Chapter Three
Vicki tried not to act like a total doof when Ryan pulled into the Sea Cliff neighborhood of oceanfront mansions.
All these years that they'd kept in touch over email and texts and the occasional phone call, in her head he'd still been the fifteen-year-old boy who liked to climb the big tree in his mother's backyard. Sure, she knew he'd been a top draft pick out of college and was one of the best pitchers in pro baseball. But she'd never actually put it all together into what his life must be like now, had never compared her transient life with her ex-husband as they traveled between artists' colonies in various countries with Ryan's top-flight life as a bona fide celebrity athlete.
Within blocks of leaving her seedy motel, the San Francisco neighborhoods had become progressively nicer. For all that she'd wanted to keep up with Ryan's life over the past years, she'd always been careful - too careful, she'd often thought since her divorce - not to rub her friendship with Ryan into Anthony's face. So she truly had no idea how much Ryan's annual contract with the Hawks was worth even though at his level it was probably public knowledge.
"This is me." He clicked open the front gate and turned into the driveway of a positively gorgeous two-story oceanfront home.
Trying to act cool about it, despite the fact that her mouth was all but falling open, she joked, "Yup, I'd say your place is definitely at least a couple of steps up from my motel."
He grinned at her. "I had a pushy Realtor, one of my Seattle cousins who was working in the city for a while. She knew I didn't have a prayer of saying no to her."
Vicki grinned at that, knowing exactly what kind of sucker Ryan was for his female relatives. It was so sweet, sweet enough that her heart did more of that melting thing it had already done way too much of tonight.
"When I told her the place was too big, she swore the value would double in under ten years. But she was wrong."
"How wrong?"
Another grin came. "It tripled."
"In that case, Chinese is on you tonight."
He grabbed all three of her heavy bags and she followed with her purse. She'd noticed the way he favored his non-pitching arm when they'd been leaving the motel earlier. Now, she caught his slight wince as he adjusted one of the bags over his right shoulder.
Knowing he was too much of a guy to let her take it from him, she said, "Hey, Ryan, there's something I want to make sure I remembered to pack in that bag. Could you put it down for a sec?"
"I'm pretty sure there wasn't anything left in your room," he said as he set it on the garage's cement floor.
"You know how disorganized I can be. It might take me half the night to root through everything I stuffed in here."
"I'll put these in the guest room and come back for that one."
As soon as she couldn't hear his footsteps anymore, she started dragging the bag across the floor, only bothering to lift it up when she stepped inside the house and hit hardwood. She'd planned on bringing it all the way into the guest room, but as soon as she saw the view from his windows, her feet stopped moving.
Water had always been her weakness. It was why she'd chosen to go to Prague after leaving her ex-husband. The river had soothed her as she walked for hours along it, out of the city and then back again when her mind had been quiet enough to return.
As Ryan came down the stairs, she said, "Your view is incredible."
"It's better from over here."
He reached out a hand for her and she forgot all about her bag as she moved toward him. As she put her hand into his, warmth sizzled all the way up her arm.
He pointed with his free hand. "Farallon Islands to the left. Alcatraz to the right. Heaven's straight up."
She could feel his grin without needing to look at him. All those years she'd never forgotten the beauty of it.
"I'm so happy for you," she told him, "that all of this is yours."
Even better was that she could tell how much he appreciated it. Ryan wasn't one of those guys who bought something as a status symbol. Regardless of what he'd said about his Realtor cousin pushing the place on him, if he hadn't also loved it, they wouldn't be standing here now.
"I'm glad you agreed to stay for a while, Vicki."
She'd been so worried about being alone with him, but now that she saw how huge the house was, she realized they could probably go several days without seeing each other if they wanted to.
Not, of course, that she wanted to not see Ryan. But if he needed some alone time - say, if he had a woman over - she could easily disappear. If nothing else, she could always happily head down to the beach to get out of his hair.
