Baroness (32 page)

Rosie ran her hands over her swollen belly. She'd expected Guthrie's train earlier, and now the roast and potatoes cooled in the oven, the taper candles waiting to be lit at the tiny square table in the center of the kitchen. However, she knew sometimes the train pulled in late, or Comiskey, the owner, had a sit-down with the players.

Occasionally, the fellas even went out, celebrating a win at one of Chicago's dark, seedy gin mills, the ones where flappers waited to remind them they were champs. Even the ones who had wives waiting at home.

But not Guthrie. He called her from every city, sent her telegrams, and always brought her flowers, win or lose.

No, she didn't deserve this happiness, but she intended to hang onto it with both fists and not cheapen a moment of it by doubting.

Especially since this time the child inside her had lived past the scare of miscarriage, all the way to eight months of pregnancy. More than lived—thrived, by the way he shoved a foot into her ribs, a knee into her bladder. She'd taken to sleeping sitting up, although she never truly slept from April to October. Not with Guthrie talking in his sleep, or the vast emptiness on the other side of her bed during away games.

The baby moved inside her and she braced herself on the table, blowing out a breath at a small contraction. She'd heard that during her mother's pregnancies, she'd taken to bed for the first duration of the nine months. No wonder she'd been so afraid when she was pregnant with Finn.

Sometimes she missed her little brother so much it made her ache to her bones.

After the first miscarriage, Rosie thought she'd have to take to bed too, but baby number two was still growing, kicking inside her, and she wasn't going to ask any cosmic questions.

She lived in a precarious state of blessing and didn't want to stir the Almighty's ire.

She waited for the contraction to pass before pulling out the roast from the oven. She'd slice it before it got too dry, just the way Flo Humphries, the catcher's wife, taught her. She'd miss the Humphries— apparently after this season, Skip planned on retiring and heading back to Hoboken to coach.

Maybe someday she'd be the team matron, like Flo. Teaching the new wives how to cope with the press, how to massage hot, soothing oil into a man's throwing arm, how to offer comfort when he played a game of errors, or inspire him to homeruns.

She fixed Guthrie a plate and slipped it into the icebox. Then she cut herself a slice of peach cake before covering the rest with a paper bag. She avoided the mirror—she'd become as large as one of Lilly's beloved buffalos—as she sat down in the living room, picked up the paper, read the article of yesterday's win over the Yankees again.

It came after a two-day shutout. Eight-to-nothing, nine-to-nothing, a wretched showing for the Sox.

She could see Guthrie as he took the mound yesterday, his hat over his close-cropped blond hair, his jaw tight, his green eyes missing nothing. Early in their marriage, she'd found him pacing the living room on the eve of a game, the fourth in an at-home series, holding the wastepaper basket.

No wonder he didn't drink with the guys between games.

He'd be pressed and clean, his uniform shiny and white, The Sox written on his chest. The band would be playing, warming up for the national anthem, and the hawkers would walk by with popcorn and cotton candy, hot dogs and beer. If they were at home, she'd wear her best dress, something that Guthrie could spot when he searched the stands for her, right before the first pitch. She usually stood, but didn't wave, allowing his smile to seep through her and remind her that, indeed, she was his lucky charm.

She'd started to believe it after the first season, when he'd batted a .347 and pitched two no-hitters. Comiskey offered him a bonus if he managed thirty regular season wins—Guthrie came close with twenty-seven. This year, he'd helped shut down the Tigers with two wins out of a four-game series, and managed to pull out a couple of games from the Indians and the Browns. But the Yanks…the Yanks always managed to best them.

Until yesterday. She imagined him on the mound, firing knuckleballs and sliders, fastballs and curves, his body strong and sharp, his reflexes tight as he threw men out at first or stared them down over the plate.
Baseball is all about strategy. You gotta outthink the guy at the plate. You can't let him get in your head.
That first year, he'd taught her everything he knew about the game, and she learned how to be a ballplayer's wife. How to sort out myth from superstition, how to ignore the bad press, the bimbos, and the scandal. She knew which players cheated on the road, and which stayed true. And, she knew that she had married a man of honor.

