Last Fall Read online

  Last Fall

  The Wild Pitch Series

  Alexis Anne

  Contents

  Praise for The Storm Inside

  Newsletter

  A Note About The Series . . .

  Reading Order

  Cast

  Series

  Social Media

  More from Alexis Anne

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  What To Read Next

  Author’s Note

  Calusa Key

  Mistletoe Key

  About the Author

  -Be A Frisky Friend-

  Praise for The Storm Inside

  “It was one of the best love stories I have read to date. The writing at times was so descriptive you could feel the love, pain, confusion and desperation between the characters.”

  -Books Unhinged

  “This book starts off with a BANG! Literally!! Their scenes together were so intense and the sex scenes were so hot, my whole body felt on fire.”

  -Lustful Literature

  “The sex was HOT! Jake melted me with his words.”

  -Miscellaneous Thoughts of a Bookaholic

  “I loved the writer’s portrayal of what life can throw at young love.”

  -Brenda’s Book Beat

  PRAISE FOR TEMPT

  “Very erotic.”

  -Cosmopolitan.com

  “This has truly been an awesome book and an amazing series.”

  -Books of Past, Present, and Future

  Last Fall

  by Alexis Anne

  http://AlexisAnneBooks.com/

  Copyright 2018 by Alexis Sykes

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without expressed written permission from the author. All characters and events appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Newsletter

  If you’d like updates about my books sign up for my newsletter! I promise you won’t get too many emails. (I’m too busy writing to bug you with email!)

  A Note About The Series . . .

  To help you navigate the Wild Pitch world I’ve included a cast list, reading order, and this note to explain a few things.

  The Wild Pitch series is a spin-off from my very first series, The Storm Inside series. You can read each book alone just like you can read Wild Pitch without reading The Storm Inside books, but I highly recommend you read them all!

  The heart of The Wild Pitch series are the Daniels sisters, Eve and June, and their extended family, The Mantas. These books have baseball in them, but at their core they are about family and taking advantage of our mistakes to grow into something even better than before.

  Happy reading!

  xoxo

  Alexis

  Reading Order

  The Wild Pitch Series

  1: Summer Heat (forbidden love)

  2: Night Games (enemies to lovers)

  3. Last Fall (slow burn)

  To read from the very, very beginning, start with The Storm Inside Series:

  1. The Storm Inside (Jake & Eve 1)

  2. Reflected in the Rain (Jake & Eve 2)

  3. When Lightning Strikes (Greg & Marie)

  4. Never Let Go (Jake & Eve 3)

  Cast

  The Spencers

  Eve Daniels Spencer: The oldest Daniels sister. Eve is the Director of Fan Experience for the Mantas baseball team. Married to Jake Spencer. Daughters: Max and Sam

  Jake Spencer: Engineer and co-owner of Spencer, Hamilton, and Associates. Married to Eve, father of Max and Sam

  Sam Spencer: the oldest of Jake and Eve’s daughters

  Max Spencer: the youngest of Jake and Eve’s daughters

  The Hamiltons

  Marie Bancroft Hamilton: CEO of Bancroft Sports and wife of Greg Hamilton. Marie is Erik’s agent.

  Greg Hamilton: Professional Swearer, engineer, and co-owner of Spencer, Hamilton, and Associates.

  Natalie Bancroft: Marie’s daughter

  The St. James

  June Daniels St. James: The youngest Daniels sister. June is a trainer for the Mantas and Aim For Athletics, a rehab facility for elite athletes. She is married to Roman St. James.

  Roman St. James: Former ball player turned agent, Roman works for Marie at Bancroft Sports. He is also founder of Aim For Athletics.

  The Allens

  Dr. Carrie Anne Walker: Orthopedic Physician for the Mantas. Married to Wes Allen. Mother of cats.

  Wes Allen: Mantas catcher, Instagram superstar, husband to Carrie, and Father of Cats.

  Extended Family

  Zoe Burke: Former nanny for the Spencers. Now a best selling author known as Zoe Hyde.

  Erik Cassidy: Mantas second baseman, known as Papa Bear to the team, Erik is a big brother to his friends and family

  Seth Butler: Mantas left-fielder and Erik’s roommate. Leads the team in homers.

  Chris Kaine: Mantas catcher. Recently moved “home” to Calusa Key to become a monk (according to Seth.)

  Madeline Faints: Retired Pop Star

  Nora Phillips: Reclusive music composer living in Calhoun Beach

  Logan Phillips: Childhood friend of Adam Callaway and former rugby teammate of Michael Sutherland. A pastry chef who works for Mrs. Callaway. Also practices yoga. Former bodyguard.

