Slow Heat

Chapter 23

Once Wade was released from the hospital, Gage drove him back to the Heat’s facilities. Wade moved slowly and carefully into the clubhouse, greeted by his agent and trainers. He heard Gage give a quick statement to the press, and wondered why Sam hadn’t done it. He told himself it didn’t matter that she hadn’t waited to see if he was okay.

Didn’t matter at all.

She had Tag to worry about, and… and hell, he’d been alone for most of his life, he didn’t need anyone to hold his hand just because he hurt like a mother. At his locker, he picked up his things including his phone and noticed the twelve missed calls.

“Hey.”

Wade very carefully turned around, wincing at the movement in both his ribs and head, and found Pace sitting in one of the leather chairs, sprawled out comfortably. But after four years of being together, Wade knew that the lazy pose was deceptive. “Hey yourself.”

“Word is you’re going to live.”

“Apparently so.”

Pace pushed to his feet and came closer, looking him over carefully.

“I’m not circling the drain,” Wade said. “At least not yet.”

“Well, that’s a relief. Come on, I’ll take you home.”

“Gage has a car out front for me.”

“I have a car, too.” Pace grabbed Wade’s duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder, adding it to his own bag. He opened the front doors of the facility for Wade and waited for him to go out first.

“You know something I don’t?” Wade asked him, bemused.

Pace tossed their two bags in the back of his car. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Aw, that’s sweet.”

Pace didn’t look amused. “I don’t want to pitch to anyone but you, Wade.”

“Is this going to end in a marriage proposal, cuz I’m not sure Holly-”

“God, you are such a dick.”

“Don’t be mad. I love you, too.”

“Laugh all you want,” Pace said. “But I need you to remember exactly how much you love me when you feel the need to kill someone later tonight. I want you to also remember that if you’re in jail, I can’t pitch to you.”

Wade’s smirk faded. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Pace didn’t answer as he drove them out of the parking lot and hit the highway. Night had fallen. The moon was sitting on the horizon, a few inches above the Pacific Ocean, casting a blue glow over the rugged mountain bluffs.

“You going to tell me what’s going on?” Wade asked.

“You access any of your messages yet?”

“No.”

“Your father’s in town.”

Wade shook his head. “No, he’s not. He’s still in Oregon.”

“He bailed.” Pace pulled up to Wade’s house. “And here’s the biggie-he’s here. As in inside.”

Wade stared at the car in his driveway.

Sam’s.

The sight of her car gave him a rush, but his brain was feeling a little sluggish from the hit it’d taken earlier. Pain from that, mixed in with the news from Pace, suddenly blossomed into a full-fledged migraine. He opened Pace’s passenger door and started to get out but Pace snagged the back of his shirt. “Remember what I said. Remember I’ll only pitch to you, and that if you do anything stupid, I can’t do that. Plus you don’t want to go to jail. You’d hate being Bubba’s bitch.”

“Bubba?”

“Probably he’s three-hundred-fifty pounds and would expect you to squeal. I mean you’re not really my type, but he might think you’re pretty.”

Wade just looked at him. “You need help,” he finally said.

Pace turned off the car and started to walk Wade to the door. Wade blocked his way. “Go home to Holly, Pace.”

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’m getting the feeling I’m not going to be alone. Go home,” he repeated. “I’ll deal with whatever’s waiting for me.”

Pace stopped and sighed. “Call me if you need me.”

“Yeah.” Bells were going off in Wade’s head. Hard to tell if it was his concussion, or just a general sense that his life was about to go straight into the toilet.

He was betting the latter.

Sam was sitting on Wade’s couch holding her breath when his front door opened.

He walked in wearing a T-shirt and washed-out Levi’s. Hands on hips, he looked at the group in his living room. His gaze touched first on Sam and Tag, softening on both of them before locking in on his father.

The softness vanished and the air crackled with tension as he turned and tossed his bag aside with slightly more violence than necessary.

“Hello, son.” This from John. “How are you?”

Wade just looked at him.

“I guess you’re surprised to see me, huh? Samantha was kind enough to give me a ride.”

Wade sent Sam a look that made her squirm before turning to Tag. “Hey, man,” he said.

“Hey. Your head okay?”

“I’ll live.”

Tag waited a beat. “You going to start drooling or anything? Cuz that’s what happens sometimes with head injuries.”

“This is more of a brain problem,” Wade said, and looked right at Sam. “It’s on overload and might explode.”

She winced.

And John sighed. “Always was dramatic,” he said to Sam.

Tag looked back and forth between father and son. “So… you guys in a fight or something?”

