My Front Page Scandal

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“But you came back anyway, to visit a friend. Must be a pretty good friend.”

“A teammate,” he said shortly. Heavily. His defenses were dropping into place like a solid garage door. “Ex-teammate.”

She switched tactics. “You could give an interview, tell your side.” Although she hadn’t followed David’s story in the press very closely, she recalled that it had been fired by speculation after his abrupt, unexplained departure. “I don’t remember ever reading your actual reasons for leaving the team.”

His lip curled and the look in his eyes gave her blood a chill. “That’s because I don’t make excuses.”

Bang went the door.

4

DAVID KNEW HE WAS a miserable cur, snarling at Brooke the way he had, but as their meal proceeded, he realized that she wasn’t fazed. She stayed cool for a while in her ladylike way, but then the entrées came and no one could stop from smiling and relaxing with a mouthful of the best puttanesca and chicken Marsala this side of Italy.

Not even him.

“Mm-mmm.” She set her fork and knife at precise angles on the cleared plate and settled back to dab her mouth with the napkin. “I’d tell my friends about this place, but then they’d tell their friends, and so on, until Michelin was here, brandishing stars. And then even you would need reservations.”

He finished off a bit of focaccia, feeling shiny, as if there was butter on his cheeks. “Should we order dessert?”

“I couldn’t.”

“They have panna cotta.”

“Please, don’t tempt me.” She put her hand on her stomach. “I’ll burst out of this dress.”

One corner of his mouth twitched. “I’d pay to see that.”

A strand of her rich brown hair fell forward and she pushed it back with a lazy hand. Her lids must have been heavy; she gazed at him with her bedroom eyes gone all soft and sleepy. “That won’t happen. This fabric has Lycra.” She plucked at the draped neckline and the metallic threads glinted. “It has more stretch than you’d think.”

“Well, dang.”

She giggled. “I love it when you use southern vernacular. Give me more.”

He scratched the edge of his bandage. “Vernacular, huh?”

“Dialect. The way you talk.”

“Darlin’, I know what vernacular means.” He winked. “I went to college.”

“Of course you did.” She propped her chin on her hand. “You probably had more of a traditional education than me. I got a master’s in fine arts.”

“Hold on, there. I didn’t say I graduated.” He paused while their table was cleared. “After two years of college baseball, a minor-league scout got hold of me and said I’d be better off putting in the time on a pro team. I spent the next six years knocking around the bush leagues before finally getting called up to The Show.” Brooke looked somewhat dazed, so he added, “You know, the major leagues.”

“I know.” Her grin spread like molasses. “I saw BullDurham.”

“Touché.”

“I’m impressed, even if it took you six years.”

“Yeah, well, I was never what you’d call a star. Too slow, only so-so with the glove, but at least I could hit. I played second-string for the Milwaukee Brewers for a couple of years before being traded to the Sox, where I earned a permanent spot on the bench. Coach threatened to carve my name on it.”

“Until the World Series.”

“That’s right.” He was talking too much, and he couldn’t even blame the wine because Brooke had stolen his glass after he’d emptied the first one. Her concern was sweet. He wasn’t used to sweet.

“What was that like?” she asked. “Playing in the World Series?”

“Crazy.”

“Come on, you have to tell me more than that. I’ll never have dinner again with a man who came up to bat with two outs in the ninth inning of the seventh game and hit a home run that won the Series for the Sox.”

David opened his hands in a shrug. He’d given a lot of interviews in the weeks afterward, and lived to regret it when Bobby Cook had started sniffing around to find the “real” David Carerra story, hoping to uncover a scandal that would make his name as a reporter. “Honestly, I can hardly remember. It was an out-of-body experience.”

Brooke tilted toward him, still smiling, and he could see tiny, deep dimples cut into the very corners of her mouth. “You must remember something. Tell me.”

He shut his eyes. “The crowd in the stadium was roaring, so loud I could feel the vibrations in my bones. Except I was numb on the surface. I couldn’t feel my hands on the bat as I warmed up. None of it seemed real. But I was there, doing it.” He looked at her over steepled fingers. “The relief pitcher was a fireballer. I swung hard and missed. I felt that, all right, when my body corkscrewed around so tight my cleats got stuck in the ground.”

“You missed twice,” she said. “You had two strikes.”

“That’s right. Were you at the game?”

She shook her head. “My sister Joey went, the lucky duck. She got tickets through her law firm. My mother was already sick then, so the rest of us watched at home. Mom’s friend, Reba, almost passed out when you got the hit, but that might have been because of the Boilermakers she was drinking.” Brooke laced her fingers around his. “You must have felt it when you hit the home run. The crack of the bat was loud.”

“Yeah. I felt it.” The jolt had juddered right up his arms, into his shoulders.

“And then?”

“That’s when I go blank.” He stroked the veins that traced her fragile wrist. “I never saw the ball go out of the park, but I knew immediately that it was a home run. And I’ve seen the replay since then, so I know I ran the bases, but I don’t really remember any of it until my teammates attacked me at the plate.”

Brooke squeezed his hand. “You were in the dirt at the bottom of the pile. I remember how cute you looked afterward, giving interviews with a smudged face.”

David felt good inside, for once getting to reminisce without thinking too hard about the taint of later events. “Like I said, it was crazy.”

“We were jumping and laughing and yelling at home, too, making more noise in the house than we had in years. Reba, Katie and I danced around the coffee table until our aunt said we’d fall on Mom if we didn’t quit.” Brooke’s smile faded as she became more contemplative. “We’d only recently learned how sick she was. Having the playoffs to get excited about was no little thing. You gave my mom a real thrill. So, you know…thank you.”