  Lily Lawrence: Actress and Screenwriter. Co-owner of Lily & Kaine Productions.

  Scott Kaine: Hollywood Bad Boy turned America’s Boy Next Door. Co-owner of Lily & Kaine Productions.

  Lucy Davis: Manager of Lily & Kaine Productions.

  Social Media

  Last Fall on Bookbub

  Last Fall’s Pinterest Board

  Last Fall’s Spotify Playlist

  Signup for Alexis’s Newsletter

  Goodreads

  Bookbub

  Instagram

  Facebook

  Twitter

  Alexis Anne’s Facebook Reader Group

  AlexisAnneBooks.com

  More from Alexis Anne

  THE STORM INSIDE

  Reflected in the Rain

  When Lightning Strikes

  Never Let Go

  Summer Heat

  Night Games

  Last Fall

  Tease

  Tempt

  Burn

  Stripped

  5 Dirty Sins

  6 Dirty Secrets

  7 Dirty Lies

  The Storm Inside Box Set

  The Tease Series Box Set (Books 1-4)

  The Tease Series Box Set 2 (Books 5-7)

  The Calusa Key Series:

  Come For Me, Darling

  Go Away, Darling

  Kiss Me, Darling

  The Complete List of Alexis Anne Books

  Sign up for my newsletter!

  Fill your empty spaces with hope,

  with goals,

/>   with the gritty determination every woman is born with.

  Fill it with belief in yourself first.

  Prologue

  Zoe

  They say it’s not the fall that will kill you. It’s the sudden stop at the end. Having fallen for an absolute bastard I’m not so sure that the saying applies to love. In my case it was the sudden end that saved my life.

  Some people are bad. Some people are bad together. And then there are people who are just completely toxic. I have no doubt that another day with Tony would have killed me.

  I thought love was supposed to be complicated.

  Hard.

  That’s what my parents always said. “Marriage is work. It’s hard to spend your life with another person but in the end it’s worth it.” It took me a long time to realize what it was I had gotten so wrong. Love isn’t complicated at all.

  It’s simple.

  Incredibly simple, actually.

  It’s the people that are complicated.

  But I didn’t understand any of that until I met Erik.

  1

  ERIK

  Breakfast of Champions

  “The shaving cream people are very happy with the commercial, Erik, and it looks like you’ll be doing a new round of cereal commercials next month,” Marie Hamilton said.

  After seven years as my agent, Marie and I had developed a pretty casual working relationship of brunches for work and “family” dinners with her extended circle of friends, for fun. Growing up with a single mom who busted ass to keep us afloat, I had a healthy respect for badass women like Marie, plus she was really good at her job. It made it easy to be friends.

  “It’s so weird to see my face on television.” I really thought it would eventually seem less weird but it wasn’t happening. Morning after morning my roommate—left fielder Seth Butler—turned on the local morning news while he ate breakfast.

  And morning after morning he laughed and laughed as I dashed through a pretend house getting ready for a game, landing at a counter with a bowl of cereal, telling the Tampa Bay viewers to enjoy their day.

  As far as endorsements went, it wasn’t bad . . . other than my face and voice interrupting my actual breakfast everyday.

  When I dreamed of playing baseball for a living it hadn’t occurred to me it would involve light acting and modeling. Most of the time I shrugged it off as part of the job.

  Marie chuckled. “I’d say you’ll get used to it but . . . let’s face it. You’re a year into this commercial deal and you have to be the most modest guy on the Mantas lineup. You’ll never get used to it.” She finished off her coffee with an evil grin. “Maybe you should hide the remote from Butler.”

  I groaned. Living with Seth was supposed to be temporary.

  Tampa was supposed to be temporary.

  And yet here I was five years later, still living with one foot out the door. “Or maybe I should just suck it up and buy my own place.”

  “Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner.” Then she patted my hand. “You bought your mom’s house, you and Jack have paid for your sisters’ colleges. Everyone is taken care of. It’s time to relax a little and enjoy that paycheck I worked so hard to get you.”

  She was right. I knew she was right. It was just hard. I’d spent my whole life taking care of my family. They’d needed it and I was happy to step up and help. Once it started to look like I might even manage to have a career in baseball it got even easier. I worked harder than I’d ever worked before to prove I could be an asset to any team, and once the Mantas gave me a chance I seized on the team’s disorganization to become the steady foundation they needed to wrangle so many big personalities. My family experience came in handy.

