Page 38 of Double Play

Know? How would she know? Crush didn’t share news like that with her. “Tonight, really? That’ssosoon.”

“That’s baseball. Expect theunexpected.”

The empty tone in his voice disturbed her. “Where are yourightnow?”

“About to eat some lasagna down in the clubhouse. The guys are celebrating with me, which also means harassing the hell out of me about last time. They’re taking bets on how fast I kamikaze this timearound.”

“Well, they shouldn’t do that. You’re going to do great. Maybe I should come down and take some of those bets. Easymoney.”

“That wouldn’t exactly be fair, would it? You got the insidetrack.”

She bit nervously at her thumbnail. His attitude was unsettling her. “What’s going on, Dwight? You ought to be a lot happier right now. Are younervous?”

“Why should I be? Like you said, I’m going to do great. Look, I have to get back to the guys. I’ll call youlater.”

But even when he stopped by to say goodbye on his way to the airport, things felt different. Distant. Strange. Empty. As if an invisible glass wall separated them. As if he was already two thousandmilesaway.

“Promise me you’ll take care of yourself,” he said sternly. “Listen to yourparents.”

“What am I, tw—” Before she could finish her indignant sentence, he dropped a quick kiss onherlips.

Then he walked outthedoor.

15

Nearly the entiretown of Kilby was invited to Crush and Wendy’s wedding, not to mention large swaths of the baseball world. To distract herself from obsessing over Jim, Nina spent every spare hour helping Paige get Bullpen Ranch ready for theevent.

It wasn’t the most effective distraction, since Paige’s cell phone beeped every other minute with a message from Trevor. If Trevor could find time to communicate with his love, why couldn’t Jim? They were on the same baseball team! Doing the same promotionalevents!Grrr.

The only reason that made any sense to Nina was that Jim didn’t care for her anymore. The baseball groupies in San Diego had snapped him up like the adorable, single catch thathewas.

When he did call, their conversations teased her with what could have been, if they weren’t fifteen hundred miles apart. He gave her blow-by-blow accounts of his at-bats. He described all the players and their eccentricities—superstitions, warm-up routines, feuds with otherplayers.

He told her he missed her. Sometimes they ate ice cream together—long-distance. They’d each order the same thing and chat while they licked their cones. She told him about all the work she and Paige were doing for Crush and Wendy’s wedding. And that was the part that really got her. He was going to miss the biggest event in Kilby. She’d never been to a wedding before. To attend with Jim would have been sowonderful.

Paige tried to reassure her as they strung fairy lights around the pool one day. “The players can barely get time off for things like childbirth. Crush’s wedding definitely doesn’t qualify. And Lieberman is still a rookie so he can’t take a chance of getting stuck here or missing a flight or somethinglikethat.”

“But what aboutTrevor?”

“That’s different. Crush is my father, so it’s a family event. But it’s iffy for him too. He’s thinking about flying out for the night, as long as he’s back in time for the next day’s game. But there’s a good chance he won’t because it’s just too muchtraveling.”

“He will,” Nina told her gloomily. “I know my brother. He’ll be here. He’ll probably charter a plane. If he knows you want him here, he’lldoit.”

A tender, secret smile touched Paige’s lips. A pang of envy struck Nina like a bolt of lightning. She wanted the right to smile like that, to know beyond a doubt that her man would move heaven and earthforher.

Maybe Maggie was right. Maybe she was wanting something from Jim that wasn’t in his nature. Maybe she should either let it go or find someone else. Dean McFarrin, the new catcher, had asked her out the other day. He was a tall, good-looking guy from the heartland, clean-cut, almost Mormon in his manner. He’d probably be a perfect choice as a stable, family-orientedpartner.

But would he accept her with all her flaws and weirdness? How would she explain the fact that she’d bonked a drug dealer on the head with her baseball bat and sent her brother to juvie? How would he feel about the fact that she spent a few years under the protection of a fierce Israeli bodyguard? What would he think of her ice creamobsession?

She couldn’t even imaginetellinghim all thosethings.

Jim accepted every bit of her. So maybe she should do the same for him. Maybe she should stop wanting him to be the alpha hero who would take on dragons for her. She should accept him the wayhewas.

She snapped out of her thought process to see Paige watching her with amusement. “Whatever you’re thinking about, it looksserious.”

“Well, it is, I suppose. I just realized I’ve been doing this all wrong. Why should I need proof that Jim cares for me? Just because he’s so far away and we don’t really talk about our relationship and—” To her surprise, she burst intotears.

Damn, just when she thought she’d grown up once andforall.

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