by Pamela Aares
“Jansen’s a fair ump,” Alana said, leaning closer to the window. “He’ll cut Cody slack. But only once.”
“Better pour me another of those magical cocktails you made, Jackie.” Chloe waved an arm behind her. “Scotty’s razzed.”
When the Giants scored three men across the home plate in the third inning, the atmosphere in the room relaxed. For everyone except Chloe.
Chloe shook her head as the first batter from the other team stood ready to hit in the next inning. “Scotty’s shaking off Cody’s signs.”
The next pitch bounced and hit Cody in the mask of his helmet. He tore it off and crouched, unmoving. Zoe held her breath.
“Is he okay?” she finally asked when no one said anything.
“He won’t rub at it, if that’s what you’re asking,” Chloe said. “Catchers get used to taking hits. But Scotty’s throwing hard, maybe ninety-nine miles an hour or better. That hurt.”
The umpire bent over, apparently checking in with Cody. Cody shook him off and donned his helmet. The umpire handed Cody a ball and he threw it back to Scotty.
Scotty pulled the ball in, lined up his body and threw a blazing pitch.
“Scotty looks like he’s surfing when he releases the ball,” Zoe said. “Pure effortless motion in that one moment.”
“Good eye, Zoe. Surfers and pitchers have a similar stance before a pitch release,” Jackie said. “A stacked stance. All great athletes, no matter what their sport, have that balanced stance. Stacked and balanced.”
Jackie’s brother was a champion surfer and although Zoe had only seen him surf once—when Alex had invited her and her sisters to a tournament in Hawaii—she recognized the stance in Scotty. Stacked was taking on a whole new meaning.
“Watch Cody throw when he returns a pitch,” Chloe said. “Watch his head. Where the head goes, the body will follow.”
“I always found it to be the other way around,” Brigitte purred in her soft French accent. “At least with my body.”
Chloe laughed, but snapped her attention back to the field. She laid a hand on Zoe’s arm. “See how when Cody’s in a full-on squat his back is straight and the glove is level? That’s the most efficient catching position. Catchers are defensive and in many ways, one of the most strategic players on the team.”
Zoe admired the ease that Chloe had in talking about baseball. Zoe knew polo, knew it well, and could talk about it with the same sort of ease. It struck her that balls played key roles in the games that fascinated people. The baseball and the polo ball were nearly the same size and traveled at similar speeds. But in polo, a ninety-mile-an-hour ball wasn’t usually flying only inches from an undefended player’s face.
As Cody snatched Scotty’s next pitch out of the air, a strange worry flooded her. Now she was the one being ridiculous—she didn’t even know the guy. And he knew his business or he wouldn’t be in the big leagues of the game. But rational thought didn’t dissolve the clenching in her stomach as she watched Scotty’s pitches blast toward him.
After about an hour and a half, the Giants were still ahead three to zero. But Scotty had allowed three players to get on the bases. One of the coaches had gone out to talk to him, but Scotty stayed on the mound.
The next hitter blasted a ball deep into the stands at the center of the field, and the crowd moaned along with Chloe. “He’s done,” she said. “Has been for about twenty pitches. His stubborn streak is his downfall.”
“And maybe ours,” Jackie said. “Walsh should’ve yanked him earlier.”
Scotty stood stony faced as a man walked out to the mound. Scotty shook his head and appeared to be arguing, but then he handed the man the ball and walked off the field without looking up. The man stood at the mound as a new pitcher approached from the side of the field.
Kaz Tokugawa, Sabrina’s fiancé.
“Kaz usually starts a game,” Sabrina said to Zoe. “But Walsh is an unusual manager. He doesn’t pay attention to old-school patterns. He just does what he knows will win.”
Everyone let out a cheer when Kaz struck out the next hitter, ending the first half of the inning.
When it was the Giants’ turn, the Dodgers’ pitcher struck out the first two hitters. Cody stood in the chalked-off area, ready to bat.
“Guess we’ll see what he’s got under pressure,” Alana said.
