Love of the Game (10 page)

“Scaredy cat.”

“Not rising to the bait.” Kasha stood up, stretched, and was surprised to see she was holding tight to the wine bottle.

“If you don't believe in the prophecy, then what are you scared of? Drink the wine.”

“Be my guest.” Kasha shoved the bottle at her.

Suki shrugged. “I'm not turning down wine, but if it's like Breeanne's scarf and Jodi's perfume, I'm betting I won't be able to taste anything.”

Kasha wished her sister would go away, but she didn't know how to tell her that without sounding rude.

Suki set down the glass on the hope chest, opened the wine, and poured a couple ounces in the glass. She swished the wine around, sniffed it. “Smells like red wine vinegar.” She took a swig and made a face. “Tastes like red wine vinegar. Ugh. You're not missing anything.”

“Mystery solved.” Kasha recorked the bottle,
picked it up along with the corkscrew and the glass, and headed for the kitchen. “Now I can pour it out.”

“Wait.” Suki put a restraining hand on her arm. “You're really not going to try it?”

“No.”

“Well, don't pour it out. Just in case you change your mind.”

“Tell you what. You can have it. Do whatever you will with it.”

Suki wrinkled her nose, but accepted the bottle Kasha thrust at her. “It tastes like vinegar to me, but I might do a taste test with other people. See if I can find your soul mate for you.”

“Seriously, Suki, it will probably taste like vinegar to me too.”

“Never know until you try.”

“If I try it will you hush?”

“Yes.” Suki clapped her hands. “Oh boy.”

“I have no idea why you care so much.”

“Because if it works for you that will be three times the hope chest worked, and if it worked for you guys, it will work for me too.”

“You could take it now for all I care.”

“Wine.” Suki pointed at the glass. “Drink.”

Kasha lifted the glass to her mouth. She could already detect the fresh, fruity aroma, and it smelled good. Very, very good. Not vinegary at all. Uh-oh. She put a blank expression on her face.

Suki snored, pretending she'd fallen asleep while waiting.

All right. Kasha took a sip and her tongue sang. She let the wine sit in her mouth. Sweet, complex, and nuanced, it was more than just the best wine she'd ever tasted, it was the stuff of legends. Heavenly, exalted, incomparable. She wanted to snatch the
bottle back from Suki and down the whole thing in one greedy gulp.

Instead, she made a big show of wincing. “Bleech. You're right. Pure vinegar.”

“Really?” Suki's face fell. “Bummer. I was so sure it would taste good to you too.”

“Sorry. No.”

Suki's shoulders slumped. “Can't win 'em all, I guess.”

“No, no, you can't.” Kasha stiffened her grip on the stem of the wineglass, forced herself not to grin at the deliciously golden taste.

Heaving a sigh, Suki headed for the door. “I guess I better get back to work.”

“You can leave the bottle if you want,” Kasha said. “I'll pour it out.”

“No way.” Suki clung to it. “I'm going to let everyone else give it a taste. I bet it tastes sweet to someone. Obviously, you're not the person who was supposed to have the hope chest. That's all.”

“Umm, okay. Bye.” Kasha tried not to gaze longingly at the bottle as Suki went out the door.

But the minute her sister was gone, she sank down in a comfortable chair and slowly sipped the rest of the wine in the glass—wine that would make angels weep with joy—and licked up the very last drop.

D
uring the therapy session on Friday morning, May twenty-seventh, the day after Axel's appointment with Dr. Harrison, by silent, mutual agreement, both Kasha and Axel maintained a professional attitude—no flirting, no lingering glances, nothing to inflame the burning embers.

It didn't matter.

The air clumped thick with sexual tension. Even when Axel was across the room, working out on a machine, Kasha could feel the strength of their attraction.

Adding to the pressure was the fact that the groundskeeper and his wife were out of town for a long Memorial Day weekend. She and Axel were alone on the sprawling ranch. No one to come in and announce that lunch was ready. No one mowed the yard outside the glass gym. No other eyes on them.

Alone.

The daily morning massage was the hardest part of all. To distract herself from the feel of his hard muscles and pliant bare skin, Kasha broke the silence. “What's it like being on the pitcher's mound?” she asked, desperate for neutral ground.

Axel didn't say anything for a moment, and his breathing was so slow and regular, she thought he'd fallen asleep, but finally he said, “For me? Now?”

“Well, obviously not now, but before you injured your shoulder.”

He made a soft groan of pleasure as she kneaded the back of his neck, and the sound tugged her female parts. Control. She had to stop these crazy sensations before they went any further. Forcefully, she focused on what her hands were doing, blanked her mind.

Rub. Stroke. Squeeze.

Axel Richmond's body.

“Stepping onto the mound after a decade in the business is like putting on your favorite pair of worn-out blue jeans.”

“Oh?” Too much air came out of her lungs, and her head felt tight and dizzy, the way it had when she'd sipped the hope chest wine.

