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“In a minute, Brandon. The adults are busy having a conversation.” She shut the door.
He raised a brow at her. “I’m not up for it tonight, Lizzy. I’m still under the weather from all that anesthesia you pumped into my system this morning.”
She gasped. Her face went bright red.
He winked at her. “Kidding. I never sleep with women on the first date, much less women with kids. It sets a bad example.”
“He is my nephew!”
Interesting reaction. She wasn’t denying him access to her bed, just correcting his misstatement about son versus nephew. He would remember that.
“Yep, got it,” he said. “Never in front of the kids.”
She shook her head, obviously flustered. He loved seeing her with her hair messed up like that. He was willing to bet that in her starched-up world, people didn’t tease her. They didn’t come into her house and help her. And they certainly never made it over the threshold into her bedroom.
She ran her hands through her glossy hair. She really was a natural beauty. Lots of players had wives or girlfriends from the television reporting or modeling worlds—typically brassy women who, when all decked out and made-up, were eye-catching and flashy.
That wasn’t Lizzy. He was taken by an urge to draw her close to him. But...that would be a huge mistake.
Don’t push it, something told him. Get too close to her, and she’ll throw you out for good.
He didn’t want her to throw him out. So he hung back, waiting. Kept his hands glued to his side. Didn’t say a word. Let her know that he wasn’t a threat to her.
Finally, a sigh shuddered out of her. “Look, Jon, I have a downstairs neighbor who brings in my deliveries sometimes so they don’t get lost,” she said, like a confession. “She is elderly and doesn’t walk well, so she’s usually at home. I called and asked her to watch Brandon for me while I ran out to the store, but she just called back and said she doesn’t want him down there, bothering her, because she’s watching the baseball game. She doesn’t want to come up here and watch him, either, even if he’s waiting quietly in my bedroom, because I don’t have an HD television.”
“Seriously?”
“I know.” She rolled her eyes. “Who needs high-definition television to watch baseball?”
“Maybe she has a crush on the pitcher.”
A noise burst out of Lizzy, something between a giggle and a snort. She clamped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late.
Aha. So his studious, buttoned-up anesthesiologist had a fun streak in her after all. It was just buried, layers and layers deep.
“Give me your shopping list,” he said gently. “I’ll take care of it. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is to me. I don’t want you buying things for us. And also...” Lizzy gestured to his bandaged hand. “Did you not read your postoperative instructions? You aren’t supposed to be driving, not with the medication you’re on. I won’t be responsible for that.”
“I’m not on medication,” he said quietly. “Just acetaminophen.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Then you’re in pain.”
Maybe, a little bit.
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to chance messing with my health by taking heavy drugs like that. My body is how I make my living.”
She rolled her eyes again.
He grinned at her. “Lizzy?” he said, at the same time that Brandon whined plaintively through the door, “Auntie?”
Jon opened the door. Brandon was dressed in Superman pajamas. “Excellent job,” Jon said to him. “I’d like to reward you for that.”
Brandon beamed at him. Before Lizzy could say another word, Jon pulled his wallet from his back pocket and tossed it on the bed. He pulled out his phone, too. “My team’s owner sits on your hospital board. Go ahead and call her assistant, she’ll vouch for me. Then go out and shop for as long as you need to—I’ll wait here with Brandon.”
“Yesss!” Brandon pumped his fist and did some kind of rap dance around the bedroom.
Lizzy glowered at Jon. Yeah, he’d pay for making the kid part of their negotiations.
“How do I know you’re not a pedophile?” she asked in a low voice. “Perfectly respectable-looking football coaches have been found to be abusive to children. If there is one thing we’ve learned, it’s that we can’t trust somebody else vouching for our kids’ caretakers just because they have a prestigious job.”
Uh, she had a point. A twisted point, but then again, these could be twisted times.
He turned on his phone and called up the video interface. “In that case, we’ll use my phone like a nannycam. You can go about your shopping and still see everything Brandon and I are doing.”
“You’re crazy. I am not going to let you stay in my home, Mr. Farell. I’m a private person.”
“And I’m a public guy. I have a lot to lose, too, if you were ever to come out with allegations against me.”
That made her pause. “Why?” she asked finally. “Why do you care so much about helping us?”
Damned if he knew. His finger was throbbing again, he was tired, and well... “I’m hungry.”
He walked over to Brandon, who said, “I’m hungry, too.”
“Then this is what we’ll do, kid. While your aunt is out shopping, we’ll have quiet time together, under her supervision. So get one of your books and show me how well you read.”
“I don’t have any books,” Brandon said.
“You have books at home,” Lizzy corrected him.
“No,” Brandon said. “I don’t.”
He and Lizzy both seemed to still at the same time.
