The Heart Of The Game

by Pamela Aares

  Discussing his family had thrown water on his fire. It always did. But the want stirring in him wasn’t easily smothered.

  “You have a good heart, Cody. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

  Love. He heard the word. It made him strangely uncomfortable. All he needed to add to his weakening resolve was to imagine that she loved him, picture what her loving him, with him free to love her back, would mean. How her big-hearted love would change his structured, regimented, lonely, solitary life.

  He cleared his throat before saying, “Your dad didn’t come?” He had to change the subject, and asking for information about her father, even indirectly, would serve the purpose. Still, part of him hoped she’d talk about her feelings. But any discussion of their relationship had been taken off the table. Or had it?

  She let out a long sigh and slowed her steps, and a stab of remorse shot into his gut. So much for keeping the topics light on their last encounter.

  “Papa won’t leave the house. He’s working day and night on some project he doesn’t talk about.” She fingered one of the vines they passed. “I told him... about the gallery. That I’m going home.”

  He swallowed the lump forming in his throat. “How’d that go?”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Not so well. He doesn’t understand. Yet he lets two of my brothers stay in Rome while doing everything he can to keep the rest of us busy elsewhere. It makes no sense. I’ve given up trying to reason with him. And I’m not speaking to him right now—he canceled my ticket to Rome without telling me, but I got another. Parker bought it on the sly.”

  She let out a little puff of air. He idly wondered, and not for the first time, what it would be like to see her truly express the anger she held back so well, to see her let loose as he knew she could. If her anger had a power anywhere close to the ecstasy she’d shown when they’d made love, the explosion would be magnificent. And as hot as hell.

  It took an act of will to pull his thoughts away from the fantasy now rushing through him.

  “I thought this would be our first good Christmas since my mother passed,” Zoe continued, “with Dante and all of my sisters back, all of us here but Rafe and Gaetano. But a couple of my sisters decided to spend the holiday in Hawaii rather than come home. And Papa’s ruining the holiday with his craziness.” She ran her fingers along a fence post as they passed. “I love him, but I can’t live the life he’s laid out for me.”

  And she couldn’t be expected to. But Santino’s actions made sense to Cody. Too much sense. If Santino was involved in a Mafia dispute, he wouldn’t want his precious daughters exposed to kidnapping or worse. But remembering his dad’s warning, Cody kept his mouth shut. Events might not be as they appeared, he reminded himself. But the voice that nagged at his gut sure thought they were.

  “How’s the gallery setup going?” he asked, not knowing how else to cool his warring thoughts and still-simmering desire.

  “Good... Great, really. I’ve been swamped dealing with detail upon detail these past couple of weeks. Even Parker’s driving me mad. He has to have the perfect shade of white for the walls.”

  She put her hands to her hips and her bottom lip pouted out. Cody was pretty sure she wasn’t aware of her body language. She couldn’t know how the jut of her hip and the way she worked her lips made him crazy.

  “Italians have the best pigments in the world,” she said with a toss of her head. “But Parker insisted on having paint shipped from some shop he favors in Sonoma, on having it shipped express to Rome. Some sort of organic pigment that he used in his villa.”

  “I’ve never met a man like Parker.”

  “I think a storm went through the heavens before he was born and the winds collected the good traits from every archetype and whipped them into a single man.” She grinned. “Of course, they collected a few outrageously mischievous ones too. He’s almost as much of an enigma as you are.”

  “I’m a pretty simple guy,” Cody said, scrambling.

  If she knew how simple, she’d have stepped back and then turned and run. All he could think of was how much he wanted her.

  With him held in her gaze, the air around them felt charged, like lightning gathering before a storm. And suddenly he wasn’t sure he could walk the path he’d committed to. Concerns about places, people, families, career pursuits—and his carefully plotted intentions—all dissolved under the wave of want shooting through his body. He’d never felt such driving passion, not off the diamond. He shifted his gear to the other arm.

