Heart of the Game Read online

  “Joe, you’re the man of the house here, and I respect that. I respect your mom, too. You know I like her a lot, right?”

  “Joseph Landon Grettano, it is way too late for you to be up,” Molly snapped, her gaze jumping back and forth between them pointedly. “Go back to sleep, and if anyone needs to discuss anything, I will do so in the morning.”

  “What about Duke?” Joe asked. “Will she be here, too?”

  “Yeah,” Duke answered automatically. Now that Molly was here, they could get through this together.

  “No,” Molly corrected. “Duke is leaving.”

  She stared at Molly but knew better than to contradict her in front of the boys. Apparently Joe did, too. He headed back toward his room and closed the door behind him.

  “What were you thinking?” Molly snapped as soon as the door clicked. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes wide and wounded.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I went in to check on Charlie and came out to find you telling Joe we’re sleeping together.”

  “That’s a little unfair.”

  “Maybe”—she rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath, then continued more quietly—“but when it comes to my kids, I don’t care. You have no right to talk to my son about my sex life.”

  “Come on. You know I wasn’t going to tell him we’d had sex.” She reached out only meaning to touch her hand, but Molly stepped back. Her eyes had gone cold in the minutes they’d spent apart, without the warmth and affection that had stirred Duke earlier.

  “I have no idea what you intended to tell him, but you shouldn’t be telling him anything. You’re not his parent. You’re not anything to him.”

  She stepped back, feeling every bit like Molly had hit her. “Do you really believe that?”

  Molly flinched and frowned. “No, I don’t mean it like that, but—” Pinching the bridge of her nose, she released a heavy breath. “We shouldn’t have done this. I’m not ready to have my family swept up in whatever’s happening between us. I’m not even sure I’m ready.”

  “It’s too late, Molly. I tried to go slow. I gave you all the power, but you can’t undo what’s been done. And even if you could, would you take back tonight?”

  “You’re right,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “I’m sorry. We can’t take anything back now, so it doesn’t make any difference what I would or wouldn’t do if I could.”

  The non-answer compounded the ache in her chest. Why was Molly pushing her away? Having Joe catch them together was awkward and unexpected, but Molly wasn’t making any sense. Duke had tried to do right by her at every step. “You’re the one who pulled me into bed.”

  Molly flushed. “Fine, you’re right. I made a mistake. For once in my life I acted on my own desire without thinking about the consequences.”

  “I didn’t mean that, Molly.” She reached for her again, the ache spreading from her chest and into her limbs, but Molly wouldn’t stand to be touched.

  “I can’t do this. I can’t. I’m sorry, so sorry. You have to believe me. I wanted this, I wanted you, but it’s not just about us.” There was a pleading in her whisper, one for understanding, for forgiveness, but she left no room for compromise. “God, Duke, I can’t even think with you standing there. You have to go.”

  “Please don’t say that. We weren’t ready for what happened, but just because we didn’t think about the future earlier doesn’t mean we can’t think about it now. We can work through this as a team. You and me and the boys, we’re a great team.”

  Molly shook her head sadly. “We’re not a team, no matter how much you or I may want that. Me and the boys. We’re a family. They’re my family. I have to put them first. I have to protect them no matter what, even from you.”

  Duke nodded and stepped backward, the ache growing into a sharp pain. “Fine. They’re your family, and I’m some mistake you made. If that’s what you need to tell yourself right now, go ahead, but I’ve never pressured you, and I’d rather die than hurt those boys.”

  She edged her way down the hall, refusing to break eye contact with Molly, silently praying, begging God to make her see what she’d seen in them earlier, but Molly refused to give voice to all the emotions swirling in her dark eyes. “I said all along, the decision is yours, but the mistake you referred to, it’s not what happened between us tonight. It’s what you’re doing right now.”

  Molly pursed her lips and clenched her fists as if fighting not to call out, but her feet stayed rooted to her spot in the hall. She was a single woman fortress now as each brick of her impenetrable defenses slid slowly back into place. There was nothing left for Duke to do but live up to her word and walk away, even if doing so felt a little bit like dying.

  *

  Two weeks later, the overwhelming sense of loss still permeated Duke’s every sense. She’d waited all the next day to hear from Molly. She’d even rescheduled her flight to the All-Star Game hoping she’d call after she put the boys to bed, but ten o’clock came and went without a word, so Duke had traveled to Minneapolis in a haze.

  She must’ve made it through the All-Star Game. Her columns appeared on the website, though she didn’t remember writing them. The only recollection she had of her time in the Twin Cities was staring at her cell phone, waiting for it to ring. It hadn’t. She’d gone three days without hearing from Molly. The only bright side was, she hadn’t heard from her editor either, which meant even if she couldn’t eat or sleep, she’d managed to at least get her work done.

  She flew back to St. Louis on the Cardinals’ off-days, hoping her proximity to Molly would somehow reconnect them, but she wasn’t telepathic, and that was the only way she could have gotten through to her. She’d tried texting, then left a message, before finally trying an email, all of them simply asking how Molly and the boys were doing. She’d mentioned she had two off-days before heading out again, but didn’t ask to be invited over. She wouldn’t pressure her. She wasn’t that person, and even if she were, Molly clearly didn’t respond well to being pushed.

