Homestands (Chicago Wind #1)

by Sally Bradley

  He stormed for his Range Rover, then backtracked to wipe his hands in a thick patch of grass. His jeans would have to do for the rest. He yanked his front pocket linings inside out and rubbed them between his fingers until his skin felt cleaner.

  What now? He jerked open the driver’s door and climbed in.

  No way was he going home yet. He drummed his fingers—his cleanish fingers—on the steering wheel. If he could get her to laugh, she’d thaw a little.

  Thaw. Nice choice of words. He started his car, his mind racing.

  By the time Mike parked in her driveway, night had chased the last bits of dusk away. Warmth had vanished, as well. At Meg’s front door, he hunched his shoulders, only to feel the sticky, half-frozen yogurt cling to his chest.

  Remember, he reminded himself, humor. Smile. Make her laugh. He pushed the doorbell and rested his hand high on the door frame while he waited for her to answer.

  The foyer window remained dark. He tilted his head to listen for footsteps, but none sounded. He pushed the doorbell again. Waited some more. No sound. No light. Nothing—

  Lights flicked on.

  Mike plastered on a smile.

  The door opened, and Meg stood silent, welcoming light reflecting off the wood and walls behind her. He waited for her to say something—hello would be fine—but she didn’t.

  He raised his eyebrows. “That was cold, Meg.”

  She’d never been able to stay hurt. One joke, and a smile, however faint, would force its way onto her face. He watched for that hint of amusement, for anything that would tell him he was forgiven.

  Instead she remained unmoved, her face empty.

  Not good. Tears would have been better than this.

  “Where’s Terrell?” he asked.

  “In the tub. Do you need something?”

  “A washcloth, perhaps?” He motioned to his shirt.

  She stared him down, arms crossed.

  “You’re right,” he said. “We need to talk. May I come in?”

  “No. But you can leave.”

  “How about you talk, and I’ll listen. You can get things off your chest while I get this stuff off mine.”

  “I have nothing to say.”

  She moved to close the door, but Mike caught the edge and held it open. “It’s a good thing I didn’t take you out for coffee,” he joked.

  “Go away, Mike.”

  Go away? He dropped his hand from the door.

  “I’m tired,” she said, “and I don’t—I don’t want to argue. Can we just—” She looked away. “Thanks for the ice cream.”

  She moved the door, and, numbed by her words, he let it go.

  The door clicked shut and the locks turned. The foyer window darkened.

  Go away.

  Had she just told him to get lost? He stared at the carved door shut in his face. She’d better not if she wanted to keep Terrell. He raised a fist, ready to order her to open up, but Terrell’s face, marred by fear, stopped him. He lowered his hand. He couldn’t do that to Terrell. He’d already done enough.

  Tonight, just tonight, he’d leave.

  He glanced at her house before climbing into his Range Rover.

  The Meg he remembered had not been home tonight. But if he was patient, maybe in time she’d make an appearance. Then he’d get that elusive second chance that haunted him.

  Mike backed out of her driveway, spirits rising. She’d have a couple weeks to cool off before he returned. And when he did, he’d have a plan.

  Next time everything would be different.

  Chapter Twelve

  “What are you watching?”

  Ben stiffened at Dana’s soft voice hovering above the recliner. Her arms circled his neck, and he held himself still instead of pushing her away. “Baseball reruns,” he said.

  “I thought it looked old.” She slid onto the arm of the chair, blocking the light. “Do people really watch these games?”

  “There’s a whole channel for it.” He should tell her to go away. The last thing he wanted was her asking lots of questions—and then feeling sorry for him.

  “Who’s playing?”

  “Boston, Oakland.” The teams had gone into the final game of the year tied for the last playoff spot. The winner of the game had moved on to the post season. The loser had gone home.

  “What’s the score?”

  It was right there in the corner, for Pete’s sake. “Four to three, Boston.” He added more to keep her quiet. “Two on, no outs, bottom of the ninth, Oakland’s batting.”

  If she couldn’t find the score, maybe she wouldn’t notice who was pitching.

  “Is that you?”

  Ben closed his eyes. “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you played in the major leagues?”

  “Watch,” he growled.

  Dana’s body turned rigid, but at least she was silent.

  Ben covered his mouth with a fist, watching himself—eleven years younger and thirty pounds lighter—nod at Reddick’s pitch choice. What had it been, a fastball?

  The Oakland batter swung late.

  Yep, fastball.

  His best pitch. On rare days, almost a hundred miles an hour.

  The picture changed to Reddick signaling slider.

  That call still made no sense. Ben’s slider had been unreliable that last month. The whole pitching staff knew it, Reddick included.

  Shake him off.

  Instead Ben watched himself check the runners on first and third. He started his windup, the runner on first going a moment before the ball left Ben’s hand for home plate.

  “Miss,” he hissed into his fist.

  But the Oakland batter connected with Ben’s pitch, the ball zipping by the first baseman. The runner on third trotted home.

  Tie game.

  Dana sucked in a breath.

  The third base coach waved the oncoming runner home. The camera flipped to the right fielder scooping up the ball.

