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“There’s no limit to the number of times I can make you feel good,” she reminded him.
She felt the way his body tensed, hands squeezing her harder, for all of a moment before his release pounded through him. He gripped her hips, burying himself deeper inside her, and the movement sent her over the edge with him, her body convulsing with his.
In the aftermath, she wound up lying by his side, not entirely sure how she got there. Their breath mingled in the cool room, legs still tangled as he drew a quilt over them both. She tucked the cotton binding under her chin and tipped her forehead to his chest, listening to the sound of his heartbeat, comforted by it somehow, even though she knew they’d just waded into dangerous romantic terrain by getting intimate.
Especially considering the risk she’d taken by going to the game tonight and being photographed with Cal. What if it led her mother to Last Stand? Or the police?
She knew she needed to tie up her work in Texas and move on. Her hopes of securing a job here had been formed too soon, before this misstep of landing on camera with a sports star. But she felt too amazing to worry about that right now.
Somehow, she would figure out a place to go next. Some place as quiet and remote as Last Stand. What concerned her most in those heady moments after the best sex of her life was how she would walk away from this man in just two short weeks.
Chapter Nine
Cal didn’t wantto leave Josie’s side the next morning. She looked so damned beautiful with the rays of dawn slanting through the blinds to light her face in a shade of golden pink. They’d kept one another awake for more of the night than they’d slept, though. He figured he owed it to her to let her catch up on rest while he went for his run.
What an incredible night they’d shared. In spite of the nervousness he’d thought he’d glimpsed in her earlier in the evening, she’d seemed happy once she’d made the decision to invite him in. He hoped she would wake up just as happy, because he wanted to spend as much time with her as he could over the next two weeks.
Kissing her forehead, he slid from under the covers and left her a note promising to cook her a late breakfast. Then he dug out an old pair of running shorts from a dresser containing an odd assortment of his old clothes from other times he’d returned to Last Stand.
Not often enough, he realized.
As he found a pair of earbuds and cranked the tunes, he let the dogs out for a few minutes so they wouldn’t wake Josie. Then, locking the house behind him, he hit one of the dirt roads around the old barns that led to the farm and orchards, taking in the beauty of a place he hadn’t made much time for in the last few years.
Feet pounding an even rhythm, he passed the empty stalls no longer used since Rough Hollow Ranch became Rough Hollow Farm and Orchards. Everett had turned the failing ranch into a profitable enterprise by planting peach trees. The capital he’d gained from selling off the last of the livestock had given him enough to invest in the new operation. Had his father been angry with him for turning his back on ranching, a long-held Ramsey tradition? Cal didn’t know. There was too much he didn’t understand about the family history after a lifetime commitment to baseball—the new Ramsey tradition, he thought drily.
Yet after hearing the gratitude in his grandfather’s voice the one time that Cal had checked out the orchards for him, he understood how much that land continued to mean to him. Clint had made it clear that if his father passed the farming operation to him, he would sell it off without hesitation. So if they wanted to keep Rough Hollow in the family, a Ramsey needed to move back to Last Stand. If no one picked up Cal’s contract, of course, he was the logical candidate. He wouldn’t disrupt his brothers’ careers if his own came to a natural—albeit unwanted—end.
On the other hand, if a team picked him up, Cal would go back to the game—no question. He loved the game. He already missed it like crazy.
Then, he’d try to convince Nate or Wes to at least spend the off-season here to reconnect with the place. Test out how it would feel to take on Rough Hollow.
Sun rising higher, the peach orchards were heavily fragrant as the day grew hotter. Cal spotted a tree in one of the old orchards where remnants of an old fort rotted among the branches. He slowed his step to check out the missing rungs on the ladder up to a long-ago hideout he’d built with his brothers. No doubt they weren’t supposed to make forts in trees that provided produce for the farm stand, but Everett hadn’t minded. Their grandfather—after seeing their early efforts at building a tree house—even provided milled lumber and a battery-operated power drill that had kept them occupied for days.
That was back when their father was still in the game. He’d been a pitching coach after he’d retired as a player, unable to tear himself away from the sport. But once he’d sat on the sidelines of one of Wes’s T-ball games and seen the quality of his youngest son’s swing, he’d given up his job to devote himself to being a full-time coach to Cal, Nate and Wes. That’s when things had started getting tense. Cal, at least, had known a few years of normalcy before that day. Wes hardly remembered a time without daily skills drills.
Tugging out his earbuds, Cal climbed the remaining rungs to peer inside the tree house, surprised his grandfather hadn’t burned this section of orchard and replanted the field. Even the variety of peach tree was different from the kinds he harvested now—all compact hybrids with high yield. This tree was big and broad, gnarled branches twisting around the simply constructed house with four windows, a drop-down door, and all the siblings’ names carved in the wood.
His cell phone ringing pulled him out of the past. He connected the call as he climbed back down, the screen showing his agent’s number.
Tension pulled his shoulders tight.
“Hey, Dex. What’s up?” He swiped a hand across his forehead, walking along the dirt path. He pulled a peach off one of the old trees and searched it carefully for defects before taking a bite.
The explosion of sweetness on his tongue helped relax him just a fraction while his agent, Dexter Brantley, spoke.
“Hi, Cal. I know you said you’re not interested in hearing from me unless I have concrete news,” Dex began, clearly remembering Cal’s frustration about phone calls just to “touch base” with him. “But I wanted you to know that I heard from Dusty Reed last night.”
Cal stopped walking, peach juice still dripping from his chin. He swiped that away with the back of his hand, thoughts racing. His father had mentioned Dusty—one of Cal’s former coaches—was getting back in baseball.
“And?” He hadn’t checked his phone today to see if there’d been any industry news. Had Dusty taken a new position?
“He was cagey about where he’s going, but I have every reason to think he’s close to locking down a move to either Oakland or Arizona.” As an agent to athletes at every level in nearly every sport, Dex kept his eye on industry news and he had contacts everywhere. If he didn’t know where Dusty was going, no one else knew either.
“Interesting,” Cal acknowledged as he kept walking, his thoughts straying back to Josie sleeping in the farmhouse. He hadn’t told her much about his career, preferring not to talk about something that pained him. Yet he found himself wanting to talk to her now. To share his worries about what to do next. “But I don’t see how that affects me.”
He refused to think about things that “might” happen.
“It wouldn’t,” Dex continued, raising his voice to be heard over the background noise of a busy city—a loud siren must have passed close by where he was standing. “Except Dusty was calling to check the details of your contract and availability.”
