She was frowning at him, still trying to keep her hair out of her face. “Why do people say sorry before they say something rude?”

“Admit it, you were the bookworm who did the football players’ homework for manicure money, right?”

She crossed her arms, lifted her nose to nosebleed heights.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “I’m right.”

“Basketball team,” she muttered, looking away. “I did the basketball players’ homework.”

He could picture her, all carefully buttoned up and serious, nose buried in a stack of books doing work for a bunch of lazy, entitled jocks. He’d been one of those jocks.

“And I didn’t do it for manicures either,” she told him. “I was never that shallow.”

Now that he believed. She might be a pesky know-it-all, but nothing about her said shallow, trite, or conceited. “I was shallow in high school.”

And more, probably.

“Was?” she asked, looking pointedly around the leather interior of his obviously expensive car.

Yeah, yeah. On the outside looking in, he had it all: the sizzling hot pro-baseball career, women leaving panties with their phone numbers on his hotel room doors . . . a shallow lifestyle.

Sue him.

But ever since his shoulder had started to go and he’d realized he was nothing outside the game, it’d all started to crash down on his head. It was humbling.

Demeaning.

And, if he thought too much, devastating.

He exited the highway and drove down the twisting, narrow roadway now entirely shadowed by the mountains that isolated the city of Santa Barbara from the rest of the world. He pulled into a small, out-of-the way park and took in the athletic field, the low-lying creek next to it, and felt his heart lighten slightly. The field was rundown. The empty lot next to the park had been abandoned long ago, with grass growing through the cracks in the asphalt and graffiti on the walls of the abandoned store that was nothing but a shack now. A For Sale sign had come unnailed on one side and was tipped, hanging to the ground.

The place had been up for sale for years. The last time Pace had checked into it on a whim, his attorney had told him only an idiot would buy it.

“Oh God.” Holly turned to him suspiciously. “You’re not bringing me to a drug deal, are you?”

“Yeah. Because I always bring nosy reporters with me when I buy my drugs.” He sighed when she didn’t smile. “That was a joke. Because I was the class clown. Wait here.”

“But—”

“Wait, or call a cab.” He pulled some cash out of his wallet for the ride back. “Nice meeting you,” he added in case she bailed.

Which he was betting on.

Hoping on.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4