The Change Up (13 page)

He accepted the open beer from Luke with a thank you and then gave him a look that said, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“I signed another commercial contract this afternoon. Four shopping centers and two doctors' offices for PPI Management.” The old man was beaming.

Sam let out a sigh of relief and lifted his bottle in the air. “Congratulations, Dad. I know how much you've been gunning for this. That's great news.”
Thank God.
No stepmom Sam had never met.

Luke echoed Sam's sentiments.

“Thank you, boys. This means a lot to me, because I know how much it can mean for you and your families. Well, in your case”—he looked at Sam—“your future family.”

Sam sucked down some more suds. He wasn't fundamentally opposed to a family of his own, and he knew that was something his mother had wanted for him, but he wasn't going to marry until he was damn good and ready. Unfortunately, most of his family thought thirty-five years old was past time.

“And,” his father continued, “I'm ready to hand over the business, boys.”

Changeup
, Sam thought, and he straightened, wanting to protest but not sure why or how.

Before he could say a word, his father added, “You'll split it 50-50. Sam, I'm making you the head of commercial landscaping, effective immediately. You've handled the stadium project like a real professional, and I'm proud of you. Luke, I'm making you the head of residential. We'll talk money as soon as I meet with my accountant and lawyer.”

“Wow,” Luke said. “I can't say I was expecting this.”

The words
a real professional
rolled around in Sam's head. Was that what you called kissing Rachel Reed in the middle of right field?
Real professional.
The mouthful of beer he'd swallowed rose up into his throat.

“But what will you do, Dad?” Luke asked.

“What I've always wanted to do: sit back, relax, and watch my boys run things. I'll still be on the payroll, answering phones and drumming up new business, but I'm cutting back. Way back. I think I've earned it.”

“You have,” Sam said, finally finding some words.

A comfortable silence settled around them, and Sam watched the embers from the glowing fire lift into the night sky. He picked the label off his bottle of Bud and thought,
So this is my future now
. You got what you got when you didn't have a plan, but the idea of spending the rest of his life taking care of a baseball field where some other lucky son of a bitch got to play …

He needed something stronger than beer.

Beyond the trees, something stirred, and he looked around the fire for Babe. She was sleeping on the ground beside his father's chair. Sam glanced at the man lounging with his feet kicked up on the cooler, a look of blissful contentment on his face. Sam wasn't about to be an ungrateful son and tell him he wasn't sure he wanted to be locked into landscaping for the rest of his life.

For some reason, that made him think of Rachel again—and that kiss. And when he randomly caught Luke's eye, he felt guilty. It was stupid. Rachel and Luke were ancient history, but getting carried away the way Sam had this afternoon had been careless. Immature. Anything but
real professional
. If something like that got back to his father and brother, he would have serious explaining to do.

Rachel had been right. They needed to just forget that kiss had ever happened. From this point on, Sam was going to keep his hands away from the Rachel Reed cookie jar—no matter how tempting those cookies were.

When the fire had died enough for Sam to douse it with dirt, the three Sutter men followed Babe to the house. Sam's father said his goodbyes at the bottom of the deck steps. The man was still smiling. After dishing out hearty hugs to both his boys, he left, and Sam wished Luke would follow. He
really
wasn't feeling like entertaining anymore.

“Can I hang for about thirty minutes?” Luke asked. “I don't want to get home until my mother-in-law leaves.”

Sam knew Mandy's mom. She was nice but overbearing, and he'd witnessed firsthand the way she treated Luke like a moron when it came to taking care of the kids. “Okay,” Sam said, and he led his brother into the house, where they sat at the kitchen table and drank another beer.

Luke lifted his bottle. “Here's to becoming business owners.”

Sam didn't bother touching his bottle to Luke's, he simply drank.

“Am I sensing some ambivalence here?”

Sam shook his head. “I'm just tired.” He knew Luke wouldn't let that lie, so when Babe scratched at the back door despite having been outside for the last three hours, Sam got up and let her out.