“It's a perfect fit. Comfortable, secure, and I feel more like myself than at any other time. It's like coming home.”

“Does the crowd ever make you anxious?”

“No. When you're in the zone, the crowd doesn't exist.”

The zone.

That's where she needed to be. Just the work. Axel didn't exist in any way except as the work. His was just a back, and she was massaging it. Could be anyone's back really.

Except it wasn't just anyone's back.

“It's me and the batter and the ball. That's all I see, but I see it with extraordinary clarity if that makes any sense. Each time I'm on the mound, the game is new and fresh.”

“Beginner's mind.”

“What?” he sounded surprised. “How did you know?”

“It's a yoga thing.”

“You understand.”

“When you master something, you're able to see
both the small details and the big picture. The forest and the trees.”

“That's it. I see the game as if watching every frame of a movie. When I throw a ball, it's as if it's moving in slow motion instead of a hundred miles an hour. When the batter swings, I see not only all the possible outcomes, but the meaning of those details from the lens of the entire game.”

“Wow,” she said. “You've become the sport.”

He paused, considering that for a moment. “Yeah, maybe.”

“There's only one problem with that.”

“Which is?”

“Who will you be when the baseball ends?”

“I try not to think about that,” his voice turned edgy, his muscles tensed.

“You're thirty, and injured. You should be thinking about it.”

“I know, but taking my eye off the ball feels like . . .”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Failure?” she guessed.

“Death,” he mumbled so quietly she wasn't sure she heard him.

“Everything comes to an end eventually.” She touched him gently with the flat of her hand, soothing his fears. “It's the cycle of life.”

“Yeah well, I intend on fighting it with everything I have in me. Baseball is my passion. My life. I know I can't pitch forever, but I could be a staff coach or a field manager like Rowdy. I could become a commentator, or a baseball scout. Maybe work in the front office. Who knows? Maybe I'll become a sports agent.”

“Those careers take different kinds of talents. Are you a good teacher? Do you have the right personality for a color commentator? Are you good at contract negotiations? What suits your personality?”

He didn't answer.

“You haven't really thought beyond your pitching career.”

“Not much,” he said, sounding slightly hostile. “I've been focused one hundred percent on my dream.”

“Which is pitching for the Yankees in the World Series.”

“Yes. I'll think about what comes after, after.”

“What if you never achieve this dream? It is an extreme long shot.”

“Playing in the major leagues is a long shot. I made that. I'll make this. Failure is not an option.”

“Why not?”

His muscles rippled, and she knew, even though she couldn't see his face, that he was clenching his teeth. “It's just not.”

She let that go, slid her hands down his spine, making her touch as soothing as possible. She waited until he'd relaxed a little before she ventured, “What did you enjoy before you ever picked up a baseball?”

“I forget.”

“If baseball didn't exist, what would you do for a living?” she encouraged, trying to get him to understand that he was so much more than his career.

“I wouldn't want to live in a world without baseball,” he said.

“Why does it mean so much to you? If you could get at the reason, you could find your inner truth and then you would understand that constantly striving for success can never fill what's empty inside of you.”

“I'm not empty.” His voice was angry again. “My life is full to the brim.” But even as he said it, his voice wound up. A sound that said he was trying to convince himself as much as her. “I have my work, my friends, the team. I don't need anything else.”

He moved away from her, sat up, glared hotly at her as he grabbed for his T-shirt. “Hey, you don't get to judge me.”

“I'm not judging you. I—” She broke off.

His glower deepened. He tugged the T-shirt over his head, covering those sculpted abs.

“Jake told me about Dylan.”

He froze. His face was stony, a bit of a sphinx himself.

“I . . . I'm so very sorry for your loss.”

Axel splayed his right palm over the left side of his chest, and pain filled his eyes.

“I can't begin to imagine everything you've suffered.”

“No, you can't.” His voice was sandpaper, his eyes stormy.

“Do you ever think about having more children?”

“You can't replace one child with another,” he growled, his right palm welded to his boy's name tattooed forever on his heart.

She was screwing this up royally. Everything she said seemed to make things worse. “Axel . . . I . . . you're closing yourself off to so much more.”

“You don't have kids. You don't know what it's like to lose one. You don't get to have an opinion on how I should lead my life.”

“You're right,” she whispered. “But I do know how important family is. I'm adopted. All of my sisters and I are. And even though I love my adopted parents
with every cell in my body, there's a hollowness inside of me that I didn't even realize was there until—”

A long silence stretched between them. They stared at each other. An eon seemed to pass, neither one of them moving or speaking. Gauging each other. Mapping the lay of the land. Their relationship was shifting, but where was it going? More importantly, how did she stop the drift?

“Until what?” he prompted.

Why had she started this? Kasha ducked her head, struggled to keep her emotions from showing up on her face. Breathe. She inhaled deeply, raised her head to meet his intense gaze.

“Until what?” he repeated, his tone telling her that he was not going to drop the topic.

