by Mindy Klasky
And the Rockets never recovered.
Adam did his best at the plate, but the left-handed Philadelphia pitcher was a lousy match-up for him. Adam struck out swinging twice, and he was caught looking a third time. And just like that, the Rockets were .500 for the season.
The locker room was quiet after the game. All the boisterous bragging of Opening Day was gone, replaced with the low-key frustration of a team struggling to find its feet when public opinion said it should be sprinting down the straightaway. It had been like that for a lot of spring training—some great streaks where everything clicked for four or five or even six games and it looked like the team was destined for the post season, only to be followed by a clutch of games where absolutely nothing went right.
Adam knew his job, though. He hurried through his shower and pulled on street clothes. Sure enough, the reporters were waiting for him by his locker. Ross Parker led the pack. The columnist already had his notebook out and his pen ready. “So, Adam. It looked like you should have had that fly ball in the third.”
Is that a question? That’s what he always wanted to ask, when reporters gathered around with their easy observations and sly comments. But he knew better than that. He had to give them what they wanted.
“It’s tricky,” he said. “Getting used to twilight and the light stands and the full stadium after all those weeks in Florida. We were knocking the dust off tonight. We’ll be back in it tomorrow.”
Another reporter chimed in, a new guy Adam didn’t recognize. “So your excuse for those three strikeouts is the lighting?”
Asshole. But he said, “No excuse,” with an apologetic smile that he held just long enough to make sure one of the News & Observer photographers caught it. “Fernandez is always a tough match-up for me. I need to do better.”
Parker was back again. “A couple of stories came in right before the game started. There are rumors that your manager, Jason Reiter, is under investigation for financial wrongdoings. Any truth to that?”
Holy shit. How did stories leak that fast? Who’d set him up—the cops they’d talked to that afternoon? His agent wouldn’t hang him out to dry. His lawyers either.
“No comment,” he said.
“But Mr. Reiter is the Executive Director of the Sartain Foundation, isn’t that correct?”
“No comment.”
“Come on, Adam,” Parker insisted. “That’s a matter of public record. Isn’t it true that Jason Reiter—”
“Whoa, guys!” Adam looked up, as surprised as the bloodthirsty reporters that someone had interrupted the feeding frenzy. Zach Ormond was shouldering his way into the pack. The former catcher was management now, a special assistant to the team’s owner. That gave him some degree of gravitas as he said, “It’s a long season, gentlemen. Don’t blow all your questions two games in. Let my left fielder get out of here and go home for the night.”
The guys got the message, but they weren’t happy about it. Rebellious mutters rose above the crowd as they slouched out of the locker room.
Adam shook his head. Jesus Christ, this would be hell. He was one day into the Reiter disaster, and he already felt like he was twenty games back. He clenched his teeth and said to Ormond, “Thanks.”
The former catcher met his eyes. “Eh. They’ve got papers to sell. You okay?”
Adam started to shrug but thought better of it when his obliques screamed. Goddamn wall. “I will be.”
Ormond nodded toward his side. “You need to get that wrapped?”
Adam shook his head. “Nothing a handful of Advil and a good night’s sleep won’t cure.”
It was Ormond’s turn to shrug. The guy knew what it was like to play the game hard; he’d had more than his share of injuries on the field. “Suit yourself.”
By the time Adam made it out to the players’ parking lot, the stadium was deserted. He settled into his car and tried for a land speed record on the way home.
Once he was standing on his own front porch, he shook his head and tried to convince himself he was tired enough to drop into bed, to fall asleep without rehashing every minute of the worst day he’d ever had. He looked across his lawn at Haley’s place. The light was on in her bedroom. She was probably in bed, reading or something. Wearing that T-shirt she’d had on last night…
He was not going there. In fact, he’d do better not to think about Haley at all. Not when the rest of his life was in the toilet. She didn’t deserve that, cleaning up his mess.
