by Eden Connor
Jonah skulked out of the stadium silently, one hand holding the ice pack to his slumped shoulder and the other clenching the truck keys, his head held lower than Colton's heart as the reason for Lila's anger crystallized.
Although he believed he'd figured out what had her so irate, he had no idea how she thought this thing should have gone. Wasn't Jonah supposed to pitch no matter what if it was his night? A case of food poisoning had the team down to only two pitchers, and they played twice a week. What other choice was there?
Reggie lingered in the dugout, as if sensing her fury. Colton exchanged glances with Daniel and Eric.
"Okay, Lila, why don't you tell me what you'd have done differently," Reggie said belligerently as he finally approached. Colton noticed he'd taken his aggressive stance, and the small man crossed big arms over his chest. "I don't have another pitcher. Kyle's still sick, and we almost pulled it out."
"If you were unwilling to give someone else a chance to change your mind about their pitching abilities, then you should have forfeited," Lila answered promptly. "A hundred and seventeen pitches, Reggie. He's thirteen years old. Games in this league aren't worth blowing an arm." She glared at the coach in outrage. Colton could feel her trembling as he placed his hand on the small of her back, trying to calm her. "The only person this game will matter to in three years is you, but Jonah might not get the chance to play high school ball if you keep abusing his arm."
Reggie appeared to consider that for a minute. Colton's spirits sank as he saw his mistake. She'd tried to get him to go ask Reggie to take Jonah out of the game, but he'd blown her off, because the team had no other pitcher available. He'd allowed himself to get so caught up in the action on the field he'd forgotten the bigger picture. This league was competitive, yes, but the games that actually counted for much of anything were the games Jonah might play in high school and beyond. A forfeit wouldn't have been the popular choice with the competitive crowd, but the pain he'd seen on Jonah's face said Lila was right.
He thought guiltily of the box of information she'd given him about injury-prevention. He'd read a couple of pages of Pete's notebook, but seeing Pete's handwriting made him feel weird, so he'd stopped reading and while cleaning up one day, he had placed the box on a shelf, and had never given it another thought.
Nothing was worth risking Jonah's safety and well-being, not even something Jonah loved, he realized, about an hour too late. He'd allowed his pride over what Jonah could do with a baseball to overshadow his responsibility to look out for the kid. Baseball had put a smile back on Jonah's face, and all Colton had been able to think when Lila made her suggestion had been how mad Jonah would be if he had asked Reggie to pull him off the mound.
He was so busy trying to be Jonah's friend he'd forgotten to be Jonah's parent.
Reggie's response eclipsed Colton's guilt. "Were Pete's balls already on your mantle, Lila, or did you have to get them from the undertaker?"
Colton jumped forward, but Lila moved faster, wedging herself in front of him as she hissed at Reggie. "I take that cheap shot as an admission on your part that you don't have a good defense. You try this crap again, and I'll pull him off the field myself. Then, it will just be you and me, little man. Well, you, me, and a hearing down at Parks and Rec."
Colton had no idea what she meant, but it got Reggie's attention.
"Coaching's a privilege you continue to abuse, not your God-given right, Reggie. And you better pray when I get to that truck and talk to Jonah, he doesn't tell me you blamed him for tonight's loss. Because if he does, even God can't help you."
Reggie sneered and shrugged dismissively. "Whatever that means. Tucker hates this sort of crap from some whining mother. Oh, wait, I forgot, you're not Jonah's mother. You're just banging the uncle."
Colton was damn determined to get around her now, gently pushing her toward Dan as he stepped in front of her to lean over the smaller man. She let go her grip on his waist. "I'm finished here," she informed him, swiping the back of her hand across her forehead, shaking off Dan's hands. "Let's check on Jonah's arm and get something to eat. Colton, you have to—"
He lifted Reggie off the concrete. "Be the bigger man?"
He got eye-to-eye with the man who had dared be disrespectful to the woman he loved, outrage making his heart slam into his ribs.
