decision to get out of baseball had been rash and stupid, born out of his shame over his past. He’d regretted it ever since, but didn’t know how to repair the damage without giving himself away. After all his hard work the loss of his career stung, sure, but what he really disliked was having an entire city thinking the worst of him.
He’d quit baseball so that wouldn’t happen.
But karma was a bitch. And, as his redneck dad always said, blood will tell.
“I saw last year’s World Series, along with the rest of the city,” she said. “I went to the parade, too. You rode a fire truck with some, um, girls.” Brooke sounded less accepting than he’d expect of a woman dressed the way she was. “You know. Bimbos.”
The cab hit a pot hole and David cringed. A hundred little pain demons were beating the inside of his skull like a bass drum. “Not bimbos. Groupies.”
His memories of the parade were vague, but he knew that a whole squadron of groupies had climbed aboard the fire truck mid-route to smother him with champagne and kisses. The firefighters driving hadn’t minded. They’d gotten the leftovers.
“Groupies?” Brooke sniffed. “Same difference.”
By his standards, it wasn’t that late, but David had already had a long night. He wasn’t very alert, and certainly not thinking straight. Still, he knew something wasn’t kosher with the Brooke that he saw and the one who spoke and reacted like a far more conservative woman.
He lifted his head and squinted at her. “You work in that outfit?”
Her lips pressed together. “Not usually.”
“Were you planning a night out?”
“No. No plans.” She blinked. “I mean, I was supposed to meet friends, but I called while you were being examined and said I’d been delayed and might not make it. So, um, no definite plans.”
“You have them now. My doctor’s counting on you.”
Her head pulled back a fraction. “I know I promised to look after you, but please don’t expect me to go home with you.”
“Fine. I don’t have a home. I have a hotel room.”
She widened her eyes. “Then I really can’t stay with you.”
“Why not? You’re single.” He could tell.
“The problem’s not me.”
It’s you. David winced.
“It’s my family. They’re…old-fashioned.”
Dodged that one. His usual cockiness was no match for the gratefulness he felt. Bad rep, be damned. His angel didn’t despise him the way the rest of the city’s population seemed bent on doing.
He touched his tongue to his dry lips. Post-Series, in the heady days of fame and adulation, his life had changed. He’d partied with team sponsors and city bigwigs instead of the working-class guys he’d normally gravitated toward. Along the way, he’d been introduced to plenty of high-society women like Brooke, women who oozed culture and refinement. He’d felt awkward around them until he’d realized they expected the same out of him as any other female—a rough-and-tumble, good old Georgia boy who could charm them out of their satin underdrawers.
David would bet his Series ring that Brooke came from one of Boston’s conservative Brahmin families, which meant that her upbringing was miles away from his own, in every way possible.
But there was also the revealing dress and the do-me shoes to consider….
“So don’t tell them,” he said. “Your old-fashioned family.”
“You have paparazzi. They’ve already taken photos of us. I can’t be a part of—”
He waved her off and closed his leaden lids against the glare of streaming headlights. “No explanation needed. I get it.”
An extended silence made him crack an eye. She’d dropped her chin to her chest and laced her fingers around her knees, deep in thought. Finally she looked at him with appealing doe eyes, big and velvet brown. “I’m sorry.”
David said nothing. She was sorry, huh? Well, so was he. Although his label as a quitter had accustomed him to the scowls, profane insults and pitying stares, he was not prepared for his angel of mercy to give him the bum’s rush.
At the same time, the shameful, niggardly part of him that had prompted his current state of disgrace said that he deserved no more.
THE CAB DROPPED them off at the scene of the accident. David’s motorcycle remained at the curb, although a bystander had stood it up. “Small miracle,” he said to himself, rubbing at the scratches that marred the shiny metal of the sleek, expensive Honda. The only major damage was a large dent in the front fender.
Unsure of what to do or say, Brooke studied the facade of the department store as if she hadn’t been working there ever since college. Stone steps led to the stately four-story stone building. Above a thick, carved lintel were the pitted letters that had spelled out O.M. Worthington since the store had opened as a haberdashery at the turn of the twentieth century. On either side of the double doors were her babies—the display windows. Not large, not ostentatious, but her own private gallery of sorts. She hadn’t had the guts to go as far creatively as she might like, but with Alyce Simmons’s support, she believed that her time was coming. The Gaultier display was only the beginning.
“Where are you headed?” she asked David, without looking at him. “Back to the hotel?”
“Maybe.”
“Remember what the doctor said about watching for signs of concussion.” He’d be all right on his own, she reassured herself. She had her own mess to clean up inside the store.
And out. Her fingers spread over the butter-soft leather of the minidress in an involuntary caress. Despite the scolding conscience that said she must return it as soon as possible, she was reluctant. The dress was outrageous, far beyond what she’d normally wear, which made it more freeing than anything she’d ever put on.
Maybe too freeing, considering her lack of underpants. She’d been on edge about that all night. Particularly when the paparazzi had reappeared and she’d feared they’d snap a Britney-crotch shot of her, and even more particularly when David had caressed her thigh. She’d shocked herself when her impulse was to let him continue.
Yet another impulse ignored. She’d slammed her thighs shut so fast she’d almost snapped his hand off at the wrist.
“What’d the doc say?” David pinched the bridge of his nose. “I forget. My memory’s spotty.”
“Are you…?” She took a quick glance. Of course he’s teasing. He had an impish quality, although nothing in his broad, muscled body or square-jawed face was the least bit elfin. The long, tousled hair, maybe—but mostly it was about attitude.
That, and his dancing, roguish eyes. They seemed to look right into her and know that there was a Brooke, a long-hidden Brooke, who wanted to come out and play.
“Nice
