To Hope’s relief, her morning went much more smoothly than the previous evening. Joey woke up cranky but fine. Considering all he had been through and the disappointment he was dealing with, Hope considered that status quo. She phoned the school and picked up his assignments. Chase was in her son’s room when she walked in. He was wearing jeans and a Rice University sweatshirt. His jaw was freshly shaven and bore the traces of a brisk after-shave. His layered blond hair curled damply around his collar.
“Well, you all are busy,” she said, looking down at the playing cards they held in their hands. She too had taken the time to shower and dress in a favorite navy suit and silk blouse. Joey was still in his pajamas, sitting propped up against the pillows. He was pale and washed-out, but like Chase, had a devilish glint in his eyes. The kind little boys got when they were up to a harmless bit of mischief and knew it.
“I’m teaching him how to play poker, a skill no man should be without,” Chase said with comically exaggerated seriousness. He gave her son a discerning glance and placed a firm hand on Joey’s thin shoulder. “This boy has a lot of potential, Hope. A lot of potential,” he stressed.
Hope rolled her eyes. “Thanks, heaps, Chase.”
He ducked his head modestly, as if accepting the highest praises. “Oh, anytime.”
Hope dumped Joey’s book bag on the bed. “Your homework, sire.” She turned serious. “I told your teacher I thought you’d be back in school tomorrow.”
Joey nodded, his expression turning glum. Chase soothed, “Sitting in a classroom is that bad, huh?”
Joey shook his head, the gaiety of moments before forgotten. He shuffled the cards in his hand. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?” Chase asked gently.
“It’s the stupid asthma.” Joey’s chin trembled and he refused to meet either of their eyes. “I’m never going to be able to do anything! I can’t have a pet! I can’t play ball worth a darn. I can’t go camping. I—”
“Whoa, whoa!” Chase held up a hand. “There is nothing stopping you from being an A-number-one athlete, kiddo.”
“What do you mean? You know I can’t even run all the bases without getting out of breath.”
“Yeah, but that’s typical of a lot of kids your age,” Chase said. Joey sent him a pained look. “Okay,” Chase conceded on a slightly less optimistic note, “so they don’t all have to use an inhaler. But there are plenty of people who have succeeded athletically who do have to use an inhaler.”
Joey folded his arms across his thin chest and sent Chase a challenging glare. “Name one.”
“I’ll name two. Baseball pitcher Jim ‘Catfish’ Hunter.”
Joey did a double take. “He has asthma?”
“Not only does he have asthma, he’s pitched in the World Series,” Chase affirmed. “And then there’s Olympic track star Jackie Joyner Kersee. She has asthma but she didn’t let it stop her. You can have a normal life, Joey, a good life, but you’ve got to work for it and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Now, I know you’re disappointed about not having a pet, and I’m sorry about that, but things could be worse, you know.”
“Yes, they could be,” Hope chimed in softly, glad Chase was talking so honestly with her son. Times like this, she needed someone to back her up, both emotionally and verbally, where Joey was concerned. And Chase, bless him, was doing just that.
Briefly Joey looked ashamed for his temperamental attitude. He hung his head and drew a design on his bedspread with his fingertip. “I know. I could be homeless, or not have a mom or any toys or anything.”
“That’s right,” Chase said. “And instead, you have a wonderful home and a great mom.” He reached behind him and taking Hope’s hand in his own larger, warmer one, pulled her forward.
“If you ask me, pal, you have a lot to be thankful for.”
Chastened, Joey gave a little sigh, this one accepting. He still wasn’t happy but he wasn’t nearly so unhappy, either. He looked from Hope to Chase, and seeing the mingled forgiveness and empathy in their eyes, said, “I guess I better get started on my homework.”
“I think that’s a great idea,” Hope said. Chase, all easy grace and sinewy strength, dropped his hold on her hand and got laconically to his feet. Trying not to notice how empty her hand felt now that he was no longer holding it, Hope continued tongue in cheek, “Not that poker playing isn’t a much needed skill.”