"Colton, you need to—"
"Remember there are children here?" He'd listened as she had talked to the other parents about various ugly incidents that had happened at tournaments and games in the past. He knew she was concerned about setting examples for the impressionable kids on these teams. And she had always sent Jonah away before having any disagreement with his coach. But Colton couldn't let it go as he gave Reggie a shake, the coach dancing like a rag doll in his grasp. "What did you say the first day we met, Reggie?" He shook the coach again. "Game, set, match? I figure Lila must be right if you'd dare say that to her, but you disrespect her again at your risk. Because while I hear what she's saying about adults setting examples, I can and I will find you someplace away from this field if you ever dare to say anything like that to her again." He wanted to add something about hurting Jonah, but he knew he'd played a role in that, so he had to settle for bouncing Reggie off the fence before he lowered the other man to the ground.
"Not afraid," Reggie shot back as soon as his feet reconnected with the cement. "She's probably relieved you of yours by now, speaking of sets."
Colton jerked Reggie off the ground again, and as he and Reggie glared at each other, she walked away. He sensed Dan moving in on his right and Eric on his left. His chest heaved as instinct and expectation warred inside him. Furious as he was at the moment, he knew she'd given him the chance to back down on his own.
But damn, he really wanted to bust Reggie right in the nose. In fact, he wanted to kick Reggie's ass all the more because he couldn't reach his own. He made himself let go of the jersey, letting Reggie drop to the ground.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jonah was so quiet during the after-game meal that Lila knew he needed to see a doctor. Even after the ice packs she'd gotten for him had had time to numb him he still winced every time someone bumped into his right side.
"I think we need to get Jonah to the Emergency Room." She spoke to Colton in a low tone as he paid the bill for their burgers and fries.
"Naw, he's tough, right kid?" Eric brayed, clapping Jonah on the right shoulder, the not-so-gentle blow causing tears to spring to the young man's eyes. Lila wanted to kill Eric, but she settled for ignoring him. It was hard, but God knew, she'd done harder things in her lifetime. Ignoring Joan had been one.
Colton looked at her for a minute then studied Jonah from under raised brows as they stepped from the chilled air-conditioning of the restaurant into the sweltering humidity. Jonah shrugged his good shoulder before the kid's eyes met his spirits down on the pitted surface of the asphalt parking lot, but it didn't escape Lila's attention that he carefully held his right shoulder rigid. God damned males, she thought angrily, dragging her wrist across her brow in agitation as she scraped at her top lip with her bottom teeth. Thanks to Eric and his caveman routine, now the kid was ashamed to admit he was hurting.
"I'm okay." Jonah finally spoke to his dirt-dusted shoe tops. "I'll ice it again after we get home and I take a shower. I'll be okay."
"Great game, kiddo," Dan spoke, smiling at Jonah affectionately. "Take care of that arm. If you're riding with me, Eric, get your ass in my truck. Lila, it was a pleasure, as always."
"Good night Dan." Lila couldn't bring herself to speak to Eric. Somehow "fuck you and good-bye" didn't seem the way to end things, even if Eric seemed to be competing with Reggie to be the evening's biggest ass.
Once they'd piled into Colton's truck, he looked at her as he turned the key. "Hospital?" he asked quietly.
"Hospital," she agreed, relief flooding her system.
The feeling didn't last. Walking beside Jonah through the big revolving door at the emergency entrance whi
le Colton parked, the antiseptic smell she'd come to hate during Pete's many trips to the place made her stomach feel queasy; it did a poor job of scrubbing away the malodorous scent of despair. Everything about the waiting room with its hard plastic chairs and air of resigned dread made her tense and snappish. Their wait was a long one, and though Colton chatted a bit with Jonah, he didn't seem to find a word to say to Lila. The man hadn't said much to her since her outburst at Reggie, she realized.
She'd been so proud of him for not taking the easy way out and hitting Reggie, but now it seemed he might be angry at her for stopping the fight.
It wasn't until the arrow-shaped hour hand on the brown-edged clock in the waiting room had slowly dragged through three trips around the dial that the young ER doctor agreed Jonah needed to be seen by an orthopedic surgeon. "Dr. Hayes is the on-call surgeon," he informed them, popping up from his stool and sprinting for the door.
