Dockside (10 page)

Greg wondered if that kind of optimism made him an idiot. After his marriage ended, he expected to be jaded about love. Instead, for no reason that made any sense at all, he felt more hopeful than he had in years.

Jenny regarded her father with affection. “Love does that. It changes you. Makes you more comfortable in the world.” She turned back to Greg. “So about Nina,” she said, then laughed at the expression on his face.

“What about Nina?”

“Isn’t that why you cornered me? To ask me about her?”

Greg grinned. “Busted. I want her,” he said, then flushed as he realized how that sounded—Freudian slip. “I need her,” he amended. Oops. Also Freudian.

“Some women wait their whole lives to hear a guy say that,” Jenny remarked.

“For the inn, I mean. She’s the piece I’m missing at the inn. I can’t think of anyone else who has her history with the place, her management skills and her depth of knowledge.”

“Have you told her that?”

“She hasn’t given me a chance. I met with a resort management consultant from the city, and it just felt all wrong. There’s a reason the bank chose Nina to run the place. I don’t know of anyone who would do a better job.”

“Then make sure she doesn’t turn you down,” Jenny said simply.

“That’s the idea. I don’t know what more I can offer to make her say yes.” Greg wondered about the expression on Jenny’s face, but she offered no further insight. Hell, in his former life, he’d hired and fired people on a daily basis. He wondered why, in this case, it mattered so much.

“So have you made up your mind, Mom? Are you going to take the job at the inn?” Sonnet asked. Although Nina’s daughter was an ocean away, her voice sounded crystal clear over their Internet phone service. Nina tried to picture Sonnet in the Belgian village where she was spending the summer, calling from the cobblestone town square while watching locals and SHAPE personnel going about their business. The regular calls helped make her absence bearable for Nina.

“Every time I think I know what I want to do, I think of some reason why I shouldn’t,” Nina confessed. “I’ve been over and over it in my mind. I’ve tried to think up all kinds of alternatives and there isn’t one that feels right. There’s only one Inn at Willow Lake. I’ve always wanted it. You know that.”

“So take the deal. You’d have a job you’ve always wanted—one with serious money attached. A killer place to live.”

“A boss with two kids and no idea how to run the place.”

“Then he’ll hand it all over to you, which is what you wanted in the first place. What’s the problem?”

Nina smiled. She took pride in the way her daughter was turning out—mature beyond her years, as practical and blunt as Nina herself. Then the smile faded as Nina realized that she’d asked herself the same question many times over the past week—
What’s the problem?
Ultimately, she had to admit that, while her job at the inn would essentially be the same one she had imagined for herself, Greg had changed everything. Rather than working toward a goal—buying the inn—she would just be…working. For Nina, that wasn’t enough. Besides, Greg seemed to have some idealized vision of a family business, while she was looking forward to total independence for the first time in her life. Their expectations simply didn’t mesh.

Could she outlast him? That had been her initial thought. She certainly ought to try. However, that carried a risk of its own. If Greg didn’t make a go of this, he might well sell the place to someone else.

“See, you can’t even come up with an objection,” Sonnet pointed out. “And I’d better go. I’ve got a movie date for a midnight showing.”

Nina sat straight up in her chair. “Like a
date
date?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“As a matter of fact, I would. Does Laurence—”

“Chill, Mom. A group of us is going to the cinema on the base. Laurence says it’s fine, and he’s way pickier than you.”

“I’m totally picky,” Nina objected.

“Yes, but Laurence practically does a background check on everyone I meet, and he’s got the resources of the U.S. Army at his disposal.”

“Good for him.” Nina glanced at the clock. “I’d better go, too. There’s a Hornets game tonight—they’re playing the New Haven County Cutters.”

“Do you know how cool it is that you brought a baseball team to Avalon?”

