Center Stage: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 8) (3 page)

Because he sure as shit wasn’t going to bring up the hitting coach job for Dad tonight. Not with Zach glaring at him right now, demanding, “What do you want, Green?”

Ryan held up his hands in protest. “Nothing, man. What can I do around here?”

“Get home. Get something to eat. You have to get to the park early enough tomorrow.”

Ryan shook his head. “Still on the DL.”

Shit. Ormond must really be upset. He never would have forgotten the disabled list under ordinary circumstances. Well, Ryan
didn’t
have to report to Rockets Field the following day, so he might as well do what he could around here. That might even give him a chance to build some good will when it came time to ask about Dad, in a day or two. A week. Whenever the coast seemed clear. “Need help cleaning things up downstairs?”

“The caterers’ll get it.”

Ryan glanced toward the closed door of the coatroom. That’s where Lindsey had to be. No chance in hell he’d be able to help with anything in there. He gave up and started to head toward the parking lot, but Zach caught him up short. “Actually, there
is
something.” At Ryan’s questioning glance, Zach nodded back toward the sanctuary. “Could you walk through and make sure no one left water bottles lying around? We probably shouldn’t have allowed any in there in the first place.”

“No problem.”

And it wasn’t. Just a walk down the center aisle, checking to either side. He picked up half a dozen bottles, some half-full, some stained with lipstick. As long as he was at it, he slipped a couple of hymnals back into their slots and collected a handful of programs that had been left behind.

He dropped the paper into a trashcan in the corner of the vestibule, but there wasn’t room for the bottles. Shrugging, he headed downstairs to the reception hall. The caterers were in full swing, knocking down tables and stacking folding chairs. The pastor was back in the kitchen, talking to some guys in jeans and T-shirts, giving instructions for them to take a couple of huge platters of food out to their waiting van, the one with Food For Our Fellows painted on the sliding door.

Ryan tossed the water bottles into a blue bin labeled Recycling just as someone asked the pastor, “What do we do with the champagne?”

The preacher looked like he’d never heard of the stuff. He spluttered, “Well, we certainly can’t send it over to FFOF. And we can’t keep it here in the church kitchen. I suppose Mr. Ormond should take it home. No reason it can’t be served on a happier occasion.”

The pastor’s words were interrupted by a crash as a stack of folding chairs toppled. The caterer leaped forward to handle the crisis, commandeering workers to restack the chairs. Ryan stepped forward as the preacher looked doubtfully at the case of Dom Perignon. “I can get that for you, sir.”

Instant relief washed across the guy’s face. “Thank you, young man.”

Ryan grunted as he picked up the case and headed up to the vestibule. Ormond was waiting at the top of the stairs. “What part of ‘don’t stress your hamstring’ do you not understand?”

“Forget about it,” Ryan said amiably as he put the box on a nearby table. “My leg is fine.” He glanced toward the coatroom. “How’s she doing?”

“She’s fine.” Ormond stopped and corrected himself. “She
will
be fine.” He shook his head. “She’s a fucking mess, but she’s pretending everything’s all right. Shit. I want to kill that son of a bitch.”

Ryan shrugged. “He deserves it.”

“She’s my baby sister. I don’t know how I missed it. How I fucked up.”

“This isn’t on you, man.”

Before Ormond could say anything else, the coatroom door opened, and Lindsey stepped into the vestibule. She was shorter than he remembered—the top of her head would barely reach his shoulder. She was skinnier, too. In blue jeans and a faded Rockets T-shirt, she looked like she might blow away if the old church’s air conditioner ever kicked in. Her face was drawn, but her cheeks were pink, like she was blushing.

Or like she’d scrubbed away a wedding’s worth of makeup. He could still make out mascara or eyeliner or whatever that crap was called, making her dark brown eyes look huge, like she was an orphan or something, which come to think of it, she was. Her hair fell around her shoulders in stiff waves. He could still see the crimped lines where it had been pinned off her neck, princess-like, for her big day.

She was carrying a long white garment bag, one that had to contain her wedding dress. Her other hand clutched something that looked like a strangled poodle. It took him a moment to realize it was her veil.