"Not him," Lila spoke up. Dr. Hayes was old and old-fashioned, and she wanted Jonah seen by the best. "Call Dr. Ellis."
The doctor's eyebrows went up, but he looked down at the chart they'd made on Jonah. "I don't see where Jonah is a patient of Dr. Ellis's."
"He will be after you make the call." Lila held her ground, knowing the hospital's policies of assigning new patients to the on-call physician, and found she didn't give a damn. She made her voice firm as she spoke to the young physician. "You tell Dr. Ellis Lila Walker is asking for him. He'll come. Charlie Walker was his patient, and Dr. Ellis is who we will see."
More waiting, and the tiny exam room seemed to get smaller with each passing minute. "I'm gonna get a cup of coffee," Colton finally stated, moving off the wall he had been holding up, as far from her as he could get, it seemed. "You want one, Lila?"
"No." She'd drunk her fill of the bitter brew they sold here. Enough memories were crowding her tonight, without having that nasty taste coating her tongue. She watched him walk out, part of her hopelessly admiring his broad shoulders, his fine ass, and his sure stride, wondering how long he planned to give her the silent treatment because she hadn't wanted him to hit Reggie. The door closed and she turned to find Jonah studying her.
"My shoulder really hurts," the young man admitted.
"I know." She faked a smile and moved to stand closer to the man-child hunched miserably on the examination table. "Dr. Ellis is the doctor the minor league baseball team in Greenville uses for their injured players. He was Charlie's doctor first, when his arm was hurting, and then when Pete got hurt he became his doctor too. He worked wonders for Charlie, gave him a strengthening routine I'll bet he'll give you, to help keep this from happening again. He'll get your injury diagnosed and then we'll see how long your rehab's going to be, okay?"
Jonah's face was pale from pain and though she was chilled nearly to the bone from the efficiently pumping air conditioning, beads of sweat dotted his brow. He gave her a wan smile as she brushed his hair out of his eyes.
"You warned me not to fall in love with that pitch," he admitted. "I threw it too much, didn't I?"
Lila had been kicking herself for teaching him how to throw it, and her anger at Reggie returned full force, as did her annoyance with Colton for ignoring her suggestion at the top of the fourth that he go ask Reggie to pull Jonah off the mound. "You threw it too much," she agreed. "Water under the bridge now. But, oh my God, did you ever throw it well," she added, getting the smile she'd hoped for. "Nobody got a bat on it all night." She couldn't keep from adding, "But you were in pain by the third inning, Jonah, why didn't you ask to come off the mound?"
He drummed his feet against the edge of the exam table. "Didn't you ever do something that made you feel good, Lila? Even if you knew it was gonna hurt you in the end, you did it anyway because feeling good for a little while is better than always feeling bad?"
She knew what Jonah meant. The ache from losing his mother wasn't as painful when he made that ball dance across the plate unscathed. "Watching you pitch does that for me too," she confessed. Her eyes filled unexpectedly. The door opened and the orthopedic surgeon strode in.
"Dr. Ellis," she greeted him, shaking his outstretched hand. "This is Jonah De Marco. He's going to pitch for the Dodgers one day, but at the moment, he's thrown his breaking ball a few times too many." The only thing shaking more than her voice were her hands, and the tiny red and white stripes on the doctor's perfectly starched button-down shirt seemed to writhe as Lila refused to cry, suddenly missing Charlie so much it made her stomach turn over.
His hand dropped and the doctor looked away to smile at Jonah. "Well, I'm delighted to hear that. I'm a huge Dodgers' fan myself." He put Jonah's arm through some painful-looking calisthenics, ordered some tests, and asked Lila to step out into the hall.
"Who is this child to you?" the friendly surgeon asked. Lila explained. "He lost his mother a few months back. With Charlie in Iraq, he offered me a way back to the ball field, and he and I have become close."
"I'll take good care of him, Lila," Dr. Ellis promised.
He and Lila both looked up as a booming voice rang out, calling her name. Lila's stomach roiled as anger flashed through her body.