"I am, too."
He picked up her remaining bag. "Come on, I'll show you your digs."
Silly her. Even after the little pep talk she'd just given herself, her heart was still flipping around at the thought of being in a bedroom with Ryan. Silently reminding herself that she wasn't a teenager any more, she was starting to follow him through the house when her mouth fell open in shock.
"You've been collecting my sculptures?"
He had several of them placed throughout the main level of his house. Not just that, but they were some of her favorites.
"I've always been a fan, Vicki."
His simple, heartfelt response warmed her inside and out. Still, she had to ask, "Why didn't you tell me you wanted them? I would have given them to you."
"That's exactly why I didn't. Your work is worth a hell of a lot more than what I paid for each of these. I can't tell you how many times over the years people have tried to buy them from me."
"They have?"
"All the time. For a huge profit." He looked around at her sculptures. "My answer has always been, and will always be, that they're not for sale. To me, they're priceless."
Feeling utterly dazed by what he'd just told her, Vicki followed him through the living room just off the open kitchen and up the stairs. Halfway down the hall, Ryan opened one of the doors to a room that had another great view of the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Vicki did her best to focus on the view, rather than on the big bed in the middle of the room.
"I'm just next door," he said in an easy voice and she immediately looked at the wall he'd gestured to, her brain spinning off in entirely inappropriate visions. Ones where Ryan was stripping down for the night, pieces of clothing falling onto the floor one after the other -
"I hope you'll be comfortable here."
Her lips and tongue felt really, really dry as she came back to reality. "I'm sure I will."
Perfectly comfortable, and yet she already knew she wouldn't be able to sleep a wink with Ryan only a wall away.
She smiled over at him, but it froze on her face as she took in his expression. Just as it had been earlier tonight, the expression in his dark eyes was intense before it was replaced with his easy smile.
"How does the usual sound?"
It took her longer than it should have to realize that he was talking about dinner. So many nights when they were kids, he'd come over to her parents' garage with takeout. She'd learned not to eat much at dinner with her family so that she could share those meals with him. He worked out half the day, so he usually ate about ninety percent of the food, but she loved that he always made sure to bring over her favorite things anyway.
"Sounds great."
"Go ahead and unpack and I'll call for delivery."
It wasn't until he'd left the bedroom that she could finally take a full breath. She knew she was being ridiculous, that they were both adults now and could certainly handle being in close proximity again without things getting weird and complicated. But just because she knew that intellectually, it didn't mean her heart - or her body - was getting the message.
How many fantasies had she had about him over the years? Starting at fifteen and going on from there, when the nights grew dark and lonely and she'd get an email from him that made her laugh. The longing she'd felt for him on those nights had been nearly unbearable.
Were the weird vibes from James the only reason she'd texted Ryan tonight? Yes, she'd felt threatened and out of options...but hadn't she also wanted desperately to see Ryan? Had she grabbed onto James's creepiness as an excuse to reach out and see if she was still important to him after all these years?
Angry with herself, she tossed her clothes into the beautiful dresser. She'd never been a particularly neat person - only with her art supplies did she bother with organization - but she knew she was taking messy to a whole new level.
Stop.
She needed to stop. Chill out. And enjoy being with the one person on earth she'd always completely adored.
Vicki made herself slowly take everything back out of the dresser and fold it neatly.
That was how she'd deal with everything from now on, she promised herself. Calmly, carefully, rationally, rather than following the impulses - and passions - that had always gotten her in so much trouble.
She took a deep breath and worked to center herself before going downstairs to have dinner with Ryan. Her entire body still tingled from the kiss he'd given her at the cocktail lounge, despite the fact that he'd simply been pretending to feel something for her as part of their act...not because he wanted her and needed her and couldn't live without her.
If and when they had to pretend again, she needed to remember that a second or third kiss wouldn't mean anything more than that first one.
Calm.
Careful.
Rational.
