Double Play

by Joanne Rock

  His hand went to his shirt pocket, where he’d tucked a few sheets of paper containing Amber’s notes from the library last night. Her handwriting flowed neatly over the page, compact and graceful, each line dovetailing smoothly into the next.

  From the middle of the page, a quote jumped out at him. A tidbit from famed Dodger coach, Tommy Lasorda. “About the only problem with success is that it does not teach you how to deal with failure.”

  Funny how sometimes an obvious truth could whack you upside the head with implications you’d never seen. Because that quote was all about him—Heath Donovan—in a nutshell.

  Heath had been a success all his life. Some sports writers had termed it “phenomenal success,” and if that didn’t go to your head, what would? But maybe all the success in the world had been piss-poor preparation for this moment. He needed to reinvent the wheel, and he needed to do it today.

  Standing, he clutched Amber’s notes tighter in his hand, hoping there was something in there that would speak to his team as loudly as those words spoke to him. He didn’t have a plan, per se. But he had his eyes open in a way they hadn’t been all season.

  His father’s harping on him had helped. But Amber’s generosity—both with her heart and with her time—had driven the message home.

  He wasn’t going to fail her or the team today. Because starting right now, he wouldn’t just be another successful player at the helm. He was officially taking charge.

  He was the leader. The manager. And right now, the Aces were still his team.

  AMERICA’S PASTIME WOULD have seemed like a great way to spend a summer afternoon if Amber’s heart hadn’t been fractured at the seams. It didn’t help that the Aces had played eight innings of baseball in the past three hours and were down by a run as they headed up to bat in the ninth.

  The sun had slipped down in the sky but remained visible over the open-air stadium, throwing just the right amount of warmth on her bare arms and legs as she sat in her cargo shorts and navy blue Aces tank top. The shirt had been an unexpected gift from Naomi Davis, the catcher’s wife. She’d decided Amber’s arrival in their group deserved to be celebrated and she’d bought out the gift shop’s small supply of visiting team apparel to give a matching shirt to all the players’ significant others.

  The glittery heart around the Aces’ logo was decidedly girly and nothing Amber would have chosen, which made her love it all the more. She felt like a different person than the one she’d been just one short week ago, and her ultrafeminine tank top broadcast a new confidence to the world. She wasn’t going to hole up in her apartment any longer, working hours on end for the sake of her job. The new Amber was all about balance.

  Too bad the new and improved Amber didn’t date guys who were only looking for a fling. Why couldn’t Heath see they could handle something more?

  “Get your peanuts! Get your popcorn!” A teenager carrying a tray full of snacks tromped through the stands, his red and white striped paper hat tilted over one eye.

  Next to Amber, Diego’s girlfriend twitched in her seat as the first Aces batter grounded out and the next popped up.

  Two outs.

  “We could still win this game.” Jasmine had been optimistic from the start, even when Diego had struck out twice before getting a walk in the sixth. “You wait. My man won’t leave this park without lighting up this pitcher.”

  Amber smiled, thinking Jasmine was as crazy about Diego as he obviously was about her. She could picture them together for the long haul—her toting around a cute clan of kids to his games, him doing anything in his power to make her happy. Amber had already overheard Jasmine asking around about the team’s charity involvement and good works’ projects. Apparently, the woman had a lot to give in that department. No doubt, the Aces would have some serious resources for her to sink her teeth into.

  Why couldn’t a future for Amber and Heath be just as possible?

  She couldn’t imagine going back to her walls of white books for company after being exposed to the riot of colors and people in Heath’s world.

  She could have a place here. It wasn’t a big, splashy spot like Jasmine would undoubtedly make for herself. But Amber could easily envision a role where she coordinated some trips out with the women who normally only saw each other at games. This group would benefit from a few activities together to prevent them from feeling isolated.

  Amber knew firsthand how isolation led to insecurity. If her mother had had more of a network around her, maybe she wouldn’t have been so quick to fall apart when Amber’s father had left. For that matter, if Amber hadn’t allowed herself to become so isolated in her world of books—much as she enjoyed them—maybe she wouldn’t have been so devastated by Brent’s defection.

