Bottom of the Ninth: Seattle Skookums Baseball (Game On in Seattle Book 6)

by Jami Davenport

  “Are you okay?” The alarm in his voice revealed she’d done a crappy job of disguising her distress.

  “I’m all right. Just watching a scary movie.”

  He chuckled. “That’s not a good idea late at night when I’m not home.”

  “I know. Dumb, right?”

  “A little.”

  “I should be there in about thirty minutes. I’m waiting for my luggage, then I have to get my car.”

  “Sounds great. I’ve missed you.”

  “Me, too. Love you.”

  “Love you.” Paisley disconnected the call. She hugged herself, smiling and feeling much more at ease with her world. Zeke would be home soon. They’d discuss their future and figure out a way to make everything work.

  “Aunt Paze. I can’t find Purr. I think she got outside.” Sadie stood near the bottom of the stairs, rubbing her drowsy eyes.

  “I’ll get her inside before I go to bed, honey. Go back to sleep. I’ll bring her up later.”

  “Okay.” Sadie padded back upstairs. Paisley had told the kids over and over not to let the kittens outside, but Purr had a way of streaking out the door as soon as it was opened.

  Paisley looked through the French doors but saw no sign of the kitty. Paisley sat down again and turned back to the movie. Purr would come back soon. She always did.

  She dozed off and woke up when her phone beeped from a text message. It was Zeke. He was stuck in a backup from an accident and would be later than planned. In fact, he’d called countless times, and she’d had it on vibrate.

  Purr scratched at the door, and Paisley disabled the alarm and opened the door to let the kitten in.

  A flash of light. A sharp pain. She sank to the ground.

  Only then did she realize someone else had been lurking outside with the kitten.

  * * * *

  Zeke pounded the steering wheel in frustration. He wasn’t creeping any closer to the flashing lights in the distance. In fact, he’d been sitting here for close to thirty minutes and hadn’t moved a bit. He’d take an off-ramp, but the next closest one was beyond the accident location. The news warned it was a five-car accident involving a rolled-over semi, which narrowed the freeway down to a few lanes. He hoped no one was hurt.

  He picked up his cell to try calling Paisley again. She wasn’t responding. She’d probably fallen asleep, but he couldn’t shake a feeling something was wrong. This time his call went straight to voice mail. Paisley always kept her cell charged. She was adamant about that because of the kids. He tried the house phone. No answer.

  Zeke stared at his phone. They were now fully stopped and not moving at all.

  He called 911 and asked for a welfare check. The dispatcher was polite but couldn’t make any promises as to when the police would be able to make it to the home. It appeared it was a busy evening for Seattle police.

  He broke out in a sweat. His constant phone calls should’ve woken the kids. Someone should be answering the phone. He regretted never bothering to get his neighbors’ phone numbers.

  Finally, he broke down out of pure desperation and did the one thing he swore he would never do.

  “Hello?” shouted Isaac over some very loud music.

  “Hey, it’s Zeke.”

  Silence except for the music. Way too long for Zeke’s razor-thin patience.

  “I need a favor.” He didn’t care if he sounded like he was groveling. Fuck, he was. He’d do that and more to guarantee Paisley was okay.

  “What?” Isaac asked, the music sounded more muffled.

  “Could you check on Paisley? She’s not answering the phone, and, and—” His voice broke, and he couldn’t speak for a long moment.

  “Is there some reason you’re concerned?” Even as he said it, he could hear Isaac filling in Avery on what was going on.

  “I’m afraid the kids’ father has found where they live and will come for them. He was in jail, last I knew, but something doesn’t feel right.”

  “We’re not too far away at a concert. I’ll call as soon as I get there,” Isaac promised, and disconnected the call.

  It was the best Zeke could do, but he didn’t know if it would be enough. Even if he drove like a maniac, Isaac was still precious minutes away.

  He tried to calm himself down. He was overreacting. Things were fine. Paisley wasn’t answering because she’d gone outside to soak in the hot tub and didn’t hear the phone. Maybe she’d turned off the ringers on the house phones because they got so many calls from solicitors.

