“Absolutely not.” The door jingled with a new arrival. “I’m not the one who went public, son. I was happy being Mr. Anonymous with the oddball sunglasses collection.”
“Right. Well, sorry about that. It had to be done.” He’d never explained the reason why, and he had no intention of doing so. It would mean revealing too much of Sadie’s personal life. The degree of fierce protectiveness he felt toward Sadie continued to amaze him.
“I’m not complaining,” Bingo said, squeezing Caleb’s shoulder. “You did the right thing. You know what they say, ‘The truth will set you free.’ ” He hurried off to take the new customer’s order, leaving Caleb to drain the last dregs of his espresso and hope he was, in fact, doing the right thing.
His family arrived in a whirlwind of skateboards and oversized basketball jerseys and handheld electronics. Teddy and Frankie had grown two inches since the season started. They showed no awkwardness at all with Bingo, but immediately pelted him with questions about prison.
“How was the food? Did you ever see anyone get knifed? Did you learn how to make a shiv?”
When Bingo explained that he’d been in one of the nonviolent offender facilities nicknamed Club Feds, they moved on to baseball, and their ideas about how to change the game to make it more like basketball. “What if they put a basket at each base? The first baseman would have to like, do a slam dunk with the ball to get the runner out.”
Bingo watched them with tears in his eyes, cutting occasional glances toward Tessa, who wouldn’t say more than a stiff hello at first. For both Caleb and Tessa, the wounds ran much deeper, whereas the twins had been little kids at the time of the trial.
Tessa was more interested in talking about Sadie. She wrangled Caleb into helping her make chili while Bingo was playing Pictionary with the twins in the living room. “Will I like her? I’d better like her, because I’ve never heard you be so into a girl before.”
Caleb focused his attention on the can of kidney beans he was opening. “She’s coming to the game tonight. You can judge for yourself.”
“She knows all about our crazy family?” Tessa pulled an embarrassed face.
“Sweetheart, everybody knows now. I did an interview in the local paper, and it got picked up everywhere there’s a kid tossing around a baseball.”
“I know that. But does she know everything? Does she know how he used us? Does she know about our mother and Teddy and Frankie’s?”
“She knows most of it.” The can opener got stuck; Caleb banged it on the counter to knock it loose. “She doesn’t judge. She has problems of her own.”
“Well, still, I hope she knows what she’s getting into.”
“Relax, would you?” Uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation, he dumped the beans into the stew pot. “And don’t start spilling any more family dirt. I don’t want you to scare her off.”
Tessa gave him a scolding punch on the arm. “You’re going to have to share sometime. You can’t put everything into separate little boxes.”
“Yeah. Well. Are you sure about that?” It worked for him, quite frankly. It’s how he’d gotten so far in baseball; the mound was his safe haven from all the outside crap.
“Pretty sure. But I won’t embarrass you in front of your girlfriend.” She put a hand on her heart. “Hartwell family vow.”
Girlfriend. He let that word rumble through his mind, and discovered he liked the way it sounded. Since college, he’d had hookups, flings, one-night stands, crushes, and more hookups, but he’d never had anyone he would consider a “girlfriend.” And yet, he wasn’t sure the word adequately described the emotions he felt for Sadie. What did insatiable lust, fierce protectiveness, and a craving for her company add up to?
A strong wind swirled through the ballpark that night, picking up dust devils in the bare-dirt corners of the stadium. Every once in a while a fan’s cap would get whisked into the air and tumble across the bleachers, making everyone duck and shriek. The flags—American and state of Texas—flapped like sails in the wild gusts. In the dugout, players buzzed with the possibility that the game would be called due to the gusty, unpredictable wind and threat of thunderstorms. But the minor league schedule was so packed, it took a lot to get the umpires to call a game. The home team carried the responsibility for making that decision, which was why Duke was deep in conversation with the groundskeeper and the head umpire.
Caleb was too hyped-up to sit on the dugout bench, so he stood under the overhang, watching the wind play goofy tricks with the crowd’s clothing and hairdos. Jim Lieberman joined him.
“Ever heard of the Magnus Effect?”
