by Susan Crosby
Then came the bottom of the sixth and last inning. The Orioles were down by one run. There were two players on base. Elliot’s batting average was .754, which meant he usually struck out or flied out once every four at bats. He was coming up on his fourth at bat. They needed him to connect now to at least tie the game.
The pressure intensified. Melina watched Elliot listen to Rafe, who was right in his face, before he headed to home plate. The crowd went quiet, too quiet.
Melina cupped her mouth with her hands and yelled, “You can do it, Elliot!”
Others followed suit—except his parents, who clutched each other and could barely watch.
“Strike one!” the umpire called.
Elliot backed away, looked at Rafe, got his signals.
Melina shouted, “Shake it off, Elliot. Shake it off.”
He looked toward her for just a second. And in that moment she knew that she mattered to him, too, not just Rafe. She plopped back down and pressed a hand to her mouth, overwhelmed. She was so glad he’d come into her life.
And because of him, she’d had Rafe for a while, too.
“What’s wrong, honey?” her mother asked.
“Nothing, Mom. Everything’s good. All good.”
Another pitch. “Ball!”
Elliot stepped out but didn’t look at Rafe, then he approached the plate again. “He calmed himself,” Melina whispered excitedly to Elliot’s mother. “He didn’t rely on Rafe.”
Debbie Anderson squeezed Melina’s hand, knowing the importance of the moment. “We were blessed to find you and Rafe.”
Melina grinned. “I don’t know. You’ve been adopted by our families. You may regret that. We’re big and we’re noisy, you know.”
“And Steve and I are grateful.”
Elliot moved into the batter’s box again. He set himself. His bat waggled a little then went still. The pitcher threw. Crack! The ball flew right at the second baseman, hit the tip of his outstretched glove and kept going into the field between center and right. One run scored, a second run scored. They won the game.
The stands erupted. Elliot’s teammates mobbed him. Melina looked for signs of it being too much for him, but he was grinning and jumping up and down just like the rest of them.
Melina caught sight of Rafe watching the boys, a smile on his face, looking as proud as a father might. He lifted his gaze to hers, gave her a small salute, then dragged his cap down over his face for a minute, bringing tears to her eyes.
She wished she could wrap her arms around him and never let go.
Wouldn’t that give everyone in town something to bet on? she thought, and finally laughed about it. Where else but in Small Town, America, could something like that happen.
And she was very glad she lived there.
Melina came to a decision—she was not going to give him up without a fight this time. If she was going to lose him, it wouldn’t be because she hadn’t made the effort. Time for one last hurrah before she called it quits.
Even if she had to do the proposing. At least then she would have answers.
Postgame pizza was a tradition after the first and last games of the season. After a little while, the noise proved to be too much for Elliot, whose parents decided to take him home before he was overwhelmed.
Rafe followed them to their car. “I’ll see you at practice, okay, sport?”
Elliot nodded, then they did the seven-part handshake they’d made up. Steve and Debbie tried to thank him, but Rafe gave Elliot the credit and said he’d been privileged to give him some help along the way.
Rafe felt good. Worn out, but good. The game had sent him on a sentimental journey, especially hearing Melina yelling from the stands. It might as well have been him at the plate instead of Elliot, the memory was so vivid.
He headed back into the pizza parlor intending to tell people goodbye. He needed to make some phone calls, finalize some plans. The sooner, the better.
His cell phone rang—Ross Fortune.
“I figured you’d want to be kept in the loop,” he said. “My brother Flint came to town this afternoon. He’s had his DNA test already, so we should know soon if he’s baby Anthony’s father.”
“Any word from Cooper?”
“No. He goes where the work is, and sometimes he doesn’t get in touch for months. But the other big news is we just got a call from the Haggerty, Texas, police department. Seems they’ve got a homeless man with amnesia who may be William Fortune. Jeremy and Andrew are on their way now.”
“So Jeremy was right to keep the faith about his father. That’s great news.” He saw Beau open the pizza parlor door and look out. Rafe waved him over. “Thanks for letting me know, Ross.”
