"That's your first mistake," his grandmother told him. "It was one thing when you were busy playing baseball, but now you don't have an excuse. What else do you have to do with your time?"

Ouch. "I work at the sports bar."

"Based on how much time you've spent around here lately, I would say that job isn't a big priority." She sighed. "Reid, you've always had it easy. You're smart, handsome and your fastball was just as powerful in the ninth inning as in the first."

Pod person, he thought as he stared at her. Definitely a pod person.

"How do you know that?" he asked.

"I would, on occasion, watch you play. And I learned about the game. It's sports, Reid. It wasn't difficult to pick up a few basics."

"You never told me."

"I didn't think it mattered."

He reached out his arm and lightly touched the back of her hand. "It would have mattered a whole lot. It still does."

They stared at each other. For the first time in his life, he realized his grandmother had cared about him. It was good to know. A little scary, but good.

She broke contact first. "This Seth fellow. He sounds like a complete idiot. It's one thing to handle your fan mail and requests for appearances, but it's another to screw it up completely. What do you know about Zeke?"

"That he's been in the business twenty years and that he's totally honest. He won't even let his clients give him Christmas presents. We're allowed to send a food basket to the office for the entire staff, but nothing else. No kickbacks, no perks. Not even tickets to the game."

"Good. Fire Seth and put Zeke in charge. You aren't going to be making any public appearances for a while. Should the need arise, I have the names of a couple of media people who know what they're doing and they're not idiots."

"You're trying to run my life," he said, not actually annoyed by her suggestions. He knew he had to fire Seth- he'd just been putting off the inevitable. But he was surprised she was taking an interest.

"You can do this," she told him. "Take responsibility. We'll change together."

"This isn't a conversation I ever thought we'd be having," he admitted.

Gloria smiled. "Surprise."


* * *

FIRST THING in the morning Reid fired Seth by phone and followed up with a fairly aggressive letter from his attorney. Seth tried protesting but quickly gave it up, which told Reid the guy knew he'd screwed up, but rather than fix it, he preferred to walk away. His next call was to Zeke.

"You heard from my attorney?" he asked by way of greeting.

"About Seth? Sure. About time."

Reid leaned back in his chair and groaned. "You knew he was a loser?"

"He's lazy. He does the least he can do and calls that a win. He's in it for the money and the perks. He likes having a successful client list."

Which explained why he'd let Reid go without a whimper. No more baseball career and since all that negative attention in the media, not much of a potential for endorsements.

"I told him to send me everything," Reid said. "I'll be forwarding a lot of it to you."

"You know we'll get the job done," Zeke told him.

"I know. How's the money situation?"

Zeke chuckled. "I assume you mean yours." There was the sound of typing on a keyboard. "Your portfolio is diversified. Stocks, real estate, a few small companies. Ballpark? One hundred and eighty-five million, give or take a few."

Reid swore silently. He'd never paid attention to things like investments. That's what he paid Zeke to take care of. He'd done what he loved for nearly ten years and he'd been paid well. He'd lived hard, but he'd never been stupid with his money.

"All that and I couldn't send those kids home from their state championships," he muttered.

"We took care of that," Zeke told him. "We sent out a check more than a month ago."

"A thousand dollars. What was that supposed to cover?"

"Two return tickets. Why? Did the family have other expenses?"

Family? "Zeke, it wasn't a family. It was the whole damn team."

Zeke swore. "I didn't know. Seth made it sound like just one family. A check for that amount had to have been seen as an insult."

"It's worse. They're families who are barely making it. The screw-up on the return ticket was financially devastating for a lot of them. One family lost their car."

"Dammit, Reid. That kind of crap isn't supposed to happen. That's why you hire people like me and Seth."

Reid was beginning to realize that Zeke and Seth were nothing alike. "I want to fix this," he told his business manager. "Can you find out how much everyone spent to get home and send them a couple thousand more than that? And the family who lost their car- let's get them a new one. And a check to cover any issue with taxes."

He heard the clicking of Zeke's computer keyboard. "Consider it done. Anything else?"