“No,” John said.

“Yes,” Wade said at the same time.

Tag was playing with the basketball that John had gotten from Walmart, trying to twirl it on his fingers as John had taught him. The guy might be a drunk but he was incredibly athletic. Not a surprise really, considering Wade’s abilities.

Wade watched Tag fumble with the ball a moment, then slid a look at his father. “Your doing, I assume.”

John nodded. “It’s just not quite as impressive to twirl a baseball, sorry.”

Wade just shook his head. “Tag?”

“Yeah?”

“I got a bunch of new equipment delivered. Bats, gloves, athletic shoes. Want to look through it?”

Tag dropped the basketball. “Yeah!”

“Second room on the left at the top of the stairs.”

“You rock!” Faster than lightning, Tag was gone.

Sam watched Wade walk into his open kitchen. He pulled open the refrigerator door and grabbed a beer. He wasn’t moving with his usual, smooth easy stride. She knew he had to ache like hell, and when he put a hand to his ribs, she ached right along with him. She stood up, thinking he needed to be in bed, preferably with an ice pack for his ribs, since he hadn’t been given pain killers because of his slight concussion. “Are you really okay?” she murmured.

“Fan-fucking-tastic.”

“Wade-”

“Really?” John asked from the couch as Tag came back down the stairs carrying a new bat and glove. “No hello, Dad, great to see you? Not even a fuck you?”

Tag’s eyes got big at the forbidden F-word, and he opened his mouth to repeat it but Wade pointed at him, then twisted off the top of his beer and tossed it over his shoulder into the sink. “Watch your language in front of the kid,” he said to his father.

Sam moved closer to Wade and put her hand over his on the beer. “Wade, I think alcohol’s a bad idea.”

“Why, because I’m forty percent more likely to be an alcoholic since my father’s one? Well, guess what, Princess? My mother was a drunk, too, so I believe that gives me an eighty-percent chance.” He gestured with his beer. “Bottoms up.”

Sam’s heart constricted at the pain in his voice, the one that matched the pain in his eyes, and she realized there was a whole hell of a lot more going on between father and son here than she could understand. “I only meant it’s a bad idea because of your concussion,” she said quietly.

Obviously not caring, he tipped the bottle up to his lips, then lowered it before taking a sip with a softly uttered, “Goddammit.” He set the bottle on the counter with more force than necessary and drew a deep breath.

“Actually,” John said. “Your mother always was more of a social drinker than an alcoholic.”

Wade narrowed his eyes but didn’t speak. He didn’t have to, his eyes spoke volumes.

John patted his hands down his body as if looking for something. Like a flask.

No one spoke.

“Maybe I’d better go,” Sam said.

Wade turned to her for the first time, his eyes dark and dilated. “I’d like to talk to you first.”

She just bet he did. “Oh. Well, it’s late, and-”

He wrapped his fingers around her arm, his grip inexorable. “Now.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Okay.”

He pulled her out into the hall and pressed her back against the wall. His mouth was tight, his body even more so as he held her arms. “How?” he asked in a low, controlled voice. “Why?”

“He called your cell phone.”

“Yeah? So? He always calls my cell phone.”

Their gazes locked for a long moment while she considered how to reply.

“You answered it,” he said.

“It said Dadon the ID, and you’d just been hurt,” she said in her defense.

He blew out a breath. “I’m doubting he knew that.”

She didn’t tell him that was the truth. “I saw his name and I thought… I don’t know. I guess I thought family is family, and-”

“Hell, Sam. You should know better than anyone that blood ties don’t necessarily make a family.”

She stared up at him, knowing he was right, so damn right. “He said he needed a ride,” she whispered. “And I pictured a helpless old man-”

“That man is the opposite of helpless.”

“Well, I’m beginning to see that now.” She winced. “And he thinks he’s staying with you.”

He leaned into her, and over her shoulder thunked his head to the wall, which had to hurt.

“I realize he arrived without your knowledge or permission,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry if you’re upset that I gave him a ride from the bus station, but he would have found one here with or without me.”

“Don’t be so sure. There are plenty of bars between the bus depot and here.”

She’d seen Wade in tense situations before. After a bad loss. Before a big game. Having a disagreement with Gage. When Pace had needed surgery in the middle of last season.

But never once had she seen him be anything but cool and calm and unflappable about all of it.

He wasn’t close to any of those things now, and it was an entirely new side to him. “You’re furious with me because I invaded your privacy. I’m sorry, Wade.”