  There could be countless reasons why she wasn’t answering that had nothing to do with her being in danger.

  A few minutes later one lane was opened and Zeke inched past the accident until he was in the clear. He punched the gas pedal on his sports car. He briefly considered calling Isaac back and telling him to forget it, but when he’d hit the gas, his cell had slipped off the dash and spun under the seat.

  He ignored it and drove home with a single-minded purpose. The closer he got, the more desperate he became. His forehead had broken out in a sweat. His entire body tensed with fear. If he’d passed a cop car, he wouldn’t have stopped, couldn’t have.

  Slipping off the freeway, he followed the winding streets up the hill, turned onto a side street, and saw the towering cedars surrounding his house. A few lights were on, but not many. Parked at the bottom of Zeke’s long driveway was a dirty, older model silver sedan. One front fender had primer on it.

  Zeke didn’t know anyone who drove a car like that.

  He wished he had a weapon of some kind, a knife, a gun, even a baseball bat. He laughed bitterly. How ironic that one of the best hitters in Major League Baseball didn’t have a bat stored somewhere in his car.

  He pulled behind the sedan, blocking the car’s ability to escape. He should dial 911 again, but there wasn’t time. His brother’s car screeched to a stop behind him. He didn’t wait for him but sprinted up the driveway, staying in the shadows near the edge of the pavement.

  He paused when he saw a large, overweight man come out of the house carrying the wailing twins under each arm. Brayden ran after the man and kicked him in the shins. The man hesitated, let go of Sophie and swung on Brayden, punching him in the face. The little boy slammed against the ground.

  Zeke forgot about his own safety. Sheer determination fueled his movements, and anger rumbled inside him.

  “Put her down!” he shouted. “Put her down, you bastard.”

  Sadie was crying and kicking her feet in a valiant effort to get free. She was a fighter, and he felt an odd measure of pride.

  The man turned toward him, surprise coloring a face blotchy red from exertion.

  “Put. Her. Down,” Zeke said with deadly calm as he slowed to a deliberate walk. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Brayden sit up and was momentarily relieved that the kid might be battered, but he was okay. Zeke’s split second of inattention allowed the man to lunge toward him, slamming into him in an attempt to get past him.

  This sucker wasn’t escaping. Zeke tackled him with a hit a linebacker would be proud of and laid him out flat. Virgil squirmed, attempting to escape Zeke’s grasp. Zeke yanked him to the ground and raised his fist, ready to beat the bastard to a bloody pulp.

  He stared into Virgil’s meaty face. He wanted to kill the abusive dickhead, wanted to wipe that smirk off his face for good, wanted to make him feel the same pain he’d made those kids and his dead wife feel.

  But he didn’t.

  He wouldn’t be his father’s son. Not this time. Not ever.

  Because he was Zeke, childhood abuse survivor, pro baseball player, and a man in love who had a lot of life to live.

  Isaac and Tanner rushed to his side, and Zeke let them take care of Virgil while he turned to the crying children. He didn’t have time to comfort them. He was too wild with fear over Paisley.

  “Where’s your Auntie Paze?” he asked, perhaps a little too sharply. The girls cried even harder. Avery and Emma appeared out of the shadows and hugged th
e girls.

  Zeke headed for the open front door. With blood running from his nose, Brayden scrambled to his feet and ran after Zeke.

  “Mr. Zeke, she’s in the house. He hit her.”

  Heart racing and head about to explode, Zeke ran to the living room. Paisley lay on the floor, her hands duct-taped behind her back. She moaned. And Zeke said a silent prayer of thanks that she was alive. He knelt beside her, pulling her into his lap. She smiled weakly up at him. An impressive bruise was beginning to form on her cheek.

  Brayden helped him cut off the tape.

  “Is everyone okay?” she croaked.

  “Yeah, we’re fine. We’re all fine.”

  Zeke pulled her into his arms and held her tight. When his gaze caught Brayden standing uncertainly a few feet away, he reached out an arm to the brave little boy and pulled him into the hug, too.

