Off the Hook (27 page)

“I’ll have someone look into the payment they made, to find out where they got the money. If there’s so much as a hint of anything untoward, we still might—”

“Untoward?”
The word ripped from Kate’s throat on a harsh choking laugh. “God, you have no idea who you’re talking about. There’s nothing ‘untoward’ about any of them, Paul. They work hard, and all they want is to share their little piece of the world with others, to show the rest of us what life can be like if you stop to appreciate it once in a while.”

“Kate.”

“Don’t ‘Kate’ me, you condescending piece of shit.” Paul was right, she was letting her emotions rule her, and she didn’t care. “You want to know where they got that money from? Me! I gave it to them.”

“Oh my God,” Josh croaked. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Don’t,” she said through gritted teeth. “Don’t you dare speak to me right now, Josh, you slimy little snot.”

She kept her eyes fixed on Paul the whole time, watching as something new washed over his face: understanding. He’d underestimated Kate, and they both knew it.

“I would be very careful about what you say next, Kate.”

“Or what? You’ll fire me? Too late.” She slapped the paper down on his desk, pressing her fingers against it until her nails whitened. “I never thought I’d say this again, but you know what, Paul? You can take this job and shove it as far up your ass as you can reach—or, better yet, let Josh do it for you.”

She was already at the door when he called her name, and this time it wasn’t nearly as calm or condescending as before.

“Kate!” Pushing out of his chair, Paul lifted the paper off his desk and waved it between them. “If you think I’m going to let you walk out of here with anything other than your coffee mug, you are sadly mistaken. A couple keystrokes and this’ll show you as being fired, which you are.”

“Go ahead and try, but before you do, know this.” Holding her phone up, she waved the screen in front of him, showing the most recent email she’d received. “My friend Phyllis has already sent me a copy, and if that’s not enough, then you should probably know that I have several saved text messages, of the highly inappropriate kind, from a couple of your investors who had a difficult time taking my no as an answer over the years.”

A slightly grayish tinge covered Paul’s face.

“Exactly,” Kate continued. “And as both of these ‘gentlemen’ are, and I shudder to say it, well respected in their law firms, and both are married to women who’ll ruthlessly rip their hearts out, I’m fairly confident either one of them would be only too happy to represent me should I need to retain counsel for any reason—like wrongful dismissal or anything else we can come up with.”

The vein in the middle of Paul’s forehead began to throb, and his jaw clenched so tight he was no doubt going to damage some of his expensive veneers.

“Anger.” Kate gave him the most condescending smile she could muster. “It’s an emotion, too, Paul. Don’t let it cloud your decision-making.”

She started through the door, then stopped and looked back one more time. “I’ll expect everything I’m owed before the close of business on Friday.”

And by the time Friday afternoon hit, not only was her bank account well padded, but with the help of Jeanette and Laurel, both of whom were still in total shock, she packed up her apartment, put some of it in storage and donated the rest, gave her landlord notice, and took care of the seemingly endless accounts that needed to be changed or canceled.

By the time she finally made it inside one of the Helijets, she was almost twitching. She’d only been gone a week, yet it felt like half a lifetime. But as excited as she was to be going back, the cavern in her heart still ached.

Chapter 12

You can’t second-guess baseball. You can’t second-guess yourself.

—Mariano Rivera

As luck would have it, Liam arrived in Oakland just as they started a three-game home stand against the Tigers. They had him throw in the bullpen the first game, but he didn’t actually take the mound until late in the second game, when they let him face a single batter before pulling him.

The jog out of the bullpen had always been something Liam loved: the fans roaring, music blaring through the sound system, the smell of the Kentucky bluegrass mingled with kicked-up dirt. He loved the feel of the rosin bag as he flipped it around in his hand, and he loved knowing that once he climbed up on the mound, he could shut everything else out and focus solely on the catcher’s glove.

