The Real Deal Page 15

  “That’s right, boys, you need to go wash up,” Leslie told her sons, and when they started to protest she cut them short. “Now. You’ll have plenty of time to visit with your uncle.”

  She waited until they pushed off the sofa and headed for the hall before she turned to Nick. “You are staying, aren’t you?” Her curious gaze shot to Emily, went briefly to the hand Nick rested possessively on her hip and then lifted to their faces.

  “Of course they are,” Ann said, a trace of pleading in her eyes. “The woman at the front desk told us to expect snow tonight. You don’t want to be driving in that. Besides, you just got here.”

  “I don’t know, Mom. This was a last-minute decision, and we don’t even know if there’s a room available.”

  “For goodness sakes, we have two large suites. We’ll make room. Is that all right, Emily?”

  She cleared her throat. “Mrs. Corrigan, I can’t—”

  “Oh, you must call me Ann.” She caught Emily’s hand again. “I’m so glad to meet you. Nick never brings anyone to meet us.”

  Pressing her lips together, Emily carefully avoided his eyes. She had a feeling his mother had just provided a bit too much information. Though Emily was certainly not going to read anything into it. No matter that her stomach had just somersaulted. Unfortunately, her runaway gaze did clash with Leslie’s sharp, assessing one.

  Emily resented that she was the first one to look away. Or maybe it was the hint of amusement in Leslie’s green eyes that got to Emily. She was his sister, of course she’d be dying with curiosity. Pam and Denise would be the same way. Still, the woman seemed entirely too interested for Emily’s taste, and for a second, tension crackled between them.

  Thank goodness neither Nick nor his mother seemed to notice. “Look, Mom, I’ll check with the front desk,” he said. “They might have a room for us. If they do, and it’s okay with Emily, we’ll stay and have dinner, spend tomorrow morning with you, and head back to the city in the afternoon.”

  Emily nodded agreement when he looked to her, but she hated that his mother looked disappointed over the short visit.

  “Your father said he heard that they’re sold out.” The resignation in Ann’s eyes tore at Emily. She liked his mother.

  “Look, that doesn’t matter,” Leslie interjected. “You don’t have to get another room. This is a large suite with three bedrooms. If Emily doesn’t mind sleeping with Lily, you can bunk with the boys in their room. They’d love it.”

  “That’s a great offer and we appreciate it.” Nick hugged Emily closer to his side. “But we’ll find a room.”

  Leslie’s perfectly arched brows went up slightly, and she exchanged a brief look with her mother. “Sure you will. Mom, why don’t you go get ready for dinner? If they have no room here, although I doubt they’ll turn Nick down, I’ll help them call around to find a room at a nearby inn.”

  “Good idea, Leslie.” Their mother seemed to cheer up. “I’ll call the restaurant and add two more to our reservation.” She squeezed Emily’s hand once more, and then lifted up on tiptoes and kissed Nick’s cheek. “This is the best present you could’ve given me, son,” she said softly, and then went to the door, leaving the suite only after casting a sweet backward glance at Nick.

  Ann Corrigan was different from her own mother, Emily decided. Ann seemed much more maternal and sensitive. It wasn’t that Emily didn’t adore her own mother, but she often seemed like she wanted to be Emily’s friend rather than foster the more traditional mother/daughter relationship. Emily didn’t mind, not really, but it was nice to see that special bond between mother and son.

  A loud bang came from one of the bedrooms.

  “Good God.” Leslie planted a hand on her hip. “Boys?” No one answered. “Tom?” She rolled her eyes when still no answer. “I’ll be right back.”

  Nick grinned as he watched his sister’s retreating form, then sobered when he turned to Emily. “I’m sorry about all this. I really hope you don’t mind—”

  “Stop it right now.” Emily smiled at him. “This is exactly where you should be. Didn’t you see your mother’s face?” Emily placed a hand on her heart. “She is so sweet, and there is no happier woman on this earth right now.”

  “No?” Winking, he stroked a finger from her neckline down between her breasts.