  And here I was now, with a city behind me, a team that I loved, and a family that didn’t need me to take care of them anymore.

  It was probably fair to say I was in shock.

  Marie signaled for the check and refused my offer to pay. “It’s on Bancroft Sports.” She rolled her eyes as I continued to grab for the slip of paper. “So there is one thing we haven’t touched on and it’s starting to bug me.”

  “What’s that?” I generally didn’t worry about Marie’s questions because she was a straight shooter. It was one of many reasons that we got along so well.

  So I didn’t see this line of questioning coming.

  “What happened to Laurie?”

  “Nothing.” I shrugged. “We dated and then we went our separate ways.” I tried one last time to snag the check.

  She whipped it out of my reach and practically launched it at our waiter. “So who are you dating now?”

  Why did she suddenly care about my love life? “I’m laying low.”

  “Laying low?”

  “Yes.” I said it slowly just in case she was having trouble with her hearing.

  She twisted her lips and tapped her nail against the table. “You know I seem to remember you dating pretty actively when you first moved to Tampa. Not like Wes or anything ridiculous like that, but you were always dating someone. Not so much these last two years.”

  Oh was that all? “I’m too old and too tired to mess around with women I don’t see—”

  “As future Mrs. Cassidy material,” she interrupted. “This is why I like you, Erik. You’re a good guy who knows the importance of family. But I was just wondering if the reason you’ve been so single lately has less to do with the available women of Tampa Bay and more to do with the fact that you’ve already found the future Mrs. Cassidy.”

  Well I did not see that one coming. Like, at all. “Excuse me?”

  She leaned closer, her eyes zeroing in on me in a way that made me feel a lot like a lamb about to be slaughtered. “Let me put this as simply as I can. You love Zoe Burke. There, that was really simple.” She might as well have patted herself on the back for as proud as she looked for calling me out.

  And that was exactly what she was doing. Somewhere in the back of my brain I recognized all of this, but I didn’t have time to focus on any of that because I was quietly freaking the fuck out.

  I thought I’d done a damn good job of keeping my infatuation with a certain quiet writer to myself. Wes knew. For as big of a selfish jackass as he could be, he was also freakishly observant. But other than him? No one knew. I made a huge effort to seem cool and calm around her. If anything, I was trying to be her friend. She needed friends a hell of a lot more than she needed some dumb jock panting after her.

  “I . . . ” have no idea what to say. “I do not . . . love . . . Zoe.” There. That was easy. A whole sentence and everything. It was a total lie, but it was a sentence.

  “Oh my god, you’re a terrible liar,” Marie groaned. “Look, anyone with eyes can see the way you watch her. You’ve got the lovesick thing down to a science.”

  Possibly the most emasculating thing someone had said to me since the last time I was with all my sisters. They were good at keeping my ego in check. Not that I really needed it. I knew who I was: a ballplayer and not much else. I had no misguided belief that I’d get lucky a second time. Playing professional baseball was the top of the mountain for me.

  Not like Zoe. No, she had the whole world ahead of her. “I don’t know what you think you see but—”

  “Nope. Not listening to your lies. I don’t have time for it. Just open your ears and listen.” She dropped her voice to just above a whisper. “I bring it up for a reason. I can see that you are as concerned as the rest of us about her . . . issues. I’m assuming that’s why you’re trying to do the friend thing instead of the boyfriend thing.”

  I’d gotten the story from Eve, Zoe’s former employer and one of my good friends on the staff of the Mantas. Zoe picked up and moved to Tampa suddenly. No one knows why because she refuses to talk about it. Eve hired her as a nanny while Zoe worked on launching her writing career. She quickly became a member of the family. Everyone loved her and for good reason. She was one of those genuinely sweet people who loved with her whole heart. I saw it every ti
me she was with Eve’s daughters. You can’t fake that kind of caring.

  I was immediately drawn to her . . . and the fact that she was incredibly sexy only made me want her more. I tried my usual “get to know the girl, get her smiling, slip in a casual dinner request” routine, but it hadn’t gone well. No, I’d say it went terribly, actually. I’d never had flirting go so wrong.

  I shook the memory away. “She’s not interested.”

  “I said listen.” Marie sighed with exasperation. “You’re an idiot if you can’t see how much she’s interested in you.”

  “No . . . ” She couldn’t be. After the disastrous flirting two years ago I realized Zoe wasn’t dating anyone so I put my bruised ego in check and just tried to be her friend.