by Duncan Leigh
The deer-in-the-headlights look she half expected never materialized. Instead, Travis forked the last of the pork chops onto his plate.
“If you cook like this every night, I just might.” He peered into a nearly empty bowl that minutes before had held a towering mound of mashed potatoes. “Josh, how ’bout you and I divvy these up?”
“No, thanks.” Pushing away from the table, Josh patted his tummy. “Mom, can we have dessert?”
“In a bit.” She speared the last of her green beans. “While we wait, why don’t you tell us what happened at school today.”
When Josh launched into a recitation that started with the moment he stepped out of the house, she dished up brownies and ice cream. She told herself she lost track of the story because her son threw in more twists and turns than a switchback road. Travis, though, interrupted only to ask for more details. When Addie reached for her sippy cup, he handed it to her without so much as a questioning glance.
Josh downed the sweets in record time. He leaned forward, his eyes sparkling. “Hey, Coach. You know why Cinderella ran away with the ball?” His words came in a rush.
Travis squinted. “Are you sure you’re telling that right?”
His voice spiraling upward, Josh ignored the question. “Because she got kicked off the baseball team!” He laughed as if he hadn’t mangled the familiar joke entirely.
Courtney only shrugged and rolled her eyes when Travis turned a befuddled look her way. Sugar and little boys were a potent mix. Little girls, too, for that matter. Though she’d skipped the brownie, Addie giggled and banged her spoon on her tray.
In quick succession, Josh told three more jokes just as badly as the first.
Travis bumped elbows with the boy. “Hey, kid,” he said. “If you ever try out for a part in the school play, we’ll have to work on your lines. A lot.” He shook his head. “Scary,” he mouthed so seriously that Courtney stifled her own laughter behind a well-placed hand.
Happier than she’d been in a long time, she scooted away from the table. “Josh, Addie, time to say good night.”
“Wait a sec,” Travis held up a hand. “Don’t I get a turn?”
“Yeah, Mom. Coach wants a turn.” Josh turned toward the man at the end of the table.
Courtney pretended to object. “I don’t know. Tomorrow’s a school day. You have to get to bed on time.”
“Please, Mom?” Josh begged. “Please?”
“Okay,” she answered, trying to look stern and failing miserably. “But just one more.”
Travis rested his forehead against a closed fist. “Let me think a minute,” he said while Josh all but bounced up and down in his chair. “Okay.” He waved his hand. “Okay, here we go. Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?” Josh shot back.
“Whoooo’s der?” Addie chirped.
“Base,” Travis intoned.
“Base who?”
“Base-su?” Addie stifled a yawn.
“Base be getting to bed.”
“Good one, Coach,” Josh said, his voice echoing the encouraging tone Travis used on the ball field.
“Speaking of which.” Courtney gave the clock on the microwave a pointed glance. “Go brush your teeth, Josh. I’ll be right there to tuck you in.” She scooped Addie from her high chair. The baby waved a sleepy goodbye as she snuggled against Courtney’s shoulder.
“How they can go from a sugar high to exhausted in a matter of seconds is beyond me,” she said with a tremulous smile that had nothing to do with her children’s antics. No, the blame for that lay strictly at Travis’s feet. She wondered when she’d fallen in love with him and thought it might have been the moment he’d handed Addie her sippy cup without even giving it a thought. Or maybe it had been when he’d asked Josh about his day and really listened to the boy’s story. Or it might have been the first moment she saw him in the principal’s office.
No matter when it had happened, she knew only that, against her best intentions, she was hopelessly, helplessly in love with Travis.
Shifting Addie in her arms, she followed Josh down the hall before the truth could escape her lips.
Don’t rush it, Travis told himself. This was, after all, the first time Courtney had invited him into her home. Though she pretended the dinner was only to repay him for bringing new business into Coffee on Brevard, they both knew it was more than that. Much more. Maybe the first in a lifetime of meals they’d share right here.
