Homestands (Chicago Wind #1)

by Sally Bradley

  Mike stopped guzzling the water and glanced at the phone. And?

  “Also decided this might be a good time to meet Terrell.”

  There it was. Meg would love hearing this bit of news.

  In his bedroom, he unpacked quickly and, once his bag was empty, tossed it into a corner of his closet, kicking it in farther. With this arm, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  He ordered a deep-dish spinach pizza in a half-hearted attempt to eat healthy. With dinner on the way, he wandered into the great room and turned on the TV. He was rarely home this time of day. What was even on? He surfed for a minute. Looked like he wasn’t missing a thing.

  The afternoon news caught his attention, only because of Meg’s old habits. And what timing—the sports segment was showing highlights from last night’s White Sox game. He watched with envy as pinstriped players crossed home plate and an infielder snagged a line drive.

  Nice.

  The news program played two clips from yesterday’s make-up game in Kansas City, where the Wind had been blown out. No pitching, no hitting, and a bullpen that made the starting pitcher look good. Thank goodness the newscast didn’t play any more of that ugliness.

  Except now he was seeing… himself. In the airport. Pushing through reporters and their microphones, eyes drooping, mouth a tight line, and stubble all over his face. He sank lower on the couch, squinting in mental pain as the clip continued. He should have smiled, should have said something beyond his annoyed, “I’m fine.”

  He looked anything but fine.

  The broadcast moved on, and when the local news began all over again, Mike tried to find interest in the top story, a manufacturing plant leaving the city.

  If Meg found this stuff interesting, so could he.

  But after two minutes of angry workers followed by the most recent name-calling between men running in the fall’s election, Mike gave up. News junkie he was not.

  Baseball player extraordinaire… Well, for the next couple months, he wasn’t that, either.

  Hurting, angry, and humiliated… Sadly, that description did fit.

  With a growl, he pushed himself up from the couch. He glared across the wide, sunlit room. So some cowardly man had injured him with his back half-turned. There had to be something he could do to pass time until he started rehabbing.

  His gaze landed on the coffee table. Meg’s blue scrapbook, the one she’d returned with his yearbooks, sat on it. He picked it up and plopped back onto the couch.

  Ow. He sucked in a breath. When would every little movement quit causing pain?

  Once the sting faded, he flipped the book open to years of forgotten memories.

  There was his first minor-league home run, a solo shot over the left-field wall. He remembered that one. A few articles later was his first four-for-four game followed by the game in which he’d made two costly errors.

  He smiled. Meg had not censored his career.

  Page after page detailed his time in the minors. The year in Double-A and his first game in Triple-A. Playing in the Futures All-Star Game. He read the names of the other players, noting those who were stars now and those whose careers had flopped.

  There was the article from the Dixon paper the day after his major league debut, with Meg’s memories written beside it—her pride when he was announced for his first at bat, his command of veteran players in the outfield, and his first big-league hit, a two-out single in the seventh that led to Texas’s come-from-behind win.

  Mike added his own dusty memories to hers, major league fans asking for his autographs, getting a hit off Baltimore’s ace, and stealing second for the first time. He’d stood, brushed himself off, and taken in the view from second base in a packed big league park.

  The articles went on until the album’s last page. He eased the book shut and stared at the cover. The articles beckoned him, a link to the healthy ballplayer he’d been three days ago, and he returned to the front, flipping back to his favorite memories.

  Halfway through, he stopped.

  Hadn’t his first homer in Triple-A been off Dana’s fiancé?

  He flipped pages until he came to the article and read the few lines that mentioned his at bat. “Pinch-hitting in his first game, twenty-year-old Michael Connor belted a three-run homer, knocking reliever Ben Raines out of the game.”

  Mike read the sentence again. Something felt wrong.

  He read it a third time, feeling like he was waiting for a sneeze that wouldn’t come.

  The doorbell rang.

