Out of Her League

by Lori Handeland

  Evie raised her eyebrows at the hopeful tone of his voice. He was trying to convince himself as much as he was her. “Of course. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a class to teach.” Evie turned away.

  A hand on her arm stopped her. She looked down at the offending fingers, then up at their owner. Taking the hint, he set her free, but Evie could still feel the imprint of that hand. Gritting her teeth, she purposefully ignored the shiver of awareness. She knew where such mindless attractions led—straight to disaster.

  “Did you want something else, Mr. Scalotta?” The chill in her voice warred with the heat of her body.

  “Joe.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My name is Joe. My father is Mr. Scalotta.”

  “You’re a parent. I’m a teacher. I see no reason for us to start calling each other by our first names.”

  He shrugged, the easy movement stretching the taut black cotton across his chest. She’d always enjoyed the sight of a well-built man in a T-shirt. Evie yanked her gaze from the intriguing view and met his eyes, startled again by the light color against the bronze of his face.

  “Suit yourself, Mrs. Vaughn. I wondered if you could spare a moment to discuss Toni. Advising is part of your job, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. A part. But right now my job is teaching freshman phys ed, and if I don’t get outside, they’re likely to start without me. Believe me, Mr. Scalotta, we don’t want twenty freshmen having a gym class alone.” She shook her head. “It wouldn’t be pretty.”

  A chuckle slipped from Scalotta’s lips, and from the expression on his face, the spark of humor surprised him as much as it surprised her.

  “No, I can’t imagine that it would. Something like the first day of training camp with a team full of rookies.”

  Evie stared at him blankly.

  “Football, Mrs. Vaughn. I used to play football. I’m afraid I have the habit—annoying, or so I’ve been told—of likening life to the playing field.”

  “Football,” Evie repeated. “Professional?”

  “Yeah.” He gave a half smile. “I guess you don’t follow the game much. I used to be pretty good.”

  Suddenly she remembered those eyes, that hair, the size—but, of course, he’d never looked this big on her small television set. “Joe Scalotta.” The name burst from her lips. “Holy cow! You mean you’re that Scalotta? Defensive lineman? Pro Bowl six years running? The Iceman?”

  “You do follow the game.”

  “I’m a high school physical education teacher. Of course I follow football. If not because I like the game, which I do, but because I don’t want to appear like a moron to my students.”

  “Good point.”

  “That explains how you can throw hundred-dollar bills around like paper. You left before we could give your money back.”

  He frowned. “I don’t want it back. Get your car fixed.”

  “We have insurance.”

  “We?”

  “Me. My family.”

  “Ah … your husband, and you, and whoever that was with you this morning.”

  Evie stifled a smile. “Definitely not my boyfriend. And I don’t have a husband. He died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t need your money.”

  “Take it. I was at fault.”

  Evie hesitated. Actually, she did need the money. Badly. She had no extra cash for a new car door and she could hardly drive without one. “All right.” Swallowing her pride, she nodded. “Thank you.”

  He acknowledged her thanks with a shrug of one large shoulder. “I suppose you should get to class before all hell breaks loose. I’ll just give you a call about Toni.”

  Evie bit her lip. The thought of any more encounters with this man unsettled her. An ex-professional football player, no less. Top of the macho hill. Absolutely bad news—especially for Evelyn Vaughn.

  Just her luck she hadn’t experienced such an instantaneous attraction since she’d met Ray—and with that memory to guide her, she should run for cover like a scared rabbit. But Evie couldn’t run from Joe Scalotta, and she couldn’t hide, either. From the looks of him, he’d find her wherever she went.

  “Sure, call me and we’ll discuss your daughter. I’d be happy to help in any way I can.” With a sharp nod Evie walked away, not pausing until she reached the relative safety of the softball diamonds.

  As she set about putting order to the pandemonium around her, Evie couldn’t keep her mind from returning to Joe Scalotta. Despite her best intentions, she wondered when she would see him next, and where her dangerous attraction for the wrong type of man would lead her this time.

