Catching Zia (Spring Training Book 1) Read online

  On that, Carmen turned around and sauntered down the walkway to her car, a fancy Mercedes she undoubtedly either couldn’t afford or hadn’t purchased herself.

  Her ass sashayed back and forth in a skirt that was both too short and too tight. The small of her back peeked out beneath the tight blouse she wore that accentuated her boobs. Her hair was teased out to there. Her nails were hot pink. Her lips matched. And her skin was pulled too tight around her face. She’d obviously had some work done since the last time Zia saw her. Zia wondered whose hard-earned money paid for the procedure.

  And the woman had the audacity to state that Zia was white trash?

  Zia’s hands were shaking, but she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she would never regret the decision to cut ties with Carmen Sharpley. Good riddance.

  Seeing her like this for the first time in half a dozen years actually made Zia feel stronger than she’d felt in a long time. Carmen could no longer hurt her. She had no hold over her daughter at all. She could stand in front of Zia and lie through her teeth, and it wouldn’t affect Zia. Blessed therapy dollars put to the test. Win.

  There was no doubt Carmen had smelled money and come out of the woodwork. Chances of her having a long-term man in her life were slim. If her lips were moving, she was lying.

  The last time she’d come around, six years ago, had been when Zia was in college and working full time for the Wilkensons. Somehow Carmen decided if Zia had enough money to pay for tuition, she must have plenty extra to share with dear old Mom. Except Carmen underestimated her daughter. By then Zia had enough therapy to ignore the request and send her mother packing. She’d also gone to great lengths to change apartments and phone numbers and ensure she was unlisted everywhere. Apparently that gig was up.

  She shuddered to think what might have happened if Zia had still been dating Brett. The woman had gone to a lot of trouble and probably no small expense to find Zia. She obviously wanted to get her grubby hands on some cash.

  Well, not today. She had barked up the wrong tree.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Zia pulled up to Monica’s home and shut off the car. She had texted Monica that she had an unexpected glitch and was late.

  Monica had reassured her it was no big deal, and she should take her time.

  Zia hauled two of her lighter bags to the front door and then returned to the car to get the third. With a deep cleansing breath, she knocked gently on the door and waited.

  In seconds, Monica opened the door with a smile. “You made it.”

  “I did.” Zia moved all the bags inside as Monica backed up, and then she shut the door.

  “I thought maybe you changed your mind.”

  “No. I’m so sorry. Promise I’m not usually late for anything, nor am I a flake. An unexpected guest delayed me.”

  Monica lifted a brow.

  “My mother. Long story. Some other day. I’d rather put it out of my mind for now. But there she was. At the front door of my unlisted address.”

  “What did she want?” Monica cringed. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that. You just said you didn’t want to talk about it. Ignore me.”

  “It’s okay. She wanted money. What else?”

  “Shit. I hope you didn’t give her any.”

  Zia laughed. “I wouldn’t give her a dime if I had ten million in the bank. But since I don’t, there was no chance of it anyway.”

  “Why the hell would she come to you for money?”

  Zia dropped her shoulders and closed her eyes. She couldn’t stand the constant reminders of Brett. Especially coming from her mother. That was almost worse than the woman pushing her way into Zia’s apartment.

  “Oh. Oh my God. She thought…”

  “Yeah. Can we drop it?”

  “Yep. Sorry. Done. Over. Come in. Let’s get you situated.”

  An hour later, Zia sat in Monica’s fantastic rocking chair, holding Emily who did nothing but squirm and coo. She was precious.

  Zia felt totally welcomed, and she had a feeling things were about to look up for her.

  If she could just keep from running into Brett. That was the risk she’d taken.

  But like Monica said, he was two hours away at spring training, and he didn’t make unannounced visits. At least until the season officially started, he had no plans to be in the Miami area.

