Out of Her League

by Lori Handeland

  Joe turned and froze. “You.”

  “I think we’ve had this conversation before,” Evelyn Vaughn said. “Why is it I can’t seem to take a step without running into you or your offspring, Mr. Scalotta?”

  In the midst of admiring the legs of the lovely Mrs. Vaughn—he’d never had a teacher who looked that good in shorts; heck, he’d never had a teacher who wore shorts—Joe frowned and glanced up. “You’ve met my daughter?”

  She raised her eyebrows at his perusal but didn’t comment.

  “She seems to have ended up on my team.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “I was short a player, so the next kid who signed up was mine. I’m sure the other coaches think it’s a riot I got a girl.” She grinned, and there was a bit of wolf around the edges. “Are they gonna be surprised.”

  “You teach, coach Big League and manage all the coaches?”

  The smile hovering on her lips froze. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  The way she asked the question, chin up, a little defensive, made Joe think of his ex-wife. Karen had always met any hint of conflict head-on, sometimes before any conflict appeared, just so she could be on top of the situation. And she had been forever on the go, taking any job or volunteer position in order to climb higher up the ladder. Why should Evelyn Vaughn be any different?

  “I don’t have a problem with your multitude of jobs. Do your children? Seems to me a mom should be with her kids.”

  Someone on a nearby diamond shouted, “Hey, Evie! How’s it going?”

  She waved and nodded. They all seemed to know her in this town, and why wouldn’t they? She looked to be involved in just about everything.

  Evie turned back to Joe with a scowl. “My kids are none of your business. So you can keep your outdated, chauvinistic attitude to yourself.”

  She was right, and Joe realized it. He couldn’t help how he’d been raised or what he believed. He was a fifties man living in a new-millennium world. What he needed to do was keep his thoughts to himself. Most of the time they just got him into trouble.

  Evie took a deep breath, as if for patience, and when she spoke her voice held a professional distance that matched the expression on her face. “Danny tells me you’d like to coach T-ball.”

  “Well, I didn’t exactly say so.”

  “That’s what I figured.” A sharp sigh blew her bangs upward. She went down on one knee next to her son and gazed into his eyes. “Mr. Scalotta is too busy, and he probably knows nothing about baseball. We’ll find you another coach.”

  “But I want him.” Danny stabbed a finger in Joe’s direction.

  “We don’t always get what we want. That’s not news.”

  The little boy’s shoulders slumped. “I guess. But why can’t I get what I want just once?”

  Evie rolled her eyes, then ran a hand over the top of her son’s head. “I’ll find someone to coach your team. Just give me a little time. I’ll find you the best coach. Someone who really knows the game and understands seven-year-old kids.”

  Joe gritted his teeth at the slight. He wasn’t a total moron. He did have some knowledge of baseball. Just because he’d played football didn’t mean he was ignorant of every other sport. What he didn’t know about T-ball he could pick up from a manual. He could read, after all. And he’d spent years playing games with grown men—huge, mean men. After that, how tough could ten or twelve seven-year-olds be? He could handle the T-ball league with his eyes closed.

  Before Joe could think twice about what he was going to do, he stepped forward and put a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Never mind, kid. You’ve got yourself a coach.”

  *

  Chapter Three

  Sunday evening and the clock read 8:00. Evie wandered through her house, which was quiet at last, checking the locks as she did every night. The twins lay in bed, having completed their litany of last-minute requests.

  “I need a drink.”

  “One more book.”

  “I have to go pee.”

  Adam listened to music in his bedroom, earphones firmly in place so as not to wake the twins, while he finished his homework.

  Evie reached the kitchen and debated making a half pot of coffee. Did she really need the caffeine? She stood very still for a moment, and lethargy gripped her. Yes, she did. She had essays to grade for senior health and a final exam to prepare before she could go to bed. Then the twins would be up before the sun. They always were. As she filled the coffeepot with water, Evie stared into the darkness beyond her kitchen window.

  Another day over. She’d made it through.