  Dinner. He set the scrapbook aside and headed for the front door. Whatever felt odd would come to him later.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  On Monday evening Mike sat at Meg’s kitchen table, fiddling with his fork while Meg cleared the table around him.

  A very different Mike had returned from Kansas City. He’d yet to give his usual smile and spoke only in response to Terrell’s questions until Terrell probed too close to Mike’s attack. Already she’d learned not to mention that.

  Yesterday he’d shown up at church, halfway through Clark’s Sunday school class. From across the room Mike had nodded at her before pulling a spare folding chair from the wall. She took in the bags beneath his eyes, his sling, and the cast that covered most of his arm. He looked less than thrilled to be there.

  “I’m bored,” he told her afterward as the three of them walked into the auditorium. “I’ve been home less than two days, and I’m going crazy.”

  Terrell couldn’t keep his fingers off the cast. “Can you eat with one arm?”

  “The doctors aren’t sure, Terrell. If I get thin, tell your mom to have me over for dinner.”

  Wow. He was quick.

  Terrell, lips pursed, had studied Mike’s long, muscular frame. “Let’s not wait.”

  Now Mike twirled his fork. The tines snagged on his fingers, and the fork clattered to the table and then the floor. Mike grunted as he reached for it.

  “I’ll get it.” She picked up the fork before he could fold himself over his cast.

  “I’m not an invalid,” he snapped.

  “No, just a crab.” She turned her back on him, heading for the dishwasher. “Terrell’s still waiting for you to watch the game with him.”

  “Like I want to torture myself watching baseball.”

  “So you’re taking it out on Terrell?”

  “Enough, Meg. I know I’m a jerk.”

  She couldn’t stop her tongue. “Admitting it is the first step.”

  He scowled at her. “I’m starting to wonder where you were last Tuesday.”

  “Right here, watching the news, I think.”

  “Got an alibi?” He walked to the peninsula that separated them. Sighed deeply. “I’m not enjoying my company, either. All this free time, and I can’t do a thing. Stupid arm hurts every time it gets bumped. And try sleeping with brick burn on one side of your head.” He rested his sling on the countertop, his weight on his right arm. “Did I tell you my parents are flying in Wednesday?”

  “Yes.” Now there was a topic she didn’t want to talk about.

  “Don’t know what we’ll do for six days.”

  “You’ll talk, go downtown, go to a game—”

  “Thrilling.”

  “You’ll eat out a lot, and your mom will pack your freezer with all your favorite foods.”

  His scowl lessened. “True. And they’ll want to spend time with Terrell. Don’t forget.”

  “I won’t.” She swallowed at the thought of seeing Davis and Patty Connor. Six days? How would they treat her? “I’m sure they’d like to avoid me.”

  He pushed himself away from the peninsula. “I’ll make sure they don’t give you grief.”

  Her one-armed hero. She started the dishwasher and followed him out of the kitchen. “Would you mind staying here with Terrell tonight? I need to meet a client in forty minutes, and Jill can’t watch him.”

  “Sure. Where are you going?”

  “Dana’s house. She and Ben are redoing t
heir kitchen.”

  Mike stopped in the family room doorway and turned.

  Behind him, Terrell looked their way before returning to the television.

  “You’re going there?” Mike asked.

  How else was she supposed to meet them? “Yes.”

  With two fingers, he motioned for her to come with him.

  She followed him back into the kitchen.

  “I don’t like you going to that guy’s house,” he said.

  “What?” She stared at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. Something about Ben’s sketchy. I don’t like you being around him.”

  “They’re my clients, Mike. You can’t tell me to stop working because you don’t like him.”

  The words—almost verbatim from arguments seven, eight, nine years old—dropped like a boulder between them. Meg’s eyes widened.

  Even Mike blinked and took a step back.

  She opened her mouth. She had to say something—anything—to move past the resurrection of so many problems. But she couldn’t. She brushed her hair over her shoulder. Why couldn’t she find anything to say?