  Chapter 25—Thrown Out at Home

  Zeke held Paisley’s hand as they sat in the living room in the early-morning hours. They’d spent too long getting checked out in ER and then talking to police. The sun was rising, and everyone was exhausted, with hollow faces and bloodshot eyes. Still his brothers didn’t leave. All of them sat on the deck drinking coffee and eating still-warm doughnuts Emma and Avery had bought at an all-night doughnut shop down the road.

  The brothers had made small talk for several minutes. Zeke didn’t say much, but he managed not to prickle like a porcupine with every word either man said. He knew the showdown was here, and in some odd way, he welcomed clearing the stench of the past from the air and breathing clean, guilt-free oxygen again.

  After a pause in the conversation, Isaac cleared his throat, and Avery leaned against his shoulder. Tanner angled forward. Emma patted his thigh, and Tanner covered her hand with his. Zeke stiffened and tightened his hold on Paisley’s hand.

  Here it comes.

  “So spill it. Give us everything you’ve got. Don’t hold anything back,” Isaac said.

  Tanner swallowed and nodded. “I used to blame Isaac for Karen’s death because he’d fought with his girlfriend, and she’d left with Karen, both too drunk to drive. But Isaac didn’t put either woman behind the wheel of that car or drive it over the cliff. He was passed out on the couch, completely unaware.”

  Zeke stared at a bird flitting near the bird feeders Paisley kept filled with seeds. Birds had the life. They could fly away from anything that bothered them. He wished he had wings. He closed his eyes for a moment and mustered every ounce of courage he possessed. His brothers deserved to know, and Zeke needed to share his secret pain with the only two other people on earth who truly understood.

  “My feelings toward both of you have nothing to do with what happened to Karen. For years I’ve hated you both because you left me with a man capable of cold-blooded murder, as unfair as that sentiment might be.”

  “He didn’t spare any of us, but we tried to deflect most of it off you as best we could.” Tanner’s shoulders slumped, and his eyes reflected a deep sorrow that reached inside Zeke’s chest and squeezed at his heart.

  “He didn’t kill either of you,” Zeke said with cold, emotionless words, masking the turmoil inside.

  Tanner and Isaac squinted at him as if trying to see him better.

  Zeke raked a hand through his hair and forged on despite the nausea steamrollering his gut. “He killed our mother, and he killed me. I saw him kill her. He threw her down the stairs, but she was still moving so he smothered her with a plastic bag. He looked up as the last of her life drained from her and saw me standing at the top of the stairs. The bastard winked at me as she drew her last breath.”

  Isaac turned his head into the bushes and lost his dinner. Tanner slumped forward, head in his hands.

  Ignoring his own rebelling stomach, Zeke pushed onward. “There’s more. You both think you know how bad that asshole can be, but neither of you have a clue as to the depths of that man’s depravity.”

  Both brothers stared at him with pain-rimmed, bloodshot eyes and said nothing.

  “I’ve been dead.” Zeke spat the words out with venom as if he could expel the poison inside him.

  “We’ve all felt that way.” Tanner spoke softly.

  “No, I’ve been dead. He killed me.”

  Complete, total silence; even the birds stopped chirping.

  “When he was done murdering our mother, he came after me. I was cornered with nowhere to go. He put the plastic bag over my head, the same one he’d killed her with, and told me I was next. I thought I would die. But twice he removed it at the exact right time, leaving me gasping for air while he laughed like a fucking lunatic. The third time he waited too long. I died. But he resuscitated me. Once I’d recovered enough to understand his words, he told me over and over I’d be next. He would kill me and anyone I ever cared about if I told the truth. I never did. Once I had the money and fame, I couldn’t do it because I couldn’t face the public frenzy of what he was or the trial dredging it all up again. I suppressed the memory and pretended none of it ever happened. But it had happened, and my nightmares prove it over and over again. No amount of counseling or avoidance of my family destroys those demons.”

  “Fuck,” Isaac said.

  “Double fuck,” Tanner added.

  Tears trickled down Paisley’s face. She leaned into him, offering him her support and accepting him for the coward he believed himself to be. Only no one in this group looked at him with disgust or anger. Their expressions were full of sympathy and concern.

