Out of His League

He stared at her. “You are so wrong about me,” he blurted.

Yes, she thought, that’s good. Get mad at me and then leave.

But at the same time she felt sadness. She didn’t know why. Maybe she’d hoped he saw beyond the prickliness of her delivery into the truth of what she’d observed.

She fought her own inner resistance. Pushed back from the table—from him—and grabbed the pizza box she’d bought him, which was quickly getting cold. She shoved it forward, against his chest. “Thank you for your assistance. Tomorrow I go back to my normal life and Brandon goes home to his. Please be careful driving home, and follow all the instructions on your postsurgical papers this time.”

“I didn’t come here intending to help you with Brandon,” Jon said, standing to his full height and towering over her.

“Maybe not,” she replied, looking up into his face, “but that’s the instinct that took over, isn’t it? Maybe subconsciously, that’s how you’re used to handling difficult situations.”

Real anger flashed in his eyes.

A textbook reaction—and she knew, because she’d completed a psychology rotation. Jon seemed to be experiencing classic denial symptoms.

“Excuse me?” he said. “You don’t know me at all.”

Perhaps, but she knew a textbook case. Psychology fascinated her. And why not answer his question? It’s not as if she would ever see him again after tonight.

“You’re a pitcher, Jon, right? You play in the major leagues. That took years of training to attain—I’m assuming it was as long and as grueling as it was for me to become a doctor. I’m also assuming that in order for you to make the major leagues, and stay there, you have to love your sport the same way that I love my job. So if that had been me tonight in your shoes, I would have been watching that game very closely, and not at all caring about somebody else’s reaction to it. And yet, you weren’t even interested in watching that guy—Martinez, the ace pitcher—seeing how he did it. You were just staring at me.”

“I’m friggin’ tired,” Jon said as he shoved the pizza box back at her, which was the first instance of hostility she’d seen from him. Maybe it was for the best. That meant he didn’t like her, either. That meant she had nothing to fear from him.

“I had surgery and I was pumped full of chemicals today,” he continued. “Your chemicals.”

She nodded vigorously, walking him toward the door. “And yet you came here to see us—to see Brandon. To help Brandon. As I said, you have a white-knight complex.”

Those ice-blue eyes bored into hers. “Lady, you have no idea who I am.”

Bull’s-eye, she thought. And it gave her no comfort to be right. That wasn’t why she was pushing him. Being prickly.

“Why are you always so prickly?” Ashley often asked her.

Because I want to be back on my own track away from everybody else, she silently answered.

Jon Farell was...not good for that. He threatened her autonomy.

She opened the door and stood beside it. She felt sad all of a sudden—lousy. Being prickly and irritable was not what she’d wanted. She was not a cruel person. But Jon was in her lair, and she wanted to be—needed to be—alone. She was yearning for it, in fact.

“You’re right,” she said firmly to him. “I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. You were simply a patient to me. Please go and help somebody else.”

He walked out and didn’t look back.

Inside, she closed the door and leaned against it, her back to the cold, hard surface. Her hands were shaking as they curled around the edges of the now-cold pizza box. Her heart rate was elevated, and she appeared to be having palpitations.

It was crazy, but a part of her still wanted him here with her.

And she had blown that from ever happening again.

CHAPTER FIVE

SHE WAS DEAD wrong about him.

His pulse throbbing in his neck, Jon yanked open his SUV door and fumbled with his key in the darkness in an attempt to start his engine. He had the key lined up, but damn it, he couldn’t turn it in the ignition easily with his right finger in a splint.

White-knight complex? Give me a break. At the moment, he couldn’t even help himself out of a paper bag.

Jon laid his head against the seat back and let the motor quietly run. Condensation covered the windows. It was a cool night after a warm day. Lizzy could probably explain the scientific reasoning behind the fog that blocked him from seeing where the hell he was. In so many ways—education-wise, her doctor status, her aloofness to sports teams—she was out of his league. Made him feel inadequate. Tossed him around like nobody else did.

He blew out a breath. He wasn’t an idiot. He was a self-aware person, smart enough to know that he’d been thrown for a loop over his cancer scare. That, and then the euphoria over learning he was cancer-free had sent him spinning, all in the course of a few hours.

He’d wanted somebody to share his excitement and relief with, somebody genuine, a person who didn’t have any skin in the game with his career, and somebody who understood what he’d been going through. He’d thought that person had been her.

Wrong. Lizzy wanted nothing to do with him, and she’d told him so from the moment he’d rung her doorbell. Maybe, for a brief time, he’d managed to change her mind. When Martinez had thrown his ninety-eight-mile-per-hour four-fingered fastball, low and in the corner, and had psyched out Bates into swinging too late, she had been hooked, and Jon had felt hope.

But then...somehow her prejudices against him had kicked in, and the moment had gone to hell. He hadn’t managed the situation right at all. He’d blown it; he’d been the one to walk out in anger.

No highs, no lows. The best fielding coach Jon had ever known had taught him that, early on during his rookie year in the minor leagues. Don’t get too far emotionally up, and don’t get too far emotionally down, the mantra meant, or you’ll ruin the game plan. If you wanted to win—at baseball and at life—then it was necessary to take everything as it came, with an even temper.

He knew what he had to do. He felt calmer now. The windows were getting clearer.

His stomach growled. He should have taken the pizza when he had the chance. Pride be damned, he was starving. Still, it wasn’t wise to go back up to Lizzy’s apartment to have her psychoanalyze him again, even if—in her defense—she was probably terrified over having him and Brandon inside her normally ordered, doctor world, and was making up theories in order to push him away.

He was not drawn to helpless women. He never had been, and everyone knew it.

He dug his phone from his pocket and scrolled the contact list to call up the number for Brooke. He would stay cool. His plan of action was clear: get your baseball life back on track.

“Patch me through to Max,” Jon said to Brooke when she answered the phone. “I want a three-way call with all of us on board.”

“What’s going on?” Max asked, his voice faint. “You’ve left me a few messages this evening.”

“Yes, I have.” Jon’s SUV windows were clear now, so he pulled the Expedition out of the lot. “I need my contract signed for next season, and I need to get going on that as soon as possible.”

“That’s...good. Brooke is sitting with me.” Max did sound weak. Why was that? “She was just about to send you a text message. Are you listening to radio sports talk?”

“Ah...no. I don’t pay attention to that stuff.”

“Jon...turn on the radio...and listen...”

“Now,” Brooke said insistently. Jon could hear the radio playing in the background. “Turn it to SPK FM.”

“Call us back in a few minutes.” Max disconnected the call.

This was not good. But Max had never steered him wrong. Jon eased up on the accelerator and slowed for a traffic light.

While the light was red, Jon took a swig of water from the bottle in his cup holder and then fumbled with the radio dial to find SPK. He would subject himself to the negativity for just one minute, and then he’d turn it off.

“...he’s a local guy. What are you ragging on the local guy for, the only pitcher who won his last two games?”