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  Game Changer

  A Triple Play Curse Novella, Book 1

  Lori Ryan

  Game Changer

  by Lori Ryan

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  Copyright 2015, Lori Ryan.

  All rights reserved.

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  This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.

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  ISBN: 978-1-941149-89-8

  Acknowledgments

  I have had a blast writing these novellas and am so excited to get them out to my readers. There are a lot of people I want to thank for their support and help.

  To my critique partners, Jesse Winters, Kate Baray, Ruby Meritt, and Kay Manis, your feedback and harassment—I mean, constructive criticism—on everything from plot, to characters, to the writing itself, helped shape everything so much. Thank you!

  Thank you to my incredible beta readers, Dianne Wagner, Shari Drehs Bartholomew, Ashley Hampton, and Sara Smith, as well as to my fantastic street team, and to Anne Welch for coming up with the dirty joke I needed for book two. I’m always amazed by the support you guys give me. Amazed and humbled.

  Thank you to Dianne Wagner for making the amazing tile coasters of my book covers for my release party. Truly, so cool!

  And, speaking of covers, I’m absolutely in love with these covers. Thank you Viola Estrella of Estrella Cover Art. They are so beautiful!

  And, last, thank you to Lea Burn for your fabulous input and editing. It’s been a pleasure working with you!

  Chapter One

  Rafe Wilson tuned out the sounds of the crowd heckling the Hawks’ catcher, who was currently at bat. He focused on the plate, listening for the telltale crack, and moved as soon as the surface of the bat made contact with the ball, sending it straight at him. Rafe was crouched low, body aligned, glove in position for an easy out. He felt it slip a split second before it happened but still had a hard time believing he’d actually dropped the damn ball.

  What the heck was that? One minute, it was in his glove and the next, it lay in front of him on the tan sand of the diamond. He didn’t spare a second to analyze why he’d fumbled a ball for the first time in—well, hell, in a damned long time. He’d made very few errors since he’d been called up to the majors four years ago.

  Rafe Wilson didn't make errors.

  He had the ball back instantly, rolled, shifted to a knee and shot it to his second baseman who turned to make the out, but it was too late. Rafe’s error had just cost his team.

  It didn’t get any better from there. No additional errors, but his at bats sucked. He was so far off his game, he didn’t know how he’d face his teammates at the end of this cluster. Luckily for him, he was the only one running around with his dick in his hand today. The team pulled the win out in spite of him.

  As they filed back into the Strikers’ locker room, Rafe ran through his routines in his head. Something was off and he needed to figure out what it was. He’d worn the right socks and had his grandmother’s antique cross necklace tucked under his shirt. He had followed the right patterns coming out of the dugout for each inning and at bat. He replayed his movements out on the field and in the batter’s box. Everything had been right. Every routine was completed with precision and accuracy.

  “Rafe!”

  Rafe looked up to see his teammate, pitcher Aiden Kyle, coming his way. The rest of the team was studiously ignoring them. Clearly, his teammates had silently nominated Aiden to confront him.

  “What happened out there?”

  Rafe shook his head, sinking down into the overstuffed leather chair sitting in front of the spacious, open-fronted locker that housed his equipment. They’d all be here for another hour, at least. He might be here even longer since his coach would no doubt want to talk to him after his performance.

  “Hell if I know, Aiden. I don’t know what happened.”

  Gage Collier, the team’s catcher, swiveled his chair toward the pair and chimed in. “You miss a step anywhere?”

  Rafe knew what he was asking about. The whole team knew Rafe was particular about his routine. Fans and sports analysts would call them his superstitions, but his teammates rarely gave him crap about them. Almost every Strikers’ player had one or two things they were particular about: a specific shirt they had to wear for every game or a certain way they stepped out onto the field, the same way, every single time. Rafe just happened to have a lot more of those routines than others. But, the guys didn’t care, because they worked for Rafe. Most of the time.

  Rafe shook his head again. “Nope. Didn’t miss a damn thing.”

  Aiden, who was just as tolerant of Rafe’s routines as Gage, shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe it’s time for a change in the routine. Maybe you need to troubleshoot it.”

  Rafe scowled at him but didn’t have time to answer. His hitting coach stood in the door to the offices and called him over. The first and third base coaches joined them. Fantastic, thought Rafe as the door shut behind him. This would be a freaking nightmare.

  The next night, Rafe looked up to find his friend—and the host of this evening’s cookout—Kane Tyler looking at him with a grin on his face. Kane was a linebacker for San Francisco's professional football team, the Brawlers. He was also one of Rafe’s best friends, and he often hosted barbecues with both Striker and Brawler members. The teams meshed well together, despite the fact that they had somewhat opposite seasons and schedules.

  “Damn, didn’t you hear me? Don’t tell me you’re still obsessing over every damned move you made yesterday. Maybe your performance didn’t have anything to do with what pair of underwear you put on. Maybe you just had an off game,” Kane said.

  Football players had their own share of superstitions, but none of the Brawlers quite met the level of most of the baseball team. Rafe’s teammates were on Kane in a heartbeat, defending him.

