The Change Up (26 page)

God, what
had
she been doing all these years? Closing deals and making money. Worrying about the bottom line.

It wasn't enough.

She'd been so sure of her decision to follow in her father's footsteps. She'd seen the freedom he'd had, jetting off to close deals on a moment's notice, while her mother was stuck in Arlington with sick kids and PTA obligations. No, thank you. That was never going to be Rachel. She chose to be like him instead. He controlled the money. He had all the power. She laughed cynically, because he still did. Despite the Alzheimer's. Despite the special power of attorney. She continued to give him control over everything.

You're forty years old, Rachel. You should be thinking for yourself.

Fine. She would play Sam's game … hypothetically, of course. What would Rachel do? Her first decision would be to not sell the team to those idiots. Yes, it would piss off some people, including her father. But so be it. She was in charge in this scenario. And when her father snapped at her for going against his wishes, she would tell him she did it
for
him, not despite him. She would tell him Helen Anne was in agreement with her, because holding on to the team a little while longer would give him a chance to enjoy what he'd built. He would argue with her about who would run the team in the meantime and what he should do if another buyer didn't come along, and she would say, “I'll run the team like I have for the past two months with as much or as little input from you. And if money is what you're worried about, if you need cash to continue to fight this disease, then you can have mine. That way we get the team
and
more time together.”

The air whooshed out of her lungs as the daydream spun out of control in her head. It was a fairy-tale ending, and fairy tales didn't come true, but still … the idea nagged at her, morphing into something else entirely: What if
she
bought the team?

Rachel's hands shook with the realization that it was feasible. She knew the list price. She knew her net worth. Parting with eight million dollars in one fell swoop would change everything. It would thrust her into the financially precarious position her father was currently in, but it would also allow her to see her father's dream to fruition. Her parents would be able to afford care and treatments. Helen Anne and Macy could stay in the house for as long as they needed to. And Rachel would have a chance to make things right with Sam.

That alone was worth every penny she'd ever made.

Buy a baseball team.
Sam's team. She smiled as she lifted the papers and glanced at his name on the roster. It would be risky, dramatic, and life changing.

Wasn't that everything love was supposed to be?

• • •

Sam thought about walking the mile through the trees to the stadium for this afternoon's practice, but it was drizzling. Dark clouds overhead threatened to full-on rain, so he drove, parking in his usual spot at the end of the third row. Every day, for the last week and a half, he'd expected to pull in here and see heavy equipment poised to cut down those trees. Still nothing. The waiting was torture, because every time he thought about it, he thought about Rachel.

How could he have been so wrong about her? Why was he still hoping for some sort of redemption, something to change his mind?

Like he always did, he left the questions hanging in the air while he unloaded his gear from the back of the truck and headed to the clubhouse. The locker room wasn't big. It wasn't flashy, but it was newly remodeled, painted blue with a white stripe halfway up the wall. An oversized playing card was painted on the floor. The ace of spades. He walked around it. They all did. Not wanting to wear off any of the shine or show disrespect.

Two weeks in and they already had some superstitions.

Sam loved it. He couldn't believe he'd gone ten years without this—the preparation, the ritual, the competition—in his life. It fed his soul. It made everything better.

Almost everything.

“Gentlemen!” Coach Slater yelled and then shook his head, clearly still struggling with the fact one of his players was a woman.

Most of the guys had lapses. Like last week, when Ian rolled out of the shower without a towel. Sam had to give Pauly props, though, because she didn't even blink. “Three older brothers,” she'd said. “It's nothing I haven't seen before.” Oh, did Ian take exception to that.

“Just call us Aces, Coach,” Matt Fry said from behind his open locker door. “We can all answer to that.”

A couple of the guys whooped but then quieted as Coach continued.

“The front office has a request.” He pulled his reading glasses out of the chest pocket of his windbreaker and propped them on his nose. Then, he lifted his clipboard and read, “Opening Day, Friday, May 11, presented by The Community College of Huntingdon County—Arlington. Saplings to the first two hundred people.”

