chapter 3
TAYLOR HADN’T PLANNED on watching the entire nine innings. Fully expecting Ryan Locke to be pulled after the fourth or fifth, she’d been pondering how she was going to manage an apparently innocent and casual conversation with him.
As if any meeting could be truly casual or innocent after that brief and electric connection between them at batting practice.
She couldn’t help feeling the occasional ping of regret that her job required steering clear of some of the sexiest and often the most decent and honorable men she’d ever met. Not that there was an iron clad rule preventing a front office employee from dating a ballplayer, but it was just a bad idea all around. Taylor had never done it. Not once in her seven-year baseball career. Dating a player from an opposing team brought with it the possibility of sharing sensitive team information across pillows—it was as simple and straightforward as that. And hooking up with some guy from your own squad carried a whole other set of equally thorny problems, especially for someone like her since she was in a position to make, or help make, decisions about players’ futures.
She gave her head a shake and returned her attention to the field, watching the Patriots’ studly Jake Miller stride to the plate. And since when had she started thinking of ballplayers in sexual rather than statistical terms? Unfortunately, she knew the answer to that one.
Since Ryan Locke.
It wasn’t just the smoldering look he’d given her with those bedroom eyes, or his obvious physical magnetism that heightened her awareness. There were hundreds of sexy ballplayers out there, a hefty portion of them unmarried, too. But there was one thing about Locke that not a whole lot of other players seemed to have.
Maturity, for lack of a better term, and it was wildly attractive.
So many ballplayers were anything but mature, carousing through life like they’d be forever young, rich and famous. Not Locke, though. The intensity of his gaze, the set of his jaw, the way he carried himself—everything spoke of a man who’d seen his share of life’s ups and downs and had come out the stronger for it.
Then again, maybe it was mostly her imagination, because she was definitely no expert on men, except when it came to how they played baseball.
Her glance flicked to Locke out on the field, flexing his knees as he pounded the palm of his glove. His body language evoked grim determination, something not exactly the norm in spring training games. It appeared he expected the ball to come his way in left, despite the fact that Jake Miller usually pulled it to the right side of the field. The Hornets’ coach had positioned Locke deep and shaded toward center, an implied sign of respect for Miller’s awesome batting power.
The pitcher wasted no time in challenging the Patriots’ slugger, delivering a fast ball that was headed for the outside corner of the plate. Miller swung hard and caught the ball almost on the end of his bat, sending a liner past the shortstop’s outstretched hand, into center-left. With the center fielder shifted to the right, it was clearly Locke’s ball to field, even though it skittered through the grass well to his left side. Taylor sucked in a breath, figuring the ball might get past Locke, and that would easily bring the Patriots’ runner home from second with the winning run.
But against her expectations, Locke took four long strides and extended his arm to sweep the ball into his glove. Slightly off balance, he quickly righted himself as Harmer, the runner, raced to third base and started to make the turn towards home. Locke reached back and fired the ball, but instead of coming on a hard, low line out of his hand, it travelled up in an unfortunate arc over the shortstop’s head to land in the infield, bouncing in one high hop toward home plate. Harmer slid over home plate in a cloud of dust before the Hornets’ catcher could corral the ball. What should have been a very close play had been far from it.
Though she was happy about her team’s win, Taylor maintained her focus on Ryan Locke. He’d sunk down into a squat, head lowered, as soon as the weak throw landed in the infield. Only now had he pulled himself back up and started to jog slowly toward the Hornets’ dugout. Even from where she sat, Taylor could see dejection written in both his eyes and the set of his mouth, and a sharp pang of sympathy rolled through her. His wounded duck of a throw had cost the Hornets the game. Worse yet, Locke had done it in front of scouts’ assessing eyes, showcasing a disturbing weakness.
Though he was still about thirty feet from the dugout, Locke furiously hurled his glove inside. As Taylor quickly moved through the thinning crowd so she could see in to the Hornets’ bench, she couldn’t help noting that the glove throw was a hell of a lot better than the one he’d just made from left field. When he tore down the dugout steps, Locke immediately grabbed the big red Gatorade cooler in a bear hug. Though the coolers usually weighed a ton, he lifted it like it was empty plastic. A second later, the bulky container shot through the air, bouncing once as it hit the dirt in front of the dugout and then rolling out onto the field. One of the ball boys jumped out and gave chase as green Gatorade spilled out from an obviously leaky top.