  The television picture faded, and Ben watched the play from where he’d backed up Reddick behind home plate. He saw umpire Edwin Byrd move into position, felt the cool air swirling around him, followed the ball sailing in from the outfield as the thunder grew from the Oakland crowd, all standing, all watching the ball in flight. And then the ball disappeared into Reddick’s glove. The slide, the tag, the dust—all at once. So close—

  Byrd’s arms stretched horizontally, and Reddick, already on his knees, fell backward, glove over his face. Oakland players streamed from the dugout, and in the corner of the TV, behind the mad pile of men celebrating their success, Ben watched himself, the losing pitcher, lunge at Byrd.

  “Oh, Ben—”

  He slammed his fist against the armrest. He should have shook Reddick off. The idiot couldn’t call a decent game. And Byrd?

  Ben shot out of the chair and down the hall, ignoring Dana’s voice. He kept going until the hallway ended, then, at a loss, veered into his office and slammed the door behind him. An autographed Greg Maddux photo fell to the carpet, but tonight he didn’t care. He dropped into his desk chair and stared at the blackness of his computer screen.

  This was where he’d ended up, eleven years later. A has-been.

  No, a never-was. One of those pitchers that drove a team’s fans mad.

  He turned on his computer, forcing open his clenched fist. What now?

  Margo.

  Ben rolled his eyes. Not again. He yanked open a file drawer and pulled out the green binder. He spread it open on the desk, but tonight the contents did not console him. Instead the longer he sat there, his failure consuming him, the more appealing calling Margo seemed. Forget the risk.

  Maybe Margo could help him forget his last pitch in the majors.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mike’s words disturbed Meg’s sleep.

  I’m sorry. I’ve missed you.

  Do you wonder if we were too quick?

  I’ve spent years wishing—

  She kicked the comforter to the foot of
her bed. Her clock read 1:30, and she glared at it. “He’s too late,” she told it. “Years too late.”

  Why couldn’t he have said those things when they mattered?

  Like after that eleven-day road trip?

  Meg flopped onto her back and tried to sleep, but her eyes refused to close. She stared at the ceiling, reliving those lonely days after Mike dropped the Brooke bomb and left to play baseball.

  On the night he was to return, Meg had gone to bed early, knowing that when she woke sometime in the day’s first hours Mike would be there, back from Kansas City. She needed to be rested and alert in case he was ready to talk.

  They could overcome whatever had gone wrong in their marriage, even Mike’s betrayal. She had adjusted the pillow beneath her, pulled the covers over her shoulders, and forced her eyes shut. Everything would be better, in time.

  When she woke, sunlight poked around the drapes. She rolled over and looked at Mike’s side of the bed.

  Empty. Untouched.

  She grabbed her clock. Eight-thirty. Was that right?

  The light edging the curtains said it was.

  Where was Mike? Had something happened? Had the team’s plane gone down?

  She flung back the covers, jumped from her bed.

  No, someone would have called.

  Where was he?

  The guest room.

  She grabbed her hair and yanked it into a ponytail, then hurried down the hall, but the room was empty. So was the other bedroom and the couch in the living room and family room. In the garage, her Lexus sat alone.

  Okay. Okay. Calm down. She dragged her hands down her cheeks and fell onto a chair at the kitchen table. Think, Meg.

  She turned on ESPN. The sports ticker streamed across the bottom of SportsCenter. There was last night’s score. Texas, three, and Kansas City, seven. And nothing else. No plane crash, no extended game, nothing out of the ordinary.

  Pain flared in her stomach, a low flame that burned hotter and higher. Meg shoved it aside. For eleven days she’d faced the truth and survived. This wouldn’t kill her, either.

  He was with Brooke.

  She forced saliva so she could swallow. He’d always come home. After all, she did his laundry, kept his favorite beer in the fridge, cooked his favorite meals. Brooke hadn’t kept him yet. He’d be back. In a couple hours maybe—

  Tears rolled down her cheeks and onto her fists. How could Mike do this?

  Hours wore on. Mike did not appear, did not answer her calls. At 6:30, she turned on the team’s pre-game show. If he so much as smiled—

  The pre-game showed him sitting in the dugout, talking to two players, the three of them laughing at whatever story they shared.

  Her pain vanished.

  When the game was almost over, Meg drove to the stadium and waited in the concourse outside the clubhouse. If Mike didn’t like it, he could blame himself.

  Marty, one of the security guards, walked to where she leaned against the wall. “Any reason you’re out here, Meg?”

  She kept her focus on the clubhouse doors. “Pink eye. I’m contagious.”

  He nodded as if he’d seen it all before and returned to his chair.

  Meg waited twenty minutes before the first player walked out. As Mike’s teammates emerged alone or in groups, she realized she could tell who knew and who did not.

  Cliff, Jeff, and Juan waved, smiled, said hello.

  Aaron wouldn’t look at her, although Lindsey, his wife, stopped to talk.

  Dante and Mariah gave weak smiles and hurried past.

  Maury, Eve, and their twin daughters asked why she was out here. Maury backed away at her excuse.

  Adam Destin, one of Mike’s closest friends, took three steps outside the clubhouse before he saw her and turned back.

