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“True, I guess. But it’s so obvious. I mean, if you called him Sam The Deer that wouldn’t be so obvious. Sam The Donkey? Sam The Duck? Or, to make it simple, you could just call him STD.”
At this, Elizabeth narrowed her eyes as she looked at him. “STD? I don’t think so.”
Will smiled, covering his mouth with his hand. “Oh, right. That would seriously cut down his chances with the lady dogs, wouldn’t it?” He took two steps toward the field. “Mikey! No dogs on the field. Bring him over here.”
There were protests from the team, all of whom seemed to be almost as enthralled with Sam The Dog as he was with them.
“Come on, put some hustle into it. We’ve only got the field for another hour or so.”
Elizabeth took the leash from Mikey, telling him to get Danny and run back up the hill to get their equipment and her chair. “Once again, Will, I’m really sorry. But Richard is gone, and Sam The Dog looked so forlorn as I was leaving that I thought it wouldn’t hurt to bring him along.”
“Richard’s gone? Richard as in your boss—that Richard?” Will asked, as if that was the only thing he’d heard. “For how long?”
“We’re not sure. His publishing house keeps wanting to add new cities to his tour. A week, ten days—more? Why?”
“No reason,” Will said, taking Sam The Dog’s leash from her. “I think the pooch here will enjoy himself more if I tie him up next to the team bench. And I just thought that might mean you’re pretty much on vacation, with your boss gone.”
Elizabeth mentally, figuratively—please, Lord, not physically, because that he could see—backed up a pace. “I have a few things to do, routine things. But yes, I suppose you could say I’m on vacation.”
“Then you’ll be staying here in town, not going anywhere. Not taking the kids to the shore or anything?”
She shook her head. “No, I hadn’t planned on it. Why?”
He seemed to mentally pull himself up short. “No reason. It’s just that we need to field ten kids—we have four outfielders, cuts down on the coaches having to chase balls—and we only have fifteen on the team. I’ll be down two for a week when Jason and Drew Keglovitz leave on vacation. So … so it’s good to know that Mikey and Danny will be available. Sam The Dog, huh?”
Elizabeth nodded. “Sam The Dog. Right. Well, um, I should go find a place that’s out of the way and let you get back to work.”
“Okay, good. I’ll … I’ll see you after practice.”
She turned away, her eyes momentarily widening in a “what the heck was that all about?” way before she picked up her lawn chair and headed for the grassy area where other parents were congregated.
“Here, put your chair down next to mine,” one of the women, a striking redhead, said, motioning for Elizabeth to join her. “Cute dog. I’m Annie Lambert. My Todd is the one with the bright orange hair—no surprise there, right? Which little darling is yours?”
Elizabeth introduced herself as she unfolded her chair and sat down. “I’ve got two here, actually. Mikey and Danny. They’re twins.”
“Oh, how neat. Unless you’re the one up all night with them while they’re newborns, I guess. I swear, my Todd never slept through the night until he was three—years, not months. Where are they?” Annie asked, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked out over the ball field.
Thanks to her evening at the IronPigs game, Elizabeth was able to answer with some authority: “Danny’s standing at first base, and Mikey is at third.”
“Really? You have to mean the ones with those adorable blond curls sticking out from under their caps. I’m so sorry. I thought they were girls.” Annie pulled a comical face. “I was told there were a couple of girls on the team. Not that I don’t love curls, and I would hate to see them cut off. It’s bad enough their soft baby skin doesn’t stay that way. Todd’s got knees like sandpaper. He’s also got his hair shaved down to just about nothing for the summer, but that was his father’s idea. I think it’s great that your husband is letting you keep their curls this long. They grow up too fast as it is.”
“I’m a widow,” Elizabeth said, as if that excused the curls, which was ridiculous. The curls were probably ridiculous. Why hadn’t she realized that? But they were babies, her babies. And now they were growing up so fast. “They need haircuts, don’t they?”
Annie put her hand on Elizabeth’s arm. “Sweetie, you do what you want to do, and don’t listen to anyone else. They’re your kids. But, yeah, I’d say get them haircuts. Kids can be cruel.”
