Dare to Breathe

by S. B. Alexander

  Santos’s voice trickled into my ears. “You can do this.”

  I could.

  I thought of home, Kade, my dad, my brother, Mom, and Julie. I got the feeling Mom and Julie were with me. At least they’d answered my prayer not to let my grandfather get out of jail. I hadn’t expected him to die. I couldn’t say I was sad, though, that he had. But I wasn’t there to think of my grandfather and how I hated the man. I was there to do what I did best—pitch.

  So I checked the field, a habit any pitcher had. After one sweep of the players who were staring at me intently, I readied my stance, gripped the ball, and finally threw a fastball.

  The ball narrowly missed Romero’s head, soaring past Eric, and hitting the backstop.

  I dared not look around. I didn’t have to when Gil’s voice shouted something derogatory from the bullpen.

  Asshole.

  Eric returned the ball. I circled the mound once then twice. I would’ve thought Santos would’ve given me a pep talk, but he was quiet, as was everyone else. In fact, I could probably hear a pin drop.

  I scolded myself as I gripped the ball. Then I eyed Romero, who was waiting as though he were bored.

  Well, that pissed me off.

  I nodded to Eric, who punched the inside of his catcher’s mitt. Then I threw another fastball. This time, it went straight down to home plate.

  Romero swung and missed.

  I sighed heavily, and when I did, all the tension that had built up inside me escaped.

  The guys on the field were still quiet, even Santos. I itched to turn around to see if Santos was still there. But I decided to keep my focus ahead of me.

  Pitch the ball and show Brice that I am one of the best pitchers out there. I twirled the ball in my glove as I waited for Romero to step inside the batter’s box. When he did, he squinted his light-colored eyes at me.

  Cocking my leg high and tight, I threw Romero a wicked slider. The ball hit Eric’s glove as Romero swung at air. He growled.

  For the next ten minutes, I settled in and pitched as if I were taking my last breath. The finally tally—Romero hit two of my pitches in the outfield, hit four foul balls, and swung at air five times.

  Then Brice called the team in.

  Santos jogged up to me. “Nice pitching.” He wrapped long fingers around my bicep. “How does a girl throw that hard and fast?”

  I giggled, the act freeing. “You asked me that when you played for the Sox. And my answer then was the same as it is now—hard work.”

  As we trotted up to join the team that had surrounded Brice, I’d done my best for that day.

  “Great practice,” Brice said to the team. “We’re ready for tomorrow’s night game.”

  I wished I had the chance to play in that game. Or maybe I could if Brice signed me today.

  Brice spit his nasty chewing tobacco. “Have a great night. I’ll see everyone here tomorrow afternoon.”

  The guys dispersed, along with the coaches, leaving me alone with Brice.

  “Well done, Lacey,” he said.

  “I know it’s only one practice, but when will you make your decision?” I’d shown him what I had in LA and now. He also had tapes from my college games.

  He took off his hat and scratched his matted head of dark hair.

  “Why are you afraid to sign me?” I’d almost asked if he was afraid I was pregnant. But if I had, then I would have to answer him, and I couldn’t give him a yes or a no. Besides, I didn’t want to ruin my chances. I knew he couldn’t ask me outright because of discrimination laws. Not only that, the reporters came over, sticking microphones in our faces.

  A short lady with the ESPN logo on her mic smiled at me. “Lacey Robinson, how does it feel to play with the big boys?”

  A young KTLV reporter in a suit shoved his mic toward Brice. “So are you going to sign a female?”

  I held my breath. This ought to be good.

  Brice’s jaw worked hard to chew his tobacco, then he swallowed. “The details of our negotiations are not open to the public.” He nodded at me then walked into the dugout and disappeared down into the tunnel.

  I was left with the two reporters and their cameramen.

  “What was going through your head when you were on the mound?” the reporter from ESPN asked as she flipped her brown hair over her shoulder.