  Mike’s voice, soft and low, rang accusing in her ears. “So we’re back to that.”

  How like him to blame her for what he’d done. “It’s not the same. This is how I support myself and Terrell.”

  “Does it have to be that way?”

  “We’re not getting back together—”

  “Child support, Meg.”

  “No.” He’d brought it up before. Once. She’d shut him down. “Just stay here with Terrell.”

  He ignored her, his smile sardonic. “Has anything changed?”

  She looked away from eyes that knew so well what she had been—and what he believed her to still be. But this time things were different. Weren’t they?

  “I thought all this church stuff was supposed to make you different, better.”

  What did he know about how much she’d changed? “Who says what I am is wrong? If you don’t like it, move on.”

  A smile grew on his face. “Step on your toes?”

  She turned her back on him. “Like you said, Mike, you’re a jerk.”

  “You’re still not going to Reynolds’ house alone.”

  “Watch me.” She swung her purse strap over her shoulder and grabbed her keys, jangling them at him—

  Mike stood in the kitchen doorway, mouth open, eyes staring past her.

  She looked behind herself.

  There was nothing there but the front door.

  “What now?” she huffed.

  His focus shifted to her, and something in his expression sent a shiver through her.

  “Mike? What is it?”

  “I’m not sure.” He stared at her for several more seconds. “Terrell,” he finally called. “Get your shoes on.”

  “Mike, he can’t come.”

  He grabbed his wallet from the console and shoved it into his back pocket. “Here’s the deal. I’ll drive you so Ben knows I know you’re there. We’ll pop in, say hi. Then I’ll pick you up when you’re done.”

  This was dumb. “But will Ben know that you know that he knows—”

  “Knock it off.”

  Terrell entered the room, holding his sandals. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re dropping your mom off at a client’s home.”

  She closed her eyes. “This is embarrassing.”

  “Trust me, Meg.”

  She met his eyes.

  Something in them underlined his concern.

  Still… “Just for tonight,” she snapped.

  Pain flickered across his face.

  Nicely done, Meg. Way to be mean.

  She marched upstairs to her office to gather her things.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The drive to Ben and Dana’s home took half an hour. Mike parked his Range Rover, out of place in an older neighborhood of starter homes, on the cracked concrete drive.

  As Meg stepped out of the vehicle, Ben appeared in the front doorway. He opened the screen. “Look who it is.” He nodded at Mike’s arm. “How are you enjoying the cast?”

  “Loving every minute.” Mike turned his back on him to open Terrell’s door and help him climb down. His low voice reached her. “Moron.” He slammed the door, then started up the sidewalk with Terrell in tow.

  “Be nice,” Meg whispered behind him.

  “I called him a moron, didn’t I?” he hissed over his shoulder.

  At the front door, Ben extended his hand, and Mike gripped it. Even with Ben’s grin, Meg felt the tension. She offered Ben what she hoped was a calming smile and followed Mike and Terrell into the living room.

  Ben let the screen slam behind him. “I suppose this isn’t much compared to what you’re used to, Connor, but it’s home to us.”

  Meg surveyed the room, the furniture older but laid out well.

  “Actually,” Mike said, “this is nicer than mine. More color, cozier.”

  Ben snorted, shouldering past them to the dining room. “Cozy is how agents describe tiny houses no one wants to buy.”

  Mike rolled his eyes.

  In the kitchen Dana was drying dishes. The room smelled of cheese and herbs, and Meg inhaled the lingering aromas.

  “Wow. What did you have for dinner?” Mike asked.

  Ben smirked as if he’d cooked the meal. “One of Dana’s specialties. Four cheese chicken pizza with white sauce. Out of this world.”

  “Smells like it,” Meg said. The men were like snarling animals fighting over territory. If she ignored them, maybe they’d both go away. “Dana, may I put my things on your table?”