  Damn it, this was what Rochelle had been telling her ever since college. If it had taken her ten years to see, maybe Amber shouldn’t expect Heath to recognize something that was obvious to her in just a few days.

  Regret nipped at her for piling more grief on his worries with the team. Could she have chosen worse timing? But she hadn’t wanted to repeat the mistakes she’d made in the past, coasting along without committing her heart half so much as her head. Heath had touched her deeply and she’d wanted him to know it.

  “Amber Nichols?” A fresh-faced bat boy with a baseball cap pulled way down to his eyebrows stood at the end of the seating reserved for the players’ families.

  “I’m Amber Nichols.” She raised her hand to draw the boy’s eye.

  “This is for you.” He passed her a piece of paper and then darted back toward the field where he slid through the bars next to the dugout.

  An usher standing guard nearby didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

  Snap!

  The crack of a bat made her look up. As one, all the players’ wives and girlfriends leaned forward in their seats to watch the progress of a ball through the infield.

  “Single.” Naomi Davis let out a whoop followed by something that sounded like a war cry. “We’ll take it, baby!”

  Apparently her husband had been at bat as the catcher now stood on first base.

  Still, one runner on base wasn’t going to make up for a one-run deficit in the ninth when they already had two outs. Amber’s time in L.A.—her time with Heath—was running out.

  “Well?” Jasmine elbowed Amber. “Are you going to open it?”

  She nodded pointedly at the paper in her hands, the paper Amber had half forgotten.

  “Yes.” Her heart pounded harder, knowing that only Heath would have sent her a note.

  “The managers never like cell phones or texting in the dugout,” one of the other women in a seat behind her clarified.

  Unfolding the paper that was actually a preprinted form for a player roster, Amber read the handwritten scrawl on the blank side.

  I haven’t been seeing the big picture—on the field or off. But that’s changing starting right now. Win or lose, I want to be with you. Please meet me in the players’ parking garage after the game. I’ll be out as fast as I can.

  Her hand shook. She knew because the paper trembled in her fingers. Did he really mean that about wanting to be with her? Or was he just hoping to slow her exit after the game so they could talk?

  Either way, a small spark of hope flamed to life inside her, and the day took on new possibility.

  “Yes!” the wives screamed all around her.

  For a moment, the enthusiastic cries felt like a chorus cheering the good news.

  Then, Naomi put an inside-out baseball hat on Amber’s head.

  “It’s a two-out rally, girl. Get your rally cap on.”

  Her emotions were all knotted up, but she’d said she was here to cheer Heath’s team on and she planned to do just that.

  Did he really want to be with her, win or lose?

  She wondered as Diego Estes came up to bat.

  “He hasn’t had a hit in three games,” Jasmine reminded everyone around her before she kissed Alex’s head. She stood up, baby in
her arms, as if Diego would see her. “It’s your turn, Diego! Go get yours!”

  The batter never looked her way, but he took one hand off the bat before he settled into his stance, and pointed right at her in the stands as if he knew exactly where the mother of his child stood.

  Amber’s heart warmed to see that connection, a bond that twenty-four hours ago Diego had been scared he’d never feel again. If these two could overcome distance and hurt on both sides to support each other, Amber wanted to believe she and Heath could fight their way through whatever life threw at them.

  Win or lose…

  Diego fouled off one ball and then another. Two strikes.

  They were one strike away from going home when Diego delivered on Jasmine’s faith in him. He smacked a fastball so hard and so straight into centerfield, Amber feared for whoever was seated in those upper decks.

  Screams erupted all around her. Even Alex woke up to make some noise while his mother hooted and hollered.

  Amber was thrilled for the team and for Heath. But it wasn’t over yet. The best of the Stars’ batting order would still come up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth.