  Chapter Twelve

  One week later…

  Brett had driven like a bat out of hell to get to Monica’s house. He had only seen his niece one time. Thank God she’d been born the day before he left for spring training. If it weren’t for that, he wouldn’t have seen her yet. He only had today off, and even that was a stretch, but he wanted to surprise his sister and hold his niece again. He could stay the night and drive back early tomorrow morning in time for practice.

  He pulled up to her house and shut off the engine, noticing another car in the driveway but not paying close attention to it. Monica had said she’d found a nanny. It would make sense the woman’s car was in the driveway.

  Jealously crept into him. Some stranger had seen his niece every day for a week, and Brett had only held her once. He shook the thought from his head and climbed out of the car.

  Moments later, he used his own key to open the side door that led to the kitchen. At first, he heard nothing. Then the distinct soft cry of a baby filled his ears.

  He smiled and followed the sound. Good. She was awake. Where was Monica? He hadn’t looked for her car. Maybe she was the one with the baby. Maybe she’d gone out for a while.

  As he headed for the nursery, the sweet baby noises grew louder. She wasn’t crying. She was cooing.

  By the time he rounded the doorframe to the nursery, he was smiling broadly. And then he stopped dead and blinked.

  The woman leaning over the changing station, tickling Emily and whispering soft words to her, had no idea he was there.

  For a moment, time stood still. He’d been in this very spot before, looking at this same woman in this same room. He’d had to hold himself upright with his hands gripping the doorframe that time too.

  But this time, he felt a punch to the gut.

  She looked more beautiful than he remembered. Her hair was down. Loose. Wavy. She’d lost weight, which made him cringe inwardly. His fault, no doubt.

  Her voice, though. God, her voice. The tinkling noise went straight to his cock. He had to swallow the lust, and then he cleared his throat. “Zia…”

  She jerked her head around so fast it was a wonder she didn’t drop the baby. But she was experienced. She placed a hand on the baby’s belly to steady her.

  “Shit,” she muttered before she turned her focus back to Emily, lifted her off the table, and cradled her against her chest. She bounced, instinctively—like all women had the tendency to do—and shuffled toward him. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Apparently.” A variety of emotions assaulted him. Relief. Anxiety. Arousal. Anger. Frustration. And then he had a humbling thought that kicked him in the gut. “Please tell me you’re not sleeping with my sister.”

  Zia lowered her gaze as she reached him. She held out the baby. “Here. I’m sure Emily’s the reason you’re here. I’ll just find something else to do.”

  He took the bundle from her hands. After all, he had no other choice. But his head swam as Zia raced from the room and down the hall.

  Two seconds later, a door snicked shut.

  “Fuck,” he muttered before glancing down and then unrealistically apologizing to his niece. “Sorry. Don’t use that word. It’s ugly.”

  He took a deep breath and wandered back to the living room. His elation over the thought of seeing his niece was now overshadowed by so many questions his head hurt.

  Zia had pointedly not answered his question.

  Was it possible she and Monica really were a couple? Seemed preposterous. For one thing, no way in hell could that happen to Brett twice in the same life. If it did, he seriously needed to check his man card at the door.<
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  The other issue was he didn’t believe Monica would do that to him. She was his sister. They had always been close. Very close. Even if she did have feelings for Zia—which he couldn’t blame her for—she would never act on them. Not again. Not in this lifetime. And not without consulting him first.

  But that begged the question. What was Zia doing in Monica’s home? And where the hell was Monica?

  He lowered onto the new rocking chair situated next to the sofa, fearing his knees would buckle if he didn’t. As he stared down at his niece wiggling in his arms, he couldn’t bring himself to feel the love and excitement he’d anticipated minutes ago.

  She was a sweet, innocent baby. His own blood. He would love her unconditionally. Her mother, on the other hand, had some explaining to do.

  The kitchen door opened with a bang, and he lifted his gaze to find Monica nearly running into the great room. She glanced around. “Oh God. Brett. What are you doing here?” She would have seen his car out front.

  Brett stared at her. Did he even know her at all?