Zoe grabbed the binoculars from Alana’s hands and trained them on Cody. He waggled his bat and took a stance that screamed power. The pitch came faster than she could move the binoculars. He missed the ball. And then he missed another.
“He’s chasing.” Jackie took a big gulp of her drink.
“He’s hot,” Brigitte said.
“Too hot,” Chloe said. “He needs to pull back a bit. McPherson’s got his number, I’m afraid.”
Cody sliced at the next pitch, and the ball careened up into the stands just below their skybox.
“Maybe not,” Jackie said with a smile.
The pitcher shook off the catcher’s signs. Then he nodded and pulled his glove to his chest.
Zoe leaned her elbows on the windowsill and steadied the binoculars. Cody positioned his bat and then stood unmoving. Zoe could feel the power emanating from him all the way up in the skybox. He swung. At the sound of his bat meeting the ball, Jackie screamed.
“Yes! God, how I love that sound,” she hollered into the blasting cheers from the crowd as the ball sailed up, over the stadium, and then dropped toward the blue-gray waters of the bay.
Cody ran around the bases. The smile Zoe had seen earlier was beaming out for all to see.
But it wasn’t to be the Giants’ lucky day. Kaz was taken out of the game after throwing to only two hitters. Chloe told her it was because the next batter hit from the other side of the plate. Why that mattered, Zoe couldn’t guess. All the jargon and rules were starting to swim in her head. The pitcher the Giants brought in proceeded to walk two hitters. Before the game was over, the Dodgers scored three more times.
“Better call that hotel,” Brigitte said to Chloe.
“Or maybe a rental in Hawaii for the rest of the winter,” Jackie said with a shake of her head. “Come on, ladies. Time to remind our men there’s another season next year.”
“Good thing your wedding is only three weeks away,” Alana said to Sabrina. “We’ll need a celebration to jolt the guys out of their misery.”
Zoe knew a bit about the misery of losing. And wasn’t sure a wedding would do the trick.
Cody sat in the dugout, staring at the celebration among the Dodger players and brass out on the field. Reporters and TV crews were fighting to get microphones in front of the key players, and the Dodgers were stripping off their jerseys and pulling on National League Championship T-shirts that the batboys were tossing out.
Cody lowered his chin into his hands and swallowed hard. It didn’t matter that he’d played better than his best game, that he’d played error free. They’d lost. They weren’t going on. They weren’t playing the Series. Last night he hadn’t dared hope. But when the Giants made the final out, Cody realized he had hoped. He’d hoped all along. But hope and good playing hadn’t been enough.
He’d kept his best focus. Well, except for one moment before the game. Seeing Zoe watching him during warm-up from near the third base dugout had razzed him. Dazzled by her beauty, he’d taken Scotty’s next pitch in the crotch. The throbbing reminder was all it took to make him hone his focus and control and tune out everything but the game.
The homer he’d blasted deep to right in the ninth had also knocked in Matt Darrington, but it hadn’t been enough to win. Their hotshot third baseman, Jake Ryder, broke his bat on the next pitch and hadn’t beat out the Dodger shortstop’s throw to first. It was a rocket of a throw Cody could only admire. A throw that changed everything. The miracle of baseball was how life could turn in a heartbeat. But right then he wished the miracle had gone their way.
He wouldn’t be playing in the World Series. Not this year. He’d have to wi
n his spot on the team if he wanted another chance next year. Aderro would heal and Thornton would likely be back. But there was a sliver of hope: Thornton was a free agent. The Giants would probably ante up, but there was always a chance they wouldn’t. A chance they’d see Cody’s level of play and bump him up to the starting roster instead. He’d bust ass during the offseason to make that happen. He sure didn’t want to finish out his contract in the minors, and the English lit degree he’d earned in college wouldn’t lead to any other career he could fall back on.
His standup triple in the sixth had felt good. Real good. But during the pitching change he’d glanced into the stands, something he rarely did. He’d thought he’d seen his dad. He froze, staring, and then a fan blocked his view. When he looked again, the man was gone.
