by Kristy Marie
“You caught me on an awful night,” I offer by way of explanation.
My savior, the stranger, gives me one long look before offering me his arm to lean on. “I can understand that. I’m Cooper, by the way.”
I take his arm and look up, noticing the slight stubble on his face. “I’m McKinley, by the way.” I tighten the grip on my tree and pinch my fingers together for a visual measure. “And I might be a little crazy.”
His returning laugh is rich with raspy goodness, but he tames it quickly. “I appreciate the warning. Now get in the fucking car.”
Cooper
Arching my brows, I glare at her folded arms and stiff body laced with blatant refusal.
“I won’t ask you again,” I tell her seriously.
“And I will not hesitate to smack that bossy attitude right out of you if you can’t ask nicely.”
Is she serious? Is this day serious?
First, I endured a six-hour flight, only to land and be met with forty-eight texts between my grandfather and his caretaker. And now, I can’t even get home to solve that clusterfuck of a mess because I’m stopped on the interstate with a woman who looks like she battled a grizzly and won. “Seriously?” I ask her, just in case I’m misinterpreting the situation. “You’re broken down on the side of the road with what looks like gangrene taking hold of your toe and you want to delay getting to safety because I didn’t say please?”
“Yes, I think a little pleasantry wouldn’t kill you.”
It might.
I glance around, taking in the streetlight illuminating nothing but pavement. Maybe someone else will come along and help her? I’ve had enough headaches today. Adding one more would just be persecution.
“Can’t you—” Interrupted by a phone call, I glance at the screen and sigh, holding up a finger to the wrench-wielder. Maybe she’ll tire of waiting and get in the car. “Hey, Pops.”
The sound connects to my car’s Bluetooth and booms through the speakers. “She’s doing it again!”
I groan and flop down into the driver’s seat. Not again. “Doing what, Pops?”
“Changing the channel!”
Inhaling, I breathe deeply and turn to the side, catching the curious gaze of the stranded woman easing into my passenger seat.
Thank God.
“Surely, she thought you were asleep,” I add, keeping my eyes trained on the leaves falling into my car as McKinley turns and pushes the half-dead tree onto my floorboard.
“It doesn’t matter if I was asleep! This is my house!”
Technically, it’s mine, but I’m in no mood to hear about how many times he had to wipe my ass and share the last Oatmeal Cream Pie with me while growing up.
“I understand,” I tell him, lowering my voice in hopes it deescalates the situation somewhat. “All I’m saying is if you were asleep, she wouldn’t think you were exactly watching the TV.”
For fuck’s sake.
“I’m still listening, dammit!”
Do I blame Cynthia for trying to catch up on her shows while Pops slept? No. I’d have done the same. But since they’ve all but stabbed each other with forks tonight, I’m not going to take sides. The fact is, Cynthia is the only night nurse I’ve been able to keep for longer than forty-eight hours, thanks to Pops and his surly attitude. I can’t afford to piss her off and deal with yet another search for caretakers.
But then again, I’m the one who deals with Pops more often than not, so if he wants Cynthia to sit there and stare at him while he sleeps, then who am I to tell him it’s weird. I just need peace and fucking quiet. Every away game is a nightmare when I leave the two of them together.
“Pops?” The feminine voice to my left has me whipping my head around. “Is that you?”
I slice at my throat, my eyes wide, begging her to hush. Please don’t tell me she’s one of the fifteen nurses that quit.
“Mac?”
Ah, fuck. She is.
“Macaroni!” Pops shouts, his voice instantly changing from hateful to something softer, something more… happy. “What are you doing with Coop?”
Macaroni?
I look at the woman in my passenger seat, grinning and buckling her seatbelt. Guess she’s coming along without a please after all.
“I didn’t realize he’s your Cooper. Lu broke down again, and Grumpy Grandson came to my rescue.”
Grumpy Grandson? “Is that what you call me?”
I can’t believe this shit. McKinley, wrench-wielding-Aphrodite, knows my grandfather, and she’s not a scorned caregiver? No way.