She could be all those things, if for no other reason than she needed to be all those things around Ryan.
She was just heading for the stairs when Ryan's deep voice rose up from below.
"Felicia? Actually, that's why I'm calling. Sorry, I've got to cancel. No, I can't reschedule. It isn't because of that. You were always great."
Vicki hadn't meant to listen in on his phone call, but he wasn't exactly doing it in private. Obviously, he was breaking a future date with someone named Felicia, and, just as obviously, Felicia thought he was dumping her because he'd found someone better to tangle up the sheets with.
Little did Felicia know that the woman who had just moved into his house wasn't ever going to get closer to Ryan's sheets than the ones in the guest bedroom.
When she thought he was done with his call, she started down the stairs. She was too far to turn back by the time she heard him say, "Janey? Sorry to call so late about this, but I've got to cancel for this week. No, next week won't work either. No, you shouldn't think that. Of course we always had fun together."
Vicki winced as Ryan extricated himself from another slightly ugly phone call...and from the ugly tug in her chest as she couldn't help but wonder just how "great" his previous dates with Janey and Felicia had been.
* * *
After so many months of feeling like he was just going through the motions - and trying not to let anyone get wind of his growing discontent - the second he'd gotten Vicki's text, he'd been hit with the kind of adrenaline he used to get when he was pitching a shutout.
"Still a lady killer, huh?" she teased.
He shrugged. "There were a couple of events I needed to back out of this week." It wasn't Felicia or Janey's fault that they'd never measure up to Vicki, so he'd tried to let them down easy.
She raised an eyebrow. "Events? This is me, Ryan. You were breaking dates with women who probably really like you. And you were only doing it because of the situation I dragged you into." She shook her head. "I know if we're supposed to be dating it doesn't make sense for you to be going out with anyone else, but I feel really bad about you having to break things off with them."
"Don't. It was nothing serious with either of them."
"Just hot sex, huh?" Her words made it sound like she was joking, but her expression wasn't quite all the way there.
In any case, he couldn't answer her question when his brain was unable to even think about touching another woman when he was around her.
"Seriously, Vicki, I'd much rather spend time with you."
She blinked up at him a couple of times before saying, "I always knew I could count on an old friend."
Ryan knew that was all he'd ever been to her. A friend. But after the kiss he'd given her had confirmed everything he'd ever wondered about how it would be if she let him be more than just a friend, it was damned frustrating.
The buzzer at the gate rang and he let the delivery person in. Ryan had never wanted to live behind a fence, but the last couple of times they'd won the World Series, things had gotten out of hand to the point that he'd actually been glad he had an extra level of security.
The delivery boy looked as though one word from Ryan would make him faint. "Mr. Sullivan, I'm your biggest fan."
All Ryan wanted was to be alone with Vicki. Reminding himself that she'd be here for at least the next week, he took a few minutes to talk baseball and sign an autograph and let Vicki take a picture of the two of them.
When he'd closed the door and was heading over to the kitchen island to set out the boxes, she was smiling at him. "No wonder you're everyone's hero," she said softly. "You couldn't have been nicer to the valet and then to that boy. I never realized just how much work it must be for you to be so good at what you do." Before he could respond, her eyes went wide at the white take-out boxes that were covering a good deal of his kitchen counter. "Do you think you got enough food?"
He slid onto a bar stool and passed her a fork. They always used to eat straight out of the cartons. "You say that now, but you'll be giving me a hard time about eating the last spring roll soon."
She pulled up a bar stool and speared some lemon chicken. "Why don't you just hand over that carton before you scarf them all down?"
For a moment, as they mock-fought over the spring rolls, it felt like nothing had changed.
Nothing except the fact that he could barely look at her without losing his breath.
Vicki had always been pretty, and he'd been attracted to her from day one, but the years had turned her from a cute teenager into a shockingly beautiful woman.
One he could barely keep his eyes - or hands - off of.