Homestands (Chicago Wind #1) (17 page)

Mike followed her gaze.

Red drops dotted his hand and arm.

Was that blood?

He stared at the specks of red. He could feel them now on his face, see them on his shirt. Whose blood was that? He shifted for a better look, but pain flooded him again, and he slammed his fist against the sidewalk.

Spots flashed before his eyes.

Passing out sounded wonderful.

“Don’t do that,” one of the women said. “You’ll make it worse.”

He breathed through his mouth until his eyes cleared and the nausea passed. “I’ve got friends inside.” He ran through their names until the brunette nodded at Brett Burkholder’s name and dashed in to find him.

The blonde stayed with him.

Slowly, he tried to cradle his arm against his chest. But the slightest movement shot torture through his arm, and he tried not to sniff, tried not to blink, tried not to breathe.

The club doors crashed open. His teammates surrounded him, but Mike ignored their questions. All he wanted to know was where that blood had come from.

The sky hinted of dawn when Ben woke. Dana slept, so he slowly slid out of bed. He pulled a gray Air Force T-shirt over his head, then watched her to make sure her sleep was deep.

She was out.

He slipped through the partially open door and crept down the hallway, avoiding the areas that creaked, until he reached the living room. He unlocked the front door and opened it.

The paper wasn’t there yet.

He heaved a sigh as he closed the door. No, he was in control. He could wait.

In the kitchen, he flipped the light switch, squinting against the fluorescent’s glare. The Keurig sat silent and empty on the counter. He placed a pod inside, set a cup beneath it, and started it. With a sigh, he dropped onto a dining room chair to wait.

Yesterday had been exhausting. He’d started showing homes at eight in the morning and didn’t stop until after nine that night. Dana had reheated her homemade focaccia bread for him, and he’d stayed up until eleven, nibbling it while he watched SportsCenter. Like the previous two nights, he’d found the show uneventful.

Maybe today.

If not today, there was always later in the season. He could wait. He’d waited years already.

Coffee gurgled quietly into his cup.

Ben eyed the clock on the stove. In five minutes SportsCenter would start all over again, giving him enough time to get comfortable in the recliner. Until the paper arrived, that would have to do. When the show’s familiar intro began, he’d get the same thrill he got from opening the paper, a rush he was beginning to look forward to.

He pushed himself up from his chair, giving in to a yawn. The mug was half full, and he leaned against the countertop, tapping his fingers on the fake granite.

Patience, Ben.
He smiled. Funny how difficult it was to wait for coffee when waiting for revenge could be so easy.

From the first-class seat behind him, an air-conditioning unit hissed as the passenger redirected the flow of air. Mike shifted in his window seat, his back muscles tight from the weight of a cast that ran from the bottom of his fingers to halfway up his biceps. The sling’s strap pulled against his neck, and for the third time since he’d walked onto the plane, Mike ran a finger beneath it in hopes of finding some comfort.

At least his painkillers were helping. He’d suffered an open fracture, and the Royals’ surgeon had attached a plate to… some bone. Yep, he’d be setting off metal detectors for years to come.

The Kansas City police, though, had come up with zilch. Elizabeth and Kerri, the women who’d witnessed the attack, didn’t see anything he hadn’t seen himself—some guy had whaled on him once and run.

But why? He’d received no threatening mail, and despite turning down the usual number of autograph requests, no one had stood out as being that angry about it. He’d even considered Meg’s assistant’s fiancé, but Meg had carefully asked Dana who said Ben had been showing homes all day.

Mike stared out the window for the hour-long flight. There were no clouds, ironic after almost a full week of rain. Green squares of farmland gave way to suburbs butting up to each other until Lake Michigan, dotted with boats, appeared. Nice—a beautiful day to be absolutely miserable.

Inside O’Hare, Mitch Wilcox, the team’s General Manager, met him. So did a mob of reporters. Mitch deflected their questions as he and Mike walked, surrounded, down the concourse. Once they escaped, Mitch drove him home, talking about the investigation and trying to weed out any clues Mike might have forgotten.

As if he hadn’t spent his time in the hospital doing the same thing.

