Sadie and her mother had long ago stopped getting the paper delivered, so she didn’t see the headline until she passed through the metal detector at City Hall. The guard had his nose buried in the sports section, but by bending slightly, she saw the headline: CATFISH PITCHER REVEALS FAMILY SECRET.
Oh my God. She snatched the paper from the guard’s hands. “Hey!” he protested.
“Aren’t you supposed to be keeping an eye on people coming into the building, not reading the sports page?”
Quickly she scanned the article, which had Burwell Brown’s byline.
Caleb Hart came forward with the stunning information that his real name is Caleb Hartwell and his father is Thurston Hartwell II, who just completed a six-year prison term for defrauding several widows of their life savings. Bingo has long been suspected of multiple forms of fraud, including illegal bookmaking. Hart told the Press-Herald that when his father was incarcerated, he assumed parental rights over his two younger brothers, who are still minors.
Said Hart, “I hope the fans can understand why I kept this personal family situation private. I play my heart out for them, and for the Catfish, and hopefully I will have the opportunity to help the San Diego Friars as well.”
Hart has long had a reputation as a brilliant talent with an unpredictable streak. Asked if his inconsistency on the mound had any connection to his family’s circumstances, he answered bluntly, “No.”
Duke Ellington, the manager of the Catfish, had this to say about the surprise revelation and whether it would negatively impact the team: “Caleb Hart has our full support because he’s earned it. Only an idiot would hold his father’s actions against him.”
However, the Ladies’ Auxiliary, which is spearheading the so-called “Can the Catfish” movement, took a very different view. “Apparently we have an ex-con living right here in Kilby, thanks to the Catfish. One has to wonder whether it’s safe for decent families to attend the games. We call on Crush Taylor to take a good, hard look at the sort of operation he’s running.”
She dropped the paper, tears springing to her eyes. Caleb had done this for her—for them.
She snatched up her phone and texted him: What did you do???
The best thing for us. U okay?
Yes. As long as you are.
Don’t like bullies. Feel great. Want 2 see you. Bingo’s working 2night. Come over?
Yes!
She wished she could go right away, but Mayor Trent was calling. Oh fireballs. Her stomach sank. Her boss would not be happy about Caleb’s interview. Or about the fact that she had known about Bingo all along.
When Caleb opened the door of his apartment that night, Sadie launched herself at him, wrapping both arms and legs around his strong body. He nestled her against him, hands on her ass, his warm mouth kissing her neck. It felt so good to be next to him again—how had she ever thought she could do without this giddy bliss?
“Are you sure it’s going to be okay?” she asked fearfully when the initial edge of her need to touch him had been soothed. He turned and strode toward the bedroom, with her still wrapped around him.
“Everything will be fine. I thought long and hard about it. I’d kept Bingo a secret because I didn’t want him doing any more damage to my life. But if someone like Hamilton could use it to blackmail me, fuck that. I owed Burwell Brown an interview anyway, remember?”
“Yes, but it was supposed to be about the slugs.”
“I mentioned the slugs. Didn’t he include that?”
She giggled into his warm neck, feeling the tendons flex as he walked. “No. I’m going to call and yell at him.”
“Not now. You’re going to talk to me first.” He set her on the bed and fixed a stern gaze on her. “Why didn’t you tell me about Hamilton’s threat? He said the same thing to me before, but I just ignored the jackass.”
“I didn’t want to make trouble for you.” She faltered under his steady stare, drawing up her legs and wrapping her arms around them. “The Wades have so many ways to hurt people. I couldn’t bear it if they hurt you because of me. You’re . . . you’re very important to me.” She ended in a whisper.
“You’re important to me too. I figured you didn’t quite believe that.”
“They could ruin your baseball career. How could I live with myself if that happened?”
“How could I live if I lost you because of some freaking idiot who doesn’t know when it’s time to quit?” He tumbled her backward on the bed. “Next time, trust me, Sadie. You’re not alone anymore. You understand?”
