The Practice Proposal Read online

  He rolled the ball around in his hand, pressing the seams with his fingertips and rubbing his thumb across his carefully signed name. “This might be a collector’s item. I can actually read my signature.” These days, he signed so many autographs in such a hurry that his signature had become two Cs and a squiggly line.

  “Guess I was smart to keep it,” she said lightly. He couldn’t decide if she was teasing him or not. “I slept with it under my pillow for weeks.”

  Now that was news, coming from Miss Undecided. But after thinking about it a second, he remembered how smitten she’d seemed with him back then. It was hard to believe the woman sitting next to him and that teenage girl were the same person. “For real?”

  “I kind of had a crush,” she said shyly. “And I was sure you’d be a superstar.” She shrugged. “Turns out I was right.”

  “That’s cool of you to say.” He pressed his lips together tightly. “But there’s way more to the story than that.” It was no secret he had struggled over the years, going from the minors to the major league and back. Becoming a superstar hadn’t been the short, happy journey Liza made it sound like. “Would you like to have it back?” she asked, offering up the baseball.

  Another first. No one had ever returned something he’d autographed. “You don’t want it?”

  “Sleeping with it under my pillow gave me a crick in my neck.” She grinned.

  He lowered his eyebrows. “You never heard of ‘The Princess and the Pea’?”

  “I can’t believe you’ve heard of it,” she teased.

  Cole remembered his grandma reading the story to him from a thick, worn book when he was a kid. “There are plenty of things about me you might not believe.”

  She looked at him curiously, a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. “Me, too.” He put the baseball in the cup holder, still unsure if her giving it back to him had been an insult or a compliment. He wasn’t used to women who kept him guessing, but he thought he kind of liked it.

  They had made good time getting out of the city and into the rolling hills of Virginia. After several more miles, Mack turned the pickup off the road and onto a long, winding gravel driveway flanked by lines of magnolia trees. On either side, fields and pastures stretched out until they met the woods beyond. Now that they’d arrived, Cole started to relax a little, but an undercurrent of uneasiness tugged at his conscience. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to get Liza to agree to a second date, much less something longer-term—and fake. Even so, the farm was perfect for what he and Frank had planned.

  “This is beautiful.” Liza gazed around, wide-eyed, with a hint of a smile, and Cole caught a glimpse of that small-town wholesomeness he’d seen in her Twitter profile picture. She seemed to have relaxed some, too.

  Mack stopped the truck in front of a well-kept barn, painted white with a red tin roof. “Y’all wanna jump out here?” he asked. “I’ll head around back and hitch up.”

  Liza furrowed her brow and looked at Cole. “Hitch up?”

  He nodded. This time the mischief was in his eyes. He got out of the truck, walked around, and opened the door for her. She stepped down next to him, the scent of her perfume swirling in the air. It was fresh and simple—like a bouquet of wildflowers might smell, not heavy like those perfumes that hung thickly in the clubs where he partied.

  As soon as they were out of the truck, Mack drove around the back of the barn. The autumn breeze nipped at Cole’s neck as the sun sank lower in the sky. He hoped the sunset would be as postcard-perfect as the farm. He needed Frank’s plan to work, after all, whether he felt right about it or not.

  Liza turned in a circle, taking it all in. He didn’t miss the chance to check out the way her jeans hugged her curves and tapered down her long legs to her sexy-yet-sensible boots. Her silky long hair caught a ray of the fading sunlight, and he imagined combing his fingers through it.

  She faced him with her chin tipped up, a little wonder in her eyes. His gaze instinctively skimmed the smooth curve of her neck, dipped quickly to the V-neck of her sweater, and shifted back to her lips. He inhaled sharply. She was fine from every angle, but he wasn’t sure she knew it.

  “I figured you for more of a swanky-restaurant, glitzy-nightclub kind of guy,” she said.

  She’d have a better idea of what he was all about from their conversations years ago than she would judging from what she guessed now. Cole was the same guy deep down—still looking for a place to belong.