  I was about to answer her with my usual answer about deciding on the pitch, when I caught a glimpse of a tall, honey-color-haired man standing in the first row of the stands behind home plate.

  It couldn’t be my sexy hunk of a man. But as I reoriented my vision, I lost all train of thought.

  The reporters followed my line of sight.

  Kade waved with a thigh-squeezing grin on his face.

  I pushed past the reporters and, on shaky legs, tried to sprint the short distance up to Kade. But he beat me to the punch as he strutted down toward me, dressed in tattered jeans that hung low on his hips. His hair was slightly damp, and he had a smile that warmed my heart so much, I wanted to cry tears of joy.

  The closer he got to me, the more my heart raced and my body shook.

  Five years with this man, and I still got the swarming butterfly feeling whenever he was near me. Even more so when he cupped my face, lowered his lips, and kissed me as if he were on his last breath.

  Any feeling of loneliness vanished.

  Chapter 9

  Kade

  I kissed her as though we’d been separated a lifetime. She returned the kiss with more feeling and vigor than I’d ever remembered from her. Or maybe it was all in my head. I couldn’t think about anything but her on the plane ride down. I’d tried to erase the day before, dump any notion of a tumor into my brain’s trash bin, but Dr. Thompson’s words to my dad, “I suspect his scans won’t come back clean,” hadn’t left my head until now.

  I squeezed Lacey so fucking tight I thought I might break her. Then I inhaled her citrus scent that always made me feel as though I could conquer anything. “You were amazing out there.” Whatever was about to happen to me, I knew without a doubt that I had to fight like a motherfucker to stay alive. Lacey would never survive if anything happened to me, and that thought alone would kill me before any brain tumor.

  She leaned away, grasping my face in between her delicate hands. To this day, I wondered how her skin stayed so soft. “You saw me pitch?” Her voice hitched as love and excitement swam in her beautiful eyes. “I didn’t see you in the stands, although I wasn’t exactly aware of much except my pitching.”

  “I hung behind the reporters,” I said. “Besides, I only caught the last half of your performance.”

  She let go of me. “What are you doing here? Not that I’m complaining.”

  I’d almost come with her, but she had insisted that this step in the so-called interview process was something she had to do on her own. If it weren’t for my doctor’s appointment, I might have argued otherwise, but she was doing much better now that her grandfather had died.

  She eyed me as though she knew something was wrong. “This is a big step for you, and I wanted to be here in case you needed me.”

  She studied me. “My PTSD is fine. What’s really going on? This is the second time you’ve surprised me.”

  She knew me too well. The first time I’d shown up at her dorm had been to propose. Now I didn’t know whether to propose or tell her about my upcoming tests and what Dr. Thompson speculated. I didn’t get a chance to do either.

  The reporters rushed over, and the lady from ESPN stuck a mic in Lacey’s face. “Lacey, you didn’t answer my question. What was going through your head when you were on the mound?”

  The dude holding the KTLV microphone watched Lacey intently.

  She interlocked her fingers with mine. “When I’m on the mound, my mind is focused on pitching, nothing more.”

  “So do you think that the Dodgers will sign you?” the KTLV reporter asked.

  She smiled, sucking in her bottom lip. “I’m not going to guess. I’m he
re to do my best. I’m sorry, but I’ll be here tomorrow to answer more questions. Right now”—she glanced up at me—“I have a date.” She tugged me.

  I went willingly as we started for the dugout.

  The ESPN reporter and her cameraman climbed the steps behind the visitor’s dugout up to the first level of the stadium.

  The KTLV reporter faced the camera and began talking. “Lacey Robinson, potentially the first female to enter a major league organization, has completed her first day of practice. The question now is will the Dodgers sign her and make history? Stay tuned. We’ll be here tomorrow to bring you more of Lacey Robinson and her performance on the mound.”

  When we reached the dugout, Lacey asked, “Shall we go back to the hotel?”

  That sounded fantastic. We could get naked and enjoy each other for the night. But as I glanced around the stadium and the cityscape in the distance, I had something else on my mind.

