Center Stage: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 8) by Mindy Klasky Page B

Beach for the Senior Skip Day she should have attended seven years before.
    “I’ll be waiting on the front porch,” she said.
    And she was. Her palms were only sweating a little when she thought about the message she’d left for CRT. “I won’t be in tomorrow. In fact, I won’t be back at all. Good luck, and thanks for everything.”
    She’d proven her acting chops, keeping her voice light and breezy. No one would ever know she was walking away from the only professional job she’d ever had. No one would ever know she was waiting for a strange man to pick her up and drive her away to an adventure where she could break every rule in the book.
    ~~~
    Jesus . Zach would kill him if he knew where Ryan was right now. Forget about killing him; he’d break every bone in Ryan’s body and wait for him to heal, just to kick his ass again.
    But it was worth it.
    It had been worth it to see Lindsey sitting on the front porch, her knees pulled up to her chest like she was some teenager. It had been worth it to watch her jump up when the car glided to a stop, to see the easy way she opened the door and climbed on in. It had been worth it to breathe in the scent of her—like fresh-cut grass and sunshine—as she announced, “I did it.”
    “Did what?”
    “Ditched CRT.”
    “Congratulations.” And he’d almost leaned over and kissed her—right then, right there. But she’d been clicking her seatbelt closed, ready to head off on another adventure, so he reminded himself that she was one hundred percent off limits, and he kicked the car into gear.
    The silence was comfortable until they hit the highway. Then, she leaned forward, peering into the darkness. “You know what I want?” she asked.
    “A starring role in a Broadway play.”
    Her laugh was easy. “I’ll work up to that one. No, I want something to eat. I’m starving. I think it must be something about this car, something about driving fast.”
    It was his turn to laugh, even as he glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “I don’t think we’ll find a restaurant that’s still serving.”
    “That’s okay. Junk food from a gas station will be perfect. It’s not like I need to squeeze this body into some ridiculous animal costume any more, right?”
    As far as he was concerned, she could squeeze her body— He cut off the thought before he could make a mistake, before he could say anything out loud. “Your wish is my command,” he said instead, and he negotiated the off-ramp with the type of care he’d give to making a pit-stop in the Indy 500.
    When he pulled up next to a gleaming pump, he asked, “So? What do you want?”
    “Surprise me,” she said.
    And there was that laugh again, that sexy laugh that seemed to tug down his zipper and slip inside his boxers. He unlatched his seatbelt and let it slither back across his shoulder, and the whole time it took him to walk into the station he told himself not to be an asshole.
    Inside, he stared at the possibilities. What the hell did she want to eat? No sane woman would consider one of the hot dogs that rolled on the bars by the cash register. Ditto, the microwave pizza and anything with burrito in its name.
    In the end, he grabbed a couple of packets of neon-orange peanut butter crackers. He added a bag of corn chips and half a dozen candy bars, then took a couple of Cokes from the cooler. There had to be something she’d eat in all that crap.
    Standing at the register, he eyed the display of Trojans. “Anything else?” the clerk asked, drowning him in waves of nicotine breath.
    He shook his head. The last thing Lindsey needed was another guy trying to get into her pants. Not tonight. Not after yesterday’s disaster at the church. Not with Zach in the background, ready to swoop down like some avenging angel. He picked up the paper bag and his change and headed back to the car.
    He was halfway around the back end when he realized Lindsey was sitting in the driver’s seat. She held her hand out the