“Look, I know you’d rather have Wade or Gage, or just about anyone other than me take you because heaven forbid I see you weak, but we both know they’re all in Baltimore for a two-game series and you’re on your own.”

A two-game series that he should be pitching. A two-game series that the Heat needed to take. He’d never missed games in the majors due to injury, never. It was a bone of contention, a point of pride.

“Get in the car, Pace.”

He eyed her piece of shit and then his own Mustang. Again, pride warred with ego, even more so when she took one look at his face and laughed, making him scowl. “What’s so damn funny?”

“You don’t want to go in my car, but you don’t want me to have to drive yours home from the hospital. You still don’t trust me.”

He winced. “Fine. I’m an asshole. We’ll take my car.”

“Good. I’ll drive now so you can give me tips for later.” She held out her hand for his keys. “Come on,” she coaxed when he didn’t move. “You can do it.”

Yes, apparently he could do a lot of things. Such as crave her, the smart, funny, beautiful, warm woman who’d come to him when he’d needed her most. He couldn’t have imagined that first day he’d met her, when she’d irritated him by wanting that interview, that all these weeks later he’d still be so intrigued and fascinated by her.

Contrary to his first impression of her, she was open and sweet and wildly passionate. In fact, he had nothing on her in the passion department. She was passionate about writing, about kids, about people, passionate about everything that crossed her path. She did nothing half-assed, not one single thing, and as a man who’d been passionate only about baseball all his life, he found the way she went about life incredibly . . .

Appealing.

It made no sense. His entire life was crumbling. He couldn’t hold onto a damn pencil much less pitch a ball at ninety-six miles per hour. He was going to let everyone down from the Heat’s owners to the fans . . .

And it was killing him.

Killing.

Him.

And yet just looking at Holly, some of the pain and confusion and anger seemed to fade away.

Even if she wanted to drive his car. “I was going to call a cab.”

“Listen, I’ve only had one accident,” she said. “And it wasn’t my fault. It was an old car and I ran out of brake fluid on a hill in San Francisco and I rolled into a house. That’s all.”

Jesus. “That’s all, huh?”

“Well, there’re the three speeding tickets, which really, if you think about it, just proves I can handle myself.”