A League of Her Own

by Karen Rock

  Heather smiled. This was how it should be. A team and family working together.

  * * *

  LATER THAT EVENING, with the last of the sun reaching through the trees, Heather pushed herself to run one more mile. She had six under her belt, and seven would leave her with that euphoric exhaustion that’d float her to sleep the moment her showered body hit the bed.

  It was nice to have the night off. Even better not to dissect another game loss with her father. Tonight’s dinner had been full of talk about the kids and how much they’d both enjoyed working with them. However, according to Dad, Heather should have started out with stance and body positioning rather than throwing. But the expected criticism lacked the usual bite. Her father had seemed too tired and happy to harp long. All in all, a good day.

  If only her ever-present worry, her team, didn’t dog each step. She’d hoped to leave it behind, just for a little while, but it kept pace as her feet crunched on pine needles. They’d won one game and lost another this weekend, making no headway on improving their record. If they kept losing at this rate, their chances of making the playoffs would be out of reach in a couple of weeks. So far the bleachers were still half-full, profits were lacking and the Falcons hadn’t become a winning team.

  Heather’s promise to her father at the Gowettes’ meeting felt emptier and emptier. All her life, she’d worked hard to keep every vow she’d made to her dad. Despair made her break stride, and she stumbled before righting herself. Things had to go flawlessly. She had to be perfect. Yet she was hitting a wall she couldn’t climb, knock over or walk around.

  At least practice had gone well today. A few of the guys who had volunteered at baseball camp had been receptive and applied her corrections. She hoped they’d do that in tomorrow’s game. The Falcons needed to regain their momentum to have a winning season. If not, her father would go through with selling the team.

  The thought twisted through her as she sidestepped a low-hanging bush and pushed through the pain searing her lungs. Without the Falcons, who would she be? Who would her father be? She couldn’t picture him on a beach watching waves roll in. He’d be miserable, no matter what he’d talked himself into. Like her, he’d grown up with sports. She needed to make this work. That way, he could retire here, his approval at her success settling their uneasy relationship.

  She turned down a right fork in the dirt trail and into a denser part of the pine forest. The trail was faint and crooked, but she’d run this way so many times, she knew it by heart. She kept a close eye on the ground in the fading light, watching for tree roots and anything else that’d trip her up. The mountain trees that grew between the evergreens rustled in a soft summer breeze. It carried the loamy smell of earth and growing things.

  At the sound of someone jogging behind her, she turned her head, nervous. As long as she could remember, only she had ventured this far out into the wilderness. The wind picked up, flipping leaves upside down and sideways as she peered behind her. From around a bend, Garrett emerged from the shadows, his seamless stride the gait of a practiced runner. Her heart rate picked up.

  He was striking in fitted running shorts, with a T-shirt dangling from his waistband. Shadows pooled in the creases of his washboard abs. His broad, smooth chest tapered to a lean waist, making her swallow hard and nearly trip when her foot fell into a depression.

  “Heather, hold up!” he called.

  She threw another glance over her shoulder, unable to stop her appreciative smile at seeing him, panting, as he ran to catch up with her. He’d called her Heather now that they were alone...

  Maybe it was the day, the weather, or the company, but she couldn’t resist the playful urge to bait him.

  “It’s Skipper, not Heather,” she called back as she speeded up. “Glad to see you working on your endurance. Keep practicing. One day, you might even pass me.”

  “Well, Skipper,” he shouted, sounding alarmingly closer, “you may have the stamina, but I have the speed.”

  His feet pounded harder and nearer. She flew, feeling her ponytail bounce with each stride. Birds squawked, startled out of bushes as she and Garrett barreled by at a blistering pace. Her lungs burned, but she wouldn’t quit, had to show him that she was the best, the boss, the superior athlete. She’d been a distance runner all her life—this was a piece of cake.

  If not for this handsome distraction, she’d never have missed the knobby tree root that caught the toe of her running shoe. Down she fell, flat on her face. Luckily, a thick bed of needles cushioned her, scraping off only a top, stinging layer of skin on her knee.

  In a flash, Garrett was at her side. He must have been about to pass her, but instead he stopped and took her in his arms, his hands running up and down her sides as if feeling for bumps or bones at off angles.

  She opened her mouth to tell him to stop, but being this close to him drove away her protest. If she’d been able to make an objection, it would have been a weak one at best.

  “Heather. Are you okay?” His concerned eyes traveled over her, his hands moving up from her ankles, his fingers trailing along her calves.

  She gasped for air. It was hard to catch her breath, especially with his finely shaped features and perfect body inches from hers. She loved his eyes, and her skin tingled at his touch. The wall that she usually kept between them crumbled, and she reached out to grab his muscular shoulders, steadying herself.

  “I’ll carry you home.” He made as if to scoop her up, but she shook her head. Hard. Her father would have a fit if he saw them together this late. A sanctioned ride home in broad daylight was one thing. Nearly lying on the forest floor, the gathering darkness a warm blanket, was another animal altogether.

  “It was just a root. Nothing major. No harm done.” But looking up into his worried eyes made her feel as though a great deal of damage was about to be done. If she let it happen.

