Chapter Eleven
Heidi
The third game, Bobcats versus White Sox, was coming to an end as I sipped my beer at the local sports bar in Rob’s hometown. My head was pounding from the noise and the discussions about their hometown hero. Rob had not done well in the first game of the series, only hitting a single and the Bobcats had lost. But then something fired him up. Game two featured a couple of doubles from Rob that brought his teammates home for a 4–1 win. Game three had started out grimly, with no one on base when Rob came up to the plate. Then Brittany DeLuce had “accidentally” lost her scarf over the field. Everything came to a stop when Rob caught it, held it aloft with his thousand-watt smile, then passed it over to the umpire. The camera had loved the shot of the beautiful blonde with raspberry lips and impressive cleavage as she blushed prettily. Then Rob had hit a home run and speculation ran rampant.
Everyone was sure he was sleeping with the boss’s daughter, and I had to look away rather than watch him grin as he rounded the bases. I remembered being the object of that smile, and it hurt to see him give it to a woman so much prettier than me. Fortunately, the moment I turned away from the TV, I noticed another person grumbling into his beer. A sour-faced lumberjack of a man, who scowled at the screen as fiercely as I’d been doing a moment ago.
Could this be the mysterious Tommy who had reason to hate Rob? I sure hoped so, because the last few days had been filled with glory stories about their hometown boy, so rosy that they couldn’t possibly be true. No one was that wholesome or talented. And yet every soul in Broken Bow, Nebraska, had a tale about Rob, of when he’d saved their cat or done chores for them when someone was ill. And that was nothing compared to the string of women who claimed to have had a hot moment with the heavy hitter. Most only claimed a kiss or three, but others were more graphic and a thousand times more glowing. That, unfortunately, was something I could relate to. Rob was nothing if not skilled in bed.
I moved closer to the grumbling man and tried to think of a smooth way to approach him. Only I didn’t need subtlety. I just needed to be female. Once the cheers had died down, the man looked around the bar and landed on me.
“Hey good looking, you hate baseball as much as I do?”
I smiled and shrugged. “Not my favorite sport. You?”
“I like the sport. It’s the people I hate.”
That sounded promising. “Mind if I join you?” The bar was crowded, but his small table was deserted except for him. Apparently, no one liked a guy who dissed the hometown hero.
He kicked a chair closer to me. Classy—not. And then our voices were drowned out by a roar of approval from the crowd. It was the seventh inning stretch, and the cameras were focused on Rob and Brittany as she tied her scarf around his bat. Her blond hair was blowing artfully back from her face as she leaned over…and over…and over. Damn, the camera did love her cleavage as she planted a big kiss on Rob’s cheek.
He grinned for the cameras, but I could see a note of strain around his eyes. I already knew that he found all the media attention stressful, but it was part of his job. I kept searching his face, hoping for a telltale sign that he didn’t feel the same way about the bleached blonde as he did for me. Something—anything—that said, I was special to him.
I didn’t find it. I was just another in a long line of women who had graced Rob’s bed. Though, of course, I hadn’t even rated a bed recently, I thought sourly. Just a desk in the press box.
Pulling my attention back to the bitter guy in front of me, I watched him all but spit at the TV. And when he noticed my attention, he shrugged. “Bastard has all the girls eating out his hand. They don’t know the truth.”
I blinked and tried to appear fascinated instead of repulsed. This guy might be the reason I came to Nebraska, but that didn’t mean I had to like digging up dirt. “What truth?”
“He’s a coldhearted bastard. He uses ’em and throws ’em away like tissues.”
“Women?”
“Women, friends, you name it. He just takes and takes and nobody says boo because he’s famous.”
Well, here was a man with an ax to grind. I felt sleazy just encouraging him to continue. “Did he take something from you?”
“Yes!” The word was spit into his beer right before he drained the mug. “But nobody wants to hear my sad tale.”
“I do,” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to touch the man, but I did lean forward and try to look earnest. “What happened?”
“It was my sister he destroyed. Fucking destroyed.” He slammed down his beer. “Me, I just taught him everything. Taught him how to swing, how to stand. Everything.”
Maybe, but he hadn’t been the one to practice all hours of the day and night. Teaching is one thing. Putting in the hours to do it is something else entirely. But I didn’t focus on that. “So you two were friends?”
“Grew up together. Lived in each other’s backyards. Until he fucked my sister.”
The beer went sour in my stomach. Was “fucked” figurative or literal? “Wow, that sucks,” I said noncommittedly. “What happened?”
“Got her pregnant, that’s what. Then dumped her like a used douche.”
Ew. I really didn’t want to hear this. Of all the bad things I could think about Rob—mostly that he was a womanizer of the first order—this was something I didn’t believe. We’d talked a lot in between bouts of sexual ecstasy. I just didn’t think he had it in him to abandon his child. But then, a lot of people did stupid things when they were kids. Hadn’t I come here for just this kind of dirt?
Maybe. And so I stayed. I bought another beer for Rob’s former best friend, who I learned was Tom Sullivan. I ordered nachos for myself so I had something else to blame for the sick feeling in my gut. And then I pumped the guy for whatever concrete details I could get, including the name of his sister, because I was going to have to verify whatever facts I could find.
We kept talking long after the baseball game ended. Bobcats over the White Sox 5–2. Rob had played spectacularly and there were lots of annoying commentator jokes about how a beautiful woman could inspire a man to greatness. The crowd loved it. Tom and I choked into our beers.
It was late by the time I headed back to my cheap motel room. I wasn’t looking forward to sleeping on a bed that was more uncomfortable than my car, but at least I’d be able to shower off some of the ick I felt from this day’s work. It was a short walk from the bar and the evening air was nice. I was busy counting the number of pickup trucks I passed—easily ten times what I’d see in Indianapolis—when a sleek black Corvette drove up beside me.
