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“Mickey Morrison. He’s supposed to start teaching math at the community college next week.”
“Any regrets about renting the place out?”
Jack shrugged. “It was cozy enough while I was remodeling the big house, but no. It served its purpose.”
“Except Dani’s furious that you gave her ‘dollhouse’ away.”
Jack smiled, remembering how his daughter had declared the guest house her playroom and that he absolutely could not let anyone else live there. “There’s nothing quite like a scorned four-year-old,” he said to Drew.
“She’s a special little girl, Jack. You and Stacy have done a great job raising her.”
“You’re contributing your share.” He continued his perusal of the stands as Drew tapped the ground repeatedly with his bat.
“I wanted to thank you for letting her call me Dad. It means a lot to me,” Drew said after clearing his throat.
Jack shifted on the bench, hammering down the flash of insecurity he’d been struggling to control ever since Dani had broached the subject with him. “She seemed concerned that when her new sibling arrives he or she would be confused by big sister not calling you Dad. She calls me Daddy, so it’s different.”
“She’s always been particularly sensitive to people’s feelings. Amazingly so, for a child.”
“My brother was like that. God, I miss him so much. If Dan had lived—”
“Life would have been different for all of us, Jack. Immeasurably different.”
Unwilling to step back in time, Jack tuned in to the noise and activity around them, catching snippets of conversation and laughter until he spotted The Mou—Coach sliding into a vacant seat. He raised a hand to her and was rewarded with a quick wave in return. Inordinately glad that she’d already singled him out from so far away, his confidence rose. Maybe he’d hit a home run today, or start a double play, or—
He struck out once, flied out twice and got on first because of a fielder’s error. Not exactly the shining example he’d wanted to present. Plus he’d never even had a chance to slide. On the other hand, he’d gotten three runners out at second and had thrown right on target to the first baseman.
Coach had been uncharacteristically quiet during the game, as if she sensed his disappointment over his performance. He missed the badgering. He wanted to hear, “Hey, Ponytail,” followed by a caustically given instruction—or even an insult. Wondering where her gruff exterior had fled, he kept an eye on her as he shook hands with the opposing team members after the game. He saw her descend the stairs to stand by the railing, and he walked over, gauging how close to get by observing her body language, a skill at which he was becoming entirely too competent.
“Your fielding’s improving,” she said.
“My hitting stinks.”
She shrugged. “It could use some work.”
“I’m willing to put my ego aside again, if you’re willing to teach me.”
He watched her ponder his words. The old Jack would have pushed. The newer, improved model dug deep within himself for patience.
“Bring a couple of bats and as many softballs as you can borrow,” she said after a long debate.
“Monday at six?” Why do you look so sad? he wanted to ask, noting weariness in her posture, as if she’d been defeated in battle and needed to mend.
She nodded, then pushed away from the railing.
“You okay, Coach?” he asked as she turned away.
Mickey shoved her hands into her pockets. I need a hug, she wanted to say. I’m lonely and I’m tired of not sleeping. And I get scared of the noises in the woods.
“Coach?”
She shifted to face him again. He had a nice face, a face with character—deep blue eyes dark with obvious concern for her, a jaw that held an edge of stubbornness, a mouth that looked as if it could utter soothing words or deliver hot, arousing kisses, both of which she could have used, neither of which she dared accept. He projected self-confidence and strength. He wasn’t afraid to take chances. He wasn’t afraid to fail. She wondered if he could teach her that as easily as she’d taught him how to slide.
“I’m fine, Ponytail. I was just thinking about the Help Wanted sign I saw hanging on the snack bar. You might keep that in mind as an option.”
He looked relieved that she teased him, seemed her old self again. She’d gotten good at bluffing. Too good, she realized. She’d had a difficult week, had missed her family more than she ever could have imagined. Aside from her lesson with Ponytail and polite exchanges with clerks in stores, she hadn’t spoken to anyone except a dog that joined her by the stream one day this week. He’d laid his head in her lap and let her pet him for a few minutes, then after one lick of her face he’d loped away, his golden coat gleaming in the sunlight, his tags jangling.
“We’re all headed to Chung Li’s Pizza. Would you like to come?” Ponytail asked, moving a few steps closer, as if he thought he needed to catch her as she fainted.
“Thanks, but I’ve got to get home. I’ll see you Monday.”
“I hope it’s going to hurt less than the first lesson,” he called as she jogged up the stairs.
“No guarantees,” she yelled back. “No guarantees,” she repeated softly to herself. Not in baseball. Not in life.
“Keep your weight on your back foot, then step into the swing,” Mickey instructed him as he stood at home plate. “And—”
“I know. Keep my shoulder down and both eyes on the ball.”
“Right.” She pitched the ball, which landed in a poof of dirt two feet in front of the plate.
