“I know nothing about five-year-olds, either.” Matthew frowned at Kelsey, puzzled at her request. “Why did you ask me, anyhow?”
“You’re new to the community, and it’s a good way to get to know people.”
“I guess so,” he conceded the point as he picked up the saltshaker and salted his eggs.
“It’s pretty low-key.”
“Will I be doing this on my own?” Matthew picked up a fork, wondering if he was crazy to even let Kelsey string him along like this. He had no experience with young kids. But he had found out, after being here for a week, that there wasn’t a whole lot to do once the office was closed. He’d stopped in at the Stanleys’ one evening, but for the rest, life here was tame compared to the pace he’d been keeping in the city. He worked late a couple of nights, but he could see it wouldn’t take long before the backlog was gone.
Which made him wonder if Nathan had an ulterior motive for asking him to come here.
“No. I’ve got another coach lined up. You can meet each other tonight.”
“Tonight?”
Kelsey bit her lip and nodded. “Yes.”
“I’m not a coach. At all.”
Kelsey patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll catch on,” she added with a coy grin, “Besides, it’s great for getting involved in the social life of Sweet Creek.”
Matthew laughed in spite of himself. “T-ball is part of it?”
“Hey, baseball is a big deal out here. You have to start small, though. Do a good job with this, and we might put you on a slow-pitch team.” Kelsey glanced back and got up. “I gotta go back to work. So we’ll see you tonight?”
“For sure.” Matthew watched her leave, still wondering how she bamboozled him into doing something he knew so little about. He turned his attention back to his breakfast. Since he had come to Sweet Creek, he had eaten almost every meal on the menu.
The food was good, and he liked the busyness of the place and the sense of community. This morning, it was as full as usual, with chatter and noise competing with the country music thumping from the speakers set around the restaurant. He knew a few people by name. One of them was a current client of Nathan’s.
And Cory worked here.
As he ate his eggs and toast, he looked around. A group of truckers sat in one corner, a few families were scattered around, as well as a couple of single men and women, some of whom he recognized already. Regulars.
“Hey, Cory, honey, my cup’s empty,” one called out.
“I’ll be by in a minute, Anton,” she said. And then she was hurrying past him, her arms holding an impossible number of plates full of food. With a smile, she set them down in front of her customers, asked if they wanted anything else, and then gave them their bill.
She was all politeness and business, yet Matthew knew with them, her warmth wasn’t put on and her smile was genuine.
That changed when she dealt with him. Each time she looked at him, he sensed banked antagonism, and it frustrated him. As a lawyer, he was used to adversarial situations. It gave him his work. But he had wished for a little more from her, especially after their time at Nathan’s.
Cory walked past him, but didn’t even spare him a sidelong glance.
He finished his breakfast, dropped some money on the table, and walked out, suddenly angry with Cory and angry with himself. It would be a long summer.
It was one general scene of noise and confusion, Matthew thought as he stood on the edge of the baseball diamond and watched the group of children milling around. Baseballs were flying willy-nilly. Some children were trying to catch the balls, others stood around looking confused and holding baseball gloves half their size, while others were running around in meaningless circles.
“My team,” he said, pushing his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, wondering what he was supposed to do.
Kelsey stood by the fence talking to another mother who was kneeling, tying up a child’s shoelace. She looked up and waved to him.
“Over here,” she called with a bright smile.
Matthew pulled his hands from his pockets, sighed, and walked over to where Kelsey and the other mother were.
“Hey, Coach, glad you could make it.” Kelsey pulled him by the arm. “I’d like to introduce you to your partner,” Kelsey said just as the mother finished tying the lace and stood. She turned to face him, and Matthew’s heart sank.
It was Cory.
As she saw him her smile faded, the hand she had extended dropped and Cory whipped her head around to Kelsey. “What is going on?”
Kelsey held up her hands. “Matthew is helping you coach the team, okay?”
Matthew could see from Cory’s expression that it wasn’t okay, and that she had as much notification about who was working with her as he did. “Hey, if it’s going to be a problem...” he said, taking a step back toward his car and sanctuary.
“No, no,” Kelsey said while catching his arm to hold him back. She turned to her friend. “I couldn’t find anyone, Cory. All the mothers are busy. Matthew said he would help.”
Cory glared at her friend, ignoring Matthew. Then she looked over at the kids and eased out a sigh of resignation. “Okay. I’m doing this for Chris though, and no other reason.”
All graciousness and civility, Matthew thought. She turned to him and forced a smile. “Guess we’re working together, Coach.”
“Guess so,” he returned. He would talk to Kelsey later.
“That’s settled then,” Kelsey said, her tone brisk and her smile bright as if ignorant of the undertones of the conversation. “I’ve got a list of the kids here, and I thought we could spend this practice just getting to know each other, work on some basics like catching and throwing, that kind of thing. I have only a few more minutes to spare, and then I have to head back to the restaurant.”
“What about the rules of the game?” Matthew asked. “I don’t have the first clue about T-ball.”