“It’s very cool,” Nina said without modesty. “My legacy as mayor.” Or so she hoped. She’d left office shadowed by scandal but now, in the bright light of summer, she hoped her greatest achievement would shine through. The Avalon Hornets were back for their second season. Negotiating with the club had taken an incredible amount of political maneuvering and deal-making, not to mention many sleepless nights, but it was worth the effort.

“Angela was skeptical when I first told her. She didn’t think Avalon was big enough to have a professional baseball team. I told her about independent baseball and the Can-Am League, showed her the Web site and everything. She seemed shocked to discover there’s something she
doesn’t
know.”

Hearing that Laurence’s wife was skeptical didn’t surprise Nina in the least. “So other than her being a skeptic and a know-it-all, how are you and Angela getting along?”

“Okay,” Sonnet said. “I’m so busy with work that we don’t spend that much time together.”

“You rat,” Nina said. “You like her.”

“You got a problem with that?”

“I do. I’m ashamed that I do. She’s just so perfect. And I’m just so…not.”

Sonnet laughed. “Perfect? I’ll be sure to pass that on to her daughters. Layla just pierced her eyebrow and Kara wants to run away and join the circus, or something.”

Nina felt a wave of gratitude for her daughter. Sometimes they acted more like best friends than mother and daughter. Sometimes Nina wondered who was raising who. “I love you, kiddo. You always say the right thing.”

“Maybe I’m always right. And I really do think it’s the coolest that you brought the Hornets to Avalon.”

“I always felt guilty, taking so much time away from you while I was making that deal.”

“You can quit that right now,” Sonnet objected. “It’s a professional baseball team, Mom, and it’s all your doing. Every time I tell people that, they’re like, ‘she did not.’ And I’m like, she totally did, single-handedly.”

“It wasn’t single-handed, not by any stretch. In fact, the guys I’m going to the game with were instrumental in helping me. Wayne Dobbs and Darryl McNab.”

“And hotties to boot,” Sonnet teased.

Nina chuckled. Wayne and Darryl had been the president and treasurer of the Avalon Booster Club, and the two men had shared her vision of bringing a minor league team to town. “They had what I needed at the time—a giant budget.”

“I was raised by a romantic,” Sonnet said. “Don’t get in trouble, Mom.”

“With Darryl and Wayne? That would be a stretch.”

Sonnet said, “Oh, and I meant to tell you, I’ve been I Ming with Daisy. Olivia’s going to send you an invitation to the wedding.”

A Bellamy wedding. At Camp Kioga. Nina would rather have her teeth drilled. “I don’t do well at weddings. I never have.”

On the way home from Camp Kioga, Greg’s gaze was drawn to a pale glow on the horizon at the west edge of town. He made a snap decision. At a junction at the end of the river road, he turned off, wending his way along a gravel road leading to a broad field flooded with white stadium lights.

“Hey, cool,” Max said. “We can catch the end of the game.”

Greg handed his phone to Max. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Call your sister and tell her we’ll be a little late.”

Although Greg knew it was a good idea to take his kid to baseball games, he kept forgetting to do it. He told himself to no longer be the guy who was too busy working or being preoccupied or miserable to go to a game with Max. Starting now.

The bleachers, though only six deep, were full of spectators. With their team colors, face paint and war whoops, they showed major league enthusiasm for their minor league team. The concession stand was doing a brisk business, and the smells of popcorn and hot dogs filled the air. The ball field organ music was canned, but the announcer called out plays with expert, rapid-fire delivery. Some families were making a night of it, with blankets spread on the grass outside the field, people eating and laughing, passing half-asleep babies and toddlers back and forth between them.

Although he’d just finished dinner, Max claimed he was hungry again. Greg provisioned him with a red-and-white-striped box of popcorn and a neon-colored drink called a Blue Crush. As they made their way to the bleachers, Greg saw that it was the bottom of the seventh, score three to two, the visiting team in the lead. The Hornets were at bat, and a few minutes later, they made their third out and players jogged to the outfield.