“Zach—” she said, and then she realized she wasn’t alone with her brother. “Ryan.” She nodded in greeting.

“Hey,” he said, because he wasn’t sure what else to say. I’m sorry? Congratulations on finding out
before
you tied the knot? I
knew
weddings were a crock of shit?

But he didn’t need to worry. Because Lindsey had straightened up the second she realized she wasn’t just talking to family. She raised her chin and forced a smile. He could tell she was working at it; her grin was just a shade shy of real, but it was a damned good act, given her shitty evening. “I have to apologize, Ryan,” she said. “I know you had better things to do on a day off than hang around for a wedding that never happened.”

Damn, she was good. He cleared his throat, wishing he was half as poised as she was. “I’m just sorry things didn’t work out.”

Lindsey nodded toward the champagne. “Maybe you can take a bottle of that. It’s
something
to make up for roasting half to death in this church.”

Before either of the men could stop her, she handed Zach her wedding dress and veil. She didn’t waste any time lifting the flaps on the case of champagne and slipping her blood-red fingernails in between the bottles. She made a show of handing one to him, displaying it across her forearm like she was a waiter in some fancy restaurant, tilting the bottle so the label was perfectly displayed. She put on a fake French accent. “Monsieur will find eet ees a most excellent year.”

He grinned and took the bottle, because what the hell else was he going to do? One glance at Zach, though, told him it was time to get the hell out of the church. Time to let Lindsey put away her act, to let her be herself on the most miserable night of her life. Folding his fingers around the neck of the champagne bottle, he nodded toward the stairs and said to Zach, “They’re pretty much done down there.”

“Probably ready for a check,” Ormond said.

“I’ll get it,” Lindsey said, and she reached around for the tiny excuse for a purse that hung from her shoulder.

“Right,” Zach said, and he raised his full hands toward the front door. “Get the hell out of here. I’ll take care of it.”

“It’s not right—”

“No,” Zach cut her off. “You’re right. It isn’t.”

She almost lost it then. The veneer of being in control, the smile she’d flashed for Ryan’s benefit, the steel that kept her spine straight, all of it wavered, like he was watching some magic trick collapsing.

“You,” Zach said, nodding to Ryan. “Get her out of here.”

And then it was like old times. Like he and Zach were on the road, back at the beginning of Ryan’s career, when he was just as likely to take one of the ever-present groupies up to his hotel room as he was to follow the rules and get some sleep and be ready to play the next day. Zach was the one who kept order then, who told him what to do.

So it was second nature to reach out and take the dress from his old friend’s hand. To shift the Dom Perignon so he could tuck the crumpled veil under his arm. To read the tight nod, the unspoken thanks, the brother-in-arms gratitude that he could accept with his own ducked chin. He and Zach had played together for years. They’d been in and out of a thousand scrapes—tough baseball games, tougher times in bars and airports and hotels afterwards.

It was like having a brother, without all the crap.

“Come on, Lindsey,” he said. And he held the door for her, with just enough insistence in his steady gaze that she had to lead the way out to the parking lot.

There were only a few cars left on the steaming blacktop. Zach’s Beemer. His own red Ferrari. And a dark grey Prius, looking all prim and proper, crouching beneath a scraggly tree at the far end of the lot.

“I can take that,” Lindsey said, holding out her hand for the wedding stuff.

“Yeah,” he said. “Right.” He fell in beside her as she huffed and led the way to her car. She’d always had a mind of her own. He’d first met her at the clubhouse, probably the first day he’d been called up from the minors. She’d worked some sort of publicity job for the Rockets then, something that helped pay the bills while she was in college. She’d worshipped her brother, gone to every home game, and all the guys on the team had gotten used to her hanging around.

She was Lindsey. Just Lindsey. Ryan might have been interested in her—half the guys on the team might—but she was totally off limits because Ormond would break any guy’s nose if a player was stupid enough to even sniff in her direction.

As Ryan watched, she opened her trunk. She shoved in the dress and veil, jamming them into the cramped space around the car’s battery. “Okay, then,” she said, slamming the trunk closed.