He marched himself down the steps and around the corner of his house. He stuck to the stepping stones his father had set twenty-five years ago, like they were the only safe path through a dangerous sea. When he climbed the stairs up to his deck, he sucked in his breath against his bruised side. The cold spring air wasn’t doing him any favors, but it felt good, clean in a way that managed to wash away a little of the shit from the day. Gingerly, he lowered himself to one of the chaise lounges.
From there, he had a clear view of the Reeves farm. His mother had always said the farm was the thing that had sold her on their property, forty years ago. She could look out the window while she was washing dishes, and it felt like she was a million miles away from Raleigh.
Well, Raleigh had grown a hell of a lot in the last forty years. There were condos and townhouses miles past Reeves’ farm. People drove for an hour just to get to their jobs downtown, and the entire metropolitan area was thriving.
There was a crapload of money in real estate. Money Adam didn’t have any more. Money he could only possibly recoup if he tracked down Reiter.
He’d listened to his lawyers that afternoon, heard their first pitch at a game plan. They’d get the FBI involved and Interpol if necessary. There’d be criminal prosecutions, and Adam could bring a civil suit. Government agencies would follow up—the Internal Revenue Service had gotten Al Capone, and they’d track down Reiter if he didn’t pay every single penny he owed under the tax code.
But all of that would take years.
The money would be meaningless by then. The Foundation needed regular cash infusions. By the time Adam’s lawyers and the FBI and Interpol and the IRS had their way, the Foundation would be stone cold dead.
Sure, Adam could keep it going for another year, maybe two. The salary he’d get under the last year of his contract would do that much. But with the Foundation’s principal gone, it could never be secure. No large-scale donor would ever step forward to support an underfunded hobby from a has-been ballplayer. BUNT would end up the punchline of a bad joke, if anyone remembered it at all. It would just be one more thing those kids had loved and lost.
A huge chunk of cash, that’s what Adam needed…
The idea came to him like a two-seam fastball, cutting in like liquid fire. He could buy the Reeves farm. He could underwrite luxury townhouses on the land—maybe a dozen to start. He could sell the first round and fund more, end up building a hundred or more. There was plenty of land there, plenty of opportunity.
He could secure the Foundation forever.
He reached the end of the deck before he realized he’d started pacing. His fingers closed over the pressure-treated wood, and he leaned forward into the night. This time, he ignored the explosion in his obliques.
The entire idea was crazy. He’d need a loan against next year’s salary just to buy the farm. Real estate deals were notoriously risky. He’d have to hire the best lawyers in town to draw up the contracts—the best lawyers he wasn’t already keeping busy full time, trying to sue the shit out of Reiter. Adam would need iron-clad contracts with the developers, massive penalties if they missed a single deadline, because he wouldn’t have a day to lose.
But those were all details. He could get the loan. He could pay lawyers. He could hire project managers. It wouldn’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever was.
The most important thing was convincing Reeves to sell the farm to him. But what had the guy said that morning? He and his wife were retired. They needed every penny they could get.
An icy April breeze picked up from nowhere, slicing across the lawn and raising goosebumps on Adam’s arms. Don’t be an asshole, something whispered deep inside his brain. Haley wants the farm.
Yeah. He was being an asshole. He only knew the farm was for sale because Haley had let him sleep over the night before.
But Reiter had backed him into a corner. Adam had to protect his business. Buying the farm would be the difference between life and death for the Foundation, for the thousands of kids who relied on BUNT.
Haley might have thought about buying the farm first, but all projects weren’t created equal. Paws would continue to exist, even if Haley couldn’t move her shelter out to the farm. If Adam didn’t act now, didn’t buy Reeves’ place, the Foundation would be dead, dead, dead. And even Haley had to admit that kids were more important than animals.
It was too late to make an offer tonight. Reeves would laugh him off the farmhouse’s front porch if he showed up ranting about the Foundation, about BUNT. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough. It had to be.
He forced himself to step back from the deck railing. For the first time in his whole miserable, exhausting day, he could begin to see a path out of hell.
