Fielder's Choice (23 page)

He was the man in the photos on Nana’s dresser. She’d wondered, but though Nana shared much of her wisdom and opinions, she was very buttoned up about her love life.

“Cat got your tongue?” His laugh sent creases around his eyes and a nice smile to his lips. “Or did those city-slicker kids over at the ranch tell you that I eat my guests?” He pulled out a chair for her. “Xavier Hartman. But you can call me Zav. Your grandmother preferred it. She thought Xavier was too pretentious for an old codger like me.”

“Alana,” she said, shaking his hand.

He looked her up and down, focusing on her face and hands. Taking her measure?

“You’re taller than the photos show. And stronger. I was afraid you’d be one of those scrawny Hollywood types.”

They both sat.

He poured her tea with steady hands. She smiled at the lovely bouquet of carefully arranged cut flowers sitting in the center of the table.

“That’s a lovely bouquet, Mr.—umm... Zav.”

“Those turned up next to my gate two days ago. Strangest thing. First I can’t find my best hoe, misplaced not one but two trowels and then these flowers turn up. I thought Juan and Mario, my gardeners, were taking tools home, and then I thought you might’ve been trying to sweeten me up.” He chuckled, and the lines on his face softened. “Now I’m not sure what to think.”

If she’d known he had a weakness for flowers, she would’ve brought a bushel full. She straightened her spine and folded her hands in her lap, squeezing them together. “Mr. Hartman, I came to talk to you about the windmill.”

“In time, dear, in time.” He handed her a delicate teacup painted with roses and ivy vines. “We have other business to attend to, you and I.” He pulled a sheaf of papers from under the teapot. “Jo left me damned explicit instructions.”

She’d never heard anyone call her Nana by a nickname. She was señora to the staff and of course Josephine to her closest friends, but never Jo. Alana eyed the stack of papers. She didn’t doubt that Nana’s instructions were detailed; she’d always been a stickler for minutiae. What surprised her was that Mr. Hartman had information that Nana obviously hadn’t wanted to leave directly with her.

“Don’t go getting ideas,” he said, as if reading her mind. “We had a glass of wine once a week, Jo and I, nothing more.” He looked at her as if to make sure she believed him. “Friends. We were friends.”

He tapped the fingers of one hand on top of the papers.

“When my wife died ten years ago, I thought I’d follow right away. But life doesn’t work the way we think we want it to.”

He wrapped his hands around the teapot, as if to warm them. They were bronzed from the sun and seemed out of place against the delicate teapot.

“But I’ll tell you one thing—life is meant to be shared. When you build something and the person you’ve built it with goes, it leaves a helluva hole that no one can warn you about.”

He poured more tea into her cup. He seemed to know she didn’t take sugar or milk. He seemed to know a lot.

“Jo saved me from dropping into that dark hole. But I never knew how deep it would cut me when she passed.”

“I loved her.” Alana said, trying to swallow the lump rising in her throat.

“You wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t know that.”

Grief rose like a wave crashing over her, the sadness gripping in her chest and hooking under her ribs. She buried her face in her hands and tried to breathe. This was a diplomatic mission. She had goals. She was
not
going to lose it. Tears pooled, and she fought to keep them back, the muscles in her jaw tightening as she struggled to stem the flood. At Zav’s discreet cough, her strength failed.

She wiped at the tears rolling down her cheeks with the back of her hand, clenching her jaw and trying not to sob.

Zav touched her hand and she jerked it back, startled.

“These things come in handy,” he said. The white handkerchief he offered was freshly pressed and folded in a neat square.

Alana blew her nose and shook her head. If she tried to speak, the sobs would cascade into a torrent.

She dabbed the last bit of moisture from her face with the now soaked handkerchief and squared her shoulders. “I’ll wash this and bring it back to you,” she said, embarrassed.

He reached across the table and took it from her. “No need. Laundry is the least of my worries.” He tucked it into the pocket of his jeans. “I learned a thing or two about grief, young lady. You don’t get to be as old as I am and not experience it. Grief demands to be witnessed. You can’t move through it alone.”

It occurred to her that Nana had come up with a plan to draw her and Zav Hartman together, to give them both a way of coming to terms with her death. Then it occurred to her that Nana’s maneuver of leaving her the ranch might’ve been a setup. She’d heard of a hand reaching from beyond the grave, but thought it a theme of B-grade horror flicks. Nana’s wasn’t a touch she feared, but she wasn’t sure she liked being scripted.

Zav leafed through the papers and pulled one out. He read down the page and shook his head.

“These things can wait.” He tucked the paper back under the teapot and tilted his face to the sky. “Begging your pardon, Jo, but your granddaughter has a schedule of her own.” He knitted his brows and looked back at her. “Why’d you wait so long to come over here? Your permit meeting’s coming right up.”

Alana didn’t answer. She didn’t want to lie, but she also didn’t want to tell him the truth, to admit that the first time she’d blown off meeting with him in order to party with Marcel in Paris. The second time was because she wasn’t in any frame of mind to deal with a man of his sour reputation.

Zav crossed his arms.

Nana’s script was flawed. The threads of Alana’s life, the life she’d loved, were unraveling with every day she spent at the ranch. Defiance streaked through her, trumping grief and guilt.

“I had things to attend to,” she said, pressing her spine against the cold metal of the chair. That much was true, but she heard the hollow ring of her voice.

Zav
harrumphed
and held her gaze.

She stared back. When Zav didn’t look away, she wondered if she’d automatically lose the staring contest if she blinked.

“You have your own ways, I can see that right enough,” Zav said. “But you’ve got some of Jo’s sass, don’t you?”

He looked away and picked up his cup. Alana released a deep breath and licked her lips, an action that Zav caught with a peek from under bushy brows.