  Duke understood so little about what had happened, or how an innocent question about their relationship could rip them apart. One minute she’d been rounding the corner from second to third, and the next it’d felt like she’d taken a fastball to her chest. She constantly replayed everything she’d said and done, trying to find the error egregious enough to get her banished, but part of her had begun to suspect she had never been in the game to begin with. Maybe Molly had never intended for Duke to be part of her life. What if she truly saw the love they’d made as a lapse in judgment?

  Her memory flashed back to the moment her lips had first brushed Molly’s. She could see her now so clearly, their bodies pressed together, Molly’s chin tilted up to meet her, the depth of emotion in her dark eyes deep enough to drown in. She’d paused, then decided to imprint the image into her mind forever, convinced she could be experiencing her last first kiss. The thought seemed silly now, so over-the-top, but at the time she’d known without a doubt she’d never again want another woman the way she ached for Molly. Perhaps the saddest part was she still felt that way.

  “God, what’s the matter with this kid?” Coop interrupted her thoughts, and she wondered briefly if he’d read her mind or was just sick of her moping about. She’d thrown herself into work, arriving early and staying late in an attempt to avoid thinking about her personal life, but she hadn’t been great company. Still, they were in the final innings of a nine-game West Coast road trip, and everyone on and off the field looked tired.

  “He’s a mess,” Cooper added.

  “Who?” Duke asked, realizing she’d missed something.

  “Brooks.” He snorted, punctuating the sentence with a parenthetical “dumbass.” “He used to be a gamer. Now he’s dogging fly balls on the warning track and bailing on pitches inside.”

  She refocused her attention on Petco Park in time to see Coop’s point illustrated perfectly. A heater from the Padres’ fireball closer hurtled down the
inside track and crossed the plate on the corner closest to the batter. The borderline pitch could’ve been called a ball or a strike depending on the umpire’s zone, but the call didn’t matter nearly as much as the way Cayden flinched as it passed him by. The ball might have been a close call but hadn’t come close to actually hitting him. Major leaguers hit pitches in that area all the time, or at least swung at them.

  She remembered his comments before the All-Star break about working on fast hands. Clearly he’d yet to perfect the skill, and advance scouts had picked up on the weakness.

  “Three months ago he would’ve tried to go deep with that pitch.”

  Duke searched her memory of his at bats. He’d never established himself as a high average hitter, but his numbers had fallen off even more over the last six weeks. Was there more behind the frustration he’d vented to her in the locker room? Was the shot of bravado meant to challenge pitchers or cover an insecurity?

  “He’s never had stellar plate coverage there,” she remarked more to herself than anyone in the San Diego press box. “I’m not sure he’s ever gone yard on the inside pitch.”

  “Maybe not,” Coop conceded, scratching at the salt-and-pepper stubble on his chin. “He might’ve missed, but earlier in the season he would’ve swung for the fences.”

  The phrase echoed her words to Molly in bed. The players, the field, the San Diego skyline all vanished again. In her mind they were together in a tangle of sheets. She pictured Molly’s eyes, felt her arms around her neck once more, registered the press of her lips so soft as they yielded to her.

  “Definitely a home run,” Duke mumbled.

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “I was thinking about something someone said to me about home runs. Doesn’t matter now, though.”

  How could something that had felt so perfect, so right in the moment, hurt so badly now? Molly had said herself they’d hit a home run, and then moments later she’d bailed on them. The complete turnaround hurt, even weeks after the fact.

  Hurt, home runs, bailing out, swinging for the fences…How had her conversation about Cayden become about Molly? Was she stretching a connection that shouldn’t be there, or did the two fit somehow? Could anything tie her to Molly, or to Cayden, or Molly to Cayden? They had nothing in common but her pain.

  Pain.

  She hopped up and threw her tablet, phone, and notepads into her messenger bag.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve got a lead.”

  “How about running it by your old mentor here?” Coop asked.

  “Mentor?” Now it was her turn to snort. “Maybe if it pans out, you can read about it in my blog tonight. Don’t worry. It’ll be posted hours before your column goes to print.”

  She didn’t wait for his response. The game was nearly over, and she wanted to be the first one Cayden Brooks talked to in the locker room. All the other press filtering in headed for the area the pitchers used, since the Cardinals staff had thrown a combined shutout. Brooks’s strikeout in the top of the ninth didn’t even rank on most reporters’ radar, and he seemed surprised to see her waiting against his locker when he finally arrived.

  His uniform shirt was unbuttoned and untucked, while the side of his away gray pants had a grass stain from his knee to his hip. His forehead shone red where the band of his cap had crossed it earlier, but his short brown hair stood out sweaty and disheveled.

  “Hey, Cayden. I’ve got a question if you’ve got a minute.”

  “Don’t you want to talk to someone who actually had something to do with our win today?”

  “I will, but I’ve just been meaning to ask how you’re feeling.”

  He frowned. “I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, I remember you took a bit of a…” She wasn’t sure what word she wanted to use, something vague enough to encompass a variety of issues without making it clear she was fishing. “A, um, bruising.”