“I’ve got a couple of books. They’re on the bench. It’s pretty straightforward. I ran over the basic stuff with Cory. She knows where the players list is and the schedule of games.” Kelsey flashed them both a smile. “Thanks so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. I’d like to stick around, but I have bills to pay and payroll to do. Thanks, eh?” She took a few steps backward, tossed them a quick wave, then turned and ran toward her car.
“Coward,” Cory muttered, watching her leave.
In spite of his own disappointment at Cory’s reaction, Matthew had to smile at her comment.
“Well,” he said brightly, “I guess we should start, shouldn’t we?”
The only acknowledgment he got was a curt nod. Then she was striding back to the bench.
She picked up a clipboard and walked back to the home plate. “All right, kids,” she called out. “Let’s line up and get to know you.”
A few children stopped what they were doing, glanced around to see if anyone else heard. When no one else responded, they went back to throwing the balls in the air.
“C’mon, you guys,” Cory called out again with little effect.
Matthew walked beside her, glanced at the clipboard with the names, stuck his fingers in his mouth and blew out a sharp whistle. All the heads came up.
“Tommy, Marla, Chris, and Emma, come over here.” Those were the only names he could remember, but the children he named, obeyed. “The rest of you can come, too.”
“I had this under control,” Cory protested.
Matthew spared her only a quick glance. “Of course you did.” He looked back at the children finally gathering in front of him and Cory. “Miss Smith and I will be your coaches for this year,” he said, realizing the need to project confidence. “And the first thing you need to learn is to come when she calls you or when I call you.” He smiled to lessen the reprimand in his voice. How firm should you be with five- and six-year-olds?
“This is just a first practice, so we don’t have to be real formal,” Cory interjected, kneeling to get to thei
r eye level. “And I’m glad so many of you could come. We will have fun, won’t we?”
The heads nodded in unison.
“Like Mr. McKnight said, you have to listen when we call you. And my name is Miss Luciuk, okay?” She gave Matthew the barest hint of a smile, but it held a warning.
Point for Cory he thought as she turned back to the children.
“First off,” Cory continued, “I want you to listen as I call out your names. You have to line up when we tell you.”
More nodding.
Matthew watched as the first group of the children whose names Cory called off obediently lined up, then she directed the others to line up across from them.
“Move a little farther apart,” he told them.
Cory glanced at him again. “I’ve got it under control, Mr. McKnight.”
“Well, the way they throw, I’m sure we will have a few bonked heads and a few tears in a moment.”
“I said it’s fine,” she snapped.
Matthew knew Cory well enough to stop arguing but had to smile when she surreptitiously walked through the children, spacing them farther away from each other.
“Mr. McKnight, can you come here so I can show the children what we have to do?” Cory called to him.
Matthew saluted and sauntered over, unable to resist moving one of the children a little farther away from the child beside him.
She gave him a cool glance, then turned to their charges. “I’ll show you how to hold your glove to catch the ball. Now I want you all to watch. Make sure your glove is in front of you and tilted back.” She showed them the pocket where the ball was supposed to land and how to put their hands in it.
“Ready, Mr. McKnight?” Cory asked.
He nodded, and Cory pitched the ball at him. She had a surprisingly hard arm and the ball hit his hand with a stinging smack. He didn’t let her see his reaction.
He threw the ball back, and she caught it neatly with her glove, showing the children how it landed.
“Now I want you to try.” She handed them out, and soon, the air was filled with balls flying back and forth, most barely reaching the other line. Kids laughed and squealed, and Matthew and Cory walked along the lineup, coaching them on how to throw and how to catch. Matthew chatted with the kids, trying to remember their names.
As he was talking with one boy, the inevitable happened. A ball thrown awry arched through the air and landed directly on top of Emma’s head. She looked around, her large blue eyes wide, then she sat down and cried.
“That was a big bump, wasn’t it?” Matthew crouched down beside her and held her by the shoulders, smiling encouragement at her. “I bet that was a surprise?”
Emma nodded and wiped her tears with a sleeve of her sweatshirt.
“Where did it hit you?”
She showed him, and he made a big fuss about feeling the top of her head.
“There’s no bump, and your head didn’t dent, so I guess you’re okay.” He sat back on his haunches, grinning at her.
“I guess so.” She felt her head just to make sure, and then Matthew helped her up.
“Atta girl, Emma. You’re pretty tough.” He patted her once on her head.
He looked up in time to see Cory staring at him. He frowned, wondering what he had done wrong this time. But her expression was bemused, and he could see a faint smile teasing her mouth.
He winked at her. Her expression hardened, and they were back to where they started. Again.
The rest of the practice went by quickly, and Matthew discovered, to his surprise, that he was having fun. The kids were noisy and rambunctious, but mostly willing and eager to please.
When the parents came to pick up the children, he took the time to chat with them, reminding them and the children of their regular Wednesday practice. He realized what Kelsey had said was true: It was a good way to meet people from the community. He spent some time with Claire, Emma’s mother, explaining to her what happened. Fortunately she waved the incident off and thanked Matthew profusely for spending time with her daughter.
