Hydraulic Level Five (1) (51 page)

Authors: Sarah Latchaw,Gondolier

Tags: #Romance, #Contemporary

“Ball!”

He whooshes out.
There we go, Caulfield. Eye on the ball
—
first rule of baseball. Channel the rage. Carry it through in your swing. Wind-up…no break, coming in fast, just how you like them. Swing through…

CRACK!

Yes.
Caulfield tosses the bat and sprints for first as the crowd’s untamed screams propel him forward. He rounds first as the other team’s outfielders stumble around the fence, the ball out of the park and lost to them. A manic grin claims his face as he slows to a jog, savoring the trip around the bases. One runner crosses home plate…then two…then three. Caulfield’s grand slam pushes the score to 6-4, bottom of the ninth. The game is over.

His teammates flood from the dugout and Bear Creek students and parents spill onto the field, but the only face Caulfield seeks is Aspen’s. Strong arms lift him and he can see above the hundreds of heads. He spots her, wildly waving her arms and jumping with sheer joy. Gone is the inheritance. Gone is the piggish lawyer, his father and Rachel. It’s only her. Always her.

Caulfield stiffens.

I love her.

Not some high school crush or infatuation with her hair, her eyes, her body. He loves
her
. Enough to forget everyone else. Enough to give her everything he can. Enough to protect her, to marry her.

He slides down from his teammates’ shoulders and whips Aspen into his arms, clinging to her.

“You were…Ack! Amazing!” she cries into his ear, heedless of the sweat dripping from his forehead, his neck, his arms. “So brilliant, so perfect!”

He laughs and set her down, plopping his soaked ball cap on her lovely blond head. Framing her face with his hands, he kisses her, hard.

“Let’s do the fairy tale. All of it.” His voice quakes with adrenaline and emotion. She can’t miss his meaning.
Don’t scare her, you idiot. She’s not even sixteen.
But it’s not fear in her wide eyes. Nothing but joy stares back, and it fills Caulfield’s own heart with trepidation.

He smooths her cheek, eases his agony. “That’s a long way out, though, getting married? Far, far in the future.” She nestles beneath his arm. He stoops and pecks her cheek.

“Only you, Firecracker. Don’t forget it.”

Kaye, well, here it is. One hundred plus pages of our story, told as truthfully as I can recall. I know it’s one-sided. It’s missing your thoughts, your memories. Thank you again for agreeing to share them with me.

You should know, I feel like that eighteen-year-old kid again, terrified you’ll read this memoir and lose respect for me. I’m ashamed of how I resented Sofia. How I both idolized and hated my birth mother. Or the secrets I kept from you, for years. The way I longed for a thirteen-year-old girl who was little more than a child. But this is life, and we make choices and we suffer (and grow) because of them.

Read our story. Give me your honesty. Question everything, not just the passages I’ve marked, because this is us and I want it to be right.

~Sam

Acknowledgments

To my husband and beautiful children: you will always have first claim on my hours and my love. Thank you for your ceaseless support and encouragement.

To Mom and Dad: you raised me to believe I could achieve most anything with hard work and creativity. Thank you for your guidance.

To my editor Jennifer, to Elizabeth, and the Omnific staff: thank you for your respect, time and care in making this book “shine.”

To Jenny and EBJ: You were the first to tackle these pages with the “red pen of honesty.” Thank you for helping to shape this tale.

To Tricia and Amelia: You brought this story its first readership. Many, many thanks.

To Renee, Katie, Erin, Dana, and Kelly: You were the first of my friends to read my work. Thank you for believing in me as a writer.

To my DSM dinner ladies, Team WTFISGOINGON, and the online community: Thank you for your enthusiasm and endless patience these past years. You made me want to keep writing.

About the Author

Sarah Latchaw was raised in eastern Iowa and appreciates beauty in mud-splattered gravel roads, weathered farm faces, and combine harvesters powering through cornfields. She also loves to explore the world, thanks to countless family minivan trips across the States to coastal cities, kitschy attractions, and national monuments. This passion for finding stories led to college adventures to Israel and Palestine, Jordan, Slovakia, Germany, and other European countries. Each place’s story rests in the back of her mind and in her childhood photo albums.

In 2002, Sarah received her BA from Wartburg College in public relations and media, and entered the workforce, ready to climb the ladder. However, when researching MBA applications evoked feelings of dread, she realized the last thing she wanted to do was spend the next years of her life in a passionless corporate marketing career. With the unfailing support of her loving husband, she chose to pursue a career in creative writing and received her MA from Iowa State University in 2009.

While writing more “serious” works for grad classes, Sarah dabbled with a fun online writing project, titled
Hydraulic Level Five
. As often happens, this particular little story evolved into something more important, more personal to her and those who read and enjoyed it. Once the story was complete, Sarah loved it enough to desire a proper place for it on bookshelves. This began her relationship with Omnific Publishing and the anticipation of
Hydraulic Level Five
’s official release in Fall 2013.

These days, Sarah wakes every morning thrilled to cuddle her toddler son, show him the world, then capture that world and shape it into stories on paper. She also enjoys her piano, volunteering in her community, and reading anything with a cohesive plot. She and her family reside in Des Moines, Iowa.

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