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“Probably not, but I think we both know she needs someone right now. I’m going to try to fight through her stubbornness and see if that person can be me. I was curious if you thought it could be you. Samantha said you wouldn’t leave her side at the end.”
“I couldn’t,” Jayson said and felt the grief overcome him. Standing there by Duff’s bedside watching him drift away. Feeling his pain, her pain. Watching the separation between them grow.
But he’d made a promise.
“I’ll...I’ll do what I can. But it’s not like I can be... I mean I can’t be anything more than a friend to her. If she even wants that. She’s let me hang around the house these last few months, but I think that’s mostly because she couldn’t spare the energy to tell me to leave.”
“Hmm,” Alice said, looking at him, clearly assessing him. He reminded her of Scout when she was checking out a new prospect. As if she could figure out if a kid could hit a curveball just by seeing how he stood. “I see.”
“See what exactly, ma’am?”
“You didn’t break her heart like Duff said. She broke yours.”
Jayson nodded. “She’s still breaking it.”
“I know how that feels, son.” Alice patted him on the arm. “I truly do. The thing about my daughter...when things get difficult, she likes to hide. With something like this I’m afraid she’ll hide so deep no one will ever find her again. I know she’s hurt you, but I think, Jayson, you might be her only hope. She’s going to need someone who knows her tricks, someone who knows them and still loves her for them, if she has a chance of coming out of this. I know that’s an awful thing to ask. But I’m her mother so I’m asking it anyway.”
“You don’t have to, ma’am. Duff already did.”
Alice smiled. “Of course he did. Of course he did. Well, I imagine I’ll be seeing you around then, Jayson.”
“You’re not heading back home after this is over?” Jayson asked. That was probably news Scout didn’t know.
“Depends which home you mean. My current home, no. The home I used to have...yes. Whether she likes it or not.”
Jayson whistled under his breath.
“You might think my daughter is stubborn,” Alice said with a slightly evil smile. “But I’m worse.”
As she turned and walked away, Jayson thought these next few weeks were probably going to get very interesting.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_4c1dac23-964a-561c-8870-a562b7b9c745)
Two weeks later...
“I’M READY TO WORK.”
Jayson looked up from his desk and shook his head. Scout hadn’t even bothered to knock. Just opened his door and walked right in with her announcement.
Like this was still Duff’s office and not his.
This transition for her was not going to be fun, he thought, but he knew if they were going to live in the same town, going forward there were going to have to be boundaries.
He needed boundaries.
The season was now officially over and he was just putting his last player evaluation forms together. Not that he would take the next few months off. Even in the off-season Jayson liked to stay involved with the stadium and its activities. He found that it connected him more solidly with the team.
Jerry, the team’s general manager, and his staff would work pretty much year-round until the start of the new season. Making concession stand changes, planning different local events and, most important, trying to figure out new and creative ways to fill the seats.
But for the players’ manager there wasn’t a whole lot to do other than study scouting prospects and give feedback on the upcoming draft next June. To that end Jayson had set up a tryout camp, which would start in the next few weeks. They were usually long shots, but he liked being proactive.
“Did you hear me?”
“You mean what you said after you barged into my office without knocking?”
She had the sense to look sheepish. “Sorry about that.”
Jayson decided boundaries were really the least of his concerns. She was his priority.
“Scout, I don’t think you are ready to work.”
She was standing in front of him in a pair of ripped jeans and a stained T-shirt. Her hair looked as if it hadn’t seen a brush in days, and the bags under her eyes were nearly black. He didn’t need to guess that she hadn’t eaten or slept in days. It was all there on her face, but he could see she’d sworn off the drugs. Her green eyes were clear and focused.
Knowing Scout, she wouldn’t have wanted to take anything that might have diluted her pain. No doubt she would have thought she was being disloyal to Duff by not grieving him hard enough.
It made him ache, but he knew deep inside he had to hold himself back a little. For example, he couldn’t get up and walk around his desk and hold her. He couldn’t try to help shoulder the burden of her grief for her.
He would look after her, make sure she was still upright. Because he’d promised to do that. But it was as far as he could go.
Or it would happen again, like it did the first time. He’d fall for her. Hard. Jayson was fairly certain he’d never survive a second round.
“No, I can do it. We’ve got the tryout camp coming up in a few weeks and I should be there. Not to mention high school fall ball is starting. The Rebels are going to want me out at games.”
“I talked to Greg and Reuben. They were at Duff’s service, of course. Reuben said to give you all the time you needed.”
Jayson didn’t want to think about the underlying tone of that conversation. Scout didn’t need anything else to worry about in her current state.
Scout’s jaw dropped. “Wait a minute. You talked to Greg? My new boss? What right did you have to do that?”
Jayson just looked at her and she immediately backed down.
“Okay, I appreciate you covering for me for these last two weeks, but I’m telling you I’m ready to get out there and start working. Even if I’m not ready, I still need to get out there and start working.”
He leaned back in his chair. Scout moved forward to put her hands on his desk.
“Jayson, my mother isn’t leaving. She’s staying in my house. She’s unpacked suitcases, filled up dresser drawers. I don’t think she has any plans to go home. Neither does Samantha, for that matter. She just keeps waving her phone in my face and telling me she can work from anywhere. Do you know what this is doing to me?”
“They’re trying to help you,” he reminded her. “They are your family and they love you despite all the drama of the past. If you would stop being so stubborn, you might see that. You might realize that we’re all of us here for you, Scout.”
She grimaced and crossed her arms over her chest. Typical Scout defense mode.
