The Heart Of The Game

by Pamela Aares

  Cody shook his head. The party after the rodeo had claimed every ounce of his and Dylan’s attention. Other than the moment in the locker room before the show, they hadn’t had another chance to speak privately.

  “Some of what I’m about to tell you is classified. But I trust that you’ll keep it private.”

  He nodded.

  No one had ever talked about what had sent his dad careening out of control. Hell, Cody wouldn’t even have known he was a CIA agent if he hadn’t overheard his parents fighting one night. He’d questioned them afterward, and they’d both denied what he’d heard. But in the ensuing years, Cody had pieced at least that part of it together for himself.

  “Your freshman year of high school, your father was involved in an operation in Bolivia to shut down a drug cartel. He got the bad guys, but the cartel went back in and massacred the village that had helped with the bust. Killed all of them—women and children too. The news devastated him. It was months before he told me what had happened. By then he’d dipped deep into alcohol and depression.

  “All I wanted was to rescue him, buoy him, hold him up. Show him that he wasn’t responsible for those deaths. I was trying to control everything with the hope that my efforts would make a difference and bring him back from the abyss he was slipping deeper into every day. The stress of his work had strained him for years, but the massacre cracked him. It broke him.”

  She fingered the tablecloth, and Cody watched her fight for control. He knew that habit well.

  “I was so sure I knew what he was thinking or feeling. I thought I knew what was best, what to do. What your father should do. What he could do if he only tried. I had such great insight into his problems, but I couldn’t see myself. I didn’t know what I felt, what I thought. I got lost.”

  She paused and let out a deep sigh. “I was afraid. So I went silent. But it all got worse when your dad’s boss made him take disability leave. They told him some time off would give him a chance to buck up. But we both knew the agency thought he’d become a liability. Right after that, your father started drinking heavily. And the drink made him violent.” Tears welled up, and she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Oh, Cody—I’m so sorry.”

  He reached for her hand, but she pulled away from the table, sitting so far back in her chair, he expected it to tip over.

  “The night he nearly broke your jaw, I knew it was over. But I waited too long to act. Dylan took the brunt of my indecision. How he’s forgiven me, I’ll never know.”

  That night was seared forever into Cody’s mind, into his body. The struggle to pull his dad away from Dylan. The shock of his dad’s fist planting into his face. The rage-fueled fight with a man he’d once trusted. Had loved. Still, the sounds and the pain of the physical battering were nothing compared to the months of verbal abuse they’d all suffered. It had been a long slide into hell, capped off by a shocking physical fight. If the police hadn’t intervened, Cody might’ve killed his own father right there in their home.

  Without intervention, his future might have been filled with a sensational trial, a stint in jail, and eventually, visits to his father’s grave.

  Instead he’d immediately packed up, left for his sophomore year of college and never looked back. Didn’t call, didn’t write, and tried not to remember. He’d thrown himself into his studies and into baseball. And the game he loved had saved his ass.

  He fingered the puckered scar on his jaw and swallowed down his urge to stop her, his desire to flee. But an unfamiliar agitation in his heart kept him planted in his seat. It was as if he was listening with his heart and his brain, and his brain was siding with his heart, telling him to stay and listen.

  “I never thought he’d turn his rage against you kids. Thank God Kat was away on that summer internship. I thought if I took it, if I was the focus, eventually we’d be okay. I was deluding myself and putting you kids in harm’s way by pretending I could fix him.” The lines around her eyes tightened, and Cody saw her again fighting back tears. “I’m your mother. I was supposed to protect you—I failed you as much as he did.”

  He’d never considered what it had been like for her.

  “Mom, don’t. Don’t go there. You did your best, we all did.” Until he said the words, he hadn’t realized the truth. He did think she’d done her best. “No one knew how bad it would get.”

  “There’s no terror like realizing your best isn’t good enough. Especially when your family’s involved.”

  “We survived.”

