Double Play Read Online Free PDF Page A

his own suddenly not nearly as cold and distant, or even wryly amused, but . . .
    Desperate.
    Pace Martin looked desperate, which was dumbfounding enough, but then he tightened his grip and said, “Hurry up, honey. We’ll be late.”
    Honey?
    Before Holly could process that, he shoved her none-too-gently toward his bad-boy car.
    “I—”
    “Shh,” he muttered in her ear.
    Oh no, he didn’t. He didn’t just shush her, and she sent him a glacial stare, but he shot her one of those hey-baby smiles, the one that matched the picture he’d taken for People magazine, while hissing out the corner of his mouth, “I’ll pay you a thousand dollars not to argue with me right now.”
    A thousand dollars? That’d make a nice addition to her never-be-poor-again fund. “You’ve got to be kidding,” she whispered.
    “Okay, two. Two thousand,” he grated out. “Jesus, just hurry.”
    Two thousand dollars.
    Holy smokes.
    And he clearly wasn’t kidding. Another shove and she was in his car, and he was locking the doors, accelerating them out of the lot with an impressive exhibition of speed as she twisted to look back. Tia stood there hugging her scrapbook, staring after them, looking forlorn.
    “Don’t look at her,” Pace directed. “Trust me on this.”
    Holly gawked at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she repeated.
    “No, seriously. Looking at her only eggs her on.”
    She laughed in further shock, even as her stomach quivered at the hair-raising turn he was executing at speeds better suited for a racetrack than the narrow, curvy lanes of the highway. She gripped the console. “You’re more afraid of that little tiny thing than me?”
    “Only very slightly.”
    She tightened her grip as he took them into another hair-raising turn with shocking ease. It gave her a thrill, a kick of adrenaline. “This is going to cost you.”
    He sighed, long and weary sounding, downshifting into the next turn. “Don’t I know it.”

Chapter 3

    Things could be worse. Suppose your errors were counted and published every day, like those of a baseball player.
     
     
     
     
     
     
    “I figure the price for this abduction should fit the crime.”
    Pace took his eyes off the road and glanced at the reporter in his passenger seat. She wasn’t beautiful. Irritating people couldn’t be beautiful, not in his opinion, and all reporters were irritating. Besides, she was too . . . careful looking. Yeah. That was it. She wore . . . efficient business clothes over some more than decent curves—which he happened to be a sucker for—but there was that whole annoyance factor. She had light brown hair carefully pulled back, matching light brown eyes that carefully saw everything, and a careful smile she’d attempted to manipulate him with.
    He figured that was standard reporter issued.
    He wondered if it gave her a headache, all that carefulness. She was certainly giving him one, and given the pain he was fighting in his shoulder, that was saying something. “Abduction?”
    “Yes,” she said. “That’s what it’s called when one person takes another against their will.”
    “I offered you two thousand dollars, and you jumped into this car so fast my head spun.”
    “Well, you were combining my two favorite things. Money and getting my interview.”
    “I never promised you the interview.”
    “It was implied,” she said sweetly.
    Ha! If she was sweet, he’d eat his shorts. “No, it wasn’t implied. I purposely didn’t imply it.”
    “I’ll be happy to offer a trade. I’ll reduce the fee from two grand to one,” she said magnanimously.
    “You’ll—” He laughed in disbelief as his cell phone buzzed an incoming text from Wade:
    Three reasons to get down here. Brandy, Cindy, and Sweet Pea. Hand to heaven-SWEET PEA, that’s her real name.
    “You’re not supposed to text and drive in California,” his reporter said from the next seat. “It’s illegal.”
    Pace tossed the phone to the console. Sweet Pea. Over