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Scout smiled. “Evan, what would you think about coming to a weeklong baseball camp we’re hosting and trying out for the New England Rebels?”
“I would think what he said is right. That it’s insane.”
“Insane.” Scout nodded, feeling some odd sense of purpose. “Well, that’s sort of how I roll now. So give it a shot anyway.”
Scout put out her hand and after a second, as if he was still processing what he’d just been told, Evan Tanner shook it with a definitive yes.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_869fdd10-992c-5700-9b0f-13c79a556f9d)
“YOU’RE REALLY CONSIDERING HIM,” Jayson said as he quickly glanced at Scout before turning his eyes back to the road. They were still about an hour away from Minotaur Falls and the ban on talking didn’t seem so much like a purposeful thing this time but a result of Scout being lost in thought. The look on her face told Jayson she was still thinking about Evan and his sweet swing.
“You mean Evan? Hell, yes. It’s a tryout camp. What’s the worst that can happen?”
Jayson shrugged. “Yeah, but isn’t it kind of getting the guy’s hopes up? Bringing him to a tryout. He won’t make it through the first day.”
“I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit. You saw that swing, heard that contact, same as I did.”
Jayson snorted. “Scout, we’re talking about a twenty-seven-year-old former football player. I don’t care if he hits it out of the park every time and makes it through all five days of camp. Are you seriously going to recommend him to the New England Rebels as a prospect for the draft?”
He could feel her eyes on him. He didn’t need to look at her to know she was glaring at him. The glare was basically Scout’s go-to look. It would be a huge improvement from the blank expression she’d been wearing for months.
There were times during Duff’s illness he wondered if he would ever see anything in those green eyes again, or if they would remain lifeless forever...like Duff.
Saw some life in her today. Knew baseball would save her. Knew you would, too.
Jayson shook the voice out of his head. That was not Duff. Duff was not talking to him. Duff was dead. Jayson was just imagining what Duff might have said if he had seen Scout today.
Although Jayson had thought the same thing. The way her body tightened when she watched Evan swing. The way it seemed every sense was turned on. Damn, it had hurt. He remembered what it felt like to sit next to Scout while she broke down fundamentals unlike any other baseball scout Jayson had ever known.
The memories sucked. Because the memories always reminded him of what it had felt like to be in love. To be in love with Scout, who loved him, too.
It had been maddening and exhilarating. It had been soul crushing and to this day still the most important thing he’d ever experienced. Even though buying his mom her first real home had been huge, it hadn’t been life changing for him.
Scout had been life changing. From the start he knew they weren’t just some couple. He knew they weren’t just two young people having some fun.
No, they were the real deal. He knew it because, four years later, she wouldn’t let them have a conversation in the car for fear it would bring all the old memories up again.
He knew it because he thought that was a good idea, too. As much as he was committed to honoring his promise to Duff, he was not going back there with her. The fun and the love, the passion and the sex, the madness and everything that he felt for her. The importance of those feelings was now tainted by pain.
That crushing pain had sat on his chest for months after leaving her. Eventually it mellowed out to a dullness that he knew would never really go away.
“What is with the snorting?” Scout grilled him. “You know I hate the snorting.”
He’d always snorted any time she said something he didn’t believe or agree with.
“I’m sorry, but I know you. Taking a risk on a guy like Evan? That is not going to happen. You and I both know it. So I guess I’m feeling bad for him. The reality is this guy is going to come to camp, we’ll send him up against some Triple A pitching talent and he won’t be able to hit dick, pardon my French. But even if he does, it would take a major sell to get anyone to consider him at his age and with his lack of baseball experience. I just don’t see you doing that.”
There was silence as Jayson changed lanes, passed a car, then changed back.
He shot her another glance. Yep...more glaring.
“Look, what do I know?” Scout asked him.
It was an old exchange they used to share. Which meant more memories. Damn.
“You know baseball.”
“I know baseball,” she repeated. “I’m telling you, I know what a natural swing looks like and that guy has it. If he’d been the golf coach instead of the baseball coach, he might be trying to qualify for the US Open, who knows. But if someone comes to me as a natural-born athlete with a sweet swing and who I think can be an asset to the team, I’m willing to make the hard sell.”
