Sterling streak sterling.., p.1
Sterling Streak (Sterling Falls Book 3), page 1
www.lbdunbar.com
Sterling Streak
Copyright © 2024 Laura Dunbar
L.B. Dunbar Writes, Ltd.
https://www.lbdunbar.com/
All rights reserved.
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 written permission from the author.
Without in any way limiting the author’s exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to ‘train’ generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
This is a work of fiction, created without the use of AI technology. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to any actual people, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.
Cover Design: Lori Jackson Designs
Photographer: CJC Photography
Cover Model: Dominic Calvani
Editor: Nicole McCurdy/Emerald Edits
Editor: Gemma Brocato
TABLE of CONTENTS
Other Books by L.B. Dunbar
DEDICATION
DISCLAIMER
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
Sterling Clay
More by L.B. Dunbar
About the Author
Connect with L.B. Dunbar
Other Books by L.B. Dunbar
Sterling Falls
Sterling Heat
Sterling Brick
Sterling Streak
Sterling Clay
Parentmoon
Holiday Hotties (Christmas novellas)
Scrooge-ish
Naughty-ish
Grouch-ish
Road Trips & Romance
Hauling Ashe
Merging Wright
Rhode Trip
Lakeside Cottage
Living at 40
Loving at 40
Learning at 40
Letting Go at 40
Silver Foxes of Blue Ridge
Silver Brewer
Silver Player
Silver Mayor
Silver Biker
Sexy Silver Fox Collection
After Care
Midlife Crisis
Restored Dreams
Second Chance
Wine&Dine
Collision novellas
Collide
Caught
The Sex Education of M.E.
The Heart Collection
Speak from the Heart
Read with your Heart
Look with your Heart
Fight from the Heart
View with your Heart
A Heart Collection Spin-off
The Heart Remembers
BOOKS IN OTHER AUTHOR WORLDS
Smartypants Romance (an imprint of Penny Reid)
Love in Due Time
Love in Deed
Love in a Pickle
The World of True North (an imprint of Sarina Bowen)
Cowboy
Studfinder
THE EARLY YEARS
The Legendary Rock Star Series
Paradise Stories
The Island Duet
Modern Descendants – writing as elda lore
A famous center fielder. A country music darling. He needs to get away. She needs a break. They both might find more than they bargained for in the small town of Sterling Falls.
DEDICATION
For the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field.
Thank you for the memories.
#baseballislife
DISCLAIMER
Let’s have a repeat in reading this paragraph.
This is a work of fiction, created without the use of AI technology. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to any actual people, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
But let’s be honest, in the years 2023-2024 (when this book was written and copyrighted), a world renown singer dated an equally popular professional football player, and their romance was covered in the regular news, pop culture news, and sports entertainment news. I’m not pledging any allegiance for or against either the relationship or the individuals. A girl loves a boy. The end, as far as I’m concerned.
Any resemblance to them, however, felt impossible to avoid, especially when this author’s active imagination created a fictitious country singer in January 2023 (the real-life romance began, rumor has it, in July of that year) along with a fictionally famous baseball player (who, while not a football player, is still considered a professional athlete/star in one of the greatest sports out there – we can debate that later). So, while I did everything I could not to resemble or replicate this real-world romance, having, of course, no immediate knowledge or access to either the musician or the football player, there might be a very small (teeny-tiny) incident that mimics real-life actions.
Let’s add another disclaimer, please. Despite a certain app believing they’ve invented everything and anyone famous under the sun since roughly 2019, the concept of friendship bracelets goes back to the 1960s, if not earlier. Sharing said bracelets is nothing new in the 21st century, thus some fifty years later for those who can’t math. So, again, resembling real-world, but in a fictional manner, these made-up characters do something very real (and quite popular in more places than just music concerts).
If you wish to call foul ball on what I’d done, take a deep breath first. One thing that appealed to the masses for the real-world romance was the fantasy of it. Escape in the fantasy here as well. Remember it’s fiction, created by the imagination of this author.
Read on and enjoy.
- L.B.
Chapter 1
Offseason
[Ford]
I wake with a raging hard-on in an empty bed, although I’m certain I went to sleep with someone beside me last night.
While my head thumps to a wicked beat, I roll it on the hotel pillow. The space beside me is rumpled. The sheet tossed back. The extra pillow creased. Someone else was definitely in my bed. But who?
Candy? Cassidy? Something along those lines.
Lifting my hand to squeeze my forehead takes effort. Thinking is more difficult than it should be this late in the morning.