He stared at it, then lifted his head, his mouth clamped against a smile. “That was just to see if I was paying attention, right?”
“I’m a little rusty,” she said in apology, fighting a returning smile. Add a sense of humor to the list of appealing things about him, she thought. She’d looked forward to today more than she’d wanted to, more than was healthy to achieve her goals. She’d forsaken leaning on her family for a while, until she came to terms with herself as an independent person. Now she was in danger of leaning on this man, who was a tempting combination of character, sexiness and, she suspected, comfort.
“Glad to know you’re not perfect, Coach.”
He hit the next pitch—almost straight up.
“Didn’t anyone teach you to call ‘fore,’ Ponytail?”
“Get the pitch up over the plate and I won’t have to golf it,” he chided.
The next pitch sailed over the plate—ten feet off the ground.
“Very funny,” he said, grinning. “You got that out of your system?”
“Maybe.”
“You like a challenge, don’t you?”
Mickey pictured her three brothers and the constant competition they’d all given one another while growing up. She’d learned early to play hard—or tricky—or else be left behind. And being left behind was worse than occasionally putting on a dress to please her mother.
Ponytail showed steady improvement over the half hour they practiced, learning to level out his swing and concentrate just on connecting, not always going for home runs. They had to stop every so often to gather the balls from the outfield, otherwise she worked him constantly.
“Thursday will be the last game for the season,” he told her as they collected balls for the last time.
“Really? So soon?” Now what? When will I see you again?
“The town’s not large enough to support more than five teams. We play each other twice, then we’re done.”
“I take it you hadn’t played much baseball before this.”
“What was your first clue, Sherlock?” he asked as he approached, carrying an armload of balls.
Jack leaned toward her; most of the balls spilled into the sack she held, some dropped to the ground. They crouched simultaneously, their heads almost colliding, their hands grasping the same ball. She tried to pull back; he tightened his grip on her hand.
“What’s your name?” he asked quietly, intently-
She shook her head as she jerked her hand away.
“Why won’t you tell me?”
“I—I’m going through a transition right now. I need...I need to handle it alone.” She stood, then backed away, watching him as if she thought he’d lunge after her.
The last thing he needed right now was a woman with problems, but he also recognized fear when he saw it, and unwillingly decided he’d give just about anything to identify the source and chase it away. How could someone he knew nothing about have become so important, so fast? Why had her well-being superseded everything else in his life? He’d barely been able to concentrate on the textbook he was writing, and his deadline threatened imminently. He couldn’t afford the time his mind had been giving her. “You don’t need friends?” he asked before she could run off.
“I need to be a friend to myself,” she said quietly, turning her head toward a group of people just entering the stadium.
His lawyer’s instincts sprang to attention. A hundred questions crossed his mind. Had she been abused? Had she run away from someone or something? Was she hiding out? How could he help her?
“Without the baseball games, you’re going to disappear from my life,” he said. “That would be a mistake.”
She looked back at him. “Why?”
Jack took three steps toward her, stopping when her shoulders tensed. “There’s a connection between us. Something that made you pick me out of a crowd even though you didn’t know anything about me. The things you yelled to me would have brought some men to their knees. How did you know I wouldn’t fall apart, or strangle you?”
She shrugged, as if she hadn’t spent a minute analyzing it. “Your posture, your smile. I don’t know. You project confidence. The guys on your team gave you a bad time. You laughed it off and kept plugging away.” She tugged the bill of her cap. “Well, I guess I’d better get going. See you Thursday.” She started up the stairs, then suddenly spun around again. “You did really well today.”
“Thanks. You made it easy.” He wanted to follow her, force her to take off the damned sunglasses and cap, look him in the eye—tell him how he could help her. He’d been making a concerted effort in the past year to be more spontaneous, but he’d also discovered that spontaneity sometimes took some planning, a paradoxical idea he’d never uttered aloud to anyone.
He’d have to think about planning something spontaneous for Thursday night.
They were down by four runs in the top of the fifth inning. A base hit and two walks loaded the bases for Ponytail, his third at bat this game. He’d connected with solid singles his first two times at the plate. If his luck held this time, the lead would probably be cut in half.
He didn’t even swing at the first pitch. In fact, he looked frozen in place, the pressure too much to take.
“Thataway, Ponytail. Wait for your pitch,” Mickey yelled.
He dropped the bat, miming comic amazement that she was calling out encouragement. She noted people around her smiling amongst themselves over her lack of nastiness to him, and she heaved a huge internal sigh. For someone who had wanted anonymity, she’d sure earned a reputation in a short time. Since she’d never been content to sit on the sidelines before, she didn’t know why she had expected herself capable of it now.
She watched him scoop up a handful of dirt to absorb the sweat off his palms, then settle in at the plate again.
