Fielder's Choice (6 page)

“You know. I like art and cities and nightlife and parties and—”

“Besides all that.”

Her cheeks flushed.

“I could sell this place,” she said defiantly.

“If you sell the ranch, someone will likely turn it into a fancy second home; some Silicon Valley type will use it on weekends to impress his friends. It won’t be a community, and it won’t be farmed like it’s meant to be. They’ll let staff go.”

She grabbed the knife and sliced through his sandwich. “Maybe I could live in the city and hire more people, and it’ll pretty much run itself.”

As soon as she said it, she knew it wasn’t possible. Already it wasn’t going that way.

“A place like this requires you to be here, to know it, be part of the daily rhythms. You can’t have just one foot partway in.”

Heat crept into her cheeks as she laid the knife on the counter. He knew damned well her aversion to commitment. She cleared her throat and glared. He simply smiled and fluttered his lashes.

“You clearly did not come by to cheer me up.” She plunked the sandwich in front of him. The plate clattered against the marble counter. “Peanut butter and strawberry jam.”

“My fave. Hey—Dad’s throwing a birthday party for Patrice when they get back from Africa. We have to go. It’ll break her heart if we miss it.”

“He probably scheduled it for the day after Nana’s memorial. Did he happen to mention he foisted that off on me?
And
the fact that we had to schedule it for July so he wouldn’t have to cut his trip short?”

“You’ll do Nana justice. Dad has no feel for that sort of thing.” He munched the last bites of his sandwich. “I’ll help you plan the memorial.”

She leaned across the counter and kissed his cheek. “You’re the best.”

A half smile curved into his lips.

“Maybe Nana knew what she was doing when she left you the ranch.”

“Out!” She pointed the knife at him. “I do not need a disloyal brother. You’re supposed to be
helping
me.”

“Maybe I am. Help comes in many forms, sis. Some of them will surprise you.”

Chapter 4

Scotty Donovan had invited himself over to Matt’s house for dinner. Matt admired the guy: he was a pitching phenomenon. Two years on the team, two years an All-Star. And he’d landed a wife who owned a Major League team. The outrageous story of Scotty’s courting of Sabers owner Chloe McNalley had reached near legendary status, but Matt had learned that most of the tales were true.

“Hope you don’t mind spaghetti sauce out of a jar,” Matt joked as Scotty lifted the lid on a pot of boiling pasta.

“Beats the takeout I’d be eating at home. Chloe has an owners meeting. No players allowed.”

“That must be strange.”

“I’m getting used to it, but we have a pretty hectic life during the season.” He accepted the beer Matt held out. “Where’s your daughter?”

“Homework hour. She’ll be down in”—he glanced at the clock on the microwave—“six minutes and seventeen seconds.”

Scotty laughed as he bent down to look at some of Sophie’s drawings stuck to the refrigerator with bright pink magnets.

“I see she likes butterflies.”

“This year’s obsession. Although this one may prevail. Last year it was frogs. I have nothing against frogs, but they were never intended as household pets.”

The phone rang.

“Hello, Mother. I can’t talk.”

“You never can, darling. Listen, we need to change our flight. Your dad found this absolutely perfect flight to Fiji and we—”

The squeal of the smoke alarm blasted in the kitchen. Gray smoke billowed out of the oven. Scotty opened it and flames flashed out.

“Gotta go. Really. Call you back.” Matt grabbed the garlic bread and threw it in the sink, then doused the smoldering mess with water from the faucet.

“You’re supposed to take the bag off
before
you cook it,” Scotty said with a grin. “It’s one of the few things I know about broilers.”

“One more than I know. My mother will use this incident to fuel her ongoing campaign to convince me to send Sophie to boarding school.” He grabbed the phone and flicked off the ringer. “Not going to happen.”

“Now I see why peanut butter and jelly is the choice of champions.”

“And every single parent in America.”

“Hunter has a PB and J before every game. Slips the clubhouse guy a twenty just to make sure.”

Matt laughed. He knew Scotty hadn’t come over for the meal. He was just the kind of guy who noticed when a teammate needed a boost; theirs was that kind of team. They hung together, pulled each other up. He was still getting used to it. More than that, he was grateful Scotty had insisted on coming. Who knew how long it would’ve taken him to take that first step.