Caleb shot him a scornful look. “Of course.” The Magnus Effect was a principle of physics that explained why pitches curved. It had to do with the flow of air over the ball, but that’s about where his knowledge ended.
“And you know why it doesn’t work on a knuckleball?”
“You got me.” Caleb shrugged. “Don’t throw many knuckleballs.”
“You want to know, right? Do you want to know? Because sometimes I know things and people get all bent out of shape when I try to explain.”
“Yeah, that’s called the ‘Know-It-All Effect.’ ”
At Bieberman’s wounded reaction, Caleb clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Just kidding. Come on, enlighten me. Why doesn’t the Magnus Effect work on a knuckleball?”
Lieberman’s face lit up. “Because the knuckleball has no spin. Its movement is caused by the way the seams catch the air. On a knuckleball’s way to the plate, chaos theory takes over. Anything can happen. That’s why they’re so hard to hit, because they’re unpredictable.”
“Chaos theory, huh? No wonder I hate the knuckleball. I like to know what my pitches are going to do when they leave my hand.”
Lieberman popped one fist into the pocket of his glove, working it onto his hand. “You don’t ever really know for sure.” The dude had a point. “But with this kind of wind, imagine what a knuckleball pitcher could do.”
Caleb stared across the dugout at the opposing team, the Salt Lake Bees. Fred Barstow was scheduled to pitch. He was a former fastballer who’d switched to the knuckleball when he’d had a bone chip removed from his elbow.
“Advantage Bees,” Caleb murmured. “But I’d put good old-fashioned heat up against the junk any day of the week.”
“It’s not junk.” Lieberman seemed genuinely wounded on behalf of the knuckleball. “You could say that since it’s the only pitch without any spin on it, it’s the least tricky. The knuckleball’s only trick is catching the wind. You might say it goes with the flow. It surrenders to chaos.”
Surrenders to chaos? Caleb snorted. “Bieberman? Get out of here.”
Lieberman shrugged. A hot dog wrapper whipped across the field and slapped him in the face. He brushed it away with a grin. “Surrender to chaos, Hart. Surrender to chaos. It’s going to win in the end, you know.”
“The hell it will. I’ll tell you what I believe in, Lieberman. I believe in baseball. I believe in numbers. Numbers are not chaos. I believe good luck comes from hard work. Respect the game and the game will respect you back. That’s what I believe.”
Lieberman gave a few rapid nods, his face lighting up like a pinball machine. Most of the guys mocked his attempts at philosophical communication, but Caleb occasionally threw him a bone. “All right. All right. How about this? ‘Chaos is the law of nature. Order is the dream of man.’ Henry Adams wrote that.”
“You mean that pitcher for the Reds?” Caleb winked.
Lieberman laughed. “I’ll give you that one because I know you’re smart and not everyone has a photographic memory like me. Anyway, don’t worry about the chaos. As Deepak Chopra says, all great changes are preceded by chaos. When I saw the article in the paper about you, I thought about that quote.”
Caleb stared at the baby-faced sprite. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“Jim Lieberman, shortstop. We’ve been playing together a few weeks now . . .�
��
“I know who you are, I mean—” Caleb broke off, having just spotted Tessa and Sadie making their way along the row of seats just behind home plate. The wind was playing havoc with Sadie’s ponytail, whipping the long strands across her cheek. She wore a short-sleeved red blouse and jeans, and her radiant face glowed with laughter as she tried to keep the wind from snatching away the container of drinks she carried.
He couldn’t understand why every single person in the ballpark wasn’t staring at her. It made no sense.
In her wake trailed the twins. Teddy kept tossing peanuts over his shoulder for Frankie to catch in his mouth. Their coordination was impressive, despite the wind. Caleb wondered if the Magnus Effect applied to casually tossed peanuts. Bingo came last. He kept glancing nervously at the other crowd members. Maybe he felt self-conscious because of the article.
Not that he cared that much; his father had made his choices, and Caleb had made his. His gaze returned to Sadie, drawn like a homing pigeon. She was looking toward the dugout, shading her eyes against the evening slant of light and the occasional wafts of dust. He raised a hand to catch her attention. She waved eagerly and blew him a kiss.
