by Eden Connor
"I'm going to the shop to start on your truck. Be ready at five-fifteen, Jonah has a game at six. You're coming, I need an interpreter. That's my price for the detour." He stepped away from her, casually knotting the condom and leaning into the kitchen door long enough to toss it away before tugging his jeans up. "And answer your damn phone, would you? Sometimes I just want to hear the sound of your voice."
Another fast kiss and then he practically jogged down the ramp, not giving her a chance to protest that of all the places in the county, the last place she could go was Berry Field. Pete had last coached on that field, and Charlie had played countless games there. It would hurt too much to go to a place she'd never have been if not for her husband and son, when neither of them would be there.
Lila stared at his back as he disappeared around the corner of the house, trying to sort out what had just taken place.
It was fair to ask her to explain a ball game, she supposed, as she heard the wrecker crank up. It wasn't as if she had much choice. She'd done harder things, she decided, than watch a game she loved. She'd just try not to cry. She didn't want to think about the ramifications had Colton not been willing to make that side trip by Jimmy's place. Grabbing up her clothes, she distracted herself from the impending pain by wondering where her game chairs had been stored and trying to remember where she'd put all the scorebooks after Charlie left for boot camp.
Stepping into to the kitchen, her gaze lit on the beautiful Cattleya orchid in the middle of the table. She admired it as she puzzled over the man that had given it to her. He was in his prime: good-looking, sexy, and kind, a strong and capable man. Considerate, responsible, a hard worker, intelligent, yet easygoing. All of that, in her opinion, was a lethal mix. Why waste it on her? He could snap his fingers and have his pick of beautiful younger women.
As she examined the soft pink blossoms with their ruffled, trumpet-shaped throats edged in cranberry, like the bits of glass she collected, she decided it had to be because she was safe. Those younger women saw what she saw. Saw it and wanted to hang onto it. He didn't want to be tied down. Lila wouldn't ask that of him, and he knew it. This "thing" was safe for both of them. It was just sex, but he was too decent to treat her that way. Her friend Amy had a term for this. She called it "hooking up". This wasn't about forming a relationship, it was about getting off.
And, he likely did need an interpreter for baseball. As soon as he was up to speed, he'd move on. The season lasted six or seven weeks.
"By then, you'll be dead and he'll be gone." Lila addressed the orchid. "And I can live with that."
Chapter Nine
To Colton's consternation, Jonah barely spoke to Lila during the trip to Berry Field. Making no secret of the fact he hadn't wanted to sit in the small back seat, Jonah all but ignored her after that. The kid answered her questions with grunts and resentful shrugs, making Colton want to strangle his nephew. Before he even got the truck into a parking space in the lot outside Berry Field, Jonah flung the back door open, grabbed his equipment bag, and hauled ass into the stadium.
Colton found a space, eased in, and put the truck transmission into park. "I'm sorry, Lila. He really is grateful, and he usually has better manners than this."
Lila laughed with genuine amusement. "Been there, done that, Colton. Perfect manners from a thirteen-year-old? Unlikely. There's too much going on, from hormonal urges he doesn't understand to the battle that's about to take place in there." She gestured toward the solid rise of bleachers. "He has his head in the game already, don't take it personally."
Meaning she hadn't, he realized, relaxing.
* * * *
Lila's stomach knotted as they walked across the old wooden bridge over the creek that meandered along the side of the ball field where Pete had once spent so much time.
She prayed the eight-year age difference between Charlie and Jonah meant there wouldn't be many parents in attendance who knew her, but she feared anonymity was out of the question. She steeled herself for the thoughtless remarks of the well-meaning as she stepped through the gate into one of her favorite ball fields and got hit with her past.
This wasn't a date. It was nothing more than accompanying a friend to see his kid play. She'd done the same a thousand times, but she saw censure in the eyes of the lady who ran the concession stand, a woman Pete had recommended for the position. But she introduced Colton as casually as possible and gritted her teeth when she replied that she was "fine".
She recognized the umpires as well, but they were occupied with getting the game underway, so their greetings were brief.
