Off the Hook (10 page)

“You googled me?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. “Why?”

Instead of answering, he kept scrolling lower, over the past weeks and months as far as his history went, pausing every time her name showed up. It wasn’t nearly as often as MLB, but it was at least a dozen times.

“But you…I don’t understand. Why would you—” She stopped because he’d stepped back, his lips pressed together, his hands raised slightly.

“I really liked you, too.” His voice barely a murmur, it looked like he had more to say, but it took him a long time to finally push it out, and when he finally did, it seemed to pain him. “But what I did…how I left…God, Kate, the truth is you scared the shit out of me.”

“Me?”
she croaked. “Why? I didn’t—”

“I know,” he said, his voice low. “I know. It wasn’t anything you did. Well…that’s not true.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It was just that being with you…” He blew out a breath and swiped his sleeve across his cheek before he managed to finish. “Being with you…when you started talking about getting an apartment and all that, there was a moment—okay, more than a moment—when I forgot all about ball and started picturing what our place would look like.”

“And that was bad?”

“Oh yeah.” Eyes wide, he nodded solemnly. “That was really bad. I’d spent my whole life working to get into the show, and just like that, you made me lose focus. It was only for a while, but before you, it’d never happened before. Never happened since, either.”

“I didn’t—” she started, but he talked over her.

“It wasn’t your fault, I know that now. But ten years ago, lying in the hotel room with you that last night…” He hesitated long enough to exhale another long breath. “I kept remembering what it was like with Ma and the old man. She was always on him to get her out of here, to sell this place and move back to Ireland and do something different. He’d go along with her for a while, say things to appease her, but we knew he’d never leave here, and we didn’t want to go, either.”

Liam’s eyes never left Kate’s, but she knew he wasn’t looking at her; he was looking back, and whatever he was seeing wasn’t good. A few rapid blinks brought his eyes back into focus.

“Anyway…after you fell asleep that night, I just laid there watching you and I knew,
I knew,
if I didn’t get out of that bed right then, I’d never go back to Detroit and we’d end up exactly like my parents, resenting each other because I’d never be who you wanted me to be.”

“Oh, for—” Kate sighed quietly. “I wanted you to be who you were. Period.”

Liam choked out a harsh laugh. “That’s what Mandy told Ronan, too.”

“Who’s Mandy?” she asked, squinting through the chaos in her mind.

“His ex-wife. Before they got married, he had this great little farm outside Red Deer; wasn’t a moneymaker by any stretch, but he got by fine with what he made. He no sooner married Mandy than she made him sell it so she could have a big new house in Calgary. She even convinced him to go back to school and take night classes so he could get a degree.”

“What’s wrong with getting a degree?”

“Nothing, except then she bitched and complained because, between work and school, he was never home, and with all their money tied up in his tuition and textbooks, she couldn’t get the new car she wanted, she couldn’t travel, she couldn’t do any of the things her friends were doing. She hated that he wouldn’t turn vegan with her; she thought his friends were obnoxious and that his brothers were a bad influence on him.”

In the glow of the porch light, Kate watched his expression harden, darken.

“Turned out there wasn’t much about him Mandy liked. He hung in there a hell of a lot longer than I would’ve, never did finish getting his degree, and now he’s stuck working at the sewer plant and giving her half his paycheck so she can get her degree instead. That’s why he’s not here helping us.” Liam lifted his shoulder ever so slightly. “At least when Ma left, she just left. No fuss, no fights, no more crying. Just…gone.”

He said it as if it was a good thing, but the clouds that formed in his eyes didn’t lie.

“And you three didn’t go with her?”

“She never asked us to.”

Kate cringed. She’d never understood how parents could walk away from their children, but if she ever ran into her father again, it was the first thing she intended on asking. For now she’d have to settle for understanding at least a part of where Liam’s head was at when he ditched her the way he did.

“How old were you when she left?”

“Eleven.” It was only one word, but there was more raw emotion in those few syllables than in anything else he’d said, especially when he cleared his throat and turned his face away.