Trees? Was this some kind of sick joke?

“After the game, a sign marking the”—Coach looked at the clipboard again and then butchered the word—“
arboretum
will be unveiled. They would like at least two players to attend.” He looked up. “Can I get a couple volunteers, or will I need to assign you?”

“An arboretum?” Sam wondered aloud. None of this made sense.

“Yeah. It's a fancy word for a bunch of trees. I didn't know what the hell it meant, either. I had to look it up.”

Sam knew what it was. He just didn't understand why or … “Where?”

“Behind the parking lot,” Coach said. “Supposedly the land was donated back to the community college. Makes no sense to me—why you'd buy something and then give it back to the person you bought it from. But, hey, I ain't rich, so what do I know?”

“I'll do it. I'll be at the unveiling,” Sam said, maybe a little too enthusiastically, because his teammates looked at him funny. “What? I like trees. I'm a landscaper, remember.”

Coach nodded and wrote something on his clipboard. “Okay. I got Sutter. Who else?”

“Me,” Ian said. “I'm a landscaper, too.”

“Second order of business.” Coach yanked a stack of papers off the clipboard, leaving a few behind. “Finalized schedules. Front office is going to email you a copy, but this'll save you from having to print it so you can hang it in your locker.” He started passing them out. “I expect Ws next to every contest.”

Sam reached for his copy and scanned the dates and team names. He was still reeling from the news about the arboretum. No wonder he hadn't seen any equipment. During the argument in his truck, Rachel had mentioned a plan, and he'd shut her down. Had she been trying to tell him about this back then? Was there more to the story than what he'd heard standing outside her office? His gut cramped, and he knew the answers to those questions.

Damn.
What if he'd fucked this up worse than she had? Not telling him the team was for sale, not telling him she was hoping to monetarily capitalize on his return to baseball. Those were bad things. But not hearing her out, not giving her a chance to explain, and making light of her feelings for him and the position she was in with her father … Those had been dick moves that replayed over and over again in his head. She wasn't innocent, but he'd been selfish. He should at least call her and admit that, apologize, too. He could leave a voicemail if she didn't answer. Just clear the air.

He locked eyes on three games the Aces were slated to play in Camden, New Jersey, in two weeks. Maybe he could follow up the call with a surprise visit. It was a lot harder to ignore someone when they were standing right in front of you.

“Why are you grinning like that?” Ian asked. “Thinking about those trees?”

“No. I'm thinking about the woman I'm assuming is behind those trees being turned into an arboretum.”

“Who's that?”

“Rachel, you meathead.”

“Oh.” Ian laughed. “How should I know?”

“I don't know. You agreed to be at the unveiling, so I figured you had some idea what was going on.”

“I'm just hoping there's a party afterward.”

“Figures.” Sam grabbed his glove off the top shelf of his locker and headed out to the field with Ian by his side.

“So … Rachel.”

“What about her?” Sam asked warily.

“Are you guys still”—Ian bobbed his brows—“getting busy?”

“She's in Philly.”

“Yeah, but she can visit. You can, too. I'd drive a few hours for …” Sam raised his glove in front of Ian's mouth as they closed in on Pauly. “What'd I say?” Ian asked.

“Nothing yet, but I know where you were headed. Show a little respect.”

Ian frowned in the general direction of Pauly and then asked, “How'd you know I wasn't going to say I'd drive a few hours for the woman I
love
?”

“Because that would mean you've actually focused all your attention on one woman long enough to fall in love, and we both know that has never happened.”

Ian slapped his mitt over his heart dramatically. “That hurts man. I'm deeper than you give me credit for.” They shared a laugh and then split up into positional warm-ups.

Off and on, Sam thought about the weird but welcomed shift in the day. An arboretum. Talk about a changeup. His mother would've been ecstatic. Front and center at the dedication. How he wished she could be here for Opening Day.