Did she owe them any answers if she hadn't seen them since the day she'd buried Pete? Maybe they were shocked to see her with a man, but she'd been just as shocked when they'd all melted away after the funeral.
Murphy's Law virtually guaranteed a few people had a kid both Charlie's age as well as Jonah's, but did they all have to play for these two teams? She wondered as she spoke to several, most asking about Charlie, and she cut off their questions and insincere remarks about her loss by introducing Colton, smiling grimly when that shut them up.
She wrapped herself in the insulation of the rituals she'd observed since Charlie had been five. Selecting a spot near home plate, so she could see the pitches cross the plate, she unfolded her chairs. She asked Reggie's wife for a look at lineup cards so she could fill out her score book.
"Oh my God, Lila Walker!" Reggie's wife was far too loud to suit Lila, but the screeching woman obligingly held out the pair of cards. "Here, you can have the scorekeeper's job; I know you're a better one than me. Thanks so much for getting us a pitcher, we sure needed another one. It's so good to see you, how have you been? I'm so sorry we didn't know poor Pete died."
Anyone listening would never have guessed that the last time Lila had seen Reggie's wife, she had been spitting at poor Pete from the back seat of a police cruiser, under arrest for getting into a fight with another mother at a game.
"Thank you. Nice to see you too, Janine. I don't mind keeping score, thanks. It's been years since I've been to Berry, the field looks nice, doesn't it?" She snatched the lineup cards and scurried back to her seat beside the fence.
But the minute the umpire yelled "Play Ball", Lila let the game she loved draw her in, more than willing to be seduced anew by pageantry of the pitch, the hit, and the run.
For just a second, the tall, tow-headed kid on the mound looked like Charlie, and Lila's lips moved in her usual prayer.
* * * *
Colton watched Lila with something akin to awe as the evening unfolded. She'd sauntered through the gate as if she owned this place, and her credibility transferred to him in some indefinable way. From the comfortable folding chairs she'd brought, to the scorebook on her knee, it was plain that Lila was in her element. She knew the woman running the concession stand and had introduced him. She knew the umpires and spoke to Reggie's wife as well as several of the other parents, from both teams, calling them all by name.
And the parents spoke back, including him for the first time. He was happy to note that she met their inquiring looks with steady eyes. He relaxed, forgetting his concerns about Jonah and his worries that she would become upset if anyone brought up Pete. Some had, and Lila had thanked them for their sympathy, but their mention of him didn't make her look sad. She wanted to sit next to the fence between the house-shaped white rubber plate and the big circle lined off next to the fence a few feet from the dugout, front and center to anyone who was watching them or whispering about her. Serving notice that she did not care what they thought, he suspected.
He hoped.
Colton didn't understand most of the marks she made in the book, but he figured out by the top of the second inning that she was accurately marking balls and strikes in her book before the umpire yelled out those calls, along with some other shorthand he couldn't make sense of at the end of every at-bat. She spoke phrases he couldn't translate. She began to give Jonah and his teammates advice as they stepped up
to the plate, and as the game progressed, he realized the young players had begun to look to her for that, too.
"He took you to school last time," she said to one kid, who had "gone down looking"—whatever the hell that meant—in his first trip to the plate, loudly protesting the umpire's call of "strike three" as had exactly half of the onlookers. Reggie was yelling for all he was worth on every pitch, but Lila kept up a running conversation with each kid as he stepped into the round chalked shape she called the on-deck circle. "He shows you that fastball down and away again, make him pay. It's been a strike all night, won't change now." Colton didn't understand a word of it, but it seemed the kids did.
By the bottom of the last inning, the Tigers were down by two runs to none and Reggie had stopped screaming, subsiding into kicking angrily at the red dirt in the lined-off box behind third base. Jonah was second up to bat in the inning, standing in the on-deck circle, looking up at the crowd, resignation in his expression. There was one out. Last on the roster to bat, Jonah had struck out both times he'd been to the plate. Colton was prepared for the worst. He suspected Jonah was still in the game because only nine kids had shown up.
