Homestands (Chicago Wind #1) (4 page)

And when Mom killed herself, Margo had let him vent.

His thumb rubbed the spine of the binder. The day he’d packed his bedroom and left Baltimore, he’d told Margo with all the solemnity of a six-foot-one-inch, two-hundred pound eighteen-year-old who knew the world awaited him that if she ever needed anything, she should let him know.

Eighteen years and one reality check later, Ben still meant every word of it, never mind that Margo had no idea where he was. If she found him, he’d risk his fragile security for her.

The thought turned his head to where Dana sat at the dining room table, hair tucked behind her ears.

She flipped some pages, then paused to jot something down.

“Dana.”

She kept writing. “Hmm.”

“Dana.”

This time she lifted her head. “What?”

“I—” His throat turned thick. He swallowed once, twice. Pushed himself from the recliner and crossed the room.

Dana straightened.

He knelt beside her, wrapping one arm around her slim shoulders. He’d failed far more than he’d succeeded. Was that the way his life was to be?

She tilted her head against his forehead, and Ben shut his eyes, willing himself to be weak, to say what she wanted to hear. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Me too.” Her fingers grazed her cheek, a subconscious gesture. “Me too, Ben.”

He nodded, his throat still tight with regret and fear. The regret he understood, but the fear—the fear scared him more than he’d ever admit.

He drew in a shaky breath, his smile forced. “Thank you.”

Dana nodded, and he returned to his recliner and the game, knowing she must still watch him. He picked up the binder and the empty soda can and pretended to drink, pretended everything was fine.

But his mind refused to play along. As the Sox game continued, one question echoed in his head.

Was Margo okay?

Soft showers clouded Saturday, their sound a steady patter against Meg’s tears.

With Terrell asleep in his own room, Meg sat by the window in her dark bedroom and traced the rivulets of rain down the glass. The lightning had started minutes ago, and each flash illuminated her room before returning it to deep darkness.

All week she’d been immobilized by fear and anger and pain. Jill had tried to help by researching child custody laws, but Meg found little comfort knowing she’d face no jail time. A big-name star like Mike? He’d find a way to take Terrell.

At least Terrell had stopped asking why Mike Connor, baseball superstar, had been at his house, but her head ached and her shoulders throbbed from deflecting his questions. She’d refused to lie. No, it wasn’t that. She was too tired. Even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t have come up with a lie.

The way Mike had.

She followed a single raindrop down her window. Their marriage had been like that—high hopes that slid lower and lower until there was nothing left.

But the beginning had been so wonderful.

She was still amazed at how easily Mike had convinced her to marry him. They’d had other plans—for Mike to work his way through the minors while Meg got her degree in interior design. And then marriage.

But Mike’s reasons made sense. A top draft pick, he was playing in the Virginia minor league club and doing better than expected. Two months apart had felt like forever. And four more years? He was a millionaire, he’d reminded her. His signing bonus could easily pay for her education. Why wait?

Three weeks later they were married in a small wedding in Pulaski, Virginia, that their families, nine high school friends, and some of Mike’s teammates attended. At eighteen and a half, they were husband and wife.

So young and naïve.

Those first months flew in a blur of games, college classes, and hours decorating their home. The months turned into a year, and while they struggled with her classes conflicting with Mike’s mornings off, their individual dreams kept them going. Mike continued his advance through the minors, each step resulting in a physical move to a new city, and Meg practiced what she’d learned on each house. When Mike made his major league debut a week before their third anniversary, she was as excited as he was. When he won the centerfielder position the next season, she knew Mike had realized his dream. Only a long, happy future together remained.

Where had they gone wrong?

In the distance, thunder rumbled. A car splashed through the watery street, the quiet slipping back while taillights disappeared.

The night her marriage gave way hadn’t been much different than this one. The rain had started after Mike’s home game ended. Meg watched it from home and went to bed as soon as the last out was made, but the thunder kept her awake, so she painted her nails and waited up for him. After all, his next road trip started after tomorrow’s game. Maybe he’d come home early and they could talk, something they seemed to have little time for lately.

But now the clock neared 2:30.

She’d been kidding herself.

Since late spring, Mike’s behavior had changed, his return from games growing later and later and his goodbyes increasingly early. When she asked why, he’d said he needed extra batting practice. That he had errands to run. That he was going out with some of the guys.

She didn’t buy it anymore. Not that she ever had. She just hadn’t wanted to face it—whatever
it
was—hoping the problem would go away.

But it hadn’t. And there she sat in the living room of her dark house, watching raindrops run in silver streams down the windows, admitting the truth at last.

She was losing Mike.

The clock passed three before headlights flashed across the wall. Meg turned on a small lamp beside the couch and sat with legs crossed Indian-style, waiting.

His key fumbled in the lock, but she made no move to help him. The door opened, and Mike stumbled over the one step from the garage. He swore softly, then looked at the light.

And then at her.

Jaw set, he glanced away as he stepped inside and tossed his keys on the table. “Why are you up?” he asked, moving out of sight into the kitchen.

She heard the refrigerator open. “Waiting for you.”

He said nothing, so she stood and walked to the kitchen.

He was opening a bottled water.

He dropped onto a kitchen chair, stretched his long legs, and kicked his shoes off. He tugged his white shirt loose beneath him and crossed his ankles before taking a drink.

Meg waited for him to speak. How did one started a conversation like this?

But he kept silent.

“Where have you been?” she asked at last.

Mike studied the water. “Out.”

“With who?”

He pushed his chair back and moved around her toward the stairs.

