Homestands (Chicago Wind #1) (10 page)

Go away.

Her footsteps sounded across the kitchen, then vanished where the carpet began.

Leave me alone, Dana.

Her voice sounded in the hall outside his office. “Ben, I’ve had a long day. Help me carry food in.”

She’d had a long day?

The doorknob turned.

What had Margo said about him to his dad? That had to be what it was about. What words of defense had she offered that drove his dad to murder?
Margo, I’m sorry—

“I’ve been calling you.” Dana stood in the doorway, irritation creasing her features. She sniffed, the lines in her forehead deepening. “What is that smell?”

Anger poured through him. What did she know about bad days, about being the root of someone’s murder?

She huffed at him. “Can’t you leave your computer for a minute and help me?”

Dana was in his hands before he could think.

Mike hadn’t meant his hiding spot on the couch to be that good.

He lay curled in a ball beneath the chenille throw, bare feet and ankles poking beyond the cream fringe, but Katie and Nate Destin had run past him three times already.

“Hurry up! I’m hot under here!” he hollered.

“Daddy, where is he?” Katie called from the dining room.

Adam Destin, his closest friend from his ball-playing years in Texas, laughed in the overstuffed chair beside him. “I told you not to play hide-and-seek with them. They’re clueless.”

This four-game series against his former team was the second time Mike had returned since Texas had traded him. And, as before, he was staying at Adam’s home instead of at the team hotel, enjoying the company of Adam, Shauni, and their three-year-old twins.

Mike pulled the blanket off his head, neither kid in sight. “I’m putting an end to this. I’m in the living room!” he yelled before ducking under the blanket.

Squeals and laughter answered, but they came no closer.

Unbelievable. “Nobody can be this bad at hide-and-seek.”

“Yeah, they can.”

“You should be embarrassed, Adam.”

“I’m humiliated. So. Dude. Someone’s been asking about you.”

Mike listened for Katie and Nate, but their voices were muffled as if they’d gone upstairs. “Who?”

“Brooke.”

He snorted beneath the blanket, regretting it when he inhaled small fibers. Too bad that wasn’t the only thing he regretted about her.

“Just so you know, man, she’s hoping to see you while you’re in town.”

Mike sat upright, the blanket falling off his chest. “You tell her I don’t want to be in the same building as her.”

Adam held up a hand. “I’m just giving you the head’s up.”

The thought of Brooke lurking nearby made his head pound. “She’d better not be coming here.”

“I think she’s gonna call you at the clubhouse.”

“I won’t talk to her. And if she waits outside the clubhouse, I’ll walk right by her.”

“That’s it, huh?”

“Are you kidding?” Meg flashed through his mind, but Mike refused to compare the situations. “I plan on never seeing her again, and you can tell her that at your next family reunion—”

“Connor!” Nate stood in the living room doorway, feet spread, finger pointing.

Mike dove beneath the blanket as Nate raced for him, Katie on his heels. Their small bodies flopped on top of him. Mike pulled his legs to his chest and covered his head as the blanket slid to the floor.

“Connor! Connor!” Nate jumped up and down. “We found you!”

“And all by yourself too, didn’t you?” Mike pulled the twins close, tickling each with one hand while they laughed and pushed him away in vain.

Shauni appeared in the doorway, eyebrows raised. “Mike, you wouldn’t be riling up my children, would you?”

Nate whacked Mike with a throw pillow.

It caught him across the chin, and he grimaced. “You think your kids are angels?”

“Hardly.” She pulled the pillow from Nate’s grasp. “Lunchtime, guys.”

The twins ignored her, tickling Mike instead.

He shrugged and held his hands out, waiting for them to discover he wasn’t ticklish.

Shauni grabbed each twin by a shoulder. “Give Mike a break, you two. He’s not here for your entertainment.”

“Now she tells me.” Mike picked up Nate, who’d lunged for him again. Did the kid ever quit?

Katie darted into the dining room. “I want to sit by Mike!” she yelled.

“No, me!” Nate slithered out of Mike’s grip as if made of liquid and ran after Katie who defended her spot beside Mike’s chair with her lungs.

Mike trailed after them, raising his voice above theirs. “I’ll sit between you.”

Silence and innocent smiles answered him, the two looking as incapable of arguing as they were capable of winning hide-and-go-seek by themselves.