It took her a while to recognize.

Even longer to trust.

But Guthrie never came home with anything but the smell of popcorn, hot dogs, dust, and sweat on his clothes and an honest game on his tanned face.

And they had a perfect life ahead of them. She set her empty cake plate on the table and patted her stomach as she rocked the baby inside to sleep. A perfect life.

If Guthrie won his allotted thirty games, he'd land that ten-thousanddollar bonus and maybe they could buy a little house outside the city. Sheila and Joe had a house like that, something with a patch of grass out back where Joe could teach his son how to catch.

She could already see Guthrie lining up behind little—Claude, or maybe Phillip—circling his arms around him, helping him hold the bat. “You're going to have his eyes, aren't you, little one?” She heard more shouting from the yard. Getting up, she went to the bedroom and sat in the darkness on the side of the bed, watching the boys scramble around their makeshift bases in the twilight.

Guthrie liked the name Charlie.

Sliding back on the bed, she drew up her knees, curled her hand over her tummy.

“She belongs to me. Isn't that right, doll?”

Sometimes when Cesar slid into her thoughts, her dreams, she could shake herself awake, remind herself that he couldn't find her.

Tonight he had an unexpected hold on her, his hot breath in her face, smelling of whiskey, his hands on her throat, squeezing.

No. No—

I swear if you ever come back to New York, I'll kill you dead!

“No!”

“Rosie—wake up! Shh, you're having a nightmare.”

Guthrie's voice rocked her out of the moment where she stood at the window of the train, Cesar's eyes burning into her, his voice twisting her breath dry inside her.

Guthrie.
Handsome in a pin-striped suit and tie, still smelling like cologne despite the long train ride. He flicked on the light and pushed her damp hair back from her sweaty face. “Sorry I'm late. I—I had to meet with Coach.”

“I missed you.” She pushed herself up, into his arms, held him around the neck, probably too tight, but Cesar's voice could still strip her bare.

“I missed you too, baby.” He pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. She leaned away and ran her hand down his face, five-o'clock stubble scratching her palm. Then she kissed him.

Guthrie had insisted on separate cars until they reached Chicago. Then, he'd found them the first justice of the peace he could find and checked them into the Palmer House hotel.

She hadn't realized just what it might be like to be married— she expected the vulnerability, but not the satisfaction it gave her to know how he needed her. How she held the world for him in her response to his affection. He drank in everything she gave him.

Now, he leaned her back into the pillows, caressed her face with his hand, rubbing his thumb down her cheekbone as he lingered, kissing her like he had in their newlywed days. She relished his touch more every day, the sunshine embedded in his skin, the curl of his hair in her fingers, the way he tasted sweet, like bubblegum, his chew of choice.

He leaned away, found her eyes. “I don't want to hurt the baby.”

She cupped his face in her hands. “I don't think he'll mind.”

“He? What if it's a she?” He stood up and shucked off his jacket, tucking it over a chair. Then he pulled free his suspenders and toed off his loafers.

She leaned up on her elbows. “Then we can't name her Charlie.”

He crawled onto the coverlet beside her, and she turned into his arms. He ran his hand over her belly, warming her clear through. “Why not? Charlie is a swell name for a little girl. Maybe she'll have a pitching arm too.”

She looked up at him, shaking her head, and he kissed her on the nose. Then he nudged her chin up and found her mouth.

So much for his supper in the icebox, the cake. Apparently he wasn't hungry.

The sun had disappeared, night pressing through the windows, when she nestled back in his arms.

“I can't believe we're having a baby,” she said as he ran his hand over her skin.

“I still can't believe you married me, Red,” Guthrie said. “I took one look at you and saw a woman so far out of my league I wasn't sure if I could get up the nerve to talk to her. I was this country boy from Kansas talking to this classy lady, someone who by all rights shouldn't have given me a second look.”

“You didn't seem to have any problem charming me right out of Cesar's palace and into your arms.”