I’d taken self-defense classes and even knew how to fire a gun safely, but I wasn’t carrying and I sure as hell couldn’t take on a car with my bare hands. I jumped sideways into the grass, but the car just paced me, its engine making a dull rumble that somehow soothed my headache instead of irritating it. I’d already threaded my keys between my fingers, so I wasn’t completely bare-knuckle when the car window dropped down.
“Heidi! Thank God. You shouldn’t walk alone at night.”
“Rob?” I gaped at the man. He couldn’t seriously be here. He was in Chicago. I’d seen him on TV. But that was hours ago, and… I did some rapid calculation in my head. Yeah, he could have made it here by now if he’d driven straight from the stadium.
“Get in before someone recognizes this car.”
Someone? Hell, everyone. It was a black Corvette in Broken Bow. He had to own the only one. “Come to get a dose of adoration from your homeys?” Okay, I admit it. Maybe I was angry at the way he and Brittany had been making kissy-faces at each other on national TV. Or maybe I was just out of sorts because I’d never imagined myself spending days looking for smut on one of my exes. Either way, the words were harsh, and I knew it.
He grimaced and pushed open the car door. “I came to see you. Damn it, don’t you ever check your messages?”
Yes, I’d checked them. And yes, I’d heard his anonymous plea for me to talk to him. “Sorry, Rob from Ft. Lauderdale,” I drawled. “I must have forgotten to hit reply.” Or more likely, I hadn’t known what I wanted to say, so I’d hadn’t said anything.
His gaze grew angry, but his tone remained steady. “I can get fired for talking to you. And if anyone local uploads a picture of this car right next to you, then I sure as hell will get fined. So please, will you get in so I can talk to you in private without risking ten thousand dollars?”
I stared at him, the numbers not lining up in my head. Could he seriously get fined just for talking to me? I’d known that the Bobcats were obsessive about controlling media interaction, but ten grand? That was enough to make me scramble into his car and slam the door.
“I hope you weren’t lying,” I said, wondering if I’d just jumped into the car of a crazy person. “I’m a journalist. I can find out the truth.”
“Believe me, I know you’re a journalist.” He hit the gas and we roared away. “The question is whether you’re a fair one or not.”
Normally I’d be insulted to my very bones by the suggestion. But right then, I was sick on nachos, beer, and too many hours spent trying to dig up dirt. I couldn’t feel dirtier if I were wearing stilettos and a hooker miniskirt. So instead of arguing, I tried something else.
“Where are you taking me?”
“My parents’ farm.”
I straightened, panic tightening my throat. “What? You can’t!” I wasn’t ready to talk to his parents. I wasn’t dressed right. They’d read the guilt on my face.
He arched a brow. “I thought a journalist needed to be evenhanded. Get both sides of the story.”
“I’ve heard plenty about your glorious childhood as the hometown choirboy.”
“I was never in the choir.”
“Not according to Pastor Beck.”
He snorted. “Pastor Beck drank a lot. I doubt he remembers who was president, much less who was in his choir.”
Well, that was interesting information, if completely irrelevant. “Take me someplace else. Someplace we can talk in private. I don’t want to meet your parents.” It would be too humiliating. I’d be the ex-lover meeting his parents. Awful.
He exhaled. “Fine. But I have to hide this car. And change.”
I looked at his clothes. He was wearing slacks and a polo shirt. Nice attire that made him look GQ hot. James Bond on his day off. My girly parts were already drooling. “Take me back to my hotel. We can meet in the morning.”
He shot me a heavy look. “One hour, Heidi. I’ll show you the real me.”
I folded my arms across my chest, mostly because my hands were practically itching to touch him. This close, his charisma was off the charts. My fingers wanted to brush the hair out of his eyes and stroke the muscled length of his forearm. My heart wanted nothing more than to give him whatever he wanted, and lower down was already aching from the memory of what we’d done and the desire to do it again.
But my brain was in charge. My brain that was slightly beer addled and a lot peeved at the way he’d looked at Brittany. The camera had gotten a close-up of the softening in his eyes and a quiet longing. I couldn’t forget that look and I was still pissed about it. How could he look at another woman that way days after what we’d done in the press box?
I sighed. “Fine. An hour. But fair warning, I’m going to ask you about Jill Sullivan.”
I was watching him closely, so I saw it clearly when he jerked in reaction. “Jill’s not a topic for conversation.”
“Then drop me off here. I’ll walk back.”
“You can’t walk back from here,” he practically snapped. “You’re miles away from town.” Then he lifted his chin. “You’re just going to have to wait for me to take you back. In Dad’s truck.”
“So basically, you’re kidnapping me. How is that going to work if I tell my editor about it?”
“Badly,” he answered, his voice grim. He turned left at the junction of four cornfields, then right onto a gravel driveway that I hadn’t even seen in the dark. Two minutes later, he parked beneath a towering maple that—no kidding—sported a tire swing. To the right was a large family home that looked like it belonged in the Farmhouse Edition of Architectural Digest.
I was still staring at it when he pulled open my door for me.
“Come on, Heidi. Give me a chance to explain.”
What could I say? I wanted to hear him tell me that he felt nothing for Brittany. That I was the woman for him. That we’d work things out. Sure, there was zero chance of him saying anything like that, but when he looked at me with those earnest blue eyes, I just wanted to say yes to everything. Including what we’d done when we both knew it was stupid.
“Please?” he asked.
I nodded and unbuckled my seat belt. Farmville, here I come.