A spot appeared for Greg and Max on the bottom row of the bench. Greg murmured his thanks, then realized the person who had made room for him was a woman. Thirty-ish, attractive. No wedding band. A pleasant smile and a less-than-pleasant cindery smell of cigarettes. And an expression that telegraphed the message that she was available.

Greg was fast developing a sixth sense about women. He knew when they were checking him out, and could feel the cindery woman’s attention wafting toward him. Pretending not to notice, he chatted with Max, who appeared to know more about the Hornets than Greg did. “The general manager is a guy named Dino Carminucci,” Max was saying with the kind of authority Greg wished he would apply to his schoolwork. “Used to be a field manager in Duluth, but he grew up right here in Avalon. He’s had two league championships in the past five years. And the Hornets, their record’s not so hot because they’re new, but they got a hot new pitcher this season—Bo Crutcher, out of Texas.” He pointed out a long, lanky guy peeling a jacket off his left shoulder and loping out to the mound.

The hometown crowd cheered as the outfield assembled, then jeered when the batter from New Haven stepped up to the plate. The first pitch confirmed Max’s information. It flew like a speeding bullet, but was so wild that shouts of “Ball one” came from the rival team’s spectators well before the ump confirmed it.

“It’s okay, Crutch. You got it,” someone shouted.

That voice. The sound of it was like a smack on the head. Greg immediately swiveled around. And yes, she was there. Nina Romano, flanked by a pair of guys in backward-facing baseball caps, drinking beer and cheering on the team. She caught him staring at her and offered a wave of acknowledgment and an uncertain smile he couldn’t quite read. Feeling awkward, he turned his attention back to the game.

Or pretended to. His mind was now on fire. He wasn’t sure why the sight of Nina with two men bothered him so much. Maybe because she was supposed to be home, perhaps pacing the floors as she decided to take him up on his offer.

Right, he told himself. She’d probably already made up her mind to turn him down and hadn’t bothered to tell him. Maybe she was going to throw in her lot with Dumb and Dumber, whoever the hell her escorts were.

While Greg stewed, he barely noticed the woman next to him inching closer until her shoulder touched his. “Excuse me,” she said.

He simply nodded and shifted, hoping his body language would tell her what he didn’t want to say aloud. The lanky pitcher got it together enough to rack up a couple of strikes.

One of Nina’s escorts cupped his hands around his mouth and blasted like a foghorn. “Get him out,” he brayed. “Finish him off. He’s
over.
”

The umpire called the third strike. “Yeah, baby!” shouted the guy as the crowd of Hornets fans erupted. “Stick a fork in him—he’s done. He’s outta there. He’s
gone.
”

Shut up, thought Greg. Just shut up.

The two teams held each other scoreless to the end, and in the bottom of the last inning, the Hornets scored two runs. The Avalon fans went apeshit, and for a moment, even Greg felt it, a happiness. This was why people loved baseball, why they would always love baseball, for this quick adrenaline rush of joy. Yet he knew the feeling was as fleeting as a woman’s smile.

He turned to catch Nina’s eye, but she and the two guys had gone to the dugout. Surrounded by players vying for her attention, she didn’t give Greg another glance.

Then she surprised him by breaking away from the group and approaching him and Max. “So, you’re baseball fans,” she remarked.

“Yeah. Max is in Little League this summer.”

“Jerry Broadbent’s team?” She smiled.

Damn, did she have to know every guy in town or just every other guy?

Max nodded.

She stroked her chin like a detective. “That’s the same look my younger brothers wore when they came home from baseball practice with Broadbent.”

Max regarded her with interest. “Did Coach hate them, too?”

“Coach doesn’t hate anybody. He’s just a bit intense sometimes.” She let out a laugh. “Naw, he probably hated them. They’re identical twins, and they tended to play pranks, which made him doubly mad. I think they were both on the team for several weeks before he realized there were two of them.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “One summer, they needed a break from Coach. Went off the team. They took up sailing instead.”