Sophie was right—he needed to work on his people skills.

“Hunter’s hitting three thirty-six,” Matt said. “Maybe I’ll switch. Do you think it’s the peanut butter or the jelly?”

“I think the guy’s an animal at the plate. Have you ever watched his eyes when he’s in the box? Good thing he’s on our team—I wouldn’t want to face him from the mound.”

Not many hitters would faze Scotty Donovan. Even after being beaned by a line drive the previous season, he’d come back and won five out of seven at the end of the season. The kid was a wiz on the mound.

They aired out the kitchen and to Sophie’s delight ate in the living room and watched the Dodgers game. After dinner, Matt came down from tucking Sophie into bed to find Scotty lining up pieces on the chessboard.

“I’m black,” he said. “Guest privilege.”

Within three moves, Matt knew he was in trouble.

“What’s got you?” Scotty asked in an offhanded tone.

Matt nodded toward the stairway. “I thought it’d get easier.” He fingered a pawn, then made his move. “The parent thing. It hasn’t.”

He told Scotty about Liza’s death in the crash that had also killed her parents. Her dad had been flying the three of them to a game. The weather was bad—he shouldn’t have risked it. If Sophie hadn’t had a bad cold and stayed home with a sitter, she would’ve gone down with them. He was grateful that Scotty didn’t offer the usual long-faced condolences.

“Ever think about marrying again?”

“I can’t even hang on to a nanny.” He crossed to the sideboard and poured a Scotch. “And a guy with a half-grown kid isn’t exactly a prize. I’d never put Sophie in a situation where she was seen as baggage.” He waved the bottle of Oban. “Want one?”

“Sure.”

“The kid thing worked; I wouldn’t give Sophie up for anything. But the marriage thing—not so good. At first I thought it was the game, all the nights away, all the hours of practice, the road trips.” He sipped his Scotch. “Well, you married a woman in the game.”

“It’s still hard,” Scotty said. “Half the year there’s no fitting in to normal. I don’t know how some guys’ wives do it. They make it look easy.”

“I didn’t have one of those. Liza was happier when we lived in Boston; she had friends there, and her parents lived on Cape Cod. But when the Red Sox traded me to the Giants and we moved out here, she just drifted off. I look back and realize we never had much in common. Sophie was the link between us, and it just wasn’t enough.” He moved his knight to an open spot on the board. “I’ll never know, though.”

Scotty nodded toward the corner of the room. “You play guitar? I had you pegged for a keyboard sort of guy.”

“Guilty,” Matt said, relieved to change the subject. “I’m pretty mediocre at it.”

After Scotty left, the house seemed too quiet, as though the walls and floors and furniture were breathing in the night. Loneliness, if it had a sound, would sound just like that.

His marriage to Liza had been lonely, maybe worse than having no relationship. The whole thing had been wrong from the start—he just hadn’t been experienced enough to realize it. The gap that loomed between them had been a yawning, dark space. He was pretty sure that if a man fell into such an abyss, he’d never come out.

Some days he felt it was the place he’d rather be.

He studied the chess board; Scotty had beaten him soundly. He swept the chess pieces into the drawer of the game table.

He and Liza had married just out of college. She was a small-town girl on scholarship to the Ivy League school. She zeroed in on him, seeking connection. Playing sports and doing coursework left little time for dating. It was the path of least resistance to let their relationship unfold and to marry her. But he soon discovered they had little in common. No spark. No deep personal connection. He hadn’t recognized the importance of spark. Neither of them had. Not until it was too late.

But he’d always been faithful. He prided himself on that. Some nights it eased the guilt he felt for not missing her.

He picked up his guitar and strummed. Playing his guitar was the one thing that settled him after a home game. That and a six-pack. But maybe he should’ve tried going out on the town. Maybe he would.

Like that would solve anything.

Wrapping his hand around the neck of the guitar, he picked out a favorite ballad. His fingers easily found the chords, but his heart wasn’t in his playing. He set the guitar beside his chair, sat with his eyes closed, wondering at his disquiet, and then trudged up to his bedroom. He didn’t bother to flick on the light. The darkness made the cavernous room seem less empty and suited his somber thoughts. Suited them maybe too well.