He rubbed his fingers over the scarred wood of a table barely large enough to seat four. Okay, they’d want something bigger. In a larger place. Someplace like a house with a yard for the kids. With a roomy kitchen where he and Courtney could steal the occasional kiss while they washed dishes or packed school lunches.
He pictured a family room with a wide-screen TV he and Josh could watch whenever the Cannons played. One where the toy box didn’t serve as the guest chair. A master suite with a king-size bed he and Courtney would put to good use.
Oh, yeah.
Footsteps put an end to thoughts of all the future promised. Josh peered around a corner, his freshly scrubbed face shiny. “Hey, Coach,” he whispered. “You wanna see my room?”
Halfway to his feet, Travis slowed long enough to ask, “Is it okay with your mom?”
The boy’s head bobbed so fast the action heroes on his pj’s shook. “She said you might like to see where I put your baseball while she gives Addie a bath.”
Tenderness spread through Travis’s chest as he eased the rest of the way out of his chair. At the entrance to a room the size of a closet, he kept his smile firmly in place despite near claustrophobia triggered by sloping ceilings. Gritting his teeth, he ducked his head and took the two steps that put him in front of a shelf above the chest of drawers. There Josh had centered his baseball between several other keepsakes.
“That looks nice.” Travis admired a spelling test the boy had aced and a first-place ribbon.
Across the tiny room, Josh climbed under his covers. “You said it was the game ball? Did you pitch a no-hitter?”
“Sure did,” Travis answered with a grin.
His head on a pillow, the boy issued a hopeful “Tell me about it?”
Travis snugged the blanket beneath Josh’s chin the same way his mom used to do for him when he was a kid. Though the room was so narrow his outstretched legs practically reached the door, he sank onto the edge of the mattress.
“Let’s see, it was a Tuesday four years ago.” He launched into a tale guaranteed to put stars in a young boy’s eyes. “We were on the road again, this time in Newport, Rhode Island. I had no idea I was going to pitch a no-hitter when I woke up in my hotel room that morning…”
While Josh listened in wide-eyed silence, Travis rolled the ball between his fingers and shared the story of his brush with glory. He’d faced his toughest opponents that day and walked off the mound to a standing ovation after seven innings. When he finished recounting the tale, he ruffled Josh’s hair.
“Nights like that are what make all the years of practice and hard work worth the effort.” He stood, intending to put the ball back where he’d found it. At the shelf, though, he squinted at a faint outline in the dust. Curious, he scanned the room. His focus narrowed in on a wooden bat propped in a corner.
“Was that here before?”
“It’s just one my dad gave me.” Josh bunched his pillow under his head. “He was supposed to take me to see the Twisters play for my birthday. When he couldn’t, he got some of the other players to sign a bat instead.”
On his birthday?
The bands across Travis’s chest constricted. Small wonder Courtney hadn’t wanted anything to do with baseball. Her husband’s priorities had been seriously out of whack if he’d attended the game without his son. Travis tamped down a sudden urge to strangle a man who was part of Courtney and her children’s history. He ground his teeth together.
He wanted to be their future. To make it a good one.
He crossed to the c
orner and hefted the bat. “We could make room for both on the shelf, if you want.”
“Nah.” His eyes drifting shut, Josh yawned. “The ball fits better. Night, Coach.”
Travis swallowed past a sudden lump. “Night, Josh,” he whispered. He stepped toward the door, his pulse skyrocketing when he spotted the slender form standing there.
“Night, Josh. Love you,” Courtney whispered.
“Love you, too, Mom.”
Travis’s heart beat faster than it did when he rounded third and slid into home. He tiptoed into the hall. While he held his breath and hoped, prayed, he hadn’t stepped out of bounds, Courtney brushed past. One finger to her lips, she turned out the boy’s light and pulled the bedroom door closed. Though he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to pry his feet from the spot where they’d rooted themselves, Travis managed to get them in motion when she crooked a finger, beckoning him into the kitchen.