  Joe drove home, his mind filled with Mrs. Evelyn Vaughn. She was exactly the type of female he should avoid: bossy, opinionated, a career woman. He needed a settling-down kind of woman—someone who would take care of Toni the way the girl had never been taken care of. Someone who could understand his daughter. He certainly couldn’t.

  Joe yanked the wheel to the right and turned into his driveway. The house, a colonial situated in a quiet suburb of Oak Grove, was much too big for the two of them. But the place reminded Joe of his childhood home in rural Missouri, where he’d lived happily with his parents and three brothers, and he’d been unable to resist.

  “Toni?” Joe called as he came in the front door. “In here.”

  He stepped into the family room and found his daughter exactly as he’d left her—watching game shows on the television. Joe couldn’t remember spending any childhood free time watching TV when the sun shone, but then, he’d had three brothers to play with. Toni had only him.

  She looked up from the screen. “Hi, Joe.”

  “Hi.” It hurt every time she called him “Joe” and not “Dad,” but once she’d turned twelve, that was what she’d done. He had no idea why, and he didn’t know how to ask. Or maybe he was afraid to. He’d rather face a 350-pound offensive lineman than have his daughter tell him he was such a terrible father that she couldn’t bring herself to address him as “Dad.” Joe hoped to change her mind—but once again, he wasn’t quite sure how.

  “You been sitting here since I left?”

  Dismay flickered over Toni’s face, and Joe wanted to smack himself. She’d taken his question as a criticism, when all he’d meant to do was make conversation. She stood. “I’ll have a shower and get dressed.”

  Joe wracked his brain for a way to get through to her. “Why don’t we go out to lunch. I’ll tell you about your new school.”

  Toni hesitated, almost as though she were going to refuse, then she shrugged, nodded and left the room. She pounded up the stairs; seconds later the shower hissed. Joe wasn’t sure whether he should be happy she’d agreed to go or dismayed she’d agreed only to please him.

  He sat on the couch and stared at the happy people on the television screen, who had just won a trip to Tahiti for spelling a word he had never heard of. What was he going to do about Toni?

  Since Joe and his wife, Karen, had split up over ten years earlier, he’d seen very little of Toni. During the season, he’d been on the road with his team. In the off-season, there’d been days here and there—a weekend, a holiday—typical of a divorced father’s visitation rights. Now his little girl was a young woman, and he had no idea how to be a father to her.

  The death of her mother from cancer right before Christmas had devastated Toni. Even though a nanny had cared for Toni since birth, Karen had still been Toni’s mother, and her death continued to haunt the teenager.

  Karen had been a corporate headhunter, a perfectionist, a career woman with the mothering instincts of a python. Joe never should have let her have custody of Toni, but what would he have done with a little girl on the road? Joe sighed. He could feel guilty for the rest of his life over something he could not change, or he could set about making things right between his daughter and him.

  Joe stood when Toni came back down the stairs. He would just have to show her that things were different with Dad. She did n
ot need to be perfect. He loved her just the way she was. He would erase the tension from her smile, the wariness from her eyes and the sadness from her face. He just had to figure out how.

  Toni entered the room. She looked like a picture Joe had once seen of his mother as a young girl—all long coltish legs and sleek blond hair. Her skin tanned easily, like his, but her eyes were warm, Italian brown instead of Joe’s light blue, a throwback to a nearly forgotten Norwegian ancestor.

  Joe ushered her out of the house and into the car. A short, silent ride into town followed.

  They lunched at a nearby cafe, sitting at a table outside beneath the late-May sunshine. Joe bit into his Reuben on rye, then watched as Toni took tiny bites of a turkey on white. To him it didn’t seem that she ate enough, but what did he know? He was used to dining with football players, and they definitely ate more than sixteen-year-old girls. The books he’d read about teenagers all said the same thing—don’t make an issue out of nothing. Save your breath for real problems. Joe’s dilemma was that he saw a “problem” wherever he looked.