  She gasped, feeling the heat surge up her throat and into her face.

  “No one saw.”

  “Listen to me, Mr. Corrigan, as long as we’re around your family, you keep your hands to yourself.”

  He snorted. “What’s the big deal about holding your hand or putting my arm around you?”

  “Sparingly. What you need to do is treat your mother as though she were the Queen of England. She misses you, you big dope, and I know you can see that, too.”

  “Yeah, she does. And I’ve missed her, too.”

  “Of course you have.”

  He sighed. “With all the beautiful airheads I have at my disposal, I had to choose a smart-ass to meet my folks.”

  She couldn’t believe he’d said that. He was damn lucky there were witnesses in the next room. “Hey. I’m not a smart-ass…okay, I am, but not all the time,” she said, and turned to look for the phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  It was right behind her. “I’m calling Reservations to see if they have a room available.” She searched the phone’s panel for the proper extension, decided on the operator and picked up the receiver, then paused to look at him. “This is great, Nick. Really.”

  “Yeah, I’m glad we came, especially glad you came with me.”

  She depressed the designated button and heard the ring. “Me, too. Now you need to go away. Go be with your family while I take care of this.”

  She stopped when she heard the operator’s voice on the other end. “Hi, may I have Reservations, please?”

  He smiled as she watched her become all business on the phone, and then kissed her cheek before heading toward the boys’ room.

  Shaking her head, she watched him go while she waited to be connected. Her thoughts oddly strayed back to when she was in college. She hadn’t dated all that much, and when she had, she’d stuck to the same guy for several months. But she didn’t recall ever feeling as free to be herself as she did with Nick, and she’d only known him for a few days. Weird. Though maybe it was an age thing. She’d been young and more tentative back then and pulled a lot of punches. It made her feel as if she’d finally come into her own. That he felt free enough to share his fears with her made her glad she’d been so open with him.

  “Yes,” she said into the receiver. “I’m looking for a room for one night.”

  “A double?” the operator asked.

  “Yes.”

  “All right, when would you be needing the room?”

  “Um, tonight.”

  There was a long pause. “I’m sorry, ma’am, we’re sold out.”

  “I figured you would be.” Emily sighed. “Look, we don’t need anything fancy. If you have a spare parlor with a foldout sofa, or even an out-of-service room would be all right.”

  “I’ll be happy to check if there’s a parlor available,” the woman said, “but I doubt we have anything.”

  After a minute, the operator said, “No, I’m sorry.”

  “And the out-of-service room? Any chance?”

  “A manager would have to help you with that. Ma’am, may I ask if you’re in the hotel business?”

  Emily smiled. She knew about unused parlors and out-of-service rooms from a travel book she’d edited. “No, but I do a lot of research.”

  “If you don’t mind holding, I’ll see if I can find a manager.”

  “Thanks.” She was put on hold, and classical music filled the silence. Tired of looking at the still photos of daring skiers that lined the wall toward the bedrooms, Emily turned to gaze out the large glass window facing the ski runs.

  Leslie stood a few feet away, sipping from a cup and watching her.

 
; Where had she come from? Emily had been facing toward the bedrooms almost the whole time. Then she saw that the suite was even larger than she first thought, with a kitchen and dining room and free-flowing floor plan. Would’ve been nice to have noticed that earlier, she thought wryly.

  “I’m on hold,” Emily said, unnecessarily, her thoughts racing back to her conversation with Nick, and wondering how much his sister had heard.

  “Tea?” Leslie asked, holding up her cup.

  “Yes, thank you.” Emily watched her disappear behind a wall. Easy to tell now that the wall was simply a divider.

  Two minutes later, she heard the kettle whistle but she was still on hold. Leslie brought out a tray of assorted teas, a small bowl of sugar, lemon and milk and a steaming cup, and set everything on the table. “Still on hold, I take it,” she said, and pulled out a chair for Emily, who nodded. “You could’ve told them it was for Nick. He paid a bundle for all this. Bet they would’ve found him pretty nice accommodations.”