  His arms tightened around her. “When you didn’t speak, I thought you’d hit your head.”

  His anxious tone touched her. “Sometimes I have trouble talking in general.”

  He shifted slightly to the left until his back rested against a tree, still holding her. Despite willing herself to go, her head nestled against his chest. With so many highs and lows these past few days, it felt good to relax against him in this stolen moment. Thirty more seconds and she was out of here. But she’d soak it up until then.

  “Why do you have speech issues? It’s not that obvious.”

  “My mom,” she found herself confessing. The struggles they’d shared made opening up to Garrett feel natural. Right. “Any sound set her off because of her migraines. Then, when her back pain made it hard to sleep, I couldn’t make a noise in case I woke her. She was—” her lower lip quivered and she sucked it in before blurting, “—uncontrollable.”

  He smoothed back a lock of hair. “Sounds terrifying.” His tender look made her ache.

  “Yeah. It was,” she said simply, not trusting her emotions not to betray her if she elaborated.

  “No kid should go through that,” Garrett murmured, and she shivered at the feel of his warm breath against her temple. She needed to break the subtle tension that wove around them, holding them tight. But she couldn’t summon the resolve to leave. He was so warm, felt so right, yet this was wrong in every way. Maybe another thirty seconds?

  “I liked working with the kids today,” he said into her ear, his mouth so close to her flesh that the fine hairs on the back of her neck rose. She relished the sweet brush of his knuckles against the side of her throat as he flipped her ponytail over her shoulder.

  “I know how hard that must have been for you,” she said, doing her best to appear cool on the outside. Inside she was a web of conflicting emotions.

  “You’re getting me to do a lot things I promised myself I wouldn’t.”

  When she pulled back, he met her look with grave intensity. “Like what?”

  Then came the silence. The long, long silence. Their eyes met until she dropped hers
, her heart thumping faster. Red lights flashed. Stop! Leave! Retreat! But her tangled emotions wouldn’t let her wriggle free.

  His hand caressed the sensitive spot beneath her chin, and with a gentle pressure, Garrett raised her head until she stared into his deep blue eyes again.

  “This.”

  Without waiting for permission, he brushed his lips gently over hers. Ohhh...a shiver went through her entire body. The gentle caress melted the last of her defenses into a gooey heap.

  His fingers slid along her jawline, and the warmth of his touch radiated past her skin and into her bloodstream. Goosebumps rose on her arms and legs, and her ears rang with the staccato thrum of her heart. He slipped his hand from her jaw to cradle her head. His fingers pulled her ponytail loose and tunneled through the hair that fell around her shoulders.

  He pulled back slightly, his eyes heavy-lidded. His lips hovered above hers, tantalizingly close. The blood pounded so wildly in her veins that she feared he’d sense the vibration. A magnetic pull took over the small distance between their lips. An energy she couldn’t resist. So why was Garrett holding back? Her fingers were wrapped around the back of his neck, running through his hair.

  And then it hit her. He was giving her a chance to return his kiss. To show him that she wanted him, and the truth was...more complicated than that. Cold reality doused her, and she leaned back.

  She’d kissed Garrett. A player. And worse, a recovering alcoholic who might one day relapse. Someone she could, if she wasn’t more vigilant, become addicted to herself. She couldn’t let that happen.

  Scrambling to her feet, she saw the wounded look in his eyes before he covered it with a coat of indifference.

  “That was wrong,” she blathered, backing away. “I should never—we should never— We’re not right for each other, I—”

  He held up a hand as he got to his feet in his fluid way that was stunning to watch. “I get it. We’ll pretend this never happened.” His gaze roamed in every direction but hers.

  It was obvious from the way he braced his body, his tense face, that he was taking this wrong. It wasn’t as though she didn’t want him. She just didn’t trust him with her heart. It was too bruised to take another beating. Even if she wasn’t his manager, his past alcoholism and his uncertain future sobriety were things she couldn’t look past.

  She opened her mouth to explain, but his mouth twisted, and he held up a hand.

  “Really. It’s fine,” he said, the gravel in his voice denying his words. “Would you like me to take you home?”

  She shook her head, wishing his eyes hadn’t turned into mirrors, reflecting only what was outside, keeping her from seeing what he was thinking or feeling.

  With a small salute, he turned. “See you, Skipper,” he called over his shoulder as he took off farther down the path, leaving her slumped against the tree in the gathering gloom.

  There it was. The respectful address she’d wanted from him on and off the field. Only now she knew that she no longer deserved it. Not after how she’d behaved.

  The chaos in her mind cleared. She was under a lot of pressure, thinking with her body instead of her head. In other circumstances, she wouldn’t have let Garrett get that intimate with her. He was a member of her team, nothing more.

  Yes, they shared a unique connection. Maybe it was the hardships they’d both experienced? Either way, she was confusing lust with feelings, and that had to stop.

  She was attracted to him, but the emotions going on...it was because she needed someone to turn to, and he was there. That was it. It wasn’t like she had anyone else who listened to her. Who accepted her fears as Garrett did.