  “Is that really the first question that needs answering?”

  Monica stopped moving. She dropped her purse on the counter and swallowed. “You weren’t supposed to find out. I didn’t think you would be able to visit.”

  “Well, I’m here now, aren’t I? And how the fuck was I not going to find out? You mean like ever?” His voice rose, and Emily let out a cry of distress.

  Monica pursed her lips and dashed toward him. Without a word, she took the baby from his arms and fled the room.

  He could do nothing but sit there and stare at the loss, his arms still warm from the squirming bundle. The reason for his visit. He’d be damned if his reunion with his niece was going to be thwarted by the antics of two women he currently had the urge to throttle.

  It wasn’t Emily’s fault she had two crazy women in her life running the show.

  Monica raced back to the living room in seconds. She perched onto the couch close to him, rubbing her hands on her thighs. “I’m sorry, Brett. I thought—”

  “You thought what?” He jumped to his feet, sudden energy fueling his actions. He needed to move. Pace. Run his fingers through his hair. Climb the fuck out of this rabbit hole.

  He spun around to face his sister, needing answers. Deserving them. “How long?”

  Monica flinched.

  “How long?” he shouted.

  She sniffled and whispered, “Zia’s been here a week.”

  “A week? That’s all? Did you think a month was the proper period of time to wait before you made your move?”

  Monica narrowed her gaze at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  He lifted one eyebrow.

  She gasped and glanced down the hall. And then she gritted out her next words. “Lower your fucking voice, Brett. You’re way out of line here.”

  “Me? I’m out of line? What about you?”

  “Sit the fuck down and stop pacing before you wear a hole in my carpet or drive me insane.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m pretty content with the pacing right now.” He set his hands on his hips, desperately trying to control his anger.

  “What did Zia tell you?”

  “Zia? She told me nothing. She handed me the baby and ran from the room. I’m not stupid. I can figure things out for myself.”

  Monica chuckled sardonically, the tone grating on him. “Really? Well, if you’re so smart, then I guess I don’t owe you any explanations at all.” She leaned back, crossed her legs as though this were a casual meeting, and twirled a lock of her soft blond hair around one finger.

  His temper was barely in check, and anger wasn’t an emotion he was frequently familiar with. He spun around, headed for the kitchen, and yanked open several cabinets, one after the other, until he found what he was looking for. Tequila. It would have to do. She didn’t seem to have any other liquor in the house. Not surprising. She didn’t drink often. And when she did, it was usually margaritas.

  He located a glass and poured himself several inches of the amber liquid. At least it was good tequila. After all, he had to play ball tomorrow. The level of his hangover would correspond directly to the price of the tequila.

  After taking a healthy swig and shuddering at the burn, he slammed the glass down on the counter and faced his sister again.

  “You going to drink yourself sick, then? Not even going to listen to me? You just want to go on thinking whatever you’re thinking in that fucked-up head of yours and wallow in your stupidity?”

  “Fuck you.” He had never in his life spoken to his sister like that. And he took another drink of the alcohol to cover the horrible feelings those words brought up.

  She said nothing for a long time.

  His ears rang with anger and fear and longing and so many other emotions he couldn’t name them.

  Zia was in the house. Right down the hall. The woman he’d wasted weeks pining after had been right here all the time, under Monica’s roof. Sleeping between Monica’s sheets. Helping with Monica’s baby.

  Wait a minute… Did she say a week?

  “She didn’t move in until last week? Why?”

  Monica shrugged. “I handled things okay until then. I didn’t need her until work started piling up, Mom and Dad left, and I was losing sleep.”

  “Need her?” He leaned forward, setting his palms flat on the island. His head already spun a little from the tequila.

  Monica jumped to her feet, her face flushed red, her hands fisted at her sides. “She’s my fucking nanny, you goddamn idiot. Not my lover. Even if she did swing both ways, which I doubt she does, she’s not over your stupid selfish ass. I’m not sure she’ll ever fully recover from your antics. So get off your fucking high horse and get out of my house.”