He grinned and tapped his fist against his heart, as if she’d landed her kiss where it counted.
“There’s no making out in the dugout, Hart,” said Sonny Barnes from behind him. “I learned that the hard way.”
“Nobody’s naked, Sonny,” Caleb said, his gaze still locked with Sadie’s. “It’s all PG here.”
“Not the way you’re staring at her. Like you have X-ray vision, with a couple extra X’s.”
T.J. Gates piped up. “Is that your father, Caleb? Thurston Hartwell?”
Caleb hesitated only for a second. The secret was out, no need to dance around the subject. “That’s him.”
“Looks like you,” said Trevor Stark, letting the dugout door slam shut behind him. “Would have recognized him anywhere. Matter of fact, I’ve seen him here a few times. Big baseball fan, is he?”
Caleb whipped his head back toward the group in the stands. A few times? But Bingo had promised not to come to the ballpark, and he’d claimed to be keeping that promise. “When?” he asked, his throat tightening.
Trevor shrugged as he slung his bat over his shoulders and twisted from side to side to warm up. “Last few days. I don’t know. It’s not my job to keep track of your family. Unless you include what’s-her-name, Sadie. I’ll keep track of her for you.”
Caleb gave him a mental f-you finger and tuned out the rest of the team’s ribbing. Trevor must be mistaken. Even in a minor league ballpark, so much smaller and more intimate than a big league stadium, it would be difficult to single out one attendee from another. He was being paranoid, and letting a mind-fucker like Stark mess with his focus.
Anyway, Bingo didn’t matter anymore. His gaze traveled back to Sadie, who’d taken her seat and was distributing drinks to the rest of his family. Tenderhearted, sparkling, brave, brainy, sexy-as-hell Sadie. That’s who mattered to him now.
The knowledge traveled through him like an electrical shock. He loved Sadie. She was the woman for him. No one else.
Love.
He loved her.
Holy knuckleball.
He felt a rush of air as Duke jogged past him on his way to the head umpire to deliver the lineup card. The opposing team’s manager did the same from the other direction. A buzz traveled through the dugout and the crowd in the stands, and applause swelled. The game was on.
As Caleb discarded his warm-up jacket and prepared to take the field, he heard Lieberman whisper one more time, “All great changes are preceded by chaos.”
For some reason, the words sounded like an omen, and he shivered. Or maybe it was the wind, which immediately tried to rip his cap from his head. He tugged it more firmly into place and jogged to the mound, ready to pitch in front of three thousand people, his ex-con father, his rambunctious twin brothers, his loyal sister, and the girl he’d fallen in love with.
It wasn’t until his first windup that he realized that for the second time in his career, he hadn’t texted his family before a game.
Chapter 20
WATCHING CALEB STRUGGLE for every pitch in that windstorm was a special kind of torture for Sadie. At one point, with the bases loaded and the count at two balls and two strikes, she found herself gripping Tessa’s hand to the point of nearly snapping a few bones.
“Sorry,” she muttered, pulling her hand away, then forgetting all about it and leaping to her feet with a scream when Caleb forced a pop-out. The ball soared high into the air, higher, higher, then descended in the craziest random pattern of dips and swirls she’d ever seen. The shortstop, Lieberman, had to hop like a bunny on speed to track the ball. His cap flew off, he stumbled, got to his feet, yelled something, and in the end made a diving catch when the ball ghosted left at the last moment.
Sadie sank into her seat, utterly exhausted. “How do you stand it?” she asked Tessa, who was grinning at her with that stunning smile all members of the family had.
“It helps to not be in love with him.”
Sadie’s face burned. God, was it that obvious? Yes, screaming like a banshee while Caleb pitched might be a giveaway. “Oh.”
“Besides, this is Triple A. Save some of that emotion for the big leagues. Playoffs? World Series? You might want to pace yourself.”
“I don’t think I’d be able to take it.”
“Tessa, Bingo’s taking us for some hot dogs,” shouted one of the twins. Sadie couldn’t tell them apart yet. “Want anything?”
Tessa lowered her voice. “Valium? Quaalude?”
Sadie laughed. “I’ll be okay. Sweet offer, though.”