“Okay.”

“Go on,” she said, and then she seemed to remember the rules, seemed to remember that she was supposed to be proud and brave and not at all upset that she’d been left at the altar like a girl in one of those bad novels he was supposed to read in high school English class. She ran her fingers through her stiff hair and frowned when they snagged on hairspray or gel or whatever shit she’d used to make it work. “I’m fine,” she said. “You can tell Zach you got me all settled. Tell him I’m fine, and I’ll call him in the morning.”

It was the smile that got to him. The perfect, blinding smile, like she was competing for Miss America or something. She actually held out her hand, and he shifted the champagne bottle to shake it. He wasn’t supposed to feel the tremor in her fingers. He wasn’t supposed to see that her chin was shaking. He wasn’t supposed to notice the wash of tears that made her eyes shine like tiny mirrors.

“Drive carefully,” he said.

“I always do.” And she actually made herself laugh.

Shit. It was like torturing a kitten, standing here with her. Everything he said, everything he did just made it worse because she had to keep on acting, had to keep on pretending, when he could see that all she wanted to do was get some place alone, wash that crap out of her hair, scream and cry and probably get drunker than she’d ever been in her life.

So he walked over to his car. He let himself in without looking back. He keyed the ignition and then he sat there, steadying the champagne on the passenger seat like it was a patient in an ambulance.

Because he couldn’t just drive out of that lot. He had to make sure she was all right, okay to drive. Sure enough, after her headlights flicked on, she backed up a little too fast. She skidded on a patch of gravel, but anyone could have done that in the twilight. She raced across the asphalt to the exit, like she was dying to put some distance between them, to get away from the church, and men, and everything that had turned to shit in her life. And anyone could have done that, too, driven too fast in an almost empty parking lot. Without stopping at the edge of the lot, though, she started to pull out into the street, only crashing to a halt when a horn bellowed and brakes shrieked. A minivan swerved around her in the gloom.

Sure, Lindsey Ormond was fine. Perfect.

Ryan couldn’t sit there and watch her drive away like a bat out of hell. He caught up with the Prius at the first traffic light, but he hung back in the left lane, trying to stay out of sight. She barely waited for the light to change before she was gunning her engine, heading for the freeway and the fast track out of town. He settled low in the Ferrari and followed her, keeping just far enough back that she’d never have any idea he was there.

Lindsey reached down to crank up her tunes, but stopped because she was still on the interstate. Zach had pounded that responsibility into her head when he taught her how to drive: Always be ready to respond to an emergency, able to hear a siren, capable of hearing another driver’s horn that might save you from disaster.

Great. If only there’d been another driver warning her on the road of her love life.

She pinned her gaze back on the road, forbidding herself from glancing at the phone she’d tossed into the cup-holder between the car’s bucket seats.
I’m sorry
. Who blew off his wedding by
text
? Who thought it was remotely reasonable to type out a message like that?

Will should have called. He should have left her a voicemail at the very least. That’s what Doug had done.

Right. Like there was a
good
way to be jilted.

There. The turnoff for the county road. She signaled her exit and took the off-ramp carefully. Zach would approve. At least there was
something
she was doing right on this miserable, messed-up day.

She flipped on her high beams and punched up the volume, now that she was on the scarcely populated road. Roy Orbison sang straight to her, hitting her in the pit of her loneliness. Every drawn out note of “Crying” tugged at something deep inside her. Her throat tightened, and her eyes welled up, and she needed to scream and wail and sob.

She was ten minutes from the farmhouse she’d grown up in. Ten minutes from unlocking the front door, from running a cool bath in the deep, claw-footed porcelain tub, from cracking open a beer and folding a towel behind her head, and letting loose the tears that might never stop. She could cry as hard as she wanted. She could even scream if she wanted; no one would hear her. No one would worry.

That was the beauty of her old family home, quiet and peaceful in the middle of the North Carolina fields—she could be alone with her misery there and no one would ever know the difference.

But she wasn’t alone. There was a car following her. A car with obnoxious headlights that were far too bright in her mirror.