Heartbreakers and Heroes

by Box Set

  He held the bills out to her. When she made no move to accept the money, he crumpled the fifties. “What do you want from me, Charity?”

  “I don’t want anything.” The lie rolled off her tongue, perhaps easier than any other because she’d spent all of her daughter’s life telling herself she didn’t want anything from him. Need? Well, that was an entirely different ball of wax. Turning away from his frosty reception, she took a couple of steps and stared down the hill at the running creek below. Normally the water moved slow and sluggish. The additional rain of late had given it more pep.

  “So why are you giving me this—tale now? You’re not the girl who chases the spotlight and I get that I have it now, but...I don’t get it. What happened to you?”

  Outrage blossomed in her gut, and the heat rose to scald her face. Whirling, she glared at him. “Chasing the spotlight? You think I’m ripping open my heart and confessing the worst thing I ever did so I can be part of some supermarket tabloid story?” Did he not know her at all?

  “I don’t know why you do the things you do.” No heat, just flat declaration. “Never understood why you cheated on me and, if the jackass dumped you, you should have called me then. I would have helped.”

  Would have. She sucked in a deep breath, counted to ten, then to twenty. Sometimes, her—their—daughter could push her buttons as easily. Like her father, she always did it with the most cheerfully diffident smile as though utterly unaware of how infuriating their attitude and words were. “I see.” She didn’t and it took everything she possessed to hold onto her temper. I’m the one ambushing him. It’s my own damn fault he doesn’t believe me.

  “Then help me out here.” He sighed then stuff the bills back into his wallet before tucking the wallet back into his pocket. “I’ll be honest, Char. Coming here…it wasn’t just about the kids or the Charmings or playing ball.” He paused, his gaze going distant. The setting sun had turned the sky into a riot of burnt orange in the west and the light seemed to coat him half in shadow. The strangest of allegories, she supposed. He was and wasn’t the boy she remembered. Not anymore.

  “Zeke,” she said, taking a step toward him. “I’m not telling you this because I want your money or your press attention or any of the above…I’m telling you this because I lied to you eight years ago and I’ve kept up that lie every day since—to you, to her and…I’m not excusing it. I’m not going to try and tell you some great, grand reason why…”

  She stopped when he raised his hand. “Andie is my daughter?” Disbelief etched into every nuance of the question.

  “Yes.”

  “You lied.”

  Swallowing hard, she nodded. “Yes.”

  “You can’t have lied about something like that. It’s not you. You’re not a liar by nature… God, you’re the most honest woman I know. You’re the woman I’ve judged every other woman by.” The harshness of the sentiment left her aching. He used her as the barometer for other women? Yes, the idea of him with anyone else aroused a sense of jealousy and possession within her. It had every single time she saw news speculation about who The Friar of Baseball might be involved with. Fortunately, the sports fanatics were more interested in his pitching and batting averages, not the notches on his bedpost.

  The idea he measured them again her? Yeah, she wasn’t too proud to admit it flattered her. “Yeah, I know what I said. And I know that we always promised to never lie to each other…”

  “But you want me to believe you did?” He raked his hands through his hair and paced past her to stare at the water. The rapid descent of the sun left them in the arms of the night. She couldn’t see his face or make out his reaction.

  “I want to have never done it in the first place. I want to have known better at eighteen than I did. I’m not making excuses. I can never give either of you back those years…I only know I did what I thought I was right then, but I know is wrong now.”

  He said nothing.

  Cold, she pulled his jacket more tightly around her. What she wanted to do was reach out and touch his arm or brush the back of his neck. What she really wanted was for him to take her hand like he used to, to brush his thumb along the outside of her palm and tell her it would be okay.