"I want to talk to you," the doctor she had hoped to never see again in her life said bluntly. Dr. Ellis moved away as Dr. Fielder addressed her. "I know you blame me for Pete's death, Mrs. Walker. If it's of any comfort, I wish I had listened to you and pulled Pete out of the trials when you started telling me of all the side effects he was having." The doctor ran his hands through his short black hair and stared at her unhappily. "But just so you know, Pete always told me you were exaggerating, and it's my responsibility to listen to the patient first."
She tried to think of something catty to say, but to her surprise, she seemed to have left the anger and resentment she'd nursed toward the physician on Pete's grave along with the roses. "Pete wasn't living much of a life," she admitted, realizing as she spoke how true the words were. "He wanted hope, and the drug trial was selling it."
"I'm sorry we lost him," Dr. Fielder said in a sincere tone. "Pete was a great guy."
She even managed to smile, and the tears stinging her eyes relented. The doctor looked relieved. "Why are you here?" Dr. Fielder asked.
The question jerked her away from thoughts of the past, causing her to look around the busy emergency department for Colton. She found him, leaning on one elbow at the nurses' station, sipping coffee and laughing with an attractive nurse. A young, attractive nurse, one who was smiling back at him flirtatiously.
"Didn't you ever do something that made you feel good, Lila? Even if you knew it was gonna hurt you in the end, you did it anyway because feeling good for a little while is better than always feeling bad?"
Oh, yes, she had. The jolt of pain slicing through her at the sight of his obvious attraction to the woman in the blue teddy bear scrubs shocked the breath right out of her.
She forced her attention back to Dr. Fielder, unwilling to watch as Colton did what any single, attractive man in his shoes would do, respond to an attractive woman his age paying attention to him.
Demons rode her tonight harder than her young lover ever had, leaving Lila feeling old, cold and exhausted. "Just here with a friend." She swallowed as her stomach rebelled over the greasy burger she'd eaten earlier.
Dr. Fielder's pager went off and he excused himself, leaving her alone, leaning against the chilly block wall and wondering at how hard it was to breathe as she watched Colton chat with the cute nurse.
She had to get out of here. Lila pushed off the wall, her joints aching from the too-cold air. Poking her head into the exam room, she said a quiet good-bye to Jonah. "Family only after this point, kiddo. They'll take you to Imaging next. I'll see you later." Maybe he'd never learn of her little white lie.
She shoved her hands into the pockets of her denim shorts and started walking, digging out change for the pay phone as big dual doors flew open to let her back into the waiting area. Poking quarters into the slot, she thought about the
way Colton had ignored her all evening, and the way Eric taunted her about her age.
She listened to the oddly metallic ringing, glancing around at the miserable people waiting, trying to block the memory of the way Colton had looked as he laughed with the attractive nurse by thinking instead of the night she'd used this same phone to call Pete's mother to tell her he was never going to walk again.
Shifting her weight tiredly to the other foot, she murmured an apology to the extremely pregnant young woman using the phone next to hers as her purse brushed against the young woman's swollen tummy.
Lila stared at the pink gingham smock decorated with a rocking horse. She didn't think Jonah had injured his arm to the point where he'd never be able to play again, but what if he had? What if she put herself out there for the kid while he grieved the loss of something else he loved, only to find one day that his uncle, the gorgeous, sensitive, quiet, solid man she admired so much had stopped thinking with his dick and started looking around for a woman who could give him a family of his own?
She could not live with that.
God bless Amy, who arrived within minutes to pick her up and drive her home without asking questions that Lila felt too hollow to answer.
* * * *
Dawn was dressing the sky above the darkened downtown buildings as Colton and Jonah left the hospital and climbed wearily into the truck. It'd been hours since Jonah had communicated in any way that wasn't a grunt. "Two weeks isn't bad, kiddo. You do those exercises and take the medicine Dr. Ellis gave you and you're gonna be okay." Jonah had a tiny tear in his rotator cuff and Colton had a much larger one in his conscience. The orthopedic surgeon had been every bit as angry as Lila over the high pitch counts Reggie had demanded of his young player. The injury wasn't going to need surgery if Jonah would do the rehab exercises faithfully, but his season was over.
"I shoulda known better." Jonah stared out his window as they drove, his attention apparently captivated by the town he swore he didn't like.
