Diva In The Dugout (All Is Fair In Love And Baseball) Read online

  With her back to him, he admired the woman’s shapely backside and blond ponytail. With those curves and that hair, she reminded him of—

  His heart stuttered as he sprang to his feet. Could it be? “Turn around. Turn around.”

  Matt jumped up, too. He put his hand on Dave’s shoulder. “You okay, man? If you’re gonna puke, do it before we get on the bus. I don’t want to smell your cack all the way to the hotel.”

  Dave held his breath as the woman scooped the sobbing child into her arms. The little girl threw her arms around the blonde’s neck and burrowed into her shoulder. Would she ever face him?

  An eternity later, she turned toward his dugout. All the breath whooshed out of his lungs. It was her. The woman who’d reluctantly told him her name was Melinda. Lin.

  That meant the child in her arms wasn’t his sister. It was his daughter.

  Chapter Two

  His daughter? Dave cursed and thumped back onto the bench.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Good old Matt. Dave could always count on him for—what did he need? Sympathy? Congratulations?

  “You’re green. Should I go get the doc?”

  Lightheaded, Dave forced his gaze away from Lin and the girl. Then he pointed.

  Matt shaded his eyes and peered toward the mound. “Is that your barely legal Texas babe?”

  Dave nodded.

  “Holy crap.” Matt sat, too. He kicked at a clump of grass someone’s cleats had tracked into the dugout. “Think the kid’s yours?”

  “She looks to be about that age.”

  His buddy snorted. “Come on, man. If she hooked up with you, why not with other guys?”

  “Other guys who father kids who look like my kid sister? Right.”

  “I have to let this sink in.” Matt was quiet for a moment. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know, man.” Dave whipped off his cap and chucked it at the wall. He wished it’d sink into his head that easily. The realization he was as shitty a parent as his own father made his brain feel like it was melting. “I swore I’d never be like my dad.”

  “If Blondie hasn’t hassled you, maybe she’s not sure it’s yours.”

  “She’s not an ‘it,’ she’s a little girl.” My little girl.

  Matt snorted. “Since when are you Mr. Straighten Up and Fly Right?”

  “Since about an hour ago.” The manager’s pregame warning sounded in his head: Clean up your image or you’re out.

  Dave retrieved his cap and brushed it clean. A cute kid in pigtails would do wonders in making him look squeaky-clean.

  “I’ll tell you what. If that girl’s mine, I won’t leave Amarillo until I settle up with her mother.”

  ****

  After calming Tara, Mel headed back to her seat. Even before she sat down, she blurted out, “I saw him.”

  “Muscles?” Luann whistled and held out a glass of beer.

  She nodded and took a sip. Maybe the lukewarm liquid would provide her the same kind of comfort she’d just given her daughter. Not a chance. The brew merely made her queasier.

  Mel set the cup on the cement at her feet. No sense drinking if it would just make her more miserable. Seeing Muscles again dredged up guilt and the excitement she thought she’d gotten over years ago. “Sitting in the visitors’ dugout. Number nine. He’s older, but still hot as you-know-where.”

  “We’re all older now.” Lu whipped out her cell phone.

  She glanced down at her no-longer-perky breasts. “Don’t remind me.”

  Lu continued to fondle her phone as she poked Mel’s ribs. “Would you stop? You’re still gorgeous.”

  “You stop. You’re just blowing smoke up my—”

  “Oh. My. God.”

  Before she had a chance to ask what was wrong, Lu held out her phone. On its small screen, a nearly naked Muscles winked up at her. He wore only a pair of form-fitting briefs and had a scantily clad woman plastered to each side. He was French kissing one of them while he groped the other one.

  “That’s Tara’s daddy, all right.” Mel buried her face in her hands. “My brother’s right: I am a total screw-up. Who else would get involved with a Grade-A womanizer?”

  “Mel, look…there are pages of Google results on this clown.” She clicked on several more. “Partying is mentioned three times more than his baseball stats.”

  She winced. So much for respectability.

