Julia London Read Online Free PDF

marched right into her office,
shut the door, put down her things, and threw her arms in the air and did a Snoopy happy
dance in the tiny bit of space around her desk. That had been a killer show. They had more
callers than they had the day Jose Canseco’s tell-all book about doping in baseball was
released.
    She worked on the next day’s show until her stomach began to growl. She
looked at a clock. High noon. No wonder she was starving—she hadn’t eaten anything since a
protein bar at five this morning. She could pick something up on her way
home.
    She packed up her stuff, said good-bye to the station staff, and walked
outside into a bright New York day, headed for one of her favorite restaurants, when
someone stepped in her path . . . someone about six foot four with coal black hair, steel
gray eyes, and a body right out of Sports Illustrated . Someone who had a square jaw
on which stubble had already begun to appear, a small diamond stud in one ear, and
incredibly muscled arms folded across a broad chest.
    Someone who was
really much more handsome than she’d anticipated, which had made this meeting on the
street a little rough. She didn’t want to just ogle him, as she’d been tempted to do all
morning. She’d always thought he was one of those overt muscle guys with spindly legs and
feet and you-know-what-else. Only Parker Price didn’t have a spindly bone in his
body.
    Too bad, she thought, as she smiled up at him, that he was such a
high-dollar choker. Otherwise, she might be seriously attracted to him. “Excuse me, but
you are blocking my path and creating a traffic jam on the sidewalk,” she said
politely.
    “I don’t care,” he said, staring down at her. “What you did in there was not
cool, Kelly.”
    She gasped, truly affronted. The worst short stop in Mets’ history was going
to critique her ? “What wasn’t cool, Parker? The fact that you suck, or the fact
that everyone knows you suck?”
    “I don’t”—he paused to lean down so that his nose was just
inches from hers—“ suck . And you ought to be ashamed for being such a mean shock
jock.”
    “Mean?” she cried as two men walked by and suggested they move. “I’m
not mean. I’m accurate. I have a show about sports , and sometimes, accurate
and sports stars don’t mix very well. And anyway, Tex, what’d you think it was going to
be? A love fest?”
    “Well now, Yank, I didn’t think there was going to be any love, but I did think you might at least listen to what I had to say. I thought you would at
least take my plea seriously.”
    She laughed. “How could I take you seriously?” she asked,
flinging her arms wide. “You were trying to influence the way I do my show, and that is so not cool. As they say, if you can’t stand the heat—”
    Someone slammed
into her from behind and knocked her right into his hard, immovable, one hundred percent
male body. Wow. He put his hands on her arms and set her back.
    “Hey, watch it!”
Kelly shouted at the woman who’d bumped her.
    “Get out of the
way!” the woman screeched as she sailed by, followed by several more people staring darkly
at them as they strode by.
    “Like I was saying,” Kelly continued, completely undeterred,
“the Mets paid you one hundred and ten million dollars to solve their problems, and not
only have you not solved their problems, you have added to them. So don’t you think
you owe the Mets, and me, and all the fans out there a viable explanation as to why
you stink? Something a notch above I am superstitious ?”
    “Who died and
made you the supreme judge of viable explanations?” he demanded. “I just asked you to cool
it, that it was getting in my head, and I figure, if you really want the Mets to
win, maybe you could lay off a couple days.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said
incredulously.
    “I am so not kidding,” he said sternly. “Do you have any idea how
much work I put in for this team?”
    “Do you have any idea how much