“I’m sorry about your parents,” she said, angling herself to the side until he was forced to look at her again. “And I’m sorry for what Ronan’s going through, but neither one of those situations had anything to do with us. I can’t explain why your mom or Ronan’s wife did what she did, but it wasn’t me. It’s
not
me.”

“Yeah,” he muttered over a slow, wry grin. “You kind of proved that every day you didn’t call or write. Part of me kept waiting for it, you know, kept thinking one day I’d get served with papers demanding half of everything, but that day never came.”

“If it makes you feel better, you can give me half now.” Kate’s mouth twitched, but she fought back the smile for another couple of seconds before finally letting it loose. “No?”

“Somehow I doubt you’d take it even if I could offer it to you.” His grin faded to nothing. “I was wrong about you, Kate.”

“Yeah,” she laughed. “You were, and so’s your stupid brother, so if you could go explain it to him, that’d be good; otherwise it’s going to be a long couple of months.”

Liam shrugged nonchalantly. “Already did.”

She doubted that very much, since he’d come out the door about ten seconds after her, but she was done arguing with everyone for one night. All she wanted to do was take her cold spaghetti and climb into bed.

“Can I go eat now?” she asked, tipping her head toward the door.

Much to her surprise, Liam shook his head. “No.”

“What? Why not?”

“Food’s not allowed in the cabins,” he said, and even though he was grinning slightly, he was obviously serious. “It attracts bears.”

“But I’m hungry, and it’s not like I’m going to leave the plate out on the porch.”

“Sorry. Rules are rules.” Liam tugged the plate out of her hand. “If you want to eat, you’re going to have to come back up to the lodge.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s such a great idea,” Kate said. “Not after the way I left.”

“Forget about it. It’s not like you’re the first one who’s ever done it, and once Ro shows up, it’ll probably happen a lot more.”

She hesitated a second, sighed, then pulled the cabin door closed again. They walked in silence until Kate let out a short choking laugh.

“I still can’t believe we got married like that,” she said. “I mean, that was some kind of crazy, wasn’t it?”

“Pretty much batshit, yeah.”

Yeah. What was even crazier was that she still had her ring. Okay, so it wasn’t really a ring, it was a strip of leather, but still.

Kate had no idea why he’d brought his ball glove to Vegas, but before they’d run off to the chapel, he pulled the damn thing out of his bag and tugged an already-loose, ragged piece of lacing out of the back near the wrist strap. Using her nail scissors, he’d cut it lengthwise into two thin strips, and they’d tied those around each other’s fingers.

When she’d finally gotten home, she tossed hers into the old cigar box that served as her jewelry box and hadn’t worn it since. Her fingers had brushed it a couple of times when she’d been reaching for other things over the years, but she’d never actually picked it up since tossing it in there.

Next time she went home, maybe she’d pull it out for old times’ sake, just to look at it.

Back at the lodge, Liam held the door and waited for her to go in ahead of him. She didn’t mean to hesitate, but she’d have been lying if she said she didn’t feel a bit stupid walking back into the kitchen after her little tirade, a feeling that grew exponentially worse the second she clapped eyes on Finn.

Still in his chair, Finn was sitting with his head tipped back, holding a plastic bag of ice over his face from the bridge of his nose to his chin. Blood—some dried, some running—streaked down his cheek, and as she watched, he lifted the ice pack just enough to be able to breathe out of his mouth.

“Oh my God,” Kate gasped. “What happened?”

Jessie turned from the sink, a wrung-out washcloth in her hand, her cheeks drawn in. “Ask your ex-husband.”

“What?” Liam shrugged innocently when Kate turned her accusing glare his way. “I told you I explained it to him.”

“By punching him?” she cried. “
That’s
how you explained it? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Sometimes you gotta speak the language he understands.”

“Is he okay?”

“No.” This from Jessie, even as Liam waved dismissively at his brother.

“He’s fine,” he said, lifting Kate’s plate a little. “I’ll nuke this for you.”

Kate slumped into her chair, while Liam headed for the microwave and Jessie gently wiped the blood from Finn’s cheek.

“Can I do anything?” Kate couldn’t blame Jessie for flashing her that look, the one that said she’d already done enough, but still, there had to be something. “I have a bottle of Advil in my cabin; I could go get that for you.”