Rafe slipped the phone in his pocket and waited for Beau.
“You were right,” Beau said seriously.
“So were you, Beau.”
“About what?”
“He wasn’t fully ready, except for hitting.”
“But you’re going to keep working with him, right?” Beau asked.
Rafe nodded. “You’re a good coach, Beau. I’ve had my share of coaches, and you’re one of the best.”
Beau cleared his throat. “Thanks.”
“And you were right about something else, too. I was jealous that you went to the show.”
“You seem to have done okay,” Beau said, smiling. “Besides, I heard you had offers after college.”
Rafe didn’t like to dwell on it. He’d stuck with his plan to go to law school, and most of the time could convince himself that he’d made the right choice. “A couple offers. I’m sorry about your injury.” He didn’t add any platitudes, knowing it wouldn’t help.
“Me, too. But what are you gonna do, huh? Life goes on.”
Rafe decided to change the subject. “I hear you started a betting pool on Melina and me.”
Rafe’s old rival grinned. “Some harmless entertainment. She looked a little peeved when she found out.”
“You could say that.”
“I noticed she’s been short on feistiness lately, Rafe. Figured she could use a boost.”
“Thanks.”
Beau laughed at Rafe’s dry tone, then he turned serious. “I’m thinking about bringing on a partner. Interested?”
Rafe wondered how much it cost Beau to ask. “Not in a partnership, but I’ve got a good head for business, and I’d be happy to do some consulting work for you. You’ve got something unique in how you’re running the complex. I think I could help you grow it, maybe even franchise it. First thing you’d have to do is give up micromanaging. It’ll take a lot of pressure off you.”
Beau stuck out his hand, but seemed incapable of speech. Rafe shook it, then watched him return to the restaurant and his noisy, victorious team. Before the door shut all the way, Melina slipped out.
“I wondered where you went,” she said, approaching him. Like many of the parents, she’d bought an Orioles T-shirt. The yellow color suited her. “Is Elliot okay?”
“He’s pretty wiped out, I think.” He’d wanted to get away without talking to her. He had places to go and people to meet, and he was afraid he’d get swept up into something with her before he was ready to. “I am, too. I’m going to go.”
Her brows went up. “You can’t even talk to me for a minute? I’m that repulsive to you now?”
“Repulsive? What the hell are you talking about?”
“You couldn’t wait to get me out of your house yesterday. You didn’t say one word to me after the game. And now you were going to leave without even saying goodbye or discussing Elliot for a minute—our common cause who will continue to be one until baseball season ends?” She crossed her arms. “What else am I supposed to think? You can’t stand to be around me.”
“You’re wrong about that, but I don’t have the time or energy to debate it with you right now. I have things to do, Melina. Important things.” And the clock was ticking.
Hurt settled in her eyes. “I see. Well, at least you admit I
’m unimportant.”
He couldn’t stand it. “You’re important,” he said. “Too important.”
“How can someone be too important? I don’t even know what that means. I don’t see how the way you’ve been acting the past few days shows that I’m important in any way.”
Melina was goading him on purpose. She’d been sitting in the pizza parlor watching people look from her to Rafe and back again constantly. Everyone wanted to know where things stood with them, but even she didn’t know. And she was tired of being left in the dark herself. She was losing sleep and losing weight. She wanted to know where she stood and be able to move on.
If she proposed to him, she would know, one way or another. Except she hadn’t planned on starting an argument, hadn’t planned on him not wanting to spend even a second with her.
He glared at her. “You don’t think you’re important, Melina Lawrence? I’ll show you how wrong you are.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her along, heading toward his car, unlocking it and waiting impatiently while she got inside. People were gathering outside the restaurant door, a hum of excitement running through the ever-enlarging crowd.
“You’re ruining everything, you know,” he said, grinding out the words. “What happened to the patience you’re so famous for? Two days. You only needed to wait two days.” He slammed her door shut, ran around to the driver’s side and got in.
