Page 55 of Rescued Heart

“Not if I’d put a stop to all this extravagance when it got here. This never would have happened.”

Bianca jerked back as if she’d been struck.

Great. Both hangry and whatever word meant upset and angry together.

He’d probably been too harsh, but right now he had to get all the boys safely home and Scout to the hospital.

He pointed to the team. “Get everything loaded up. Tank, help Scout to my truck.”

Scout grimaced. “My legs still work, Coa?—”

“Scarlette, get in the truck too. All the rest of you wait in the dugout. I’ll call Zack. He’ll make sure you all get taken home.”

Of course tonight would be one of the only nights Scout and Scarlette’s grandmother had volunteered at the women’s shelter and missed a game.

Bianca stood. “I’ll wait with them.”

Pain etched across Scout’s face as he took another step, Tank and Scarlette beside him.

Eddie grabbed his phone back from Jacob. “Scratch that. I’m calling the crew. The ambo team will be quicker.”

Bianca stepped in front of Eddie. “It will be quicker if you take Scout. The ambulance may be clear across town. I can help watch the team. I’m right here.”

“You’re right. You are.” And he wasn’t sure if that was turning out to be a bigger problem. He needed to fix this situation before his team—and possibly his heart—got hurt too.

ELEVEN

Bianca straightened the red bow tied around the store-bought package of cookies.

Cookies make everything better. Bring some with you. Forgiveness is way easier to swallow when it’s surrounded by sugar,Grace had said once Bianca told her the plan of visiting Scout.

Bianca had thrown her post-filming hair into a ponytail and grabbed her keys.Pretty sure that’s not how forgiveness works.

Yet, with the afternoon sun on her back and her shifting feet on Scout and Scarlette’s front porch, she hoped the cookies wouldn’t make things worse. Not like the time she’d sent her mother cookies for the first Mother’s Day she wasn’t home for.

Bianca knocked her knuckles against the doorframe. No footsteps pounded from behind the white front door with black shutters, a window on the right-hand side big enough for two kids to crawl through at the same time. The homey bungalow was exactly how Will had described Scout and Scarlette’s house on Oak Street when she’d managed to talk some sense into Eddie about her taking the rest of the team home after the broken finger accident.

Maybe they weren’t home. She glanced to the driveway, where Bianca had parked beside another car. That could be the neighbors instead of Scout and Scarlette’s family.

The sound of tires hitting the speed bump a few houses down made Bianca turn. It looked like the blue car that had followed her from the set. It slowed in front of the house, but the driver didn’t pull out his phone or camera.

She knocked again. Finally, the door creaked open.

A smiling woman with almost as many wrinkles as gray hairs, dressed in an apron, blinked up at her. “Sorry, sweetheart, but I don’t want to buy any cookies.”

She’d started to close the door when Bianca finally got out some words. “Is this Scout and Scarlette’s house?”

The grin slid from the woman’s face. “May I ask who wants to know?”

Thankfully, Scarlette’s curly locks poked around the door, and her eyes dropped to the cookies. She grabbed them quicker than she had stolen any base. “Total yum. These are?—”

“Scarlette Joy Smith.” The woman Bianca assumed to be the girl’s grandmother sank her fist onto her hip. Almost an identical pose to Scarlette’s last night. “You do not grab cookies from strangers.”

Scarlette rolled her eyes. “Grandma, that’s Coach B.”

Her grandma narrowed her eyes first at Scarlette, then at Bianca.

Bianca laced her empty hands in front of her. Perhaps cookies hadn’t been a good idea. Flip-flops might have also been a miscalculation if she needed to make a run for it. “I think I’ve made a mistake. Please tell Scout that I’m sorry for the slide accident and for his?—”

---