"Pay attention, Jonah," Lila admonished, snapping her fingers. "Infield's getting cocky, catcher's being lazy, and a runner dancing off second upsets the pitcher's concentration. They think they have this, you know what to do. Base runners, not heroes. Be smart. You look to me like you've got the speed. Why not have a little fun?"
Jonah gave her a speaking look, though Colton had no idea what was said. He saw his nephew turn to look at the field, look back at Lila with narrowed eyes and nod decisively. A rare grin crossed the kid's face. He jammed his batting helmet down on his head and stepped into the batter's box.
"What the hell did you just tell him?" Colton demanded.
"Shh," she replied, leaning forward in her chair. "You don't want to miss this."
Jonah tapped at two pitches, and let three go by unmolested.
"Full count. Don't need a hit here, we need to get fired up," Lila yelled. Reggie was yelling something different.
Now Colton was really lost. If not a hit, then what? But he saw Jonah nod. The next pitch was a ball and Jonah dropped his bat and trotted to first base. Expecting him to stop, Colton was shocked when the kid glanced at the pitcher and took off in a blur for second, flopping in the dirt to slide on his belly and stirring up a big cloud of red dust, making it impossible to see.
Lila grabbed Colton's arm and her nails dug into his skin. She was shrieking with glee.
The catcher, who'd been holding the ball, made an errant throw to second base, one the second baseman managed to catch, but not before the umpire signaled Jonah safe, causing Lila to lead the rest of the crowd in rising to their feet.
One of Reggie's twins was next to bat. "I know you can bunt," Lila told him as Colton's heart raced from excitement. "Think third, not first, and be ready to run on the missed throw." The kid looked at Lila and back to his dad then back to Lila, who again snapped her fingers loudly. "He quit coaching and started bitching two innings ago," Lila said, shocking Colton to the core, a surprise mirrored on Reggie's son's face, but the kid nodded. "Think bunt, not hit. Do not stand still when you get to second, Tony. I want you to dance off that bag."
"Need a batter," the umpire sang. Colton saw the official's smirk through the wire grill of the mask covering his face. It made him think he'd overheard what she'd said to the twin. And that he agreed with her.
He forgot about the pain from the nails she kept digging into his forearm as Tony barely tapped the ball with the bat, making it roll at half-speed across the dirt toward an unprepared third baseman. He saw Jonah hesitate at second until the ball was thrown to first, then slide into third while the first baseman had to hurry off the bag to chase the bad throw. Tony ended up safe at second while Jonah popped up at third, clapping, after a slide even Colton knew was just an excuse to get more dirt on his uniform. Reggie was yelling at him, but Lila caught his attention and smiled, flashing the "ok" sign. Jonah was grinning from ear to ear.
So was Lila.
"Take the walk. Do not swing the bat," she said firmly to the next kid, after a glance at her score book. "We only need three runs and we have all night to get 'em."
"Ball four, take yer base," the umpire called in a singsong voice a few pitches later. The kid never offered to swing at a single pitch, much to Reggie's vocal disgust.
The crowd was making so much noise Colton could barely hear her next words. The bases were loaded now, and the Tigers still had just the one out. "Relax, and breathe," she leaned forward and said to the next batter. She released Colton's arm, and the crimson half-moons throbbed in time with his groin every time his heart took a beat as he tried to take her advice as well. He stared at her, adoring the animation on her face as she talked her nonsense through the fence. "He's mad now and he'll be humming the ball. But anything out of the infield scores Jonah, and there's two more outs to play with. Relax, son. No pressure here. Don't be afraid of an out. Think RBI."
Reggie was yelling something different. So were most others, demanding the batter put the ball over the green outfield wall.
The kid, the second of Reggie's twins, struck out with three hard swings, nearly screwing himself into the ground with the last one. But Lila was already talking to the kid in the on-deck circle as she calmly recorded the second out. "Put it where you've put it all night, that big gap in left. You own this guy, Dustin."
Dustin did exactly that and two runs crossed the plate, tying the score as the ball fell into the grass close to the outfield wall. The kid she'd ordered not to swing was on third, the winning run. Colton was starting to catch on.