Melina decided not to say anything. It seemed she’d unintentionally interrupted a plan he’d made, and she was now going to pay for it. Once again, had she hurt her own cause?
Usually when he got mad, he got quiet. He would speak without emotion, always being logical. Now he was acting so irrationally she didn’t know what to make of it. Except that she recognized she’d chosen the wrong moment to force him into some kind of action where she was concerned. Apparently he’d had a strategy in mind.…
He drove a few blocks, turned onto Main, pulled up alongside a rundown wooden-sided building. The old Crockett building. Their building.
“Recognize this place?” he asked.
“Of course I do.”
He stared at it. “This used to be our future.”
“At Angie’s wedding reception you said you thought it should’ve been torn down by now.”
He frowned. “No, I didn’t. I said I was surprised it hadn’t been.” He angled toward her. “I bought it. Or more accurately, I’m in the process of buying it.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m opening an office in Red Rock. Right here.”
He got out of the car, so she did, too. He shook his head at her, probably because she hadn’t waited for him to open the door, then he led her to a window and peered inside.
“If you’d been patient for a couple more days,” he said, annoyance in his voice, “I would’ve had it cleaned up, and a nice table set, and an elegant meal brought in. After dinner, I would’ve pulled out a black-velvet box, gotten down on one knee and asked you to marry me.”
She barely reacted to his words, not fully comprehending them, her own goal crowding out his. Her plans had gone awry, too. “Yeah? Well, I was going to propose to you, then I got scared, so I got mad.”
They faced each other like duelists.
“Wait. What?” she asked. “You were going to propose?”
“The right way. The romantic way.” He shoved his hands through his hair. “I can’t believe I just let that happen. I should’ve walked away at the pizza parlor. Done things the way I wanted to, was planning to.”
She crossed her hands over her chest, which ached. “I love you, Rafe.” She took a step toward him, happiness pouring into her, out of her. “I love you with all my heart.”
He took her by the shoulders. “I love you more, Melina. Once I let go of the anger, love filled the empty space so fast I could barely breathe. I thought you only wanted sex, and I wanted that, too, but I also only wanted you. Anyway I could get you.” He looked amused and surprised at the same time. “You were going to propose?”
She laughed joyously. “I’d already waited years for you. I didn’t want to wait a second longer. And I wanted a definite answer, not more could’ves and should’ves.”
He kissed her then, softly, tenderly but thoroughly. “So, marry me today.”
“Today? Rafe, really—”
“We’ve lost too much time already. We’ll fly to Vegas.”
Melina threw her arms around him, laughing and crying, happier than she’d been in such a long time. “Not today, but very soon. I want a real wedding, with our families and friends. Not a big one, but a proper one. I’ve dreamed of it since I was fourteen.”
He threaded his fingers through her hair. “I’ll give you a month. Let’s go tell our families.”
“That’s a deal. I can— Oh, no! No, we can’t get engaged today.” She looked around, wondering if anyone had seen them—then could barely count the number of cars that had pulled up. “The bet, Rafe. The bet.”
He eyed the street and the people standing outside their cars, watching. “I love this woman!” he shouted. “I just asked her to marry me and she said yes!” Then he bent her over his arm and kissed her most publicly, most exhaustively.
“Pay up, people!” came Beau’s voice out of the melee.
Car horns honked. Cheers went up.
“Bells are ringing,” Rafe said, holding her tight. “For me and my girl.”
“Our song.” She framed his face with her hands, cherishing him, sorry that she’d taken away his big proposal moment. She would make it up to him. “Let’s go tell our families before the grapevine beats us to it.”
“I love you,” he said, taking her hand to walk her to his car, to start their lives together.
“I love you more,” she said, echoing him from earlier.
It was a good start.
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Susan Crosby for her contribution to the Fortunes of Texas: Lost…and Found continuity.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8805-2
MENDOZA’S RETURN
Copyright © 2011 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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*Wives for Hire
**Back in Business
††The McCoys of Chance City
‡The Baby Chase
‡‡The Fortunes of Texas: Lost…and Found
†Behind Closed Doors