  She pointed at the front door. “Go for a walk. Leave your keys, you coward. Don’t come back for a while. Give Zia time to leave. I’m sure she doesn’t want to see you.”

  Brett was slow to process his sister’s words. He didn’t move. He simply stared at her without blinking. Finally, he croaked out. “You aren’t…”

  “No. You shithead. I didn’t steal your girlfriend. Not to warm my bed, anyway. I needed a nanny. She needed a job. You needed a lobotomy. We cut you out of the equation and struck a deal.”

  He exhaled long and slow. “Oh. God.” He leaned forward and set his forehead on the countertop. The cool tile soothed him marginally.

  How had he fucked things up this badly?

  When he lifted his face, Monica hadn’t moved. “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded. “Go.” She pointed at the door again.

  He shook his head.

  She groaned. “Brett,” she pleaded, “please. Don’t make this harder than it already is. You screwed up. Zia doesn’t want to see you. She’s probably going to kill me, quit this job, and move out in the next twenty minutes. I promised her you wouldn’t show up here.”

  “Ever?” He was still confused about that part.

  “No. Not ever, you dolt. She only agreed to help me until I could find someone else. This is my fault. I talked her into it. I truly didn’t believe you would ever know. By the time Emily and I next saw you, I figured Zia would be gone, living with another family.”

  “That’s really low, Monica.” He kept his voice as steady as possible now. It wasn’t as though two drinks of tequila had gone to his head. In fact, he turned toward the sink, tossed the rest of the glass, and set it down.

  He rounded the island to come closer. “How could you invite her into your home or even speak to her without telling me? You know how fucked up I’ve been. You know how badly it hurt me to lose her.”

  “Brett…”

  He lowered his gaze. “I actually believed by now that everything in my head about Zia was an apparition. After all, you’re the one who pointed out numerous times how few hours I spent with her. I shouldn’t have been able to visualize a life with her yet. It wasn’t reasonable. I told myself over and over t
hat what I imagined about her was probably a figment of my imagination. Wishful thinking.”

  “Brett, I—”

  He shook her off. “Then I saw her in the nursery. There she was. In the flesh. And all those feelings I’d denied raced back to make my heart beat out of my chest. She sucked the oxygen out of the air. I saw her leaning over the baby, tickling her sweet belly, stroking her cheek…

  “She didn’t know I was there. Uninhibited love. Love she felt for a child who was not even hers. Simply because that’s the kind of good, pure person Zia is. And I prayed to God she was real. For a flash of time, I prayed I could actually have her. Tell her how sorry I was. Explain what a fucking moron I’d been.”

  “She’s a good person, and she—”

  He kept talking, ignoring his sister, too frustrated and on a roll to let her interrupt. “And then she was gone. She raced down the hall so fast I could have imagined her into being. And I was left standing there, holding Emily, trying to breathe.

  “Do you have any idea what that did to me? Any idea at all what it’s like to feel so much for someone you can’t have, only to be reminded they really are the exact image in your head?” He balled his hands into fists at his sides, closing his eyes. “I’m so sorry. If I could take it all back, I would. If I could fix things. If I could at least have a chance to apologize to her…”

  A sniffle behind him made him spin around abruptly.

  Zia stood at the edge of the hallway, gripping the corner of the wall with both hands. Leaning into it for support. Her eyes were red and puffy. Tears ran down her swollen cheeks. She sniffled again.

  “How long have you been there?” He lowered his voice.

  “Long enough,” she whispered.

  Monica sucked in a strangled sob behind him too, but he ignored her.

  “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have run away. You deserved a chance to explain. I was just so hurt. I felt violated. I couldn’t think what else to do except block it out and try to move on.” Her voice dipped. Defeated. “You hurt me. I spent my entire childhood with a sneaky, lying, fake mother. I won’t do it again. Ever.”