“Only when you’re in one of your moods,” Pops assures me, getting a chuckle out of McKinley that suggests otherwise.
And then it hits me. His seat buddy. “You’re Mac? The one he buys a pickle and Mountain Dew for at every home game?”
She nods. “He’s my bestie.”
And the one Pops cares more about seeing than watching me pitch. “I thought you were a guy.”
She shrugs. “And I thought you were a titty baby.”
A what? Did she just say she thought I was a titty baby?
I can hear the blood whooshing through my ears as Pops smothers a laugh. “You have a lot of explaining to do, you old fart.” I can’t believe he’s been bashing me at games.
“Yeah, yeah,” he poo-poohs my warning. “Where are you taking Mac?”
I don’t hesitate. “Home.”
“Bring her here!” He sounds like a little kid and not the seventy-six-year-old man that he is.
“She’s hurt. I’m sure she wants to go to her house since it’s three in the morning. You can have a playdate later.”
“Hurt? Mac! You alright, my girl?”
McKinley’s quick to jump in. “I’m fine. Just a minor scratch. Just another run-in with the devil. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow night at the game if you’ll be there.”
She looks at me, and I nod.
He’ll be at tomorrow’s—or tonight’s—game. He wasn’t at the last one because Cynthia said she couldn’t keep up with him, and it was only a matter of time before he fell down the steps and rebroke the hip he had replaced several months ago.
Since I promised Maverick I’d keep him safe, I couldn’t allow him to find out the old geezer beat me in a game of Scrabble, which had me owing him visits to the ballpark.
“I’m not waiting until tonight. Cooper, you bring her here so I can lay eyes on her myself.”
There’s no point in arguing with him, but there is a pesky situation Pops isn’t considering. “You know,” I say, already throwing my car in drive, “some might call me a celebrity, and bringing strangers to the house would only result in future restraining orders.”
McKinley scoffs, but Pops beats her to it. “Some may think you’re full of yourself. Bring my girl and your antisocial self home.” He lowers his voice. “Then fire Cynthia.”
“I’m not firing Cynthia.”
I’m not dealing with another intervention.
Pops clears his throat, obviously not happy with my answer on not firing Cynthia. “We’ll discuss it later.”
We won’t. No matter if I think Cynthia is better suited for a patient with a lot less sarcasm than Pops, the facts remain the same: Aspen and Maverick require we keep a nurse while I’m on the road and out on the field. If we fire Cynthia, Pops will have to return to Georgia. And though Pops may be a pain in my ass sometimes, he’s my friend, the man who took me to practice after Mom died and Dad decided he had better things to do than to raise two boys.
Pops is family, and I’ll never abandon family, even if that means I’ll one day quit baseball to take care of him. It’s the least I can do for the man who didn’t abandon me when I needed him the most.
I glance at the girl in my passenger seat, still holding the wrench in her lap. “What do you want to do?”
Just because Pops wants her to come hang out doesn’t mean she wants to do the same.
She bites her lip and her eyes glisten in the passing streetl
ights. “It’s been a really rough day.”
I nod, about to tell Pops another time when she adds, “I’d like to see Pops.”
“Told you, hard-head. Bring her to me.”
I totally ignore the smug old man on the phone and stare at the girl who, now that I really look at her, has a tremble in her hands. “Home it is.”
Cooper
“Coop! Where are the bandages?”
I’m surprised I understand Pops’s question, considering he asked it with a mouthful of Pop-Tarts while he hovered over an open jar of pickles on the counter.
Who eats Pop-Tarts and dill pickles?
I shake my head at the sight of Pops clad in his pajamas, standing next to a haggard McKinley, looking like I dragged her behind the car rather than in it. As tempting as it was earlier, she was relatively quiet on the way home.
“It’s okay. I don’t need a bandage,” McKinley objects, slurping pickle juice straight from a cup.
“Follow me.”
