LITMIR.BIZ

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his long frame into a chair, his gaze moving around the large country kitchen, to the cozy Wedgewood-blue family room on the other side of a long granite counter, and the formal dining room across the hall. “You’re right. I can’t believe this is the same old wreck.”

       She decided not to sing Diana’s praises again. Taking a seat across from him, she set a mug of steaming coffee on the table, and carefully placed the envelope in front of her.

       With one long look at Deuce, she took a deep breath. Before Diana swooped in here and charmed him, before Seamus barreled in and coached him, before the rest of Rockingham discovered him, she had to know. She just had to know for herself.

       “Why did you come back?”

       He leaned the chair on two legs and folded his arms across the breadth of his powerful chest, the sleeves of his polo shirt tightening over his muscular arms. She willed her gaze to stay on his face and not devour every heart-stopping ripple and cut.

       “Well, I’m retired now, as you know.”

       The whole world knew he wasn’t retired. His contract had been terminated after he blatantly disregarded the fine print and took to a race track—and wrecked a car—with a couple of famous NASCAR drivers. But, she let it go.

       “Are you planning to…” Oh, God. Ask it. “…live here?” Please say no. Please say no. Could her heart and head take it if he said yes?

       “Yes.”

       She sipped her coffee with remarkable nonchalance.

       “I’m sick of living in Vegas,” he added, coming down hard on the front two legs of the delicate chair.

       “I thought you lived outside of Las Vegas.”

       He lifted one shoulder. “Same difference. I have no reason to stay there if I’m not playing ball for the Snake Eyes.”

       “What about coaching? Don’t a lot of major leaguers do that after they…after they quit?”

       He massaged his right arm again, a gesture she knew so well she could close her eyes and see it. But this time, his features tightened with a grimace.

       “I don’t know. We’ll see. I’ll need to find a good PT. You know any?”

       A physical therapist who worked on professional athletes? On Cape Cod? “You’ll have to go to Boston.”

       “That’s over an hour from here.”

       Then go live there. “Two, now, with traffic.” She sipped the coffee again and tried for the most noncommittal voice she could find. “So, what are you going to do here?”

       Instead of answering, he snagged the envelope. She lunged for it, but he was too fast. “What is this?”

       She wasn’t ready to reveal her plans to Deuce. His dad would probably tell him all about their grandiose scheme, but she didn’t want to. She’d shared her dreams with him a long time ago, and here she was, nine years later, and she still hadn’t realized them. And he was the reason why.

       “Just some paperwork on the café.”

       “It’s a bar,” he corrected, dropping the packet back on the table. “Not a café.”

       “Not anymore.”

       “Oh my God.” Diana Lynn’s gravelly tone seized their attention.

       They both turned to where she stood in the kitchen doorway, a vision in white from head to toe, her precious Newman in her arms. “I recognize you from your pictures, Deuce.” At the sight of a stranger, Newman yelped and squiggled for freedom.

       Deuce stared at Diana for a moment, then stood. “That’s what they call me,” he said.

       Diana breezed in, releasing the jittery little spaniel who leaped on Kendra’s lap and barked at Deuce.

       “I’m Diana Lynn Turner.” She held out her hand to him. “And thank God for that pacemaker, because otherwise your father would have a heart attack when he comes downstairs.”

       Diana beamed at him as they shook hands, sweeping him up and down with the look of keen appraisal she was known to give a smart investment property. Her mouth widened into an appreciative smile that she directed to Kendra.

       “No wonder you’ve had a crush on him your whole life. He is simply delicious.”

       Diana was nothing if not blunt. Kendra willed her color not to rise as she conjured up a look of utter disinterest and a shrug. “Guess that depends on how you define delicious.”

      DEUCE FILED THE lifelong crush comment for later, and turned his attention back to the most unlikely maternal replacement he could imagine.

       Her smile was as blinding as the sun in his eyes when he squinted for a pop fly. Jet-black hair pulled straight back offset wide, copper-brown eyes, and she had so few wrinkles she’d either been born with magnificent genes or had her own personal plastic surgeon. While she was certainly not his father’s age of seventy-one, something about her bearing told him she’d passed through her fifties already. And enjoyed every minute of the journey.

       He released her power grip. “You’ve done quite a number on this house.”

       She arched one shapely eyebrow and toyed with a strand of pearls that hung around her neck. “That’s what I do. Numbers. What on earth made you decide to finally come home?”

       No bush-beating for this one, he noted. “I retired.”

       She choked out a quick laugh. “Hardly. But your father will be over the moon to see you. How long are you staying?”

       He casually scratched his face. He’d already admitted his plans. “A while.”

       “How long is a while?” Diana asked.

       “For good.”

       “Good?” Her bronze eyes widened. “You’re staying here in Rockingham for good?”

       “Who is staying for good?” The booming voice of Seamus Monroe accompanied his heavy footsteps on a staircase. He came around the corner and stopped dead in his tracks.

       “Good God in Heaven,” he muttered, putting one of his mighty hands over his chest. For a moment Deuce’s gut tightened, thinking he had given his father a heart attack. He barely had time to take in the fact that Dad’s classic black-Irish dark hair had now fully transformed to a distinguished gray, but his eyebrows hadn’t seemed to catch up yet. Then the older man lunged toward him with both arms open and squeezed until neither man could breathe.

       Deuce thought his own chest would explode with relief as they embraced. Although his father had been the most demanding human who ever raised a son, he’d also loved that son to distraction. Deuce was counting on that. That and the fact that age might have mellowed the old man.

       They slapped each other’s backs and Dad pulled back and took Deuce’s face in his hands, shaking it with only slightly more force than the hug. “What the hell were you thinking getting in that race car, son?”

       Maybe mellowed would be pushing it.

       Deuce laughed as he pulled away. “I was thinking I wouldn’t get caught.”

       “You could have been killed!” his father said, his eyes glinting with a fury Deuce had seen a million times. And those words. How many times had Seamus Monroe uttered “you could have been killed” after Deuce had “gotten caught”?

       There was only one answer. Deuce had used it a few times, too. “I wasn’t killed, Dad.”

       “But your career was.”

       Deuce extended his right arm and shook it out. “Hey, I’m thirty-three. Time to let the young dudes take the mound.”

       Seamus made a harumphing noise that usually translated into “baloney” or something harder if ladies

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