Hot Target

14

THREE MONTHS and Luke still couldn’t walk through his own house without memories of Katie punching him in the gut. Right when he thought he’d recovered, it would happen again. Like now. Luke poured a cup of coffee and turned toward the kitchen table, and the memory sped at him like a bullet. Katie naked on top of that counter, legs wide, him between them. The kisses. The passion. The moans.

“Damn it,” he cursed, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose. Why did he keep doing this? He wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t a loser. Not even without his pitching arm. Katie had left without so much as a goodbye, deserted him in his hour of need. And proved she wasn’t what he thought she was. Her “I love you, Luke” in that ambulance had either been a hallucination from his head injury or a bunch of crap. So why couldn’t he get her out of his head? Why did he feel as if he was missing something he shouldn’t be missing?

The doorbell rang and he let Maria answer it. He was in a foul mood this morning. Again. The again being Maria’s opinion. That wasn’t true. He was now in a fine mood after his morning coffee. It was simply a new routine. Wake up and be foul like the rest of the world. Drink coffee and perk up. He kind of liked it, too. And as much as he missed pitching, the morning coffee and no-pressure-to-perform thing wouldn’t be so bad if he had the slightest clue about what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

He sat down at the kitchen table, away from the television and freaking SportsCenter. He didn’t want to hear about baseball. Or football. Or even flipping volleyball. Whatever he did was not going to have anything to do with sports. Everyone expected him to be involved with sports. Open a bar. Hang all kinds of sports crap on the walls. No. Bar.

“Luke.” It was Ron. “How’s it going?”

“Thinking about opening a bar. You know. Sticking sports crap on the walls. Build-it-and-they-will-come kind of thing.” He lifted his out-of-date newspaper with the crossword puzzle he’d been doing for well over a week. “And I’m looking for a four-letter word for ass. Any ideas. And don’t say Luke.”

Ron stared at him and then said, “I’d say mule. But then again, I hear Rick is dating Libby again.”

Luke snorted and grabbed his pencil. “Rick, it is.” He tossed his pencil down and leaned back in his chair to study Ron over his coffee cup. “What’s on your mind?”

“A coaching job,” he said.

“And here I thought management was your forte,” Luke quipped. “We’ve had this conversation. I don’t want to be stuck in a tie commentating sporting events on some news channel. And I don’t want to coach the sport I wish I was playing.” He irritably tapped his fingers on his mug.

“Not even if you’d be coaching in New York?”

Luke felt the tension spiral down his spine. “Why would I want to go to New York?”

“Because I sent her away, Luke. I told her she would distract you. I told her you couldn’t fight your injury and would worry about pleasing her. I pushed her to leave and I pushed her hard.”

Luke set his coffee mug down, liquid slopping over the sides. “When?”

“While you were having your tests,” he replied. “At the hospital. It was the right thing to do, Luke. I am your manager, and—”

“Were,” Luke said, standing up. “Were my manager.”

Ron reached in his pocket and slid a card onto the table. “If you want the job, I believe it can be yours. They want you bad.”

***

IT WAS Saturday and Katie blinked awake to the rumbling of thunder, rain splattering on the windows of her New York apartment. She tugged her white down comforter to her chin as the memory of another storm assailed her. She’d been in Luke’s kitchen when he’d come home from practice, a storm rolling in that had set the mood for the stormy encounter they’d shared, the passion that had followed.

She snuggled down in the blankets and covered her head with her pillow. She was definitely going back to sleep. And waking up when it was nice and sunny. “Rain, rain, go away,” she murmured.

Rolling to her side, she tucked the pillow under her head and pounded it. Promised herself she’d stop thinking about Luke. He hated her, she was sure. And with good reason. She should never have listened to Ron and left Luke. And now he wasn’t playing ball. He’d lost baseball, and she hadn’t been there to help him get through it. But she’d made her decision. She had to live with it.

“Grr,” she muttered into the pillow. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep. She tossed aside the covers, shoved her feet to the floor. She was up but she wasn’t getting dressed. Boxers, a tank top, coffee and a book. That would be her new thunderstorm memory. A nice, relaxing, peaceful day.