Yawning deep enough to set his side throbbing again, he headed into the house. First things first. He’d get a good night’s sleep in his own bed, without the distraction of another person, of Haley, sleeping down the hall. And then, in the morning, he’d set the wheels in motion to save BUNT and the Foundation.
~~~
As Haley glanced at her phone, she shivered on the top step of Adam’s porch. The evening’s game had been a fast one—a second loss for the Rockets. Adam had looked stiff out there, stretching to ease his obliques like he’d really taken a beating the night before.
She didn’t feel a shred of pity for the man.
Instead, she was ready to read him the Riot Act. And if that didn’t work, she had Plan B close at hand. She looked down at the paper bag beside her, wondering if she was an idiot for even considering that course of action. Before she could decide, a pair of headlights swung in from the road, crunching up the gravel driveway in record speed. The car braked to a halt a stone’s throw from the house, and the lights slammed off. The engine started to tick as it cooled, and Haley climbed to her feet.
She waited for him to slam his door closed before she demanded, “What the hell, asshole?”
“Christ,” he said, and he sounded exhausted. She didn’t care. “Are we really going to do this now?”
“What a jackass move! You knew Paws was making an offer on the farm. So what did you do? You set an alarm clock today, so you could get over there before Mr. and Mrs. Reeves drank their morning coffee!”
“I did what I had to do,” he said. But he ran his fingers through his hair—a sure sign he was uncomfortable. “You must have heard about Reiter. The Foundation’s going down the tubes if I don’t do something fast. The farm is my ticket for staying in business long enough to help those kids.”
“The farm is my ticket. Dammit, Adam, you wouldn’t even know about it, if you hadn’t been standing in my kitchen yesterday morning.”
At least he looked chastened at that. Chastened, but determined. She’d recognize that set jaw of his anywhere. She wouldn’t be surprised if he dug the toe of his shoe into the ground, if he looked up at her through his lashes and grinned until she gave in, just like the towhead kid she’d known so well.
Well, they weren’t ten years old any more. And she wasn’t giving in. Not on this. Not on something so important to Paws.
“Have you even looked at the property, Adam? The stable is perfect for my dogs.”
“Not after it’s been torn down for my first ten townhouses.”
“Let me guess,” she spat. “You have a plan all worked out for the barn, too.”
“The whole thing will go forward in stages. Ten townhouses where the stable stands. Build them, sell them, and build another ten after we tear down the barn. There’s enough land over there for a hundred homes, maybe more, once the architects get involved. Selling them will save BUNT. Selling them will keep kids playing outside for another twenty years. Thirty. The rest of our lives.”
“Adam…” She trailed off. She’d known he would do this. He’d try to wow her with his enthusiasm, try to win her over with stories about the kids, about all the great things BUNT did. She supported BUNT; she’d donated to them every year. But she wasn’t going to let him walk all over her now. Not when the Reeves farm had been her idea. Not when she needed it more.
“Haley…” he said, and his tone was a perfect copy of hers. Before she could figure out a winning argument for Paws, before she could string together the words that would make him see her logic, make him realize the no-kill shelter needed this property, this one, and no other one could ever do, Adam shrugged. “Hey, we could shoot for it.”
“No way am I going rock-paper-scissors for the right to buy a farm.”
“Then how about blackjack?”
“Not with you! You’re the one who taught me how to count cards!”
Adam held up his palms like he was surrendering. “We might not even get to make the decision. When I went over this morning, Reeves said he needed to talk things over with his wife.”
She glared at him. “Yeah, they talked. They’re giving us sixty days. We have to submit our competing bids in sealed envelopes, and they’ll choose then.”
She saw him measure out his victory. No doubt, he was calculating his personal finances, weighing whatever was left in his bank accounts, figuring out how much better off he’d be in two months.
Oh, she’d read the articles online. She knew he’d been cleaned out by his manager. But that didn’t make it right for him to steal the farm from her, for him to ruin the plans he’d known she had in place.