A handful of fans around Taylor started to laugh at the colorful projectile. Locke was hardly the first player to take his frustration out on an oversized drink cooler, but he might be in line for the Guinness record for longest toss.
It looked like the Hornets players were amused, too, but Locke brushed past them and disappeared into the tunnel that led to the visiting team’s clubhouse. From the rigid set of his broad shoulders as he retreated, Taylor surmised that the attack on the cooler hadn’t assuaged his anger over his nightmarish throw.
While Hornets’ management wouldn’t appreciate the scene and might even fine Locke, Taylor thoroughly approved of his display of rage. It showed her that Ryan Locke still had fire in his gut. A whole blazing cauldron of it if today’s game was any indication. From his hard slide into second base to his Gatorade tantrum, it was clear that Locke would do anything to help his team win. Even though it was just a spring training game, the guy had busted his ass out there all day like it was playoff baseball.
Ryan Locke was far from the perfect answer to her team’s first base woes, but he was close enough for Taylor.
As she headed up to the concourse, she weighed the pros and cons. Pushing Dembinski to make this deal could make her name but it could just as easily break her, given that Locke was an aging player with several significant liabilities. Did she have the guts to possibly stake her future on one risky bet, a bet that could derail her upward progress within the Patriots’ management ranks?
Of course, the whole exercise would be academic if Ryan Locke had no interest in converting to a different position on the field. If Locke was going to play first base for the Patriots, he’d have to be at least reconciled to it, and preferably enthusiastic. Otherwise, the experiment would surely fail, since there was nothing more damaging than a disgruntled, unhappy ball player. So, the first step to avoiding that failure would be trying to gauge Locke’s willingness to make the change.
Which meant sounding the guy out.
And if she was going to sound Locke out, it would somehow have to be innocuous and oblique. Unfortunately, for an idea person, Taylor hadn’t quite managed to figure out how she was going to pull off that particular trick. And while the thought of a one-on-one chat with Ryan Locke was enticing, and not just because of the career opportunity it presented, it was also vaguely unsettling for reasons Taylor refused to think about.
* * *
THERE WASN’T A single guy in the Hornets’ clubhouse that hadn’t ragged on Ryan about his Gatorade toss. Not that it was that big a deal. Hell, as long as you didn’t accidentally knock some unsuspecting soul on his ass, the manager treated that kind of assault on an inanimate object as a tolerable prank. The bosses as well as the players tended to look at it as evidence of a guy’s intensity and dedication to winning. And even though it was only spring training, Ryan still hated losing.
Unfortunately, his dedication and commitment didn’t mean jack to management at this point.
The Hornets had started the year by giving him a pretty long leash, even though he understood they didn’t fully appreciate everything he’d done for them during his years in Pittsburgh. But baseball was a business—a brutal business—and for the team’s top management, the bottom line was the ultimate measurement of success, as much as or more than winning championships. And the bottom line for players was simply the sum of their statistics. Team statistical gurus pored over about six million statistical inventions—at least it looked that way to him—using esoteric categories with crazy acronyms like oWAR and DSR to judge player performance.
As a player, you were just a bunch of numbers and percentages. You could be replaced at any time by some guy with equivalent production numbers, like changing a dollar for four quarters.
Did heart and guts and loyalty factor into the equation? Not like they used to. While he hoped they still counted for something, Ryan felt the leash tighten more every day. And after his pathetic performance in the field this afternoon, he knew he had to expect the worst. If the Hornets still had any faith in his arm after what had happened today, it would be a certifiable miracle.
As he showered and finished dressing, his mind drifted back to that silent but intense pre-game encounter with Taylor Page. Ryan couldn’t help wondering how she had viewed his performance today. Man, she’d looked hot, and that intriguing little smile she’d given him had hit him low in the gut, even from yards away.
Before hiding behind those big sunglasses, that is. She’d actually looked surprised when he nodded at her in recognition, but he kept track of the comings and goings of general managers and other high-level front office staff. After all, those were the people that held a player’s career in their hands.
Taylor Page was a comer in baseball, and had been widely seen as such since she first surfaced in the big leagues. With the White Sox and then in a lengthy stint with the L.A. Dragons, she’d earned a reputation as one of the league’s statistical hotshots—an executive who relied on sophisticated analysis more than on the decades of experience as a player, coach or scout that were the hallmarks of most front office staff.