  “What do you want to do this summer?” he blurted to keep himself from another round of silent questions and guilt.

  Toni popped a piece of the sandwich into her mouth, leaned her chin on one hand and chewed as she thought. Then with a shy smile she said, “I’d like to play baseball.”

  “Huh?” Joe hadn’t expected that.

  “I’m pretty good. I was on the team at home.” Flushing, she sat up straighter, putting her hands into her lap. “I mean, where I used to live. I saw in the paper that Big League practices begin this weekend. I’d like to go.”

  “Your mother never said you played.”

  Toni took another bite. “She traveled a lot.”

  “Yeah. We both did.” He tried to look into his daughter’s eyes, but her attention was occupied with pushing her food around on her plate. Once again, he didn’t know what to say except that he was sorry—and he figured she’d heard that enough from him already.

  “I’ll drive you to practice. I’d love to see you play.”

  Toni eyed him and grinned. It was the first real smile Joe had seen on her face since he’d taken her away with him. Joe smiled back.

  Maybe, just maybe, they could make this work.

  The morning of league practice arrived with the threat of a downpour heavy on the air. But by ten o’clock the sky had filled with sunshine—an ideal Iowa spring morning—and the baseball diamonds behind the high school had filled with kids.

  Evie arrived precisely at ten. She’d wanted to be at the field at least half an hour early to watch the players warm up, but Danny had lost his shoes, then Benji had found them but neglected to tell the rest of the family. She’d spent a frantic fifteen minutes with her head under every piece of furniture in the house, before Adam had pried the shoes loose from behind his brother’s back.

  She dropped the twins off at the T-ball practice for seven-year-olds, waved at the father who was brave enough to referee, and hurried over to where the Big League hopefuls awaited her on the field.

  In small-town Oak Grove, Little League, Senior League and Big League baseball dominated the spring and summer months. Boys and girls ages six through eighteen could participate. The games were as much a social event as an athletic activity, and when a team had the potential of going to the championship—the way Evie’s did—interest skyrocketed. Already a majority of the onlookers had gathered to watch her players.

  Evie drew in a deep breath. She’d been virtually assured of the boys’ baseball varsity coaching position next spring if she could take her team to the Big League state championship. The coaches of the boys’ teams received higher salaries because of the larger number of participants and the larger number of fans at the games. Evie wanted that money for her sons. College was expensive these days.

  Last year her team had missed the championship by one paltry game. They would go this year if her luck held—and if she could find a decent pitcher.

  Evie squinted against the morning sunshine and surveyed the boys waiting for her attention. How was she to find a new star player in a town where all the kids on her team this year had played for her the year before? Sure, she had younger players she’d drafted last month, but she knew what she had—and no one could pitch.

  Sighing, she walked forward. Too bad she couldn’t entice some of the girls she’d coached during their junior high years back into the game. Though Big League was open to both sexes, by the time the kids were juniors and seniors, the girls had gone on to other interests. She would just have to train a younger player, mold him into what she needed and pray for the best. She was a coach—a darn good one. She could conquer this obstacle. She would. Her dream of sending her sons to college depended upon it.

  “Good morning, boys,” she called.

  “‘Mornin’, Coach Vaughn.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Evie paused in the midst of dumping a bag of baseballs onto the ground, her gaze searching the crowd for the owner of the voice. “Who said that?”

  “I did.” A tall blond girl stepped through the herd of boys. “I just wanted to let you know I was here.” She shrugged and glanced around sheepishly. “You said ‘boys’ and well…” Kicking at the grass with the toe of her baseball spikes, the girl avoided Evie’s eyes. “I’m not a boy.”

  “No.” Evie smiled. “I can see you’re not.” Evie couldn’t remember this girl from earlier years, but then, they changed so fast. “I take it you’d like to play Big League?”

  “Yeah. I was told to come to your team ‘cause you were short a player, and I missed the tryouts. Is that right?”

  “You’re new in Oak Grove?” The weight in Evie’s chest lightened at the girl’s nod. “What position did you play on your old team?”