“They never told me about any problems in school,” Elizabeth said quietly. “But you’re right. My husband would have made sure the curls were gone by the time they were three or four. It’s just so difficult sometimes … letting them—Ohmigod!”
As she and Annie had been talking, Elizabeth was also watching the practice on the field. Will was throwing balls high into the air, and the fielders—they were called fielders—were running in to catch them. Trying to catch them. Watching the balls bounce and then chasing them.
It had been Danny’s turn, and he’d run in from left field just as the other players had done, opened his mouth wide just as the other players had done and held out his huge glove, just as the other players had done.
Except instead of catching the ball, or wildly swinging at the ball with his glove or watching the ball bounce and then chasing it … Danny had just stood there, and let the ball hit him on the top of his head. He immediately clapped both hands to his head and fell to the dirt, yelling, “Ow-ow-OW!”
“Steady, girl,” Annie said, swiftly grabbing Elizabeth’s arm as she half rose out of her chair. “The coaches will handle it. The last thing the kid needs is Mommy running out onto the field.”
“But he’s hurt.”
“It’s a rubber ball. Sort of. He’ll be fine. Besides,” Annie said as Elizabeth sat down once more, “he’s got all those curls to act as a cushion. There, see, he’s up and going back to the base to try again.”
“They should have been girls,” Elizabeth lamented. “I’d know what to do with girls. But I’m an only child. I don’t have a brother—or even any male cousins. I’m flying blind here, Annie. That was okay when they were younger. But now …?”
“Now you follow your instincts.”
“Really? My instinct was for me to go running down there onto the field, remember?”
“Right. You figure out what your instincts tell you, and then you do the opposite.”
Elizabeth laughed and then pointed to the field. “Look, he caught it this time! Yea, Danny!”
Her son heard her and looked up the hill and then smiled and waved.
“Okay, I feel better now. Anything else I should know?”
Annie shook her head. “No, now it’s my turn. How well do you know our hunky coach?”
“Will?” Elizabeth didn’t know how to answer that. “Uh … I only met him yesterday. Why?”
Annie leaned closer to her and spoke quietly. “Word is he’s quite a hit with the ladies, as my mother used to say. Handsome, rich—all that good stuff. But also the love them and leave them type.”
“Really,” Elizabeth said just as quietly, and a quick vision of Kay Quinlan popped into her mind.
“I’m just saying, you know? He’s not here because he loves coaching kids or anything. He’s here because otherwise he’d be in the lockup for talking back to some judge. He might be looking around, thinking there has to be a way he can have some fun, as long as he has to be here anyway. You’re young, you’re pretty, you’re available. And I saw the way he was looking at you earlier. I’m not insinuating anything here. Like I said, I’m just saying, you know?”
Elizabeth nodded, looking down the hill to where Will was now showing Mikey how to hold a bat. The man didn’t look as if he wished he could be somewhere else. He looked as if he was enjoying himself. He’d looked as if he’d enjoyed himself at the sporting goods store, at the pizza shop and at the ball game last night. But what did she know about how anything looked? “Thanks. Not that I think you’re right. But I’ll keep your warning in mind.”
“Hey, don’t do it for me. The man is a dreamboat. I’d say go for it.”
“You’re suggesting a fling, Annie? Is that it?”
“As someone who hasn’t flung in a long time? Yeah, I suppose I am. I’ll just live vicariously through you. And look—no, don’t look! But he was just looking up here, and he wasn’t looking at me.”
Elizabeth kept her head down, pretending to search for something in her purse. She looked, she hoped, calm, cool and completely collected. But inside she was already up and out of her chair—running for her life.
* * *
Elizabeth had already folded up her lawn chair and said goodbye to Annie after the two of them exchanged phone numbers and a promise to take all three boys for lunch after the Saturday-morning game.
Elizabeth knew she could count her friends on one hand, and even those she’d known in the apartment building where she’d lived until moving into Richard’s guesthouse had sort of faded away in the past ten months. In truth, her friends had been little more than the mothers of other children the twins played with in the park. Her life had been much too busy and much too lonely once Jamie got sick and after Jamie died.