  She pressed her lips together. He sure as hell hoped she wasn’t going to cry. That he couldn’t handle.

  “I hit bottom when you went off to college that fall. So did your father. One night, when he turned his rage on Dylan yet again, I kicked him out. Things calmed down here at the house with him gone, but every waking moment I worried for your father.” She laughed sadly. “Many of the nonwaking moments as well, since he used to figure prominently in my nightmares.” She met Cody’s eyes, stared at him. “To his credit, he didn’t try to get me to take him back. He knew he was out of control.”

  She leaned her elbows on the table. “I saw a notice in the local paper—for a women’s codependency circle. I went. I was embarrassed at first but over that winter, the ladies in the group helped me realize that I didn’t see the real problem: In focusing so much on your father, I’d lost my bearings. But with the help of those women, I learned that all I could do was take care of myself. I prayed. And started the hard work of getting clear about my own life and responsibilities. It seemed so—so selfish at first.”

  “No one could ever call you selfish.”

  “I was, Cody. And I’m sorry. I was selfish and deluded. The truth was nearly impossible for me to accept.” She crossed her arms. “The pain of loving someone who was in trouble, someone I’d loved for most of my life, was profound.”

  She uncrossed her arms and sat back again. The strain in her eyes showed the effort she was making to fight back tears.

  “I didn’t stop caring, never stopped loving him, but I had to let go. I had to step back. Not from loving him, but from the agony of involvement.” Her voice trailed off. “We can only change ourselves. I’m still working on remembering that hard-won wisdom.”

  Cody took a long swig of his now-cold coffee. She tapped her finger to his hand.

  “What you did—detaching, leaving—was a gift to me, to all of us. I hesitate to tell you that since you’re already such a loner, already so cut off. But it’s true. Your leaving, your silence, helped wake us up. Well, me anyway.”

  She squeezed his hand. Hers was warm and callused and familiar.

  “I think I’m telling you so you’ll understand, so you can see—so you can maybe forgive him.” She drew a deep breath and let it out with a shake of her head. “And maybe open up. Trust again.”

  She pursed her lips. “See? I’m smack up against that boundary again”—she pulled her hand away from his—“thinking that I know best how things should turn out and how other people should behave. It’s a hard habit to break. Harder when you’re talking to one of your children and finding it hard to believe he’s no longer the little boy he once was but a grown man with a mind—and the life experience to back it—of his own.”

  His thoughts tangled, he wasn’t tracking her words.

  Trust.

  There were a few people he trusted. But even for those who met the mark, his trust was probationary. One move that didn’t fit, that didn’t seem open and aboveboard, and he shut them off. He hated that his guarded wariness made it tougher to play as a member of a team. He’d never tracked the wariness back to all this... this mess. He’d just kept looking forward.

  A beam of awareness speared into him. It should feel good to understand, to begin to make sense of his past. But instead, the knowledge hurt like hell. Hearing what his mom went through—knowing that he hadn’t been there for her in any way—he felt like the worst sort of heel. It was one thing to swear off rescuing people and a
nother to abandon them entirely.

  “Your father called me last May. I hadn’t spoken with him in three years. Three hellish, grueling years. He told me he’d been on the wagon, that he’d been going to AA and that Dylan was going too. He’s sober and working hard at making amends.”

  “Is he working again?”

  “I haven’t asked,” she said in a tone that told him the there was a still precarious balance to her dealings with his dad. “And if he is, he probably couldn’t talk about it. So much of his life had to be kept secret—it was part of what made our family life so difficult.”

  Cody knew where his aversion to lies, to secrets, sprang from; she didn’t have to tell him. A painful, outright truth was better than well-intentioned deception. Deception eroded trust.

  “I’ve gone on a couple of hikes with him in the past few months. Neutral ground,” she said, searching Cody’s face as she spoke. “And we’ve been going to couples therapy for a few months. At this point, I can only hold a space for him. A space where he can be strong. A space where I can be strong. I’m taking one day at a time.”