“But.” Chase leaned forward and tapped Joey’s math book.
“You gotta learn how to add up all those winning points, first.”
Joey grinned. “Yeah, right,” he drawled in the same comically exaggerated tone.
Hope and Chase left Joey’s room together. “You going into the office?” he asked, his attitude suddenly becoming businesslike.
She nodded, trying not to feel disappointed. She wasn’t as close as her son was to Chase. She gave him a direct, appreciative look. “Thanks for spending the night and giving Joey the pep talk.” She shrugged. “I tell him the same things but he doesn’t seem to hear me.”
“Of course not.” Chase agreed, as if that were the most natural thing in the world. He laced a comforting arm around her shoulders. “You’re his mother. Who ever listens to their mother?”
At that, Hope had to smile. She hadn’t listened to her mother, either. They reached the front hall and he dropped the casual hand he had laced around her shoulders.
Chase stuffed both hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I had an idea last night about how to make Joey feel better.”
“I’m all for that,” Hope said tiredly.
“I think part of his problem is that he doesn’t feel enough like a regular guy. And he had a point about the camping—”
“He can’t go to the mountains with his friends, Chase.”
“I agree with you there. But he could rough it somewhere here in Texas. Say down in Galveston or Padre Island or up in the state park in Bastrop.”
Hope’s expression grew apprehensive. “What if he has an attack?”
“There are hospitals close by,” he soothed. “And I’d be there,” Chase continued. “As far as his medical condition goes, we’d talk to his doctor first. Make sure we had everything we needed in terms of medications, peak flow meters, nebulizers, and so forth. You could even go with us if it’d make you feel better.”
Hope knew Chase was more than qualified to handle any problems that came up, medical or otherwise. Still, it was hard for her to let go; Chase saw that.
“You don’t have to give me an answer right away,” he interjected gently, touching the back of his hand to her face. “Just think about it for a few days, okay?” Exerting the tiniest pressure, he lifted her face to his, continuing softly in the same velvet-edged tone, “Consider how much this would mean to Joey and how much better it would make him feel about himself, how much more normal. Think about how much fun he’d have cooking his meals over an open fire and tromping through the woods. And then give me your answer.”
She knew he was right. Joey would have a blast. She sighed, still feeling torn. Her intellect said to let him go, her mother’s instinct said to keep him home. Chase wasn’t making it easy for her to say no.
“I AGREE with your stepson, Mrs. Barrister,” Joey’s physician said later the same day. “A camping trip of the sort Chase has in mind sounds like excellent therapy for Joey.”
Hope paced back and forth nervously, the telephone receiver pressed to her face. “What about the pollen?”
“We can put him on some medication, short-term, to help lessen his potential reaction to any pollens he encounters. And you can take his peak flow meter and inhaler. With Chase there with you, you shouldn’t have any problems. And even if you do, he’ll know what to do.”
That wasn’t what was bothering her, Hope admitted to herself after she thanked the doctor, and hung up the phone. It was the idea of being in the wilderness with Chase and Joey for three or four days.
She was just too aware of Chase, as a man. She couldn
’t get rid of the image of how he had looked last night, coming through her back door, in his black tuxedo. Or how fresh he had looked this morning, despite his lack of sleep. She couldn’t forget the way he laced a companionable arm around her shoulders or how gently he touched her face. He made her feel like a woman again; he made her feel vulnerable. He made her aware of how acutely alone she had been, the past year.
But that wasn’t all. He had been so sweet when he had talked to Joey last night, so caring. So sympathetic to her, too. And then so boyishly mischievous when he had been caught playing poker with Joey. There was so much life to Chase, so much energy, and so much fun. The more she saw him, the more she yearned to be close to him, and not in any way remotely connected with their current familial ties.
No, she wanted to get to know him the way a woman gets to know a man she’s interested in. And that couldn’t happen. Chase was a man who wanted the truth from a woman, the whole truth. He had demonstrated as much by his angry, frustrated reaction to her meetings with Russell Morris. He had expected her to confide in him, and when she hadn’t, he’d been deeply hurt.