“Emma,” she said, because she'd been unable to talk about her half sister to anyone else but Howard Johnson, and the secret was eating her up.

It felt safe to tell him, and that truly surprised her. She trusted him. Why, she didn't know, but the second she mentioned Emma's name, she felt an emotional weight roll from her shoulders, and it was only then that she realized how heavy it was.

His eyes softened, and his shoulders relaxed and he dropped his hand to his knee. “Who's Emma?”

Kasha smiled at the same time tears burned her nose. She gritted her teeth to make sure the tears did not slide into her eyes. Sphinx. Strong as steel; steady as stone. “My biological half sister.”

Axel blinked, studied her for a heartbeat before he said, “You just recently found out about her?”

How had he guessed? She nodded, touched the tip of her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Pressed her palms against her upper thighs.

“Seven weeks ago.” Slowly, she told him about the out-of-the-blue call from Howard Johnson, and how the news had rattled her to her core.

“So your biological father had a child out of wedlock.”

She nodded, held her breath, hoped he would not ask more about her father.

“You've met Emma?”

Kasha's mouth twitched involuntarily. If it was this hard to talk to Axel about Emma's condition, how was she ever going to tell her family? But she had to tell them. Today. She was getting Emma on Sunday and her family expected her for their annual Memorial Day weekend bash.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Axel frowned with concern. “Your meeting with Emma didn't go well?”

“It went amazingly well.”

“But?”

How did he know there was a “but”? “She's got . . .” Kasha bit her lip. “It's not . . .”

He held up a palm. “Hey, it's none of my business. You don't have to tell me.”

“I want to tell you. I need to tell someone.”

His eyebrows shot up on his forehead. “You haven't yet told your adoptive family about Emma?”

Slowly, Kasha shook her head.

“Why not?”

Kasha took in another steadying breath. “Emma's different. She's not like everybody else.”

Axel studied her, head cocked, looked genuinely interested in her problems. “What do you mean?”

“She has . . .” Kasha gulped, watched Axel's face carefully, looking for judgment. “Down syndrome.”

He paused, hooked his belt loops with his thumbs,
his eyes full of sympathy, and nothing else. “That's rough.”

“Yes.” Heat flooded Kasha's body, her limbs going loose, and weak. “When I was a kid, I had fantasies about having a secret brother or sister. Blood kin. And when it happened, my world turned upside down.”

“Finding out about Emma's condition dashed your expectations,” he said softly.

That was pretty insightful of him. The expression in his eyes said he understood about dashed expectations. But of course, he did. He'd lost his son. Her issues were nothing compared to his.

And his capacity for empathy astounded her.

“Kasha,” he murmured, and reached out to touch her arm. Lightly. Comforting. Nothing sexual about that touch, but instantly the temperature in the room shot up twenty degrees.

She swallowed, shifted away from his touch. Too much. It was too much. He was too much. “Emma's handicap doesn't make me love her any less. In fact, I might love her even more because of it. The minute I looked into her face, I felt a connection unlike anything else I've ever experienced. Axel, she's a part of me.”

“That's a lot to hold inside for seven weeks.”

Kasha rubbed a palm over her mouth. “It's a relief to say it to someone. Thanks for letting me rehearse with you. I think it's going to be easier now to tell my parents.”

“Glad I could be of service. If you want to talk more.” He shrugged as if it was no big deal, and his eyes cradled her as if she were a rare and delicate glass. “I've got one good shoulder if you need to lean on it.”

She smiled helplessly. Oh, he was a charmer. “Thank you for that.”

“So . . .” He patted his left shoulder. “Go ahead, let it out.”

“I'm petitioning the court for custody of her,” she blurted, startling herself. What was it about him that made her want to confess everything?

Axel's eyes widened. “Big step.”

“It's why I need this job so badly. I'm still paying off school loans, and the pay is double what I was making in my previous job. Plus the health insurance is the best there is, and while Emma does get Medicaid, she's got a lot of health issues and I want to make sure she'll get the best health care money can buy.”

“I get that.”

She closed her eyes briefly, tried to imagine what he must have gone through with his sick child. He probably understood what she was facing more than she did.

“You're strong,” he said.

“So are you.” She heard the admiration in her voice, recognized how much she respected him. He was a good guy.

“Emma's lucky to have you.”

“No, I'm lucky to have her. She's incredible, so sweet, and innocent. She makes me feel . . .” Kasha paused, trying to decide how to name her feelings. “Important. Needed. She gives me a sense of purpose.”

“I get that.” The tilt of his head, the angle of his eyebrows told her that for whatever reason, he did understand.

“Every time Emma sees me she gets a big smile on her face.” At the thought of Emma's dear face, Kasha couldn't contain her own huge grin. “She can't make the sound ‘s,' so she calls me her ‘titter.' It's so cute.”

“You sound like you're in love.”

“I am.” Kasha pressed both hands over her heart.
“She is an amazing girl, although I should say young woman. She's twenty-three.”

“What is her mental age?” Axel asked.