Still leaning on her, his head against the wall, he craned his neck and met her gaze, his brimming with hostility, and even worse, a vulnerability she knew he hated. It was that, more than anything else, that put her heart in her throat. “I screwed up, and I am sorry. But you can’t just ignore him.”

“Why not? He spent the first eighteen years of my life ignoring me.”

“Was it always just you and him?”

“No, it was him and his booze. I wasn’t really much of a factor. I’ve asked him for years to quit, he was never interested. Now he gets a health scare and is staring his mortality in the face, and suddenly he’s all about quitting. He has it in his head that he needs me in order to do it. He needs a relationship before it’s too late.”

Sympathy filled her, but the look on his face dared her to show a single ounce of pity or he’d toss her out the same way he intended to toss out his father. The way he’d challenged her not to toss out Tag. “He did mention the senior center was for the elderly,” she said. “Which apparently he doesn’t consider himself. I’m not sure I understand a lot about addiction, but I do know that just asking someone to quit is rarely enough motivation. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to. Or that he doesn’t love you.”

He stared at her for a long beat, but whether he was soaking that all in or planning her death, she didn’t know. “He’s timeless, you know,” he finally said. “Probably even immortal due to the fact that he’s spent so many years carefully and purposely pickling himself, preserving his parts for the next millennium.” He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his jaw, which had two days of stubble on it. But it didn’t escape her notice that he was still leaning on her, holding her against the wall, as if he were too tired to hold himself up on his own.

“Maybe if you help him out,” she murmured. “He’ll do this. Really quit.”

He let out a harsh laugh. “I’ve heard it a thousand times, Princess.”

He looked exhausted, his eyes lined with pain, so she was well aware that she was risking her neck by wrapping her arms around him. “You have nothing to feel ashamed of, Wade.”

“I’m not ashamed. I’m pissed off. Did you search him for alcohol?”

At the flicker of guilt she couldn’t hold back, he ground his back teeth together. “What?”

“We stopped at the store.”

“Jesus. Don’t tell me you bought him some.”

“By accident!”

Once again he thunked his head on the wall just over her shoulder.

She slid a hand up between his forehead and the wall. “You’re going to hurt yourself even more.”

“Not possible.”

“Look, I threw the alcohol out, okay? I’m sorry but your dad can be a little slippery.”

He let out a short laugh, his tone saying it wasn’t actually funny, and left his forehead against her hand, rubbing his head back and forth against her palm.

“Wade.” She ran her other hand up his back, aching for him again. Still. She let her fingers brush over his temple as she gently tipped his head up to look at him. “I’m so sorry.”

He caught her wrist so that she couldn’t keep touching him, in spite of the fact that he still had her pinned to the wall with his entire lower body. “Don’t.”

She had no idea what the gruffly uttered word meant. Don’t talk? Don’t care? Far too late for that. His body’s heat radiated through her. She stirred a little, curling into him, careful with his ribs, wanting only to soothe, to offer him some gentleness. “Let me check him into a hotel somewhere nearby, and I’ll come back to take care of you.”

His eyes were dark. “What did you have in mind?”

“You in bed.”

“I like it so far. Keep going.”

“You in bed, asleep,” she corrected.

He sighed.

She stared up into his face, deeply tanned from the long hours out in the sun, though not enough to hide those shadows beneath his eyes or the pain tightening his mouth. His eyes were dilated, but she suspected that was still temper, and yet when she snuggled into him, she could feel his body stirring with a different sort of tension altogether.

He was hard. “You have a concussion,” she marveled. “Bruised ribs. You have to hurt like hell, not to mention you’re mad at me. How can you even think about sex?”

“God-given talent.” He slid a hand down her back and cupped her ass.

And now it was her body stirring. Hell, who was she kidding? Her body was addicted to his. She’d reacted to him the minute he’d walked in the door. “Wade.”

His mouth brushed her neck. And then her jaw… He made his slow, purposeful way to her mouth and as she made a low sound of helpless arousal, he wrapped his arms tight around her and kissed her with a lot of tongue and temper and desperation.

“We have to deal with your dad,” she murmured.

With another rough breath, he let her go and turned away, temper winning. “Don’t worry about the hotel. Just get Tag out of here before my dad teaches him any more bad tricks. The rest is my problem, not yours.”

Sam hated doing as Wade asked, but short of forcing herself on him, she had little choice. So she took Tag home, tucked him into bed, and then herself. Lying there staring at the ceiling, she thought about Wade’s father, and then hers, who’d never so much as checked on her and Tag. She chewed on that for a while, his utter lack of support with the Jeremy thing, the complete non-help he’d given her with Tag, and she knew they had to talk. She was finally over being a part of the McNead empire. There in the dark, she nodded at her decision. It was a good one. And for the first time since Wade had hit the post, she relaxed.