Then again, the purpose of last night was to not think. To shut down my recall of what I’d seen yesterday afternoon, moments before I was scheduled to leave my home in Chicago for my brother’s wedding.
Closing my eyes, I press my finger and thumb into my lids as if I’m able to scrub from my vision what now resides in my mind.
Nope. Not going to go there yet.
Instead, I’m going to lay here and try to pull up an image of the woman I’d met last night. The one singing to herself in a corner of Randy’s Bar, hosting a private concert for one. She peered at me under half-lidded eyes, the brim of her cowboy hat working as a shield for her face and covering her hair.
I didn’t need to fully see her. I didn’t have to remember her. There was just something about her. A recognizable sadness resonated around her.
I’d had a disguise of my own last night. A baseball cap pulled low. My head down; my collar up. I could have gone to Milton’s Roadhouse in the center of Sterling Falls, but I’d have been recognized by everyone in this town. My hometown.
Randy’s was the place a man went when he wanted to get lost and didn’t want to be found.
For once, I didn’t want to be noticed.
Later tonight at my brother’s wedding rehearsal dinner, I’m not going to have a choice. My brothers will give me that look. The one that’s a lethal combination of sympathy and I told you so. Vale, my sister, will be the one filled with concern. I love my family but there’s a reason I stay away from them. There’s also a reason I need them now more than ever.
Rolling to my side, I slide my hand over the cool, vaca
Did we fuck?
What I do vaguely remember is she matched me shot for shot last night. In a game of who can drink the most tequila, she won. And I hated losing.
Every inch of me demands I be a winner.
In my profession.
In my personal life.
And yet, I’d been on a losing streak lately. One I needed to turn around before I lost everything important to me.
With a heavy head and a stiff body, I press on the mattress to sit upright.
Jesus. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was roofied. My brain is foggy. My memory wiped clean. However, something tells me, the woman from last night wouldn’t do such a thing.
Suddenly, my phone buzzes beneath my pillow.
“Fuck,” I cry out. The sharp reaction hurts my head as much as the annoying trill blasting through the room. As I answer, I snap, “What?”
“Daddy?”
Shit! “Hey, Zelle.” I hold the phone outward to read the caller ID. Vale’s number.
“Daddy, you sound funny.”
“I . . . I have a headache.” I massage my forehead again, scrubbing at my skin as if I can cleanse my mind. “What’s going on, Zelly?”
“Aunt Vale asked me to call you. Where are you?”
Good question. Glancing around the room, I find an unmarked pad of paper on the bedside table, which offers no clue as to the name of the hotel I’m in, if I’m even in a hotel, and not some seedy rent-by-the-hour motel. A phone number is written across the top sheet.
Fuck. Am I any better than my ex at this point?
“I’m getting coffee and donuts,” I announce a little too hopeful I’m not too far outside of Sterling Falls to make my excuse legitimate. There’s no way I drove last night.
Is my Escalade still at Randy’s? What a clusterfuck.
“Give me a half hour, Zelle. Tell Aunt Vale I’m good.”
“Okay, Daddy.” My eight-year-old pauses a second. “You’re coming back, right?”
Fuck, again. And fuck Felicity for putting doubt into our children.
“Yeah, baby. I’ll be back to Aunt Vale’s soon.”
What I need is a liquid IV, something instant and deliverable, but being that I don’t know where I am or how I got here, that’s out of the question. Coffee it is this morning, a gallon’s worth and stat.
Shifting my legs off the side of the bed, I balance on the edge a second. Even with my feet firmly planted on the floor, my knees bounce. My hand holding the phone shakes. My left arm feels worthless.
“Be a good girl for Aunt Vale, baby. I’ll be there in thirty.”
“I’m counting backwards, starting now. Thirty, twenty-nine—”
“Love you, sweet girl.” I hang up and bitterly chuckle.
Guilt hits me like a ninety-seven mile per hour fast ball to the elbow. I wanted so much more for my girls. More than a cheating mother and a losing-it father.
Tipping back my head, I stare up at the ceiling a second.
Just one bat at a time, Ford. I could swing and miss as long as I learned from each misstep.
I’m not certain what lesson there is to be learned when one finds his wife—correction ex-wife—with another man from your team. A fellow player. A brother in sport.
Shaking my head because I don’t have the bandwidth for Felicity this morning, I notice my SUV fob and wallet on the desk across the room. Over the back of the chair are my jeans, neatly folded in half, along with my T-shirt and jacket from last night. Glancing down at my briefs, my dick is still pitching a tent in the material.