“I don’t need their help. There is nothing anyone can do. He’s gone. There is no bringing him back. What are they going to do? Wave some magic wand and fix me? They can’t. I’m broken and that’s all there is. But I’ve still got two eyes and two ears and I’ll know if a sixteen-year-old hitter has the stuff.”
Jayson did stand then and walk around his desk. He tried not to feel hurt when she took a deliberate step back. Sometimes when he was around her he felt like his skin was laced with some kind of poison, that the merest touch might kill her.
“Scout, you’re not eating, you don’t sleep. You’re not...strong enough to be out on the road day in and day out. I won’t let you do it.”
That apparently was not the correct thing to say. For a man walking a tightrope, mistakes like that could be fatal.
“You won’t let me?” she screeched.
And there it was. It was one of Scout’s least attractive traits. When she was angry, truly angry, her voice would rise five octaves until she sounded, as her sister Lane so accurately described it, like a howler monkey.
“Let. Me,” she screeched again.
“Scout, calm down.”
“You don’t get to let me do anything. Am I or am I not a member of the New England Rebels scouting team?”
She was. The decision had been made by the Rebels prior to Duff’s death. Scout was to take a sabbatical to care for her dying father, but when she was ready to return she would go back to her old job of scouting, reporting directly to Greg.
He really couldn’t stop her from working if that was what she wanted.
“I’m broken and that’s all there is.”
Finally, she’d said it, Jayson thought. As if she was never not going to be broken.
That’s why I brought you here, son. You’ve got to fix her.
Jayson shook his head. He hated when that happened. When his subconscious called up these sentences, which sounded in his head as if Duff were talking directly to him. Which of course was ridiculous because he was dead.
Jayson’s very Catholic mother would have said it was Duff talking to him from heaven.
Either way it mostly scared the crap out of him.
“Answer me!”
Yep. Full-on howler monkey.
“You are.”
“Then I get to determine when I go back to work, and I say I’m ready to go back now. I’m going to call Greg and let him know myself.”
“Fine. Then why did you even come down here? You obviously weren’t asking for my opinion.”
“Because...”
He took some satisfaction in that. She’d come down to tell him because she did want his blessing. Maybe his support, too. She couldn’t help herself.
In the months leading up to Duff’s death, he and Scout had basically called a time-out on their own personal drama. Neither really had the energy to deal with what they’d once meant to each other and the anger that was still there on both sides four years later. He’d been this quiet presence in her life and she’d let him be there.
In the past two weeks, though, it seemed like that temporary freeze was beginning to thaw. Scout was getting pricklier and more defensive. For his part, that tightrope was getting harder and harder to walk.
They gravitated toward each other. They couldn’t seem to help it. He went to her house, she came to his. Sometimes to cry, sometimes to talk.
Never to touch. Touching was clearly forbidden.
Jayson knew why she’d really come to the stadium. She couldn’t help herself and it made him feel he wasn’t alone in his suffering.
Gravity. It was a hell of thing.
“I didn’t think about it... I just figured I would let you know,” she said softly as if realizing there was no legitimate reason to tell him about her decision to return to work. “I’ll call Greg.”
Again Jayson felt this heavy throb of pain. He couldn’t let her do this, but he wasn’t going to be able to stop her, either.
“Hey, can I tag along with you on your first few outings? I’ll make sure you’re doing the necessary things like eating and sleeping and at the same time I can keep myself busy. You know I hate this period.”
She smiled. “Some people look forward to a little downtime in the off-season.”
“I’m not one of them.”
She paused for a second, as if considering her options, but then she nodded. “It might be good to have company. I get a little crazy in my head when I’m by myself. Probably the only reason I haven’t kicked out Mom and Bob. Bob! Can you believe it? Him staying in Duff’s house of all places.”
“He’s not a bad guy,” Jayson told her. “Did you know he was with your mom before she met Duff? He was actually a navy SEAL. He was being sent off to some hotspot for an undisclosed duration. He didn’t want your mom to wait so he decided to break up with her before he left.”
Scout just stared at him. “Who told you that?”
She probably wasn’t going to like this either, but it was time Jayson stopped hiding that he disagreed with Scout’s decision to shun her mother. Family was family and she needed all of hers. That Alice had managed to get her foot in the door at Scout’s house and keep it there meant maybe Scout somehow was aware of it, too.
“I was talking to him after the funeral. Your mom, too, for that matter. You two are a lot alike.”
“We are not! She’s a cheater and I can’t believe you would take their side.”
“There are no sides here, Scout.”
“Yes, there are. Theirs and mine. You get that better than anyone and now you are choosing their side. Great, just great!”
He could see the tears in her eyes and the hysteria building. In two steps he was in front of her, his hands around her upper arms, shaking her a little and forcing her to look at him.
“Scout, I’m here for you. For you. And I’m not going anywhere. Got it?”
She looked right into his eyes in a way that always made his insides tighten. As if she was seeing straight through him.
“Until you leave me again. Yeah,” she said pulling away from him. “I got it.”
There it was. The final second of their time-out just ticked on the clock.
The past was back.
Which meant so was the pain.
Five years ago...
SCOUT WAS STILL trying to process the fact that Jayson LeBec’s tongue was in her mouth. Man, he tasted good. Like sparkling water that bubbled as she drank it and made her whole body want to squirm.
The wedding of the owner of the Minotaurs, Jocelyn Taft, and the town’s head sports writer—only sports writer, really—Pete Wright, was still going strong, but Scout and Jayson had decided there were other things they would rather be doing.
This night had been perfect, Scout thought. Executed one hundred percent according to plan. She’d had a crush on Jayson since the day he showed up in Minotaur Falls after her father asked him to come join the team.