She side-eyes Pops, as if silently asking if it’s safe. Considering my poor attitude tonight, I can’t blame her.
“Please,” I add, hoping that will quicken her pace and my pursuit of sleep.
With a twitch of her lips, McKinley shoves the last bit of pickle down and follows me through the hall, her limp more prominent than earlier. “Are you in pain?”
Her voice is quiet and not nearly as aggressive when she threatened to harm me on the exit ramp. “I’m fine.”
“Your toe looks broken,” I note, as if there’s no way she could be okay.
“Probably.”
No tears, no sobs. Just acceptance that her toe is probably broken.
I stop mid-stride and turn back, giving her the look I give Pops when he insists he doesn’t need my help getting out of bed. “After you shower, I’ll wrap your toe and give you a painkiller.”
My tone doesn’t leave room for debate, yet her mouth opens like that’s precisely what she intends to do. But this time I’m prepared, taking her by the arm and guiding her to my bedroom, silencing her argument as she takes in the scene in front of her.
A king-size bed, unmade on one side, clothes half hanging off the hamper, an open suitcase I’ve yet to unpack, and an open book on the nightstand. “I wasn’t expecting guests,” I admit, closing the suitcase and ushering her into the master bathroom, flipping on the light. At least the bathroom is in better condition than my room.
“I imagine it’s hard not being home a lot,” she notes, fingering the lilac-patterned hand towel on the rack. It doesn’t fit the decor at all, but it belonged to my mother.
Grabbing a fresh towel from the cabinet, I hang it on the rack and turn on the water. “I had a housekeeper for a while, but I let her go.” Which was after she used a cleaner I specifically asked her not to use. It left the floor slick and Pops slipped.
“I noticed the padding on the table corners.” She doesn’t say it like it’s weird.
“Pops had a stroke when I was a kid. The blood thinners cause even the smallest of scratches to bleed.”
“I know,” she whispers.
And it hits me, she does know.
A few weeks ago, I had Pops escorted down to the clubhouse after a home game, his arm was dressed with a bandage. He said the chair had a piece of metal protruding from the armrest. Immediately, I was on the phone with maintenance, but Pops said Mac had already taken care of it.
“I never thanked you for taking care of him.”
She shrugs. “You don’t have to thank me.”
As the steam fills the bathroom, my gaze stays transfixed to the field-green color of her eyes. Mac isn’t who I expected would have beers with an old man while watching the game.
“I really don’t need a shower.” She clears her throat. “I didn’t mean to intrude, I just had a bad day, and it was nice to see a friend. It’s late and—”
“Any friend of Pops is welcome here.”
At least it sounds sincere and less dickish than before. Which… is awkward. I don’t even know Mac, and the last time I had a woman in my bedroom was… too fucking long ago.
Focus, Coop. You need sleep.
Quickly, I turn back to the bedroom and root through my suitcase, finding a pair of clean sweats and an undershirt.
I set them on the counter. “They’ll probably fall off your hips, but it’ll work for tonight.”
Her mouth opens, and I quickly step back and close the door. I’m not in the mood for more arguing.
Leaving McKinley to shower, I head into the living room and address Cynthia for the first time since the text extravaganza. “I have to be on the field at three.”
She needs no further direction as she stands. “I’ll be here.” It sounds like she’d rather not, but I pay her well enough to endure.
And well enough not to thank her as I close the door and glare at the old man in the recliner. “We’re gonna talk about this tomorrow.”
“Psh.” He waves his hand at me, his poo-poohing gesture. “That tone doesn’t scare me, boy.”
At seventy-six, he’ll always be the man who washed my mouth out with soap when I told him to go fuck himself one time.
I rake my hands through my hair. “Fine,” I give in. “But if you run Cynthia off, you’re dealing with Maverick. I’m not taking the heat again.”
“You forget, I changed your brother’s sheets when he dreamed of using the toilet. Neither of you scare me.”
And this is why life is so fucking complicated.
