The Heart Of The Game

by Pamela Aares

  “Stop. Stop thanking me.” He pushed away again and then stood, walked to the stove and poured more coffee into his mug. “Life isn’t a plan or a game, life is a living being. And living beings have wills of their own. So don’t thank me, life did this—brought us together. Your dream did this. Stick to your dream—it’ll help you find your way when lost and your courage when frightened and will call up all the infinite powers at your disposal when challenged.” He raised his coffee mug in a salute. “I like your dream, Zoe Tavonesi. I like it a lot.”

  But then his face clouded and his smile faded.

  “What about that ballplayer?”

  She told Alastair of her plan. He grinned from ear to ear.

  “I like that plan too.” He swung the battered coffee pot toward her mug. “More cowboy coffee? If your plan has a happy ending, you might be learning to make this for that young man.” He chuckled. “Or better yet, let him make it for you. Beats the heck out of that mud you Italians drink.”

  She laughed at the image of her trying to learn how to make cowboy anything. “No, grazie. I’m jittery enough already.” She scanned Alastair’s weathered face. “I only hope I haven’t made too many mistakes already.”

  “We all make mistakes,” he said as he lowered himself into his chair. “You’ll make some that will astound you. But it’s what you choose to do in the face of your mistakes that colors who you are and who you can become.”

  He gathered up the index cards and tucked them into his pocket. “I’ll take care of these details.” He nailed her with a stern look. “You just take care of this.” He poked a hand to his heart. “Yours, I mean. I’d be dead without the love of my Sally. Love draws us forward to be who we can be.” He patted the pocket with her index cards. “The rest of this? It’s just details, marks on the map as we make our way through life.”

  Details. She’d learned that lesson. She only hoped it wasn’t learned too late.

  Cody turned up the drive toward Trovare. Before leaving for spring training, he’d ridden with Jake along the trails in the national seashore, but he hadn’t been back to Sonoma. Spring training had marched straight into the exhibition games and right into the season.

  Since the season opened, the Giants had won every game, both at home and on the road. Sweeping the A’s felt great. Beating the Dodgers, even better. Walsh had kept him in the lineup, and his bat was hot. His agent had negotiated a sweet deal that would pay off his condo, keep Kat in research money and help fund Dylan’s riding program for the kids.

  This was their first day off since the season opener.

  Normally a day off would be a time to rest up and take care of the junk that piled up when he was on the road, but Alex knew how to push all of Cody’s buttons. Hell, Alex probably knew how to push everybody’s buttons. It wasn’t a talent that came naturally to Cody. He had given in to Alex’s plea that he catch a pick-up game for the boys he and Scotty mentored. It was spring break for the local schools. These boys couldn’t go on the fancy vacations that some of their classmates’ parents could afford, Alex had pointed out. But they could play baseball.

  Cody had brought a couple of baseball cards for the boys. After years of collecting cards, to now have one of his own felt surreal.

  But nothing, not game wins, not personalized baseball paraphernalia—not even three homers in two games—had eased the sadness gnawing at him. Jake had tried to drag him out to clubs and he’d gone a couple of times, but his heart hadn’t been in it.

  Cody reminded himself that men throughout history had gotten over losing love, and so he’d survive. But then again, those men weren’t trying to forget about loving Zoe Tavonesi. Just about the time he’d managed to put her out of his every thought, she’d sneak into his dreams and torture the hell out of him.

  Thank God for baseball. Or he’d probably be down at the bar with other men whose dreams had run from them.

  A white van pulled up behind him as he parked his truck near the drawbridge. Seven boys piled out. Alphonso raced over to Cody.

  “You were rad,” Alphonso exclaimed. “The double play in the second game against the Dodgers—I never saw a catcher throw like that.”

  Harry ran over, suited up to the gills. He wore a jersey with Cody’s name on it.

  “Where’d you get that?” Cody asked.

  “Scotty bought it for me,” Harry said proudly. “He bought us all one. See, Alphonso’s says Tavonesi.”

  Alphonso turned and displayed his jersey to Cody. “I wanted one with your name, but Harry got it first.”

  The boys Cody didn’t know were gathered at the base of the drawbridge, doing the gawking thing. Scotty came around the side of the van and herded them to the back doors.

  “Tours later. Gear up!” he said.

  When they reached the field, Cody saw that Alex had the lines chalked and new bases installed.

  Cody squatted and took a couple warm-up pitches from Scotty while the boys sorted through the equipment piled on a bench.

  “Pretty soon he’ll have to put in a batting cage,” Scotty remarked.

  “You’ve got me for that,” Ryan said as he walked up. “Hey, Cody,” he called out.

  Cody stood. Something was off; he could feel it. The guys were acting oddly.

  He walked out to the mound. “What’s up?”

  Scotty returned a blank look before saying, “Up?” He glanced over Cody’s shoulder and smiled. Cody turned.

  Alex walked up the path toward the field.

  With Zoe. With Zoe wearing a baseball glove.

  Cody squinted into the sun. He had finally lost it.