"Not right now. But soon. I'll go over the letters and requests from Seth as soon as they arrive. I have a feeling there's going to be a lot more stuff to make up for."

"We'll get it done," Zeke told him. "This is fixable."

"Right," Reid said as he hung up.

Only it couldn't all be fixed. Like the kid who had died not knowing that Reid cared about him. That couldn't be fixed or undone. How many other people had been disappointed by him? How many other disasters had his name on them?


* * *

THE NEXT MORNING Reid went looking for Lori. Sometime in the night when he once again couldn't sleep, he'd had an uncomfortable realization.

Lori had been upset because he hadn't slept with her. He'd slept with the other two nurses but not her.

He wanted to tell her not to take it personally, but she was female and of course that's how she would see things. How could he explain that he hadn't slept with her because he hadn't seen her that way? Oh, yeah, there was a conversation he was dying to have.

He told himself to forget about her and the other nurses and her possible hurt feelings, except he couldn't. Bad enough the world thought he was a jerk- he didn't want Lori thinking that, too. Even though it was probably too late to change her mind.

He found her in the kitchen. She was rinsing off Gloria's breakfast dishes and putting them into the dishwasher. She narrowed her gaze when he walked into the room but didn't say anything.

She'd changed her clothes, he thought, noticing she'd replaced her normal scrubs with jeans and a sweater. The more fitted style suited her, drawing his attention to curves he previously hadn't noticed. Interesting.

She straightened and pushed up her glasses. "What do you want?" she demanded.

"To meet your sister."

The words weren't the ones he'd planned and he had no idea where they'd come from.

"No," Lori said flatly.

"Why not? She's dying. You said she's dying. Maybe she'd like some company. I'm good company."

"You're not and the answer is still no. Madeline isn't some freak show you can visit to fill your day. Go annoy someone else."

Her attitude was really starting to piss him off. What had he ever done to her? "I'm trying to help," he told her. "I bring comfort to the dying."

"Obviously not sexually."

The unexpected snipe cut right through his who-gives-a-shit veneer. He crossed the two steps separating them, grabbed her arm and fought the need to shake some sense into her.

"It wasn't my fault," he yelled. "It was my first year away from the game. My team was in the playoffs. They'd just lost. I was drunk. So what if I was more interested in drowning my pain than showing that woman a good time? I had an off night. Everybody else gets an off night, but not me, right? I'm good in bed, dammit. Better than good. I've been clawed and made women scream on a regular basis."

Her steady gaze never wavered. "I'm yawning," she said in a low voice. "That's how interested I am in this conversation."

He swore, jerked her close and kissed her.

He hadn't planned to. He was just so pissed off and there weren't that many acceptable ways for a guy to let off a little steam.

So he pressed his mouth to hers and let all his frustration and anger and okay, maybe hurt, pour into the kiss.

He buried his free hand in her hair and was surprised to find the curly waves were kind of nice to touch. He moved a little closer and tilted his head slightly, getting a better angle on kissing Lori because it was starting to feel good. Damn good. Who knew?

Lori found herself just standing there, not sure what to do with her arms, her hands or even her body. She felt awkward and stupid, but the one thing she knew for sure was that she never ever wanted the kiss to end.

His mouth demanded things from her and she found herself wanting to give them. But even as he took and insisted, his lips weren't too hard. There was just the right amount of pressure and heat and promise to make her want to lean into him and beg.

She liked the way he smelled and how he was exactly the right height. She liked the feel of his hand in her hair and the first teasing, erotic brush of the tip of his tongue against her lower lip.

Had she had access to her brain and any voluntary functions, she would have pulled back. It was the sensible thing to do. It was the only thing that made sense. But she didn't, so it wasn't her fault when she put one hand on his shoulder and parted her mouth.

He nipped her lower lip. The gentle bite shocked her. She gasped, he chuckled, then swept inside, claiming her with a passionate dance that took her breath away.

He kissed like a man who loved women. He kissed like a man who understood that sometimes kissing wasn't just a stepping stone on the path to something better. That it could be- if done correctly- a destination.