To his relief, Mitch dropped him off at the front door of his off-season, suburban home—his current home now that he was on the disabled list—and left. Few things were more humiliating than getting beat up. Listening to another man talk it over was worse. “I’d rather get beat up again,” he mumbled as he wandered into the kitchen. He set his wallet, phone, and keys on the counter. Might as well let Meg know he was back.

His call went to voicemail. “Hey, Meg. It’s Mike. I’m home.” He fiddled with the strap of his sling, reminded why he was home before the rest of the team. Suddenly he was glad she hadn’t answered. She’d probably want to know how he was, and he didn’t want to talk about it. “Guess you’re busy. Bye.”

He ended the call.

His phone beeped, reminding him that his dad had called while Mitch had been driving him home. He put the phone on speaker and set it on the counter, then headed to the fridge to see if Maria, his mom-like housekeeper and assistant, had gotten the fridge stocked like he’d asked.

One shelf was completely filled with bottled water. Mike grabbed one and managed to twist off the lid.

“Hi, Mike,” Dad’s gravelly voice sounded. “Give us a call when you’re home. Thought we’d come see you for a few days since you’re laid up. Mom wants to do some cooking for you.”

Mike stopped guzzling the water and glanced at the phone. And?

“Also decided this might be a good time to meet Terrell.”

There it was. Meg would love hearing this bit of news.

In his bedroom, he unpacked quickly and, once his bag was empty, tossed it into a corner of his closet, kicking it in farther. With this arm, he wasn’t going anywhere.

He ordered a deep-dish spinach pizza in a half-hearted attempt to eat healthy. With dinner on the way, he wandered into the great room and turned on the TV. He was rarely home this time of day. What was even on? He surfed for a minute. Looked like he wasn’t missing a thing.

The afternoon news caught his attention, only because of Meg’s old habits. And what timing—the sports segment was showing highlights from last night’s White Sox game. He watched with envy as pinstriped players crossed home plate and an infielder snagged a line drive.

Nice.

The news program played two clips from yesterday’s make-up game in Kansas City, where the Wind had been blown out. No pitching, no hitting, and a bullpen that made the starting pitcher look good. Thank goodness the newscast didn’t play any more of that ugliness.

Except now he was seeing… himself. In the airport. Pushing through reporters and their microphones, eyes drooping, mouth a tight line, and stubble all over his face. He sank lower on the couch, squinting in mental pain as the clip continued. He should have smiled, should have said something beyond his annoyed, “I’m fine.”

He looked anything but fine.

The broadcast moved on, and when the local news began all over again, Mike tried to find interest in the top story, a manufacturing plant leaving the city.

If Meg found this stuff interesting, so could he.

But after two minutes of angry workers followed by the most recent name-calling between men running in the fall’s election, Mike gave up. News junkie he was not.

Baseball player extraordinaire… Well, for the next couple months, he wasn’t that, either.

Hurting, angry, and humiliated… Sadly, that description
did
fit.

With a growl, he pushed himself up from the couch. He glared across the wide, sunlit room. So some cowardly man had injured him with his back half-turned. There had to be something he could do to pass time until he started rehabbing.

His gaze landed on the coffee table. Meg’s blue scrapbook, the one she’d returned with his yearbooks, sat on it. He picked it up and plopped back onto the couch.

Ow. He sucked in a breath. When would every little movement quit causing pain?

Once the sting faded, he flipped the book open to years of forgotten memories.

There was his first minor-league home run, a solo shot over the left-field wall. He remembered that one. A few articles later was his first four-for-four game followed by the game in which he’d made two costly errors.

He smiled. Meg had not censored his career.

Page after page detailed his time in the minors. The year in Double-A and his first game in Triple-A. Playing in the Futures All-Star Game. He read the names of the other players, noting those who were stars now and those whose careers had flopped.

There was the article from the Dixon paper the day after his major league debut, with Meg’s memories written beside it—her pride when he was announced for his first at bat, his command of veteran players in the outfield, and his first big-league hit, a two-out single in the seventh that led to Texas’s come-from-behind win.