  Strangely, her mother came to mind. She’d called again this morning. How many times would she have to hang up on her for Mom to give up? Get the message? She hadn’t heard from her mother from her thirteenth birthday until she graduated high school. After that, it’d become a regular thing, a weekly, painful reminder of the parent she’d lost and could never count on again.

  A part of her knew that this was why, at twenty-seven, she hadn’t had a serious relationship. Another part of her understood that she probably never would. And she was fine with that. Or had been until she’d met Garrett. She hadn’t thought before that she needed a man. Romance. Not after what it’d done to her father, her family.

  Her hands brushed against the tree’s bark as she rose, and her fingernails sank into its grooved, rough surface. Love was like that, she supposed. Not always the smooth road you expected. Not when you actually explored it. Went far from your comfort zone. In time, as she’d seen with her mother, it would lead to dead ends and uneven terrain with dangerous twists and turns. She would never let that be her future.

  As much as she wished it could be different...and include Garrett.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HEATHER TOOK HER porch steps two at a time, eager to escape the tornado of emotions that blew her home. She imagined her dad, inside, watching a show. It’d be worth the lecture about running this late just to hear his voice. She needed it. Him. Whenever her world fell apart, he was the rock she clung to, the buoy she grasped in a stormy sea.

  Behind her, thunder rolled through the trees, a wind gust twirling leaves in a mad dance. She fumbled for her keys as the sky threw its first salvo, a light drizzle that didn’t fool her. A tempest was about to let go, and she needed to be indoors. Fast.

  Scout scratched at the door and barked, the piercing noise echoing in the sticky-hot air that pressed all around her.

  “Hey,” she soothed him, running her fingers over his back as he paced before the door, the fur rising behind his neck. “It’s okay, boy.” For a large dog, he was a big chicken when it came to thunderstorms. Poor thing.

  She inserted the key as Scout clawed at the glass, his nose snuffing loudly against the frame.

  “Move back, Scout.” She pushed him out of the way, but he squirmed between her calves and raced inside the minute she’d pulled open the door.

  “Sheesh!” she exclaimed, ducking inside just as the sky opened up. “Glad I made it in before that started,” she called.

  She braced herself for her dad’s inevitable comment. His hand dangled over the edge of his recliner, a sitcom talk show playing on the television. But he made no move to tell her she should have checked the weather before setting out, not run that late on her own, or at least brought her cell phone, which she guiltily glimpsed on the table beside him. He’d definitely give her heck for that.

  Only the sound of a studio audience laughing and Scout’s barking as he circled her father’s chair answered her.

  She took a hesitant step forward. “Dad?” Maybe he was sleeping. Normally she’d hear his snores from here, but why else would he lie so still, his hand so limp...? Her heart seized, and her throat strangled the breath out of her.

  “Dad!” she called and rushed forward, her pulse pounding faster than her feet.

  She skidded around the front of his chair and took in his open mouth, slumped posture and closed eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. He was sleeping. Deeply. Strange that he didn’t notice Scout pawing at his legs, whining in a high-pitched way she’d never heard before.

  Lighting slashed outside the large living room window and she jumped, heart in her throat. She rubbed Scout’s head. “It’s going to be all right buddy. It’s all right.”

  And then she noticed it. Something so horrible her brain couldn’t process it. She was wrong and Scout was right. Nothing was okay.

  Her father wasn’t breathing. His chest lay as still as the rest of him.

  She sank to her knees and grabbed his limp fingers. “Dad! Wake up!”

  Staring into his broad face, she willed his eyes to open and look at her.

  “Daddy! Please! Wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP!” she pleaded, shaking his shoulder.

  But his face remained rigid, a mask carved from hard wood. The ground seemed to roll beneath her, out of control.

  She pressed her ear to his chest, listening
, her own heart stopping as she waited for a sign that this wasn’t happening. A nightmare she’d never dreamed would come true.

  She fumbled at his wrist for his pulse. Feeling nothing, she put her cheek beside his mouth, desperate to detect his breath against her face. Her hand clutched his thigh while Scout tried leaping into his owner’s lap and crashed backward.

  Pain swept through her as she pulled away, her chest rising and falling too fast to take in air. Black spots appeared on the edge of her vision. Tears, the ones she never allowed herself to shed, fell as hard as the pelting rain outside.

  She snatched up her cell phone, then threw it into the TV screen. The battery was dead.

  “I’ll be right back, Dad!” she called and dashed for the kitchen. He had to hear her. Would need her reassurance.

  “9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”

  Heather opened her mouth and the words, the horrible, despicable, terrifying words refused to come out. Beside her, the fridge hummed grimly to itself.

  “Hello. You’ve called 9-1-1. Is this an emergency?” the operator repeated.

  If she stayed quiet, bad things wouldn’t happen, her brain told her, a familiar voice from her childhood. A deep shudder made her grasp the granite island when her knees buckled.

  “Are you there? Hello? This is 9-1-1. If this is an emergency, you need to respond.”

  “Yes,” Heather choked out, the word cutting through her like glass.

  “And what’s the emergency ma’am?”

  Heather gripped the phone, her mouth trembling, her eyes screwed shut.

  “Ma’am, I need you to stay calm and talk to me.”