“The reason I’m getting a boner looking down your top. Nice bra.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you hallucinating?”

“If I say yes, will you take off the bra? It would complete my collection.”

“Okay, that’s it. I’m calling the doctor.”

He snagged her wrist with his good hand, which still had an IV in it. Because yeah, he wanted to see her breasts again, but mostly he wanted to know what had put that look in her eyes. The one that said he was fucked. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I told you, nothing.”

“You’re a shitty liar, Holly. Spill it.”

“I snooped and read your chart.”

He just gave her a long look.

“I wanted to make sure you were really okay. You were sleeping so heavily and I was worried.”

“Concern or a reporter’s cutthroat curiosity?”

“It was concern,” she said tightly. “And your curmud geonly cynicism is really getting old. Pace—”

“Just tell me. I’m dying, right?”

“No. You’re—”

His doctor entered. “Look at you, awake and alert. Perfect.” He looked at Holly. “I need a moment with the patient, please.”

Holly gave Pace an indecipherable look and left the room.

And for a guy who prized his alone time, who craved it like some craved water, he experienced the oddest sense of loneliness he’d ever felt.

And fear. Let’s not forget the fear, because there was plenty of that, too. “So. What’s up, Doc?”

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Strikeouts are boring—besides that, they’re fascist.
Throw some ground balls. More democratic.

—Crash Davis in Bull Durham

Pace’s surgeon didn’t answer right away, waiting until the hospital room door shut behind Holly, until he’d opened Pace’s chart. “How are you feeling?”

“A little uptight, actually, which is ruining my happy drug buzz. What’s going on?”

“Good news and bad news. Are you in pain?”

Pace turned his head and looked at the door that Holly had just left through, thinking that when it came to her he felt plenty of pain. She made him ache like hell. “I’m fine. Tell me the bad.”

“No. Good first. You didn’t have a tear to the rotator cuff. You had an inflamed bursa.”

“A what?”

“Yeah, it’s almost impossible to see on an MRI in the position you were in. You have 160 bursae in your body, located adjacent to the tendons near large joints, such as your shoulder. You had one become inflamed from an injury, in this case probably your strained rotator cuff, and it got infected. I removed the fluid, cleaned it all up a bit. You should be good now. Relatively simple fix, at least compared to a torn rotator cuff.”

Relief made his head swim. “Jesus, really?”