Caught by You (25 page)

“I'm sorry things have been kind of crazy lately, Zackster.”

“Gramma said I maybe can come live with you.”

“Did she?” Hope bloomed like a Texas bluebell in spring. If Mrs. Hannigan had said that, she must think Donna had a good chance of winning custody. “Would you like that?”

He nodded, licking a bit of salsa from his chin. “Can we go get my backa-­packa first? And all my animal stuffies?”

“Of course, but nothing's going to happen right away.”

“Why not?”

Yeah, why? Why couldn't she just take Zack home with her and tuck him into the little bed she'd painted jungle green? That's where he belonged. “Because it's very important, and important things take time. We have to get them right.”

He stared at her blankly, then lifted a sticky chunk of nachos and slurped sour cream off it. Grinning, he waited for her laugh, which she gave him because he was just so darn cute. Then she gently wiped the sour cream off his chin. “Someday we're going to have to get serious about table manners. But you're four, so you can still get away with all kinds of stuff.”

“Four! I'm four!” He banged his silverware on the table and waved his legs around.

“That's right, Zacky. Since you're four, you probably understand that I love you tons, right? Like, as much as this whole restaurant, and the whole city, and all of Texas, and the whole universe. Do you know that?”

He grinned, displaying the cache of sour cream he'd collected in his cheek, like a squirrel.

“Ewww!!” She gave an exaggerated shudder, which delighted him all over again.

YouTube didn't matter. Her broken heart didn't matter. Right now, the only thing that mattered was the hearing tomorrow. If she lost her case, her wonderful little boy would be under Bonita's thumb, just like Harvey. She'd crush all the spirit out of him. She wouldn't laugh at his jokes, she'd criticize them, the way Carrie had always criticized Donna. Not with any hint of love, just plain old you're-­a-­bad-­kid judginess.

Her phone beeped. A reminder from her new lawyer to meet in the courthouse lobby at nine. As if she needed a reminder. She'd already taken the day off from both her jobs. For the rest of the night, she was going to ignore the rest of the world. No phone. No YouTube. She'd rehearse her statement, pick the sour cream out of Zack's ears, and
forget Mike Solo
.

 

Chapter 25

A
NGEL
A HAD BOOKED
a room at the Lone Star Inn, an older Victorian-­style, three-­story establishment with white gingerbread trim and a wide veranda. When she opened the door at his soft knock, she looked like a movie star inviting him in for an at-­home interview. Dressed in ivory lounge pants and a scoop-­necked cotton T-­shirt, with her dark hair loose down her back, she looked more relaxed than he'd ever seen her.

“Mike.” She moved forward as if to hug him, but he held back. After a brief, visible adjustment, she offered a smile instead. “I'm so very sorry about Joey. I hope you saw the flowers I sent.”

“I did. Thank you.” He didn't want to talk to her about Joey. He didn't want to be here. And yet, the magical pull she'd always had over him still existed. As if from a distance, he could see her beauty and calm, mysterious aura, and how it fascinated him. As if there must be something deep and thrilling underneath.

For a moment they stood at her doorway, she inside the room, he in the hallway. “Will you come in? There's something I need to tell you. It's important.”

After a momentary struggle, he stepped inside the room, which had a charming, down-­home interior with bluebonnet-­patterned wallpaper and a patchwork quilt on the bed. The dusty scent of potpourri mingled with Angela's signature lemony body spray. The result made him a little nauseous.

Angela closed the door and gestured him toward an upholstered armchair in the corner of the room. He shook her off; he didn't want to be here long enough to occupy a chair. “I don't have much time. What's up?”

“Do you really hate me so much?” she burst out in a sudden passion, color rising in her cheeks.

“Of course not. I told you I don't hate you. But there's someone I have to go see.”

“A girl? The one you were engaged to?”

He tightened his jaw. Talking to Angela about Donna was not on the agenda. “It's personal.”

“I heard on the news that you got called up.”

“Word travels fast.”

“That's not why I came here. I just want to clarify that before we go any further.”

“I didn't think that.” The Call had just happened, after all. She couldn't possibly have known before leaving Chicago. He walked across to the window, which looked out on a pretty courtyard filled with flowering jacaranda trees. “I admit I'm pretty curious what could be important enough to make you travel so far from your parents.”

A quick indrawn breath told him he'd hit a sore spot. He gentled his voice. “Sorry. I didn't mean that the way it sounded.”

“No, I deserved that. Believe it or not, I'm not here to talk about us, or my parents, or our history. I'm here for something else.”

He turned, propping his shoulder against the window frame, hands shoved in his pockets, bracing himself for . . . he didn't know what. “Shoot.”