  Alex waved.

  Zoe didn’t.

  But she was real.

  His heart pounded against his ribs, banging so loudly that he was sure the boys gathering around home plate could hear it.

  Over his pounding heart and racing thoughts he heard one of the new boys say, No girls allowed.

  “That’s Cody’s girl,” Alphonso said. “And besides, we like girls. Some of them play better than you.”

  Cody felt like he was in some reality-TV show.

  Alex fell back, slowing his steps. Zoe kept walking.

  By the time she reached the mound, Scotty was beaming and Cody had broken into a cold sweat.

  She tapped the glove against his arm. “Thought I’d try my hand at baseball.”

  In front of the kids, in front of his teammates, Cody hauled her close and kissed her. He’d intended a welcome kiss, a shallow kiss with the promise of more to come, but when she let out a soft, deep moan and met his kiss with a hungry passion that matched his, he had trouble breaking it off. When he eventually did, the boys were staring, little ones and big ones alike.

  “Meant to tell you, Bond,” Alex said as he reached the mound. “You’re benched for this game. As in not in the lineup.” He glanced at Zoe. “I understand you two have some rules to bend.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  They barely made it back to Zoe’s apartment at the house.

  It took every ounce of restraint she could muster not to crawl into Cody’s lap as he drove. The kisses they’d already shared had told her what she needed to know, that he still wanted her. But her hands wanted to explore his body, her mouth wanted to taste, to devour and to make up for months of lost time.

  They sneaked up the back stairs and into her apartment. The door had barely clicked shut behind her when Cody pinned her to the wall with a kiss that led to the wildest, most abandoned lovemaking of her life.

  When her breath slowed and her thoughts returned, all she knew was that she wanted more—more of him, more of the world-shaking pleasure, more of the deep contentment she now knew as love. She traced a zigzagging line along the taut muscles of his abdomen and then moved her hand lower.

  Yes, she wanted more. But for the moment, she’d settle for him again. And a bed this time.

  He grabbed her wrist. “No, we need to talk. I can’t even think when you touch me.”

  “That
makes two of us.”

  She pulled her hand free from his gentle restraint and placed her palm against his heart. “You’ll have to talk while I touch you. I spent too long not able to feel you. Your skin... your muscles... your—”

  “You’re making this harder.”

  “My intention precisely,” she said, moving her hand down his chest and to his throbbing erection.

  He closed his hand around hers, again stopping her.

  “Zoe.”

  She grinned but didn’t resist. She lifted their twined hands and kissed his fingers. “I fell in love with your hands, you know. You can blame all of this on them.”

  He pulled his hand free and slid away from her. He sat up, giving her a breath-stopping view of the full extent of his arousal. No sculptor had ever managed to capture the pulsing power of such a man. At least no work that she’d ever seen. She sat up too and reached for him again, but he held out a palm to stop her.

  “Be serious.” He turned and put both hands on her shoulders. “And listen to me. When you left, I threw everything I had into trying not to love you.”

  He moved his hands down her arms. His eyes weren’t smiling. Her heart thudded hard as she prepared herself for the outcome she’d dreaded, the outcome she’d barely allowed herself to consider. She’d waited too long. She shouldn’t have left. Their bodies might set off sparks, but he’d walled off his heart. She should’ve written, should’ve called, should’ve done something more than set up her ridiculous plan to surprise him.

  He leaned in close and touched his forehead to hers. “But the truth is... I do love you. Maybe have since the first moment I saw you. But back then, I didn’t believe in such things. I do now.”

  He still loved her. She wanted to go to her knees and thank everything holy in the universe.

  “But I need to know what this is now.” He gestured into the space between them. “What we are now.” He let out a long breath. “I need to believe that you really know what you want, Zoe.”

  He wanted more than three simple words and she knew it. But what words would convince him that she knew what she was about, that she wasn’t flitting from whim to whim and dragging him with her? That she knew, really knew, the path she wanted to take?

  “You were right about following my own dreams. But to find them, to follow them, I had to learn to see,” she said slowly.

  Already she was gesturing broadly, moving her hands—trying to fill in the blanks that language didn’t fill, not like she wanted it to.

  “I thought I wanted the gallery. I thought it was my dream. I was so enmeshed by my grief for my mother, I couldn’t see that I’d lost true north. If my father hadn’t swept us all up and brought us here, I wouldn’t have met you. And I wouldn’t have discovered what I want, what I truly want and need.”

  She hadn’t rehearsed this speech. Now, as she struggled with the language, with the words, she figured that maybe she should have.

  “Did you find what you wanted?” Cody asked into the silence.

  She touched her hand to his heart. “Right here. It always was right here. I was just too stupid to see.”

  “You are in no way stupid, Zoe.”

  His voice was a caress. But he didn’t seem to understand that in her own way, she was saying she loved him.

  “Blind, stubborn—whatever the word is—I didn’t know what was important. One night I was staring out at the stars—really seeing them, as if for the first time—and I realized that until that moment I had been looking at what was not there.” She took one of his hands and closed it in both of hers. “But now I’m looking at what is there. What is here.” She let out a frustrated breath. “God, I don’t know the words. When my heart gets all tangled, everything mixes and I just can’t find words.”