  Hard to believe that a week ago the name Joe Scalotta was only one she’d heard on television or read in the paper. Now the man filled her thoughts more often than not. She was attracted to him; she couldn’t deny that. She didn’t deny it—she just didn’t like it. He was exactly the type of man she needed to avoid. Forever playing little-boy games, macho to the core, a total disaster in waiting. Just the thought of the man brought back memories Evie fought every day to keep at bay.

  After her husband had been killed in a motorcycle accident when the twins were only a year old, there had been many mornings when just making it through the day sane had been a doubtful prospect. Not that Evie had been crushed with grief—not exactly. By the time Ray had died, she’d felt little beyond contempt for the man she’d once loved deeply.

  Ray had remained a little boy at heart until the day of his death. Handsome, fun loving, irresponsible—bottom of the pile in father and husband attributes. He and Evie had been high school sweethearts. Back then, when they were seventeen, Ray had represented a dream come true to the new girl in town who was shy, scared and terribly insecure.

  Evie was the product of a policeman father, who taught her sports as soon as he discovered her God-given talent for any game that involved a ball. But while her father had praised such talent and helped her to mold it, the rest of the world saw Evie as something of a freak. Girls did not play as well as the boys in those days, or if they could, they did not admit it. When she moved to Newsome, she felt lost, and alone, and weird.

  Until the cutest guy in school fell for her. Evie flowered into a princess, and Ray was her prince. She loved him with all her heart and soul, believing with a childlike hope that she could save Ray from himself. Then the clock struck midnight. Evie became pregnant, married Ray and settled down. For Ray, the playing never stopped.

  When Adam was born, Ray was off on a road trip to Chicago with his buddies. It was Super Bowl weekend, and the gambling pools were more impressive in the big-city bars. Though her parents loved her and never turned their backs on her, still their disappointment hovered in the air whenever they came near. So Evie sweated through the sixteen-hour labor alone.

  Her husband arrived in time to hold his day-old son.

  Evie had so hoped Ray would change once Adam was born. No such luck. For the next nine years, Ray went from one job to the next, spending what money they put aside on fast cars, motorcycles, drinking and gambling.

  The coffee burped and dribbled a last drip into the pot. Evie roused herself enough to pour a cup, then carried it to the kitchen table and spread her papers out before her. But once the memories had started, they could not be stopped. Instead of correcting the essays, Evie stared into her coffee and continued to remember.

  She had stayed with Ray for her son’s sake, but when she overheard him telling Adam to have a sip of whiskey, exhorting him to “Be a man like Daddy,” Evie took Adam and went to stay with her parents.

  Then the one thing happened that could make Evie give Ray another chance. The rabbit died, and Evie was right back where she’d started at seventeen—only worse. Pregnant, with no options or education, this time with a nine-year-old son, as well.

  Ray swore he’d change, and for a little while he had. When the twins were born, he stayed beside her through the delivery and even helped her with some of the night feedings. Then the familiar cycle started over agai
n—gambling, drinking, new cars and motorcycles—until the night when the doorbell rang at three a.m.

  Her father stood on Evie’s doorstep, and before he opened his mouth, she knew. He held her close while he explained that Ray had been driving his motorcycle under the influence and had decided to play chicken with a pickup truck. His neck broke when he hit the pavement.

  Her parents helped Evie with the boys while she earned the teaching degree she’d once given up as lost. One of her father’s buddies, who was the athletic director in Oak Grove, offered her a position, and she packed up her children and moved out of town. The boys needed to live in a place that did not look upon them as “sons of that no-account Ray Vaughn.”

  The twins were too young to remember their dad, but sometimes Evie caught Adam looking at the picture of Ray he kept on his bedside table. She’d tried to talk to him about his father, but Adam refused to discuss the subject. He was a quiet boy, a good boy. Sometimes, though, she wondered how much he recollected of his father, and how much like Ray he really was inside. Such thoughts scared her to death.