  Most people took him for a high-life kind of guy—and he’d given them every reason to think that. Now it had all backfired, and the one thing that mattered to him was at stake. According to Frank, faking a romance with Liza was just the way to fix things, but now that he was out with her, Cole had even more doubts. Sure, she seemed like an upstanding girl who conveniently happened to work for an antidrug foundation associated with baseball. All that sounded good, but she was also the one girl who might be able to see through him.

  He kicked at the dirt with the toe of his boot. “Like I said, there are things about me you might not believe. This could be one of them.” He made a sweeping gesture. “I enjoy a night out like this—no limos or chefs or drinks with fancy names. If someone else had won the auction date, that might’ve been what she got.” He gave Liza a sidelong glance, and she looked at him skeptically. “But when I found out it was you…”

  Her questioning gaze met his, and he worried that she’d never believe what he was about to say. Man, those pale-green eyes were something. “I just wanted things to be different.” Was that really a lie? Frank had suggested the farm for their date, but Cole had liked the idea. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  With a hint of a smile, she held his gaze a beat longer, then looked away just as Mack strode around the corner of the barn, a satisfied look on his weathered face. “We’re good to go ’round back. Anytime you’re ready.”

  “Thanks,” Cole said. “We’ll be there in a second.”

  Mack nodded and headed back around the barn.

  Cole turned his attention to Liza, “Ready?”

  She shrugged her narrow shoulders, a corner of her mouth quirked up, and there was that spark of mischief again. “Sure.”

  “Let’s do it.” Cole led her in the direction that Mack had gone. Beyond the barn, the sun sank closer to the horizon and the sky swirled with brilliant orange and pink. “Our timing is just right.”

  Liza stopped abruptly and faced him, wide-eyed. “What did you say?” Her voice was a little wobbly.

  He hesitated before repeating himself, trying to figure out what had spooked her. “Our timing is just right. The sun is about to set.”

  She narrowed her eyes and searched his face, but he had no idea what she was looking for. Then she smiled sadly and, without a word, started walking again. Cole followed her closely, shaking his head in rhythm with the mesmerizing sway of her hips. They rounded the back of the barn just as Mack tossed a couple of blankets next to the hay bales stacked on a trailer he’d hitched to the truck.

  Liza bit her bottom lip, grinning a little. “We’re going on a hayride?”

  “Please don’t say you’re allergic to hay,” Cole teased. “Because then you’d have to drive, and I’d be stuck cuddling with Mack and watching the sunset.”

  Mack scrunched his nose. “Ain’t no way that’s happening.”

  Liza laughed, and Cole was struck by how much it changed her. She looked even prettier—carefree and sexy in a playful sort of way.

  “I’ve never been on a hayride,” she said.

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “I’m excited. Let’s go.”

  The date Frank had planned couldn’t have been simpler, but Liza was making it complicated for Cole. He’d never been out with a girl quite like her. Most of them were so predictable, so easy. But Liza had his head spinning like
a nasty curveball. He wasn’t sure if she liked him now or not, but she’d thought he was pretty cool years ago. The sun slid closer to the horizon, and he had the same sinking feeling in his stomach. He only had a few hours to convince her he was still the same guy who’d given her that autographed baseball.

  …

  Liza settled in the hay near Cole, their legs stretched out in front of them, facing the sunset. Since this didn’t qualify as a real date, she wasn’t sure how close she should sit, or how close she could let herself get to him even so. Her best friend, Paige, would think she was crazy not to be on his lap by now, and Liza understood why. They could make a Cole Collins calendar to last for the next century and never run out of hot pictures of him. And Liza noticed the details—the way his shirt tightened perfectly across his muscular shoulders, how his blond hair flipped up a little in the back at the base of his collar, the way his long fingers had caressed that baseball. She didn’t remember noticing things like that when they’d been teenagers. Cole simply being Cole had been enough to captivate her. But now, every little nuance had her full attention.

