by Dana Mentink
“I’m going to be at that Opening Day game if I have to crawl on my hands and knees. Oscar tried telling me no, but you can imagine how that went. Cal’s chartered us a plane, booked us limos, a presidential suite, and has a nurse on call, though I told him I won’t need it. There’s a special seat for me in the ballpark, since I’ve got to use my wheelchair for now. You come sit with us. I’ll tell Oscar to save you a spot if Cal didn’t already do it. Mitch will be there, too.”
Mitch? Gina breathed a prayer of thanksgiving. God truly was the maker of miracles. She tried again to interject. “I’m not coming to Opening Day, Sweets,” she’d said softly. “I’m going to Florida.”
Fifteen minutes later she had still not made Sweets understand that she had to say goodbye to Cal and the nutty world of professional baseball and all the crazy trappings that came with it. Stalkers turned heroes, press conferences and reporters around every turn.
“Did Cal tell you he’s going to host a beep ball camp this winter?” Sweets said. “He’s going to make a personal commitment to being there for the whole five days, and he bought new jerseys for the Hornets. The kids are over the moon. And Tippy, that hair dropper, is going to live with us at the ranch as long as Mitch does, which will probably be a while since he’s been such a help with everything.”
Gina felt a thrill of delight, along with a surge of pain. Cal had not told her anything. “That’s wonderful.”
“Cal says we need to have pancakes with our hot dogs or some such thing, at the beep ball camp.”
Her eyes brimmed as she thought about it, how proud he’d been of her attempt to barbecue, in spite of the flaming hot dogs. She’d said she’d pray for Sweets, and maybe visit the ranch in the summer when Cal was on the road.
It was almost nine and she was not feeling at all sleepy. She thought about texting Cal to wish him well for Opening Day, the biggest of his career, she knew, but she thought again of how he had not contacted her when Tippy had been found. The hurt stung afresh. Her feelings were not his. She turned off her phone.
Done feeling sorry for yourself? she chided, rolling onto her side and trying to find a comfortable position in spite of the curlers. The minutes ticked by with no promise of sleep. A sharp crack made her sit up, heart thumping.
Nothing. Must have been a car backfiring, she thought.
Then a palm hit the outside of her window. She screamed, clutching the blanket with one hand and grabbing her phone with the other. Her fingers shook so much she could not get them to dial 911. A frowning face appeared at the window.
Her scream stopped mid-throat as puzzlement took the place of terror. Cal Crawford was knocking on her window. She rubbed her eyes. He was still there, looking slightly more exasperated now. He mouthed something.
She watched in frozen fascination.
Open the window.
She suddenly came to the conclusion that Cal Crawford really was standing outside her window on the fire escape, gesturing for her to open the window, for crying out loud.
She leaped out of bed, tied on her fuzzy polka dot bathrobe, and wrenched open the window. He climbed inside, holding a backpack.
“What are you doing here?” she finally managed.
“I tried knocking and you didn’t answer your phone, so I climbed the fire escape.”
“Why did you come?”
“She won’t eat. I think she misses you.”
“Who?”
He carefully opened the pack and Tippy popped her head out like a dog in the box.
“Tippy,” she squealed. The dog wriggled loose with Cal’s help and began to lick Gina on every exposed inch of skin. Gina laughed, caressing and scratching the wriggling coil of canine.
“So Tom really did find her?”
“He did. He was busy stalking me on the practice field and he noticed that Harvey Bland was pretty smug, which made him suspicious, so he decided to stalk him for a while. Took him weeks, but he got the job done.”
“You were gracious on the TV,” she said. “Tom came across like a hero.”
Cal shrugged. “He got Tippy back. He deserves some kudos.”
Gina rubbed her cheek against Tippy’s silky head. “And you brought her to see me? Now? Sweets said you fly out tonight.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Actually, I sort of came for me, too.”
She became suddenly aware of how gorgeous he was, chocolate eyes gazing at her, slight scruff of beard on his chin, wide, muscled shoulders and the puzzled look on his face as he studied her… curlers! Her hand flew to her hair. “Well, I, um, I wasn’t expecting a visitor.” She began to pull the foam bits from her hair.
“No,” he said, stopping her hand. “Leave them. I like it that you’re a girl who wears pink foam curlers.”
“Why would you like that?”
“Because,” he said, fingers tracing the hair wrapped knobs. “You’re genuine.”
“Genuine, but not very polished.” Drat if her cheeks weren’t burning again. He was gazing at her in a way that made her stomach do flip-flops.