Feeling restless and unable to pin his thoughts down, he stood on the deck in relative darkness while Babe moved in and out of the beam from the security light mounted on the back of his house. To his surprise, the dog peed quickly, and he reluctantly went back inside, hoping Luke would be willing to change the subject.

And he was. But the new topic wasn't something Sam cared to discuss, either.

“What's this?” Luke asked. He'd moved from his spot at the table and was standing at the island with one hand atop Rachel's folders, which were clearly marked “coaching candidates.”

Annoyance coursed through Sam's veins, and he snapped. “Nothing that concerns you.”

Worry lines creased Luke's face. “Did you hear Dad? He said 50-50. If you're thinking about coaching a baseball team, doesn't that concern me?”

“I'm not coaching a baseball team,” Sam said bitterly. He was thirty-five, not sixty with nothing better to do.

“Okay, well, whatever it is, I need to know. Dad needs to know. He just gave you 50 percent of his company. Are you or are you not going to be there 100 percent of the time?”

“Of course I'm going to be there,” Sam said lethally.

Luke frowned, then put his bottle in the sink, and after a long exhale said, “That comment had nothing to do with Mom. I wasn't insinuating you … just forget I said anything.” He roughed a hand over his forehead. “I guess I'm tired, too, man, and … I'm sorry. I am. I only want you to be happy. Always have. I'd just love for you to be happy working side by side with me.” He gripped Sam's shoulder and squeezed, infusing a load of emotion into the gesture.

“I am happy,” Sam said, but he couldn't make full eye contact, and after Luke had gone, the conversation reverberated in Sam's head. It put him on the defensive. How could he forget what Luke had said?

For ten years, Sam had been everywhere and anywhere his family had needed him to be. But all it had taken was one glimpse of a folder marked “coaching candidates” for Luke to assume the worst—Sam was going to toss the family aside and go back to baseball. He snatched the dishtowel off the counter and flung it against the stainless-steel refrigerator. The impact was slow and soft and ineffective.

He spied the stack of folders that had caused the trouble in the first place and thought about throwing those, too. But Babe was watching.

“Everything's okay, girl,” he said. “Everything's fine.” It wasn't like someone he loved was dying … or had Alzheimer's. And as much as he didn't want to disappoint Rachel, he knew—he didn't have the time or luxury to be helping her build this ball team.

Liv flopped on the plastic couch in Rachel's hotel room and brought a travel mug partway to her lips. “Richard drives me crazy. He treats me like I'm a lowly assistant. I was so glad when you asked me to come back to Arlington.”

“You are a lowly assistant,” Rachel said, looking up from her iPad with a smile. “But you're my lowly assistant, and he has no business treating you poorly. I'll make sure he gets the message loud and clear.”

“Thank you,” Liv said.

“My pleasure. Now, we need to get down to business. Wes had to push back the tree cutting again.” Rachel sighed. “I tried to talk to my father about our options, but he's been in a depressive funk for most of the last week. If I can't rely on him for something simple like that, I can hardly expect him to help me with these interviews.”

“So you called me.”

“Yes, and …” For a split second, Rachel hesitated before mentioning her enlistment of Sam. That kiss had done more than complicate things between them; it had royally screwed up her usually flawless focus. His heady eyes. His hungry lips. His solid body and big hands. She was at the point where she didn't even need to close her eyes to conjure those images.

“And?”

“Oh. Sorry about that. I, uh, asked Sam Sutter to give me some perspective on the coaching applicants,” Rachel said in a rapid but matter-of-fact tone that belied the mental replay of the flirty way she'd enlisted his help and the searing kiss that had followed.

Liv's eyes narrowed inquisitively. “Really? You asked the landscaper's opinion?”

Her tone was incredulous, and Rachel chuckled. “Sam used to play in the minor leagues.”

“Oh,” she said. “Wait, I thought the interviews were just a technicality because your father had already listed who should be hired based on their resumes.”

