The Lucky Charm (The Portland Pioneers) (38 page)

“This is more important,” Izzy said. “This is the beginning of your brand.”

He frowned, as if he’d never considered the possibility. “What if I don’t want a brand? What if I only want to play baseball?”

She sighed. “Jack, the moment you got on that tractor today, you waved that possibility goodbye. The only question is if you’re going to make any money off it.”

“I guess that would be the smart thing to do,” he said slowly, crossing his arms over his chest.

“It would,” she reassured him. “Just make sure you’re getting adequately compensated. John Deere’s got lots of money and they’re going to make a shit-ton more off you.”

“I’ll let Bryce worry about that part,” Jack said, brushing the subject of money away like it couldn’t have mattered less, which Izzy supposed was fairly accurate. He lived simply and had more than enough income already from his major-league contract. He didn’t really
need
the money. She, on the other hand, couldn’t live more than a few months without a real job. She’d tried to save when she realized she’d have to quit at the end of the season, but Toby was a cheapskate. She’d never made much to begin with.

Stress made her head and her heart ache, but he’d come here tonight to share something special with her, and as grumpy as she was, she couldn’t quite turn him away. She guessed that was what made love so special; she
wanted
to give Jack what he wanted because suddenly
she
wanted the same thing.

In the end, it was inevitable. He shyly glanced up at her, all hopeful puppy dog, and she finally held out a hand. “Come here. Let’s go to bed.”

“Finally,” he said with a blinding smile. “I thought I was headed to the doghouse tonight.”

“My bed’s not as big as yours,” she warned as she tucked her hand into his and tugged him toward the stairs that led to her bedroom. “And it’s still the doghouse for you if you hog the covers.”

“I can give you at least 33%,” he offered in mock seriousness.

“How about 40%, and it’s a done deal.”

His fingers gripped hers and she felt the words ghost across her skin, even if he didn’t speak them out loud.
I didn’t want to sleep alone. Thank you for being here. I love you.
Izzy’s heart clenched and she was suddenly, and helplessly, afraid. If she had to give him up, how was she ever going to live through it?

Jack loved the way the world slowed when he entered the batter’s box.

He loved the dust settling on his tongue, the way his hitting gloves bit into his wrists, the weight of the wooden bat in his hands.

A lot of players let the pitcher set the tone of an at-bat, but Jack was somewhat fanatical about making sure that
he
and nobody else, was in charge when he stepped up to the plate. Sometimes that meant walking to the plate a fraction slower than good manners demanded. Sometimes that meant taking an extra moment to go through his mental and physical routine between swings. Sometimes that meant giving the pitcher one of his patented
fuck-off
glares.

Jack was an equal-opportunity kind of guy. He switched it up, tried to keep it all fresh. Liked coming up with new, inventive ways to piss off the pitcher. He also took a look at a pitchers’ stuff before a game, just to get a feel for what he liked throwing, and in what situations. The hitting coach usually put together some notes before a series, but Jack
really
liked looking for himself, and he wasn’t above bragging when he found something the coach missed.

Of course, this hadn’t exactly paid off the last four weeks, but as he sucked in a breath, he tried to let all that stress go.

It was the top of the order, first inning, and Jack stepped into the box, gave his neck a quick twitch, and adjusted the straps of his gloves, twisting the grip of the bat between his hands.

Chris Johnston, today’s victim, had a habit of playing with the bag of resin at the back of the mound a lot more than was really required. Jack supposed it was his own pathetic little way of making sure the batter knew who was really in charge.

Delaying tactics were more difficult to get around, but Jack had worked out a torture for that, too. Way before anybody would normally expect him to be ready, he was suddenly in the box, lifting his bat, and giving Johnston a wide smile that said, “I’m ready. Let’s do this shit.”

The umpire hustled to get in position. Jack couldn’t see him, but he could feel the mass of him behind the catcher, who he
knew
had given the pitcher a look of his own.

It was amazing how much an extra second or two of waiting made the pitcher look like the asshole.

Once it had worked so well on another pitcher that the ump had actually walked out to the mound and issued a warning to hurry up between pitches.

That had been a
really
sweet day. Of course, the crowning achievement had been hitting a home run off the fucker, probably because he’d been pissed off and had gotten sloppy with the location of his fastball.

Unfortunately, Chris Johnston had a much meaner, much nastier reputation. It was going to be a lot tougher to screw with him, but Jack wasn’t the kind of guy who quit when he was down.

Johnston finally hit the top of the mound and after a second of bored acknowledgment of Jack’s presence, he threw the pitch. Jack knew that he’d gotten to him because it whizzed just shy of his ear.

Unsurprisingly, the ump pronounced it a ball.

Jack wished he could rub his hands in glee at the obvious warning shot, but it was unprofessional to gloat; he resolved to hit something so long and deep, his bat did the gloating for him.

Stepping back out of the box, he gave the wrist straps on his gloves a completely unnecessary adjustment and then stepped back in. All about two seconds earlier than expected.

Johnston glowered now, his dark brows practically slamming into his deep-set eye sockets. Jack had a feeling he was shaking off the signs the catcher was throwing him, because it took even longer to get pitch number two.