“You’re a woman who eats doughnuts and wears flower prints and puts socks on Tippy and serves hot dogs in pancakes. I never met anyone like that before.”
“Probably not.” She put a wriggling Tippy on her bed. The dog immediately burrowed under the blankets and found the warm hollow Gina had just vacated. “But Cal, did you hit your head? You’re not making sense, coming here chatting about doughnuts and curlers.”
He started to pace in little circles. “Listen,” he said. “I gotta talk right now.”
She looked for the signs, dilated pupils, a bump on the head. “Do you need to sit down?” She shot a glimpse at the clock, breath catching in horror. “Cal! It’s nine fifteen.”
“I know.”
“Sweets said your flight was at ten thirty.”
“It is.”
“But if you don’t make your flight tonight they won’t let you start. Aren’t those the rules?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve only got an hour to get to the airport.”
“I know.”
“Then what are you doing here?” she yelled, grabbing him by the arm and eliciting a bark from Tippy who periscoped her head out of her burrow. “You’ve got to get to the airport right now.”
“I need to be here more.” He bent to pat Tippy. “You know the best thing about this dog?”
She could only gape.
“She loves me, even though I tried to take her to the pound. I was ready to throw her away and she still loves me just as much as before. I mean that’s some kind of forgiveness, isn’t it?”
“Cal,” Gina said very slowly and calmly. “You are having some sort of mental collapse. Go sit in the car, and as soon as I get dressed, I will drive you to the airport where your team doctor can check you over.” She was going for her shoes when he stopped her by taking her hand.
He shook his head. “I’m here to tell you the truth. I did arrange that Mt. Olive job for selfish reasons. I wanted to keep you around.” He cleared his throat. “Because I love you.”
She blinked, frozen. “What?”
“I love you.”
She had heard correctly. He’d said he loved her. She could only stare in dumb astonishment.
“I tried to pretend you were just a friend, but that’s not the truth of it. I love you.”
Her lips tried several times before the words came out. “What… well… why would you do something like that?” she stammered.
“What?”
“Fall in love with me? I’m not of your world.”
“Yes, you are. My world is my family. Baseball is my job. Took me a while to get that straight.”
Her pulse began to hammer. “Cal, you came here tonight to tell me this knowing that you would miss your flight?”
He didn’t answer.
“You are turning your back on the biggest game of your life, for me?”
Something in the way he cocked his head, drank her in wit
h his brown eyes, made her quiver inside.
“You are my life. Nothing else matters if you aren’t in it. Not the pitching, not the fame, nothing.”
Tears pricked her eyes and she caught her lip between her teeth. This couldn’t be happening, couldn’t be real, but he was still staring at her, hands caressing her shoulders.
“I have so many people telling me who I am and what I should be, but you see me the way God made me.”
“He made you great, Cal Crawford,” she whispered.
“And you make me want to be a great man, not just a great pitcher.”
Tears wobbled on her lashes. “I’m so happy, Cal, but you are a great pitcher. God made you to be that, too, and that means you are a celebrity, part of a world where I don’t belong.”
His fingers tightened. “We belong together,” he said, a fierce light shining in his face. “Maybe we won’t be together every minute because you’re going to get that teaching job someday and I’m going to play ball, but that doesn’t matter.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I was wrong when I said my home was where the mound is.” He put his hands on her face, long fingers stroking her cheeks. “My home is where you are.”
She pressed her lips together to stop them trembling.
“Do you love me, Gina?” he said. “Just me, Cal Crawford, and his sad sack dog, not the guy who throws a ball for a living?”
Did she love him? Was it right? The tingle started in her heart and spread to her whole body, warming a path through her with light and love. Trickles of delight flashed through her memory—the ranch, beep ball, washing dishes, sitting on the floor of his San Francisco house, their road trips, windows open, hair flying, Tippy between them.
“Yes, Cal. I do love you, more than any man I’ve ever known.”
His face lit up with a grin that erased the care and worry from his eyes, kindling them with joy. “Will you marry me, Gina Palmer?”
Brimming with wild delight, she nodded, and he pulled her in for a kiss. Their lips joined in a perfect union, warm, loving, filled with promise for the future. How perfect, how right. Gina’s heart overflowed with pleasure.
Tippy yipped twice.
“But not tonight,” she suddenly shrieked, shoving him to the door. “You’ve got forty minutes to make it to the airport.”
“Too late,” he said, still looking at her through that hazy grin. “I’ll have to catch a later flight. Someone else will start on opening day.”