  “I’m back to one hundred percent, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”

  He hadn’t given her much, but he’d at least confirmed he’d been hurt at one point though he’d never appeared on the injury report. Had the organization hidden something from the press, or had he hidden it from the training staff?

  “There’s nothing there, Duke,” he warned her off again as he lifted off his sweat-soaked undershirt and pulled on a clean one. She scanned his body quickly but found no bruising, no outward signs of injury, only the flush of recent athletic activities. Why was he so invested in convincing her he’d healed from a trauma she didn’t remember him sustaining? She reviewed her recent memories of him…there was the flinching today, the comments about not busting him inside, the dropped ball at the wall, and the strange ruling on the play. Then there was the hit by pitch—bingo.

  “But it hurt for a long time after Pistas drilled you with the fastball in May?”

  His eyes widened then narrowed. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  “But it hurt to swing for a while, didn’t it?”

  He turned away.

  “It hurt so bad you hesitated before you hit the wall in center field last month.”

  “We’re done here.”

  “Look, a few months ago you told me to run a quote because you were going to get it out there one way or another and you’d rather give it to me. Now I’m telling you the same thing.” She lowered her voice so only he could hear. “Someone’s going to put the pieces together or run something purely speculative. Give me the info. Let me make sure it gets out there the right way.”

  He didn’t respond, but his body language softened, and the defiance drained from his eyes.

  “I’m going to run this story either way, so you’ve got nothing to lose by listening. Let me tell you how it looks to me. If I’m right, you don’t have to give me a quote, but if I’ve got anything wrong, you get a chance to correct me. Deal?”

  He shrugged noncommittally.

  “In May you got hit in the ribs hard enough to drop you, but you got up because that’s what professionals do. Only, the pain continued in ways you didn’t expect. Things hurt a long time after they should’ve healed, more than you cared to admit. You didn’t want to seem incapable, so you didn’t tell anyone how bad you hurt. Not the press, not the trainers, no one.” She paused waiting for him to contradict her, but he continued to stare at her, stone faced.

  “Okay. You shortened your swing because it hurt to hit, and it probably hurt even worse to miss. No more swinging for the fences for fear of making things worse. You also got cautious around the outfield wall, which made you drop the ball on a big play.”

  He looked down at his cleats, clearly embarrassed.

  “Still, you’d rather look like a screwup than admit you needed help. But why did someone cook the books?”

  “You’d have to check with them. I didn’t ask for any favors.”

  She pondered the question again. Maybe the scorer had taken pity on him, maybe they’d made a mistake, or maybe the organization knew he was hurt and put pressure on someone to cover for him. “Are you on the trading block?”

  He clenched his jaw and shrugged again.

  “Do you want to be traded?”

  “I grew up in Southern Illinois. I’m a fifth-generation Cardinals fan.”

  “Drafted out of high school as a hometown hero.” She finished the line of his bio. “I’ll take that as a no, but the organization might be trying to make you look like a hot prospect.”

  “I’m just a ballplayer,” he said. “I can’t control the suits in the front office. I have to play my game.”

  “But the mistakes you’ve had pinned on you lately can be tied directly back to an injury. You’re still fending off pitches inside rather than swinging for the fences.”

  His eyes widened, and he sucked in a breath of air. “I’m not. I’m fine now. No pain. None at all.”

  The reaction was the most animated and vehement she’d seen out of him in a long time. Something didn’t feel right, but he s
eemed entirely sincere.

  As if to further illustrate his point, he lifted up his shirt and patted his side firmly. “Nothing hurts.”

  She wanted to believe him, but why the defensiveness? Then again, he had gotten better in the field over the last few weeks and he certainly didn’t look hurt. If anything, he seemed scared.

  Scared.

  She flashed to the image of him flinching at the inside pitch. The physical pain might’ve ended, but the fear, the stress, the memory he’d associated with getting hit still shook him. He was afraid of getting hit again.

  She sighed heavily, realizing what plagued him now wouldn’t be as easy to overcome as a bruised rib. She chose her words carefully, quietly. “Once you’ve felt pain like that, and for the first time understand what an injury of that nature could do to your career, to all the people who look up to you, it must be pretty hard to open up on those close pitches again.”

  “Please don’t print that,” he whispered. “Pitchers are already testing me on the corners. If you tell them I’m scared it’ll be open season for cheap shots.”

  The information would certainly hurt him and the team, but she wasn’t a Cardinals employee. She was a journalist. She had a responsibility to keep readers informed. Still, she wasn’t the paparazzi or an ambulance chaser. She wasn’t out to drag anyone down.

  “Duke, it’s getting better. I’m back up to speed on defense. I’m only overprotective of the inside.”

  Something stirred in Duke, a memory, an emotion, a connection pulled at her chest. Protective of the inside. She closed her eyes, trying to focus, and remembered the look on Molly’s face when she’d seen her in the hallway with Joe.

  Fear.

  Duke had initially thought she’d hurt her and spent the last two weeks wondering what she’d done to cause that kind of pain, but what if she hadn’t caused the pain at all? What if she’d only triggered the memory of it?