Another fastball, full of heat, blasted right past his hands. Far enough out that it could be considered a strike. Barely.

“Strike!” the ump called, agreeing with Jack’s analysis.

The question was, Jack contemplated, if Johnston was rattled enough to throw another fastball, or if he’d take the sign the catcher gave him. When their exchange went on about half a second longer than expected, Jack settled back into his stance, and waited for the fastball.

It came just as he’d expected, a little low and inside, but the impact resulted in a loud, hand-jolting crack, and Jack knew he’d gotten just enough under it that the ball was gone.

The ball arced through the late-July sunshine, past the infield, floated like a comet past the outfielders, and probably ended up somewhere close to the Willamette River.

So fucking sweet
. Whoever said that hitting home runs didn’t matter obviously didn’t hit them.

Jack knew the moment the pitcher realized the ball went atmospheric, and the stony expression plus the four-letter word he muttered under his breath was the cherry on top of a really great at-bat. He barely refrained from a douchey bat flip but he did jog to first base at just a hair below the acceptable pace for a young guy who hadn’t yet had a knee surgery.

He rounded third and came home to slap hands high with Foxy, who could only shake his head in absurd delight. “You’re something else, man,” he muttered quiet enough that the ump and the catcher didn’t hear him. “Some-fucking-thing else.”

Hector was always first to the left of the dugout stairs, and as Jack passed, he felt a hand slap his ass and he laughed.

“Felt pretty damn good,” he said, to nobody in particular but he knew Hector had caught it. And it
had
felt pretty great. For the first time since the All Star break, he felt comfortable and in control, like he’d always used to feel when he batted, and he hadn’t thought about Izzy once. But now that the ball was long gone, and the score was 1 to 0, Pioneers, he smiled to himself and hoped that she’d seen him nail the crap out of that one.

Foxy was two pitches into his at-bat when Jack looked up at the field. Johnston was clearly rattled and was all over the place. The count was two balls, no strikes. The third pitch was very high, and very inside, and he grumbled a little, as did the other guys standing at the fence. There was missing your spot, and then there was aggression that bordered on stupidity; this asshole was dancing real close to the line.

Jack crunched a handful of sunflower seeds and spit the shells out onto the dirt and was so preoccupied making sure all the remnants were out of his teeth, he nearly missed the fourth pitch.

Johnston slipped a little as the ball left his hand, and Jack watched as it hurtled toward Noah at ninety-five miles per hour. Not toward the batter’s box, like it was supposed to, but toward the batter.

The world slowed to a crawl and he heard the swell of anger and indignation in the stands grow as the ball continued to rise, higher and higher and all Jack could do was shout a warning that was a split-second too late. The ball hit Noah on the edge of the batting helmet, right on the soft, vulnerable spot between his ear and the plastic protection.

He fell to the ground, and the blood roared in Jack’s ears as the umpire knelt over him and then his stomach churned as he frantically motioned for medical help. The next minute was a blur of medical staff and coaches, and they had Foxy surrounded before Jack could see anything else.

He gripped the fence, closed his eyes, and did something he hadn’t done since he was ten years old and had decided there was no real higher power to call on, only himself—he prayed. He prayed that Noah would be okay. That his best friend would be returned to him in one functioning piece, and most importantly, that he would play the game he loved again.

“Is he going to be alright?”

Jack was still sitting on the dugout bench, even though the game had ended twenty minutes before. He knew he had to get up and shower and deal with the endless questions that had started the moment he’d climbed on that stupid tractor, but right now, his heart felt too heavy to move.

He didn’t want to blame himself for what had happened to Foxy, but he’d done everything he could to provoke Johnston. If not technically his fault, it was practically his fault.

Jack scuffed a mound of dirt with his cleat, and didn’t look up at Izzy. If he looked at her, his despair might overflow his walls and then something truly embarrassing might happen. The sympathy on everyone else’s faces was bad enough; on Izzy, it would be devastating.

“You’d hear more if you were at the press conference.”

“They don’t know anything yet. Only that he’s at the hospital, getting tested. Scanned, I guess.”

“Brain scans.” Jack’s voice hardened to stone. “It looked bad enough, but apparently that’s not the worst of it.”

“He was unconscious, wasn’t he?” He felt her sit down next to him and he clenched the edges of the wooden bench in his fists. It was do that or pull the bench out of the wall.

“This is about Noah. It’s about his health and his future. You know I would never tell Toby anything,” she added.

“He was out.”

“He’ll be okay,” Izzy said brightly after a telling pause. Too brightly. He didn’t need anybody to lie to him. He knew the potential consequences of the injury. He enjoyed watching football during the off-season and had followed with curiosity the saga of proper head protection and concussions. Anytime balls were being hurled towards him at speeds hovering around a hundred miles per hour, he had to think about the potential danger, but it had always seemed so abstract. He’d personally never known another baseball player to have a concussion in a game. Noah would be the very first.

When he didn’t say anything, he felt her turn toward him, trying to get his attention with the angle of her body. “And I’m sorry you lost again.”