  Joe stared at the picture of Karen on his daughter’s night table. Her pale blond hair had been cut by a master, who’d made the strands fall about her flawless face to the best advantage. Karen had been beautiful, intelligent, seemingly perfect in every way—until you looked into her eyes. Even in the picture, Joe saw the coldness that came straight from his ex-wife’s heart.

  He should have seen the same coldness when he looked into Evie Vaughn’s eyes. A woman who was out for her career at the expense of everyone and everything should reflect that selfishness in her eyes. Yet Joe thought he saw warmth, and caring, and a hint of the same attraction that had grabbed him the moment he realized she was a woman and not a child.

  Toni walked into the room wearing a T-shirt that sported a sleeping cat. She’d braided her long, blond hair—a color that Joe always thought of as corn-husk blond, though he knew his daughter would not appreciate the comparison—and she appeared younger than her sixteen years. Joe swallowed the uncommon lump of emotion in his throat. God, he loved her, and he had missed so many years of her life.

  “‘Night, Joe.”

  “‘Night, sweetheart.” Joe kissed the top of her head and crossed to the door. “See you in the morning.” He turned out the light and left the room.

  Tucking in a teenager was pushing it, but Joe couldn’t help himself. He had so little time left before she was all grown up. He’d take advantage of every gift she allowed him.

  Joe sat in the living room and absently flipped through the television channels with the remote control, not really seeing the programs or caring what they were. He left the television tuned to a rerun of I Love Lucy and let his mind wander once more.

  He couldn’t blame Karen for everything that had gone wrong with their marriage. He’d been attracted by her ambition and drive. Those two traits were as much a part of him as breathing, and he admired them in others. So why had he come to detest Karen for the same traits that had interested him in the first place?

  Maybe because he saw in her neglect of Toni a reflection of his own behavior. But one thing he could not forgive Karen for was her never-ending criticism of their daughter. Karen had constantly harped on the girl. Toni never dressed right, walked right, spoke right, ate right or looked right. As a result, Toni now tried too hard to please everyone, rarely considering her own happiness.

  Toni’s aptitude for baseball appeared to give her confidence, and though Joe would have liked to keep his daughter as far away from Coach Mom as possible, he couldn’t take from Toni this first step toward self-assurance. Since he would be coaching Danny Vaughn’s T-ball team, he’d just keep an eye on the boy’s mother and make sure she understood how to deal with young girls. He would not let his daughter be ruined further by a woman concerned with perfection to the exclusion of all else.

  Joe clicked off the television, listening as the silence settled around him. He hadn’t lived in such a quiet place since he’d left home. At night, the sounds of the neighborhood disappeared, one by one, until only an occasional barking dog broke the silence. Oak Grove, Iowa, was peaceful—just the sort of place he and Toni needed. Joe had lived too long on the road with too many people and too much noise. He was tired of it all.

  But at least on the road he’d never had a chance to become lonely. Someone was always available for a game of cards, a drink in the bar, an hour of conversation. Now he had only Toni.

  He needed to start dating again. There had to be some single women in Oak Grove—stable, dependable women who could help him make a home and understand his daughter.

  His dream was outdated, even chauvinistic, but he couldn’t help himself. His childhood had been the stuff of a Mark Twain novel: long summer days playing with his brothers, fishing on the Mississippi, camping beneath the stars, followed by cold winter nights studying in the kitchen, endless pillow fights, squabbles and wrestling matches.

  Joe smiled. He missed those days. He wanted to experience days like those again—from a father’s side of the fence. And he would. He just needed to stay on course, focus on his goal and rush over every obstacle. Kind of like football.

  So what if he continued to see Evie Vaughn’s face every time he closed his eyes. He could handle that.

  No problem.

  The day after school let out for the summer, Evie held a picnic for the members of her Big League team. The backyard filled with teenage boys, and the twins ran circles around small groups, pestering Adam and his friends.

  Evie watched from the kitchen while she made another pitcher of pink lemonade. She loved summer—the warmth, the freedom, the opportunity to shape diverse young people into a team. The self-confidence her players developed while on her team was one of the best gifts of Big League ball.

