Heart of the Game Page 14

  “You’re clearly in work mode today.” Molly interrupted her musing.

  “Sorry,” Duke said, flopping into an open chair, quickly checking to be sure she didn’t bump Charlie, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground with a single-serve box of Cheerios.

  Molly put her hand lightly on Duke’s arm. “It’s okay. You’re allowed to focus on work, especially while you’re at work.”

  “I know. I feel bad because I wish I could spend more time with you and the kids without having to give up my work time.”

  “That’s sweet of you, and we appreciate your time. The boys love being around you, and I…” She moved her hand, a hint of pink tinting her complexion. “I do, too.”

  “Really?” Hope pushed professional concerns to the side once more, but the seesawing from personal to professional drained her energy.

  “Of course. Don’t you realize that? I’ve told you things I haven’t told anyone in years. I’ve trusted you with my children. I wouldn’t have done so if you weren’t special to me.”

  The heat under her skin made Duke suspect her blush mirrored Molly’s now.

  “We all look forward to seeing you at the games, but it’s not a game for you. It’s a job and a passion. I envy that. Passion isn’t something I’ve had much of in my life.” She frowned slightly, sadly.

  “You have the boys. You’re passionate about them. And there’s Lauren—”

  “No.” Molly shook her head slowly. “There’s no more Lauren. We broke it off. Well, I did.”

  Duke’s chest felt impossibly small compared to her heart. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry. I don’t understand what happened. I thought you two were close to something.”

  “We were close, but not quite right. We lacked spark, passion. In a way, you helped me see that.”

  Guilt kept her from soaring at the admission. “I didn’t mean to come between you two.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply you did.” Molly rushed to correct her. “I didn’t mean to implicate you romantically at all. It’s not like that.”

  “Oh?” The little noise was all she could manage around her disappointment.

  “I only meant the passion you bring to everything you do, whether it’s helping me with the kids or talking about baseball, helped me see what I’ve been missing.”

  “Passion?”

  “Yes, passion. I haven’t inspired it in myself or in others.”

  “Molly, how can you even think…” Duke’s thoughts swirled around her head, the logical battling the emotional for supremacy, but both sides lost when Joe came racing up the stairs from where he’d been studying the field.

  “Hey, Duke,” he said tossing his arms around her shoulder. “I read your article on the Cayden Brooks play. You were totally right. He made an error. I think he didn’t want to run into the wall. He should’ve kept his eye on the ball.”

  The greater message clearly went over his head but lodged firmly in Duke’s chest. “He’s still learning a lot about himself and how to play the game. We all are.”

  “Are you going to sit with us today?”

  “Actually, I’m not.” She stood, at the reminder she wasn’t on her personal time, no matter how personal the conversation had gotten. “I have to focus on work.”

  He nodded stoically. “I understand. You have the coolest job in the world.”

  “I sure do,” she said, but for the first time the sentiment seemed forced. “I gotta get going. I need to make a call before the game starts.”

  “Are you okay?” Molly asked.

  “I think so, but in case I have a few questions, will you be around this weekend?”

  Molly’s lips quirked up with a hint of amusement or curiosity. “I’m off Saturday and Sunday.”

  “Good,” Duke said, then sprinted up the stairs, pulling out her phone as she went and redialing the last number on her caller ID.

  “Simon Beach here.”

  “Hey, Beach, it’s Sarah Duke.”

  “What’s up? I already signed off on your pre-game notes. They looked great, as was the Brooks piece. You’re back on track so far.”

  “Yeah, about that.” Part of her didn’t believe she was about to ask the question on her lips. “What if I wanted a few days off the track?”

  “What?”

  “You mentioned I have unused vacation days.”

  “Really? You want today off?”

  “No, not today. This weekend. The series in Milwaukee, but I’ll be back for the All-Star Game next week.”

  He chuckled. “No desire to see the Brew City or their consistently underperforming team?”

  “It’s not so much a desire to avoid something so much as a desire to explore something else.”

  “Uh-huh. Sounds personal and perfectly suited to a personal day.”

  “It’s not that I don’t love the job, it’s just—”

  “No need to explain.”

  “Oh, okay. I’ve never done this before.”

  “Taken a vacation day?”

  “I’ve never taken my eye off the ball.”

  “Ah, well, you know, in life sometimes there’s more than one ball in the air at any given time.”

  “Multiple walls to run into, too.”

  He laughed. “You really aren’t someone who ever stops thinking about the game, are you?”

  “I’m not sure I know how.”

  “I’ll tell you how. File your report after tomorrow afternoon’s game, then cancel your hotel in Milwaukee. I’ll get some local coverage for you. I don’t want to hear from you until Monday unless something major hits. Sound easy enough?”

  “I got it, thanks.” She hung up. Checking out of work might be as easy as he said, but this vacation wasn’t about getting away from something so much as getting closer to something new, and the thought of taking her eye off the ball didn’t scare her nearly as much as the prospect of chasing a shadow right into a wall.

  Bottom of the Fourth

  Better Than the Box Score

  “The penguins are my favorites.” Duke looked up at Charlie the best she could with him sitting on her shoulders. “Do you mind if we go see them before we get some cotton candy?”