“Shit, Haley,” he said, and she was astonished to feel his remorse tug at her heart. “I’m sorry, okay? I know how much you want the farm, I get that. But I need it too.”
“You don’t need the farm! You need land—any land! You’re never going to use the stables or the barn or the other outbuildings. You won’t even keep the Reeves’ house!”
He shrugged, and she saw him stifle a wince. She didn’t care if his side was killing him; that wasn’t her concern. Her certainty wavered a bit, though, when he lowered his voice, speaking so quietly she had to take a step closer to hear him. “Give me a little bit of credit. I had my lawyers check today. There isn’t any other land, not close enough to town. Nothing else can give us the volume of townhouses we need, the ability to build in phases, to sell in batches and keep the Foundation on its feet.”
“Dammit, Adam…” But she didn’t say anything after that. She wasn’t sure there was anything else to say. And that left Plan B. Which, somehow, she’d known was where they’d end up all along.
He brushed past her as he pulled his keys out of his pocket. “I’ve had a really crappy day. This isn’t a good time to talk.”
“There won’t be a good time to talk. You guys hit the road tomorrow.” She reached inside her paper sack. “Come on, Adam. You know you shouldn’t have talked to Reeves this morning. Walk away now, like a man. Let’s drink to it.”
He looked at the bottle and gave a long, low whistle. “The Macallan 21. You’re not playing games.”
She offered it to him. “I thought it was worth toasting our arrangement.” Yeah, right. Like they had an arrangement.
“What did that set you back? A couple hundred?”
Two hundred and fifty. She knew that type of money meant nothing to Adam. He could have the 21 whenever he wanted it. He could afford really rare bottles, ones that ran up to thousands of dollars—at least he could before Reiter pulled his crap.
But Adam knew she couldn’t buy the 21 on a whim. That’s what mattered. That, and the fact that she knew Speyside whiskies were his indulgence of choice. She said, “I want you to understand that I’m serious. I want you to know how much the farm means to me.
To Paws.”
He looked at her for a long time. Too long. Her fingers started to feel awkward on the bottle. She began to feel a little silly, holding the ridiculously expensive Scotch while she wore clothes that looked like she’d pulled them out of a discard bin at the nearest thrift shop.
Had Adam’s eyes always been that shade of grey, somewhere between blue and black? Had his five o’clock shadow always glinted against his cheeks, darker than the hair on his head, more prickly, more dangerous? How long had silver shaded his temples?
She swallowed hard, nearly jumping out of her skin when his fingers settled on top of hers. The warmth of his palm seemed to capture the amber whisky in the bottle and reflect it back to her.
“Come on inside,” he said. Without waiting for her answer, he slipped his key into the front door. He reached into the hallway and slapped on a light, then gestured for Haley to precede him.
She brushed into the house she’d visited a thousand times before. Adam had pretty much left it the way his parents had—there was still the familiar flowered wallpaper in the dining room. She’d eaten plenty of meals in front of those antique roses—Thanksgiving dinners, Easter brunches, the chaotic celebrations that came with growing up in a neighborhood that was a picture-perfect replica of Smalltown, USA.
She led the way back to the kitchen, but she waited for him to take down a couple of tumblers from the cabinet beside the kitchen sink. He took his time, and she decided that was permission for her to launch into her carefully prepared speech, the one where she didn’t call him an asshole.
“Adam, I’ve been looking for a new property for Paws for over a year now. We need a place zoned for agriculture, with lots of small buildings so we can separate out the animals. We need offices and classrooms and other administrative functions, and the Reeves farm has all those things. It’s perfect.”
She watched his back tighten as she laid out each plank of her platform. “It is perfect,” he said to the window over the sink, but then he had the guts to turn and face her. “But I’m broke. Reiter’s screwed me to hell and back, and the kids are the ones who will suffer. The Foundation will shut down in a year if I don’t buy the Reeves place.”