“You never make the hard sell,” Jayson said. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. What he’d said would piss her off and he really hadn’t wanted to do that. Today had been a good day. She’d gone outside. She’d worn clothes that weren’t stained. He’d watched her eat three bites of a hamburger and seven French fries.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Scout, I worked by your side for over a year. You play the numbers. You go with the odds. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. It’s the smart thing to do in baseball. It’s why the Rebels have you, one of only two female scouts in all of baseball, on their payroll. But don’t try to convince me that you might actually take a risk on this guy.”
He heard the huff and felt the flounce of her body as she shifted in her seat. She’d always been this crackle of energy and every time she moved it was as if she ruffled the air around her so he could feel the ripples of it on his skin.
“You say that like I never have. Taken a risk.”
He felt a sharp pain in his chest and might have been afraid he was having a heart attack except he was intimately familiar with the feeling and knew better.
Heartbreak.
“Have you?” His tone was sharper than it should have been, but it was a particularly sore subject for him. “In these past four years since I’ve been gone, have you? Because I sure as heck know you didn’t take them before.”
“Really? Are we seriously going to have this fight again?”
Jayson didn’t want to fight. Fighting her was not what he was supposed to be doing. He was here to support her, pull her out of the hole she was in, get her back on her feet.
Fix her because she’s broken.
That, too. He found himself angry all over again. He remembered the anger. It had lived side by side with the heartbreak. Now he was realizing, like the pain, it too had dulled to an ache. But it had never really gone away.
“You know,” he said slowly, carefully, as if this next sentence might be the most important of his life. “I don’t think we ever had that fight. I remember the words. I remember asking you to go with me and you saying no. I remember asking why. I remember knowing why, so I stopped asking when you stopped giving me answers. I remember goodbye. You know what I don’t remember? I don’t remember the fight.”
* * *
“HAVE YOU LOST your mind?” Scout asked him.
Jayson had pulled over to a gas station in the middle of nowhere. He’d stopped the car and gotten out as if to suggest they weren’t going anywhere until they had it out.
Now Scout was out of the car and looking at him as if he had lost his mind.
Maybe he had, but after checking his anger while Duff was dying he suddenly found he couldn’t hold it in anymore. No doubt Scout wasn’t ready for this showdown, but it was hard to know if she ever would be. And they needed this.
“I loved you,” he snapped. “You knew that. But you wouldn’t take the smallest chance on us. Not the smallest chance and come to Texas with me. I mean, seriously, what was the worst that could happen? If it didn’t work out between us, you could have always come back home.”
Scout looked stricken. So much so that Jayson considered taking it back and telling her to forget it. She wasn’t ready for this confrontation. He knew that now, but he just wanted her to admit that their breakup had been her fault and not his.
“You were the one who left me!”
The shrill sound of her voice hurt his ears. Jayson imagined if there were any dogs within earshot they would be howling.
“If you loved me,” she continued, “really loved me, you never would have done that!”
“It was a managing job. This is baseball. You know that’s how this business works. You have to go where the openings are. What was I supposed to do? Sit around and wait for something to open up in Minotaur Falls?”
“You’re here now,” she grumbled.
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t be back as the team’s manager. With a chance to make an impression on the Rebels’ GM. You know where I’m going, right?”
Scout nodded tightly with her arms crossed over her middle.
“And you, more than any other person, know what it means for me to get back there. One day. I had one damn day and it wasn’t enough. Every decision I made, everything I learned was all about giving me one more shot. You knew that. Tell me you knew that.”
“Okay. I knew it. I knew how important it was to you, although you really never gave yourself credit for getting to the majors the first time.”
Jayson didn’t want to think about that. “You knew why I had to leave and take that job. It was either that or effectively give up my career. Is that what you wanted? For me to give up baseball?”
She shook her head, again tightly as if these answers were hard to give.