  She stood up from the table and picked up his plate. “Would you like more toast?”

  He shook his head. The knots in his stomach made food of any sort, even toast, unappealing.

  “He’d love to see you.”

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to help out or try to make things happen. Your group will take your chips back.”

  She laughed. “We don’t hand out chips, but you’re right. Your future with him is in your hands. You’ll have to follow your own path.”

  The plates clattered as she dropped them into the sink.

  “Tell me about this young lady that Kat suspects has stolen your heart.”

  He wasn’t ready for the abrupt segue. And didn’t much feel like talking about something that confounded him almost as much as the story she’d just told.

  “I barely know her,” he said. But his admission wasn’t completely true. “She’s an heiress,” he added, wanting to tell what truth he could. “Italian. Rides polo.”

  His mom gave a hearty, loud laugh. The laugh he loved. “Honey, that sounds like a grocery list.”

  “For a store I can’t really afford,” he said. He didn’t add that he wanted to know Zoe better, to explore the fascinating undercurrents that made her who she was, to wrap her in his arms and make love to her until she couldn’t speak or think. But that was a private list.

  “Does the she have a name?”

  “You’re probing, Mom.”

  She laughed again. “Bad habit that comes from being married to a spy.”

  “Zoe. Zoe Tavonesi.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “ Mom.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  As he prepared to leave, she stopped him at her front door, handed him a slip of paper.

  “Your dad’s address. In case you decide to stop by.”

  “Not gonna happen.” But he took the paper from her hand and then started down the steps.

  “Cody.”

  He turned.

  She grabbed an apple from a basket on the porch and tossed it to him. He snatched it from the air, and the many autumn days just like this when she’d put aside whatever she was doing to play ball with him and Dylan came tumbling back.

  “Good throw, Ma.”

  “I’ve had practice.” Her smile radiated joy, an emotion he hadn’t seen in her for too many years. She waggled a finger at him.

  “You’ll know when you’re really in love. A true love will tear apart your ego, show you your obstacles and addictions, and break your heart open so wide that fresh light can get in. I can only wish such a love will come to you. It’s painful at times, but life is incomplete without it. You’ll see.”

  “ Not what I need right now.”

  She put her finger to her lips. “Shhhh. Don’t tempt the heavens.”

  She stood on the steps, waving as he started the rental car. He nearly ran the stop sign at the end of the block he was so caught up in his thoughts.

  True love.

  Was there really such a thing?

  Before he realized what he’d done, instead of turning back to the motel, he’d turned onto the street that led to his dad’s house.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The rattle of autumn leaves in the trees lining Alastair’s drive reminded Zoe of happier days when she and Coco would walk the lanes surrounding the family estate. She lifted her face into the sun and breathed in the scent of eucalyptus and bay laurel.

  She stopped at a vast, fenced pasture. An old gelding sauntered over and nosed her outstretched palm.

  “I don’t have any treats,” she said as she patted his neck. “But I’ll bring you one, I promise.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, young lady.”

  At the sound of Alastair’s voice, she whipped around, her pulse jumping.

  “You surprised me.”

  “I surprise most people,” he said with a satisfied smile. “Especially real estate agents. They swarm around my place like vultures circling a weak antelope on the plains.”

  He knew why she’d come.

  She patted the horse and reconsidered the fine speech she’d rehearsed to convince him to sell his land to her family. Her father had drawn up a plan that would let Alastair stay on the property and give him a nice annual income. The vineyard would go in slowly, quietly, and not be too disruptive to the old man’s peace.

  “What’s his name?” she asked, her nerves still settling.