  “Hey, back off, man,” said Aiden. “We don’t knock what works. And troubleshooting his routine,” he stressed his choice of the word routine over superstition—no one wanted to admit they were superstitious, “has always worked for Rafe. Let him do his thing.”

  “Yeah,” said Gage. “Rafe just has to troubleshoot. He’ll figure it out and he’ll be back in the game tomorrow.”

  Kane rolled his eyes, but Rafe happened to know that Kane had worn the same shoelaces in his cleats the entire last season, despite having to knot them together in places. He wouldn’t play without them.

  “Come outside while I throw the meat on the grill, guys. Elise and her friends will have the salads and sides ready in a minute,” Kane said, giving Rafe’s foot a kick as he walked by to get him up off the couch and moving with everyone else. “And, grab that cooler. There’s beer for those who don’t have a game tomorrow, and juice and water for the baseball players,” he said with a grin. The Brawlers were in their off season so they weren’t quite as rigid about diet and exercise as the Strikers had to be.

  Rafe grabbed the cooler and followed the others out to the yard. Kane and Elise had bought the house a few months back, and Rafe had a feeling they planned to fill it with kids sometime in the not-so-distant future. When he’d been a bachelor, Kane lived in a penthouse suite at a hotel—the perfect bachelor pad with no maintenance needs and an endless supply of concierge services. Things had changed shortly after he’d married Elise. The yard they spilled out into now was perfect for raising a family. Fenced in with lush green grass, room to run and throw a ball, and tall shade tree
s that filled up the back half of the yard.

  Not Rafe’s kind of place, but he could see how it would appeal to Elise and Kane.

  “I’ll tell you what we really have to watch out for this year,” said Aiden after they all settled into chairs on the patio. “We all need to make damn sure no one triggers the curse.”

  He looked at each of the Strikers present in turn, his expression clearly saying, “You know what I mean.”

  “Oh hell, I gotta hear this,” said Jake Sykes, Brawlers wide receiver, sharing a smile with Kane who was now putting burgers and chicken breasts onto the hot grill.

  “Hey, don’t knock the curse. It’s nothing to laugh about,” said Gage.

  Rafe nodded, cracking open a bottle of water and sitting back in one of the lounge chairs that lined Kane’s large deck. “The curse is nothing to screw around with.”

  “Heck no, it isn’t. We don’t need that distracting us this year,” said Aiden.

  “What curse?” asked Kane, looking at each of the Strikers.

  “Any season one of the Strikers falls in love and ties the knot—or even just gets engaged— three will fall,” answered Rafe, shaking his head. “Every damn time, if one falls, two more will fall that season. And every year the curse is in play, the team suffers from the diversion.”

  “What?” Kane asked, the confusion and incredulity hard to ignore on his face.

  Gage nodded. “There was five years ago when Justin Yardley met that girl just before the season started. He married her less than a month later, triggering the curse. Mike Bussey was next, falling for that doctor who subbed for the team doctor for a month, and then Dale Carey. He got engaged right at the end of the season. We lost our bid for the pennant that year.”

  Aiden picked up right after Gage finished. “Then two years ago, it was Dane, Jackson, and Eli. Last year, we thought we escaped because only Pete Murphy and Alex Perez fell in love during the season, but at the very last minute, Coach Mendez asked his girl to marry him, completing the trifecta.”

  Rafe jumped in. “And, whenever the curse is in play, something gets fouled up. We lost the World Series one year because of it. But, if no one gets married or engaged and activates it, the curse won’t hit us and we won’t have any distractions.”

  Kane, Jake, and several other Brawlers were almost on the floor laughing. The football players might have a few superstitions here and there, but they weren’t nearly as bad as the Strikers and they liked to taunt them for it.

  “Hey, laugh all you want. This shit is serious,” Rafe said, shaking his head at his friends again. “You don’t mess around with the curse.”

  “What do you call it?” Jake asked. “The Triple Play Curse?”

  His friends buckled over laughing at that, but every Striker in attendance was quick to stop that line of questioning.

  “You don’t name these things!” Rafe said, sitting up in his chair and pointing to the Brawlers with his water bottle. “That just gives it more power.”

  The football players all straightened up, nodding and putting on more solemn faces for a few minutes before Kane spoke up again.

  “So, it’s like The-Curse-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named?” he asked. The Strikers scowled while the Brawlers continued to laugh.

  Ashlyn Daniels smiled as Elise Tyler—her long-time friend and a teacher at the same school where Ashlyn taught fourth grade—handed her a bowl of potato salad to carry outside. Elise and her husband, Kane, always threw great parties and barbecues. Since Kane played football for San Francisco's beloved Brawlers, the parties never failed to have plenty of eye candy for Ashlyn and Elise’s other girlfriends. Some of the girls had occasionally sampled the candy as opposed to just looking, but that wasn’t Ashlyn’s kind of thing.