Well, if the gorgeous brainiac was focused on stats, she’d probably be impressed by what she saw on his sheets, especially the numbers that showed how he could get on base with a walk better than most guys in the league. Until last year at least, his fielding stats were stellar, too. His reliable glove and decent arm had led to a below average number of errors, and his defensive range was in the top twenty per cent of his peers.
But would she or anybody else watching him screw things up today care about that history? Or would they think like the Hornets apparently did—that a once highly productive player was now over the hill and expendable?
For some reason, he thought Page might still see value in somebody like him. Obviously, it wasn’t because she’d given him that sweet, almost shy smile. She was just being nice when she did that. But he’d heard from a few players on the White Sox and the Dragons that the young management hottie had bigger balls than any guy in their front office, and had pushed for some of her teams’ most successful moves.
But was she actually scouting him? This was the Patriots’ home park, after all. Maybe she was just strolling around the stands at that hour to get some fresh air. Maybe she just happened to stop by the Hornets’ batting cage when he was waiting to take his turn. The fact that she’d been staring at him—he’d watched her out of the corner of his eye before he turned to face her—probably meant nothing at all.
But for some vague feeling that he couldn’t quite pin down, his gut told him that she was on a mission when it came to him, and Ryan sure as hell hoped he was wrong. As much as he wouldn’t mind seeing more of Taylor Page, a future with Philadelphia Patriots—for a lot of reasons—could only end up painful and short-lived.
* * *
AS TAYLOR WALKED through the stadium concourse, still wracking her brains for a way to handle Ryan Locke, she glanced up and saw Joe Ridge, the GM of the Hornets, heading in her direction. She and Joe were good friends, having developed a solid relationship with him when they’d both worked for the L.A. Dragons. Joe had eventually gone on to land the top job as GM with the Pittsburgh Hornets, while she went to Philly. Though the Patriots and the Hornets were division rivals, Taylor knew she could trust Joe, and vice-versa. They could toss around ideas without her having to fear that she might end up hung out to dry with her boss.
Not that she’d ever be anything but loyal to her team. Taylor might be as ambitious as anybody on the planet, but she’d never do something on the side with Joe that had even the remotest possibility of damaging the interests of her club.
“Hey, Joe,” she said with a grin as they met just in front of the store that sold Patriots’ gear and all manner of other baseball paraphernalia.
“Taylor!” Joe gave her an enthusiastic hug, practically crushing her against his beefy, six-four frame. “I was hoping I’d see you here today.”
“You should have called, my friend. We could have done lunch today.”
“Sorry, I couldn’t get away till the last minute. You know how it is.”
“Sure. But do you have a minute now? I want to ask you about something.”
“Sure, but how about dinner tonight,” he said. “I’m going to the Summer Moon with one of our scouts and our minor league operations coordinator. Why don’t you join us?”
She put up an apologetic hand. “Thanks, but I don’t think so, Joe. I don’t want to impose on your meeting.”
“Not a problem. We’re just three old hands having dinner and shooting the breeze about baseball.”
Taylor considered it. The Summer Moon was famous as a hangout for ballplayers in the Tampa Bay area during the spring training months. Would Ryan Locke show up? It was worth a shot and she did want to spend time with Joe, so it was a win/win, as far as she could tell.
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt somebody like me to be seen letting her hair down a little bit in a place like that, would it?” she said. “I don’t want everybody down here to think the new girl’s got a big old stick up her ass.” There had already been too many whispers around the team that she was Dembinski’s pampered pet and a bit of a know-it-all.
“Done deal. Eight o’clock at the Summer Moon.” He flicked a glance at his watch. “Now, what’s on your mighty brain?”
A little edgy, Taylor hesitated before answering. “I’d like to think out loud with you for a minute, if that’s okay. Confidentially.”
“Sure. Let’s sit down,” Joe said, pointing to some small deserted tables across from the pizza concession. A red-shirted employee was pulling down the pizzeria’s aluminum shutters and the stadium was practically empty. They should have plenty of privacy.
After they sat, Taylor came right to the point. “I didn’t miss the fact that Ryan Locke played the whole nine this afternoon. I have to say that surprised me, considering that you’ve been giving Antonio Swain half the playing time.”
“Still as observant as ever,” Ridge acknowledged with a sly smile. He tended not to give direct answers unless you pried them out of his mouth.