Thinking about his dad had dimmed the thrill of his triple.
Cody could only say a prayer of thanks that he didn’t have the addict gene or an addictive personality or whatever had squeezed the life out of his dad and his brother. But as insurance, Cody had wrapped a tight cocoon of control and isolation around himself to make damn sure he didn’t slip toward oblivion. He’d carved out a new life, his way, well away from all the Bond-family drama.
He had a goal, one goal: be the best catcher in the MLB. When he stayed focused, the taunting voice that rolled around in his head dimmed to a whisper. But some days, if he didn’t keep his guard up, the ache moved in and gnawed at him. The voice and the ache were like a professional wrestling tag team. He could shut one down but not the other. On those days he felt the slippery fingers of loneliness grab at him. But he held to his plan and resisted the urge to call his brother in Montana. Or his sister in vet school. And forget about calling his mom. She’d just drag him back into her efforts to fake it and pretend they were all one big happy family. He sent flowers on her birthday and emailed occasionally, but he refused her invitations to join the family for holidays. That hell he could do without forever.
It was better to be a loner; he’d figured that out early. He could chart his own path. He had a career to focus on. So what if he shut down that place in his heart where the voice and the ache lurked? Relationships were for normal people, people who had sane families. He wasn’t one of those people. His family certainly wasn’t normal.
Cody looked back to the field, to the crowd of smiling, laughing players surrounded by their wives and families. He chugged a cup of water, then crumpled the cup and threw it against the wall. Watching the festive energy felt like watching ambulances circle after a train wreck.
A reporter waved from the edge of the celebrating players and beelined toward him.
He ignored the man’s approach, grabbed his glove off the bench and ducked into the tunnel to the clubhouse.
The locker room that for the past two weeks had been a rush of boisterous energy was now subdued. Walsh, the Giants’ manager, wore his stoic face as he fielded questions from reporters in the press alcove. Cody wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. How did a man explain how a game that had such great momentum in their favor had swung so far the other way? How the team that was in first place in the league had lost? You couldn’t point to one factor. No one could. Sure, there’d be the usual barking of the sports announcers and press pointing to this thing or that, but in the end, they’d just been outplayed. If it’d been bum calls or just luck, Cody would’ve been steamed. But the Dodgers had played better.
Still, it felt rotten to lose.
Worse, he wouldn’t know, perhaps for weeks, maybe months, if the Giants would keep him on the team. Not knowing was a damned bummer way to head into the offseason.
When Cody got to his locker, he stared for a moment. Marty, the clubhouse guy, had put a cold bottle of Dr Pepper on the top shelf. Marty was from Billings—Montana born and bred—and even though Cody had only been called up a few weeks ago, Marty always made sure to have a cold one waiting at the end of the games. That was Montana manners for you. And Marty had a fascination for the pro-rodeo circuit. Cody’s back-to-back championships had scored high with the down-home Montanan, maybe higher than a great slugging percentage or a solid batting average. More than seven years had passed since Cody’s rodeo days, but that didn’t matter to Marty. Once a champ, always a champ he’d said the first day they’d met.
Cody dug out the check he’d written that morning to tip Marty. It probably wasn’t as big as the checks from the high-salary players, but it was the fattest check Cody could afford to write. He’d written out checks for each of the trainers that morning too. Without them, he would’ve had a hard time getting over the battering any catcher took in the game, especially a catcher who’d spent way too many of his younger years riding broncs.
Bronc riding delivered brutal pain, but baseball had its own knocks. No one could really tell you what it felt like to catch fastballs that neared a hundred miles an hour or to be slammed by an errant pitch—there weren’t words for pain like that. It hadn’t helped that he’d taken knocks in the polo match the day before. Damn thoroughbreds didn’t handle like a Montana quarter horse. But those knocks hadn’t affected his game tonight. Good thing, or he would’ve carried that guilt for the rest of his life. But he was sore in muscles he’d forgotten he had.
