Love's Sporting Chance: Volume 1: 6 Romantic sporting novellas

by Janice Thompson

  “So, how many more games?” Baxter asked, before sipping his malt. He always had to stir it with his straw several times before tasting it.

  “Two more and that’s it for the season.”

  “Then what will you do ?”

  “I told you about getting a job and moving into an apartment. It’s the only answer I have right now.”

  “What if you had a full time coaching job?”

  “And how could I do that? Softball doesn’t last all year.”

  “It might in Southern California.”

  “And who is going to move to California?”

  “I might.”

  “What?” Rose gasped. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Didn’t accept it, but the position is open for another week.”

  Rose wanted to say, don’t go, but she couldn’t. It was Baxter’s life. His choice. She just wanted to think she meant something to him.

  There was an awkward silence with neither looking at the other, but staring straight ahead.

  “You do what is right for you. Sounds like a golden opportunity,” Rose said, breaking the silence.

  “I know. It is. A pay raise, too, but I can’t do it, Rose. There’s Lenny. I’m responsible for him and I don’t see how we could sell the house and move.”

  “You have a point,” she interrupted.

  “There’s another reason,” Baxter said. “One I’ve thought about for several days.”

  Rose leaned forward. “What is that?

  “Do you want to hear this?”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

  “I’d miss you, Rose.”

  She met his glance and the smile started at the corners of her mouth. “I guess I am not totally surprised since I have the same feeling.”

  He grabbed her hand and pressed hard. “Are we on the same page then?”

  She nodded, her eyes getting damp. “I didn’t want to admit I had feelings for you. It seemed I might be asking for trouble, yet it is there and has been there since our second meeting in the bleachers.”

  “My exact thoughts.”

  “So now that that is settled, what do we do ?”

  “Go on like we are now, but adding a date here and there. And a phone call a day. I don’t know. You tell me. this is all new to me.”

  “And you think I’m experienced?” Rose laughed. “Hardly. I’ve never had a date. Went to the prom with a neighbor. We just wanted to go; no special feeling.”

  They finished their malts and got out of the booth.

  “Next time I’ll sit next to you,” Rose said.

  Baxter shook his head. “I like looking across at you better. We can play footsie

  At the end of the game when they’d won by one point, she approached Lolly who just happened to be the last one to leave the dugout.

  Dinner was almost ready to put on the table. Dorothy looked up. “You’re later than usual. I decided to wait a few more minutes.”

  “Not necessary,” Rose said. But it didn’t matter. Dorothy had her way of doing things. Always would.

  Rose set the table, her mind rehashing Lolly and the short time they’d had together. She hoped it helped.

  Later as Rose was in her bedroom getting ready for bed, she wondered what sort of bedroom Lolly had. Maybe she shared it with her sister. That would be okay. Rose had always wanted a sister. She lay back on the fluffed up pillow and thought of her life. Hoe fortunate she was to have parents who loved her, how she’d attended Sunday school since she could remember and later the Youth group. You couldn’t have it much better than she had. She knew Lolly did not have it easy. they must be poor. Her clothes showed that. The softball uniform looked good, much better than what she usually wore. How tough some kids had it.

  ~

  Baxter returned the next day. He’d been out of town again. He came to her house - only the second time he’d done that. She knew it must make him uncomfortable, though he never said so. She had things to tell him and was eager to spend time with him, but not here. Not with Dorothy in the background listening to everything said. Going to her bedroom was the biggest no-no ever.

  She stepped out onto the porch. “Do you have time to go get some ice cream or something else?”

  He took her hand and she felt the pressure. “I think we should have a regular lunch - if that’s okay.”

  “Of course. Let me get my jacket.”

  She rushed to the coat rack and out the door, telling Dorothy they were going out to eat.

  “Missed you,” he said as she got into the car.

  “That’s nice to know.” She touched his shoulder. “I have lots of thing to tell you.”

  “And I to you.”

  He headed toward the small downtown area. There weren’t many choices and neither really liked fast food. You felt like you had to eat fast and this wasn’t the day for that.

  After finding a booth in the back and ordering, Baxter pointed at Rose. “Girls first.”

  She laughed. “Well, I am definitely moving out. I have a small apartment that will be vacant in three weeks.”

  “That was quick.”

  “Yes. Just can’t handle it at home anymore. Dorothy thinks it’s my road to destruction.”

  “Ha! That’s a good one.”

  “Waiting a year for college, or maybe go at mid-term. Just depends.”

  “You have a job?”

  “Yeah. Waitress at this very cafe. Only four days a week, but that’s okay. Thank goodness for my savings account.”

  Rose pointed. “Your turn”

  “Looks like I’m moving after all.”

  Her heart took a turn. “You are?”

  “Either that or find a new job.”

  “I can see why you feel that way.” She wanted to say how much she’d miss him, but held back. Rose used to talk and then think. She’d turned that around after getting the coaching job.

  “It’s not the best decision, Rose, and I don’t know how to say this, but I don’t want to leave here - leave you.”

  There it was out. He said what she wanted to say. “I don’t want you to leave, but understand. What about Lenny?”