  She leaned close, until all she could see was his beautiful eyes. Close enough that he could see into hers.

  “But even without the words, the truth is here. Can you see it, Cody? Can you feel it? It’s pulsing through me. It’s reaching out to you.”

  He lifted his hand to the back of her head and drew her to him. Their mouths were so close she could feel his lips stretch into a smile. Then he took her mouth in a gentle kiss.

  “Okay, I believe you,” he said as he broke off the kiss. “Torture’s over.” He coaxed her head to his chest, dropped a kiss on her hair. “I used to think words were overrated. I think I’ll subscribe to that old belief again.”

  She grinned and without warning, leaned back, tumbling them to the carpet, with him landing beneath her.

  “Oh, no,” Cody said. “We’re using the bed this time.” He pushed her to her feet, joined her, and they raced to her bedroom.

  And once they fell into her bed, even if she’d tried to form words in her mind, the sensations that swamped her senses as their bodies melded made thinking blissfully impossible.

  Cody woke to see Zoe rise from the bed and light a candle on the small table beside it.

  Her hair cascaded around her shoulders, framing her face in the flickering light. He’d never tire of looking at her.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  He pulled her to him. “Ravenous.”

  “Be serious,” she said, tossing his own phrase from hours before back at him.

  “I’m entirely serious.”

  “I’m still on Roman time,” she said, motioning to her belly as she wriggled free of his grasp.

  “Then let’s get you something to eat. But before we face the world downstairs, there’s something else I need to know, Zoe. What is it that you want?”

  She turned and pointed to him.

  “Besides me. No fair saying me, not this time. I need to know that you’ll be happy.”

  He didn’t say happy here. He couldn’t bring himself to say it. She had to. And he had to believe it.

  She furrowed her brow and bit at her bottom lip before looking up at him. “I’m privileged. I want to do something with my resources that makes a difference. And I know people need so much but...” She tossed her hands into the air with a resigned sigh. “But my heart is with animals. I think I was born this way.”

  “Don’t. Don’t apologize for what you love. There are plenty of others who fund projects that benefit people’s needs—that’s their dream,” he said gently. “Animals have no voice except through those who care about them. They need champions.”

  She stood and paced to a window. Stared out for a moment and then whirled back to him with a pensive look in her eyes. “When I saw you with Telemachus, when I saw how you connected, saw you enter his world, comfort him, draw him out—heal him—I knew we shared this, the love of animals and the need to care for them. But I was so caught up in my grief, in my rigid plan about going back, about starting the gallery, I didn’t, couldn’t, see.” She sat beside him at the edge of the bed, pulling one leg up under her. “I fought my heart, Cody.” She let out a sigh laced with frustration. “And I wasted so much time.”

  “Time can’t be wasted. It’s never ours in the first place. We have only the fruits of our efforts, nothing more.” He traced his finger along the creamy skin at the inside of her elbow and smiled when she shivered under his touch. “And who’s to know what would’ve happened? At this point, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  She told him about the refuge, about Alastair’s offer of the house. The excitement in her voice built as she laid out her plans. And he knew she told the truth, that she would be happy in Sonoma, surrounded by most of her family, establishing the refuge, doing the work of her heart.

  “Brilliant woman. But I thought Italians did things slowly?”

  “I have discovered that love and dreams have no respect for timelines.” She smiled. “Or geography.” She lifted his hand and placed hers over it and looked up at him from under her lashes. “I love you, Cody.”

  It was the declaration he’d been waiting for, three common words, one following the other. Why the specific words mattered, he wasn’t sure. But hearing them was like uneart
hing a secret portal that opened out to the future.

  He took her face between his palms, traced his thumb along her lips and said a silent prayer when she shivered under his touch. “Then marry me. Because I will never let you go. Never again. Because nothing would be right without you. Ti amo. Mi rendi felice.”

  Her eyes went wide. It wasn’t the reaction he’d expected from expressing his love in Italian. Suddenly he felt silly for using the phrase he’d practiced. Maybe he hadn’t remembered it right.

  “I have it on good authority—verified by three Internet sources—that I just told you that I love you. Either that or I ordered a case of cat food.”

  She laughed. It was the sound he remembered from that first day, when he rode over the polo field. The sound that opened his heart. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, the force of her body against his tumbling them back onto the bed. No kiss had ever held such power or promise.

  “Well, we could always return the cat food,” he whispered against her cheek.

  “Aspetta,” she said as she lifted onto her elbows above him. “I’m Italian. You marry me, you marry my family.”

  “That was the main draw,” he said with a grin. “From the beginning.”

  She punched him. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her on top of him, cupping her hips in his hands.

  “But for right now,” he said, kissing her ear, “I believe we’ll leave them out of it.”

  THE END

  <<<<>>>>

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  Thanks for reading The Heart of the Game. I hope you enjoyed it!

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