“The lists are a mess.” And as much as she didn't want to go out on her own, Rachel was going to have to if her father couldn't clearly and consistently talk to her about what he wanted. Getting Sam involved was a calculated move. “I'm hoping the baseball bug will bite him, because having a hometown guy in the mix would be great publicity.”

“You're right!” Liv perched on the edge of her seat. “Maybe you can sneak him into the coaching mix? Or do you think he'd be better in the front office? Assistant GM, head of personnel, scouting? Wait. Do they even have scouts in this league?”

“I have no idea,” Rachel said, returning her attention to her iPad. “Before you walked in, I was reading league news, and I didn't see anything about scouts. I did see that Elvis Landry took a coaching job in Virginia, however.”

“He was on our list, right?”

Rachel swiped her finger to move up the screen and nodded. “Yep, another one gone. We are so behind the other teams when it comes to hiring, I'm starting to worry nobody good is going to be left.”

“Then you really should talk to your dad about getting Sam involved.”

Something on the screen caught Rachel's eye: the age of veteran players had been increased. Before she knew it, she was fully engrossed in an article about the Independence League owner's meeting and holding up a hand to silence Liv.

According to the article, each team in the league now had the right to designate “one ‘veteran' player who may have attained forty years of age prior to January 1 of that playing season.”

Her pulse kicked up as she reread a couple paragraphs just to be sure she was understanding things correctly, because if she was, that meant Sam could play.

Would he even want to after all these years? She glossed over that consideration and imagined the story this would make. A thirty-five-year-old former professional baseball player getting his shot on the field again. What if he was still good—good enough to win a championship? Disney made movies about stuff like that. Talk about inspirational. Surely, the Arlington media would eat it up, and the free publicity would help the ticket office put butts in those seats.

The whole idea gave her chills, and she passed the iPad to Liv. “Look at this.”

Liv studied the piece for a minute. “What about it?”

“Why should Sam coach or sit in the front office when he can play?”

“
Can
he still play?” Liv wondered, looking skeptical. “I mean, is he physically capable of it?”

“Of course he is,” Rachel said with a wave of her hand. “Why wouldn't he be? He's in great shape, and it's probably like riding a bike. He just needs to pick up a bat again.” That part might prove tricky, though, considering his ambivalence toward baseball every other time she'd raised the topic.

“I don't know,” Liv said. “Those guys train for years. Besides, isn't Sam kind of … old?”

Rachel glared at the twenty-five-year-old sitting across from her. “He's thirty-five. That's not old. Come on! Didn't you read that article? The Independence League's new age increase for veteran players gives Sam five more years to rewrite his history where baseball is concerned.”

Ooh!
She liked the sound of that and made a mental note to use that phrase when she pitched him this idea later.

Again, Liv's eyes narrowed. “You're awfully interested in Sam Sutter.”

“Correction: I'm interested in what Sam Sutter can do for me.”

Liv's look turned sly. “We're still talking baseball-related things, right?”

Rachel's face heated, because there were a great many things the man could do for her off the field, too, and those things kept jockeying for space in her mind until she lost control of her mouth and blurted, “He kissed me.”

Liv's shocked expression gave way to a raucous laugh.

“It's not funny,” Rachel hissed.

“Did you kiss him back?”

“Of course I did,” she said, and when that sent Liv into a further paroxysm of giggles, Rachel softened and smiled, too.

“Wait, where did this happen? And when? I want details.”

“Yesterday. In the middle of the field. In the middle of the workday.” Rachel shook her head and closed her eyes, indulging in the split-second memory of that positively sinful liplock. “I lost all composure and went after the man.” She groaned. “Ugh. Do you realize what this means?”

“You're interested in more than his baseballs?” Liv laughed harder.

“No! Yes. I mean …” She winced. “It
means I've officially taken on too much, and I'm cracking up. All this stress, all the deals I'm missing in Philadelphia, my father's health, drama from my family, putting together this team when I know nothing about the business of baseball …” She exhaled loudly. “All of this has rendered me incapable of making reasonable decisions. At least where Sam is concerned.”