one sick man, Tommy.”

“I know it. Now send me the damn article.”

She looked at her blank screen again and winced. “And if it’s biased?”

“I’ll un-bias it. Send it.”

“Tommy—”

“Look, we’ve done this. Send it or quit.”

She gave one brief thought to doing just that. But two things stopped her. One, her fear of being poor again, and two, quitting in shitty economic times because of a guy she’d spent one hour with had to be the definition of stupid female, and she hated stupid females.

“What’ll it be, doll?”

Dammit. “Give me a few hours. I’ll write your damn article.”

Chapter 7

There’s no crying in baseball!

—Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own

For the first time in recent memory, Pace slept like the living dead. When he woke up, he stretched and felt another first: no aches, no pains. In fact, he felt damn good. He eyed the empty vitamin pack by his bed. If Tucker’s stuff had done this, then it was worth its weight in gold.

He got up, showered, and checked his e-mail. Samantha had sent him the link to American Online Living and Holly’s first baseball series article on her blog. She’d profiled their close-knit team, highlighting the friendship of Ty, Joe, and Henry. They were a threesome now, but she wrote about how they’d once been a fivesome, before Jim and Slam had been traded. The guys had put a positive spin on the situation for her, and Pace found the article nonjudg mental and thoughtful, but also a little on edge.

She was on the hunt for secrets, and he knew it. The Heat hadn’t had any bad press lately, and that was always a good thing, but none of them were angels and it wouldn’t take much digging to find dirt.

Holly sat at the private gate at the airport waiting for the Heat’s plane to be ready for boarding. Tommy was so excited about this Philly trip that he’d called three times since she’d gotten to the airport, and she knew if he could have somehow switched positions with her, he would have.

“Find any secrets yet?” he demanded to know.

“Nope.”

“You losing your touch?”

“I told you I didn’t want this assignment.”

“It’s a great assignment. Oh, and if the Heat go all the way this year, I want a signed ball.”

“If I dig out any secrets, no one’s going to want to sign a ball for either of us.”

“Yeah.” Tommy sighed. “But since you tend to sell advertising space like crazy, I’ll have to live with a fat bank account instead. So . . . which one are you sleeping with?”

“What? None of them!”

“You said you had a crush.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m sleeping with him.”

“Maybe you should. Get the inside scoop. Yeah, do it!”

Holly hung up on him and boarded.

When she’d been invited by Sam on this trip, she’d had no idea what to expect, maybe a luxurious trip from start to finish, with maids and butlers to serve the players every whim. Instead they flew on a relatively no-frills chartered jet with a single steward onboard. The Heat players wore suits and looked good while they were at it. They also smelled good. The support staff was there as were coaches, management. Sam’s brother, Jeremy, was aboard, too. He was Sam’s equivalent at the Charleston Bucks, and the two of them often co-chaired publicity events for both teams together.