Moonshot (39 page)
Authors: Alessandra Torre
Four Years Later
I’m a Texas Ranger now. I wear red and navy, drive a pickup truck, and run with Titan through horse pastures across our ranch. We have two goats and four horses to keep him company, all but one named after baseball players. Moonshot is the exception. Chase spent a month tracking him down, following racetrack records and stud channels until he found him, retired from a sad career and studded out. He flew him to Dallas with some romantic notion that I’d care. I did. I almost fell out of the truck when we pulled up to the ranch, and I saw him trot across the field.
Right now, at nine o’clock on a Friday night, I’m in Globe Life Park in Arlington—Section 34, Row A, Seats 1-5—and that’s our home, the seats right next to the dugout, close enough that I can hang over the side and pretend, for a brief moment, I’m in it. Close enough that my husband can look over and catch me when I try to sneak our daughter a sip of my soda. Close enough that when I scream at the ump, he can hear my voice. Close enough that when my man rips a homerun, he can lean over the rail and get a kiss. He gets lots of kisses. And his team is keeping up, their record putting them in the standings for the American League Championship. Never mind that the Yankees are the other front-runner. We aren’t focusing on that right now.
We are focused on juggling life with a toddler. One hundred sixty-two games are a lot different with a two-year-old in hand. Dad and Carla sold the Alpine home and moved to Dallas. They have a ranch a half-mile away from ours, and keep Laura during most of the home games. The away games are still a work-in-progress. I now understand why Mom had stopped traveling with the team when I was born. My love for baseball is nothing compared to my child.
Everything
changed the moment she was born.
I avoid New York entirely. Haven’t set foot in Yankee Stadium since that last game. I don’t think I ever will. Partially out of respect for Tobey, and partially out of respect for my heart. I think it would be too hard for me. I’d rather my last memory of that field be that championship moment. I will always, secretly, be a Yankee, no matter whose colors I’m wearing.
My divorce with Tobey was quiet and quick, no child to fight over, no assets contested. I got Titan and my car. He offered more, a bulk settlement with alimony, but I refused. We had taken four years out of each other’s lives. Anything else was ridiculous.
He’s dating a supermodel now, one of those Victoria’s Secret Angels who wears million-dollar bras and blows kisses into cameras. She looks good in pinstripes, and in every photo I’ve seen of them, he looks happy.
Chase steps up to bat, and I stand, my daughter peeking up at me, her pink Converses sparkling as they jut out from her seat, not long enough to hang over the side. “Daddy up?” she asks.
“Yep.” I lean forward, watching, her attention returning to the coloring book before her, a big chubby marker awkwardly gripped in her hand, purple colored over half of the page.
“Come on…” I breathe, wrapping my hands around the railing and watch him, the strong line of his back, the cock of his head, the slow roll of his bat before he settles into place.
“Mom.”
I ignore the command, my eyes darting from the pitcher to Chase.
“Mom,” she insists.
“Wait.” Pitch. Swing. High and left.
Foul
. I sigh and glance back at her. “Yes?”
“Need new marker.” Laura holds out the grape-scented stick. We named her after my mom, all other ideas abandoned once Chase made that suggestion.
“Daddy is at bat, don’t you want to see?” I bend down and pick her up, holding her against my chest until her soles rest on the railing.
“New marker.” She waves it in the air, her eyes away from the game, still stuck on her coloring book.
“She’s two,” Dad calls, from his seat next to us. “You think you cared anything about baseball at two?”
“I was young and dumb,” I remark, watching as the pitcher throws to first, trying to catch Cortez as he dives back to the bag.
“Give her time, she’ll come around,” Carla coos to Laura and lifts her away, my hand-off quick, eyes back on the field, and there is a moment of hushed silence before the pitcher curls, Chase tenses, and then…
Action.
Contact.
High and up…
Moonshot
.
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Each book has a different journey and I feel differently at each completion. With Tight, I was exhausted, having gone through four complete rewrites, with completely different story lines and endings. With If You Dare, I felt a sad elation--similar to the last day of high school when you are happy, yet miss that part of your life already. With Moonshot, I wasn't quite ready to let go. I finished this book and didn't want to leave its world. I didn't want to step out of Ty's head and back into my life. I loved so many parts of this book and wanted, for just a few more hours, to savor it.
I have never been an athlete. I am terribly uncoordinated. I was more interested in horses than tennis. I played the piano instead of soccer. During PE, I prayed fervently that the ball would never head in my direction. I knew nothing about sports and couldn't tell you if a first down was a football or basketball term.
Then, I met Pudge Rodriguez. Well ... I didn't exactly meet him. I stood, way up in the nosebleed section of Ranger Stadium, a foam finger firmly on my ten-year-old finger, and watched him play. Me and fifty thousand other fans.
I don't know why I liked Pudge. Probably because his nickname was Pudge and it stuck out to me. All I know is, I left that stadium and knew something about sports. I had a team. I had a t-shirt! And later that summer, in a small sports store in Dallas, I bought his baseball card. Baseball, unlike football, was easy for me to understand. I didn't feel like an idiot, or cheer at the wrong time. It was my first step into the world of sports, but it wouldn't be my last.
Twelve years later, I married an athlete. My husband is the type of man who grew up with a ball in his hand. He had football and baseball scholarships offers. He lived in some world I was a stranger in, one where ESPN played constantly, life changed drastically depending on the sports season, and vacations were planned around the closest sporting events.
I am still uncoordinated. Throw me a ball and I'll duck for cover. But I can oil a glove. Rattle off a fair amount of sports statistics. I've screamed at hockey umps, stomped my feet on a hundred baseball stands and revolve much of my life around SEC football. My life has changed due to sports. It's become better. And I can't help but sometimes wish that I grew up like Ty did.
Some of my husband's fondest memories, out of everything, are from his days as a Minnesota Twins bat boy. He spent thee years on their dugout bench. He traveled to some games. He stayed at some of their homes, babysat their kids. He was my resource for much of this book's content. He approached cute girls for the players. He ran across the street in search of batteries for their Walkmans. He mudded balls, did laundry and got stuffed in lockers. I've heard his stories for a decade. I'm glad this book gave me a chance to use some of them.
It's been thirty-some years since he was a bat boy. I'm sure some things have changed. If I described an improbably scenario, please don't roast me. Please take the spirit of the book as it was intended. I hope you enjoyed it. If so, please check out my other books here. If you'd like to be notified of my writing progress and new releases, please click here.
Alessandra Torre is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author of thirteen novels. Her books focus on romance and suspense, all with a strong dose of sexuality. Torre has been featured in Elle and Elle UK, Dirty Sexy Funny with Jenny McCarthy, as well as guest blogged for the Huffington Post and RT Book Reviews. She was also the Bedroom Blogger for Cosmopolitan.com.
Learn more about Alessandra on her website at
www.alessandratorre.com
.
Suspense:
Contemporary Romance:
Erotic Romance:
Blindfolded Innocence
(Innocence #1)
Masked Innocence
(Innocence #2)
End of the Innocence
(Innocence #3)