Or Red.

She remained silent, not saying that if they’d all been so close, then what they’d done had been a huge betrayal. She didn’t say any of it, but it was there in her eyes, along with a soft compassion and worried affection.

For him.

He closed his eyes. “So what you’re saying is that you’re going to write about this.”

“I did write about this.”

Well, hell.

“You know it’s what I am paid to do,” she said quietly. “Ferret out a secret and expose it. It’s my job.”

“I don’t think I like your job.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way. I never meant to hurt you.”

He let out a low laugh.

“What Ty’s doing is wrong.” She came right up to him, put a hand on his chest. “But I didn’t reveal where Ty got the stimulants.”

He paused. “You didn’t expose Red?”

“Or Tucker. Because I don’t have specific proof that that’s where Ty got it from.”

“Am I supposed to thank you for that?”

“You’re supposed to understand that it was going to get out anyway, that I’m merely doing my job. Ty is guilty, Pace.”

“Jesus.” He jammed his fingers into his hair and turned away from her. “So what do you want from me?”

“Truthfully?” She walked around him to look into his eyes, her own solemn. “I wasn’t sure until you opened the door and looked happy to see me in spite of the fact that I’ve pissed you off. I want this thing that’s happening between us. I really want it, more than I could have fathomed. But I can see now that’s a silly little dream.”

His heart seemed to swell against his ribs. “Why?”

“Because you say you don’t want anyone to walk away from you but you’re not . . . available. You’re baseball. No room for more. Certainly no room for a girlfriend who dares to question some of the practices of your sport.”

No. She was wrong. He was more than baseball. Or so he’d wanted to be. But she was gone, out the door, leaving himself feeling like he’d somehow just screwed up the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Chapter 23

Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things.

—Robert Frost

Holly’s article came out the next morning, and by noon, her cell phone was full of unhappy messages.

“I thought better of you than this,” Sam’s said. “I gave you access to these guys for your articles thinking you’d get some great new angles on the sport and we’d get some coverage, and this is how you repay us? I thought we were friends, Holly.”

Gage’s was no easier to listen to. “I need you to explain to me what the f**k you thought you were doing when you wrote this article. You might as well have put a big fat red circle around Ty, whose been ordered for drug testing tomorrow instead of pitching for us.”

Wade wasn’t much happier.

Or Henry.

But perhaps the toughest message was the one that didn’t come at all.

Pace remained silent.

Everyone was upset with her, and she didn’t blame them. It was Florida all over again. “I’ve screwed up,” she said to Allie via phone.

“Really? So it’s your fault that Ty was using?”

“It’s my fault that the whole world knows.”

“We make our own destiny, Holly.”

True enough. And she had a feeling she’d just made hers.

Pace slept in, and when he finally rolled over, he wished like hell that Holly was here with him. Warm. Smiling.

Naked.

The sun was pouring in the wide windows and it was nearly noon. He’d actually slept, really slept all night, no pain. He very carefully rolled his shoulder. Twinges, but he no longer felt as though someone was stabbing him with a sharp, fire-hot poker. Cheered by that, he headed toward the shower.

The house felt . . . empty. Other than a physical therapy session later, where he hoped to do a little throwing, something he was anxious to get back to, he had nothing going on.

A day off.

He could do whatever he wanted. Take a drive up Highway 1. Call the kids and coach them. Sit on his ass, if he wanted.

And yet all he really wanted was one carefully organized, slightly obsessive reporter who’d turned his world upside down.

And then left him.

No, he thought, getting into the shower, letting the hot water pummel him—she hadn’t left him.

He’d left her.

And he’d been wrong, very wrong.

“We had so many hits that our server crashed,” Tommy told Holly when he caught her by cell phone later that morning. “Plus three threatening phone calls,” he said proudly. “Oh, and I hear talk of a lawsuit from Ty.”

“And you’re happy?” she asked incredulously.

“Hell, yeah. Listen, no one’s going to sue, not successfully. And the threats are just icing on the cake. But I’d watch your back in dark parking lots for a few days, doll.”

“Gee, thanks.” She remembered how it’d felt to listen to all those messages, all the people she’d disappointed, people who had been her friends.

“Don’t worry, you’re protected. It’s a blog, for God’s sake. It’s an opinion.”

“I quoted the guys,” she reminded him. “All of whom said they weren’t interested in banned substances, and then the one who said he doesn’t see a problem with it. In Gage’s words, I put a big red circle around him.”