Diamond in the Rough

by Marie Ferrarella

  “I’m sorry about Wes,” she finally said as she cleared the dishes from the table.

  Again, silence initially met her words. And then he shrugged. “People die all the time.”

  “I can still be sorry about it,” she said. “I liked him.”

  “So did I.”

  It was a statement. There was no emotion behind it, which bothered her a great deal. Would he sound like that if something happened to her and someone asked ask him about her demise? She didn’t want to explore the answer.

  “You two were friends for a long time,” she said for lack of anything else to say.

  He nodded. “Yes, we were.”

  “Why did he stop coming around?” she asked suddenly. The dishwasher loaded, she closed the door and turned around to face him. “Did you send him away?”

  “Things happen,” he replied evasively. “Look, I’m kind of tired tonight. I’m going to turn in. You can hang around if you want.”

  She knew better. “No, I think I’ll go home. Need any help?” she offered impulsively.

  “No,” he said with finality, not bothering to turn around.

  “Of course not,” she murmured under her breath as she walked in the opposite direction, out of the kitchen and toward the front of the house. “What was I thinking?”

  Taking her purse, she crossed to the front door. “Good night, Dad,” she called out just before she let herself out. She thought she heard him say something in kind, but wasn’t sure.

  Miranda tried the doorknob after she let herself out to make sure the door was locked. It was. With a sigh, she headed toward her vehicle in the driveway.

  The garbage pails on the far side of the driveway caught her attention. The internal debate took all of three seconds as she strode toward the pails and flipped back the lids. The newly deposited black plastic bags were piled on top of each other.

  Loosening the first plastic tie, she opened the bag and looked in. For a moment she couldn’t believe what she saw. The bag was filled with baseball memorabilia, things her father had collected or had been awarded over the length of his career. Quickly, she pulled the top bag out and then peered into the second bag. And the third. All three bags contained what she had regarded as her father’s treasures.

  This had to be a reaction to Wes’s death, she thought. No wonder Walter had looked so disapproving. To a sports lover, throwing out this sort of memorabilia was tantamount to sacrilege.

  She knew her father had to be a great deal more heartbroken than he’d let on—Wes had been his best friend for years—but she just couldn’t let him do this, couldn’t let him throw out the visual trappings of an illustrious career.

  Quickly glancing over her shoulder as if, any second, she expected her father to come barreling down the driveway in his wheelchair, she took all three bags out of the trash container and loaded them into the backseat of her car.

  The entire drive home, she was acutely aware of the bags behind her. It was all she could do not to pull over to the side of the road and start going through them. Had he thrown out everything? She hadn’t had a chance to enter his study, where most of the awards and acknowledgments he’d received during his lengthy career were kept. Had he denuded all the shelves, or had Walter done it for him?

  Her father had to be really upset. For a second, she debated turning around and going back to him, but then she knew she couldn’t. She would have to admit to going through the bags and her father wouldn’t receive this very well. He valued his privacy too much.

  Cut off, held at arm’s length, she continued on her way home. The closer she came to her apartment complex, the more excited she grew about the stash she had rescued. She couldn’t wait to go through it.

  Once she reached her carport, Miranda quickly carried the bags, one at a time, into the apartment. Anticipation mingled with sadness, when she finally tossed her purse on the sofa and sank down on her knees, ready to get down to business.

  The doorbell rang before she could untie the first bag.

  “Now what?” she muttered under her breath. Disturbed about her father’s mental state, she wasn’t in the mood to be sociable right now.

  Reluctantly, she rose to her feet and crossed to the front door. She flipped open the tiny cover from the peephole and looked out. The question “Who is it?” never made it to her lips.

  It didn’t have to.

  Curiosity, fueled with a fresh, different kind of excitement, had her quickly flipping the lock and tugging the door open.

  Mike was standing on her doorstep, an opened umbrella in his hand.

  He grinned at her. “Is it raining yet?”

  He was referring to their rain check, she thought, laughing. “No, but you can come in anyway.” She shut the door behind him. “How did you know I’d be home?”

  Mike shrugged, not completely willing to tell her that he’d missed her and had passed by a couple of times in hopes of seeing lights in her window. That would have made him sound entirely too caught up in their relationship for him to admit. At least for now.

  “I had to go in to the newspaper to file a column. The way back passes by your complex. I took a chance you were home—and you were.” He was about to brush a kiss on her lips when the sight of the garbage bags caught his attention. This was something new. “A little OCD?” he asked. She raised her eyebrows in a silent question. “Obsessive-compulsive disorder,” he elaborated. “Kate once treated a kid who liked to surround himself with all his worldly possessions. It pained him whenever his parents tried to throw anything away even if it wasn’t his. Having all those things around made him feel secure.” It was the Reader’s Digest version of the disorder, but he figured it got the idea across.

  Being a sportswriter, Mike could appreciate more than most how upset she was about this, Miranda thought. “I found these in my father’s trash cans.” He was still watching her a bit skeptically. “It’s filled with his memorabilia. I think Wes’s death knocked him for a loop and sent him spiraling into a full-blown depression.”

