“You’re still a reporter.”

“Which is what, synonymous with bad guy?”

“No, of course not.” He ran a hand through his hair and looked at his open duffel bag. Why had he called her? “I just don’t want it plastered all across the Internet that I’m in trouble.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

She was quiet a moment, as if taking the time to read right through him. “I understand the Heat has a lot riding on this next series.”

“Yeah.” In Pace’s life it was fact that people always said he had a lot riding on the next game, he had a lot riding on the next series, or whatever they were facing. Not the Heat, but him. Pace had always hated that. Yeah, he was a good pitcher, maybe even at times a great one. But he was also part of a damn team.

And in only a few words, Holly had just made it clear that she was one of the few who recognized that. Pace would like her for that alone—if he hadn’t already decided not to like her at all. “Okay, well, I just wanted to check on you, so . . .”

“And you’re already sorry you called.”

Yes. Yes, he was.

Sounding amused again, she said, “That’s okay, Pace. You can take me off your list of things to be concerned about. I’m not going to hold it against you that I have a lovely black-and-blue bruise in the center of my forehead.”

He winced for her. “In my experience, women tend to remember these things.”

“We’ve already agreed you’ve been hanging out with the wrong women. ’Night, Pace.”

“ ’Night.” He closed his cell phone and stared at it for a minute, debating whether or not to hunt up her address and go over there to check on her in person. But he had to be honest with himself. If he did that, it wouldn’t be just to look at her bruise.

And that, more than anything else, made the decision for him.

He wasn’t going anywhere near her.

When Red knocked on the door only a minute later with the tapes of the Phillies’ last game and some sub sandwiches, the decision was all the easier. Watching tapes before an away series was a tradition. Often Wade came, too, and some of the other guys as well, but tonight it was just Red and his son Tucker, who had baseball in his blood the same as his father.