Text copyright ©2018 Lani Lynn Vale
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
I dedicate this book to my love of baseball pants. Without those tight, perfectly formed articles of clothing, I don’t think my awe of baseball would be the same.
Acknowledgements
Photographer: Golden Czermak/Furiousfotog
Model: Chase Ketron
Editors: Ink It Out Editing, Ellie McLove, Danielle P.
Betas: Barbara, Leah, Mindy, Kathy, Kendra, Amanda, Diane, and Laura.
Table of Contents
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part II
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale:
The Freebirds
Boomtown
Highway Don’t Care
Another One Bites the Dust
Last Day of My Life
Texas Tornado
I Don’t Dance
The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC
Lights To My Siren
Halligan To My Axe
Kevlar To My Vest
Keys To My Cuffs
Life To My Flight
Charge To My Line
Counter To My Intelligence
Right To My Wrong
Code 11- KPD SWAT
Center Mass
Double Tap
Bang Switch
Execution Style
Charlie Foxtrot
Kill Shot
Coup De Grace
The Uncertain Saints
Whiskey Neat
Jack & Coke
Vodka On The Rocks
Bad Apple
Dirty Mother
Rusty Nail
The Kilgore Fire Series
Shock Advised
Flash Point
Oxygen Deprived
Controlled Burn
Put Out
I Like Big Dragons Series
I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie
Dragons Need Love, Too
Oh, My Dragon
The Dixie Warden Rejects
Beard Mode
Fear the Beard
Son of a Beard
I’m Only Here for the Beard
The Beard Made Me Do It
Beard Up
For the Love of Beard
Law & Beard
There’s No Crying in Baseball
Pitch Please
Quit Your Pitchin’
The Hail Raisers
Hail No
Go to Hail
Burn in Hail
What the Hail
The Hail You Say
Hail Mary
The Simple Man Series
Kinda Don’t Care
Maybe Don’t Wanna
Get You Some
Ain’t Doin’ It
Too Bad So Sad
Bear Bottom Guardians MC
Mess Me Up
Talkin’ Trash
How About No
Part I
Chapter 1
Dear Lord baby Jesus, please make baseball season start sooner.
-Text from Diamond to Wrigley
Wrigley
Lumberjacks vs. Strokers
I’d never, not once, been to a major league baseball game. But, for my sister, I’d do just about anything. Even sit down at some sporting event and pretend to act like I cared.
“You could at least act like this place isn’t infecting you with hepatitis,” Diamond hissed under her breath at me.
I grimaced.
This place was gross.
Well, it didn’t look gross, but the seat was sticky.
At my previous job as a certified occupational therapist who worked with a home health agency, I was no stranger to dirty places and things. But I didn’t do sticky very well. There was just something about it that grossed me out.
“I’m sticking to the chair,” I spat, standing up and looking at the seat.
The seat was black plastic, so at first, I couldn’t see what the stickiness was from.
But, upon closer inspection, I could see that there was some residue dripping down from the platform above the chair behind me.
I braced both hands on the metal arms of the chair and bent over the seat, peering behind to see what was dripping and groaned.
“Umm,” I said, looking up at the man that was paying a great amount of attention to his phone. “Your drink is spilling. And it’s dripping down into my chair.”
The man looked up, reached forward, and tipped his cup back up.
But, in the process, he’d spilled even more of his drink—this time directly onto my chair.
“Wrigley!” Diamond hissed. “Sit down!”
I did, but I didn’t stop the grimace that curled the corner of my mouth when I looked at her.
“There’s red Slushee all in my seat…” I paused when a thought occurred to me, turning and trying to see my ass over my shoulder. “Is there anything on my shorts.”
“Absolutely nothing.”
I froze at the sound of the deep voice, and I turned to follow the direction I’d heard it from. And nearly swallowed my tongue.
Why?
Because there was a man standing on the grass right below the short wall that separated our seats from the field.
And the man?
He was gorgeous.
He had a green jersey on with ‘Lumberjacks’ written across the chest. His jersey was tucked into a pair of skin-tight white baseball pants, and those pants were pulled up above the calf to expose his matching green socks. His feet were encased nicely in a pair of pink baseball cleats.
One hand was tucked into a glove, and the other was holding the rim of his baseball hat—which he pulled off moments later, giving me a blinding smile.
He had red hair.
Red hair that leaned more toward orange than red, and a trim beard that closely resembled the same shade.
His teeth were straight and white, and his eyes were a bright green that shone like shiny emeralds.