  “I just wiped it. Make sure it’s dry.” Dana held out a hand for Terrell to give her a high-five. “Did you come along for the ride, or do you have ideas for fixing up the place?”

  Meg tugged her bags from Mike’s hand as she answered for him. “They’re leaving.” Right this second if she could help it.

  “We’re just dropping Meg off.” Mike’s gaze moved from Dana to Ben. “Terrell and I are hanging out tonight, but we’ll be back when she’s ready to go.”

  “Yes, and I’ll text you when we’re done.” Meg tugged on his arm until he moved for the front door, he and Ben still in a stare-down.

  “You’ve got my number, right?” Mike asked.

  “Yes. Got it.” Go already, she pleaded with her eyes.

  He did.

  Ben locked the door behind them, then raised his eyebrows at her. “A little controlling, isn’t he?”

  Protective, yes. But controlling? The words she’d thrown at him in her kitchen resurfaced. Meg chased them away with a smile. “He just wants to make sure I’m safe, I guess.”

  “I think it’s sweet.” Dana pulled out a chair and motioned for Meg to sit. “Ben, are you going to join us?”

  Meg settled herself at the table before looking at Ben.

  His coal-like eyes were trained on her.

  She held them a moment before reaching for one of her bags. A small shiver slid over her as she unzipped it, considering for the first time that perhaps Mike wasn’t overreacting.

  Two hours later Meg stashed the last of her things in her bag as Mike’s headlights flashed through the living room window.

  Ben didn’t move from his seat in the recliner. “Your guardian’s here,” he called.

  The night had not gone well. She’d hoped to leave with a final budget along with their wants and ideas, but after a few minutes, it was obvious they were dreaming up completely opposite kitchens.

  And sitting there while the two of them tried to hash it out—Dana not listening, Ben… bullying—had been uncomfortable.

  Horribly uncomfortable.

  Meg hurried through her goodbyes and jogged down the sidewalk, despite her bags.

  Mike met her halfway and stowed her things beside Terrell while she climbed in the Range Rover. “How’d it go?” he asked as he backed out of the driveway.

  “Terrible. They don’t agr
ee on anything. Dana has this dream kitchen that will cost ten times their budget.”

  “So what now?”

  “She has to give in to Ben. He’s right, but she doesn’t see it.” Why was she talking to him? She was mad at him. “She wants to knock out half of the back of their house and triple the kitchen size. It’d be twice as big as their living room.”

  Mike raised an eyebrow. “Can you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “A remodel like that.”

  “Sure. I’ve got a contractor I work with. He’s really good.”

  “He?”

  “Forty-nine, happily married, grandchild on the way.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  She shook her head and looked into the back of the Range Rover.

  Terrell slept, his head bobbing with the ride.

  “Looks like you wore him out.”

  “Too much ski ball.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Chuck E. Cheese’s. Which was a mistake—an obnoxious amount of autographs and pictures.” He raised his eyebrows, puffed out his cheeks. “Then we found a park with those remote control boats.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  “It was. And I didn’t have to see the guys get blown out in New York.”

  “They lost?”

  He nodded, melancholy in the motion.

  “They haven’t won a game since you got hurt.”

  He shrugged. Weariness clung to his features, dragging his mouth down. He looked so different without his usual smile.

  Poor Mike.

  Poor Mike—what was she thinking? When he’d actually blamed her tonight for their messed-up marriage? A hard thing to do when he’d had the affair, left, and filed for divorce.

  What could he fault her for? She closed her eyes. He’d been busy, loving life in the big leagues. She’d filled his days away with design classes and friends, with decorating her home and her friends’ homes. He’d spent hours hitting in the cage, hours working on defensive skills, hours working out—and that was the off-season. What was wrong with finding her own interests?

  Meg opened her eyes.

  They sat at a red light.

  Mike was watching her.

  He turned back to the stoplight, silence filling the air between them.