  A tear rolled down Zeke’s cheek. And another. And another. Until the tears flowed with the force of a flash flood, expelling the rage and guilt he’d kept inside for fourteen agonizing years.

  He met Paisley’s gaze, and she nodded, reading his mind. He stood and walked to Isaac leaning against the railing and hugged him. Isaac stiffened, but then his arms went around Zeke. A few seconds later Tanner joined their group hug, and they had a very unmanly cry for all they’d lost—their mother, their sister, and one another.

  The three men separated. Suddenly self-conscious, they shuffled their feet and wiped at their cheeks, not meeting one another’s gaze. Paisley rushed to Zeke, stood on tiptoes, and kissed the pain away. Pulling her close, Zeke looked into her eyes and managed a slight smile. He turned to his brothers, who were now flanked by their wives.

  “I’d like to try being a family,” Zeke said.

  Isaac gave Avery a kiss on the forehead. “So would I.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” Tanner added, leaning down to brush his lips across Emma’s.

  The women grounded these three damaged males. The realization hit Zeke with a measure of surprise that he’d been so blind to their special powers before today. The power of love. An emotion relatively foreign to Zeke until lately. Now he felt the full impact of it wrapping around him like a force field from the demons.

  “Did either of you ever worry about being abusive yourselves?”

  Both brothers nodded.

  “Yeah, me, too, but we’re better than the man who contributed to our DNA. I’m going to the police. I’m telling them what I saw. I want the bastard to pay.”

  “Some pretty heavy shit is going to come out if you do that,” Isaac warned.

  “Yeah, I know,” Zeke said grimly. “We’re all going to be the top of the news for a while to come, but I think we’re all strong enough to handle it. What didn’t kill us made us stronger.”

  Isaac and Tanner managed wry smiles.

  “What about the One Big Seattle Family campaign?” Tanner’s gaze swept the group.

  “We could use it to raise awareness of domestic violence and child abuse,” Isaac suggested.

  Zeke nodded. He’d lived too long with the fear of being outed as a child of abuse rather than a child with a perfect family. Now his fears seemed so misplaced. He should’ve used his tragic past to educate and help others.

  The good news was it wasn’t too late. With Paisley at his side, he could do this.

  Chapter 26—Battling B
ack

  Paisley and Zeke sat on the love seat on the deck. Zeke rested his head on her shoulder, his arm around her. He’d been quiet since his brothers and their wives finally left. The poor man had to be spent. It’d been a long, traumatic past twenty-four hours. Paisley was still trying to come to terms with the abuse Zeke had suffered at the hands of the one man who should’ve been protecting him.

  “I used to think I couldn’t ever get close to anyone because I’d be an abuser just like him. He’d ground that into my head for years, and it stuck. But I’m not him, and I never will be. I’m me, and I’m stronger than he ever was.

  “Do you still want someone as damaged as me?” He looked so worried, she almost laughed, but he wouldn’t understand what she found so amusing, considering the events of the past night.

  “I only want you, baggage and all. As long as you don’t mind my baggage.”

  He grinned, lighting up like the sun coming out of the clouds. “I love your baggage, babe.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Even the kids?”

  “Especially the kids. We’ll fight to adopt them. Make them truly ours.”

  “Ours?”

  “Yeah, ours.” He took her hand, rubbing small circles on her palm. “I meant every word of that proposal.”

  “I know you did.”

  He kissed the smugness from her lips.

  The sound of clapping caused them to break apart, as the kids still in their jammies rushed toward them and piled into their laps, laughing and giggling.

  “How would you like all of us to be a family?” Paisley asked, her voice somewhat muffled because Sophie had thrown her arms around Paisley’s neck.

  The three kids cheered and danced around the deck. Even Sadie didn’t hold back her enthusiasm. The kittens took possession of the recently vacated laps and commenced grooming and purring.

  Zeke’s smile spread across his handsome face as he stroked Purr with one hand and held Paisley’s hand with the other. “You think we can do it?”

  “I know we can. Together anything is possible.”