Page 93 of Lawless in Leather

“You’d do that for me?”

“Well, Lucas suggested I try to give you the moon but this seems more you.”

“It is,” she said. “So you’d be my landlord?”

Mal grinned. “I guess so. Why, are you going to try and wrangle a rental discount out of me?”

“Are you susceptible to bribes?” Raina asked.

“Do they involve you and nakedness?”

“Of course.”

“Then absolutely,” he said. “In fact, I might insist on them.”

“I’ll start practicing,” Raina said. And then she started laughing again because he was just so damned gorgeous. “Hey, Malachi Coulter, I love you, you know that?”

He went still and then the smile she received was the best one yet.

“Me too, Raina Easton,” he said, and he kissed her to seal the deal.

Epilogue

Damn. It smelled like a ballpark. Mal breathed deeper as he stood at the edge of the field, trying to ignore the headache that was fighting back against the ibuprofen he’d downed earlier. He closed his eyes and let the grin spread across his face. It smelled like his ballpark. Like Deacon Field.

Still the same heady mix of grass and sweat and old beer and stale popcorn and wood and metal and leather that spelled baseball.

Home.

“How are you feeling?” Alex said.

Mal opened his eyes, glanced at his friend sitting in the first row of seats a few feet back from where Mal stood by the railing. “Slightly worse for wear. You?”

Alex toasted him with the bottle of bright yellow Gatorade in his hand. “I have a certain leaning in that direction. I think we’re getting too old for that kind of party.”

“It was certainly a party,” Mal agreed. He wasn’t going to admit to feeling old. Not today.

“If every end-of-season party is like that,” Lucas said from where he lay across several seats, next to Alex, “remind me to get into training a few months ahead.”

“Not sure surgeons are encouraged to do that much drinking,” Mal said.

“I could write myself a prescription,” Lucas said. Then closed his eyes again.

“Next year will be worse,” Alex said cheerfully. “Next year we’re going to make the play-offs.”

Mal shook his head. “Don’t remind me about that.” The Saints had lost their final game last night. The final game that stood between them and a play-off spot. Lost by two lousy runs to the goddamned Yankees, just to add an extra sting to it all. Things had been pretty quiet back in the locker room.

“Like I said last night?—”

“As I remember,” Mal said, cutting Alex off before he could start making another speech. “It went something like, this is our best result in decades, so fuck it, let’s celebrate.”

“I’d like to think I was a little more eloquent than that,” Alex said.

“Yeah, yeah, you were inspiring,” Lucas said. “Stop talking so loud.”

Alex’s speech had been inspiring. Mal had to credit him with that. He’d marched into the locker room, Maggie in tow, climbed up onto one of the benches, and then made one of the best damned speeches Mal had ever heard. At least, what he could remember of it had been good.

After that, the mood had flipped and everyone had charged onto the buses for the trip back to Deacon Field. Everyone except Maggie and Alex, who’d vanished.

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