Where was her phenom? She looked at her watch and assured herself that she had time. Months of time, which she’d be using to profile the Santa Barbara Heat in depth. Her plan was to start easy, taking a personal direction for her first article. She could have picked any of the young, aggressive, charismatic players. Joe Pickler, the second baseman who’d given up medical school to play AA ball and then spent five years working his way up to the majors. Or Ty Sparks, the relief pitcher who’d overcome childhood leukemia and was trying to work his way into the starting rotation. Or maybe Henry Weston, the left fielder turned shortstop who’d left the Dodgers where his twin brother played in spite of it causing a major family rift. There was also the reputably charming rogue Wade O’Riley, the Heat’s catcher, who’d come from abject poverty, something Holly knew all too much about.

But always a sucker for a challenge, she’d chosen to start with Pace, a player three years into his fifty-million-dollar, five-year contract, who’d oddly and very atypically for a ballplayer turned down millions more in alcohol and cologne ads, a guy the tabloid reporters loved to try to dig up dirt on.

She glanced out to the parking lot. Pace’s classic apple red Mustang GT was hard to miss. Nope, he hadn’t skipped out on her; she wasn’t worried about that.

But she was curious.

Why had he pitched for thirty minutes, pushing hard in spite of the fact that he’d clearly been having an off day, and then suddenly dropped to the bench, shoulders and head down, breathing as if he’d run a marathon? He’d just sat there, very carefully not moving a single inch. Only after many minutes had passed had he pushed to his feet and escaped to the clubhouse.

Was he nursing a heartache?

A hangover?

What? She could feel his secrets, and the part of her that needed to get to the bottom of everything, to hurry up and expose the bad so she could relax and get to the good, reared its head just as the clubhouse door finally opened and she caught a quick glimpse of tall-dark-and-attitude-challenged in the flesh.

Pace Martin.

“Hi,” she said, gripping her pad of paper and pen, perfectly willing to forgive his tardiness if he made this easy on her. Not that it mattered. Sure, he’d made a secondary career out of being tough, cynical, edgy, and for a bonus, noncommittal. Luckily for her, she specialized in tough, cynical, and edgy. She thrust out her hand. “I’m Holly Hut—”

“Sure. No problem.” He grabbed her pen and leaning over her, quickly wrote something on her pad.