She knew all she would have to do is level with him. If she told him the whole ugly story, he would understand her reluctance to confide in him. But she couldn’t do that, either, not without destroying all he held near and dear about his father. Not without destroying his image of her. No, she had promised Edmond his secret was one she would carry with her to her grave. It was a promise she still had to keep.
“COME ON, Joey! Get a hit for us!” Joey’s teammates yelled two days later as he stepped up at bat for what was to be the first game of the season.
In the stands, Hope sat tensely. Beside her, Chase seemed just as anxious for Joey.
Glancing over his shoulder at the two of them and then his coach, a white-faced Joey choked up on the bat as he had been told to do. He faced the pitcher determinedly. To Hope’s silent lament, the first pitch was a strike. So was the second.
“Oh, man!” one of the Bateman twins yelled at Joey from the bench. “Can’t we get a pinch hitter for that nerd?”
At the words, Hope’s jaw clenched, and it was all she could do to stay in her place. Chase, who seemed to be handling the rude heckling better than Hope, touched her arm lightly. “Relax. He’s doing okay,” he murmured.
Her son was handling the twins better than she was. Hope took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down as the pitcher wound up and threw the third pitch. There was no reason this should be getting to her the way it was, she thought. Determined to maintain control of her erupting temper, she concentrated on the pitch. It was too low and Joey didn’t swing. “Ball one,” the umpire cried.
“See,” Chase said triumphantly, every bit as proud of Joey as Hope was. He reached over and briefly squeezed her hand. “He knows what to do, Hope.”
Hope relaxed slightly. Somehow, it was easier sitting through this with Chase at her side.
The next pitch came. Joey swung, and a solid cracking sound filled the air as the wooden bat made contact with the ball. A cheer went up from Joey’s team. He tossed down the bat and trotted off to first, long before the ground ball was returned. “Way to go, Joey!” Chase shouted.
Next up to bat was a Bateman twin. “Let’s see how he does,” Hope murmured, hoping rather mean-spiritedly that the obnoxious twin wouldn’t do nearly as well as her son.
The twin missed the first pitch but recovered and hit the second, sending the ball flying out into left field. As Bateman sped toward first, he already had his eye on second. The opposing team’s outfielder had the ball seconds after it hit the ground, but Bateman, determined to make this a double, was already flying toward second base, waving and yelling at Joey. “Go, go!” he shouted.
Joey took a trembling look at third, at the outfielder, and at Bateman, then did the only thing he could. He took off for third; he had an impossible task ahead of him. Bateman should have stayed on first instead of trying to hotdog it.
Nevertheless, knowing his team was depending on him, Joey gave it all he had, running forward as fast as he could, and sliding headfirst into third. The ball hit the third baseman’s glove an agonizing split second before Joey hit the base. “You’re out,” the umpire called, pointing at Joey.
“Oh, man, did you see that!” The other Bateman twin shouted from the bench to his brother. “You sissy!” he called to Joey. A disappointed Joey got to his feet and headed, slump-shouldered, back toward the dugout.
“You cost us a run.” The other twin continued his harassment loudly. “You sick little wimp!”
The cruel words lit a fuse underneath Hope. “That does it,” Hope said. She’d had enough of the lack of good sportsmanship. She’d be damned if she’d sit there all season and listen to this, or be forced to take Joey off the team because the league officials couldn’t handle the boys.
“Hope—” Chase cautioned.
But she was already halfway down the bleachers. She marched past a sea of surprised parents and onto the diamond. She approached the umpire behind home plate, who promptly held up his hands in the time-out sight. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he disciplined Hope firmly. “No parents are allowed on the field.”
Tipping her chin up, she said, “I wouldn’t have to be if you would see that the teams adhere to league rules. Those twins—” she pointed to the Batemans “—owe my son an apology.” And she was staying right where she was until they delivered it.
Mr. Bateman yelled, “Oh, for Pete’s sake, ump! Get the broad off the field and get on with the game.”
Broad? Hope thought in raging disbelief. He had called her a broad? How dare he!