Chapter 5

Great. Just great. Alana had flown down to visit a friend in LA and all hell had broken loose at the ranch while she was away. The USDA made a surprise inspection, an inspection she guessed the county planning commission had a hand in spurring. They’d found everything up to standards, but it shook up the employees; they felt targeted. The pressure and the uncertainty were wearing people down—one of the crew supervisors had quit and gone to work for another vineyard. It didn’t take a genius to know that the staff wanted her to take care of the windmill permit so things could settle down. And it hadn’t helped the ranch’s relationship with the county when she’d missed an engagement she’d been scheduled to speak at. A fundraiser.
Three hundred people and no guest speaker
. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought the events had been a setup.

She tore the calendar from the wall in her grandmother’s study and threw it across the room. It slowly floated down onto the carpet. She picked it up and smoothed it across the desk. April. The last entry said
call Alana and invite her for tea
. That hadn’t happened. She ignored the shaky feeling in her chest as she flipped through the pages and tapped dates and engagements into her phone. If she missed another event, it would be by choice, not because she’d failed to note it.

Frustrated and tired of being closed up in the house, she grabbed her hat and made her way past the staring eyes of the bronze lizard atop the peaked roof of the pavilion and down to the old barn.

Her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light in the barn. Three of the walls had been finished and painted. Evidently Nana had installed insulation to prevent heat from the sun from penetrating and overheating the space. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the place hadn’t been tidied up; the wooden workbench held Nana’s half-finished clay sculptures, and shelves along the sides were piled with stones and shells and spools of brightly colored ribbons. Paintbrushes spiked up out of antique pickle crocks. The barn still held the air of a living past, the feel of Nana and her impulsive enthusiasm for projects and life.

In the center of the workbench sat a wooden box with a note taped to the top. It was addressed to Alana. She opened the note and saw Nana’s fine script. Her throat tightened with each word.

I thought you’d make good use of these. Always remember I have great faith in you, Alana. I know you’ll find the ranch an interesting challenge. I hope it makes you as happy as it did me.

I love you and always will,

Nana

Tears that she’d held at bay swam and tracked down her face as she lifted the lid of the box. The scent of linseed oil and wood wafted up out of it. She fingered the bent tubes of oil paints.

She and Nana had painted with these very paints years ago, when Alana was barely old enough to hold a brush. She screwed off a cap and sniffed, squeezed the bent tube and saw the pigment ooze up. After all the years, the pigments were still useable.

She picked up another tube and saw the corner of a tiny painting sticking out from under the paint tubes. It was one Nana had done of Alana sitting among the olive trees. She remembered the day Nana had finished it. She’d told her grandmother in her perky six-year-old voice that she was going to be a famous artist
and
a famous rancher. Evidently Nana had taken her seriously.

Lifting her hand, she wiped at her face, wishing she could just as easily wipe away her grief.

Glancing around the barn, she spotted the old easel in a corner. She pulled it out and stood it up. It’d be perfect. She’d promised herself that while she was on the ranch she’d get back to her painting; the light was stunning at this time of year, especially in the evenings.

As she tightened the brass screws to stabilize the easel, an unfamiliar heaviness sank into her. The quiet time she thought she’d have, time away from the bustle and distractions of Paris, long hours to reacquaint herself with brush and pigment, canvas and dreams—somehow she hadn’t managed to carve out even a few peaceful hours.

A sizzle of anger sped through her, teasing into her sadness and feeding the hungry guilt that lay poised and ready to devour her dreams. Nana had been an indomitable force, a woman of fierce talent. How could she have imagined that Alana would be in any way capable of taking on the ranch? Or that taking the reins there would make her anything other than miserable?

She shook off the leaden feeling and its threat to pull her into a dark place and put her shoulder to the door along the north side of the barn. It didn’t budge. But she planted her feet and shoved again, and it slid open. There, spreading out below her, were the oldest olives groves and beyond them, far-reaching oak-covered hillsides.