  Yeah, I don’t want much. Telling Zeke proved even more difficult than she’d imagined. Next, she would have to tell Andie. Her daughter might never forgive her…

  “So, you lied. You let me leave Sherwood Point thinking you were pregnant with another man’s child—a child you steadfastly refused to let me help you with—” For a split second, she thought his voice broke, and she took a step closer to him. At her movement, he pivoted to face her. “You sent me away. You told me you didn’t want a life on the road, and that I should just go.”

  Guilty of all of the above, she simply nodded.

  “She’s got a wicked left pitching arm, and she’s even better on the right.” Distant words as though he were no longer speaking to her. “And she’s mine.”

  “Zeke…” Giving into the urge, she reached for his hand, but he pulled away from her.

  “Don’t.” One tense, barked order. “I should walk you to your car.”

  “I’m fine…”

  “I. Will. Walk. You. To. Your. Car.” He ground out every word through his clenched teeth as though he fired them like bullets. God, he was pissed. Really, genuinely furious—a kind of fury she hadn’t even seen in him when she’d told him she’d been with someone else. The lie had cut her to say, but she’d—

  No excuses, Charity. I lied. Period.

  “Okay.” Not fighting with him seemed a better plan. She turned and headed toward the empty field near the church and baseball diamond. The faint hum of night insects filled the air. It was too early for crickets, but even with the light chill it was still relatively warm. If anything, the coolness diminished the humidity and made it more pleasant.

  They exchanged no words along the way and, despite the silence and lack of visibility, the walk back seemed to go faster. At her vehicle, he waited for her to unlock the door then opened it for her. Ever the gentleman. Ever perfect. Zeke could be rough and tumble—after one particularly bad patch, he’d gone away to a camp for a few months. When he returned, he’d already begun to become the man he was today.

  “Does my mother know?”

  His question startled her, and she chewed her lower lip.

  “No.” It was a small mercy, and one she’d taken particular care of over the intervening years. Never allowing Andie and his mother to be in the same place, a feat made easy by the anger Mrs. Thompson harbored toward her. She’d blamed Charity for Zeke never coming home again.

  She’d been right.

  He gave her one nod then pointed her toward the driver’s seat. “Get your car started. I’ll wait till I know you’re on your way to go.” Of course he would. She went to remove the borrowed jacket, but he gave an impatient huff. “Keep it.”

  After hurrying into the seat, she jerked a little surprise when he slammed the door. It hadn’t been a real slam, but it echoed as loudly. With shaking fingers, she got the vehicle started then rolled down the window. “Zeke?”

  He’d already begun walking away from her. He halted at her call, but he didn’t turn to look at her.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “At the moment?” he said over his shoulder. “Get drunk. After that, I’ll figure it out.”

  The words shocked her. He didn’t care for drinking, not since… “Zeke…”

  “Go home, Charity. Go home and take care of our daughter. You’ve had eight years to get used to being a liar. You can give me tonight.” He didn’t turn or add anything else before he stalked across the field to his truck, climbed in, revved the engine and left—his pace far more sedate than his mood would suggest.

  Gripping the steering wheel, she lowered her forehead to rest against the cool vinyl. A thousand times she’d played out how the conversation would go in her head, yet when she finally had the chance, she bungled it like
a moron—ripping the bandage off and throwing him foul after foul.

  But at least he knows. He can hate me all he wants, but now he knows and he’ll be in Andie’s life.

  She owed it to both of them. If they did end up hating her? Well, did she really deserve anything else?

  Chapter 4

  Despite his declared intention to get drunk, Zeke blew past the liquor store on old highway ten heading out of town. A web search on his phone told him there were batting cages open late forty-five miles away in Bart. The whirring in his mind wouldn’t calm. His brain stuck on replay.

  Andie is yours.

  I lied.

  No matter how many miles he put between himself and the field around the baseball diamond, he couldn’t escape the words hammering at him. Reconciling the girl who told him—in tears—that he wasn’t the father when he learned about her pregnancy and her confession seemed impossible. Reeling from that blow, he’d told her he didn’t care. The damnedest thing was, he hadn’t. Whether he was the biological father or not, he could have gotten past it. He’d asked her to marry him. They knew he’d been scouted—they knew he was going to make that leap. It meant a lot of months on the road and training, but they could’ve gotten her a place. He’d even suggested staying with his mom if she wanted to stay there.