  Mack pulled the truck and trailer onto a meandering dirt road that led away from the barn, heading east.

  “This farm is like something out of a storybook,” she said.

  “Right? With a road special-made for sunset hayrides.” Cole tipped his head back and gazed at the kaleidoscope sky, looking relaxed.

  She took a deep breath herself, catching the heady scent of his cologne—definitely one of those with bleu in its name. She had no idea how a man could smell like a color, but blue was her favorite, and that’s what Cole smelled like. Her heart skipped a beat faster, and she shifted just a little closer to him.

  “Who owns this place?”

  He narrowed his eyes, as if he were trying to think of a name. “A friend of Mack’s.”

  “It was nice of them to let us come here.” She and Cole had each grabbed a beer for the ride, and Liza sipped hers.

  He raised his eyebrows playfully. “They’re big Nats fans.”

  “Of course you have to go and ruin it for me.” She grinned. “Deep down, they probably secretly like the Orioles, too.”

  “Um, no,” he said with an impish gleam in his eyes. “They secretly do not.”

  “Ouch. Glad I came in disguise.”

  “I’m thinking that was a smart play.” He smiled and ran his tongue across his bottom lip. Liza’s insides went tingly. That was one mannerism of his she did remember—fondly. “I’m pretty sure the No Trespassing sign posted at the entrance was meant for Orioles fans.”

  “It was not!”

  “Betcha.”

  Liza rolled her eyes. “Still, I’d love to live on a farm like this.” She nudged him with her elbow and came up against taut muscle. “Where all sorts of fans would be welcome.”

  “You would?” He sounded surprised.

  “Welcome all sorts of fans?” she teased. “Sure. I’d be an equal opportunity entertainer.”

  He shook his head, his lips curving up at the corners. “I just wouldn’t have guessed you’d even think about living on a farm like this. That condo building of yours is very—what is it they call it?—cosmopolitan.”

  “It was kind of a convenience purchase,” she said. Wes had preferred the city, but she had talked him into moving to suburbia someday, although someplace rural would’ve been ideal. But the two of them had never gotten the chance to live together at all. Her heart hurt just thinking about it. “I had…other plans that didn’t work out, and I needed a change. My condo is cosmopolitan, but it’s convenient to work, safe, peaceful.” She shrugged. “But a place like this was my dream.”

  Cole shook his head. “Was?”

  Liza’s stomach clenched. She didn’t want to tell him about Wes, so she shrugged casually. “I guess there’s still time, isn’t there?”

  The sun sank lower, casting a pink hue across the landscape. Mesmerized by light and color, she and Cole watched the sunset in silence as the trailer dipped and swayed along the road, the air becoming cooler as the day turned to twilight. Just as the sun disappeared, as if on cue, Mack stopped the truck.

  “We’re here,” Cole said, excitement in his voice. He stood and helped Liza up. It took a second for her to get her feet under her, then she and Cole jumped off the trailer.

  “This is amazing,” she said the moment she got a glimpse of their surroundings. They’d been facing backward during their hayride, so she had no idea they’d reached a large pond. A wooden dock stretched out from the shore, a small motorboat tethered to the end. White party lights were strung from pylon to pylon, waist-high along the dock. Just onshore was a fire pit—with logs and kindling set Boy-Scout perfect, just waiting for a match—with two red Adirondack chairs facing the fire and the pond. The chairs were decked out with navy blue cushions on the seat and back—the back ones embroidered with the white curly W that was the Nationals’ logo.

  “You weren’t kidding about these people being fans,” Liza said. “All the way down to their chair cushions.”

  Cole gave her an I-told-you-so nod, and Mack got busy off-loading a cooler and a big, old-fashioned picnic basket from the truck. Liza walked toward the dock, taking it all in.

  In the background, Mack said to Cole, “Just give me a buzz when you’re ready to head home. And you two kids enjoy yourselves.”