  Zoe laughed, surprising him. “Simple? I’ve never met a man like you. You have a language you share with animals, you play a game that the more I learn about it, the more complex it grows, and the day you built the snow cave”—she spread her arms wide—“watching you in the wilds and the way you—”

  She stopped talking midgesture and pressed her lips together. Then she shook her head and turned to walk a few steps up the path.

  And not a second too soon. As the memories of their lovemaking in the snow cave fired, his finely tuned control—control that he’d relied on all his life—frayed, barely holding him back from carrying her into the trees at the side of the path and making wild love to her until neither of them could think and the world dropped away.

  After a few steps, she turned back to him.

  “I’m so grateful to be able to talk with you about all this, Cody. That we can tell the truth to one another, about what we care for. I feel freed.”

  The sincerity of her words poured into him. And he felt like the worst sort of impostor. He wasn’t speaking frankly with her, wasn’t even coming close. Consequences, his dad had said. Don’t speak about suspicions until they had facts. Remembering the levelheaded counsel, Cody again bit back his urge to talk with her about Santino’s activities. And about his suspicions regarding Vico. He was shoving down a lot of urges. He only hoped he could keep a lid on them and they didn’t explode from the pressure.

  “In fact, I was imagining that we could—” She did a little spin toward him, and her heel caught in a gopher hole.

  Years of fast dashes and quick reflexes allowed him to catch her before she hit the ground.

  He lifted her, bumping them both with his gear bag, and her arms went around his neck. Her lips were only inches from his, and her heart thrummed a racing beat against his chest. He lowered his head, and her gaze went soft as she looked up at him from under her lashes. He moved slowly, deliberately, watching her eyes for a sign he should stop. His lips had barely touched hers when he heard someone approaching up the path.

  They both froze. She fidgeted, reaching her feet toward the ground, and he steadied her as she stood.

  The three boys came running up the path, followed closely by Alex.

  “Bond. Ready for a game?”

  Alex didn’t blink, but Cody knew how to read him. Luckily he and Zoe had moved swiftly enough that the boys weren’t privy to their moment of passion. If a few more minutes had passed, God only knew what they might have witnessed.

  “Scotty promised the boys some serious action, and the weather has cooperated,” Alex added, sweeping his arm to the blue sky. “Want to shag, Zoe?

  “Shag?”

  Color rose in Zoe’s cheeks. Evidently shag had only one meaning in Italian, and the baseball term escaped her.

  If the idea of making love to her didn’t torture the hell out of him, Cody might’ve laughed.

  “Chase down balls in the field,” Alex said with a grin that told Cody he’d seen their near kiss.

  “Oh,” Zoe said, self-consciously smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from her pants. “I’d love to.”

  Alex looked down at the delicate leather shoes on her feet. “Better borrow some tennis shoes from Sabrina. This mud would ruin those in an instant.”

  By the time Alex and the boys cleaned off the bases and Cody had brushed the leaves off home plate, Zoe was back with Sabrina and Kaz.

  Marriage suited Kaz, Cody concluded. Though his
career and Sabrina’s kept both of them on the road for long stretches of time, they had found a way to make it work. But they didn’t live seven thousand miles apart. In different countries.

  That reality nagged at the back of Cody’s mind like a knife twisting in a wound as he considered just how close he’d come to asking the impossible of Zoe. This would have to be the last occasion he spent time with her or he’d just continue to deepen the torture. He was beginning to understand the dilemma that addicts faced every day. The very thing that made you feel better would ultimately make you feel worse.

  “Where’s Scotty?” Cody asked in an attempt to jar himself free from his maudlin thoughts.

  Alex waggled his brows in the boys’ direction. “He and Chloe are prepping some last-minute Christmas surprises.”

  “What surprises?” Alphonso chirped.

  “Hey, get out to second base,” Alex ordered in a friendly tone. “If I told you, wouldn’t be a surprise now, would it?”

  From Cody’s vantage point behind the plate, he had a too-good view of Zoe as she ran around in the field—athletic, alive, entrancing and worse than frustrating. After fielding a few of the boys’ hits, she became pretty good at estimating where the ball would fly. When it flew. The younger boys had a hard time hitting even the slowest of Kaz’s pitches.