His heart tightened the instant she swung to face him. Beneath the fluorescent lights, tears glistened on her cheeks. The question he’d been afraid to ask faded, unnecessary. She’d overheard enough to make her cry.
Aw, jeez.
“Excuse me a minute, will you?”
She ducked out of sight, leaving him standing there with empty arms and “I’m sorry” on his lips. He heard the sound of water running. He blew out a long breath. When he heard her in the hallway, he summoned a weak smile to cover a sudden uncertainty over what to say next.
“Josh might be one of the best natural talents I’ve ever seen in baseball, but he can’t tell a joke to save his life, can he?”
Courtney’s quiet laughter swept away some of his fears. “It’s like everything else. He’ll get better with practice.”
He raised his eyebrows at the unexpected opening. “I can think of other things I’d like to practice.” He closed the short distance between them. Tracing his fingers along her jaw, he drew her toward him. A thrill raced through him when she melted against him. His lips found hers and for a few minutes he lost himself in her touch, her taste.
It wasn’t enough. No matter how amazing, a kiss never would be. He took her in his arms. When she pressed against him, he gently tugged the band from her hair. He sighed as her curls fell loose about her shoulders. Reveling in the silky strands, he plunged his fingers through them to the nape of her neck. He rained kisses across her cheek, along her jaw, trailed them down to the sweet hollow at the base of her throat.
She threaded her hands through his hair and he swore he heard her moan his name when he skimmed his finger along the outline of her curves. Stopping to catch his breath, he wanted nothing more than to kiss Courtney all the way down the hall to her bedroom, shedding clothes as they went. He stared into her blue eyes and saw the same desire in their depths.
He groaned and bent again. A rustling sound came from the baby monitor perched on the kitchen counter.
Reality check.
Reluctantly, he trailed a final series of kisses up to Courtney’s lips. Their first time wasn’t going to happen tonight. Not in her apartment, where the children could walk in at any moment. He wanted to hear her moan as he kissed her breasts. Wanted to make her gasp. To hear her cry out his name.
And then do it all over again.
And again.
Until they were both utterly and completely spent.
But not in a tiny apartment constructed of thin walls and flimsy doors.
Courtney sighed. Her breath warmed his neck seconds before she slipped from his grasp. Leaning against the counter, her voice far steadier than his own, she peered up at him.
“That thing with the bat… Josh tries to hide it, but he was crushed the day his dad didn’t take him to the game.” Her voice dropped to the barest whisper. “I can’t let my kids get hurt like that again. So, Travis.” She paused long enough to fix him with a clear-eyed gaze. “I have to know if you’re here to stay…”
He caught the slight quiver in her voice and knew the moment had finally come. It was time to confess he’d fallen in love with her. That he intended to stand at her side for the rest of his life. To be there for all the important moments in Josh’s and Addie’s lives.
“…or simply passing through,” she finished.
All his dreams for the future stuttered. Loving Courtney had consequences, consequences he was 99 percent sure he wanted. Only the tiniest sliver of doubt remained, but it reared an ugly head. Forever meant giving up on his dream of coaching in the pros. She might not have shared every detail of her past, but she’d told him enough. Enough to know she’d never settle for an absentee husband or a part-time dad for her children.
But wasn’t that exactly what he had to offer?
“I…” He let his hands drop to his sides.
A frown worried Courtney’s brow.
“I want to be sure, is all,” Travis offered. “You deserve that. They—” he nodded toward the children’s rooms “—they deserve it, too.”
“But you’re not.” She sighed.
He couldn’t stand to see her hurt, to know he’d hurt her. “It’s not you. It’s me,” he said, meaning the words far more than some trite cliché. “But…”
Courtney held up a hand, stopping him. “But…” She sighed again. “But there’s nothing more to say. Not tonight.” Confusion swam in the eyes that met his. “I think you’d better leave.”
Calling himself all kinds of a fool for risking the best thing that had ever happened to him, Travis forced himself to take the honorable but incredibly difficult steps out her door.