  Emily shrugged. “The place is crazy busy. Bad enough these poor people all have to work on Thanksgiving. No sense putting pressure on them.”

  Leslie smiled. “You’re right. And you’re also very good for my brother.”

  15

  UNABLE TO SLEEP, Nick stared at the unfamiliar ceiling of the inn’s cramped room. The place she’d found close to the resort wasn’t quite as charming as either of them had hoped. The bed was a queen-size, which seemed small to him, and the plumbing was noisy, but they had a vacancy and that had been the bottom line. No matter the inconveniences, he should’ve been dead tired after so little sleep the night before, the long drive today and then his crazy nephews keeping him up until after midnight with their endless wild stories and video game challenges.

  Even his mom had stayed up well past her normal bedtime of nine-thirty in order to spend as much time with him as she could.

  He looked over at Emily, peacefully curled up on her side, facing him. Selfishly, he wanted to wake her. From experience, he knew it would take little, a kiss on her bare shoulder, a light nibble of her ear. Moving over several inches would probably do it. The temptation was great. After all, she’d taken a nap in the car. But he figured he’d spent enough of his adult life being selfish. He’d turned the corner tonight, all beginning with his confession to Emily. It wasn’t just telling her the truth about his own fears, but as he’d sat with his family over Thanksgiving dinner, he’d put some of those fears in perspective. He wanted to be a good man, a man his parents could be proud of. Not just for his ability to play ball, either. He wanted to make his mark even after his career ended, whenever that would be.

  The hard part would be to remember this. To somehow believe that he did have the potential to be more than the Nicky Corrigan in the papers. He was still determined to work harder than he had in his life to keep in the game, but now he could start thinking about what came after, without the panic. It would be good to go see Billy, who he knew was going through all this, but without any planning. His friend had to be going crazy, and perhaps together, they could each find a way to deal. He would give his friend a call tomorrow, make plans to go to Louisiana. He wished Emily could go with him. She’d be good for Billy. No nonsense, and she couldn’t care less about baseball. That was a pretty big deal. The majors swallowed a man whole, and it was easy to forget there was a great big world outside.

  He carefully rolled onto his side so he could better watch her sleep. He’d been with so many women in the past twelve years, achingly beautiful women, some witty, nearly all of them tall and willowy, the kind the tabloids and magazines raced to photograph him with. Most of the time he’d eaten up the attention and secretly basked in the envy of some of his not-so-fortunate teammates.

  Emily was gorgeous in her own right, with soft flawless skin and killer dimples. Maybe she wasn’t a typical cover-model type. And yet, all those other conventionally beautiful women whom he’d once enjoyed as arm candy seemed to run together into one big blur in his mind.

  “How long have you been awake?” she asked softly, staring at him through slitted eyes.

  The moon was nearly full, and he’d left the drapes open a few inches for some light, which shone directly into her face.

  “Come here,” he said, hooking an arm around her and pulling her close. “So the moon won’t shine in your eyes.”

  “Or you could get up and close the drapes.” She snuggled up to him and sighed, the contented sound stirring something deep and primal inside of him.

  “You just want to stare at my ass.”

  “I do.” She ran her hand over his bare chest, then swept around to his naked backside. “I want abs and an ass like this.”

  He smiled. “You willing to work for it?”

  “Um, that would be a big no.”

  “I like you just the way you are,” he said, running his palms down her back, over her bottom. No surprise, he immediately started getting hard.

  A soft knowing laugh slipped past her lips and brushed his chest. “Why are you still awake?”

  “I slept for a couple of hours.”

  “It’s the bed, isn’t it? We probably should have taken Leslie up on her offer to stay in the suite.”

  He kissed her hair. “And sleep separately? No way.”

  “But at least you’d get some rest before we have to drive home. Maybe we should stay another night.”

  “Nope. We have only two left, and I want you to myself.”

  She sighed, her entire body trembling against him. “The time went by so quickly all of a sudden.”

  “I’m glad we checked you out of the Thornton so we can go straight to my apartment.”