  “He’ll go with.”

  Rose stirred her chicken noodle soup. Somehow she didn’t care about eating now. Yet that was silly. Stupid.

  “Was thinking about that coaching position in California. It’s a long ways to go, but have you considered it?”

  “I didn’t think I wanted to move that far away.”

  “Eight hundred miles isn’t that far, yet I understand your hesitation.”

  Rose nodded. She had a huge lump in her throat and was afraid she’d choke if she tried to answer. “I can come back here to see you.”

  “That’s too far to come often.” Not as often as I’d want to see you, she wanted to say.

  “I know.” He reached across the table. “We have a few weeks to think about it.”

  “Not much to think about. You move. You’re gone. You’ll find a new life in California.”

  “And what if I don’t want to find a new life.”

  Rose grinned. “Oh, you will. It’ll take time maybe, but you’ll succeed. I have an idea you’d succeed no matter what you did.”

  “I’m still mulling it over. I’d have to rent the house out; not enough time to sell. That would take time.”

  Rose suddenly had an idea. “Maybe I could live there; maybe find a friend to share the expenses.”

  “You’d do that? Live in a house instead of an apartment?”

  Sure, why not?

  “Okay. Sounds good to me.”

  They walked out, hand in hand and back to the ball field, Rose to her car and Baxter across to his house. The next step was just around the corner.

  The End

  Take a Peak

  Love’s Sporting Chance Collection

  Forget Me Not Romances

  by

  Sadie & Sophie Cuffe

  Psalm121:1-2 A Song of Ascents

  I
will lift up my eyes to the hills - From whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, Who made Heaven and earth. (NKJV)

  Dedication

  To Sue, who got us into backpacking

  (although we’ve never developed a taste for blue-green algae).

  We’ll always remember the good times on Katahdin.

  Thanks for being our friend.

  Published by Forget Me Not Romances (a division of Winged Publications) 2015

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the permission of author or Forget Me Not Romances.

  All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.Copyright © 2015

  Sadie Cuffe and Sophie Cuffe

  Chapter 1

  Darby Irish immediately felt his presence, like an overloaded backpack compressing her muscles and forcing her to take in small sips of air. For such a mountain of a man, he’d always been able to slip into a room without stirring a mote of dust, quiet and quick as a beam of moonlight — his words, not hers. There was a time when that trait had thrilled her, when the best surprise of the day was his arms unexpectedly wrapping around her, and she’d melt into his broad strong chest.

  This morning, Darby’s shoulders tensed, but she forced herself to draw in a deep calming breath and refused to look up from her computer. She clicked, and the image of the neon pink anorak enlarged to show the design of multicolored miniature lizards decorating the right sleeve. He leaned over her and Darby wrinkled her nose at the musky scent of his new aftershave. His hand brushed hers aside and, with a flick of his finger, closed the tab.

  “Hey! I was about to place an order!” Darby scowled and spun in her seat to face him.

  Haskel Roth moved his hands to the arms of her chair and shook his head. Darby closed her eyes to block out the close-up of perfect teeth and rugged Viking looks. Big mistake! For a split second she allowed herself to imagine those strong arms around her, her fingers running through his fine blond hair. She opened her eyes only to catch the glint of annoyance in her boss’s cold blue stare. “I know. It’s a good thing I stopped you. We’ve talked about this, Darby. I told you. No more designer junk. We’re going in a different direction.”

  “Don’t you mean Outdoor Expeditions, aka Felicia, is taking you in a different direction?” She eased back in the chair but he remained close enough for suffocation to set in.

  “Call it anything you like. You don’t even know Felicia. You should get to know her better. She has excellent instincts on what will sell.” He nodded at the computer screen behind her, his light hair ruffling and falling neatly back into place. “That company’s too low-end for us. We’re not ‘Discount Harry’s,’ you know.”

  She watched the muscle in his clenched jaw tighten. “We’re going to miss a lot of sales.”

  His forefingers drummed on the chair arms, evidence he was losing his patience, not that he had much tolerance for anything she did these days. Business and pleasure don’t mix. It was a cliché, but a cliché sharpened and twisted like a knife to the heart when you were living the truth of it. His dark blue eyes focused on a spot somewhere over her head. Great! Now he can’t even bear to look at me?

  His voice was a combination of bored and irritated. “Not the kind we care about. We want to attract a certain type of customer. By this time next year, Roth Sports is going to be the leader in outdoor sports products.”

  She’d had enough of him pretending she no longer existed and continually brushing her off with his condescending tone. “Look, I’m not some sales associate trainee you hired yesterday. I know this business. If you’ve developed amnesia all of a sudden, fine. I haven’t. Who do you think spent the last five years of her life helping you build this place up from a nothing cramped hole-in-the-wall at that beat-up strip mall, to our own state-of-the-art showroom in one of the best locations in the city?”