He was
not
going to blow her off. Not tonight. “Are you going to answer me?”

His voice rang with irritation. “Answer what?”

“Who were you with?”

Mike stood with his hand on the wall, one foot on a step. When their eyes met, he looked away. “Nothing I say will make you happy, so why bother?” He started up the stairs, his voice drifting to her. “I’m taking a shower.”

Another shower. Over the summer, he’d fallen into the habit of taking a shower when he got home, waking her first at two and lately three in the morning with his less-than-stealthy entrance. Did he think she hadn’t noticed? And why wouldn’t he answer her? Why didn’t he say he was with the guys?

Because he wasn’t.

The thought twisted her stomach until she sat on the kitchen table and doubled over, arms around her waist.

It couldn’t be true.

She listened to the shower run in their master bath. She couldn’t deal with this now. It was too late. Or maybe too early. The clock moved from 3:20 to 3:30, Meg growing more and more numb as the shower ran on.

Finally she slid off the table and trudged upstairs. The shower noise increased as she neared.

But when she entered their bedroom, Mike lay on his back across the bed, knees hanging over the edge, still dressed except for his socks which lay in balls at the base of the wall six feet away.

Dazed, she walked into the steamy bathroom and turned off the shower.

Let him sleep in his clothes.

She returned to him, silent on the thick carpet.

He didn’t stir.

She reached a hand to the stubble on his face, the scraggly goatee he’d decided to grow, but at the last second pulled back. Had someone else suggested he grow it? The idea had not been hers.

She rubbed her forehead. Maybe in the morning things would make sense. She clung to that thought as she slipped between the sheets, for once thankful for their king-sized bed. She turned her back on her husband and slept.

When she woke, Mike lay curled beneath the covers, only his forehead and nose showing. Meg squinted at the clock. Eleven-thirty.

She tiptoed out of their room and showered in the guest bath, not wanting the sound of water to wake him and force them together.

Not yet.

She dressed and slipped downstairs, making herself a cheese omelet filled with tomatoes and green onions. As she slid the omelet onto her plate, Mike appeared at the bottom of the stairs, wearing shorts, his chest bare, his hair sticking up.

“Hi,” he said after the tiniest pause.

Meg turned back to the stove, throat tightening. “Morning.” She shut off the burner and scrubbed the stovetop before she felt ready to face him. When she did, she found him sitting at the table, reading something on his phone.

And eating her omelet.

Something inside her hardened.

He took a bite and texted something—someone. He took another bite, the omelet over half gone.

What did the omelet matter? Their marriage was farther gone than that. Meg swallowed. “Who is she?”

He stared at the phone for several seconds before lowering it and squinting at her. “What?”

“I want to know her name.”

“Who?”

She turned her back, shook her head. He could pretend all he wanted, but she refused to listen while he denied it.

She walked into the laundry room down the hall and closed the door behind her, heart swollen in her chest, her vision blurring. Stacks of fresh laundry, evidence of an evening’s work, sat in piles on the dryer. Mike’s clothes, everything he needed for the next eleven days, the longest road trip of the year starting tonight. She grabbed a white golf shirt by the throat and crumpled it against her face. Why now?

When her tears dried, Meg returned to the kitchen, but Mike was gone, the plate empty, his fork lying on the table amid egg residue.

Upstairs, the shower ran.

She gathered his clean clothes and climbed the stairs, lungs thick and heavy. Mike’s bag lay on the unmade bed, a few items in the bottom. She put each pile of clothes away and left as the shower turned off.

In the kitchen she started a second omelet.

Mike would be down soon, bags in hand, heading out the door for tonight’s game and then the airport. Almost two weeks would pass before he’d walk through that door again. What would he say before he left? Would he tell her he loved her? Would he mumble it? Or would there be a ring of truth to it?

A stair creaked.

So he was coming. Fine. She’d keep silent, concentrate on the omelet. Keep that, at least, from ruin.

Behind her, his shoes hit the tile. Bags thudded against the floor, and keys jingled as he picked them up.

And then silenced.

She stared at cheese that oozed out of the omelet and sizzled.
Keep quiet. Make him talk.

“Her name’s Brooke.”

Meg’s gaze lifted to the stove’s digital clock. 1:03. As she watched, it turned to 1:04.

1:04. She would never forget that moment of change.

She forced herself to turn toward Mike’s voice.

He stood in front of the door to the garage.

“Whose name?” she asked.

“Brooke.” He studied his keys. “You asked me her name. Her name’s Brooke.”

“Who, Mike? Your new agent? A new GM? A new bat girl? Who is Brooke?” She swallowed, stunned at the volume she’d finished with. She’d make him say the awful truth, make him hear his own disgusting words.

Instead he motioned to the door behind him. “I’ll be gone awhile. Tuesday—I get back on a Tuesday, real early. We’ll talk.”

He wouldn’t call? Yes, the phone calls had come less frequently, their length shorter and shorter, but eleven days? Nothing?

He started out the door, and this time she couldn’t hold back. “Mike—”

He shook his head and closed the door, leaving red-hot pain behind him.

The ringing of her phone jarred Meg from the past. Disoriented, she scanned her dark bedroom, focusing on the digital clock. 9:30. The phone rang again, and she hurried to her nightstand to answer it.

“Hello?” The word came out a whisper. She cleared her throat.

“Meg? We need to talk.”

She closed her eyes at Mike’s voice, remembering the disaster that had followed the last time he’d said that.

“Are you there?” he asked.

“Yes.” No more cowering. It was time to take charge—for herself and for Terrell. She opened her eyes and forcefully repeated herself. “Yes.”