I didn’t fuck anyone last night.
I couldn’t have, right?
It’s been so long since I’ve had sex I’d remember the act.
But I don’t.
+ + +
Thankfully, I was outside Sterling Falls and quickly able to make good on my promise of donuts before returning to my sister’s home soon. As I stand inside Curmudgeon Bakery, the bake shop owned by my youngest brother, a female presence stands too close to me near the counter while I wait on my order. I do not have the energy to encounter a fan. Not yet.
Turning only my head, the bluest eyes meet mine and a wide, lush feminine mouth curls in recognition. “Hey you.”
I cringe at the cheerful familiarity in her voice. I also notice she’s wearing a Chicago Anchors baseball cap. Wisps of light brown hair dangle from beneath the hat around the long column of her neck.
I grunt in response.
Staring back at me, her eyes dance like little blue flames. Like she holds a secret or is about to let loose a laugh. Her head tilts the slightest bit, like she’s waiting on more than a disgruntled noise from me.
“Look, I don’t really want to sound like a dick, but I don’t want to sign any autographs today. I’m here for a family thing. Can you respect that?” My tone is a bit sharper than necessary, but my point is made. While everyone in this town might know me, I don’t want to be acknowledged this weekend.
Her dancing eyes dull. The crooked smile on her face falls, but I bury the guilt because I just want to be left alone.
I want to be Ford Sylver, brother to Sebastian Sylver, who owns the Curmudgeon Bakery. Not Ford Sylver, center fielder for the Chicago Anchors baseball team, otherwise known as The Streak. Rookie of the Year when I started fifteen years ago. A two-time Golden Glove recipient and countless times an All-Star player.
Quickly looking away from her, I sigh as I reach for my wallet in my back pocket and pull out my credit card for the bill.
The woman beside me continues to stare, standing a little too close and smelling a little familiar. Something citrusy. Grapefruit, maybe?
I wrinkle my nose as if I can distinguish the scent. What the hell am I doing?
As the bakery clerk tells me my total, I snort. “What happened to the friends and family discount?”
“It doesn’t apply to dickheads.” The deep masculine voice has me turning toward the back of the shop where my younger brother is exiting his office.
Fuck! I’m not ready to see Sebastian, especially when I’m wearing yesterday’s clothes, sweating out tequila, and this woman is still standing too close to me.
“Hey, man.” I open my arms, and Sebastian and I embrace in an awkward one clap on the back motion that doesn’t allow our chests to meet, before pulling apart like we singed one another. “Should you be working today?”
“I work every day.” His gruff voice suggests there’s something more he wants to say on the subject of working, but at the same time, he’s smiling a goofy grin. My little brother is getting married tomorrow. He’s in love and I’ve heard his future wife is a treasure. I haven’t met Enya, the woman who changed Sebastian’s life, yet.
I huff but Sebastian is already looking around me at the woman behind me.
“Hey, Cadence,” he states.
Cadence? Fuck, why does that sound . . .
Slowly, I turn to glance over my shoulder. The spark in her gemstone blue eyes has shifted to the iridescence of a blow torch, and she wants to incinerate me. Reaching for a napkin in the holder on the counter, she snatches one free. A bright purple marker appears in her other hand, and she leans forward, signing something on the flimsy paper.
When she stands upright, she slaps the napkin against my chest with a hard pat.
“Here. How about taking my autograph as you clearly lost my number?”
My mouth falls open.
Sebastian lets out a choking cough.
“Cadence,” I repeat the name like it is foreign on my tongue but familiar in my head.
“C-A-D-E-N-C-E. Seven letters like the number of digits in a phone number and the number of shots I drank to your . . . what was it?” She taps her chin like her memory needs a minute. Then she stands straighter. “Oh right, your four. Alliterative with your name, Ford. Or is it four, as in the number of inches in your . . .?” Her coolly amused eyes flicker to my crotch, those lush lips of hers kicking up on one side again in a wicked grin.
Harsh. Closing my eyes a second, my foggy memory clears a little. A woman singing in the corner of the bar. Her voice somber and sad. My offer to buy her a drink. She bought me one instead.
The thought of alcohol makes my stomach roll.
When a strong pat comes to my shoulder, my lids pop open. Sebastian rounds me and Cadence.
“Yeah, I’m not gonna touch that.” He chuckles harder as he walks around the glass bakery display case and steps behind the counter.
“Met your brother last night,” Cadence announces, looking away from me and toward Sebastian. “Pity party of one.”