  “Could be,” Mike agreed. He tugged open the bag closest to him. Framed photographs of the last World Series Shaw had played—and won—tumbled out on the rug. “Wow, this is like a treasure trove.” He didn’t bother to hide his eagerness. “Do you mind?”

  She gestured toward the bag. “Be my guest.” Sitting back down on the floor, she went back to rummaging through the bag she’d originally started to open. “He obviously doesn’t care about these things anymore. Or thinks he doesn’t,” she qualified more quietly.

  There were autographed balls, yearbooks dating back to his first season, one of his game-winning gloves and other things a fan could only dream about.

  “What are you going to do with all this?” Mike asked.

  “Hang on to it until my father realizes that he shouldn’t have thrown it all out, that this does mean something.” Miranda pulled out a stained envelope. Opening it, she scanned the handwritten letter inside. It was addressed to her father. “That his life means something. And that—” Her heart stopped as the words she was reading sank in. “Oh, my God.”

  Surrounded with a small army of statuettes, Mike glanced up. “What?”

  Miranda didn’t answer for a moment. Instead, she reread the letter. Twice. The numb feeling only grew more intense.

  Mike shifted closer to her, his curiosity aroused. “What did you find?”

  “Nothing,” she retorted. She quickly folded the letter as if that could somehow lock in the words and keep them from spilling out. “Something I have to look in to,” she admitted. There was a plea in her eyes as she said, “Don’t ask me to say more than that yet.”

  Mike watched her for a long moment. A relationship was built on trust and he was building a relationship. The sportswriter in him was filled with curiosity. The man he was becoming opted for restraint. “Okay.”

  Because he didn’t prod, didn’t try to take unfair advantage of their association to discover what it was that had drained—she was
certain—the color from her face, Miranda threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Hard and with all the gratitude that flowed through her veins.

  For the time being, the unexpected treasure hunt was suspended as Mike kissed her back.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Something is wrong,” Mike said when he finally had enough breath to form a complete sentence. Making love with Miranda was always an utterly pleasurable experience, but this time around was beyond what had transpired before. She’d had such verve and fire, he’d barely known what hit him. Rampaging hurricanes had a calmer tempo.

  Nobody made love like that without something goading them on.

  Miranda raised herself up on her elbow to look at him, her brow furrowed with concern. “You didn’t like it?” she asked. “I can do better.”

  He was tempted to play with the ends of her hair as strands tantalizingly moved along her breast. “Nobody could do better. Trust me, I’m happy.” He watched her, trying to gauge her reaction. Trying to fathom what had set her off. “But you were like a woman possessed.”

  Miranda forced a smile to her lips, willing herself not to think about the letter she’d discovered. Or the secret she’d unveiled.

  She trailed her fingers along his torso, her eyes on his. “Maybe you just turn me on.”

  He tried not to shiver as her fingers played along his skin. “Good to know, but you’re running from something.” He caught her hand in his, momentarily stilling it. “What is it?”

  She sighed. When had he gotten so tuned in to her, to her thought process? Or was this just a lucky guess on his part? She shrugged, her skin lightly moving against his. She did her best to sound as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Maybe I’m just trying to store up as much of this as I can before the inevitable happens.”

  He gazed into her eyes. She’d mentioned this more than once, weaving her words together as if they were forming some sort of fence that kept her safe. “You mean us breaking up.”

  “Yes.”

  Mike measured out his words slowly. “Maybe we won’t.”

  The odds were against them as far as that happening. It made her sad and she tried not to dwell on it. As much as she’d struggled not to get caught up in him, she had. She was going to miss him like crazy when he wasn’t part of her life anymore.

  “Everyone does,” she told him.

  He shook his head. “Not everyone. My father and Kate haven’t.”

  “But your mother and father did,” she pointed out. “You told me that.”

  He’d found out this tidbit by accident when he was around fifteen, which, coupled with his mother’s death, had kept him from making lasting commitments. He feared what was at the end of the trail.

  But this was different. One month into the relationship that seemed to have a will of its own, he knew what he wanted. He wanted her. He wanted Miranda in his life, not for a day or a month, but much, much longer. Along with that, he wanted her to stop writing obituary notices for their relationship.

  “Yes, they did,” he agreed. “But just because they did—just because fifty percent of the relationships out there break up, doesn’t mean that we have to.” He cupped her cheek and felt himself falling for her all over again. “Maybe we’re in the fifty percent that doesn’t.”

  Moving so that the top half of her body teasingly covered his, Miranda placed her fingertip against his lips and pressed just enough to stop the flow of words.

  “Let’s not spoil things by looking at probability tables.” Her eyes danced as she wiggled the bottom of her torso into place and felt him respond. “All we’ve got is the moment and what I’d like to do with this moment is make love with you.”

  Mike pretended to sigh. “You are a demanding woman, Miranda Shaw.”

  She laughed, tossing her long, straight hair over her shoulder, making him think of some kind of enchanted sorceress. “I know.”