“Now tell me why you wouldn’t come with me. I told you I loved you. You told me you loved me. Was that the truth?”
“Yes,” she said softly. So softly he almost didn’t hear her, but he did and it hurt him all over again to hear it.
“You couldn’t take a chance on us, though. You couldn’t have just a little bit of faith in me.”
Scout opened her mouth as if to argue, but this time he shook his head.
“I used to blame Duff. I told him he must have messed with your head to make you think you could never leave his side. But it wasn’t him, was it? You were just too scared to change your life.”
“You were asking me to change everything!” Scout screeched. “We had been dating for seven months. It was the first time I’d been in love and everything was already changing and then you wanted me to pick up everything and move with you. What about my career? My future? My family? None of that mattered to you. You never once considered staying for me, but you were mad at me for not jumping up and following your command. How is that fair?”
Maybe it wasn’t. Jayson felt deflated. He hadn’t convinced her four years ago and he wasn’t going to convince her now that she was wrong. He’d wanted Scout to prove to him he was more important than anyone else in her life.
Now she never could.
“We should go,” he said. “It’s getting late.”
“What do you want from me?” Scout shouted at him. He could see the tears welling in her eyes and knew he’d torn something open in her. Their wounds clearly hadn’t fully healed.
“What do you want me to say?” she continued to shout. “That I made a mistake. That I regretted my decision every day. That even after four years I still think about you and wonder what if?”
She advanced on him, her eyes still red with tears, but there was anger there, too. “Because if I did that, if I made that admission, then I would have to wonder what if I had followed you four years ago. And that would have meant that I wouldn’t have had these last four years with my father. Because that was all the time he had left. So, no, I’m not going to admit that.”
“Scout, I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You do nothing but hurt me!” she howled.
The blow was more devastating than anything he’d ever felt before. It hurt more than running into a brick wall or finding out he would never play baseball again.
The only woman he’d ever loved and he did nothing but hurt her.
I should go. The thought came to him immediately. They couldn’t easily stay in the same space without causing each other pain. It only made sense for him to leave.
Never thought you were a quitter.
There it was again, hearing Duff in his head. And of course he would say the one thing that would annoy Jayson enough to not leave.
“Come on,” he said, offering his hand. “We need to get on the road.”
They both got in the car, silence now sitting heavy between them.
“Well, that was worth it,” Scout muttered.
He knew she’d said it facetiously, but he didn’t agree. Those were things they had needed to say to each other. Now it was done, and the bottom line was he was either going to have to let her go and move on with this life...
Or he was going to have to find a way to stop hurting her.
Five years ago...
DAMN, HE WAS NOT going to be able to take this slow. Scout was in his arms and the need to bury himself inside her was like nothing he’d ever felt before. Jayson knew what sex was—he’d had plenty of sex—but this felt different.
This was the first time he’d waited for something he wanted. And the wait had nearly killed him.
The moment he’d laid eyes on Scout, Jayson knew he wanted her. Something about her edginess turned him on. But he’d also sensed a vulnerability about her that was equally intriguing. The one thing he knew for certain was that he was going to have to move slowly with her.
Instinctively, he knew if he asked her out that first week he would have scared her off. So instead he let their friendship develop naturally. Which made things even harder because not only did he want to screw her brains out, but also the more they hung out together the more he liked her.
Jayson couldn’t remember the last time he’d liked someone so much.
Which was why when she finally worked up the nerve to ask him out, he knew all that waiting had paid off. She was coming to him. Like a rabbit he was luring out of its lair with a little bit of sweet lettuce.
Now they were in his hotel room, and her tongue was in his mouth and he was thinking with what little brainpower he had left that he was not going to be able to drag this out.
Next time, he told himself.
Next time he would nibble and lick and suck. He would tease and torment and make her come a million times before he slid inside her.
This time he just needed to get inside her.
“Scout, I need you, baby.”
She pulled away and was looking at him a little bit confused, which he thought was nice. His kiss had made her fuzzy.
“Huh?”
He ran his hand down her back until he was cupping her ass and pulling her against his aching erection. “Are you ready for me?”