Chapter Eleven
Travis planted his feet well inside the coach’s box at first base. A fresh line of sweat broke across his brow. Maintaining an outward calm, he refused to mop his forehead. Late May in Central Florida meant temperatures in the nineties and very little cloud cover, but the heat wasn’t responsible for the way his uniform clung like a second skin. No, that privilege belonged to the Sluggers. Down by three runs, their sole chance for the league championship rested on the shoulders of the boy who trudged toward home plate looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else on the planet.
Travis scuffed his foot through the red clay. Would it shatter Josh’s confidence if he pulled him out of the game?
He spared a quick glance at the nervous blonde sitting on the third-row bleacher. The way Courtney tugged on her lower lip sent another dribble of sweat down his back. He imagined right about now she was second-guessing every decision she’d made over the past four months.
He squelched an urge to smack his forehead. She and her kids were the best things that had ever happened to him. But as much as he’d wanted to tell her so, when the moment was right, he hadn’t been able to choose her over a future with the Cannons.
As it turned out, that future was a whole lot closer than he’d expected.
Last night, the offer he’d been waiting for had been on his answering machine when he got home from dinner. The Cannons expected his answer today and had sent Frank Booker to close the deal. The presence of the man who propped a shoulder against the corner of the snack bar complicated things.
“Two outs. Bottom of the sixth. The Hornets are ahead by three runs. Yes sirree, folks, it all comes down to this. Next up to bat…Jo-o-osh Smi-i-ith.” The announcer’s voice boomed through the speakers.
Travis forced his head back into the last inning of the last game in the season. A win here would start the Sluggers on the long tough road to the Little League World Series. A loss and the team was done for the year. It would take a miracle and nothing less to turn this one around. With bases loaded and two outs, the boy who’d never stepped into a batter’s box before this season would in all likelihood choke. Travis had seen it happen often enough that he refused to put added pressure on Josh. He gave the boy the sign to swing away.
No sense telling him not to. He will, no matter what.
Low and outside the strike zone, the ball tore across home plate. Josh swung and missed.
On the visitors�
�� side of the field, parents and grandparents stomped their feet against the metal bleachers. The noise rose to deafening levels.
Travis flashed Josh a confident smile that said it didn’t matter whether the boy hit the ball or not.
The pitcher went into his windup. From his vantage point, Travis spotted the kid’s grip and groaned. Looking like every batter’s dream, the curveball swirled toward home plate. Travis watched Josh hitch the bat slightly higher. The boy was going to swing.
Swish! Another miss. Strike two.
He caught Josh’s look of utter disbelief when the ball spun out of reach.
“No worries.” Travis shouted to make himself heard over the crowd. “Just relax and hang in there.” Despite the words, his heart shifted into overdrive.
With the count at two-and-oh, the pitcher could afford to throw one outside the strike zone. Sure enough, the ball sailed in high across home plate. Expecting Josh to swing at it the same way he had at tryouts, Travis warned himself not to cringe.
“Ball one,” called the umpire.
Behind his sunglasses, Travis’s eyes widened. Proud of the boy for laying off the tempting pitch, he gave Josh the thumbs-up sign. “Good job,” he mouthed.
The next one barreled down the center of the strike zone.
A resounding crack sent Travis’s heart soaring right along with the ball as it reversed course. While the opposing team’s outfielders watched in slack-jawed wonder, white leather climbed for blue sky, not leveling out until well beyond the fence. For a moment Josh simply stood at home plate, stunned. Awe filled the look he shot his coach.
Grinning broadly, Travis called, “Go, Josh!” He twirled one finger in the air, the signal for a home run.
Josh dropped the bat and jogged toward first.
One by one, Sluggers tagged up and trotted around the bases, headed for home. One run. Two runs. The third tied the game. When Josh stepped on the plate to score the winning run, the stands erupted. His teammates surged onto the field, where they all but pummeled each other in their efforts to high-five the boy who had saved the day and won the championship.