Living at Richard’s estate had cut her off even more, she realized with a bit of a start. Other than phone conversations with his agent, publicists and others, her life had pretty much revolved around Richard; Elsie the housekeeper; Barry, the sixtyish man who took care of the grounds; and the twins.
Well, she was on a first-name basis with two of the checkers at the local supermarket. But that probably didn’t count.
So it was nice feeling connected to other women again, however tenuously. First Chessie at the bridal salon and now the bubbly Annie.
She was even developing a social life. Dinner and a movie with Will tonight; a planned dinner with Chessie and her manager, Eve D’Allesandro; and now talk of an outing with Annie and her family. She’d soon have to buy her own electronic day planner, she thought with a small smile.
Elizabeth watched from behind the bench as Will and the other coaches handed out some papers to the team and then reminded them that bats and bases and batting helmets didn’t pick themselves up and stuff themselves in the canvas equipment bags on their own.
Mikey, who didn’t seem to know there was a hamper in his closet, immediately raised his hand, volunteering to go bring in second base, and went running off to do just that. Danny was already sliding bats into a long canvas bag, without being asked.
“Way to show initiative, Curly,” one of the coaches said, rubbing Danny’s head as he passed by him.
Danny winced at the nickname, and so did Elizabeth.
Her cell phone began to vibrate in the pocket of her shorts. She put down the folding chair and pulled out her phone, looked at the displayed number, and then lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello, Richard,” she said, turning her back on the crowd of children and coaches—and Will—and walking a few feet away. “How was the interview? I taped it, but I had to get the boys to baseball practice, so I didn’t see it yet. I didn’t want to feel rushed when I—Oh, that’s wonderful!”
She listened, making what she hoped were intelligent comments at appropriate times, as Richard told her all about his interview and about the room-service breakfast that didn’t arrive, so that he had made a pig of himself in the green room and ended up going onto the set with powdered sugar on his tie.
“Speaking of pigs,” she said when Richard was done with his news, “the boys and I went to an IronPigs game last night.” She nodded as she turned around, pushing her hair out of her eyes as the breeze kicked up, watching Will lift two heavy canvas gear bags up and onto his shoulders as if they were stuffed with marshmallows. “No, it was fun,” she assured Richard, who seemed surprised at her news. “Richard? Do you think the boys need haircuts?”
She frowned at his answer. And then she tried to tell herself he wasn’t so uninvolved with the twins that he hadn’t really noticed their hair.
“That’s very polite of you, Richard, but surely you have an opinion. No … no reason you should. I just thought you would, that’s all. Well, tell me this, then. Do you think Mario would cut the boys’ hair?” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “How much? For both of them or just one of them? Each? You’re kidding! That’s … that’s just out of the question. No, I won’t have Mario put it on your tab. Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll see what I can do. When’s your next interview?”
After warning her that he’d be flying to Chicago at seven that night and probably would be out of touch for the evening, Richard hung up—but only after reminding her to stay out of his office and consider herself on vacation until he returned.
She closed the phone, feeling suddenly lost, cut off and extremely uncomfortable at how easy it was that Richard hadn’t planned to call her again tonight.
And then, shockingly, following hard on the heels of her momentary unease, Elizabeth realized she also felt good. Very, very good.
Unencumbered. Or at least as unencumbered as the mother of two can ever feel.
And young. She felt young. There had been days, weeks—years—when she’d felt as old as time and just as weary and burdened.
But today? Ah, today the sun was shining. She’d made two new friends. She was on vacation for at least the next week, with nothing to do but be with her boys, to please herself, to remember that she wasn’t even thirty yet, let alone as old as time.
And a man had noticed her. Oh, certainly Richard had noticed her … noticed her as much as Richard noticed anything, bless his heart. But when Will looked at her she felt noticed. And young. And … yes … desirable.
He made her tingle. She would admit that to herself because there was no sense in pretending she hadn’t felt it. That awareness, that sure and certain knowledge that he was man and she was woman. Whether they knew each other well or not, chemistry was happening.
