Cathryn Parry - Out of His League

She turned back to her dilemma in the kitchen.

Every can of soup and package of cereal was emptied from her cupboard and spread out on her countertop. She had found nothing in her pantry or refrigerator that her nephew could eat.

This was her fault. She’d been so flustered over the fact that her sister had expected Brandon to stay with her—on one night’s notice—that’d she’d forgotten to stop at the supermarket. It was clear she needed to journey outside and brave traffic again. But there was no way she could leave an eight-year-old unattended. What to do?

She needed a babysitter, that’s what she needed.

Sighing, she crossed to the bulletin board where she’d tacked a slip of paper with the scribbled phone number for Mrs. Ham, the widow who lived in a condominium apartment downstairs. Elizabeth hated to ask people for favors—but the elderly lady was the only neighbor Elizabeth knew by name. Mrs. Ham walked with a cane, made it a point to talk to everybody and was home most of the time. Elizabeth remembered her talking about raising two boys, now grown and married and living in other states. Maybe she wouldn’t mind watching Brandon for fifteen minutes in her apartment while Elizabeth ran out to the store.

Before she could agonize over the decision, she made the call. Quickly, like ripping a bandage off a cut.

Mrs. Ham picked up on the first ring.

“Hello, this is Dr. Elizabeth LaValley from upstairs,” she said all in one breath. “I’m wondering if I could ask you a favor for tonight.”

“Tonight?” Mrs. Ham rasped. “It’s not a good time.” A television set blared in the background. “I’m watching the Eastern Series playoffs.”

“The...?” Elizabeth had no idea what the elderly lady was talking about.

“Auntie!” Brandon called from the living room.

“Excuse me for a moment, Mrs. Ham.” Elizabeth covered the phone. “Brandon, please, I am on the phone.”

Her nephew picked up the pillow from her couch and tossed it into the air. “Who are you talking to?”

“A babysitter. Put your shoes on, please, you’re going downstairs for a few minutes to watch the, uh, Eastern Series playoffs while I go out to the store.”

“But I can’t go downstairs.” Brandon sat up with an urgent look on his face. “I have to stay here. In your house.”

“You can’t stay here without me.” Elizabeth continued to cover the phone. “You’re eight years old.”

“But I need to. Just in case.”

“Just in case of what?”

And then the buzzer from the lobby rang. Elizabeth blinked, the meaning not registering at first. People did not visit her. She worked long hours, and the short amount of time that she spent at home she kept to herself.

Brandon perked up. “Can I answer the door?”

“No, I’ll do it.” She uncovered the phone and lifted it to her ear, intending to beg Mrs. Ham to watch the boy for just a few minutes, but it slipped from Elizabeth’s fingers and clattered to the counter. When she picked the phone up, she saw that she’d turned it off by mistake.

“Auntie!” Brandon nagged.

This was why she lived alone. To keep to herself. Oh, God, she felt like weeping. How was she supposed to manage sharing her time when she was just so greedy for privacy?

It couldn’t get any worse.

Her nephew tugged on her shirt. “I think it might be Jon Farell at the door.”

Jon? Her patient from the morning, with the beautiful blue eyes?

“I asked him to come,” Brandon said softly.

But it couldn’t be. It just could not be.

* * *

JON WAITED IN THE LOBBY, wondering if Lizzy was home. But at last he heard her voice answer from the intercom:

“Yes?” She sounded frazzled. In the background, the Scooby-Doo theme song played on a television set, a blast from his past.

That made him smile. “Hi, Dr. LaValley. It’s Jon Farell. Ah...I hope it’s okay, but Brandon asked me to stop by. I’m dropping off the autograph I promised him.”

“Jon! Jon! I knew you would come!”

A buzzer sounded, and Jon was on his way upstairs. She waited for him in the hallway before an open door, the light from an apartment shining behind her. Also behind her was Brandon, bouncing from side to side in his stocking feet, and wearing the huge grin of a typical, energetic eight-year-old glad to see his sports hero.

Jon felt relieved. The kid really didn’t look sick with cancer. Maybe he was okay?

Lizzy closed the door behind her so she was in the hall alone with Jon. “You should not have come,” she said to him in a low voice. Her face was pale. For the first time it occurred to him that this wasn’t a good idea to stop by unannounced.

“Sorry.” He held out a game ball he’d grabbed from his car for her nephew. He gave Lizzy his best “Mr. Helpful, I’m a Good Guy” smile, but she didn’t seem to be buying it. He shrugged. “I promised Brandon. The ball is from my last start of the season, against Toronto. We won.”

But New York had won their game, too, so the Captains hadn’t made a wild-card slot into the play-offs. Still, Jon had done his part, and Brandon, numbers kid that he was, should appreciate Jon’s stats from that outing.

“When did my nephew give you my private address?” she asked, not taking the baseball he offered. Her arms were crossed, and she was rubbing them, as if worried.

“Ah...Brandon and I talked in the recovery room. He asked me to stop by tonight to deliver an autograph for him.”

Her eyes grew huge. “Brandon was in the recovery room?”

“It’s okay, Lizzy. Lots of local kids are baseball fans. He probably just heard I was in the hospital, and he came to check it out. I’d have done it, too, at his age.”

“I did not give you permission to come to my house, and do not call me Lizzy.”

He gazed down at her. Why this woman intrigued him so much, he had no idea. She was buttoned up so tight—or in her case, zipped up, with a gray fitted turtleneck sweatshirt that went right up to her chin. He couldn’t help staring at that zipper pull, swinging back and forth from the force of her flustered breathing, and then he looked at her mouth.

Bow-shaped lips, without a speck of gloss or lipstick on them. They weren’t all plumped up, either. They were good, old-fashioned naked lips, and he would love to—

“Jon Farell!”

His gaze jerked to her face.

“Are you even listening to me?” she asked.

“Yes.” And she had said his name correctly, so that was a good sign. He smiled at her again.

Before she could react, pounding started on the other side of the door. Lizzy put her head in her hands.

“Let Jon Farell in, Auntie!” Brandon yelled.

“It’s okay,” he said to Lizzy. “I’ll give him the autograph I promised, then I’ll leave.”

“I don’t want you inside with us,” she hissed. “You can give the ball to him in the hallway, out here.”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is what I want.”

“Auntie!” came Brandon’s muffled yell.

She seemed to cringe. “And furthermore,” she whispered to Jon, “you’ll tell no one you’ve been here, do you understand? I am a private person, and I find your public lifestyle abhorrent.”

Abhorrent, that was a big word just to say she didn’t like it.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” he said gently. “I won’t tell anyone I was here. And it’s not like I’m Brad Pitt. I don’t have paparazzi tailing after me everywhere.”

She still didn’t seem mollified. “I value my independence.”

And then she opened the door a crack and said to Brandon, “Please watch your TV program and be patient. Just give us a moment.”

There was her problem—she was too formal and too much of an adult with the kid.