He rested his forehead on hers, and she felt as if her heart might explode into little tiny pieces of happiness. “I can’t believe you told everyone about Bingo for me.”
“I’d do a lot more than that for you, Sadie Merritt.” He was kissing his way down her body, shoving aside clothing as he went. Every touch felt like a flame springing to life. When she was naked, she scrambled to her knees and turned the tables on him, pushing him onto his back. She straddled him and reached under his T-shirt, then pushed it up, revealing one hard ridge of muscle after the other. She danced her fingers up his chest, counting the lines of thick sinew.
“You have a six-pack times two,” she told him. His eyes darkened as she stroked his skin. She reached his left arm, which bulged more thickly than his right. A strong vein ran along the inside of his bicep; she could feel his pulse through the skin. “I listened to all the games, you know. Every time you threw a pitch, I was so nervous I nearly threw up. Do you get nervous?”
“Nah,” he said gruffly. “Not once I throw that first pitch. Before, sure. I have a method for dealing with it, though.”
“Run to the bathroom?”
He laughed. “I haven’t thrown up yet. No. It’s silly. Just one of those superstitions we have.”
“What is it?” She unsnapped the waistband of his jeans and began dragging them down his legs.
“Well, on my very first start, I was so nervous I thought I might die. Like, my heart would burst, or a blood vessel or something. And I thought, well, what do I want my last words to be if I do? So I texted Tessa and the boys. I said, ‘Love you guys. See you on the flip side.’ ”
From halfway down his middle, she paused, resting her chin on his firm belly. “And?”
“And I won. I won my first two starts. On my third start, my phone battery was dead. I borrowed someone else’s, but I still lost. So it only works if it’s my phone.”
“You probably just psyched yourself out.”
“Maybe.” He lifted his legs off the bed so she could slide his pants off. Already the crotch of his boxers was swelling, his penis pushing up the fabric. Heat pooled in her belly. He was so sexy with his strong thighs scattered with golden hairs. “But right before the worst game of my life, something happened that made me forget about the text. I didn’t send one, not even from someone else’s phone. And it was a disaster. I definitely learned my lesson. Always send the text. No matter what.”
She ran her hand over his boxers, feeling the heat of his arousal burn through the thin cotton. “What happened? I mean, what was the thing that happened that made you forget to text?”
“I got a call from Bingo’s lawyer that he was being released in a week.”
Astounded, she stopped her stroking. “Maybe that’s why the game was a disaster.”
“Why?”
“Because you were distracted by the news about Bingo.”
“Baby, when I’m on the mound, nothing distracts me.” He lifted her so she sat with her sex directly on his swollen erection. “You could prance naked across the field and I’d still be staring at Mike Solo’s crotch waiting for his call.”
He pressed his thumb against her clit, and she shuddered from the pleasure. “Tha . . . that sounds like a challenge.”
“It’s not. Don’t get any ideas. Not everyone has my level of focus.” As if to demonstrate the power of his focus, he homed in on the tender flesh underneath his thumb, massaging it with the perfect amou
nt of pressure. Those hands of his were magical.
“How do you make it feel so good?” she groaned, squirming back and forth on his increasingly hard boner.
He chuckled, deep in his chest, the way he sounded when he was completely turned on. “It’s just like pitching. You gotta pay attention. Watch, listen, and learn. And focus.”
Ripples of delight radiated from the spot between her legs where his attention was glued. She let her eyes fall halfway shut so all she saw was Caleb, his burning gaze, his ripped chest, his golden farmer’s tan. That sweet intimate bubble formed around them again, as if it had never been broken.
She came in long, rolling waves, a soft, complete orgasm. She shuddered and let her head fall back, releasing a long sigh of bliss into the still air of his bedroom. Then he flipped them both over so she lay on her back, he on top, his elbows on either side of her head. She reached down and pushed his boxers off his straining penis. Taking him into her hand, she tugged lightly. “Come up here,” she whispered. His eyes flared with heat.
