Center Stage: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 8) Read Free Page B

meant well. They only worried about poor Lindsey, about how she was handling being left at the altar twice in as many years. Of course it couldn’t be her fault. No girl deserved that .
    But every goddamn whisper made it clear people thought there was a hell of a lot Lindsey had done. Or not done. It was all her fault.
    Ryan took his time heading down the aisle, not wanting to fight the crowd. When he got to the vestibule, he found Ormond in the center of a tight knot of people. Anna Benson, his fiancée, was there too, and the matron of honor, in a pink dress that looked like it had seen better days as she clutched a brown paper bag with a spreading wet stain across the bottom. Another woman was calling out to a bunch of kids, telling them to hush for Aunt Lindsey’s sake, and a fourth stood on the edge of the family circle, shaking her head. A man balanced out the group, a couple of inches shorter than Zach and probably twenty pounds heavier, but with the same hard line to his jaw, the same eyes shouting that he was an Ormond brother.
    “She’s fine ,” Zach said, raising his hands to cut off protests from his siblings. “She wants to be left alone, and that’s what we’re going to do. She’s driving out to the farmhouse tonight. She’s got a couple of days off before she has to get back to work.”
    “She’s still waiting to hear about auditions for Itsy Bitsy Mouse , isn’t she?” asked the quiet woman, the one on the edge of the group. “She’ll just die if she doesn’t get to play the mouse.”
    Ormond shook his head. “She’s not going to die over anything. Come on, guys. This is Lindsey we’re talking about. She only wants to do what’s right. She wants some space, and we’re going to give it to her.”
    Families were strange. Ryan was an only child; he’d never had a group of brothers and sisters to gather around, to talk behind his back, to do whatever they thought was right for him. It was kind of sweet.
    Ormond started repeating himself, and then he began actively guiding his relatives out the door. “I’ll check on her tonight,” he said a few times. “I promise.” And then he pulled out the big guns. “Come on, guys. You know how she’d feel if she heard you worrying like this. Don’t pile on the guilt. Get out of here. We’ll talk in the morning. Anna, can you help round up the kids?”
    By the time Ormond got them all outside, Ryan had changed his mind. Half a dozen siblings were half a dozen pains in the ass. He just had to remember that, the next time he called Dad and felt the old gripping fear in the pit of his stomach. The next time he thought about the promises he’d made to his mother, and all the ways he was letting her down. All the ways he was still the same screw-up he’d been in high school, in college, after.
    Because he sure as shit wasn’t going to bring up the hitting coach job for Dad tonight. Not with Zach glaring at him right now, demanding, “What do you want, Green?”
    Ryan held up his hands in protest. “Nothing, man. What can I do around here?”
    “Get home. Get something to eat. You have to get to the park early enough tomorrow.”
    Ryan shook his head. “Still on the DL.”
    Shit. Ormond must really be upset. He never would have forgotten the disabled list under ordinary circumstances. Well, Ryan didn’t have to report to Rockets Field the following day, so he might as well do what he could around here. That might even give him a chance to build some good will when it came time to ask about Dad, in a day or two. A week. Whenever the coast seemed clear. “Need help cleaning things up downstairs?”
    “The caterers’ll get it.”
    Ryan glanced toward the closed door of the coatroom. That’s where Lindsey had to be. No chance in hell he’d be able to help with anything in there. He gave up and started to head toward the parking lot, but Zach caught him up short. “Actually, there is something.” At Ryan’s questioning glance, Zach nodded