  His blood rushed in his veins as he pulled her down to him and kissed her for all he was worth.

  Temptation arrived in many sizes and shapes. His came in the form of a faded, stained envelope.

  He was tempted, so sorely tempted, to look through the papers that had upset her so much when he’d arrived at her apartment this evening. Whatever was responsible for their almost frenzied lovemaking was in that letter. And it lay not that far out of reach.

  The reporter in him wanted to find out what she’d read that had her so agitated. But the man who had found himself caring for this woman so deeply knew that he would be violating her trust. If she came out of the bathroom, where she was now, and discovered the papers had been disturbed, she’d feel betrayed. Satisfying his curiosity wasn’t worth it.

  So he battled his demons and remained where he was, hoping she would trust him enough to share what had affected her so much.

  And that it would be soon.

  Miranda waited until the next day, Sunday, before broaching the subject with her father. She wanted to do it in person. However, that didn’t keep her from picking up the receiver at least half a dozen times, even dialing his number before abruptly hanging up again.

  But she couldn’t talk about this over the phone. She had to watch every nuance that passed over his face as he explained his reasons. She needed all the help she could get to understand why. Why her father had done this. Why he had voluntarily turned his world upside down, as well as hers.

  So she waited until Sunday morning at nine, waited until after Mike had left her apartment. Waited until she knew her father was awake before she planted herself on his doorstep and asked to be admitted.

  She had to knock twice before the door was finally open. Instead of Walter, her father was on the other side of the threshold. Walter was apparently making the most of his time off and, according to her father, planned to be back sometime in the early afternoon.

  Walter’s absence gave her plenty of time to be alone with him. Plenty of time to ask for and hopefully get a satisfactory explanation.

  Now that she was here, in the lion’s den, standing before the lion, she didn’t know where to begin. Taking a breath, she dove right into the middle of the matter. Five seconds after her father had answered the front door, she heard herself asking, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  A beat went by. Steven pulled back his wheelchair, allowing her clear access to the living room. Only then did he ask, “Tell you what?”

  She felt like yelling at him, like screaming and demanding if he’d lost his mind. Instead, she managed to control her temper and her voice. But it wasn’t without extreme effort. He’d lived with this shame for no reason.

  Miranda fisted her hands at her waist. “That you weren’t guilty of the gambling charges the baseball commission had you up on, that you took the fall for Wes Miller?”

  His expression never changed. If he was surprised that she’d found out, he didn’t show it. “Because you had no need to know.”

  “I’m your daughter.”

  “And it was my life, Randy, my decision.”

  She shook her head. “Why? Explain to me why?” she demanded. “Why would you admit to something you hadn’t done?”

  Steven watched his daughter and struggled with his answer. Taking the fall wasn’t something he had done lightly or on impulse. There had been a great deal of thought. Wes had come to him late one night, banging on his door. Terrified and contrite. And desperate. He’d listened to the barrage of words that had spilled out and then done the only thing he could.

  “Because my arm was giving me trouble and my career was almost over. Because Wes still had a few years left after switching from catcher to right fielder.”

  Everyone knew that a catcher’s knees were only good for so long and then he had to switch over, if he was lucky enough to continue playing. Wes had been one of the lucky ones.

  “But you weren’t guilty—and Wes was,” she insisted, waiting for his reasoning to make sense to her.

  He was not about to talk about who was gui
lty and why. There was something larger at stake. “Wes was my friend. My oldest friend,” he emphasized. “He had some faults, but friends don’t abandon friends in their time of need.” It was what he lived by. And intended to die by.

  “All very noble,” she said sarcastically. “But that didn’t stop Wes from following the herd when everyone turned against you.”

  Wes had tried, he’d really tried. But his friend had always been weak. Except for once. “Wes saved my life when we were kids.”

  It was all Miranda could do to keep from rolling her eyes. She was more than familiar with the story. Two stupid kids, playing on the train tracks. Her father’s shoe had somehow gotten caught in one of the railroad ties and there’d been a train coming. Rather than abandon him, Wes worked feverishly and got him free less than a heartbeat before the train came barreling down. It could have obliterated them both, but it didn’t.

  “And you gave up yours for him,” she pointed out, frustrated at the sacrifice.

  Steve shrugged, unfazed. “Seemed fair at the time. Besides, Wes had a family to take care of. He’d been having trouble with his wife—that was why he’d been gambling to begin with, to try to win enough money to pay off for all those expensive things she was always buying. And if the scandal had involved him,” her father said simply, “his kids would have been devastated.”

  “His kids would have been devastated,” she repeated, astounded.

  The confused expression on his face told her that her father didn’t understand. “Yes.”

  “What about me, Dad?” she demanded heatedly. “What about me? What about the way I felt, having the other kids taunt me about my father, the cheat, the gambler?” Those were some of the most awful moments of her life. Her sister was dead, her parents divorced and her mother had recently died. She’d never been so alone in her life. Not even the aura of a phantom father to comfort her. “Did you ever stop to think how I’d feel about that?”