“I expect I’m not the only one today giving Locke a careful look, am I?” Taylor said, knowing she wasn’t likely to get a straight answer to that question, either.
Joe shrugged.
The preliminaries having been completed, Taylor got serious. “Look, Joe, it’s obvious you were showcasing the guy today. So, I just want you to be aware that if Locke’s going to be on the trading block, the Patriots might well have some interest.”
“No shit?” Joe sat up straight, his hands looking enormous as he clasped them together on the tiny table. “Got to be your idea, not Dembinski’s, right?”
Taylor nodded.
“Well, then, between you and me, the answer is yes. We’d like to move Locke, even though he’s still got a lot to offer. It’s not fair to keep Swain in the minors any longer. The kid’s ticketed to be our starting left fielder on opening day.”
Taylor leaned back and crossed her legs to give the impression she was more relaxed than she felt. “Okay, so let’s be real, Joe. Locke’s defense has gone south. Gone south real bad.”
Another snort. “Undeniable.” His eyes bored into hers. “Which makes me wonder why you guys would have interest in Locke. An AL team, on the other hand…”
Taylor tried to look nonchalant as she read between the lines. “I presume nobody’s made an actual offer yet, though?”
He gave her a hard look that told her the answer was no. “What do you think Dembinski would offer me for a guy who’ll probably only pinch hit and start once a week for you? Hell, you’ve got three of the best outfielders in the game already.”
Taylor knew he wasn’t expecting a specific answer, but she had to confirm strong interest. “Joe, if I decide to go to Dave with this idea, I’m well aware that we’d have to offer you something substantial in return.”
“That you will, my friend.”
“We’d want a full medical run-up, of course,” she said. “A weak wing is one thing, but a career-ending injury is another.”
Joe scoffed. “Rest easy on that score. There’s nothing structurally wrong with Locke’s arm. We’ve had him checked out six ways from Sunday. There’s some arthritis there for sure, but it’s no big deal.” He tapped a fingernail on the metal table, then continued. “The thing is, Taylor, Ryan wants to go to an AL team if we ever move him. He told me that straight out.”
Taylor’s heart started to sink. “It sounds like you’re inclined to accommodate him, too.”
Joe spread his hands again. “Unless you’ve got a better idea.”
“Some people would call me a mental case for even considering it, but I know you won’t,” she replied with a wry smile. “I was thinking about Locke as a temporary answer at first base for us until Stark gets back.”
If Stark gets back was more like it.
Joe’s brows lifted. “I thought you guys were handing that job to that Corbin kid?”
Taylor shook her head. “He’s definitely the future, but he’s not ready now.”
Joe shook his head, clearly in disbelief. “Ryan Locke at first base. Now, that’s a little out there even for you, hon.”
“Why?” Taylor said, struggling not to come off as too defensive.
“Let’s start with the fact that he’s never played first base in his entire career. Or ever, as far as I know.”
She batted that aside. “Minor detail. He wouldn’t be the first guy to have to learn how to play first.”
Joe’s features took on a more serious cast. “True enough. But don’t you think you’re kind of skating on thin ice here, Taylor? Now that I know you’ve got a plan for Locke and you really want him, why wouldn’t I take a harder line on the price?”
Taylor shot him an incredulous look. “First, you don’t really know how much I want him. Second, you sure don’t know how much Dembinski wants him, if at all. Third, if we do make an offer, we’re really playing against some AL team, not in the abstract. If we make you a better offer than the AL guys, you’ll take it. Simple as that.”
Joe leaned back in his chair and propped his entwined hands on his gut. “Simple as that,” he said with a fatherly smile.
Taylor reached across and gave him a playful poke on the bicep. She had only one more question. “You know Locke pretty well, I’d imagine?”
Joe ran his hands down his thighs, smoothing his slacks as if he was ready to get up and leave. “Yeah, sure. He’s a solid guy. The real deal.”
“So, if we asked him to move to first base, do you think he’s the kind of player who’d look on it as a challenge, or would he take it as an insult?”
Taylor knew she was calling for a guess on Joe’s part, but she trusted her pal’s instincts and experience so much that what he was about to say could make a major difference in whether she went to Dembinski with her idea or threw it in the mental trashcan.
Joe inhaled a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Hell, girl, what a question.” He paused for another few moments. “Honestly, Taylor, I don’t really know the answer to that. But I will say this. I think Ryan will hate the idea with every fiber of his being.”