As the last child was picked up, Matthew turned to Cory. “Well, that went pretty well, didn’t it?”
“What, the practice, or chatting up Claire?” Cory said with a wry look.
“What do you mean?” he asked, puzzled.
“Don’t tell me you couldn’t tell how she was flashing those big blue eyes at you?”
Matthew forced a grin, determined not to let her get to him. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
“Are you kidding?”
When she bent over to pick up the stray baseballs, Matthew was surprised to find that her easy dismissal bothered him. A little. But what bothered him more was her obvious antagonism toward him.
“So, McKnight, next Wednesday we can do this again,” Cory said when all the equipment was picked up.
“I guess so. I’ll have to see if I’m caught up on all the work by then.”
“Don’t tell me you’re planning on working nights while you’re here?” Cory asked, zipping up the bag. She was about to pick it up when Matthew took it from her. “I can carry it,” she protested.
“Maybe, but my momma raised me better than that,” he said taking it from her. He swung it over his shoulder and waited as she gathered up the clipboard and the books of rules. “As to your other comment, I came to help Nathan, so if it means working late, then I guess that’s what I’ll do.”
Cory walked alongside him, silent for a while. When they reached her car, she turned to him. “You’ve got a driven kind of personality, haven’t you?”
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
Cory shrugged, opening the trunk of her car. “Maybe not. It just seems to me that life should be more than working, shouldn’t it?”
Matthew dropped the bag in the trunk of the car and closed it. Then he leaned against it and tilted his head, wondering why she was probing. Ever since he had come to Sweet Creek she had kept herself aloof from him, had only spoken to him with tones of irony in her voice, or not at all. A few moments ago, she had neatly pushed him aside. Now she was challenging him on a personal level. “Is this the beginning of a conversation, Cory? ’Cause if it is, then I’m allowed to ask questions, too.”
Cory held his gaze then looked away. “You’ve asked me enough questions in my life,” she said.
Matthew understood what she alluded to. “I was just doing my job,” he said, careful to keep any inflection from his voice. She wasn’t letting the past stay in the past. Not even now that Zeke was dead.
“Of course you were, and getting paid well by Zeke.” Cory went to walk past him, but he caught her by the arm.
“I don’t think I’m too out of line to ask you what you mean by that comment?”
She yanked her arm back and to complete the affront, took a step away from him as well. “It means that your answer is an easy out. Where is justice and truth and all the things that lawyers are supposed to be championing?”
“I was helping a stepfather who wanted to see his beloved daughter. Someone who was getting no help from his ex-wife.” It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but it was the truth.
Cory clasped her arms around her stomach and leaned back against the car, her eyes closed. “I wasn’t as beloved as Zeke has led you to believe, Matthew.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“And you’ve practically called me a liar.” She glared at him and then looked away. “I don’t know why you keep coming back to him, why you keep defending him. You’re not his lawyer anymore.”
“No, but he was more than just a client.”
Cory acknowledged the comment with a curt nod. “Lucky him. Our lawyer saw us as another chance to try to defeat the formidable McKnights.”
“We weren’t so formidable. We lost cases.”
“Not against our lawyer.”
“It was the judge who made the rulings. Your father had court-ordered visits. That was pre-established, and not by me or my father.
We were just making sure that it was done.”
“No matter the cost?”
“To whom?”
“Me.” Cory pushed herself away from the car, her face hard. “I was the one who had to go and see him. I was the one who had to put up with his abuse. Me. No one else.”
Matthew kept silent. He knew that she required him to stand against Zeke. How could he do that? He’d listened to Zeke’s anguished phone calls, his pleas to get Joyce to be reasonable to allow him visits with his stepdaughter.
“So now you see why we can’t really have a conversation, don’t you?” Cory continued, her tone sharp as she turned back to her car to open the door.
“Why does Zeke even have to even come up? Surely we can get to know each other apart from him?”
Cory shook her head. “I don’t see how.”
“He’s gone. It’s over.”
Cory fiddled with her keys, then looked up at him, her expression sorrowful. “Maybe. But the reality is that my mother and I are still living with the repercussions. I don’t think it will ever be over.” She got in the car and drove away.
Matthew watched her go, his hands planted on his hips, puzzled. He hadn’t thought she was a vindictive woman, yet her tenacity in her dislike of Zeke didn’t seem to fit with the other glimpses he got of her. It would be challenging in the coming months to meld all the different impressions he had of this puzzling woman.
Chapter Seven
“What in the world were you thinking?” Cory shut the door to the restaurant’s office and faced Kelsey, her arms clasped across her chest. “You made me believe I’d be coaching with a mother.”
“No, I didn’t. I said I would get you some help.” Kelsey leaned back from her desk, pushing her unruly hair back from her face as she grinned at her friend. “And I did. I think it’s a great idea to have a guy helping you with all those kids.”
“Not Matthew McKnight.”
Kelsey just shrugged.
“And you can forget that ‘methinks thou dost protest too strongly’ stuff you like applying to him and me.” Cory said.
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