Then she seemed to snap. Scowling, she stomped toward her closet. “Fine.” She reached for a plastic box on the top shelf. “I have books.” Lifting off the lid, she rummaged inside before handing Brandon a hardcover kid’s book.
A very old, very worn-out copy of Curious George Goes to the Hospital.
A lump formed in his throat.
He’d read that story many times to his brothers, many nights when they were left alone that one, hard year.
He looked at Lizzy, locked gazes with her.
It was strange, but he could swear she was thinking the same thing.
“This is what we’ll do,” she said, shaking her head, suddenly straight and crisp again, no sign of apprehension in her root-beer-colored eyes. “Both of you will go down to Mrs. Ham’s apartment. While she watches baseball and ogles the real, live baseball-playing pitcher sitting in her living room, the two of you can read your book. And the minute I return, Jon can go home.”
CHAPTER FOUR
ELIZABETH PUSHED A grocery cart down the frozen-foods aisle, only halfheartedly paying attention to the waffles and pancakes in the gluten-free breakfast section. Most of her concentration was on the videophone in her hand.
On the small screen, she saw Jon Farell sitting on the couch beside her nephew in Mrs. Ham’s apartment, the child calm, dressed in his pajamas and leaning against Jon’s shoulder. Brandon read the book aloud in a halting, unsure voice while Jon patiently encouraged him.
Tears sprang to her eyes, unbidden. Jon didn’t know it, but he touched a lode of emotions buried deep inside her.
She quickly wiped her eyes, glancing up to make sure that nobody saw her. It was obvious that this man was dangerous to her sanity. There was a reason she had been so harsh with Jon.
But now everything had flipped around, and she did not want to like him. This public, professional baseball player was so easy with people, while she was so uncomfortable. She certainly did not want to feel these emotions she was feeling—the tenderness toward a man who seemed to have given her fatherless nephew a role model who treated him with respect. How had this man—this man she’d been so inexplicably attracted to—ended up being more good-hearted than she ever would have guessed?
Any man she chose to speak with outside of the work environment—and for her, that was a rare occasion—had to be dispassionate and private.
Jon Farell was the opposite of that kind of person. He was far too outgoing. He didn’t seem to have any boundaries—he was the take-charge type. Being drawn to him at all had to be a tragic mistake of her DNA.
As soon as she got home, Elizabeth would shake off her tender emotions and make sure to bar the door to Jon. Brandon wouldn’t be happy, but he was going home to his mother tomorrow, after breakfast. Then Elizabeth would have her ordered world back to herself, and all would be well.
By the time she finished up her transaction and drove home, Elizabeth was ready to say goodbye to Jon, once and for all.
Steering her Prius into her numbered spot, she parked and then grabbed the grocery bag from the seat beside her. The carton of eggs wasn’t packed properly—she’d been distracted at the checkout counter by staring at her cell phone, watching Brandon reading the book to Jon—and hadn’t paid close enough attention to the bagger. Disgusted with herself, she reached over to her purse and shut off her phone inside without looking at it. It was obvious by now that Jon wasn’t a predator, just a guy who was extraordinarily good with kids.
She would lead Brandon upstairs to her condominium and then send Jon on his way. She’d picked up a hot takeout pizza for Jon, as a thank-you, from the supermarket’s prepared foods section, as well as a frozen gluten-free pizza to heat up and feed to Brandon—something that Brandon’s stomach could tolerate. Brandon was allergic to anything with wheat in it. The kid just didn’t have a lot of luck in the health department. But, he seemed happy enough—his prior illness and her ineptness about how to deal with him notwithstanding—and she was thankful for that.
Elizabeth shoved her key into the lock and elbowed open the main door to the building. She knocked on the door to Mrs. Ham’s unit. She heard the thump of a cane on hardwood floor before Mrs. Ham opened her door.
“He went back to your unit a few minutes ago.” Mrs. Ham had a beatific smile on her wrinkled face. She looked ten years younger. “Brandon was drifting off to sleep, so he carried the boy upstairs.” She sighed. “I really do like Jon Farell.”
“You let him into my apartment?”
“Yes, lucky you.”
Elizabeth groaned inwardly. “Thank you, Mrs. Ham.”
Then she took the stairs two at a time. When she came to her unit, she tested the knob. The door opened easily, no key needed.
A shot of panic went through her. Jon had neglected to set the dead bolt? Then again, he was a big man. Six foot two, one hundred ninety pounds—she’d seen his electronic medical record. If she thought rationally, it should be comforting knowing that somebody capable was inside with her nephew, keeping him safe and holding down the fort. He had to be fairly responsible to be part of a professional team, didn’t he?
The New England Captains were followed by many children. It wasn’t like they were disreputable.
Calm down.
She dropped her keys on the hall table and set the grocery bag down on the kitchen counter. The television was on, the volume low. Jon sat on the couch. Head back, legs stretched out and relaxed.