Elizabeth put her hands to her suddenly burning cheeks, and that’s when she realized she was smiling. Oh, what a naughty girl you are, she thought. How long has it been since you’ve been naughty?
“Elizabeth?”
She broke out of her thoughts when she heard Will call her name and saw that he had picked up her lawn chair, the twins standing on either side of him, holding all of their own gear.
“Oh, we’re ready to leave? Here, you have those bags. I can carry my own chair.”
“That’s all right. We’ll all heading in the same direction. Dan’s okay, by the way. Aren’t you, Dan The Man?”
“It was only a ball,” Danny grumbled. “But you’re still buying me a water ice, right?”
“Danny!”
Will grinned at her. “Bribery,” he explained. “When tears threaten, bribery is always an option. Do you mind?”
She looked at her watch. “I suppose a water ice wouldn’t ruin their lunch. But don’t you have to get to court or something?”
“No. Along with playing baseball coach, I’ve been barred from stepping foot in the courthouse for two weeks now that I wrapped up my last case on the docket. I only had a couple of pretrial things going on anyway, and they’ve been pushed back until next month, courtesy of The Hammer. Since I’m my own boss, I’ve juggled some appointments and decided that every hardworking lawyer needs a vacation now and then.”
“That’s nice. Richard always says that there are benefits and problems in being self-employed. The benefit is that you’re your own boss and can work when you want to, but the downside is that you’re your own boss and it doesn’t pay to coddle your employee.”
“I’d say Richard has a point. I’ve been known to beat myself up rather badly when I’m facing a trial deadline. I’ve often thought of reporting myself to authorities for not paying myself some pretty hefty overtime.”
They’d reached the parking lot, and Elizabeth hunted in her purse for her car keys, clicking on the button that opened the back hatch of her SUV. Will had done much the same thing with his Mercedes while the twins piled into her backseat and strapped themselves into their booster seats.
“Today I’ll just follow you,” she told him. “I want to take the boys to the mall after you pay off on your bribe, to see if I can find one of those walk-in hairdressers for them.”
Will cocked one well-defined eyebrow at her. “Heard that, did you?”
She shook her head. “Heard what? Oh, you mean how one of the coaches called Danny, Curly?”
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “We’ll go with that one.”
“What? What did I miss?”
“Nothing. When the team was in line to get their handouts one of the boys called Mike, Mary. Mike didn’t notice, so I let it go. But I was going to try to figure out a way to tell you it might be time for the twins to lose the curls.”
“You were going to do that?”
He held up his hands as if in self-defense. “I know, I know. Butting in where I don’t belong. It’s just … it’s just that you don’t have anybody to help steer you through the waters on this stuff, as it were. I noticed, that’s all.”
Richard didn’t. The thought came to Elizabeth’s mind, and she guiltily shooed it away, telling herself that Richard was Richard, and it was all right that he didn’t notice things. Like the new dress she’d bought last week. Or the fact that she’d cut her hair.
“Elizabeth? Honest to God, I’m not trying to tell you how to raise your sons. God knows it’s none of my business. And you’d already decided to get them haircuts, right?”
“Annie—Todd’s mother—thought they were girls,” Elizabeth told him. “So, yes, I’d already decided. And their hair isn’t that long, is it?”
“No,” Will said quickly. “It’s the curls, and the being blond, I suppose. And they’re how old now, seven?”
They’re my babies. They’re all I have. “Yes, all of seven. But I refuse to shave their heads. I don’t care what other parents do. I’ve always trimmed their hair myself. Do you know of a good salon?”
“You don’t want a salon, Elizabeth. You want a barber. And, yes, I do. I think Sid gave me my first real haircut a million years ago. Well, over thirty years ago. And you know what, I have an idea.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” Elizabeth felt that go-with-the-flow thing sneaking up on her again. “And am I going to like this idea?”
“Maybe not, but I think the boys will. See, I remember my first haircut. I remember the tickle of the electric trimmer on the back of my neck. I remember the oil Sid slicked over my hair. I remember the lollipop he gave me. And I remember my mother sitting on a chair over in the corner, crying because I didn’t look like her baby anymore.”