“No one in your family knows this.
I
shouldn't even know it, but I spend enough time at Chicago General that I learn things here and there. I wasn't sure if I should tell you or not, because it's a patient confidentiality issue. I decided to because this break with your family . . . well, it must be terrible.”

He said nothing, waiting, his whole body tight as a drum. Warm air filtered through the screen on the window, carrying the scent of summer.

“After Joey was admitted to the hospital the last time, your father came in. He didn't see Joey, but he saw his doctor. He got his kidney function tested.”

Mike frowned at her, this Madonna-­like, serene woman gazing at him with wide, dark eyes. He couldn't quite put together the meaning of her words.

“He wanted to donate his kidney to Joey,” Angela explained. “He didn't understand that the kidney wasn't the problem anymore, that Joey had an infection. When they told him it wouldn't help, he threw a huge fit. Threatened to sue the hospital. It was quite a scene, which was how I found out about it. They ended up asking him to donate blood, just to pacify him. He kept volunteering more, and more, until finally he was so depleted they checked him in for the night. You know how stubborn your father can be.”

Grief stole his breath for a moment. His stubborn, hard-­ass father. He must have felt such regret at the end, but he'd never said a word. Did he have a change of heart when it was looking so bad for Joey? When there was nothing anyone could do? No kidneys to save the day? Why hadn't he said anything when Mike was in Chicago? Mike turned back to the courtyard, staring blindly at the blossoms of the jacaranda until they blurred into a wash of lavender. “Did Joey know?” His voice was nothing but a rasp.

“I don't know.”

Why hadn't she told Joey? He would have liked to know that his father wanted him to live. His fists clenched compulsively. “You should have told him.”

“I'm sorry,” she said defensively. “It wasn't my place. And my parents . . . you know how they . . .”

Her parents. Always her parents. Why would they object to a conversation with a dying man? With a sudden flash of clarity, he saw that Angela used the excuse of her parents to avoid anything uncomfortable. She'd done it her whole life. Maybe it wasn't her parents who had forced her—­a grown woman—­to end their engagement. Maybe she'd made the choice, but had been too cowardly to say so.

He cut her off with a sort of tomahawk gesture. “It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.” He turned to look at her fully, to take in her softness, her passive loveliness. Angela had been petted, adored, and cherished her whole life. Why hadn't it made her stronger? Braver?

Who knew? That wasn't his concern. Softly, quietly, the last vestiges of his adoration for Angela slipped from his heart like evaporating mist.

He rubbed the back of his neck, a little disoriented. “You know . . . Joey always forgave Dad. Knowing this would have made him happy, but for Dad, not for himself.”

She offered him a Mona Lisa smile that could mean everything or nothing.

“Thank you for telling me, Angela. I do appreciate it.” Time to get out of here, away from the past and into the future.

He moved to walk past her, but she seized his arm. “What about . . . us . . . ?”

Turning to face her, he breathed in her lemony scent, remembering all the times it had made him hard as stone. Now, it did nothing but make him restless. “I thought you came to tell me about my father.”

“Well, yes, but . . .” Color washed across her cheekbones. “I can't marry that man, Mike. The one I told you about.”

The flash of panic in her eyes clawed at him. At one time, he would have laid down his life to keep that expression off her face. He still felt the pull, the need to shield her, come to her rescue. “You don't have to do anything you don't want, Ang. I promise, it'll be okay. Just say no. Stand up for yourself.”

“Yes, Mike. You're right.” She twisted her hands together. “See, I can trust you. You and I, it was always so sweet. So perfect, until everything happened.”

How could he fix this for her? Maybe he could talk to her parents, or help her move out of the house, or set her up with someone more to her liking. There had to be something he could do. He opened his mouth to offer to speak to her parents, then snapped it shut when he saw what she was doing.

Her hand was at the scoop neck of her loose shirt. She slid it off her shoulder, baring the pale marble of her flesh and a pink bra strap. “You're still the only man I've ever been intimate with, Mike.”

He reared back. “What are you doing?”

“Reminding you,” she whispered. “Remember how it was?” She slipped off the scrap of lace that was her bra strap.

He flung up his arm to shield his eyes. This was wrong,
wrong
. “Stop it, Angela. I can't.”

“You can, Mike.” Her wistful voice came closer. “It's okay now. I want you. I'm standing up for myself, and I want you.”

He ripped his arm away from his face. She stood before him, bare skin gleaming, inches away and about to come closer. He put his hands out to stop her, then realized that would mean touching her. He didn't
want
to touch her. He didn't want her anywhere near him. All he wanted was . . .

“Don't, Angela,” he warned her.