  The doorbell rang, and Evie dried her hands on a dish towel before she went to answer. She stopped at the sight of Joe Scalotta, resplendent in a royal-blue T-shirt and stonewashed jeans, standing on the other side of the screen, his huge hand cupped over Toni’s shoulder.

  “Hi,” Joe said, his voice cool and remote. “When should I pick her up?”

  Evie pushed open the screen, smiling at Toni and motioning her inside. “Everyone’s out back,” she told the girl. “Why don’t you join them?”

  Toni nodded and went through the living room into the kitchen. The back door slammed as the girl left the house.

  Evie fixed her attention on the father. “I’m not exactly sure when we’ll be done. If they’re having fun and they’re not too crazy, they can stay all day. I’ll have Adam drive Toni home, if you’d like.”

  Joe frowned and stepped forward. Evie, who was still holding the screen door partway open, took a hurried step back as he came inside. Biting her lip, she forced herself to stand still. What was it about the man that appealed to her? His size? His looks? His seemingly endless array of colorful T-shirts? Or maybe the cold eyes that made her feel hot all over?

  “Adam. That’s your son?”

  “Yes. He’s seventeen—very responsible, I assure you.”

  “Yeah, aren’t they all. I remember seventeen quite well, thank you. I’ll pick Toni up myself. Just have her call me when she wants to come home.”

  “Fine.” Evie tamped down her irritation at Joe’s implication. He was just protecting his daughter. She’d react the same way if Toni were her child.

  Laughter drifted to them on the breeze, and they both focused on the sound.

  “Seems they’re having a good time already,” Joe ventured, returning his gaze to Evie’s face.

  Evie tried not to shift with discomfort under his perusal. Suddenly she was all too aware of her lack of makeup and short cap of hair, cut close to her head to shear preparation time every morning. She gritted her teeth to keep from looking down at what she wore. If she remembered right, she’d put on her most comfortable pair of cutoff shorts and a loose cotton shirt, favorites because of their age and well-washed softness. Her toes cu
rled against the ceramic tile of the entryway; her shoes resided on the back porch.

  An analysis of the reason she gave two hoots how she looked to Joe Scalotta was interrupted by the whirlwind arrival of Benji, who came skidding through the kitchen doorway and slammed to a halt against the back of Evie’s legs.

  She stumbled forward, and Joe grabbed her by the shoulders. His big hands felt scaldingly hot as they molded the thin material of her shirt against her skin. Catching her breath, she glanced into his eyes. She saw the same heat there, and she hurriedly regained her footing, then pulled away before she did something extremely stupid.

  Joe ignored her to smile at her son. “Hey, there, Danny. You ready for T-ball practice next week?”

  Benji squinted all the way up the mountain of man, his eyes widening when they reached Joe’s face. “Who’s he?”

  “This is Mr. Scalotta. Toni’s dad.”

  Obviously puzzled, Joe looked from Benji to Evie. “He’s the one who asked me to be his coach. Now he doesn’t remember me?”

  “That was Danny.”

  “I know.” Joe pointed at Benji. “Danny.”‘

  “I’m Benji,” the boy shouted. “Why does everybody get us mixed up, Mom? You never do.”

  Evie smiled. Benji and Danny were not above tricking people about their identities. Joe Scalotta would have his hands full coaching the two of them in T-ball. “I don’t get you mixed up because I’m your mother and I know everything. Now, go back outside. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Benji raced off, whatever he’d wanted in the first place forgotten, and Evie turned back to meet Joe’s rueful smile.

  “Twins,” he said.

  “Bingo. Want to back out of being their coach now?”

  “Not a chance. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Why?” Evie couldn’t understand what would entice a man like Joe Scalotta to spend his summer with a herd of seven-year-olds.

  “I like kids. Always have. But I’ve never had the opportunity to get involved with them before. And this way I’ll be able to keep my eye on things.”