  The KTLV men gathered their equipment and left the same way as the ESPN gal.

  “Before we head to the hotel, let’s take a walk.” She’d always loved to stroll around after a game when we were in high school.

  She studied me as she did earlier with questions written all over her face. “Okay.” Her tone was hesitant as she took my arm.

  The ballpark was big when sitting in the stands, but standing on the field, it felt small, cozy almost. I was beginning to understand why Lacey felt a sense of peace and excitement anytime she was on the field.

  As we padded down the first baseline, I was trying to decide whether to break the news to her about my tests. My old man had counseled me not to tell her until we knew what the results showed. I wasn’t sure not telling Lacey was good advice. I’d always gotten into trouble with her when I had kept things from her in the past. In fact, she’d broken up with me one time because I’d held too much back. I’d consistently kept her in the dark about things, and the last straw had been after I blacked out from a migraine and landed in the hospital during our senior year.

  “I know you, Kade. Something is wrong. Are you worried about my PTSD? Is that why you’re here?”

  Stopping in centerfield, I touched the velvet box in my right front pocket. “I don’t want to be apart from you anymore. Four years was too long.” Regardless of what I was keeping from her, I was totally serious. “Actually, it was hell.” As much as I wanted to settle down and raise a family, I would go to the ends of the earth for her, even if that meant following her around the country as she played ball.

  She let go of me. “I’m only here for a week.”

  I traced my finger over one of her sun-kissed cheeks. “Let’s go to Vegas tonight and elope.” Eloping had crossed my mind, but I hadn’t expected that to come out of my mouth.

  Her eyes were wide. Her jaw fell open.

  “Before you answer, hear me out,” I said. At least she wasn’t protesting. That was a win. “I know you’re hesitant to get married because the team or any team might get nervous that marriage means kids.” The possibility of her being pregnant was still on the table, but I pushed on. I would get to that next. “They don’t have to know we’re married.”

  She walked in a circle, craning her neck up at the clear blue sky.

  Her silence made me shiver and not in a warm and tingly way. So she wouldn’t see my hands shaking, I dipped into the pocket of my jeans and latched on to the red velvet box, while my heart beat a staccato rhythm. “Say something, baby.”

  She closed the distance between us. “Something is going on.” Frustration rode her tone. “Normally, I would give you space until you were ready to tell me.” She shook her head. “I can’t. Please talk to me.”

  I swallowed the big hairball that was stuck in my throat. Whether I had bad news to tell her or not, that fact didn’t overshadow that I’d wanted to marry her ever since the day we graduated from high school. In the last month since her graduation, my mission had been to propose. At first, I hadn’t wanted it to be on the baseball field. I wanted to separate the proposal from what she valued most. Yet as I looked at her beautiful face, I knew we were in the perfect place.

  I sighed. “I’ve been waiting for four years for us to be together. I’ve been waiting that long to marry you. I don’t want to wait any longer, Lace.” I placed a hand on my heart. “I want to carve another heart tattoo on my chest. I want to make it official that you are the reason my heart beats.”

  She removed her ball cap and gave me a sad smile, which felt like a blow to my chest. “I can’t go to Vegas. I have practice tomorrow.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised at her answer even though it hurt like hell. “So did you get your period yet?” I vaguely remembered she had said her monthly friend was due this week.

  A bevy of emotions crossed her face as she blew out a breath. “I’m due on Friday.”

  “Do you think you’re pregnant?” Some women knew their bodies well or could tell when something was going on.

  She shrugged. “I think it’s premature to say yes or no.”

  Fair enough, although I was sure she had given me a vague answer because she didn’t want to either get my hopes up or stomp on my wish to start a family. Not only that, we were similar in a lot of ways, particularly with giving each other bad news. She might have been holding out on the pregnancy thing, and I was not telling her that my migraines might be more than a headache.

  Aside from the dull drone of city life outside the stadium, silence stretched between us. I swept my gaze around the park. A couple of men were emptying the trash can near the dugout.