  “Jericho. He was Sally’s favorite.” Alastair pointed to the horses in the pasture off to their right. “That’s Domino, with the white markings on his forehead, and Tempter next to him. Sugar there, she’s my only mare. She’s a rescue.” He took off his weather-beaten cap, mopped sweat from his brow with his sleeve and then put it back on. “All these damned politicians don’t realize that when they squeeze the poor with their highfalutin economic shenanigans, the first thing to go is the working man’s ability to buy feed for their animals. Keeping food in their kids’ stomachs comes first, as is right. But still, don’t the animals count too?”

  He rested his shoulder against the fence post, and Zoe noticed for the first time how old and tired he looked.

  “I keep this place going for these guys,” he said, rubbing Jericho’s nose. Domino and Tempter wandered over. But Sugar held back.

  He pushed away from the post and dug in the pockets of his worn corduroy barn jacket. Clucking, he held out an apple to Jericho. Tempter and Domino pushed their way in and devoured the next two apples he dug out from his deep pockets.

  Sugar hadn’t moved.

  “Here.” Alastair handed Zoe an apple. He unlatched the gate next to him. “She’ll take it from you. She likes women, and goodness knows there haven’t been any around here for the past six years.”

  Though his words held a hint of humor, he didn’t laugh. Sally must’ve been the love of his life.

  Sugar watched Zoe warily at first. Zoe held the apple out in her palm so the mare could see it. And found herself murmuring the soft tune that Cody had hummed to Telemachus in the stable. Try as she might, she couldn’t shake any memory of him from her mind, couldn’t tone down the remembrance of his touch or his kisses.

  Alex told her Cody had gone off to Montana to ride in a rodeo. She’d looked the event up on the Internet. And had seen Cody posing for the cameras in an arena with his arm around a beaming blonde. Though Zoe had no claim to him, jealousy had wound its wily course straight into her belly. He’d looked unbelievably sexy in leg-hugging chaps and a well-worn cowboy hat. She would have liked to watch him compete. Athletic competition gave some men an undeniable allure. Cody Bond was one of those men.

  She had clicked through all the photos of the rodeo. Stared again and again at the shot of Cody lifted high, a bucking bronc arching under him, and at another of him holding a trophy over his head, his excited smile covering his face. A younger man stood n
ext to him. The caption said they were brothers, but no one needed an Internet caption to see that. They had the same muscular build, the same towering height and sun-streaked hair. But even a tiny photo revealed the brother’s world-worn face, so unlike Cody’s with its beaming enthusiasm for life.

  The last photo she wished she hadn’t seen. Cody was on his knees, cradling the blonde in his arms. He held her like she was a precious treasure. Her face was turned away from the camera, and Zoe was glad. She hadn’t wanted to see the pleasure in the stranger’s eyes.

  Sugar nudged her, snapping Zoe’s thoughts back to the pasture and the present. She kept up her soft humming, but every note just burned the images of Cody deeper into her soul. Scents often triggered memories—evidently sounds did too.

  The mare took the apple. Zoe stroked her lustrous coat and admired her well-filled-out muscles. Sugar’s earlier standoffish behavior was the only clue that she’d seen rough days.

  “You have a way with animals,” Alastair said gently from his side of the fence.

  “I think it’s your apples.” Zoe dodged a gopher hole in the pasture and walked back to him.

  He spread his arms, motioning to the rolling hills dotted with oaks. “This land might be perfect for Pinot, but like I said, I’m not selling. It’s home—for me and them.” He nodded to his horses, then shut the gate behind her. “But what will happen to them when I go? That’s been worrying me for some years now. They’ll outlive me, you know. And since Sally and I lost our son in Vietnam...” He wiped a hand across his forehead and lowered his eyes, but not before Zoe saw the tragedy and loss pooled in them. “Well, now it’s just me and them.” He took in a quick breath and shook his head, as if he were shaking himself back into the present moment. “See that?” He pointed to the rambling house on a rise behind his.

  Even from a distance she could see that the house had been built with loving attention. The wide porch surrounding the first floor was the perfect spot to take in the great views of the surrounding countryside, and the multitude of big windows would let in the lovely Sonoma light.