  “Do penguins swim?” Charlie asked.

  “They do, and sometimes when they dive they make bubbles. Want to see?”

  “Yes.” He grabbed two fistfuls of her hair like reins and steered her toward the penguin house.

  Molly couldn’t believe she was at the zoo on a Friday night in July. The whole excursion seemed too idyllic to be part of her real life. She would’ve normally been hesitant to bring Charlie to a place with real lions by herself for fear he’d try to move in with them. And Joe had no interest in staring at animals when baseball could be seen on TV or in person. If she’d suggested this trip, he would’ve argued he was too old for the zoo and wanted to stay home to watch the game, but the excursion had been Duke’s idea, which carried a lot of weight with him. Though, to be honest, he might have argued with Duke, too, if he weren’t so shocked to hear she’d taken the weekend off of her own free will.

  In fairness, the news had thrown Molly a little off balance, too. She got the sense Duke didn’t miss work often, if ever, and she’d said nothing about the upcoming vacation until she’d called after yesterday’s game to invite them all to the zoo.

  Twenty-four hours later, she still had no answers as to what prompted the vacation or the desire to spend her first night off with the boys. Duke seemed more carefree and open than she’d ever seen her, laughing easily and chasing Charlie so Molly didn’t have to. Still, something seemed different about her. Maybe she was always more relaxed away from work, or maybe it was the way her eyes seemed to linger on Molly longer and more often without a ball game to turn toward. Perhaps the echo of their conversation about passion still hung in the air between them, but whatever the reason, there seemed to be something deeper below Duke’s good-natured façade.

  “You want pink or blue cotton candy?” Duke ask
ed the boys as they stood in line at a food cart a little later.

  “Blue,” they answered in unison.

  “And you?” she asked Molly.

  “None for me. I’m more of a popcorn kind of gal.”

  “Salty instead of sweet, why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  She raised her eyebrows, and Duke blushed instantly. She’d never had the power to make anyone bashful before, and while she suspected Duke to be easier than most, she enjoyed it nonetheless.

  “Two blue cotton candies, one pink, and a large popcorn, please,” she ordered, then passed out the treats, keeping the pink cotton candy for herself.

  Joe eyed her suspiciously.

  “What, you got a problem with my pink cotton candy?”

  “No, I just…you don’t usually seem like someone who likes…” His voice trailed off as he looked from Duke to Molly and clearly realized the odds of getting a gender stereotype lecture, then switched gears quickly. “Anyway, I didn’t get to see the Cardinals game yesterday. I went to the science center with a friend.”

  “The science center sounds fun,” Duke said enthusiastically, causing Molly to smile. She hadn’t bitten on the baseball bait as Joe clearly intended.

  “Yeah, it’s okay, but I missed the game.”

  “It was a good game,” Duke admitted, “but I’ve never been to the science center.”

  This time Joe refused the redirect. “How could it be a good game? The Cardinals lost. They dropped the whole series to the Royals. And now they aren’t even in first place anymore. They’re tied with the Pirates. Aren’t you worried?”

  “I’m not. Not yet anyway. We’ve had a rough patch, but I think they’ve been playing pretty well.”

  “How can they play well and lose to a team in last place?”

  “This is one of the odd occasions where we’re better than the box score.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means at the end of the game, all the scoreboard tells you is the important stats. The hits, the runs, the errors, the final score, but it actually tells you very little about what happened over the nine innings that led to those final results.”

  “Like what?” Joe asked, his eyes wide with attention. Molly couldn’t blame him. Even she couldn’t resist the pull of Duke’s magnetism when she talked about the broader lessons of baseball.

  “Well, for instance, yesterday’s score column didn’t tell you we had five or six players smash the ball, just right, at opposing players. It may tell you our starting pitcher gave up three runs in the first inning, but it doesn’t indicate he fanned seven of the next nine hitters. It tells you the Cards recorded all the requisite outs, but it doesn’t say Cayden Brooks made a leaping catch near the outfield wall to rob the Royals of a home run in the ninth. The box score also doesn’t mention that our bullpen hasn’t given up a hit in three games.”

  “Wow,” Molly said.

  “Impressive, no?” Duke grinned.

  The stats were impressive. Molly was even more awestruck that Duke not only remembered all of them, but also strung them together to paint a picture so different than what ordinary people would see.

  “Hits, runs, and errors certainly tell you who won, and if that’s all you care about, it’s all you need. The stat sheets give you a snapshot of the game, but it’s a black-and-white one. There’s no stat to quantify the hustle from first to third on a single, or the fortitude a batter needs to go deep into the count to make the pitcher reveal his best stuff earlier than he wants to.”

  “So the papers show the big picture, but not the full picture?”

  “Exactly. We love a game of inches, of split seconds, the sum of many moving parts. Normally doing everything right leads to the W, but sometimes a team’s performance can add up to something better than the score can reveal.”

  “I get it now.”