“Oh no they won’t,” Gina said, scooping up her purse in one hand and Tippy in the other.
“We aren’t going to make it to the airport in forty minutes,” he said.
“Not if you’re driving,” she said, “and it’s thirty-nine minutes.” She shoved him to the door, propelling him down the stairs.
What followed was a harrowing drive during which she heard Cal gulp hard and struggle for breath as she wove in and out of traffic. They made it to the security checkpoint after the team had already been cleared. The guys stood on the other side, staring in open-mouthed astonishment as Cal whirled Gina in his arms, pink curlers flying. Tippy pranced around their ankles.
“I wish you would fly out with me,” Cal said.
“Tippy and I will drive. It’s much safer than flying.”
“With you at the wheel, I’m not so sure,” he said with a chuckle.
Aggie cupped his hands to his mouth. “Hey, Boots. What’s going on?”
“Gina and I are going to be married,” Cal called back.
There was a hearty cheer from the players.
“’Bout time, Boots,” Ag hollered. “You finally made the winning pitch.”
“Yes,” Cal said, rubbing Tippy’s head and giving Gina another kiss, “I finally did.”
Excerpt from The Falcons’ Nest, an online sports blog by Tom Peterson:
The Falcons sizzled in their season opener thanks to ace pitcher, Cal Crawford. Crawford struck out five in six innings, allowing only five hits and one run with three walks. “Everything just felt right,” Crawford said. With his father in the stands, his family and fiancée, Gina Palmer, holding unofficial team mascot Tippy the dog, Crawford led the team to their first season victory. The news has been abuzz since the abduction of the dog by the Falcons’ disgruntled team mascot and the discovery of Tippy’s whereabouts by this fortunate blogger. Did Tippy’s dramatic return fuel Crawford’s masterful outing? Pitching Coach Pete Crouchley answered with a shrug and a smile, “There’s just something about Tippy.”
Love Unleashed
Fetching Sweetness
Standing Between Stephanie and Her Dream Is One Hundred Pounds of Lovable Trouble
It should have been so simple for Stephanie Pink: Meet up with Agnes Wharton in a small town in California, retrieve the reclusive author’s valuable new manuscript, and be promoted to a full-fledged literary agent.
But Agnes’s canine companion, Sweetness, decides to make a break for it before Stephanie can claim her prize. Until Agnes has Sweetness safely back at home in Eagle Cliff, Washington, Stephanie will never set eyes on the manuscript she needs to make her dreams come true.
When Stephanie tracks the runaway mutt to a campground, she meets Rhett Hastings—a man also on the run from a different life and a costly mistake. Rhett agrees to help Stephanie search for the missing dog...thus launching a surprising string of adventures and misadventures.
Once Sweetness gets added to the mix, it’s a recipe for love and loss, merriment and mayhem, fun and faith in the backwoods of the Pacific Northwest.
Paws for Love
The Only Thing Sweet About Jellybean Is His Name
Jellybean the terrier is about to unleash some serious mayhem on the unsuspecting town of Albatross.
There’s no quiet on the set when over-the-hill screen star Lawrence Tucker brings his naughty terrier, Jellybean, on location to the beachside town of Albatross, California. When Jellybean develops a rapport with Tucker’s violin tutor, the painfully shy, socially awkward Misty Agnelli, her arm is twisted into minding the obnoxious animal. Trailing Jellybean leads Misty into the candy store of Bill Woodson, a handsome chocolatier with a painful secret and a three-year-old niece to raise.
Misty must deal with the unstable Tucker, a temperamental Jellybean, her budding feelings for the mysterious Bill, and the high-pressure atmosphere on the set. Though she wants nothing more than to flee, how can she tell her Grandma, Lawrence Tucker’s biggest fan, that she abandoned the star and his dog?
It’s actors, animals, and antics galore when Jellybean gives his own heartwarming performance.
About the Author
Dana Mentink lives in California, where the weather is golden and the cheese is divine. Dana is a two-time American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year winner for romantic suspense and an award winner in the Pacific Northwest Writers Literary Contest. Her suspense novel, Betrayal in the Badlands, earned a Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award. Besides writing, she busies herself teaching third and fourth grade. Mostly, she loves to be home with her husband, two daughters, a dog with social anxiety problems, a chubby box turtle, and a feisty parakeet. Visit her on the web at www.danamentink.com.
About the Publisher
To learn more about books by Dana Mentink or to read sample chapters, log on to our website:
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON