Drive You Wild: A Love Between the Bases Novel Read Online Free Page B

his invitation. He was beautiful, like an avenging angel, with those slashing cheekbones and sensual mouth, his eyes the clear light green of the Caribbean on a crystal calm day. But he wasn’t calm, not underneath. She sensed turmoil behind his controlled exterior. Maybe that’s what made him so magnetic and compelling.
    The sight of his muscled back, wide at the shoulders, lean at the waist, powerful everywhere in between, was still branded on her eyeballs. A massive tattoo filled his entire back and shoulders, although she hadn’t been able to make out any details before he disappeared into the lobby. His physique had stunned the breath out of her, the perfection of each muscle and bone gilded by the hotel lights.
    Her father’s big circular driveway was packed with the usual array of vehicles. Inside the ranch house, a sprawling glass and steel structure, lights glowed. For better or worse, he was home. “Moment of truth, Jerome,” she told her cat.
    She got out of the car and took a deep breath of Texas air, cooler here than in Kilby proper, flavored with mesquite and alfalfa and a hint of cow manure.
    Delaying the inevitable, she picked Jerome up from the passenger seat. As usual, he went floppy as the rag doll his breed was named after. He loved to be carried like a baby. “You keep quiet and let me do the talking.”She put him into his carrier, where he went right back to sleep.
    Heart beating like a bongo, she hurried up the steps. She put down Jerome’s carrier and knocked on the oversize wood-planked door. Footsteps sounded inside. Please be happy to see me. Please don’t be a jerk.
    The door opened and Crush Taylor stood before her, his tall, rangy frame as fit as ever, squinting at her with bright hazel eyes. He blinked a few times, as if he didn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “Paige?”
    She burst into tears.

Chapter 3
    A FTER A LONG moment during which Paige fought to get a grip on her sobs, Crush finally opened his arms and pulled her in for a hug. “Aw, kiddo. Come on. You know there’s no crying in baseball.”
    “S . . . sorry.” Crush hated tears. All his ex-wives and their children knew that. Paige knew it more than anyone, because she’d always been the sap in the family. “It’s been a long trip.” Through her hiccuping sobs, she breathed in the familiar smell of her father, a mixture of tobacco and grass and bay rum.
    “From Italy?”
    She nodded against his chest.
    “Hudson?”
    “We’re getting divorced. I mean, we are divorced.” She pulled back and wiped the tears off her cheeks. “And if you say ‘I told you so,’ I’ll get right back in the car.”
    He made a sound that could have been a chuckle or a protest. With his hands on her shoulders, he scrutinized her face. “When did this happen?”
    “A month ago.”
    “You never said anything.”
    “We haven’t exactly been communicating.” A few strained emails over the past three years barely counted.
    “Jenna didn’t mention it either.”
    “She doesn’t know.” Telling her mother she was divorced at the age of twenty-four . . . Yeah, she was not looking forward to that conversation.
    “Well, you’d better come in, honey. I bet you’re hungry. Divorce can give you a real appetite. I ate like a farmer after all three of mine.”
    Crush’s caustic sense of humor came in handy sometimes. Her entire body relaxed, all the anxiety about her homecoming released in a long exhale. She’d done the right thing, coming here. Despite their epic battles over Hudson, Crush would never turn her away. And he wouldn’t interrogate her the way her mother would. She wasn’t ready to answer her mother’s inevitable million and five questions.
    “So . . . uh . . . you planning to stay awhile?” Crush asked when she was through the door, car carrier in hand.
    “For now, if that’s okay.”
    She saw concern simmering behind his curious gaze, but he merely nodded and walked with her up the stairs to the bedrooms.