Reporters trawled the locker room looking for stories. Cody decided to skip a shower. He made a hurried change into his jeans and headed for the parking lot.
In the players’ parking area, the fog-chilled evening wind made him wish for the blessed heat of the shower. He fumbled for his keys as he sprinted to his truck. He was getting soft. In Montana, October nights could drop to fifteen degrees. And a winter night could drop below zero in a couple of hours. No one talked about the cold back home—it’d be like a fish talking about water. The cold was as much a part of Montana life as the rodeo and fly fishing.
Cody stopped beside his truck. Next to the sleek sedans and sports cars of his teammates, the road-worn, ten-year-old pickup looked out of place.
“You never get used to it.”
Alex Tavonesi’s voice came at him from behind. Cody whipped around and studied Alex. “Losing’s not my best skill,” he admitted.
Alex caught up to him. “I meant the fog. I’ve lived here all my life and it still chills my bones. We usually don’t have so much in early October, but the weather’s been strange the last few years.”
He was glad Alex wasn’t making conversation about the game. No words would seam up the hollow feeling of losing a game like that, of losing a chance to go all the way.
“Come up to my place in Sonoma,” Alex said. “Warm you up for a few days. You can stay over for my sister’s wedding.”
Alex’s sister was marrying Cody’s favorite teammate, Kaz Tokugawa, in three weeks. But weddings weren’t his thing. He’d hoped to bow out, send a nice gift and a card. But if he was honest, Alex’s personal invitation had some appeal. His city apartment was getting to him. Four walls, even if one was glass and looked out over the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, became confining. He liked open space, country, and room to move.
When he didn’t answer right away, Alex added, “How about Thursday the twenty-ninth? Scotty’s coming up with Chloe. And I’ve challenged him to a billiards tournament. Play for my team?”
Cody found himself nodding yes and saying thanks, even though avoiding family events had become a well-honed skill. Yet with other teammates around, he’d survive the wedding.
“Great game today.” Alex extended a hand and, bemused, Cody shook it. “You brought your best, and it showed.”
“Thanks. That means a lot.” But it still felt rotten that his best—that the team’s best—hadn’t been good enough.
“And that was some serious riding you did yesterday. Thanks for stepping up. Meant to tell you, but you disappeared.”
He had. The posh setting of Zoe’s family’s compound and the chatter of the well-heeled socialites and their fawning escorts was foreign territory. But most of all he hadn’t liked the hollow feeling ricocheting i
n his gut as he’d watched Zoe interacting with her family, a very small part of what was apparently her very large, too many to count, family. The hugs, the laughter, the easy smiles... It was like watching a commercial for everything his family wasn’t.
But like a wolf drawn to the lure of a warm fire, he feared he wouldn’t be able to resist the allure.
Chapter Four
Cody hesitated before turning onto the tree-lined lane leading to Trovare. He’d managed to excuse himself from the pre-wedding festivities—and should’ve found an excuse to skip the wedding as well. But the warmly worded email from Kaz made him change his mind. At least that was what he told himself as he’d packed an overnight bag that morning. He’d never been to a wedding and didn’t want to believe that Zoe’s appearances in his dreams could lure him to an event he’d managed to avoid for twenty-six years.
He crested the hill. And braked.
The photos he’d seen when he’d looked up Trovare on the Internet hadn’t come close to capturing the majesty of the place Alex called home.
The medieval-style castle with its high stone towers and walls should’ve looked out of place in the Sonoma countryside, yet it didn’t. The castle presided over the acres of vineyards and distant mountains as if it had been there from the beginning of time.
At the sound of tires on gravel, he shot a glance in his rearview mirror. A couple in a Mercedes convertible had pulled up behind him. He took a last look at the castle from a distance and then nosed his truck down the curving drive.
About a hundred yards from the castle, a valet flagged him down, checked his name off a list and announced his arrival into a headset.
“Follow the signs to parking in the south lot, Mr. Bond. There’ll be a staffer there to guide you. And have an awesome day.”