Hamilton had always wanted her to do this, and she’d resisted. It was one of the justifications he gave for cheating on her. But for some reason, letting him penetrate her mouth had seemed dangerous to her. She’d never felt safe enough with him to feel comfortable doing it.
But with Caleb, things were completely different. He loved licking her; not only did he say so, but it was obvious from the massive erection the act gave him. And he never asked her to use her mouth, or demand she do anything. Sex with him was more like a big feast—a feast of desserts, from which she could pick and choose whatever she wanted.
And right now she wanted his beautiful cock in her mouth. He moved up her body and knelt over her mouth. “Yes?” he asked, scrutinizing her face. She felt flushed and decadent, as if they’d been doing this for hours.
“Oh, yes.” She took his long, magnificent member in her hand and wrapped her lips around it. He let out a long groan.
“Oh Sadie, you have no idea . . .” But now it was her turn to focus on the beautiful piece of flesh filling her mouth. It slid so deliciously against her tongue, faintly salty, slightly sweet, maybe a little bit grassy, like a secret meadow in the woods. Maybe all that time on the baseball diamond surrounded by grass had soaked into his skin. The thought made her smile, which made her mouth curve around his erection. He looked down, as if in agony.
“What?”
But she shook her head. His intimate scent was her secret, to be shared with no one, not even him.
“I can’t . . .” With a low growl he pulled from her mouth and came in a burst into his own hand. The sight of him gripping his own member, every tendon of his body taut with effort, was unbearably erotic to her. “Sorry,” he gasped. “No time to get to a condom.”
“You could have . . .” She touched her mouth, which still tingled from his occupation of it. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“I wasn’t sure. I wanted to ask but my mouth wasn’t working.” He rolled off her and padded, naked and magnificent, out of the room. She heard the water run. Running her tongue across her lips, she shut her eyes, wondering how this man could make her feel so wonderful. With him, she felt beautiful, sexy, and desirable. Never once, even with his penis deep in her mouth, did she feel slutty.
Sadie 1, Hamilton 0. Caleb Hart with the win.
Chapter 19
THE GUYS ON the team took Caleb’s big revelation in stride.
“My father’s a plumber,” confided Mike Solo, stuffing a mile-high sandwich into his mouth after the next day’s game. “In high school I had to borrow his van to pick up girls for dates. It had ‘Your Shit Is Our Business’ in bright red paint on it. Try scoring when you’re driving something like that.”
“My old man was a prison guard,” threw in Ramirez from across the room. “Where was yours incarcerated? Maybe they know each other.”
Caleb ignored that, because his attention was caught by Trevor Stark, who hadn’t made a peep since the topic of fathers came up. It must be a sore spot, since silence was definitely not his normal M.O. He couldn’t resist a chance to needle the cocky slugger. “How about you, Stark? What kind of work does your father do?”
“None of your fucking business,” he growled as he snagged a slice of cheese off the deli plate. “I have a date. See you losers later.”
“Hey Stark,” Mike called after him.
“What?”
“Your ego called, it’s waiting for you outside the ballpark. It was so big it couldn’t fit inside.”
“Kind of like your belly.” Trevor gestured to the clubhouse attendant, who hurried to his side and shouldered his bag.
Mike thudded a fist against his midsection, which had maybe a few extra pounds of flesh on it. “Rock hard, baby. If you’re talking size, you must be referring to the part a little lower down.”
“I heard the word ‘little.’ That’s all,” Stark shot back.
Mike flipped Stark off as he followed the attendant out of the clubhouse. “Hart, you’re lucky that guy is here. He makes you look good, even if your dad is a criminal.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“No problem. I’m ignoring that sarcastic undertone.” Mike picked a leaf of lettuce out of his sandwich. “No greens. Unless it’s a lime slurpee. And that green isn’t found in nature, so it’s okay.”
“How’s it going with Donna, by the way?” Caleb needled him. He knew from Sadie that Donna was having lots of fun torturing Mike.
Mike narrowed his eyes at him over his sandwich and pretended to be busy chewing.