  Lu kept scrolling through Muscles’ Google results while Mel mentally beat herself up. Damn. With years to get over the guilt, why was she suddenly regretting her youthful indiscretion all over again?

  Because Muscles turned out to be a man-whore?

  No wonder he’d been so quick to party with her. Picking him up had been a first for her, but judging by those pictures, he clearly was a pro. She was likely just one of many women who frequented his bed.

  “You planning to talk to him after the game?”

  She shifted in the hard stadium seat. “I’d rather not.”

  “Running is the coward’s way out, and you’ve never been a chicken.”

  Dread pooled in her stomach. “No time like the present to start.”

  Lu’s nose scrunched with annoyance. “Mel, Muscles has rights you can’t deny him if you know who he is.”

  “It’s because I know who he is that I can’t let him into our lives.”

  Lu’s gaze didn’t waver.

  “I can’t have a guy like that hanging around—not now, when Daddy’s finally running for mayor again.”

  “Your father’s campaign will survive.”

  “The way it did last time? We both know he pulled out of the race because no one trusted him to run a town when he couldn’t even keep his own daughter from getting knocked up.”

  She hated that the people of Brannen blamed her father for her shortcomings. Finally, after years of toeing the line of propriety, their memories were fading. “I won’t mess up his chances again.”

  “Then we need to make a quick getaway.”

  Thank God Lu understood. Too bad her idea had a major flaw. “He looked straight at me.”

  Lu waved away her concern. “He was probably staring through you…fantasizing about his next party. But if you really want to talk to him, I’ll fetch Tara and take her to the car while you go make nice.”

  She squared her shoulders. “I don’t want to, but I will.”

  Mel handed Lu the keys. I owe him that much. Thank God her friend had the presence of mind to come up with a plan that kept Tara far away from Muscles.

  “Lu, what if he demands to meet Tara?” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and held her breath. She wasn’t ready for daughter and father to meet. She doubted she’d ever be ready to introduce her little girl to the kind of man those Google images portrayed.

  “He has that right, Mel.” A smile somewhat softened Lu’s brusque response. “But did you see those pictures? I doubt he’ll be interested.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Mel could only be so lucky.

  She fidgeted through the rest of the game, paying more attention to her own thoughts than the action on the diamond. But when a Tornadoes rally in the eighth distracted her from the unpleasant task ahead, she leapt up to cheer with the rest of the crowd. In his exuberant celebration, the guy to her left sloshed beer on her shirt.

  Her surprised screech elicited a mumbled sorry from the fan.

  “Great,” she muttered. “Now I smell like a brewery.”

  After the Tornadoes lost by one, Mel waited for Luanne to fetch Tara. After they had left the stadium, she turned back to the visitors’ dugout. Only one player remained, and she could see him staring right at her.

  Mel swallowed hard and forced herself to cover the distance to the dugout. Muscles stepped into the fading sunlight to meet her halfway. She gulped again. Had he always been so tall? She didn’t think so. Of course, last time they’d seen each other, they hadn’t done much standing.

  Muscled arms crossed over the
massive chest she remembered all too well. He frowned down at her. “Something you need to tell me?”

  “What makes you think that?” If he didn’t have the brainpower to add two and two, she wasn’t going to enlighten him.

  He stepped closer, his voice calm. “Cute kid with pigtails?”

  Damn. Maybe he had come up with the right answer. Melinda opened her mouth, disgusted when a squeak came out.

  Her daughter’s father arched an eyebrow. “Cat’s got your tongue, eh?”

  Get it together, Mel, this isn’t brain surgery. She offered him her widest, flirtiest smile. Maybe the charms he’d fallen for once before would soften the blow of the bomb she was about to drop. “Welcome back to Texas, Daddy.”

  ****

  After she confirmed his suspicions, Dave fought off another wave of lightheadedness. He was a father—to an apparently athletic kid with a skittish mama who looked ready to bolt.

  Not this time. He stepped closer to her and gripped her upper arm. “Did you ever plan to tell me?”