  “Me, too.” She traced a finger around his nipple, driving him crazy. “I liked the road trip, too. It was good to just talk.”

  “You make it easy.”

  “Nothing about that conversation was easy.”

  He grunted softly. “Yeah. But I’m not sorry. It helped that you didn’t think I was crazy. I have so damn much, I have no business complaining.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but while you might be king of the baseball diamond, you’re still human and all that goes with it. In the end, buddy, you still put your pants on one leg at a time.”

  He couldn’t help his grin. As his career had taken off, more and more people had shied away from standing up to him, even when he needed it. The truth was, he’d been a prick at times, rarely inviting disagreement. “With as prickly as you can be, I’m surprised how easy it was to be so…”

  “Human. And I’m not all that prickly.”

  He lifted his head, jostling her. “What? When’s the last time you held back from saying whatever the hell was on your mind?”

  “Tonight.”

  “When.”

  “I’m not going to tell you. If you don’t know, then that just proves I did it well.”

  Instead of laying right back down, he bent to kiss her. “You do a lot of things well,” he whispered, right before his hand cupped her breast.

  She moaned softly, rubbing up against him. “I’m thinking you’d better get some sleep before we have to get up and meet everyone for brunch.”

  Oh, hell. He hadn’t been keen on the idea when Leslie mentioned it. Early breakfast would’ve been better so that they could get on the road before noon. “About that—”

  “Don’t you dare back out. Your mom would be crushed. Unless you’ve decided to still make a trip home next week.”

  “Not next week. I’ll be going down to Louisiana.”

  “I see.”

  “I think Billy and I need to have a long man-to-man talk.” Nick lowered his head and rolled his tongue over her nipple. “I have something else in mind for now.”

  “I MEANT TO THANK YOU for the Series tickets. Sorry we couldn’t make it this year,” Tom said right after everyone had given the waitress their food order. “Bad time to keep the kids out of school, but of course you know how I feel about that.”

  Nick
set down the glass of orange juice he’d been sipping. “No problem. I understand.”

  “I don’t,” said Ryan, the older nephew. “Even my teacher couldn’t believe I coulda gone to see Uncle Nick play and you wouldn’t let me.”

  “Enough.” Leslie gave him a silencing look. “You can go next year,” she said, and winked at her brother.

  Like dinner the night before, the seating arrangement could have been a big to-do, with all three kids wanting to sit next to their uncle. But this time Leslie was prepared, and with the precision of a four-star general, she had the kids rotating seats so everyone got to sit next to him at some point. His mother, however, sat on his right the entire time. Emily sat between Nick’s father and Tom.

  “By the way.” Tom took off his glasses and used the corner of his napkin to clean the lenses. “How’s your friend Billy? Clearly he won’t be playing this season, if ever. That has to greatly affect the team’s performance.”

  “Didn’t know you kept up with sports news.” Resentment flickered and then died in Nick’s face. “He’ll be okay.”

  “What happened?” Ann’s widened with alarm. “One of the players got hurt?”

  “Not on the field, Mom.” Nick patted her hand. “He was in a car accident.”

  Ann smiled wryly. “I know baseball isn’t like football, but I still worry. Your friend, though, I’m sorry I didn’t know. How badly is he hurt?”

  Nick’s features tightened, pain flashed in his eyes. “It’s serious,” he said quietly. “He may not play again.”

  “Bummer,” Kevin and Ryan said at the same time, and then they were both distracted by a passing tray of Belgian waffles topped with a mountain of whipped cream.

  “When you think about it, with a leg broken in four places, a broken arm and a shattered pelvis, it’ll be a miracle if he does. I hope he has a backup plan,” Tom said, looking evenly at Nick. “Did he go to college?”

  Nick’s face imperceptibly darkened. “He did.”

  The tension was suddenly so thick it would be impossible not to notice how the air pressure had settled around the table like a dense fog. Emily herself could barely breathe. She tore her gaze away from Nick long enough to see his mother staring at her silverware, and Leslie spearing her husband with a look that could cut him in half if he’d bothered to meet her eyes.