  “Thanks, Mack,” Liza called.

  Mack waved, started the truck, and drove off. The taillights and the rumble of the engine faded into the dusk, leaving her alone with Cole. She had a fleeting thought about her challenging fund-raising goal at BADD and wondered how much money she could raise toward it if she sold this time to women in five-minute increments.

  Amid a flutter of nerves, she headed back up toward the fire pit, wishing she’d read the charity-auction-date-with-a-playboy handbook for some pointers on how she was supposed to act.

  “You hungry?” he asked.

  No matter what, she could always find her appetite. “Definitely,” she said. “What’s on the menu?”

  …

  “No chef tonight,” Cole said. “Just you and me and two long sticks.” He pulled his Swiss Army knife from his pocket and grabbed one of the two sweet-gum sticks that were propped against a chair. With a quick and easy motion, he stripped the bark off the end and started whittling it into a wicked point.

  “What are we cooking?”

  “I figured we’d go super-gourmet and roast some hot dogs.”

  She gave him a wide smile that made him feel as though he’d hit a home run. “My favorite.”

  “Seriously?” He was surprised how happy it made him to see her so pleased. Narrowing his eyes, he examined his handiwork on the first stick.

  “Absolutely.” She picked up the second stick and handed it to him, then took the first one and propped it by the chair. “Baseball, hot dogs…I’m sort of lukewarm on the apple pie.”

  “What?” He scrunched his face. “That’s un-American.”

  “No, I mean it’s okay once in a while, but between you and me…” She clutched his arm, stood on her tiptoes, and whispered in his ear, “I’ve been tempted by other flavors.”

  The wisp of her breath in his ear sent warmth surging through him. “You know what they say about variety,” he teased.

  “My best friend Paige owns a pie shop—well, a bakery—so I get to try some really good ones.”

  “No one makes ’em like my grandma.”

  “Aw. I remember you saying she made pies from the wild blackberries you picked. Is she still around?” Liza asked tentatively.

  Cole’s heart hitched. Why had he even mentioned his grandma, and how had Liza even remembered what he’d told her about the blackberries? He stopped whittling and shook his head. “No. And I really miss her. But I had her for twenty-one y
ears. She pretty much raised me…but you already knew that.”

  Liza looked serious and sad, as if hearing about his loss had really affected her. “I’m so sorry.” She gazed out over the pond for a long moment. “It’s so hard to lose the people you love.” She shrugged slowly, the gesture somehow making her slim shoulders look heavy. “When it comes down to it, there are so few people who truly know us.” Her eyes glistened in the firelight. “When one of them goes, you can never replace them.”

  A log shifted in the fire, spitting sparks into the air. Liza smiled wanly, then turned and opened the picnic basket, making herself busy. He finished up his whittling job, trying to get his bearings. She had totally switched up the game on him. Considering the number of women he’d dated, he thought he’d seen everything. But she was showing him something completely different, and he didn’t quite know how to handle it.

  Liza got out all the fixings for the hot dogs, and he grabbed the foil-wrapped buns, nestling them near the fire where they’d get warm. His stomach growled loudly. He quickly flattened his hand across it and glanced at Liza.

  “We need to get you fed,” she said, reminding him of another thing his grandma used to say.

  Cole handed her a stick, blond for several inches on the end and finely pointed, if he did say so himself. “Believe me, this upscale dinner will be worth the wait.” He tore open the packet of hot dogs and presented them to her. “First course.”

  She pinched a hot dog between her index finger and thumb, pulled it out of the packet, and stabbed it straight through the middle. It drooped on both ends, and she gave it a forlorn look that made him laugh.

  He raised his eyebrows. “I guess it’s safe to say you weren’t a Girl Scout.”

  She shook her head, laughing at herself—another thing he liked about her.

  “You might not want to cook it that way.” He took out another hot dog, skewered it in the end and through its center, and traded sticks with her. “You don’t want to lose your wiener in the fire.”