Crack!
The ball sailed over the shortstop’s head and dropped between the center and left fielders. The stands erupted with cheering; Mickey knew he couldn’t possibly hear her yelling instructions to him as she watched the progress of the ball and the outfielders chasing it. His teammates shouted and motioned for him to keep running.
One runner scored. Two. Three. He rounded third and headed to home. The ball soared in to the cutoff man at second base.
“Slide!” Mickey screamed, cupping her hands into a human megaphone. “Slide!”
Whoosh! Down he went, streaking into home amidst a rooster tail of dirt and dust at the same moment the ball landed with a pop in the catcher’s mitt.
“Safe!” the umpire bellowed.
His teammates mobbed him at the plate where he lay gasping, their voices rumbling with congratulations and surprise at the in-the-park home run. The only thing Jack could hear distinctly was Coach’s voice, an octave higher than the men’s and clearly thrilled at his success.
“All right, Ponytail! You did it! You did it!”
Someone stuck out a helping hand. Jack grasped it and was pulled to his feet. “Which one of you dropped that piano on my back as I got to third?” he asked, doubled over, eliciting laughter from the team as he was swept into their circle of celebration. Finding an unexpected well of energy, he broke out of the group and jogged away from them, toward the stands, toward Coach.
Across the field, past the opponent’s dugout, up the stairs he trotted, until he stood in front of her and could see her delayed reaction to his presence. Lifting a hand to her cap, he spun it around until the bill pointed backward. Gently, he pulled off her sunglasses and passed them to the person beside her. He settled his hands on her shoulders, and he could feel imminent flight within her and see caution in her eyes. Brown eyes, he noted, clear as aged brandy.
“I’ve won a lot of cases in court, Coach, but nothing ever made me feel as good as this. Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you.” That said, he dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers.
Spontaneous combustion. The words raced through his mind as what he’d planned as a friendly kiss of gratitude exploded into something much more. Stunned, more winded than he’d been after the run around the bases, he pulled back after five seconds on a roller coaster that had reached the top of the first hill instantly and started a swift descent into frenzied madness.
Mickey opened her eyes slowly as Ponytail pulled back; she looked into eyes as startled as her own must be. Knowing this moment was all she would ever have of this man, she grabbed his T-shirt with both fists and held him there.
The familiar odors of sweat, dirt and glove leather assailed her, sending her careening back to adolescence, to a happy and carefree time. For an instant she was transported into the dugout at the spring training camp of the L.A. Seagulls, the major league baseball team her father had managed for the past fourteen years. Comfort, familiarity, homecoming—she felt all this as she twisted his T-shirt in her hands and dragged him back to her.
“You’re welcome,” she murmured. Standing on tiptoe, she looped her arms around his neck and tugged. Amidst catcalls and whistles all around them, she kissed him back, reveling in the arousing taste of his mouth and the solid comfort of his body.
She wandered aimlessly, lost in a storm of feeling that obliterated everything from thought. For two years she’d been dead, worse than dead—lifeless. Now there was just him, and her, and their embrace—life’s most glorious celebration. Then from below her a tiny, high-pitched voice sliced into the maelstrom.
“Mommy, why is that lady kissing my daddy?”
Three
Ice water. Someone had dumped a fifty-five-gallon drum of frigid liquid on her, Mickey thought as she jerked herself out of his arms.
“Shh, Dani,” she heard a woman say.
“But, Mommy—”
Mickey realized it was Stacy who spoke to the child, a little girl dressed in a summer shift like her mother always wore. A little girl with long, silky brown hair like her mother and dark blue eyes like...Ponytail. Her father.
Mickey’s hands flew up to cover her mouth as she realized what it all meant. He was married. Married to Stacy, the only person Mickey had spoken to at the games, the person she’d passed instructions to Ponytail through. They were a family.
And she’d kissed him. He’d given her a friendly kiss. Well, sort of. It had escalated into something else. But she’d pulled him back for another longer, hotter, deeper kiss. He could have stopped her, though. Couldn’t he?
Furious and embarrassed, Mickey snatched back her sunglasses and leapt onto the bench behind her, then the one beyond that. Another. Another. Lord, for a small stadium, it seemed endless. She couldn’t get out fast enough.
Jack watched her take off. A few seconds passed before he interpreted the look of horror on her face. Realizing the conclusion she’d jumped to, he scrambled to follow her.
“Coach, wait!” He had the advantage of longer legs, but she was being chased by a demon. He gave up trying to explain in private. “We’re divorced, Coach! I’m not married!” he yelled as she hit the top of the stadium, ready to take flight.
His plastic cleats spun on the concrete stairs and he tripped just as he pulled within arm’s reach, calling out as he stumbled, and fell with a thud.