And he was staring straight at me.
“Ummm,” I hesitated. “Did you say something?”
“I said there’s not a damn thing wrong with your shorts,” he repeated, then he walked off, leaving me standing there stunned.
“Oh my God!” Diamond hissed. “Do you know who that is?”
I looked at my sister and followed her gaze back to the man that was now in a circle swinging his bat.
“I have no clue who that is,” I admitted, shaking slightly. “S
hould I?”
God, he really made my heart race.
And how freakin’ tall was he? Holy shit!
He had to be at least six-foot-five or six. And, he wasn’t skinny either. He was stocky.
Tall and stocky.
The man looked like he’d take down a freight train.
“That’s Furious George Hoffman,” Diamond said as if I should know this. As if I’d disappointed her by not knowing. “He’s won the Home Run Derby three years in a row, and has one of the highest batting averages in the entire major league.”
I nodded my head as if that was the coolest thing in the world. “Nifty.”
She rolled her eyes. “You have no clue if it’s any good or not.” She snorted. “You disgust me.”
I had no clue what a home run was. But, a derby, I knew was like with horses and at the race track. I just couldn’t see the correlation.
I grinned, then patted my sister on the head. “I’m gonna walk up there and grab a few towels to wipe my seat down. Be right back.”
My sister waved me off and returned her eyes back to the game, and I was just about to hike my way back up the million stairs I’d just descended when a crack had me looking up.
People around me started to squeal, and I turned around and looked up just in time to take a baseball straight to my left eye.
I hit the ground seconds later.
***
George
I cursed and started running, hopping over the small wall that separated the stands from the field.
The moment I hit the concrete, I vaulted up the two steps and crouched down beside the woman I’d just beaned in the face with one of my foul balls.
The brown-headed temptress dressed in her tight white jeans shorts, tiny black tank top, and flip-flops looked like a broken doll.
“Wrigley!” the girl that’d been sitting beside the bombshell cried. “Move!”
I growled at the people that were crowding around me and said two words. “Back. Off!”
They backed off, giving me enough room to shift the woman’s hair away from her face and take my first look at her eye.
It was already swelling, turning a deep shade of purple.
Shit.
“George!”
I ignored Coach Siggy’s voice and felt for a pulse, happy when I’d found one.
Unconscious. Not dead. Good.
“George!”
I kept ignoring him and smoothed a hand over the woman’s face.
“Wake up, beautiful.”
As if she’d been waiting for my call, her eyelids fluttered open, and the intense gray eyes were once again staring back, looking at me.
“Hello,” I smiled. “I’m sorry.”
She smiled back. “Sorry for what?”
I pressed lightly on her forehead, right above where the swelling was starting, and said, “For hitting you in the face with a ball.”
She moaned. “That’s gonna suck the next few weeks.” She frowned. “I’d say I’d take your balls to my face any time you want, but…I have a class for battered women tomorrow. This is going to be hard for them to look at.”
I held my laughter inside…barely.
I also silently agreed with her.
My mother wouldn’t have taken advice from some woman with a black eye. She’d have just looked at her as another victim.
The girl started to sit up just as the medics made their way down the steps to us.
“You okay, ma’am?” the first medic asked.
“Yes,” the woman answered.
“Wrigley!”
‘Wrigley’ looked around my crouched form and saw her sister there, staring at her with worry in her eyes.
“I’m okay, Diamond,” Wrigley promised. “I told you we shouldn’t have come here.”
Diamond gave a watery laugh. “I also told you to watch for fly balls in this section. Which you insisted we sit in because it didn’t have netting to obstruct your view. Are you glad we sat here now?”
Wrigley stuck her tongue out at her sister, and I found myself thinking about sucking that tongue into my own mouth.
“Game’s on, Hoffman!” Coach Siggy bellowed. “Either get your ass over here and get the game back on or find your way to the locker room.”
I’d rather find myself into something else, but alas, I wasn’t a total cad.
I stood up, but not before pressing a kiss to Wrigley’s hand. “Hope you’re not too fucked up tomorrow to teach that class.”
Wrigley’s eyes met mine. “Oh, I’m a pro at hiding my bruises.”
And, before I could so much as comment on that, or relay how angry it made me feel to know that she had any experience at all hiding her bruises, she made her way up the stairs with the paramedics, leaving me no reason at all to be standing in the stands.
I sighed and went back down to the field, easily vaulting myself over the wall.