  She wasn’t pro-sport groupie material. She was a schoolteacher and smart enough not to let the fame and good looks of Kane’s friends dazzle her. She knew better than to believe that lightning would strike twice. Just because Elise and Kane had fallen in love, didn’t mean a long-term committed relationship was in the cards for any of the other Brawlers. She’d heard the guys talking. Most of them were young, wallowing in wealth, incredibly good looking and—based on what she’d overheard—committed to bachelorhood. In fact, most reveled in the attention they got from their groupies and were all too happy to take advantage of the no-strings-attached offers thrown at them on a daily basis.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you, a few of the Strikers are here today, too,” Elise said casually, as the women walked out of the kitchen and toward the backyard. Ashlyn stumbled and Carrie and Beth, two of their other friends, smacked into her from behind.

  “Sorry,” she said, as her face grew hot. For whatever reason, she’d always found the baseball players who hung out with Kane a lot harder to ignore than the football players. Maybe because she loved the game, and, she had to admit, she loved the uniforms, the long, lean bodies of the players—the whole package. The blazing blue eyes, coal-black hair and panty melting smile of one player, in particular. One she hoped to avoid but didn’t want to ask about specifically for fear of tipping Elise and the others off to her attraction.

  Apparently she hadn’t been as slick as she thought because Elise’s next words, delivered right as Ashlyn walked out the patio doors and into view of all the other guests, were, “Even Rafe came today.”

  She turned to eye Elise and caught the ear-to-ear grin her friend didn’t seem able to suppress. Elise was enjoying this a little too much. Ashlyn shrugged a shoulder.

  “So? I told you, Elise, I’m not looking to date a player. Football, baseball, or otherwise.”

  Elise shook her head while Carrie and Beth walked ahead of them to place their bowls of salads and chips on the long table lining the patio. Kane’s friends sat in chairs around him while he removed burgers and chicken from the grill, piling the meat on a large platter.

  “It sure worked for me, Ashlyn. And, I know Carrie has had fun hanging out with a couple of the guys. Why not have some fun and see where it goes?” she whispered.

  Ashlyn shook her head. “It’s just not for me, Elise. That’s all. I’d rather stick to guys my own speed.” As she said it, she all but cringed. The last guy she’d gone out on a date with had been an accountant. Good looking and safe—mostly safe—he’d been looking for marriage, kids, and the white picket fence. Everything she wanted in life.

  Only he’d also been as boring as watching paint dry. They’d gone on three dates before he kissed her goodnight, and when he did, there wasn’t a spark to be felt for miles around. Nothing, nadda, zilch. Still, that didn’t mean she should be foolish and go hog wild in the other direction. A baseball player who routinely moved from one woman to the next wasn’t what she needed. She needed a happy medium. Some balance, that’s all.

  Ashlyn shook her head at Elise once again for good measure, purposefully walking toward the group and ending the discussion. She would find what she wanted one day. A safe guy, whose dreams and goals matched hers, but who also sparked a fire in her. Who made her feel like the women she’d read about in all her romance novels: women whose men made them feel like they were the only woman on the planet; women whose men set them ablaze with heat and passion and love. She’d find that some day, but it sure wouldn’t be with a baseball player who could have any woman he wanted any night of the week. A baseball player who would most likely break out in jock itch at the mention of marriage or a white picket fence.

  She stole a glance at Rafe Wilson with his sparkling blue eyes, tanned, chiseled face, and tattoos running down the full length of both arms. Nope, definitely not for her, she thought, completely ignoring the way her thighs clenched at just the sight of him. And the heat that seemed to race through her when he laughed and glanced her way. Or the way his long legs looked wrapped in faded, oh-so-soft looking jeans that hugged in just the right places. All the right places. Nope.

  Not. For. Her.

  Chapter Two

  After two burgers with ketchup and pickles but n
o buns, a double helping of fruit salad, and one of Elise’s homemade chocolate chip cookies, Rafe said goodbye to the remaining players and headed into the house to find Elise before taking off. His mother had never let him leave a party without saying goodbye and, for some reason, the habit stuck with him today. Maybe it was all those times she’d twisted his ear when he forgot that made the lesson stick. Whatever the case, he never left one of Kane and Elise’s barbeques without finding her to thank her for cooking for all of them, yet again. It was actually getting a little comical how many of the team’s rare days off he spent at his friend’s home. He suspected the Strikers were beginning to spend almost as much time here as the Brawlers.

  But, it wasn’t Elise he found in the kitchen. It was her friend, Ashlyn. The quiet one.

  She mostly talked to the girls at these things, but he knew who she was because he’d see her at almost every get-together Kane and Elise hosted. Something about her always intrigued him. He suspected she was too shy to talk to the players, or maybe she just looked down on them. There seemed to be two types of women in his world. Some threw themselves at him and any other player in the vicinity, in the hopes of a shot at hooking up, and others looked down on them, thinking baseball players were brainless jocks who got paid too much to play a kid’s game they should’ve given up for “real” jobs long ago.

  He’d dated one of those women once. In college, actually, and though she’d liked his status as one of the starting players on the school’s baseball team, when she discovered he had no plans to give it up after school, she dumped him. It had been a real eye-opener for him. He’d assumed any woman would kill to marry a pro baseball player. Who wouldn’t want that? As it turned out, the woman he’d given three years of his life to, the woman he thought he loved and wanted to spend his future with, well, she didn’t want that at all. She wanted him to stop playing ‘childish’ games and ‘get a real job.’