Page 47 of Double Play

He wanted to explain that he’d come to Kilby with exactly that purpose, that he’d stood up to Trevor on the plane, and that he’d pre-proposed to Nina already, but all that was much too complicated to express at this point. “Okay,” he saidinstead.

“Goodbye, Jim Lieberman.” With a faint smile, Maggie touched him on the shoulder and disappeared into the crowd of wedding guests thronging Crush’shouse.

He dropped his head into his hands, feeling queasy and sick. He’d done something wrong, screwed things up, and his head was spinning too much to sort it out. But the way Maggie had said goodbye—“Goodbye, Jim Lieberman”—it sounded liketrouble.

But his phone was still in the jet, and he had so many friends at the wedding that he didn’t get a chance to slip away. By the time the reception ended, he and Trevor had to leave anyway. They stumbled into the Learjet and slept the entire way back to SanDiego.

As soon as they arrived in San Diego, two important things had to happen. He had to talk to Dwight. And he had to propose to Nina. In a take-charge, action-hero kindofway.

Huh.

18

Nina had livedin three places in her life, Detroit, Tucson, and Kilby. They each had their advantages, but none of them had an ocean. Which meant that San Diego was now her favorite place in the world—of the places she’d seen. Dwight took her to La Jolla to see the sea lions, they watched the surfers in Ocean Beach, rode an old wooden rollercoaster. It was a perfect day, lacking only onething—Jim.

But the fact that he intended to propose to her cast a golden sheen over everything. The world seemed to celebrate with her—the ocean sparkled, the pelicans croaked, the sea lions rolled in the waves, everything filled with joy, just like herheart.

At the appointed time, they drove to the airport to pick up Trevor and Jim, even though Trevor had left his carthere.

“This will be perfect,” Nina told him. “You can drive with Trevor and I’ll drive with Jim in your car so we can have some timealone.”

“You got it all planned out, don’t you?” Dwight gave her a halfheartedsmile.

She cocked her head at him, suddenly realizing something. In her state of bliss, she hadn’t noticed until just now that he’d barely smiledatall.

She’d totally forgotten her other mission in SanDiego!

“You don’t seem yourself, Dwight. What’s going onwithyou?”

“Nothing. I’m good.” He steered the car onto the freeway, which held a flowing, crisscrossing river of vehicles. For Nina, the sight was daunting. Maybe she should take more driving lessons if she was going tolivehere.

She gave a little wiggle of happiness at that thought. Live here with Jim? It was like adream.

Back to Dwight. “You’re not, I can tell. And I know it has something to do with Maggie. She’s really upset, you know. She doesn’t like to show it, butit’strue.”

Dwight grunted and stared ahead at the traffic. His knuckles tightened on the steering wheel, dark skin goingwhite.

“I thought you really liked her. Iknowshelikesyou.”

That didn’t even earn a grunt, justsilence.

Clearly, the situation called for the big guns. “If she hurt you, the least you could do is tell her how you feel. You’re acting like abigbaby.”

It worked. “How old are you, twenty-two? How’s an infant going to tell me I’mababy?”

“She just did.” Nina pushed at his rock-solid arm. “And you deserve it. Maggie’s a sweetheart. She’s brilliant about everything except men, or should I say big old babieslikeyou.”

He gritted his teeth. “You can stop insulting me now. Igetit.”

“Then tell me what’s going on? Cuz she’s eating her heart out back inKilby.”

After a lengthy silence, during which Nina could have painted all her nails, both hands and feet, he muttered, “She crossedaline.”

“Whatline? She said things were going great until that call with her parents. Was it something her parents said? You can’t blame herforthat.”

“It wasn’t her parents.” His jaw flexed. Nina realized she was seeing a different part of Dwight, a more easily wounded side he kept to himself behind the joking, friendly exterior. “She wanted to look good for them, I get that. She wanted it to seem like I was a big success. A big-shotballplayer.”

Nina screwed up her face. “That doesn’t sound likeMaggie.”

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