Then I went back to the box, and hit a solid line drive up the middle, yielding me a double.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t look for her throughout the game.
She came back some time in the third inning. She was gone by the eighth.
Chapter 2
Your mom called. You left your game at home!
-Things Wrigley screams at baseball games
Wrigley
Lumberjacks vs. Strokers
“Did I get hit with a freakin’ anvil or something?” Wrigley asked. “Jesus, this hurts.”
“No,” Diamond laughed. “You got hit with a foul ball.”
I grimaced and continued to layer my makeup on, not stopping until it was absolutely perfect.
“How does it look?” I asked, trying not to wince when I pursed my lips.
Today was going to blow. Really, really bad.
It hurt to smile, let alone talk.
And I had a speech that was going to take me upward of over an hour to give.
“Nobody said you had to go today,” Diamond pointed out.
I gave her a look. “You know I don’t have a choice.”
Diamond shrugged. “You do, you just would rather not admit that there’s someone else on your team that can do it.”
That was true, at least partially.
I did have a team that could easily give this speech. However, since the entire speech topic was so near and dear to my heart, I wanted to give it.
“Whatever,” I muttered. “I’m still going, so it’s not like it will save me from having to see someone. Mom made me promise.”
“Mom was high on morphine when she asked you to make that promise. She could’ve just as easily shared that she wanted you to donate all your net worth, and you’d have done it because it was her dying wish.”
“I don’t have any net worth,” I pointed out. “I have like, ten dollars to my name. Literally. I think it’s more like nine dollars and change. Dodger forgot to pay his part of the rent again.”
Diamond rolled her eyes. “Dodger needs to find a new place to live then. There’s no reason the two of us should have to pick up his slack. You’re a glorified bitch boy, I’m a teller at a bank, and he’s a fucking badass sports reporter who makes a shit load of money since he’s in such high demand right now. There’s no reason in the world he shouldn’t be paying his way. He only does it because you let him.”
I sighed. “Dodger is our brother. I can’t turn it off with him any more than I can with you. Love doesn’t work that way.”
Diamond had nothing to say to that.
“Anyway,” I said. “I get paid in two days. It’ll be okay.”
Maybe. Hopefully.
I did get paid in two days, but I also maxed out my credit card to pay for the Lumberjack game tickets. A game that I’d literally almost died at while attending.
I’d gotten back to Diamond in the third inning and had to leave in the eighth when Dodger had called to say that he was stranded on the side of the road because
he’d blown a tire.
After arriving to pick him up, I’d called Triple-A and then had taken everybody home. Shortly after that, I’d passed out and didn’t wake up until about thirty minutes ago.
Then I’d gotten in the shower and had quickly gotten dressed before applying makeup. Which led me to now, sitting here trying to explain myself to my nineteen-year-old sister.
“Diamond…”
The front doorbell rang, and Diamond sighed. “You look fine, as usual.”
Then she was out of the room and racing toward the door.
I, however, hung back and surveyed myself in the mirror a few seconds longer before knowing this was as good as it was going to get.
My hair was long and limp, my eyes were dull, and I hated my body five days out of seven.
My lower lip was big, and my eyes sometimes felt like they were too wide.
Then, there were my ears.
I had Vulcan ears.
Well, not true Vulcan ears. Maybe more like fairy ears.
They were pointy at the top, and I despised them.
My ears were the funniest of topics in middle and high school, and everybody who was anybody made fun of me.
It’d been ten years since I’d graduated from high school, and still, to this day, I remembered that hell.
Then, to add insult to injury, I’d have to come home and deal with bullying all over again, thanks to an abusive father that hated me.
Then again, I shouldn’t feel special. He hated me, my mother, and Diamond equally.
Dodger, he could deal with, which I think was the hardest part.
Dodger was never quite there enough to stop the inevitable beatings.
He’d always conveniently disappear, and I chose to think that was due to the fact that it was a coincidence. Not because he saw us getting punished for something stupid by my father and stayed the hell away.
“Uhhh,” Diamond said, interrupting my morbid thoughts. “There’s someone at the door who wants to talk to you.”
I frowned and flipped my hair free from my face, coming to a stop just inside the living room.
What I saw there stunned me.
It wasn’t the man holding the massive bouquet of flowers, though. It was the flowers themselves. They were enormous, numerous, and my absolute favorites.
They weren’t roses. They were wildflowers. Tulips and daisies. Tiny little pink flowers that I had no clue what they were, and then a small little bear holding a baseball tucked somewhere in between.
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