  Unfortunately, the pitcher due up on the mound was the Aces’ veteran closer, Chase Montoya, the same player who’d closed down the strip clubs the night before, according to rumor. If Heath was seeing the big picture right now, he had to know they were in one heck of a tight spot.

  CLEARLY, HEATH’S commitment to a new coaching style was being tested.

  He’d told Amber that “win or lose” he wanted to be with her, and he meant it with every fiber of his being. But he preferred to win, and fate had handed him a two-run inning after two outs. Normally, an Aces’ lead meant one thing…“Money” Montoya. His star reliever had successfully closed out the first fifteen games of the year before losing momentum in midseason. The highly paid veteran had flat-out squandered leads in three consecutive games.

  Still, conventional baseball wisdom said you went with your big-money closer.

  But middle reliever Dave Bryant had just thrown a perfect one-two-three eighth, striking out two of three batters and retiring the other on a feeble tapper back to the mound. Bryant was in a groove. Furthermore, Montoya had opted to party all night and spread the culture of fast living to a bunch of neophyte players who looked up to him.

  Stop being the players’ coach. Be a leader, damn it.

  He could almost picture that neat writing of Amber’s on the folded paper in his pocket. “If you’re in control, they’re in control.” He was pretty sure that one came from Tom Landry. Heath hoped like hell it was true when the dugout phone rang with the bullpen coach asking if he wanted Montoya.

  “I’m sticking with Bryant.”

  Next to the phone on the bullpen monitor permanently fixed on the opposite side of the outfield wall, Donovan could see Montoya kick the dirt on his way back to the bench, that big rope of a chain swinging around his neck. No turning back now. Montoya was no longer in the mindset of closing out games, and would likely demand a trade as soon as this one ended. He was never a team-first player.

  Still, two bad pitches and Heath could start thinking about a career after managing baseball. He half wished Amber knew what a monumental decision this was for him. For the team. Then again, if Naomi Davis still had her ear, she’d probably fill her in fast enough. The catcher’s wife knew as much about the sport as him.

  Fully committed now, Heath turned his attention to the mound. Bryant had dominated the competition as the saves leader at Triple A the previous season. Still, the lineup on deck—Robins, Sorilla and Kazan—was as formidable as any in the game.

  “You gotta know the shit’s gonna hit the fan after this, Skip,” the bench coach observed between chews on his tobacco. Grizzled and gray, the Aces’ second-in-command had been a coach when the elder Donovan had played, so that told Heath he had to be nearing retirement.

  “It already has.” Heath wasn’t going to defend himself. There was a new era in this dugout if he stuck around the team past tonight, and it was just as well everyone knew it.

  “Shane Robins is a slap hitter,” the old bench coach, Butch Casey, observed. “More infield hits than anyone in baseball this season. A well-placed bunt along the third baseline and forget it, the leadoff hitter is on.”

  Heath sorely wished the old guy would focus on his chew. Ideally, a bench coach was more for bouncing around strategy ideas, not articulating a manager’s worst fears. But there you had it. Heath’s job hadn’t come with the ability to pick his own coaches.

  “Always a possibility,” Heath agreed amiably, hungering for a view over the dugout to see Amber in the stands.

  Turning back to the game, Bryant appeared determined to pitch the speedster inside. Donovan knew that although Montoya had better pitches than Bryant, Bryant’s command was superior, as he could pinpoint his location in the strike zone. And that was exactly what he did, retiring Robins on a harmless grounder to the first baseman.

  The dugout gave a cursory round of shouts and encouragement, the mood among the guys surprised. Confused. No doubt every one in there was second-guessing this new management style.

  “I don’t think you’ll get off that easy with Jose Sorilla,” Butch observed, standing at the fence and breathing his tobacco-scented words of doom in Heath’s ear. “He’s had thirty home runs and thirty stolen bases in the same season, a rare breed. And for a right-handed hitter, he’s especially hard on lefties.”

  “Heard and understood, Butch.” Heath knew if he was going to get second-guessed for his decision to not use the closer, Sorilla was the reason why.