Except when he looked down the chute at the glove behind home plate, all he saw was Kate crouched in that too-big gear, telling him to throw some heat and then heckling him when she didn’t think he was throwing as hard as he could.

So he let himself believe it was Kate’s glove there, and he hurled that damn ball as hard as he could, sitting the batter in three straight pitches. It was everything he remembered. It was what he’d dreamed about his whole life, what he’d worked so hard to get back to.

And it meant nothing.

What the hell was wrong with him?

The team was great, the coaching staff was awesome, and the training staff was top-notch, so there wasn’t a single thing Liam could complain about. Two nights later he even got to pitch against the Yankees in front of the Oakland fans, which was something he’d always loved. It didn’t matter which team you played for or which field you played on, the fans were always that much louder, that much more passionate, when the Yanks were in town.

And yet nothing about it felt right.

He called home at least every other day, and whether he spoke to Jessie or one of his brothers, the responses were all the same: everything was great, they were ready to open, and they’d hired a friend of Olivia’s to help out with housekeeping, waiting tables, and the desk when Jessie was working the shack.

“We got this,” Jessie assured him. “The only thing you need to worry about right now is getting that slider of yours working.”

“What do you know about my slider?” He laughed, but it felt a little hollow. “You don’t even watch the games.”

“Damn right we do! There’s some sort of MLB app that we run from, uh, a laptop into the screen in the great room. We haven’t missed a game yet.”

A couple of years ago, that would have meant something to him, but now? Now all he could wonder was if Kate had watched any of them. She’d admitted to watching a few before, but now? He doubted it.

He had to give her credit: She’d worked him over pretty good, reeled him in and made him feel things he’d never even considered possible. And then she’d gutted him like a goddamn fish, leaving him wrecked, with nothing but an old jersey and his own words to keep him warm.

Sorry, but this is the only way.

He’d never been that pissed, that hurt, and that confused all at the same time. And his brothers hadn’t been any help at all; they just kept reminding him that everything was as it should be: They were going to get to keep the Buoys, and Liam would get to return to playing ball without anything holding him back. He should be happy, they’d said; he should be excited, because life was finally handing him everything he wanted.

Not everything. Because somewhere along the line in the last couple of months, what he wanted had changed, and now nothing would ever be the same. He’d made it back to the show in large part because Kate had pushed him, believed in him, and made him believe when everyone else thought he should have packed it in.

The Buoys had made it to opening day in large part because she’d busted her ass to help get it there. She’d sweated alongside the rest of them, had practically handed them not only a web designer but a chef, and she hadn’t even hesitated when the manure needed to be shoveled.

Turned out she could shovel shit with the best of them and he’d bought into all of it, and now what did he have? A career that held little appeal and a family business that was tainted with everything she’d touched. And she’d touched everything.

There was a tiny part of him that knew he deserved it. He’d done the same thing to her, and this was karma coming around to kick him in the ass and show him not only how stupid he really was but how he was right.

Love wasn’t enough.

Kate didn’t want him, and his brothers didn’t need him, so the only thing left was baseball. It was a simple thing; all he needed to do was be good to the ball, and it would be good to him. Most of the time. He wasn’t perfect, far from it, but he was working a 3.672 ERA, which was pretty damn good for him, especially considering his fastball was still only brushing this side of ninety.

During their series in Detroit, he sorted out everything he’d left there before Da died, but when they got back to Oakland, he had no interest in finding a new place, so he stayed in a hotel. His contract was only a year long, anyway, and even if management offered him an extension, which they’d be crazy to do, he doubted he’d take it.

His arm wasn’t going to give them any more than it already was. He could work two, maybe three batters a few times a week, but that was as much as he had left, and everyone on the team knew it. Still, he’d never disrespect the game, the team, or the thousands of players who’d kill to be in cleats, so every time they called him out of that bullpen, he gave them everything he had.

He’d bleed out on that mound if that’s what his manager asked of him.