They watched Bingo and the two boys make their way toward the aisle. Tessa narrowed her eyes at her father’s retreating back. “I hope it wasn’t a mistake to come here. He’s acting weird. Then again, how would I really know, since I haven’t seen him in six years?”
“You didn’t visit him in prison?”
“Hell, no. I was too pissed off. Caleb went a few times. But Caleb’s always been better at shutting things out. He can put on the blinders and just go. Me, every time I look at Bingo I get mad.”
Sadie’s attention was back on the game, where Caleb was working another deep count to get the third out. Either the wind was throwing him off or something else was, but he seemed to be fighting for every pitch. Finally, he forced the batter into a ground ball that skipped right at him. With an acrobatic move, he scooped it up and flung to the first baseman for the out.
Finally she could exhale, and ask the question that she didn’t know how to ask Caleb. “I’ve been wondering. What do you think was throwing off his pitching when he first got sent down?”
“You mean the Game? When all hell broke loose?”
“Yeah. He doesn’t ever talk about it. Ever. But I know it’s on his mind. How could it not be?”
Tessa tilted her box of Cracker Jacks toward Sadie and propped her feet on the back of the empty seat in front of her. “Of course he doesn’t. That’s Caleb’s way. He’d probably see it as bad luck to talk about his bad luck. These guys are superstitious as hell.”
“So that’s all it was? Bad luck?”
“I’m sure there was more than that. Caleb keeps a lot hidden away, you know. He has a huge sense of responsibility. It’s almost like he blames himself for what Bingo did. I don’t really get it, honestly. I say, put the blame where it belongs. Caleb likes to shoulder everything. That’s why he offered Bingo a place to stay when he got out. I thought that was nuts. But Caleb’s always been that way, so I don’t know why he fell apart during that game. It was around the time we found out that Bingo was getting released. But we knew it was going to happen soon, so I don’t know why that would have thrown him for a loop.” She shrugged, popping more Cracker Jacks in her mouth. “I told him he should see a sports psychologist, but he nearly blew me off the phone with his big fat ‘Hell no.’ ” She shook her head
mournfully. “Men. Good luck trying to tell them to do anything.”
Sadie nodded sagely, though her knowledge of men was pretty limited. She’d hate to base it only on her experience with Hamilton.
Caleb was the first batter up. Adjusting his batting helmet, he stepped one foot inside the batter’s box, staring at the opposing pitcher across those infamous sixty feet and six inches. He took a few preparatory swings, twisting his hips with his motion. She got wrapped up in watching his butt, which she could see only from the side but was fine from every angle. His wide shoulders and towering build made him look huge next to the stocky umpire standing behind the catcher. She had a sudden vision of him as a warrior, taking on every attack with the power of his body, his mind, his determination. Caleb Hart was . . . magnificent. Or maybe she was just crazy in love with him.
The sensation of someone watching her pulled her attention to the seats on the other side of the field. The sight of a silver-haired man in cowboy hat and denim shirt sent a chill through her. Dean Wade. Hamilton’s uncle, who was considering a run for mayor. What was he doing at a Catfish game?
Dean gave her a courteous-enough nod and said something to his wife, who sat next to him. She laughed but didn’t look at Sadie, so they didn’t seem to be talking about her.
She cursed herself for her paranoia. What could be more normal than members of the Wade family attending a Catfish game? Everyone in town did so sooner or later, though football was most Kilbyites’ first love. Especially if Dean was running for mayor, he’d make sure to show up at all the “hometown” places where people gathered. Why should it have anything to do with her? The Wade family had bigger fish to fry than tormenting the girl who’d dumped their favorite son. That was just a sideline.
“Everything okay?” Tessa was asking. “Don’t worry, Caleb hits pretty well, but honestly, it doesn’t really matter. When you can pitch like Caleb, a decent batting average is gravy.”
A man two rows ahead of them gave a sudden jump that made everyone in the surrounding rows stare. He had a tiny pocket TV propped on his knee and an earbud hanging out of one ear. “Sullivan’s been pulled,” he said to no one in particular. “Looks like he’s hurt. Oh man. Hart better start packing.”
All of Me Page 21