  However, catcher Brody Davis had a thorough understanding of Bryant’s pitching capabilities as well as the batter’s style. Once again, Bryant spotted the pitch exactly where the catcher set up—at the knees and on the outside corner.

  Sorilla swung violently at the pitch, pulling a shot down the line that landed cleanly in Diego Estes’s waiting glove. The home crowd cheers quickly turned into groans.

  Then, silence.

  Heath actually started to hope.

  “It’s not too late to send in Montoya,” Butch told him in low, confidential tones. “Bryant still has to face Kevin Kazan.”

  Not even know-it-all Butch felt the need to give Kevin Bam Bam” Kazan’s stats. The guy was primarily an all-or-nothing batter, having homered or struck out in sixty-five percent of his at-bats. Kazan, who led the league in home runs, was not the guy to make a bad pitch to.

  “I’m not yanking Bryant.” He wasn’t giving up on someone who was working hard and doing everything Heath could have asked of him.

  It was a hell of a lot more than he could say for Montoya. And, as messages to the team went, this one decision was going to speak louder than any locker room speech or postgame pep talk he could have crafted.

  Amber’s quotes and research hadn’t been meant for spouting to his players anyway, though he hadn’t realized it at the time. They’d been the final ammunition to help him understand what his father had been telling him. See the whole field.

  God, he couldn’t wait to tell her how much she’d helped him today.

  On the mound, Bryant went to work, firing one ball after another. The kid walked Kazan on four straight pitches, and putting the tying run on base in the process.

  Heath could already hear the criticisms weakly veiled as questions in the postgame press conference… Why stick with Bryant after he walked Kazan on four pitches? Why not bring in Montoya at that point? Wasn’t it evident that Bryant was choking/tiring/ill-suited for the closer role?

  Nonetheless, Heath was determined to stick with his newly appointed closer, a decision that grew even more questionable when he fired a wild pitch to the Stars’ next hitter in the lineup and “Bam Bam” advanced to second. Now, a single could tie the game and effectively put the winning run on base.

  “This one’s a pesky hitter,” Butch announced, pointing to Micah Bailey at the plate.

  But before
the old guy could start in on stats that Heath already knew, star pitcher Jay Cannon moved closer to Heath at the rail and whooped it up for the young gun on the mound.

  Well, damn. Except for Amber’s sighs in his ear, Heath couldn’t dream up a sweeter sound at this moment in time.

  Jay Cannon was probably the only guy on the team pulling down more dough than Montoya. His support told everyone in the dugout—loud and clear—that he supported Heath.

  There were victories on this day, damn it, no matter what the final outcome.

  Still, after two consecutive balls, it looked as if Bryant needed a pep talk. Just the kind of thing Heath sucked at.

  He rubbed the paper in his pocket, thinking Amber would have something smart to say, even if she copped it out of a book. The woman knew to go to the experts, unlike stubborn former ballplayers who thought they knew everything. Heath walked as slowly as possible out to the pitching rubber, not quite sure what words to use.

  Brody Davis jogged up to the mound, too, pulling up his catcher’s mask, his face intent.

  Heath took a second to glance up into the stands, knowing his dad was up there somewhere. Amber, too, although he knew she’d be sitting directly behind him right now.

  “Davis, you got any ideas on pitches?” Heath figured he’d ask the experts. Just like Amber had showed him.

  The catcher shrugged. “I thought maybe the changeup?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Bryant didn’t look one bit reassured by the talk. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with a corner of his shirt. “What’s the scouting report on this guy? How does he do with the changeup?”

  Heath shook his head. “This game isn’t about what he can do, it’s about what you can do. The ball is in your hands, tiger, and you wouldn’t be my closer today if you couldn’t get out of situations like this. Don’t worry about him. Just let it fly and hit Brody’s mitt.”

  He clapped the kid on the shoulder and let the pitcher and catcher get back to work. Walking away from the mound, Heath peered up into the stands above the dugout and spotted Amber with ease, as if his gaze was for her alone.