Karen Rock - A League of Her Own

She zipped her sweatshirt against the slight chill, thinking for the hundredth time that she should leave their old field and head home. Yet after two weeks of staying indoors, either in the hospital or by her father’s side, she needed this gulp of air.

And being here was peaceful. Even the rattling cicadas in the scrub brush sounded like a lullaby. She’d always escaped here during her mother’s addiction-fueled rampages. A place she could run to from home.

Heather wondered what would have happened if her mother hadn’t sustained the back injury that’d hooked her on painkillers. Although it’d happened when Heather was too young to remember, she’d always wished she could have done something to prevent the muscle sprain—or seen the signs of her mother’s medicine misuse, a habit that’d become a much bigger problem than her back. She glanced around at the peeling white paint on the warped walls, up at the sagging ceiling, and out at the shaggy field. Like all baseball fields, it was beautiful to her. Abandoned or not.

She stretched out on the gouged wooden bench, feeling completely alone. Scout nudged his wet nose into her palm, and she smoothed the russet crown of his head. Well, maybe not absolutely alone. But still...after enduring her father’s constant stream of remarks that the soup was too bland, that the air-conditioning was too high, that his pills weren’t crushed well enough in the jelly...the recriminations seemed endless...she needed this time to herself.

She brought her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. At least she’d heard that Alicia had won her second game today, the accomplishment bolstering her. It’d also felt good when her university’s operations director, Chris, had said he’d be glad when she came home. Yet California would never be a place she could settle down. She was appreciated there, but it wasn’t where she belonged.

This was home. She remembered the grouchy old third baseman who’d been a career Minor Leaguer. He’d bought her Pixy Stix at the snack counter after every home win. The team’s bus driver came to mind. He’d let her sneak on board for a handful of away games the summer she’d turned eleven. The year her mother was worse than ever.

Being a part of that year’s championship run had instilled her love for the game while helping her escape a hellish life. She and the players weren’t related, but they’d always been her family. North Carolina’s dense woods, distant mountains and numerous streams part of her DNA.

Like a migrating bird, flying home had settled the part of her that’d felt adrift since she’d left for college. Maybe she’d apply for a coaching position locally. Keep an eye on her father and help out with the Falcons...if he’d let her. She craved his approval, but there was as much of a chance of getting that as there was of her returning one of her mother’s recent calls.

A moth fluttered by her forehead and she shooed it away, staring up at the cobweb-covered ceiling. She’d heard her mother’s promises too many times to trust them again. That faith had nearly killed her when she’d climbed into her parents’ car and woken up, two days later, in intensive care. It’d been her thirteenth birthday, a day marked with a lit candle stuck in green Jell-o and the news that Mom had checked herself out of the hospital and left their family for good.

She pulled up the hem of her sweatshirt and traced the raised silver scar that ran along her stomach. It was a tangible reminder of how close that trust had come to ending her life. Her mother’s abandonment left wounds the surgeons couldn’t stitch closed...so she’d done it herself, shutting off the part of her that could ever believe in others again.

Whomp ! The loud bang of a ball hitting the backstop echoed in the still twilight. She scrambled upright and peered into the purpling light, Scout already bounding for the field. A tall man stood on the pitcher’s mound, his chiseled profile outlined by the sun’s last rays. His strong jaw flexed and, in a blur of movement, he wound up and let loose another fastball, his biceps tense before he dropped his arms.

He was powerfully built with broad shoulders and a wide back that tapered to a lean waist and flat stomach. When he lifted the bottom of his shirt to mop his brow, she glimpsed a hard six-pack that sucked the air right out of her. The coach in her admired the physique that promised results on the field. The woman in her... Suddenly her sweatshirt was too warm over her tank top and she shrugged out of it, her eyes lingering on the strong play of his quadriceps shifting as he changed his stance.

Male, athletic beauty like his was undeniable. The symmetry of his features and body, and the animal grace of his movements, made it hard not to stare. She wasn’t in the market for a boyfriend. Needed to focus on her father and building her career. A romantic relationship would only distract her. Still, he was a pitcher, same as her. There was no harm in a little conversation about that... Besides, she needed to call off a barking Scout.

Oh, who was she kidding? It was hard to resist wanting a closer glimpse. And that’s all it could be, she told herself firmly as she sat up and left the dugout. How long had he played for the Falcons? She hadn’t seen him before. She would have remembered the tousled golden hair that grabbed the fading light and the intense eyes that suddenly swerved her way.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, her hands rising to her ribs as if to contain her ferociously beating heart. “Sorry to disturb you. Scout, down.” She gave a silent thank-you to her unreliable tongue for not tripping up her words and watched, grateful, as her sometimes unruly pet lowered his belly and muzzle to the dirt.

A frown marred the man’s handsome face, a line appearing between his slanted brows. He looked down at her over a straight nose that stopped above a pair of full lips. “This is a closed practice.” His eyes stared directly into hers, causing an odd, plummeting sensation in her legs. So much so that she dipped a little at the knees.

She opened her mouth, but now her voice had run down her throat. Looking at him made it hard to think—or speak.

He gestured to the square he’d marked off with glow-in-the-dark tape on the backstop. “If you don’t mind, I need to continue pitching. Alone. And this is private property.”

Heather pulled words from her throat as if she was raising them from a well, determined to match his arrogant tone. Who did this guy think he was?

That was the problem with good-looking guys. They expected everyone in the world to be nice to them but didn’t bother to return the favor.

“I know. It’s mine. Or my dad’s. I’m Heather Gadway.” She strode forward and extended a hand. When he shook it, a rush of awareness exploded up her arm.

“Garrett Wolf,” he drawled, his voice dark, smooth and hypnotic. “Your father recently signed me.” He glanced at Scout. “Nice dog.”

Words collected in her mouth and lay there, irritation weighing them down. He was the reclamation project, the reformed alcoholic who’d caused his last Triple-A team lots of trouble with the media and on the field. And she’d almost let herself be attracted to him. Well, shoot. That was not going to happen.

She dropped his hand as if she’d touched acid and stepped back, a knot forming in her throat. At five-ten, she was a tall woman, but Garrett had to be more than half a foot taller. Six-four or -five, maybe.

“Welcome to the team,” Heather forced out, not meaning it at all. Why had her father signed such a high-risk player, anyway? Sure, he was easy on the eyes, but it wasn’t like they were putting up billboards. Her dad, of all people, should know they didn’t need former addicts on the Falcons. What if he relapsed? Always a real possibility. “I’m visiting while my father recovers from his heart attack.”