Seething, Hope turned to face the barrel-chested Mr. Bateman. He was making his way down to stand beside the umpire and Hope. The coaches from both sides were coming out onto the field. The crowd was quiet, for the most part, waiting to see what was going to happen next.
“Need I remind anyone how much I donate to the league every year, to see the boys get uniforms and to maintain the playing fields?” Mr. Bateman spoke in a voice only the people gathered on the field could hear. Looking at Hope with a sniff of disapproval, he continued disparagingly, “I don’t see the Barristers donating any money.”
His lack of tact made the coaches visibly uncomfortable and made Hope see red. It reminded her of the worst time of her life, a time when Russell Morris’s family had treated her in the same unjust manner. Only then she’d had no one to stick up for her. Well, that wasn’t the case now. Joey had Hope to defend and protect him, even if he didn’t have Edmond.
“You,” she said, pointing to Mr. Bateman, “are as rude and cruel as your sons. It’s no wonder they’ve turned out the way they have.”
The senior Bateman turned beet red. He was president of his own oil company; no one talked to him like that. “Just a minute—”
“Hold it! Both of you!” the umpire said, stepping between Hope and Mr. Bateman. He tugged at his collar nervously. “Let’s not let this get personal.”
“It’s already personal,” Hope said, pointing to Mr. Bateman. “He and his sons just made it so by the continual verbal insults they sling at my son.”
“So let him quit,” Mr. Bateman advised cruelly. “I wouldn’t miss you or your pansy son, who, by the way, has no business playing ball. He’s an invalid.”
“He is not an invalid. He does have asthma,” Chase intervened quietly. He stepped reluctantly in to join the melee, with a deadly look at Mr. Bateman. “I agree with Joey’s mother. The twins do owe Joey an apology. Either that, or they should be thrown out of the game.” Chase looked at the umpire, pressuring him for an immediate decision.
The coaches exchanged looks, then called Joey and the twins over to the bench. Prompted by glares from Hope and Chase, and other fair-minded adults in the crowd, they publicly reprimanded the twins and made them apologize to Joey. Joey looked even more crushed and embarrassed than the twins. And he stayed that way the rest of the game.
�
��Just say it. You’re angry with me,” Hope said to her son en route home, unable to take his resentful silence anymore. She turned around to look at Joey, who was sitting directly behind her, in the back of Chase’s Jeep.
He glared back at her and then at Chase, who was busy driving them home. “Well, cripes, what’d you expect?” Joey countered, the angry words spilling out before he could think. “You embarrassed me worse than the twins ever did!” He shook his head, his jaw taut. “I should’ve made it to third, Mom.”
“No, Bateman should have stayed on first,” Hope said.
“I agree with your mother on that, sport,” Chase said, casting Joey a glance in the rearview mirror. “Bateman should have stayed on first, but he didn’t and you gave it a hell of a courageous try. As for the other—” he shrugged as he concentrated on the traffic once again “—what your mother did took a lot of guts, too. Not many people would be unafraid to stand up in front of a group of people that way and take a position. I also have a feeling what she did is going to make a difference for all the teams the rest of the season.”
Joey hung his head. Chase continued, “You don’t want other kids heckled the way the Bateman twins heckle you, do you?”
“Well, no,” Joey said, squirming in his seat.
“Okay. Your mother did her best to stop it. Not just for you but for everyone else. I think you owe her an apology.”
Chastened, Joey looked up at Hope.
“I am sorry I embarrassed you,” she said gently. “I didn’t mean to do that. I just lost my temper.”
Joey nodded. “I’m sorry, too,” he mumbled, “but I still wish it never would’ve happened.”
“He’ll get over it,” Chase said as he walked Hope into the house. Joey ran on ahead and up the stairs.
“I don’t know. I was pretty out of control.” She shook her head, feeling herself flush fiercely. She hugged her crossed arms closer to her chest. “I guess he had a right to be embarrassed.”
Chase shrugged indifferently. “You were protecting your son.”
Tangled Web Page 15