  Watching Kaz concentrate and try to pull his pitches to send the boys balls they could hit brought a smile to Cody’s face. It was undoubtedly much harder for Kaz to pitch slowly than it was for him to fire at his usual speed.

  Cody flashed Kaz a sign to send the heat, and Kaz gave a slow grin. He lobbed one in and little Henry swatted, getting a piece of the ball and shooting it out to Alex near first base. Thrilled, Henry jumped up and down, forgetting to run the bases.

  “Out,” Alex called. “ Always run. Always. It’s the protocol.”

  Henry gave a flustered nod and trotted back to his spot at shortstop.

  Max was up next. Cody wandered out to the mound for a mock conference.

  “This game may wreck your timing,” Cody said behind his glove.

  “Nah. Gets me ready for the rookies.” Kaz punched Cody in the arm. “Guys like you.”

  Cody knew the razzing was all in good humor. He’d hit .400 in the playoffs. Few rookies did that.

  “Then let’s give Max some heat,” Cody said with a glance over his shoulder to where Max was taking practice swings at the plate.

  Playing a pick-up game with major leaguers was every guy’s dream. UC Berkeley had a tough schedule, and Max had a challenging season ahead of him. A little winter ball with the guys would ramp up his chops.

  Cody squatted and called for a fastball. Max got a piece of the ball and sent it sailing out to where Zoe stood chatting in the outfield with Sabrina.

  “Hey! Heads up!” Alex shouted. They scrambled but Zoe, with her athletic ability, reached the ball first. But her throw as she tossed it back was hilarious. Cody imagined the pleasure of showing how to throw a baseball, but it was just one activity on an endless list of activities he would never share with her.

  Max took his stance, ready for Kaz’s next pitch. He smacked the ball solidly out to deep right. Alex, Kaz and Cody shared knowing looks. Max had talent.

  “What position do you play?” Cody asked as he gathered up some of the balls the younger boys had missed and walked back to the plate.

  “First.”

  “Hey, Alex,” Cody shouted as he donned his catcher’s mask. “If you haven’t retired in the next five years, you might have some competition.”

  “Don’t I see,” Alex said with a grin.

  Max blushed at the praise.

  Cody crouched and called for a back door slider. Max whiffed and cursed.

  “You said no cursing,” Henry protested from his spot at shortstop.

  Max ignored him and roughed up the dirt near the plate with the toe of his shoe.

  “That’s Kaz’s best pitch,” Cody said from behind the plate. “Even Trout can’t get a piece of it.”

  Max squared his shoulders. “Let me see it again.”

  Kaz fired one in—off speed, Cody knew, but at Max’s level, a ninety-mile-an-hour pitch and an eighty-mile-an-hour throw wouldn’t look too dissimilar. The only difference was the reaction time it allowed a hitter. And to Max’s credit, the kid got a piece of it. The ball sailed foul, but it was a good hack.

  That Kaz could adjust his speed and still throw a damn good pitch showed why the guy was already an All-Star. Every ounce of Cody’s being wanted to catch for Kaz. He was a genius, and a genius that Cody understood. Some pitchers and catchers were like that, like they’d been paired in heaven or something. Kaz didn’t like Thornton. The guy was arrogant and really didn’t fit the team. But even though Thornton had a bad year, usually he had a hot bat.

  Cody signaled to Kaz for the next pitch and shook off his troublesome thoughts. Too damned many uncertainties were hanging in the balance of fate.

  Max connected solidly. Cody watched Zoe run and catch the ball before it hit the mud. Her graceful athleticism still stunned him. He was still watching her when Kaz’s next pitch bounced off his chest protector.

  “Thought you called for a change-up,” Kaz said with a knowing look.

  “Stick to pitching,” Cody said. Did everyone in the extended Tavonesi universe know how he felt about Zoe? His mind wasn’t on his catching as Kaz threw a few more pitches. Max connected well. The pitches the boy missed could’ve blown by most minor leaguers. But by the time Alex called out last pitch, Max was flagging. His weight was unbalanced. But he showed promise as a hitter, no doubt about that.