  “Dammit.” He clenched a fist and slammed it against the steering wheel. Once. Once only, and then he wrestled his temper back into the box where it belonged. Breathing exercises controlled his rioting pulse and respiration. Charity refused his marriage proposal. Refused to let him help her with the baby. Refused to move in with him. She all but kicked him out the door and said…what the hell had she said?

  I don’t want to live with someone for three or four months of the year while he spends all of his time training or on the road. Besides, the last thing you need is a baby keeping you up all night while you should be focusing on pitching the best you can. You were scouted, but that doesn’t guarantee you a place on the team. You still have to earn it.

  He hadn’t cared about that. As much as the thought of her with another guy wrenched his insides, the idea of abandoning her flew in the face of everything he believed in.

  “Screw that.” It flew in the face of everything he’d been taught and wanted. His mother raised him to care for the people in his life. No matter what happened with anyone, Charity had been his to take care of—until she pushed him away, refused his assistance, refused to go with him, and refused to let him say.

  Still fuming when he arrived at the cages, he paid for time in one away from the others, grateful that the kid at the desk didn’t recognize him. He was on his fourth swing when he realized he could barely remember the first ball flying at him nor the satisfying thwack of the bat slamming it away. The burn in his shoulders warned him when he reached the twentieth. By fifty, he’d switched sides then halted the machine long enough to walk and stretch.

  The mud in his thoughts just grew thicker and deeper. Digging his phone and ear bud out of his pocket, he powered it on and waited for it to pair. The red number circling his numerous messages glared at him like an accusation. His voicemail had to be full, and they’d actually recruited his teammates Manny and Kinsler to the cause. Thumbing open Kinny’s message, he found two words. All ok?

  He kept the response short. Fine. Will call ltr.

  Kinny would accept it and leave him be. Most of the players took time to themselves or with their families in the weeks leading to spring training. Time away from the demands of their fans, the press, and the coaches. One of the best parts of being on the team could also be one of the worst. The lack of privacy, the vulnerability to even one small screw up—and he didn’t want to think about the major ones like Moreno and his sober coach.

  The left outfielder replied, Got ur back.

  Thumbing the message closed, Zeke sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes. Tension in his spine left his shoulders tight and his chest aching. Checking for messages about Stone, he saw one from Aloysius James McCallister Sutton—despite the mouthful of a moniker, Al was one of his closest friends. The other man was in the state. Not close, as Dallas was several hours away, but he’d take what he could get.

  Hitting call, he waited a beat for the phone to begin ringing before he slid the phone into his pocket. The first ring accompanied his restarting the pitch machine. He’d struck his second ball before the phone answered.

  “Hey, man,” Al’s voice washed over him, a familiar and altogether friendly sound. They’d known each other since their summer spent at Stone’s. They’d hit it off, the most unlikely of friends. Al was a rich kid, the prodigal son of a well-to-do, upper crust family in the DFW area. Zeke was the child of a widowed mother who’d worked three jobs to make ends meet in a town where the minimum wage was the expected standard of living.

  In so many ways, their life experiences were different—but the anger they’d shared—particularly where their fathers were concerned— bonded them. “Al, I need your help.”

  “Name it.” No hesitation, no question. The other man would drop everything for him. Zeke didn’t doubt it because he would do the same.

  “First, any change for Stone?” If anyone would know, Al would. He’d texted that he’d planned to go see their mentor.

  “No.” A rustle of sound—maybe Al was moving—then a soft murmur of voices. Fuck. His friend wasn’t alone.

  “Sorry for the interruption.”

  “Don’t sweat it, she’s already half-asleep and she needs it.” A click of sound. “Okay, I’m on the deck. What’s up?”