  She didn’t speak, but her head shook from side to side.

  Dave rocked back on his heels. Why didn’t her answer surprise him? “How could you when you didn’t want to know my name?”

  His fingers tightened as it occurred to him she could have done it on purpose—used him to get pregnant with no intention of letting him be a father. He smirked. The man he’d been five years ago—maybe even five hours ago—would have been happy with that arrangement. But his boss’ ultimatum changed everything.

  Or maybe it just gave him the excuse he’d been looking for to tame his wild image. Partying had lost most of its appeal while he sat with his mom in the hospital, pondering his own mortality. Who, besides Matt and maybe his siblings, would mourn him when he died?

  The blonde, Lin, tried to wriggle out of his grasp. “Let go! You’re hurting me.”

  A stab of guilt had Dave loosening his grip. He wasn’t a bully. But he wasn’t a pushover, either. “You’re not leaving without giving me an explanation.”

  Her lower lip thrust out, making her look every inch a schoolgirl. “It wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  As young as she looked right this minute, he questioned whether she had been barely legal that night. She’d sure acted grown up. “I remember. You said you were on the pill.”

  “I was!”

  “Then how—”

  She didn’t let him finish the question. “It fails sometimes, okay?”

  “Obviously.” Dave willed her to look him in the eye. It’d give him a hell of a lot more confidence in the tired lines she was handing him.

  He berated himself. How could he expect honesty from a woman he’d spent less than one night with, five years ago?

  She finally raised her chin and met his eyes. “When Lu told me you played ball, I tried to find you.”

  “Not very hard.”

  Before she fixed her eyes on his cleats again, shame dulled her bright green gaze. “Not hard.”

  “Would it have taxed that pretty blond head of yours too much to look at the team roster online, match my face to a name?”

  She looked at him again, and this time, challenge sparked in her eyes. “You know us blondes—too stupid to figure out how to work that new-fangled Internet.”

  Dave had little trouble quelling the urge to laugh. Blonde jokes notwithstanding, this situation was about as unfunny as it could get. He was father to a stranger—and it was this woman’s fault. “I’m in no mood for jokes.”

  “No, I suppose not.” She heaved a sigh. “What’s done is done and can’t be undone. But we can go on from here.”

  Catching a whiff of the unmistakable scent of stale stadium beer, he leaned closer to Lin and took another sniff. She reeked. Shit. His baby’s mother was a liar and a lush. At least that explained her inappropriate attitude. “You’re drunk.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Yeah, you are.” Just like the night we had sex. The thought rose, unbidden, from his memory. Since he’d had sex with enough drunken babes to overflow the team bus, he tried not to be too hard on himself.

  She waggled her hand. “So I had a sip to calm my nerves. You think I wasn’t jittery at the thought of facing you?”

  “You should be.” Dave grunted. “Keeping my daughter from me all this time.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You forget I didn’t know who the hell you were.”

  “You could have found me if you’d tried.”

  “What would you have done if I’d found you?”

  The question knocked the bluster right out of him. Well, at least she was finally starting to act as if she understood the gravity of the situation, instead of treating it like a joke. He took a step backward, away from the temptation to shake some sense into her. “Probably brushed you off, denied the baby was mine.”

  “Exactly why I kept my distance. An immature Casanova I can do without.”

  His eyes roamed over the still-sexy woman, lingering on her trembling mouth as he recalled her expertise. “Casanova? Ha! You weren’t exactly a blushing virgin yourself. Hard telling how many guys you’ve been with.”

  “Jerk.” Pink tinted her cheeks. The blush made her look a lot more innocent than he knew she was.

  “Being practical is all. You know I’ll want a DNA test to confirm the kid’s mine.”

  Her brow puckered. “That ‘kid’ has a name. Tara. But who says we want anything to do with you?”

  “You’re here aren’t you?” The fact was, now that he needed a new image, he could use their help. He swiped a hand over his face in a futile attempt to rid himself of anger. Her cooperation would go a long way toward rehabilitating his party-hearty image. “Maybe we should move forward from this moment.”