He was asleep.
Her breath exhaled as she studied him. His eyes were closed and his lashes rested against tanned skin. A lock of hair fell across his cheek. His chest rose and fell softly.
Her chest felt warm and fluttery, which was not rational. She should feel threatened—he was in her space, after all. But everything about her feelings for Jon made little sense to her.
She tore her gaze away, shook off the feeling and tiptoed across her small apartment. She’d told Brandon he could sleep in her bedroom tonight because she didn’t have a guest bed for him—she used her second bedroom as an office. Later, she would set up an air mattress for herself there. For now though, the door to her bedroom was open and light from the overhead lamp shone across Brandon’s head. He was sleeping on his stomach, cocooned under the covers.
Snug as a bug in a rug, she thought, the phrase a remnant of a short, rare time of stability in her and Ashley’s childhood.
A lump in her throat, she shook under the force of her memory. Maybe that was the source of her mixed-up emotions toward the baseball player on her couch. Swallowing, she slipped off her shoes and crept back into the living room in stocking feet, crossing the cool hardwood floor to the couch where Jon was still asleep.
She felt an inexplicable longing in her heart.
Who was this man? She didn’t understand anything about him. Why would he bother with them? It couldn’t be just the shared worry of a cancer diagnosis.
His bandaged hand was flung carelessly across the couch. She’d never heard of a patient so unconcerned with himself. Jon had undergone surgery today; he should be at home recovering from the trauma to his body. Where was his sense of self-preservation?
Crowd noise erupted from the television behind her. The baseball game was in full swing. She never paid any attention to the sport, but now...what if she watched, like Mrs. Ham had said? Just until Jon woke up and she could send him on his way.
She pushed aside her magazines and sat quietly in her armchair. Studied the action that so consumed Jon’s life.
The image of a broad, commanding player filled her television screen; he toed white rubber on a dirt pitcher’s mound. Elizabeth knew that much about the game from long-ago required-attendance gym classes, like any public school kid. She watched the player—the pitcher—stare down the batter. Shake his head slowly to one side, then to the other.
“He’s shaking off the catcher’s signals,” the television announcer said. “It’s a full count. Three balls and two strikes.”
Elizabeth nibbled her lip. From what little she remembered, if the batter swung and missed a pitch, or did not swing on a pitch that was thrown within the specifications of a “strike zone”—the space over the home plate from batter’s knees to his chest—then a strike was called. Three strikes, and the batter was out. A “ball” was called if the pitcher’s throw went outside of the strike zone and the batter did not swing at it. Four balls, and a batter advanced to first base.
A walk is as good as a hit.
Elizabeth froze. That voice inside her head was an upsetting blast from her past, from the earliest days of her childhood, when she was younger than Brandon. She never thought of her mother’s boyfriend.
Elizabeth’s biological father.
Never, ever did she allow herself to think of him as Father, because he most assuredly was not. Anger consuming her, she gripped the arms of her chair. He had followed baseball like a religion. Why hadn’t she thought of this before?
On television, the camera angle swung to the pitcher, a look of concentration on his face. Elizabeth pressed her hand to her throat and forced herself to focus on the pitcher on her TV screen. He had a look of intelligence about him.
“We have a classic dilemma,” the television announcer said. “It’s the bottom of the ninth inning. Two outs. The tying and winning runs are on base, and it’s a full count.”
“The question is,” a second television announcer said, “does Martinez do the predictable and deliver his trademark fastball in the strike zone, or does he risk throwing the changeup that Bates has already smashed over the right field fence?”
“He shouldn’t risk it,” Elizabeth muttered.
“Martinez is shaking off his catcher’s call,” the first announcer said. “His hand is inside his glove. What we’re seeing here today is a showdown of baseball’s top ace versus the leading home run slugger. If the ace wins, his team wins the series and moves on to the Eastern League finals. Otherwise, they’re out until spring.”
“Martinez is a pitcher’s pitcher,” the second announcer said. “Better than anyone in the game today, he throws the batters off their rhythm. As a batter facing an ace, you never know what he’s going to do. Is he going to speed up your rhythm or slow it down?
“The thing about Martinez is that he’s developed his technique, his windup, such that the batter can’t see his grip position on the baseball. He has no clue whether to expect a curveball, a fastball, a changeup...until the ball is right in front of him and it’s too late. Very few pitchers have the skill to do this, and it’s what makes Martinez great. Barring any unforeseen scandal, he’s a future Hall of Famer.”
“A legend,” the first announcer agreed.
“What will it be?”
She found herself holding her breath. The noise from the crowd was a buzzing hum. In the stadium, it would be deafening. She wondered which side the fans were on, the pitcher’s or the batter’s?