“It wasn't quite that fast,” he said. He leaned up, found a lock of her hair, twirled it between his fingers. His expression turned solemn. “Truth is, Red, every day that I wake up beside you I can't believe how lucky I am. I'm afraid that one of these days you're going to figure out how far below yourself you married and send me packing.”

“I am never going to send you packing, Guthrie Storme.” She kissed him, and it seemed that he breathed her in.

Then, he pushed himself away from her. “I need a shower.” He got up and stood in the threshold of the bathroom door, his gaze roaming over her. “And then we have to talk, Rosie.”

Something in his eyes—she pulled the sheet over her. “What is it?”

He seemed to debate for a moment then came back and sat on the side of the bed, his back to her. Then he scrubbed his face with his hands.

“You're scaring me, Guthrie.”

He turned to her then, the lamplight turning his hair to gold, his eyes soft. “I'm being traded, Red. That's why I was late. The coach wanted to see me.”

“Traded? But the season just started.”

“They need cash, and apparently, I'm the hottest ticket they have.”

She ran her hand down his arm, sinewed with muscle. “I'm not surprised. You're only getting stronger. And I suppose this comes with a bonus?”

“A nice one. I might even be able to buy you a real ring, one with a big diamond.”

She didn't need a big, fancy diamond. The slim gold band with the dot of glitter fit her perfectly. “Where are we going? St. Louis? Cleveland? Detroit?”

He caught her hand, and then his face twisted. She knew it before he said it, tasted it in the back of her throat, felt it in the clench of her chest.

No.

“We're going to New York City. I've been traded to the Giants.”

Chapter 14

If she wanted to forget Truman, Lilly had come to the right place. The moment she stepped off the plane, the memories shone in her mind, like jewels she'd tucked away, afraid to retrieve lest they lose their luster.

She instructed her footman to put her bags in the room where she'd sat at the windowsill, watching Sarah Bernhardt's funeral so many years ago on the Champs-Élysées, reading her Zane Grey book and longing for the wide spaces of Montana. She lunched at the Café a la Paix then strode down the avenue to the gardens of the Palais Royal, remembering how the statues had enchanted her.

The entire city had enchanted her, perhaps, the peonies and climbing roses fragranced the boulevards, the smell of café au lait from the bistros, and everywhere she walked, men in suits and derbies, reminding her of Rennie.

She found herself looking for him, searching for his dark-chocolate eyes, the tweed jacket, the derby that he wore at a rakish angle. She stood across the street from the Café a la Paix, watching traffic, hearing him in her past.

“Rennie Dupree, flyer and lifesaver at large.”

“Lilly…Hoyt. Daredevil.”

If he only knew. She bought a copy of the
Chronicle
in English and walked the length of the boulevard, over the bridge and into the gardens of Luxembourg, along the pathways brushed by eager willows, inhaling the cherry blossoms. She sat at the lake, watching children float sailboats into the glistening waters, the sun turning the water molten until the rays slipped behind the regal skyline of Paris.

She took a cab then to Montparnasse and stood outside Le Select nightclub, her gaze upon the zinc bar, imagining Hem and Presley queuing up for drinks. The jazz threaded out into the night air, tugging at her, hot and chocolatey like she remembered.

You make me better, Lilly. Make me the person I should be.

Rennie sidled up beside her in her thoughts, and she put her hand to her mouth, his lips suddenly against hers, sending heat through her.

She'd been so young, so fleeced by his charm.

Flyers. She should have realized then the magic they had over her. Truman had only been a younger, brasher version of Rennie, poised to steal her heart.

And probably, this Charles Lindbergh was exactly the same sort. Arrogant and flashy, driven by fame and the pull of the heavens.

Not to mention foolish.

She'd done the calculations herself: thirty hours over the Atlantic, perhaps with five hundred gallons of gas. He must have had to empty out everything but his skivvies to get the plane off the ground. She'd flown over lakes, sometimes fifteen or twenty feet above water, knew the dangers of the air currents that could snag a wing, pull the wheels into the sea.

And last night, as he'd departed, they'd predicted fog off the coast of Ireland.