  When I oriented my vision back to Lacey, I found tears slipping down her face.

  “Hey, baby. Now it’s my turn to ask you what’s wrong.” I caught a lone tear with my finger.

  Licking her lips, she lowered her gaze to her cleats then back up at me. “For the first time since Julie and Mom died, I feel empty and alone. When I walked onto the field earlier, I got this feeling that I’m not in the right place. I don’t know if it’s the vibe Brice is giving me. I should be beyond excited to be here.” She waved her hands around. “I’m not, and I don’t know what that means.”

  She was breaking my fucking heart. “You’re not alone. You’ve got me.”

  She swallowed hard. “I know. But I’m scared of failing. Scared of losing you. Scared of our lives changing. I’m tired of trying to climb a ladder only for the rungs to be taken out when I reach the last step at the top.”

  I tipped her chin up to look at me. “How would you lose me?” Her words at the cemetery again pummeled into me like a fast-moving storm.

  She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. I just get this feeling that a rug is about to be yanked out from under me. I had the same cold feeling at the cemetery in LA.”

  She had to have a sixth sense. Regardless, a sharp pain spread through my chest. She was gutting me in more ways than one.

  “I told you I’m not going anywhere,” I said in the most confident tone I could muster.

  She gave me a sad smile. “I’m afraid, Kade. I’m afraid I can’t have it all—marriage, kids, a career in baseball.”

  Whether this was a good time or not, I pulled out the red velvet box.

  She slapped a hand over her mouth.

  “You can have it all. I’m not pressuring you. But whether you say yes or no, I’ve been dying to do this since I surprised you at your dorm the day before graduation.” With slightly trembling legs, I got down on one knee. “Lacey Robinson, from the moment you pulled a gun on me in the high school parking lot, I’ve never been the same. You’ve unlocked my heart with those green eyes of yours. You make my stomach flutter anytime I lay eyes on you. You give me purpose that life is worth living. I’m hopelessly in love with you.” I held the closed box in the palm of my hand as if I were serving up a delectable dessert. “We don’t have to elope. We can have a long engagement. I’ll wait for you forever. Marry me?”

  Tears streamed down her face as she divided her attention between the box and me.


  I, on the other hand, was ready to pass out because she wasn’t saying anything.

  Her fingers went around the box before she slowly brought it up to eye level. As soon as she opened it, she closed it.

  “It doesn’t bite,” I teased.

  Her hands began to shake as she opened it again. The waning daylight hit the ring at just the right angle for the diamonds to sparkle.

  I’d picked out a setting that was simple yet elegant. Small diamonds fanned out along the band, and a one-carat center stone was nestled inside a circle of more diamonds that the jeweler had called a halo-style setting. Halo seemed perfect for my baseball beauty.

  I rose, took the ring out of the box, and held it up, waiting for her answer.

  She sniffled then smiled so fucking wide, tears shot out of my eyes. In that moment, she was the most beautiful creature that I’d ever laid eyes on.

  She nodded her head rapidly. “Yes. Yes. Yes. I will marry you.”

  I slipped the ring on her finger. I knew it was the right size. I’d found a ring of hers in her bedroom at her father’s house and took that with me to the jeweler.

  She held up her hand, the diamonds shimmering. Then in a flash, she tackled me. “I love the crap out of you, Kade Maxwell.”

  I full-on laughed, releasing all the tension that had settled in every one of my muscles. “That’s my line.”

  We both laughed, and no matter what happened from there on out, I would always cherish that moment.

  Chapter 10

  Kade

  As I waited for Dr. Thompson to come in, I reminisced about the conversation Lacey and I had had on the ball field in Oklahoma. I was still trying to get my mind around why she’d felt lonely. Maybe I should’ve moved with her to Maine after high school. Maybe I should’ve attended more of her baseball games. Despite the marriage proposal and her saying yes, part of me was feeling as though I’d failed her.