First thing the next morning, she was back at Wade’s, knocking with determination on his door.

No one answered.

She looked back at her car. Tag was bouncing on the front seat eating an Egg McMuffin. Breakfast of champions. She reassured herself that she wasn’t a bad pseudo-parent, that this was only the second day this week that she’d fed him fast food.

Okay, third.

But she was going to work on that. Really, she was.

Unfortunately she had a crazy schedule today. She had a Heat team meeting to get to in one hour, then she’d take Tag to the tutor’s and herself back to work, where she had to oversee an ET photo shoot, finish organizing the upcoming charity dinner, and arrange for several etiquette workshops for the bull pen players per Gage’s order. She had a conference call scheduled with her father as well, at her own request. He wasn’t going to like their conversation, as she was going to tell him she didn’t plan on renewing her contract for next season.

This McNead was going off on her own, thank you very much.

She knocked on Wade’s door again.

Still no answer. She pulled out her cell phone and called Wade’s. After two rings, the shade on the window next to the front door opened.

Wade stood on the other side of the glass. He wore gray sweatpants low on his hips, a wrap around his ribs, and nothing else. His hair was wet from a recent shower and messily falling over his forehead. His eyes were shadowed, and so was the jaw he hadn’t shaved.

He had his cell phone in his hand at his side, attitude blaring from every pore of his mouth-watering body.

She met his gaze and waited expectantly with her phone to her ear.

With a slow shake of his head, like maybe she was an unfathomable pain in his ass, he opened his phone and put it to his ear.

“Hi,” she said.

He just lifted a brow.

She wished she could do that, convey so much with one look. It sure would save a lot of time, something she was extremely short of at the moment. “I brought you and your dad breakfast.” She hoisted the bag to show him. “Not your beloved fries because it’s too early, but I hear that their Egg McMuffins clog arteries just as effectively.”

He didn’t smile. “How do you know my dad’s still here?”

Ah, he speaks. “Because you wouldn’t have kicked him out. Even though I’m sure you gave it more than a passing thought,” she added politely.

He sighed and shoved his fingers in his hair. “I’m not opening this door to you. One houseguest is my limit at this time.”

Ouch. But she’d figured he’d still be mad at her for interfering, even if she’d done so with only his best interests in mind. Telling herself she’d worry about the consequences later, she took another glance at Tag-still behaving-and opened the front door herself.

“I should have locked that,” he said, slipping his phone into his sweatpants pocket.

She handed him a coffee.

“Bribery won’t work.”

She was betting otherwise. “Drink up.”

He blew out a breath and did as she asked. She waited, and he drank some more, and they shared breathing space for a few minutes.

“Okay,” he finally admitted. “So I needed caffeine.”

She arched an agreeing brow and handed over the food.

He set the coffee down on the window ledge and opened the bag. Grabbing an Egg McMuffin, he sank his teeth into it.

She waited.

After another moment, he nodded.

“Feeling human again then?” she asked, keeping her smile to herself.

“I’ve got a start on it anyway.”

“Good.” Going up on her tiptoes, she brushed her lips over his. His eyes revealed their surprise. She rarely made the first move, instead letting him be the aggressor, sexual or otherwise. The realization startled her, and made her want to touch him more. She took a peek at Tag. His head was down. He was playing his Game Boy. “How are you feeling?” she murmured to Wade, setting a hand to his chest.

He looked down at her hand. “What did you have in mind?”

“Not the same thing you do.”

He let out a breath. “I’m good enough to play today.”

“You’re on the DL.”

“I’m good.” His eyes darkened and he wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “Keep touching me like that and I’ll show you how good.”

“Your dad-”

“Sleeping off a hangover, no doubt.”

“Nope. I gave that stuff up, remember?” John stepped in the foyer. He was dressed in yet another eye-popping Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts, a newspaper tucked beneath his arm, looking chipper but a little edgy. The lack of alcohol was definitely getting to him. “Hello, kids.”

Sam smiled and handed him a coffee.

“Thanks, darlin’.” John eyed his son. “I meant what I said, Wade. I’m here to quit.”

“And I meant what I said,” Wade told him. “I catch you with an ounce of alcohol, even cough syrup, and this little Brady Bunch experiment is over.”

John nodded. “I’ll be in the other room. Don’t want to cramp anyone’s style.”

“You’re cramping my life,” Wade said.