Adam followed Mike. “Want to take one home for a month?”

“I heard that.” Shauni moved a chair between the twins’ booster seats. “You’re too good with kids, Mike. You should have some.”

“I do.” Mike grinned as Adam sent him a confused look. “I have a son.”

“Since when?”

A platter of barbeque-slathered ribs filled the center of the table. Ribs and three-year-olds? What was Shauni thinking? “Long time ago,” he said, sitting between the twins, anyway. “Terrell’s going on six.”

“Get real, Connor. I’d know if you had a kid that old.”

“Only if I knew too.”

Adam’s eyes widened. “Was it that singer after Brooke? I thought—”

“No! Not her.” Every muscle in his face tightened. The fun in stringing Adam along fled. “It was Meg. We have a son.”

Shauni passed a bowl of corn on the cob to Mike. “Who’s Meg?”

“His ex-wife.”

“I didn’t know you’d been married,” she said. “What happened?”

“Your husband introduced me to his cousin.”

Shauni sent Adam a disgusted look.

Adam passed the look on to Mike. “Thanks a lot, Connor. She’s not my cousin, she’s my cousin’s wife’s cousin,” he told Shauni. “And I just introduced her to Mike and a few others during spring training. I had no idea she had a crush on Mike.”

But Mike had known. Within a minute of meeting her, when she’d laughed at all his comments, when she’d flashed that wide smile, when she’d slid away from Adam to sit across from him, he’d known. And the knowledge had been a mental anesthetic, easing his conscience enough for him to lean across the table and lose himself in conversation with her.

As the night had progressed and the others left, Mike and Brooke stayed. He could claim that he’d said nothing to make her think he was interested, but all these years later, he knew that sitting with her, listening to her, talking and sharing some of his dreams had been the same as if he’d egged her on. After all, Brooke had followed him back to Texas, a real ego boost. And since she and Adam were almost family, Mike told himself there was nothing wrong with her presence in the group he hung out with.

If only he’d admitted where things were headed.

Shauni’s voice broke into his self-recriminations. “I cannot believe you’d do that, Mike.” She flung a pat of butter on her corn, then pointed the knife at him. “I hope you’ve changed.”

He raised his hands. “I have. Really.” He waited, jokingly, until she lowered the knife. “I’m trying to convince Meg to give us another shot.”

“Good luck.”

“I’ll need it.”

Nate wiped his barbeque-covered mouth with his hand then held it up, fingers spread, and eyed it as if someone had just used him as a personal napkin.

“Need some help, bud?” Mike wiped Nate’s arm and face until the napkin looked more red than white. Shauni handed him a stack of napkins, and Mike stashed them all beside Nate’s plate.

Maybe he’d make it through lunch stain-free after all.

Katie’s voice sounded beside him. “Me too.”

Mike turned to find her red, sticky hand reaching for him, and he grabbed her wrist before she could share the stains. He swiped a few of Nate’s napkins, pausing at the sight of Adam with his hands behind his head, chair tipped back, face covered with a grin. Mike smirked back. “You could have warned me.”

The doorbell rang before Adam could say anything. He started to lower his chair, but Shauni waved him back. “I’ll get it. If Adam answers the door, he ends up signing autographs and talking baseball with the UPS man.”

“If you’d stop ordering stuff, there’d be no UPS man to talk to,” Adam teased.

Shauni, already out of sight, didn’t answer.

“Are you serious about Meg?” Adam asked. “After she keeps your own kid from you?”

“I can’t blame everything on her.” Mike released Katie’s hand, but a glance at Nate showed his face covered in sauce already. Mike sighed, making a mental note to change shirts after lunch. “I’ve thought about Meg off and on for years, and I’ve regretted what I did since before Brooke and I split up. If I can forgive what she did with Terrell, maybe she can forgive me.”

“If that’s what you want, then I hope it works.”

Shauni appeared in the doorway, halting their conversation, but she made no move to enter.

“Who was it?” Adam asked.

Something in the way she avoided Mike’s face turned his stomach.

“It’s Brooke.” Shauni dragged her gaze from Adam to him. “Mike, she wants to see you.”

Dana, I’m lost without—

The pen in Ben’s hand left inkless marks on the card. Another one dead. He shook it, but it refused to work.