  “Adam,” she called.

  His shoulders slumped. Reluctantly he came over.

  She prayed her voice would hold. “Please don’t tell him I’m here.”

  He looked all around her before meeting her eyes, his own heavy. “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged—it was that or bawl on his shoulder—and he left.

  Two more players appeared before Mike walked out alone, a grin on his face. It vanished when he saw her, but he walked to her without missing a step, as if he’d expected her to be there.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Waiting for my husband.”

  “Ah.” He adjusted his collar and looked around, nodding and smiling at someone down the concourse.

  Couldn’t he pay attention for more than two seconds?

  She fought to keep her voice calm and firm. “When are you coming home?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked down, and she followed his gaze, watching him rock up and then down on his toes.

  “I thought we were going to talk.”

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  Noise from the clubhouse entrance distracted them, and Mike called goodnight to two more close friends, teammates who had to know this conversation wasn’t a good one.

  She didn’t want to do this here. “Mike, come home. We can start over.”

  “I have.” He took a step back, calling his friends. They stopped and turned. “Don’t come here again.”

  “Mike, what am I supposed to—”

  He held his arms out from his sides before turning and jogging away.

  For the rest of the week, Meg stayed home, unable to end the nightmare.

  By Saturday, she had to escape. She left home midmorning and drove to a decorating store to think. Just after one o’clock, she returned to the empty garage and carried her bags and Subway meal into the townhouse. At least Mike hadn’t cancelled their credit cards.

  The moment she stepped inside, a familiar scent met her.

  Mike’s cologne lingered in the air.

  “Mike?” She dropped her bags on the table and ran through the first floor. “Mike?”

  Maybe he was upstairs.

  She rushed to the second floor, calling his name.

  No answer.

  In her bedroom, she stopped in the doorway, studying Mike’s side of the room.

  His dresser—

  Her hand clutched her throat. “No.” She stepped closer to Mike’s dresser. All of his drawers were open slightly, the way he left them that annoyed her so much. Only this time no socks stuck out. No T-shirt corners hung over the drawer’s edge. She tugged at his top drawer, knowing before it flew open that it would be empty.

  They were all empty. So was his half of the closet. And his side of the bathroom.

  Even his pillow was gone.

  An ache spread through Meg, down her arms and legs, into her head and fingers. She sat on the edge of the bed and ran her hand over the empty spot, ignoring the tears that trickled down her face. “Why?”

  He’d left without warning, without reason. Why was he doing this?

  Downstairs, the doorbell rang. Hope rose within her that it was Mike, but reality gripped her. Of course it wasn’t him. If he’d forgotten something, he’d walk in and take it.

  She wiped her cheeks with her hands and rubbed them dry on her shorts before taking her time down the stairs. She didn’t want to talk. Maybe by the time she got to the door, whoever it was would be gone.

  But when she looked through the peephole, a man not much older than Mike still stood on the doorstep.

  She shook her hair, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

  “Meghan Connor?” he asked.

  “Yes?”

  He held out a manila envelope. “This is for you.” He waited while she opened the screen, but as soon as the envelope was in her hands, he darted for his car at the curb.

  Her hands shook. She seated herself on the couch and forced herself to open the envelope.

  Divorce papers.

  The tears returned, building from a steady stream to sobs that sucked air from her lungs. Her stomach lurched and Meg ran to the bathroom, crying beside the toilet un
til she threw up.

  An hour later, eyes swollen, nose plugged, and legs trembling, Meg walked from room to room, laying each picture of Mike face down in its place.

  That scum.

  In the living room she turned the eight-by-ten picture of them walking down the aisle, hand in hand as they grinned at each other, to the wall before sitting on the couch beneath it and calling a locksmith.

  Next time he’d face her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mike could hear and feel the music before the doors to the Cleveland club opened. Eager for warmth, he trailed three teammates inside, Travis Benes, Will Hamrick, and Brett Burkholder, all as bored as he was.

  Pressure built below his eyes, and Mike bit off a sneeze, then another as he looked around. A crowd packed the place—a good thing, he tried to convince himself. A crowd meant he’d be harder to notice.

  Or was it more people to hassle him?

  Some of the guys joked that he’d turned into a hermit, but he had his reasons. Wherever he went, people hounded him, men wanting autographs and women wanting… numerous things. Even now three women at a nearby table made no attempt to hide their availability.

  He detoured away from them. Wait until they found out about his personal life. That’d send them running. “What am I doing here?” he asked.

  Travis made a face. “What?”

  Mike shook his head.

  Brett picked a corner table, and Mike seated himself across from Will, his back to the crowd. This wasn’t so bad, a night out instead of room service. Mike flipped through the menu, even though he’d filled up on the post-game meal.

  A new song started, the music pounding against him. Mike ordered a drink and leaned back in his chair. What was Meg up to tonight? Had she and Terrell seen his signal? He’d debated calling on pretense of making sure but decided not to. No telling how Meg would react.

  At least she couldn’t throw frozen yogurt through a satellite.

  Someone nudged him. “Connor. Wake up.”

  “Hmm?” He looked up at his friends and then at the waitress standing beside their table.