Read Online Stopping Short: A Hot Baseball Romance by Mindy Klasky - Free Book Online Page A

counting off the minutes like Bobby used to do, every time he came home late for dinner.
    Clenching his teeth, he sank into the room’s one armchair. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, thinking he could sleep for a month or two.
    “ Drew ,” Jessica said, with a vehemence that made it sound like she was continuing a conversation they’d started hours ago.
    He grunted a question to let her know he’d heard.
    “Where were you?”
    What was she, his mother? No, Susan had never given a crap where he’d been. “Out.”
    “Cut the crap!” she said, and there was a sharp edge to her voice that he hadn’t heard before. “You didn’t respond to one of the texts I sent you. You didn’t answer your phone when I called. I told myself I had to wait until six before I reached out to Mark Williamson.”
    “Well, thank God it isn’t six yet.” The last thing he needed was Williamson reading him the Riot Act for upsetting the hired help.
    “Is this some kind of joke to you? After 2:00, after last call, I almost called the cops, but I couldn’t do that either. Your name would have gone out over the scanner. You would have been front page news all over again.”
    “Let me guess. That would pretty much tank my Sympathy Index.”
    “I don’t give a damn about your Sympathy Index! Where were you, Drew? Off screwing another teenager, so I could get more practice playing your broken-hearted fiancée?”
    “Jesus!” He ground his teeth and sat up straight in the chair. “I wasn’t screwing anyone. Is that really what you think I’d do? I just needed to blow off some steam.”
    “Blow off some steam? I thought you were dead!”
    Her voice broke on the last word. She took a shuddering breath and turned the watch around in her hands. It was a man’s watch, he realized for the first time. One of those fancy ones, with a couple of stopwatch functions, pressurized for up to a thousand feet.
    And suddenly he realized she wasn’t trying to break his balls. This conversation wasn’t about the fight they’d had in the restaurant. It wasn’t about him at all, because Jessica was thinking about someone else, about the guy who’d worn that watch.
    Drew had memorized her background. She’d been widowed a year ago. And he’d be willing to bet a year on his contract that the watch had belonged to her husband.
    He steeled himself and pushed up from the chair. She froze as he crossed the room, as he sat down on the edge of the bed. From here, he could see that her lower lip was trembling, that she was trying—and not really succeeding—to keep her emotions under control. “Hey,” he said. And because he didn’t know what else to say, he folded his fingers over hers, over the watch.
    She stiffened at his touch, but he didn’t back off—not even when she raised her free hand to dash at her eyes.
    “Tell me about him,” he said, purposely keeping his voice low.
    He thought she wasn’t going to answer. He thought she’d just sit there, barely breathing, new tears shining in her eyes. But she swallowed hard and took a deep breath. Her exhale was slow and even, like she was doing some yoga exercise.
    “His name was Kevin. We met Freshman Week in college. It was a real opposites attract thing; we didn’t have a lot in common, but we were really good together. Great together. He died in a skiing accident a year ago. He died while I sat in a hotel room, getting angry with him for staying out late, for having a great time with whatever new best friends he’d made on the slope when I really wanted him to be with me.”
    And he finally understood.
    Of course, things with Drew weren’t like they’d been with her husband. She wasn’t worried about losing the guy she really loved. But it must have felt the same—waiting alone, in a hotel room, texting and calling and hearing back nothing.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, even though those words weren’t enough. “I didn’t mean—”
    “I know you didn’t.” She sighed