John’s mouth curved. “At least you admit I’m in your life.”

He was gone before Wade would comment on that but Sam heard the low, inaudible growl deep in his throat and gently pushed on his chest to hold him in place. “I see it’s going well.”

“Don’t worry,” Wade said, looking down at her. “I’m not going to kill him. Yet.”

“Wade.”

He closed his eyes. “Is this where you lecture me on being nice?”

“This isn’t my job. I’m not going to lecture you on anything. I just wanted to say-”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But-”

“Ever.”

She studied his dark eyes, the muscle ticking in his jaw. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Really?” he asked. “Because I seem to remember a situation in reverse, only a few weeks back, when Tag got delivered to you. You didn’t want to talk about it. And you sure as hell didn’t want help from me either.”

True enough. “But I wasn’t being stubborn and obstinate.”

He laughed and pressed his fingers to his eyes.

“Okay, maybe I was a little.”

“Yeah. Thanks for breakfast.”

“But good-bye,” she guessed. “Right?”

“Unless you’re packing some TLC.”

“Is that code for sex?”

He gave her a look that singed her eyebrows.

“Yeah,” she said shakily. “It is.”

He set down the bag and pressed her back against the foyer wall and kissed her. It wasn’t soft and gentle. It was all heat and tongue and aggravation.

And all of her bones melted.

“Ah, jeez,” came Tag’s voice. “Again?”

Sam nearly leapt out of her skin as she jerked back from Wade. Tag had gotten out of the car and stood there slurping from his orange juice, studying them critically.

Into the silence, Pace drove up the driveway. He got out of his classic Mustang with a bag of McDonald’s and eyed Tag’s Mickey D’s. “I’m too late.”

“Pace!” Tag said with great pleasure, and took in Pace’s warm-up sweats. “You going to practice?”

“Yep. Soon as I check on Wade here.”

“They’re kissing.”

“Are they?” Pace asked mildly, his eyes reflecting his amusement.

“Yeah. Can I ride in your car?”

“I’ll take you to practice with me, sure. If it’s okay with your Aunt Sam.”

Tag whirled on Sam. “Yeah?”

A cab pulled up and honked.

Everyone looked at each other. What now?

“That’s for me.” John nudged his way past the four in the doorway, smiled at Tag, and headed down the walk.

“Where are you going?” Wade asked him.

“Progress that you even asked. I’m off to my first AA meeting.”

“You’ve been to AA a hundred times. A thousand.”

“Maybe a thousand and one is the charm.”

Wade frowned as his father waved over his shoulder and got into the cab, which drove off. He looked at Sam, his gaze inscrutable though she was pretty sure it still had retribution in it. Oh, boy. “Time to go, Tag,” she said.

“I want to go watch Pace practice. Please?”

Pace tossed Tag his keys. “Wait for me in the car. Just don’t take it for a spin without me.”

“Next time?”

“When you’re sixteen, we’ll talk. Go.” Pace looked at Sam and Wade. “You two going to play nice?”

“I always play nice,” Sam said.

Wade let out a barely there snort.

Pace grinned. “Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He nudged Sam. “Don’t worry about the kid. You know where we’ll be.”

And then it was just her.

And Wade.

Who stood there bare-chested in just those sweatpants, that edible body tense and unhappy. “I feel like this is my fault,” she said.

He softened with a low sigh. “It’s not. Okay, it is… but it’s not.”

“You’re hurting.”

“Yeah. Want to kiss it better?” He ran a finger over her collarbone, then along the edges of the deep V-neck of her dress.

Her breath caught.

He closed his eyes as his finger slid beneath the material. A muscle jumped in his jaw, then he opened his eyes again and stepped back. “You should probably go to your meeting.”

That had been her plan but now she wanted to stay and have him keep touching her. “Not for forty-five minutes.”

“Sam,” he said warningly. “I’m pissed off and really want to stay that way.”

“Pissed off isn’t productive to healing.”

Again, he ran a finger over her neckline. “What are you wearing beneath the dress?”

Empathy and lust warred within her, along with a genuine, bone-deep affection that shouldn’t have surprised her but did. She already knew she liked him, more than she’d meant to, more than she’d ever wanted to. Her dress was just another wrap dress, professional and relatively modest, and not at all overtly sexy in any way. Except that when Wade looked at her like that, with frustration and heat, with those green eyes at half mast, she felt sexy as hell. “Maybe you should find out yourself.”

As agile-minded as he was able-bodied, he reached around her to hit the lock on his front door. “Best idea I’ve heard all morning.”