  What was up? Where did he start? He kept swinging at the pitches coming his way. His arms were screaming with fatigue, but he kept going. Every time the bat connected, it reverberated along his frame. He needed the blows. They let him pour all of his aggression and confusion out in a positive, not harmful way. Real men always put their best foot forward, Zeke. You have a lot of anger in your soul, anger you keep quashing. Don’t bury it, use it. Let it fuel you. Turn it into something positive. Put that foot forward rather than letting it drag you back.

  Stone had been right then. He was right now. Every hit helped. It gave his fury a direction and his pain an outlet.

  “I’ve got a kid.”

  “You’re gonna be a dad?” The clarifying question held an element of restrained joy, as though Al wanted to know if he should be celebrating or not.

  “Not going to be—am. Have been worse, I’m a deadbeat dad.”

  “The fuck you say.” The swift denial boosted his dented ego and damaged morale. “You wouldn’t know how to be a deadbeat if you tried.”

  “She made me a deadbeat. She…” In all fairness, Charity hadn’t made him anything. He could blame her for lying. He could definitely blame her for not believing in him or them enough to keep him at arm’s reach at a time when he should have been there to back her up. The rest of it? The rest was on him. “She told me the baby wasn’t mine. She turned down my marriage proposal.”

  “You asked her to marry you even when you thought it was someone else’s kid?”

  “Biology is a science class. Parenting is an investment and a choice.” Something he’d learned the long, hard way and something he knew Al understood.

  “You really are a friggin’ friar sometimes. You know that, right?”

  For the first time since Charity detonated his world, he managed a smile. “It’s not about image. It’s about who I wanted to be…and I always wanted to be with her.” He’d tried to move on from her, but when no other woman lived up to the image of his girl…

  “If you always wanted to be with her, why the hell are you calling me?” It was the question Zeke needed to hear.

  “I don’t know, Jimme Money, why am I on the phone with the YouTube flavor of the month?” Tweaking his old friend about his current occupation amused him. Al was nothing like the knob he played in all of his videos, but few people got to see the real guy inside.

  Laughter met his question. “Cause future s
ports has-beens don’t have better things to do at eight on a Sunday?”

  The humor softened the ache of loss cramping in his gut. He swung the bat another half hour, truly burning away the anger festering in his soul. Charity Lane could have avoided saying anything to him altogether. She hadn’t. Instead, she’d come to him the very first day he’d been back in town, looked him in the eye, and told him the truth.

  After turning off the machine, he walked in a circle, and stretched his arms. Wait, no she didn’t… He’d actually run into her when he’d parked, her and Andie. Replaying the moment, he couldn’t quite picture the reaction she’d had—nervous? Worried? Angry?

  He couldn’t put his finger on it, because he hadn’t focused on her. It had left him hurting to see her. The blow a surprise. In the back of his mind, he’d always known he missed her. Seeing her up close? The first thing he’d done was… look for a wedding ring.

  Charity wasn’t married. Andie shrugged off any questions about her father. She didn’t know him. So her mother hadn’t made up any bullshit stories to explain his absence in her life. Not once in the eight years since he left had he come home. Even when he bought his mother’s new house, he’d done it via proxy and cutting a check. Sometimes he’d flown his mother out to meet him for the holidays rather than risk walking into Sherwood Point and seeing…

  I never wanted to see her with another guy. I didn’t want to see the family she’d built. As long as he never saw it, he didn’t have to accept her moving on from him. Exhaling, he put his hands on his hips and stared at the ground.

  Coming back to Sherwood Point to teach the Charmings hadn’t been about the kids. No matter what he wanted to tell himself, it had been about Charity.

  Now it was about her and Andie.

  Okay, I need a plan. Straightening, he stared at the sky. What he needed was to hash it out with Stone, but he only had the man’s rules to go by. Rules he’d drilled into the Saddle Creek guys until they could recite them over and over.