“You got another pen?” he asked the blonde toothpick behind the florist counter. “This one’s out of ink.”

“Sure.”

She handed him his third pen since he’d walked in. He ignored her flirty smile and held out his hand. “And another card?”

She slid him a second pale pink card, and Ben rewrote the message for this last bouquet.
Dana, I’m lost without you. Forgive me? Ben

Mushy, yet to the point. Just like the other four bouquets. He slipped the card into the envelope, wrote Dana’s name across it, and tossed the pen toward the cash register.

There had to be an easier way.

“All done?” the girl asked.

“Yes.” He held out the card. “This goes with the tulips.”

She added the envelope to the pile, writing a note on the order form. Ben scanned the pictures of the arrangements he’d chosen. Besides the pink tulips, he’d picked some exotic purple flower, a pink-and-cream vase with matching flowers, the ivy topiary thingy, and a massive red bouquet with chocolates. Ben couldn’t remember the names of all the flowers, and he didn’t care to. As long as they were delivered at the right time, each an hour apart. Maybe by the time he finished work, all would be forgiven.

“What’d you forget?” the girl asked. “An anniversary?”

Ben scrawled his name across the sales receipt, not looking at the total. He didn’t want to know. “Birthday,” he lied.

“Ouch.” She made a face, then smiled again. “Well, if these don’t do it, nothing will.”

She wasn’t blonde for nothing. He handed her the signed receipt and stuck his credit card in his wallet.

“Good luck,” she called when he turned to leave.

He jerked his chin in goodbye. He didn’t do luck.

On Monday night, Meg opened her door to find Mike standing on her front step. Before she could speak, he stepped into her foyer as if he belonged there.

Which he definitely did
not
.

He flashed her that warm, enveloping smile. “It’s good to see you.”

It was? After the way they’d left each other? She forced a grim smile back at him. “You too.” What had happened during their years apart to turn Mike into such a gentle, forgetful giant?

She
hadn’t forgotten. Couldn’t. She closed the door and motioned to the kitchen, resisting the urge to offer him ice cream. “Would you like something to drink?”

“That’d be great.”

Terrell interrupted from the top of the stairs. “You’re back!” He thudded down the stairs and leaped into Mike’s arms.

Mike pretended to drop him, and Terrell squealed and grabbed his arms. Mike leaned back and squinted at Terrell’s chest. “What’s that on your PJs?”

“Baseball players.” Terrell yanked at the stomach of his shirt. “This guy’s pitching, this one’s hitting, and this one’s the centerfielder. Like you.”

“Like me?”

Mike seemed to give Terrell every bit of his attention, his wide smile and happy eyes showing how much connecting with her son—his son—meant to him. And seeing Terrell happy with his dad and still living with her… she’d never dreamed that could be possible.
Thank you, God,
she breathed. If every visit with Mike went like this, maybe she could bear it.

And it was only for an hour. Terrell would go to bed, and Mike would leave. She watched the man she’d feared cuddle with her son like a big teddy bear. Yes, this she could handle just fine.

Her offered drink forgotten, Mike and Terrell sprawled across the family room floor, playing board games she’d bought for Terrell but never had time for. She paid bills from her favorite recliner and listened to Terrell beat Mike at Chutes and Ladders then lose over and over at Connect Four. A chuckle escaped. She’d always known Mike would make his kids earn every victory, no matter how young they were.

At precisely eight-fifteen, Meg closed her computer. “Bedtime, Terrell. Go brush your teeth and use the bathroom.”

“Nooooo.” The tantrum began. “I don’t want to go to bed—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Mike held up his hands, and Terrell froze mid-wail, looking as stunned as Meg felt. “Tell me you don’t do that every time your mom tells you to do something.”

Terrell blinked.

“I don’t want to hear that coming from you again, bud.” Mike lowered his head, his eyes drilling into Terrell. “You got it?”

Evidently Terrell did. Tears filled his eyes until Mike growled like a bear about to pounce. Terrell ran for the stairs, squealing all the way, with Mike right behind him.

Wow.

Maybe having Mike around wasn’t such a horrible thing.

She put away Chutes and Ladders and the Connect Four game and followed the sounds of water splashing in Terrell’s bathroom. Terrell stood before the sink and brushed his teeth, Mike beside him, while the faucet ran.