This time it was Finn who spoke, mumbled and congested as it was. “Don’t worry ’bout it. He doesn’t hit nearly as hard as he used to.”

“Is that right?” Liam asked, taking a lunging step toward him. “Should we give it another go?”

Quick as a whip, Jessie was between them, shoving Liam back toward the microwave. “Grow up.”

By the look on Liam’s face, Kate thought he might have actually taken another swing if he’d gotten close enough, especially after she saw Finn smile. Blood running down his cheek, ice on his nose, and he thought it was funny?

These guys really were crazy.

“Gotta hand it to him,” Finn groaned. “He’s fast. I didn’t even see it coming.”

Liam set Kate’s plate down and pushed the Parmesan toward her, then sat down, reached over, and jerked the ice pack off Finn’s face, holding it just out of his brother’s reach. “Tell her you’re fine and you’re sorry for being such a dick.”

Still leaning back, Finn made a grab for the ice, but Liam moved it farther away.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” With a loud sigh, Jessie sat down in her chair and crossed her arms tight across her chest. “I should have stayed on the mainland. I might have hated it, but at least I got to work with adults.”

When Finn’s next grab failed, too, he slammed his fist awkwardly against Liam’s right biceps, but Liam didn’t flinch, just kept on twirling his spaghetti with his right hand while holding the ice with his left.

“Stop it,” Kate growled. “And give him back his ice.”

She may as well have been talking to her fork for all the reaction she got.

After a few more seconds of Finn’s hands flapping aimlessly in their attempts to reach the ice, he finally sat up—albeit slowly—and with bits of dried blood crusted around his nose and over his top lip, he looked Kate square in the eye.

“I’m fine, and I really am sorry for being such a dick.” His expression softened a little when he smiled and tipped his head toward Liam. “I usually leave that kind of shit up to him; he’s way better at it.”

Liam jerked his elbow up and feigned nailing Finn again, then stopped, hesitated a second, and tossed the bag of ice back at him.

Nothing like a forced apology to make an uncomfortable situation even worse, yet, oddly enough, Kate was the only one who seemed the least bit uncomfortable. Liam had kept right on eating as though nothing had happened, and it wasn’t long before Finn and Jessie both joined him.

“If they hadn’t gotten into it over you, it would’ve been something else soon enough,” Jessie explained, talking as if neither Liam nor Finn was sitting at the same table. “With these two, more often than not it’s just them goofing around, but every once in a while things get bloody. At least now it’s out of their systems for a while.”

“But they’re grown men!”

“Ha!” Jessie snorted. “That’s where you’re wrong. They might look like grown men, but inside they never got past adolescence—and it’ll get worse when Ronan shows up.”

“Great,” Kate muttered. “Can’t wait.”

Chapter 5

No baseball pitcher would be worth a darn without a catcher who could handle the hot fastball.

—Casey Stengel

Liam never should have punched Finn. It wasn’t that Finn didn’t deserve it—he did—but now Finn couldn’t get the catcher’s mask on properly. He said the cage put too much pressure on his swollen nose, which was why Liam spent the next few nights throwing the ball into the net again instead of into a glove.

It was hard to judge his accuracy without a human target behind the plate, but he did it anyway because he didn’t have any other choice.

The upside was that it was time he had to himself, without Finn or Jessie chirping in his ear about what needed to be done. Liam knew damn well what needed to be done, and he knew that ripping down and rebuilding the fish shack was going to keep him away from other jobs for a few days, but he didn’t care.

If they were going to jump-start the Buoys, they were going to do it by starting fresh and by leaving every last dark cloud behind them. The fish shack was the last of those clouds, and it had to go.

He’d just thrown his last slider of the night when he heard someone shuffling toward him. Standing under the trouble lights, with the rest of the yard unlit, he had a hard time making out who it was, until she spoke.

“It’s not the easiest stuff to walk in, is it?”

“Kate?” He was still squinting when she finally stepped into the light, decked out head to toe in catcher’s gear. “What are you doing?”

He heard her snort before he could see her features enough to make out the smile.