Loving Him Off the Field (Santa Fe Bobcats #2)(30)

He sighed and rubbed at his temples. “I’ve got a reporter dogging my heels.” He looked up and saw Emma’s face had blanched, the pallor fading her natural Vegas tan. “Not about Charlie, or you,” he added hastily. Christ, he hadn’t meant to scare her. “She wants to do some human interest piece. Thinks she’ll get a good return on the investment since there isn’t much about me out there in the media.”

“For a reason,” Emma snapped off. “Why the hell did you agree to this?”

“I didn’t,” he shot back, then closed his eyes and counted to five. Yelling at Charlie’s mom was never his first choice. “I didn’t,” he tried again, more calmly. “She kept bugging me, following me around, showing up where I didn’t expect her. Then she started digging. I was worried what she’d find on her own. So I made a deal with her that she could interview me if she kept to topics I was good with. Sports, hobbies, that sort of junk.”

Emma watched him quietly.

“It was the best I could do on the fly. You know I would never do anything to hurt Charlie. Ever.”

“I know that,” she said, her face softening. “I do. You just scared me.”

They were both silent a moment. Killian’s lips twitched as he huffed out a laugh. “We’re quite the pair, aren’t we? Keeping secrets like the CIA.”

“It’s for Charlie.”

“I know.” He breathed heavily. “I can stay an extra few days over Christmas, if that’s okay. Maybe take him somewhere. I’ll make a few extra trips out in the off season, too.”

“You’re always welcome to come and stay as long as you and Charlie want.” She tapped a finger to her lips. “I’ve been thinking about moving back to the area.”

“Emma, no.” He was definitely putting his foot down here. This would be the one downside in their arrangement . . . Emma’s tendency to follow random harebrained ideas without thinking them through. “People don’t recognize you there. They don’t know your name, and they can’t place you. That’s why you’re there.”

“But it’s been almost seven years. So much has gone on since then. You honestly think if I was in, say, Albuquerque, they would put two and two together faster than someone here?” She lowered her voice. “Charlie misses you like crazy. Every day. I know you miss him, too. I can sell houses wherever. I’m good.”

“You are,” he said numbly. “But Emma . . .”

“It was just a thought.” She sighed, resigned. “I should have known you would say no.”

“For Charlie.”

“For Charlie,” she repeated, but the look on her face was one that said she wasn’t happy about it. “I’ll get him so you can say goodnight.”

“Emma?”

She looked down as she stood up.

“For you, too.”

She scrunched up her face in the way he knew meant she was fighting back tears. “I’ll get him. Hold on.”

He waited while she summoned their son from the all-important task of putting on his pajamas. Killian said goodnight, grinning as Charlie recited the vowels for him as a stall tactic for bedtime. And when Emma hung up, he tossed the phone down on the coffee table, scrubbed a hand over his face, and felt like kicking something.

*

“So you don’t go on TV,” the man next to Aileen said slowly.

“Nope, just the website.” She’d explained Off Season to him now—twice—but he wasn’t seeming to get it.

“And you’re just . . . reporting on funny stuff?” The older man, with a potbelly that hung well over his seat’s lap belt, held up his hands. “Why wouldn’t you want something like a network job?”

“I would love one,” she said simply. “But I’m working my way up.”

The man shook his head in disbelief and turned to talk to the man on his left. Maybe that man had a more respectable job.

She’d scored a media pass on the team’s plane, much to her shock. Part of her wondered if Killian had had anything to do with that, but she doubted it. She was traveling with the team. Hello, dream come true. She’d ask the man next to her to pinch her, if she didn’t think he’d find offense in that. But along with the dream came the reminder she was still a small fish in a very big pond. Or rather, not even a fish. More like a tadpole, still fighting to make it to the juvenile stage.

So she’d just keep fighting, and when big, fat catfish like him became complacent, they’d get fished out and she’d have the pond to herself.

She turned back to her laptop and the notes she was making on the trip. Killian had seen her as he’d boarded the plane, that much she knew. His eyes had swept over her, as if she were a part of the scenery, then did a comical double-take and focused more intently. She’d waved, given him a cheeky grin, and he’d rolled his eyes and kept walking.

Par for the course, it seemed.

She also got a room at the same hotel as the team, though it hadn’t mattered if she did or not. She would have slept on the floor outside Killian’s room if she had to. Something about his attitude gave her the feeling he’d dodge and weave to avoid spending much time with her. Which, if he used the team as an excuse, she could hardly argue with. But it wasn’t in keeping with the spirit of their agreement.