She kept coming forward. “Why not? It's perfect, Mike. Me, the Friars, everything you've wanted.”

“No—­”

“I know you vowed to make it to the majors to prove something. To me, to my parents. You never forgot us, did you? Now you don't have to.” His back hit the door, his head knocking against the wood. Like a rap on the skull, it knocked him back to his senses.

“I'm in love with someone else.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the world shifted, became clear and filled with light.

Angela stopped short. “What did you say?”

“I love someone else.” This time, it came out even louder and firmer.

She stepped back, and covered herself back up. “The girl in the news. The one you were engaged to.”

“Yes. Donna MacIntyre.” As soon as he said her name, her vivid presence seemed to fill the quaint little room. What kind of trouble would he and Donna get up to in a room like this? “Sorry, Angela. I shouldn't even be here right now. I should be with her.”

He couldn't save Angela from her parents. That wasn't his job. His job was to get out of this suffocating room and find Donna. Tell her how he really felt about her.

“Then why are you here?” Her face had gone moon-­pale.

“I guess I had to see. Had to know for sure.” He ran a hand across his face, feeling as if he'd just run a marathon or something. “I'm sorry, Ange. You came all this way, and it took me until this exact moment to know that I love Donna.”

She was pulling on a pale pink cardigan, hands trembling, which made him feel terrible. This was probably the first time Angela had ever pushed herself out of her comfort zone, and she'd gotten slapped down. “Is she Catholic?” she asked, surprising him.

“I don't think so.” Not that it was any of Angela's business.

“Don't you think you should talk to Father Kowalski before you go any further?”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

He caught Angela's micro-­flinch at his use of profanity.

“Because he knows you very well. Almost as well as I know you. Mike, we've known each other since we were kids. Now you want to just walk away, and for someone like that? She had a child out of wedlock. She gave her baby away, and now she wants him back. What kind of person is that?” The quiet, contemptuous words crawled like chilly fingers up his spine. All of his sympathy for her drained away.

“You haven't met her. How can you judge what kind of person she is?”

“I can't, but I know what kind of person
you
are. You're the kind who rides to the rescue. That's why you would have made such a good SEAL. Are you sure you don't just feel sorry for her because of her situation? Are you sure you
really
love her, and haven't just convinced yourself that you do out of pity?”

Crush Taylor's words rang through Mike's brain.
I've put my finger on what makes you tick. Superhero Complex . . .

Load of crap, all of it. He was no superhero. He couldn't save Joey. He couldn't fix Donna's situation. He couldn't find a solution for Angela. What he could do . . . simple. He could be true to what was in his heart. Love Donna with all his being. Play his heart out. Stand up for what he believed.

“I don't pity Donna. I respect the hell out of her. She inspires me. I can be myself with her. She's fearless, loyal, brave, trustworthy, funny, quick, and smart. She stands up when other ­people back down. She turned her life around when no one believed in her.” He cocked his head at Angela, with her cool facade and enigmatic smile, Angela who'd never fought for anything in her life. “And I love her, so that's pretty much all there is to know.”

He stuck out his hand. “I appreciate you coming all this way, Angela. I'm glad you did. You should do more of this sort of thing. Make your own destiny, don't let your parents do that for you. Good luck to you, and I sincerely wish you the best.”

With a stunned expression, as if she could barely believe this was happening, she took his hand. Hers felt cool and lifeless; her touch did nothing for him.

“Good-­bye, Angela.”

“Good-­bye, Mike.”

He walked out the door and paused for a deep breath of air free from the cloying scent of rose petals, lemon body spray, and ancient history. Then he broke into a run.

Donna
. He had to find Donna.

But Donna, being Donna, just had to make things difficult. She didn't answer any of his phone calls or text messages. He drove past her apartment with the idea of banging on her door—­possibly with a bunch of flowers, or better yet, corn tortillas—­but the lights were off and her Kia wasn't in its usual spot. He could wait, at least for one night. He knew where to find her. And when he found her, he wouldn't let her go until he told her how much he loved her, how much he'd loved her all along, without understanding that he did.

He swung by the Roadhouse, where the guys were already celebrating his call-­up without him.

Dwight Conner bought the first round of Shiners. “Man, did you see the publicity y'all are getting? All this time I been working on my average, squeaking out those extra bases, running down every fly ball fool enough to enter my territory, when all I had to do was get hosed down by a hot chick. Do you think Red would aim that hose at me?”

“Don't ask me. She's a law unto herself, that girl.”

Bieberman took a long, mournful swig. “I would have let Angeline hose me down, if she'd ever asked. Or even knew I existed. I think she thought I was an intern.”