“I don’t think Nana and I are much alike.”

Zav laughed. “That independent kick, wanting to do it in your own time your own way? That doesn’t sound like Jo to you?”

Actually, that was Nana.
And
her. Alana laughed when Zav again peeked at her, this time nodding.

“Yep, just like Jo.”

He pulled a tube of paper from a basket beside him and unrolled it.

“Let’s see what we can do about that damned windmill of yours.” He picked up a rock from below the table and secured one edge of the drawing. “Jo was crazy about the damned thing. You’d think she’d invented it herself.”

When Alana returned to the ranch, a cluster of staffers stood talking in the parking lot in front of the frantoio. She could tell from their body language that something had disturbed the calm she’d left that morning.

She jumped out of the Jeep, happy with her progress at Zav’s.

Peg rushed out of the office and met her before she reached the staffers.

“Hartman’s on board for the windmill,” Alana announced with triumph. “He’s calling in some favors with the outlying ranches. We should be golden.”

“That’s great,” Peg said in a tone that didn’t sound very cheery.

“What’s up?”

“The real estate agent came to appraise the ranch while you were over at Mr. Hartman’s.” Peg’s cheeks flushed. “I’m afraid he mistook me for you at first
.
” She stepped toward Alana. “He said to tell you he saw nothing to keep a sale from going through smoothly and that no reappraisal would be necessary.” She crossed her arms and eyed Alana. “
Are
you selling?”

Alana had forgotten that she’d called her dad’s friend to have a look at the ranch. Her dad was so sure she’d need to unload the ranch, so sure that Nana’s bequeathing the property and business to her had been a whimsical mistake, that he’d paid the guy himself.

“I’m just making sure everything is in order,” she said. “I assure you that I’d let everyone know if I decided to sell.”

Peg nodded. The sort of nod that Alana hated. A gentle gesture on the surface, but one simmering with underlying fear and distrust.

“I mean it, Peg. I’d let you know.”

“Yeah,” Peg said as she turned to go back into the office. “Of course.”

Alana watched the door of the office swing shut. That she still wasn’t sure whether she wanted to sell or not made her feel crawling, creeping guilt.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. A text from Marcel said he’d be arriving in three days; he had business to tend to in Napa. For the first time in ages she wasn’t looking forward to seeing him.

That night she tossed for hours before falling into an agitated sleep. Matt visited her dreams, but not in the role of sensual lover. Instead, the dreams that haunted her when she woke were of love lost before it had ever had a chance to put down roots. More disturbing, she remembered falling into a gaping darkness, clawing at the sides of a slippery tunnel, and no effort she made kept her from being sucked deeper into a place with no light. She threw back the covers and met another day with a heavy heart.

Chapter 19

It was one of those ridiculously beautiful days at the ballpark. The rich blue of the sky reflected off the still water of the surrounding bay, and the gentle breeze sent diamonds of light scattering across McCovey Cove. Everyone seemed intent on having a good time.

Everyone except Alana.

She wished she were anywhere but there. But Jackie had played the girlfriend card hard and had phoned, texted and emailed every day since their disastrous boat outing. She’d even managed to get Alex to leave her a message, although her cousin wasn’t nearly as persuasive as Jackie. It’d been five days since she’d seen Matt, but it felt like an age. Jackie had even insisted that Alana meet her at her place in the headlands and ride in Jackie's truck to the stadium.

It was the second annual day at the park benefitting the California Marine Mammal Center. Alana thought of it as Jackie’s center, but Jackie reminded her that they had a paid staff of twenty, six hundred dedicated volunteers, and satellite rescue centers up and down the coast. Jackie had met and fallen in love with Alex when he’d volunteered at the Center. Alana envied the great relationship they had. Both pursued their careers and respected each other’s pursuits, but one look at them and she knew that their love came first.

The Giants’ mascot walked over to them and jiggled the belly of his seal costume in Alana’s face. When she didn’t laugh, he handed her an orange and black baseball cap. She started to tuck it in her purse but to the mascot’s delight, Jackie snatched it from her and plunked it on Alana’s head.

“I’ve been to more baseball games since you married Alex than I’ve been to in my whole life,” Alana said, trying to lighten up.

“Me too,” Jackie said with a laugh. “I’m actually beginning to understand what happens out there. It may take me a decade or so, but I’m amazed at the nuance, the layers of complexity. I once did the calculations of the positions of the bases and the distances. How anyone ever figured out how to set them just right to make the game so challenging is a mystery to me.”

“And the glute factor,” Alana added, lowering her sunglasses and winking over the top. “Let’s not forget the glutes.”

“I’m more of a biceps girl myself,” Jackie said with a light toss of her head. “So, where’s Marcel?”

“He
hates
baseball. Doesn’t like any sort of competition unless it involves champagne. He’s up at Ferrer. Turns out California champagne can lure even a Frenchman. He’ll be back this afternoon.”

Jackie fished in her purse and came up with a fat envelope.

“Thought you’d enjoy these. Alex is turning into quite the photographer.”

Alana flipped through the photos from the Boys and Girls gala at the ranch. She had the lurking suspicion that they’d been culled from a much larger collection. Most of the shots were of her laughing with Matt, dancing with Matt, greeting guests in the reception line with Matt. The last photo stopped her. She was looking at someone off camera. Matt was looking at her. The look in his eye was nothing short of adoring.

“I’m getting the distinct impression that you set this whole thing up, Jackie.”

“I always blame Alex for such things.”

Alana turned toward the field. Alex was taking batting practice. Matt was fielding grounders at short. He looked up and their gaze met. Alana looked away.

“This was a bad idea,” Alana said, pulling the baseball cap down and slouching into her seat. “It’s making me feel worse.”

“Got to feel worse sometimes before you feel better.”