When it was time to stretch, Sam laid back in the grass he'd groomed to perfection and stared at the clear blue sky while a mass of black birds flew in V-formation overhead. In that moment, he knew she would be there. In fact, she'd been here all along. Now all he needed was for Rachel to be here, too.

After practice, Sam went home and sat out back with Babe by his side, a beer on the fat arm of his Adirondack chair, his cell phone in his lap. “If she doesn't answer, I'm just going to apologize and hang up. No babbling. You hold me to that.” The dog tilted her head as if she understood. Maybe it was silly, but it made Sam feel better.

He touched the screen, placing the call, and was slow to put the phone to his ear. He didn't expect her to answer, but she did.

“Hello.”

A startled, “Hey,” was all he could come up with.

“I take it you heard about the arboretum,” she said, her tone almost teasing.

That was his girl—sharp and to the point. “Yeah,” he said, smiling, but then he remembered this wasn't some run-of-the-mill phone call. “I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

“For being selfish. For not letting you tell me about the trees when we were in my truck. You tried, didn't you?”

“I did, but I also deserved to be shut down. Sam …” God, he loved it when she said his name. “I'm sorry, too. I made verbal promises to my father and ignored the nonverbal promises I was making to you.”

“Nonverbal promises? Does that mean what I think it means?”

She laughed, a breathy sound that thrilled him, and he closed his eyes, dropping his head to the seatback, so thankful they'd cleared this hurdle.

“You weren't some one-night stand,” she said. “You deserved better than to find out about the buyers the way you did. And as far as playing you goes, I admit it. I definitely walked into your father's office with an ulterior motive that would get you off my back about the trees. I also recognized that helping you reconnect with baseball could help me fill those seats. But I wasn't trying to exploit you as much as I was trying to make us both happy, and then something else happened.” She paused, and a shaky exhale filtered across the line. “I fell for you, too. I hope you can forgive me.”

“Forgive you for falling for me?” he asked, his voice calm, but his heart pounding.

“No. I'm not sorry about that part.”

“Good, because that's the only part I care about right now.”

“Sam, I'm so glad you called, but I really have to go. I have a critical meeting in five minutes.”

“Are you just saying that because you want to avoid this awkward conversation?”

“Absolutely not. It's not awkward at all.” She laughed. “Well, maybe a little. Why don't we finish the conversation in person?”

“When?”

“How does May 11 sound?”

Opening Day.
“You'll be here.”

“I wouldn't miss it for the world.”

“Rachel …”

“Sam ...” He could hear the smile in her voice. “Don't say anything else. Save it for May 11. Okay? I have to go.”

He agreed, smiling, too.

May 11 was going to be one hell of a day.

“Where are we going?” Danny asked again. It was at least the fifth time in the last fifteen minutes.

Jackie fussed with the zipper of his Arlington Aces windbreaker. “To the baseball game.”

“Oh, that's right.” He smiled at Rachel, who was admiring the way her mother cared for her father. She supposed that was when love really mattered—during the roughest spots. She felt ashamed suddenly for all the years she'd looked down on her mother's life as a housewife and all the years she'd thought she was somehow superior to Helen Anne, who'd skipped college to become a wife and mother. These two women were every bit as strong as Rachel was … in some ways maybe even stronger.

With her husband settled, Jackie turned her attention to herself, fiddling with the belt of her jacket, a royal-blue trench she'd topped off with a white cashmere scarf. “How do I look?” she asked Rachel.

“Very nice. I still think you should wear a hat, though.”

“It will flatten my hair.”

“You look beautiful,” Danny said, smiling.

Rachel couldn't recall ever witnessing simple affection like this when she was growing up. What a shame it had taken a catastrophic illness to slow things down enough that her parents could refocus on what was important. What a blessing she'd finally opened her eyes wide enough to see she didn't have to make the same mistakes. Better late than never.