Mike added his own dusty memories to hers, major league fans asking for his autographs, getting a hit off Baltimore’s ace, and stealing second for the first time. He’d stood, brushed himself off, and taken in the view from second base in a packed big league park.

The articles went on until the album’s last page. He eased the book shut and stared at the cover. The articles beckoned him, a link to the healthy ballplayer he’d been three days ago, and he returned to the front, flipping back to his favorite memories.

Halfway through, he stopped.

Hadn’t his first homer in Triple-A been off Dana’s fiancé?

He flipped pages until he came to the article and read the few lines that mentioned his at bat. “Pinch-hitting in his first game, twenty-year-old Michael Connor belted a three-run homer, knocking reliever Ben Raines out of the game.”

Mike read the sentence again. Something felt wrong.

He read it a third time, feeling like he was waiting for a sneeze that wouldn’t come.

The doorbell rang.

Dinner. He set the scrapbook aside and headed for the front door. Whatever felt odd would come to him later.

On Monday evening Mike sat at Meg’s kitchen table, fiddling with his fork while Meg cleared the table around him.

A very different Mike had returned from Kansas City. He’d yet to give his usual smile and spoke only in response to Terrell’s questions until Terrell probed too close to Mike’s attack. Already she’d learned not to mention that.

Yesterday he’d shown up at church, halfway through Clark’s Sunday school class. From across the room Mike had nodded at her before pulling a spare folding chair from the wall. She took in the bags beneath his eyes, his sling, and the cast that covered most of his arm. He looked less than thrilled to be there.

“I’m bored,” he told her afterward as the three of them walked into the auditorium. “I’ve been home less than two days, and I’m going crazy.”

Terrell couldn’t keep his fingers off the cast. “Can you eat with one arm?”

“The doctors aren’t sure, Terrell. If I get thin, tell your mom to have me over for dinner.”

Wow. He was quick.

Terrell, lips pursed, had studied Mike’s long, muscular frame. “Let’s not wait.”

Now Mike twirled his fork. The tines snagged on his fingers, and the fork clattered to the table and then the floor. Mike grunted as he reached for it.

“I’ll get it.” She picked up the fork before he could fold himself over his cast.

“I’m not an invalid,” he snapped.

“No, just a crab.” She turned her back on him, heading for the dishwasher. “Terrell’s still waiting for you to watch the game with him.”

“Like I want to torture myself watching baseball.”

“So you’re taking it out on Terrell?”

“Enough, Meg. I know I’m a jerk.”

She couldn’t stop her tongue. “Admitting it is the first step.”

He scowled at her. “I’m starting to wonder where you were last Tuesday.”

“Right here, watching the news, I think.”

“Got an alibi?” He walked to the peninsula that separated them. Sighed deeply. “I’m not enjoying my company, either. All this free time, and I can’t do a thing. Stupid arm hurts every time it gets bumped. And try sleeping with brick burn on one side of your head.” He rested his sling on the countertop, his weight on his right arm. “Did I tell you my parents are flying in Wednesday?”

“Yes.” Now there was a topic she didn’t want to talk about.

“Don’t know what we’ll do for six days.”

“You’ll talk, go downtown, go to a game—”

“Thrilling.”

“You’ll eat out a lot, and your mom will pack your freezer with all your favorite foods.”

His scowl lessened. “True. And they’ll want to spend time with Terrell. Don’t forget.”

“I won’t.” She swallowed at the thought of seeing Davis and Patty Connor. Six days? How would they treat her? “I’m sure they’d like to avoid me.”

He pushed himself away from the peninsula. “I’ll make sure they don’t give you grief.”

Her one-armed hero. She started the dishwasher and followed him out of the kitchen. “Would you mind staying here with Terrell tonight? I need to meet a client in forty minutes, and Jill can’t watch him.”

“Sure. Where are you going?”

“Dana’s house. She and Ben are redoing their kitchen.”

Mike stopped in the family room doorway and turned.

Behind him, Terrell looked their way before returning to the television.

“You’re going there?” Mike asked.

How else was she supposed to meet them? “Yes.”

With two fingers, he motioned for her to come with him.

She followed him back into the kitchen.

“I don’t like you going to that guy’s house,” he said.