  “Pitcher.”

  This is too lucky to be true, Evie thought before addressing the girl once more. “Are you any good?”

  “I pitched in the state championships last year. But we didn’t win.”

  “Hot dog!” Evie clapped her hands, then bent down to snatch a baseball from the ground. Tossing it to the girl, she said to Adam, “Let’s see what she can do.”

  In seconds Evie’s team had taken position in the outfield. The boys had played together since childhood, with few additions or deletions. They were a great team. All they needed was a break.

  Evie stood at home plate and lined up to bat. With a smile, she nodded to the girl on the pitcher’s mound.

  The windup.

  Steady eyes, Evie thought. Looks good.

  The throw. Fast and straight on.

  Evie swung, expecting to hear her bat connect with the ball. Instead, she stumbled forward when her bat connected with her left shoulder. Turning, she stared in amazement at the ball resting in Adam’s glove.

  She’d whiffed! She hadn’t whiffed since high school.

  Shading her eyes, Evie squinted toward the pitcher’s mound. “What’s your name?” she shouted.

  “Antonia. But everyone calls me ‘Toni.’ Toni Scalotta.”

  Evie’s hand dropped back to her side and hung, a dead weight. “Scalotta,” she muttered. “That figures.”

  Joe had driven Toni to the baseball diamonds, but, at her request, he stayed away from where she was playing. His daughter wanted to do this on her own, and she knew too well how teenage boys reacted to the sight of Iceman Scalotta.

  Instead, Joe walked around the section of the field where the smaller children practiced. He found their antics as they learned the basics of baseball endearing.

  Standing on the outskirts of one diamond, Joe watched in amazement as the boys and girls in the field played a game he’d never seen before. It looked to be some kind of tackle baseball, with every child on the field racing for the ball, even going so far as to take it away from a teammate by force. Then, when the winner tried to throw the ball back to the infield, he or she discovered there was no one left to throw the ball to. They had all left their posts to
chase after the runaway hit, and now the runner headed for home, stubby legs pumping like an old-fashioned steam engine.

  Joe had to bite down on his cheek to keep from laughing. A tug on his pant leg had him looking down into the bright blue eyes of a redheaded tyke.

  “Hi,” Joe ventured. “Are you lost?”

  “Nope. I’m Danny.”

  “Uh-huh. Did you want something?”

  “Yeah. A T-ball coach. My team’s the only one without a coach. If we can’t get one, we can’t play.”

  “Why don’t you ask your dad?”

  “Can’t. He’s dead.”

  Joe frowned. Poor kid. Cute little thing, too. Still, Joe had to discourage the child right away. He knew nothing about little boys and even less about coaching T-ball. As he stared out at the team he’d been watching, he noticed another redheaded kid in the outfield.

  “That your brother?” Joe pointed to the milling crowd of players.

  “I’ve got a big brother. Adam. He’s on the Big League team. Over there.” Danny shot a thumb over his shoulder toward the field where Joe had last seen Toni. “Hey, mister, what about bein’ my coach?”

  The kid wasn’t going to be sidetracked. “Did you ask your mom? I’m sure if you explained your problem, she’d help you out. Moms are like that.”

  “Can’t. She’s already coachin’ my big brother’s team.”

  “Oh.” Joe frowned. Now what? The kid kept staring at him, big blue eyes full of hope. Joe tried one more time. “I’m sorry, Danny. But I don’t know anything about T-ball.”

  “That’s okay. Neither do we.” Danny fixed Joe with a smile that was all the sweeter because of the two empty spaces in his bottom row of teeth. “I’ll get my mom. She’s in charge of the coaches, too. You can talk to her.”

  Before Joe could stop him, the redheaded imp raced off. Joe had been bamboozled by a pint-size sharpie. He couldn’t remember saying yes, but somehow he felt as though he had. Well, he’d just have to find a way to extricate himself from the situation once he talked to Coach Mom.

  “Here she is, mister.” Danny’s voice piped above the shouts of the other children.