The next kid walked right up to the fence, looking to her, not Reggie, who'd bent his ear and jerked him roughly by the arm before stomping back to the coach's box.
"I can't hit this guy," the kid said in despair, his eyes anxious above two thick streaks of smeared black.
"Don't have to," Lila said with a confident smile. "All we need is a run. Lay it down the first base line and run like your pants are on fire."
"They'll throw home," the kid argued.
"They won't see it coming, the pitcher won't cover," she assured him. "Keep it fair, though."
Colton saw him search her face as the umpire yelled for him to get in the box. He also saw Reggie's dark scowl as the coach watched the exchange at the fence. Lila nodded confidently. The kid stepped to the plate, and Colton held his breath, his nails digging into her arm this time. The ball flew toward the plate, he saw the bat come up and began cursing inwardly because the umpire's ass was blocking his view. The catcher jumped from behind the plate, scooping up the ball that Colton now spied rolling to a stop just inside the thick line of white chalk. The catcher whirled to throw home to make the out, but there was no one from his team at the plate to catch his throw. Holding the ball as he watched the winning run cross the plate in disgust, the sweaty kid in the awkward-looking catching gear then fired the ball at the pitcher while yelling at him for not breaking for the plate to receive the throw home for the out, costing the bigger, better team the game they'd already counted as theirs.
"Yes." Lila pumped her fist one time. Colton marveled at her restraint, he wanted to throw a party.
"Ball game," the umpire bellowed, jerking off his mask. The gray and blue-clad man strode to the fence, a big smile on his face. "Welcome back, Lila. You haven't lost your touch, I see. Pete always called you his secret weapon."
Lila laughed as the Tigers celebrated. "Thanks, Joey. You think I can make the truck before Reggie sinks his teeth in me?"
"Good luck with that," the umpire said after a moment's thought as he stared into the riotous dugout. "Idiot should thank you." He gave Colton an appraising look. "You might have to be the protection."
"He'll never touch her," Colton promised hotly.
The burly blonde umpire burst out laughing. "I meant you might need to protect Reggie. Lila can take care of
herself, but Reggie's not smart enough to let this go."
While Reggie talked with the team, Lila scribbled totals on her scorebook, and transferred them to a piece of paper she tore out of the back while they waited for Jonah.
"You really know this game," he stated admiringly.
She laughed as she closed her book and began folding up her chair. "I was so mad the day Pete signed Charlie up for baseball. I thought this sport was about as exciting as watching paint dry. Then my kid picked up a bat that was almost as long as he was tall, and he hit the ball. Charlie ran in a straight line from home plate to second, because he just knew that hit was a double, and Pete couldn't decide whether to scream, laugh or cry. Charlie and I both learned that day that you have to touch all the bases in order, or you're out." She chuckled. "The little boys on the other team collided in the grass like overeager puppies trying to pick up the ball, and I fell in love."
The meeting broke up and the trio was halfway to his truck when Colton heard Reggie's voice behind them, bristling with rage. "Lila Walker. I need to speak to you."
Reggie looked angry, and Colton tensed for the confrontation as Lila turned with a sigh. "Give Jonah the keys and send him to the truck," she said, her tone brooking no argument. Colton handed Jonah his key ring and nodded his agreement. The sound of Jonah's cleats dragging against the sidewalk made Colton grit his teeth as Reggie approached him and Lila.
Reggie wasted no words. "My team, Lila. They can't listen to two coaches."
"Tonight, there was only one of us coaching," Lila said calmly. "You were too busy screaming. And, you almost cost these kids a game, starting with your lineup, which needs work, but I made you some notes."
Colton suppressed a laugh as Reggie's face darkened, but the short man was apparently unable to articulate his thoughts. Lila pressed her advantage, holding out the scrap of paper. "Nepotism isn't going to win you any games, not in this league. Then, after digging them into a hole with that lineup before they ever stepped out on that field, you gave up on those kids, Reggie. But I had your back, so you're welcome." She pressed the paper into the top of his equipment bag and turned her back on the little man, who appeared to shrink in light of her calm, assured words.