  Darby leaned forward, her face inches from his. She could see each pale hair of stubble on his chin and the rising flush in his cheeks. Haskel’s narrowed gaze met hers. “You want to be an industry leader? We’ll be a leader in bankruptcy, at the rate you’re changing things around here. That shipment of kayaks we got in yesterday, and those backpacks you ordered, are way overpriced, unless you’re Donald Trump. We’ve got in a bunch of million dollar inventory that’s never going to sell. The fact is, we’re losing a lot of the old clientele and we’ll be filing for Chapter Eleven if we don’t get together on this.”

  “No,” he said. “The fact is, thanks to Felicia’s networking, we have contracts with Pine Ridge Outfitters and with Circle Island Camps. Those ‘overpriced’ kayaks you love so much are already sold.”

  Her mouth flew open and he grinned as she clamped it shut. Darby glared at his lingering smirk.

  “Face it, Darby, you’re not bringing your A game to the business anymore. You haven’t been for months.”

  “How would you know, Haskel? You’re never here.”

  “If you mean I’m out on buying trips, recruiting new corporate accounts, then I’m guilty as charged.” He took his hands off her chair, straightened up to his full six-feet-four-inches and crossed his arms over his massive chest. “It’s better than sitting at the computer in the office pretending to work. You haven’t been out in the real world for months.”

  Angry words piled up in a traffic jam from her brain to her mouth. “You have no right to—”

  “To what? Call you on your job performance? I’ve cut you more slack than I would anyone else in this company, and you know it.” He paced to the window and, for a moment, presented his broad back to her as he stared out over the employee parking area.

  Darby curled her fingers, her nails biting into her palms. Think! Think! But instead of the sarcastic, crushing reply she wished for, all she could think was It’s finally over. Face it.

  “That’s not fair. You know I hurt my ankle, and I’ve been busy organizing our five-k color run for cancer.” She bit her lower lip. Pathetic. I’m pathetic! She should be glad no one else was in the room to hear it.

  Haskel spun away from the window and confronted her. The spring sunlight radiated around his head and shoulders like a halo, but he was no angel. “When was that? October? November? You’ve lost your edge. Admit it. You’ve gone uptown on me. More into getting your hair highlighted than hitting the gym or the trails.”

  “Just because I was out of commission for the winter, doesn’t mean I’m—”

  “More like you went into couch potato hibernation. You’re not the woman I used to know.”

  “And you’re not the guy who has any right to say that to me.” Anymore.

  “As your boss—”

  “As my boss I could sue you for harassment.”

  Haskel backhanded the air as if he were swatting away a pesky mosquito. “Go ahead, if that’s the way you want to play it.” His jaw hardened. “Look, if I had a satellite store I might send you out of here to manage it, see if that would take care of your problem.”

  My problem? Darby grimaced, fighting the urge to kick him in the shin and pitch a fit like a two-year-old. Lately they only brought out the worst in each other. When did it get so bad? Felicia. The name seared her brain and choked off rational thinking.

  Haskel shook his head, his wheat blond hair falling over his wide tanned forehead. “But I don’t think you want to be here anymore. It sure doesn’t feel like it to me. You’re not bringing anything new to the business. In fact, you’re doing everything you can to run it into the ground.”

  “That’s totally false!”

  “Not from where I’m standing. If you were anyone else, I’d have let you go by now.”

  “So you’re keeping me on out of pity? Is that what I’m hearing?” Her voice rose to shrill and she swallowed
hard to bring it back to, if not human, at least professional.

  “You said it, I didn’t.” Haskel turned toward the door. Darby shot to her feet and grabbed his arm. He shook off her impulsive grip as he slowly wheeled around to face her. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t want it to go down this way. I’m just tired of all this drama.”

  “What you mean is you’re tired of me. I’ve had other offers, you know. You want out? Fine. I can take care of that for you. I quit.”

  She held her breath, but Haskel simply nodded and left the office. Never give an ultimatum when no one cares but you.

  ~

  Keaton paced to the window of his apartment and looked at the street below. The pavement glistened like a slug trail as humanity bustled and bunched, their umbrellas touching then spinning away in a kaleidoscope of bright colors. His artist’s eye focused on the grasshopper-green leaflet circles of the Little Leaf Lindens, droplets suspended from them like liquid diamonds shimmering in the aftermath of a quick shower.

  He took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead, his hand covering his eyes and blocking out the vibrant scene. Man, I hate everything spring!

  “Want a yogurt?”

  He glanced over at his brother-in-law, Tom. Every nerve in his body threatened to jump out of his skin, but he’d had years of practice in this never-ending battle with his emotions. He clenched his jaw to keep back the bile that rose in his throat, slipped his glasses in place and simply shook his head.

  “Mind if I have one?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Tom reached in the refrigerator and whistled at the Spartan interior before he pulled out a carton of yogurt and tossed it to Keaton. He caught it neatly, just before a spoon followed which he fielded with his left hand.

  “You still got the quick hands, Keats.” Tom laughed, grabbed his own snack and settled his lanky frame on a kitchen stool.

  “And you’re still ignoring my signals. I said I didn’t want one.” Keaton peeled back the foil and slipped a creamy spoonful onto his tongue. He let the familiar taste mellow his roiling stomach and his dark mood.

  “I know you better than that.”