A month out, leading the Rockies late in the game, Liam got the call again. Game face on, he rolled his neck a few times, then hustled out of the bullpen, forcing everything around him to fade until all he could see was the glove behind the plate, all he could feel was the unblemished curve of the ball against his palm and the small even stitches as he wrapped his fingers over the seam.

Liam didn’t make a habit of disagreeing with his catcher, but he’d already thrown more fastballs in the last two nights than he should have, so two shake-offs later brought not only the catcher but the pitching coach out to the mound.

“They’re not expecting you to throw hard,” his coach mumbled from behind his cupped hand. “He’s up there thinking your arm’s thrown all the smoke it’s going to throw this week, so you know what you need to do.”

Yup, he did. He needed to bleed a little.

Liam climbed up on the mound and waited for the ump to wave him on. The call came again, and this time Liam didn’t hesitate. Inhaling deeply, he went into his windup and hurled that ball straight down the chute as hard as he could. He didn’t hear it slice through the air, he didn’t hear it smack the glove, and he didn’t hear the ump call the strike, because all of that was drowned out by the screaming pain that exploded inside his shoulder.

Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion: stumbling off the mound, the manager’s face so close to his, medical staff surrounding him, everyone talking but Liam not hearing a word. He didn’t need to hear what they were saying, because he already knew.

They could do all the MRIs they wanted to, they could even try the surgical route again, but none of it would change the fact Liam had thrown his last pitch. Still, he let them poke, prod, wrap, and talk all they wanted, because they had a job to do, just as he’d had his. Bottom line, there was no point pretending his injury was anything less than what it was, and even before his manager came to talk to him, the cards were on the table.

They were sorry about his injury, they’d of course honor his contract, and their medical team was prepared to do everything they could for him, but the fact of the matter was, they couldn’t leave their bullpen short, so while they didn’t want him to feel rushed, they were going to have to replace him in fairly short order.

Liam heard everything, but it was as if their voices were filtered through a thick fog. By the time he made it to his locker, most of the team was long gone, which was just as well, because nobody liked to watch a teammate empty out his locker.

With his right arm basically strapped against his body, it took some clumsy juggling with his left to get everything into his duffel bag, and when he finally got back to his hotel, he didn’t even bother unpacking it—he dropped the bag on the end of the bed and flopped down beside it.

It was well after midnight when his phone rang, and it was only then that he realized he hadn’t even checked it before tossing it in the duffel bag with everything else. It went to voicemail before he could dig it out, and by the looks of it, this wasn’t the first phone call from the Buoys that night.

Shit.

Before calling them back, Liam pulled a couple of beverages from the minibar and then dropped down on the couch. He didn’t even hear a ring before Jessie’s voice was in his ear. Pulling the phone away a bit, he put it on speaker and set it on the armrest next to him.

“Hey, Jess.”

“Oh my God,” she cried. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

By the amount of noise coming through the phone, she’d obviously put him on speaker, as well, and Liam could picture her there with Ro and Finn, all huddled around her desk the same way they’d been when she first explained the reservations system to them—the difference being that this time they didn’t wait for an explanation. The three of them all started firing questions at the same time.

“Rotator again?”

“What’d the doctors say?”

“Did they give you anything for the pain?”

And behind the chaos was something else, something that sounded an awful lot as if one of them was sniffling, crying maybe.

“What’s that?” he asked. “Is Ro crying?”

“No!” Ro’s indignant reply was immediately followed by what sounded like someone getting whapped with something and then Ro’s reluctant sigh. “Yeah, okay, whatever.”

Liam told them everything the doctors and his manager said, ending with a “So I guess that’s it.”

A moment of silence followed before Ronan cleared his throat.

“Is there any chance—”

“No. The arm’s pretty much fucked now.”

“Sorry, man. That’s really shitty.”

“Yeah,” Liam muttered. He tried to laugh it off, but sitting alone in his hotel room made it sound pathetic and hollow. “It happens.”