  “Let’s go see about those surprises,” Max called out as he removed his batting glove. He and the boys took off, racing toward the castle.

  Zoe and Sabrina walked in from the outfield.

  “Sure wouldn’t be playing pick-up ball in Montana in December,” Cody said as he stripped off his gear. He looked up at the clear blue sky. “God, I love this place.” The words fell out before he thought. But he didn’t miss the flush in Zoe’s cheeks or the way she shoved her hands into her pockets and turned away. Why the hell California couldn’t captivate her, he didn’t know. But it hadn’t, and he’d just have to live with that fact.

  “I’ll help you with the snacks,” Zoe said to Sabrina. “From the look of those boys, I hope you have a lot of food.”

  Sabrina looped her arm through Zoe’s. “Loads. Between Kaz and Alex—and let’s not forget our raft of cousins—I’ve learned to pretend I’m feeding an entire team.”

  Kaz offered his help and the three of them walked off without looking back.

  Cody helped Alex gather the remaining gear and he and Cody started back to the castle. About a hundred yards along, Alex stopped in front of a row of wires and vine. He put down the gear bag and pointed to a wire that had come loose.

  “Give me a hand?”

  Cody helped him hold tension on a post while Alex tightened a wire and then reclamped an irrigation line at the end of the row of leafless plants.

  When they finished, Alex nodded toward a gnarled gray plant at the end of the row.

  “That’s the original grape cutting my father brought over from Bordeaux. I keep an eye on it.” He squatted down and felt the dirt below the plant. “Sort of like keeping an eye on his dream.”

  Cody hadn’t thought much about the origins of the vineyard or Alex’s role in developing the business. It still astonished Cody that Alex could manage an All-Star career and kept an operation like Trovare going. But as he watched his friend’s face, he knew that more than a love of baseball or a keen sense of business fueled his efforts. Alex was keeping some part of his father alive, rather like Zoe was doing for her mother by opening the gallery. Perhaps the death of a loved one did that, made a person want to keep the memory of those who’d passed on present by means of a tangible project, a project that could be seen and touched and serve as a reminder of the past. A reminder of the way the past was linked to the
present and the mysterious power past events could wield to affect the future.

  Neither of them said much on the walk back to the castle. They reached the driveway just as Zoe was getting into her car.

  “Fed the troops already?” Alex said as she rolled down her window.

  Zoe looked at Cody and then Alex. “Sabrina’s still at it. You’d think those boys hadn’t seen food in months.”

  Alex leaned an arm on the door of Zoe’s car. “Want to stick around for Mass and stay for supper after? Mother’s just back from Antarctica. We’re hosting Mass in the chapel. The priest’s a bit wonky, but she loves him. It’d be great to have you.”

  “No,” Zoe said, looking everywhere but at Cody. “I really can’t. I’m late to help set up for Christmas Eve dinner. Come over after; Dante would love to see you. He said that baseball’s catching on in Australia.”

  Cody knew her well enough to hear the effort she was making to keep her voice smooth and measured to hide her emotions. Noticed too that no invitation was extended to him. Evidently he wasn’t the only one who knew they’d better not spend any more time in close quarters.

  “Jackie’s in charge of my schedule tonight.” Alex stepped back from the car. “She’ll be back from the lab in an hour. I’ll let you know.”

  “Ciao. Thanks for a good day, you two.”

  Zoe drove off, waving out the window as she headed down the drive.

  “You’re mighty quiet,” Alex said as they mounted the steps to the drawbridge.

  “I might never see her again. At least not for a long time.” It felt good to admit the truth.

  “Why not come to the party at her place, day after tomorrow. Maybe she’ll change her mind. Women do, you know.”

  “She didn’t invite me.”

  “Both our families are hosting the party; it’s a reunion of sorts. Consider yourself invited.” Alex stopped at the door to the castle. “Gualdieri’s coming, thought you might want to know. I like him as little as you do.”