  She shrugged. “Your choice.”

  “Let’s start again, then.” He reached for her hand. “Allow me to introduce myself. Dave Reynolds, Condors shortstop.”

  ****

  Melinda glanced down at the big hand engulfing hers. That same hand had once helped her forget the humiliation of being dumped for a woman twice her age. She coughed and raised her eyes back to the face she’d never forgotten. Muscles—Dave—hadn’t changed a bit. He still had the same chestnut hair and eyes that looked straight into her soul. She suspected he also had the same easy smile, even if he wasn’t laughing now. She saw it in the crinkles at the corners of his piercing hazel eyes.

  She swallowed hard against memories best left forgotten. “I’d like to say I’m pleased to meet you.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Because I’m not. Mel was polite enough not to speak the words aloud. “Excuse me for having mixed feelings.”

  Dave’s answering bark of laughter didn’t reach his eyes. “You have mixed feelings?”

  “I never planned on seeing you again.”

  “Obviously. Please tell me you didn’t get yourself pregnant on purpose.”

  Of all the pompous, self-righteous—“Are you serious?”

  “Women do that.”

  She resisted the urge to shove him. “What kind of girl do you think I am?”

  “You really want me to answer that?” A hard light glinted in his eyes.

  “Not really.” Mel looked down at the dirt near the dugout. From his standpoint, it could well look as if she’d planned it. “I suppose you deserve to know what might have happened. It’s complicated.”

  “My comprehension skills might surprise you.”

  She doubted it. He didn’t strike her as the sharpest knife in the drawer. “I didn’t lie about being on the pill. But the night I met you, I’d recently broken up with my fiancé. I must have forgotten to take a couple while I wallowed in misery.”

  His lips tightened. “You forgot.”

  “It happens.” She shrugged, long since resigned to the fact.

  “You forgot?” A vein at his temple started to bulge.

  “You didn’t go out of your way to provide backup contraceptives.” She bet if she looked up �
��dumb jock” in the dictionary, she’d find a picture of him—probably flanked by half-naked women.

  Dark red splotches appeared on his cheeks. “Because you said you had it covered.”

  “I said it because I thought it was true.”

  The vein continued to pulse as he regarded her through narrowed eyes. She hoped he wasn’t about to have a stroke. Then again, it’d save her a lot of grief if he did.

  “If you’d told me you forgot the damn pill, I would gladly have run out for condoms.”

  Frustrated by his inability to understand, Mel stamped her foot. “I didn’t realize I forgot until later, genius. That night, I thought I was protected.”

  A muscle jumped again as he clenched his jaw. “And here we are.”

  “Here we are.” She raised her chin. Did he think he was the catch of the year? “Don’t worry about us. Tara and I have gotten along without you ’til now, and we’ll keep right on getting.”

  “Don’t you understand? I want to be in my daughter’s life.” Dave lunged toward her, then stepped back and let his hands drop. “Yours, too, if you’ll let me, Lin.”

  That name—the one only he’d ever called her, after she’d caved and told him her first name—was a mere whisper on his lips. Whether it was the whispered endearment or the stresses of the afternoon finally catching up to her, Mel’s knees buckled.

  Before she ended up on her butt in the dirt, Muscles held her tight. His big arms supported her, holding her up. She found herself gazing into eyes filled with…concern? Nah. It couldn’t be. He didn’t know her from any of the other women he’d been with—certainly not well enough to care how she felt.

  So why was he staring at her as if she were the only woman he’d ever seen?

  “Careful, Lin.” Warmth shone from the depths of his eyes and his fingers brushed the small of her back.

  Unprepared for tenderness, she pushed against his chest. “I’m fine.”

  He released her, his lips quirking up into that easy smile she remembered. “With that settled, when do I get to meet my girl?”

  She froze. There it was; the question she’d dreaded. Her knees wobbled again.

  He pulled her back into his arms, his voice low against her ear. “It’s a reasonable request.”