“Why don’t you head on to bed since the Devil Woman is now gone.” I use his nickname for Cynthia, which gets an amused grunt.
“You sure? You got Mac?” He acts like we need to carry her to bed or something.
“Yeah, I got her.”
“All right.” He eases from the chair and stands, wobbling a little. “Don’t you help me,” he all but growls when I take a step toward him.
I stick my hands in my pockets, fighting the urge. “You get on my fucking nerves,” I note as he walks past me toward his bedroom, sneaking me a grin.
“Ditto, my boy. Don’t go being hateful to Mac, she hits.”
She hits…
I wonder if he’s witnessed her actually using the wrench she keeps, but I decide not to ask. Honestly, I don’t want to know what all she and Pops do while unsupervised. “Good night, old man,” I mutter.
For the next half hour, I pick up around the living room, setting out a clean bowl and instant oatmeal on the kitchen counter just in case Pops wakes before me. We long since established he isn’t allowed to use the stove—it’s only been recently his balance has started stabilizing.
“Did Pops go to bed?”
I look up from the half-dead palm tree I’m currently watering. “Uh, yeah. He did.”
McKinley’s eyes stay fixed on the tree for a minute before she glances at the bowl on the counter. “You need any help?”
She seems a lot calmer now that she knows I’m not a highway killer. “Nah,” I say, setting down the cup I was using to water the tree she seems ridiculously attached to. “Let me get you a bandage and show you to the guest room.” If I don’t get sleep soon, I’ll be benched for tonight’s game. Coach is a real stickler about rest—a rule I break daily.
McKinley follows me to the room in front of Pops’s. “Through there.” I crack open the door. “I’m just gonna grab you a bandage.”
This time, she doesn’t argue, and I take the opportunity to grab not only a bandage but a pain reliever from the medicine cabinet as well. When I return to the guest room with a bottled water and supplies in hand, she’s sitting on the bed, her legs hanging over the side as if she isn’t sure she wants to stay. “I’ve been thinking.”
I hand her a pill and the water and kneel at her feet. “About?”
“What are you doing?” Her eyes go wide.
“I’m wrapping your toe.” Showing her the bandage, I tip my chin in the direction of her foot. “Before you make it worse.”
Attempting to scramble further up the bed and away from my grasp, she hurries out, “Oh no, that’s okay.”
Unlike her, I have nothing broken to impede my grip as I pin her legs to the mattress.
“This one time,” I start, hoping to relax her, “Pops took my brother and me to the bowling alley. I couldn’t have been much older than twelve.”
She struggles for a minute before she finally gives in. “Maverick, my brother, decided it would be fun if we could have a competition on who could throw the heaviest ball.”
My hands trail along the smooth skin of her legs, my eyes holding hers, daring her to move. “I decided that rather than tiring my arms by increasing the weight of the ball with each throw, I could go with the heaviest ball.”
Opening the wrapper of the gauze, I chuckle, remembering. “Maverick was so pissed and wanted to go first, knowing I would win.” She lets out a hiss as I ease under her toe, looping the gauze.
“Anyway, like most brothers, we started wrestling, and the ball slipped.”
She watches my hands as I tape her big toe to the one next to it. “And it broke your toe?”
I laugh. “No, it broke my brother’s. Pops was so mad he made me Mav’s bitch for a week. As you can imagine, my brother enjoyed his broken bone immensely.”
McKinley laughs, and it’s soft and feminine. “So that’s how you know how to wrap a broken toe like a pro, huh?”
I shrug. “Amongst other injuries.”
“Do you get hurt a lot? Playing baseball, I mean?”
Applying the last piece of tape, I look up at her, sitting back on my heels. “All done.”
Nodding, she smiles hesitantly. “You aren’t going to ask me how I broke it?”
“Pops told me you hit. I’m assuming you kick too.”
She situates herself against the pillows, smothering a grin. “Sometimes.”
Yeah, there’s trouble written all over this girl, and no matter how delectable she looks in my clothes, I can’t afford another distraction.