Even the Kilby fans—the ones who came to the ballpark, not the ones who’d signed the Can the Catfish petition—seemed to support him. A wave of applause greeted him whenever he took the mound, even in the middle of the eighth inning when the annual “Crazy Catfish Whiskers” contest was being judged. A little girl in a pink dress won—she’d made her whiskers out of glitter-coated pipe cleaners. Caleb was given the honor of awarding her the prize, which was, unfortunately, a freshly caught catfish. When she opened the cooler to inspect her prize, she burst into tears.
Caleb whisked her into his arms and took her to the sidelines where the Catfish mascot was doing splits and handstands. Eventually she stopped crying and agreed to wave to the crowd, which gave a roar of approval. When he handed the girl back to her mother in the stands, she kissed him on the cheek. When that image flashed across the Jumbotron, everyone went crazy.
Caleb felt as if that one simple kiss on the cheek was like the keys to a city. Not the city of Kilby so much, but the City of Acceptance. The City of Not-hiding. It was an enormous relief to know that he wasn’t keeping a secret anymore. He’d been doing it for so long that it was just part of life, something so habitual he didn’t think about it—like walking with one foot after the other. But now that the secret was out, he felt light as popcorn. No more worries weighed him down.
Well, maybe one. He’d beaten Hamilton by taking away the power of his threat of exposure. But he knew damn well that wouldn’t be the end of it. He didn’t care what Hamilton did—or tried to do—to him. His big fear was that the Wades would take it out on Sadie by making her life even more miserable. To avoid giving them the opportunity, he made sure Sadie spent every extra minute of her time with him. This had the added benefit of . . . well, that she spent every extra minute of her time with him.
The next few weeks were the happiest of his life.
Even much of his anger toward Bingo leeched away. His father seemed to like his job at the coffee shop. He’d barely seen the man in the weeks since their meeting with Officer Kelly and he picked up no hint of trouble. Maybe he really had made a fresh start. One day his feeling of goodwill toward the entire world burst through the boundaries he’d thrown up between himself and his father.
“Tessa and the boys are going to drive down this weekend,” he told Bingo over a cup of double espresso at Sacred Grounds. He’d stopped by to check things out for himself; he didn’t completely trust Officer Kelly
to resist Bingo’s charm. He’d hung in the back for a while, hiding under a Twins cap, watching his father. What he saw gave him no cause for alarm, so he made the impulsive decision to give Bingo a second chance.
“Really? And I can see them?”
“Yes, you can see them. That’s the whole point.”
A funny look crossed his father’s face. “Are you . . . I mean, what made you change your mind?”
Caleb sipped his double espresso with extra sugar; his dad had actually remembered how he liked his coffee. “The boys have been asking for it,” he admitted. “They have a right to see their father.”
Bingo wiped his hands on his barista apron, then adjusted his bow tie, then fluttered back to the apron. He looked like a nervous mother hen. “What if I screw it up?”
“Make sure you don’t,” said Caleb firmly. “I’ll be watching every second, you can make sure of that. Except when I’m pitching. I’m scheduled to start in two days and I want you all to come.”
Bingo sucked in a breath. “You’ll let me in the ballpark?”
“Cut the drama, Bingo. You went whether I wanted it or not.”
“But this time I’ll be there with your permission. I won’t have to purchase any strange sunglasses.” He clasped his hands together. “This means so much, Caleb. I won’t cause any trouble for you, I promise.” His sky-blue eyes were so sincere, Caleb almost believed him. At the very least, he believed that Bingo didn’t want to cause trouble. On the other hand, it seemed to follow him the way ducklings followed a mother duck.
“Has the press been calling?”
“Yes, but I’ve been telling them what you said. ‘No comment. Please allow our family to get to know each other again in peace.’ ”
Caleb nearly choked on his espresso. “I didn’t say that part. I told you to stick to ‘No comment.’ ”
“A little embellishment. I had to give them something.”
Caleb ground his teeth, but decided Bingo hadn’t said anything too disastrous. “I don’t want any press sniffing around when the kids are here.”
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