  “Good.” She tugged the bill of his ball cap over his eyes, which pushed his glasses askew. “’Cause I’m done talking baseball for tonight. It’s my day off and yours, too. Go be a kid and chase your brother for a while.”

  Molly watched him run off, then she and Duke flopped onto the nearest seat. Their bodies molded exhaustedly to the park bench overlooking the children’s playground while Joe chased Charlie underneath a spiderweb-inspired jungle gym. After visually scanning their surroundings to make sure they were safely corralled in the play area, she turned her attention to Duke. Her blond hair stood straight up where Charlie had braced himself, and Molly couldn’t resist the urge to smooth it out, or maybe she simply didn’t want to resist. She ran her fingers through the short, fair strands, finding them softer than she’d imagined. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Everything about Duke, from her hands to her heart, seemed softer than she’d first suspected.

  Well, maybe not everything. Tonight she’d traded her khakis for a pair of frayed gray shorts that showed off muscled calves and tanned thighs, neither of which appeared soft. The thin, worn T-shirt she wore in place of her usual polo offered enough outline of her torso to suggest she hadn’t gone soft there, either. The look was more than relaxed, cool, confident, and undeniably sexy.

  Duke turned to look at her, causing Molly to realize she’d been playing with her hair more than fixing it. She removed her hand slowly. “Sorry, it was just sticking up a little bit.”

  “Thanks.” Her smile caused a little flutter in Molly’s stomach. “And hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “We haven’t gotten to talk much tonight with the boys on the go.”

  “Such is life with boys who are always on the go. There’s rarely a minute to think, much less chat.”

  “There’s now,” Duke offered. “What are you thinking right now?”

  “I’m thinking…” I’m thinking your eyes are so blue. I’m thinking I don’t know what to think when you look at me that way. I’m thinking I can’t tell you any of this. “I’m thinking I like you at the baseball park, but I may like you even better away from it.”

  Her smile widened to encompass her cheeks and the corners of her eyes. “Thank you. I wasn’t sure I could do this, take a night off when the Cardinals didn’t have one, but with you, it’s easier than I expected.”

  They sat quietly for a few minutes, letting the revelation settle over them, before Molly decided to push for more.

  “All right, Sarah Duke, your turn to spill. What prompted this vacation you’re on?”

  She shifted on the bench, crossing one leg over the other, then straightening them out in front of herself once more. “I guess it’s like I said to Joe. I love baseball. I love my job. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but sometimes when I’m around you and the boys, I wonder if maybe there could be more to me than my job.”

  “So you took some time off to explore?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what have you learned so far?”

  “Well, it’s been only one night, so I don’t want to overstate anything, but I’m more relaxed than I expected. I’m capable of having fun doing something other than baseball. I haven’t thought about the game nearly as much as I expected. All good things.” She ran her hand through the patch of hair Molly had recently touched. “The best news of the whole night is that you like me outside the ballpark. That’s a big part of what I hoped to accomplish.”

  Where was she going? “You hoped to make me like you?”

  She blushed. “Among other things, but yeah, pretty much.”

  “You didn’t know I already liked you?”

  “Well, the other night you said you loved being around me, but we haven’t been around each other much outside of my work, so I sort of hoped we could test that theory a little bit more this weekend.”

  Her heart rate accelerated. Was Duke asking her out?

  “You see, I’m going to my niece’s first birthday party on Saturday. It’s at my parents’ house. They have a pool. The boys could swim and play, and I’d drive, so you know it wouldn’t cost anything…”

  “Are you
asking us to come with you to a family gathering?”

  “Well, I mean, not like that. Not like come meet my family, but yeah. It wouldn’t have to be a big deal, except it would mean a lot to me, and fun. Did I mention there would be cake?” Duke exhaled. “I’d like for you all to join me.”

  Duke’s first date offer, if a family pool party could be considered a date, certainly wasn’t as smooth or as polished as Lauren’s had been. For someone who made her living with words, Duke didn’t seem nearly as well versed in the romantic category. Then again, maybe simpler was better, or maybe the sincerity of the request stuck in her chest so fully it displaced her usual misgivings, because for some reason Molly didn’t feel nearly as conflicted about her answer as she had the last time someone had asked her out.

  “That sounds like a lot of fun.”

  “Really?”

  She laughed. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “I am surprised, happily surprised. That was easier than I expected.”

  “Maybe there’s more to me than you are able to read in the box score.”

  Duke’s smile returned with less playfulness than before. “Now, that would not surprise me at all.”

  *

  What had she been thinking agreeing to come to a family event with Duke? The request had seemed so simple, free of pressure, and easy to accept when it had been only the two of them the night before. Now with Charlie and Joe tucked neatly into the back of Duke’s RAV4 as they exited Interstate 44 toward Union, Missouri, the excursion felt like a much bigger deal. She was going to spend an entire afternoon with Duke’s family, and what’s more, she’d brought her children. She’d always known her kids would be part of her dating life someday, and she’d never let herself get close to someone who didn’t mesh with them, but she’d also thought she’d protect them from getting too attached to anyone she dated until she felt certain the relationship would last. She’d never considered the possibility that they might already be attached before she even seriously considered going on a date.