Homestands (Chicago Wind #1) (37 page)

But was her marriage better?

No.

She eased onto her seat and from her rearview mirror watched Lacey turn her SUV around. Since the ESPN interview in October, the distance between her and Brett had slowly grown. Sometimes she thought it was Ashlyn’s death. Sometimes she thought it was her new faith. Sometimes she thought it was just life.

Then, a month ago, Brett lost his job.

There was a chasm dividing them now.

She started the Escalade. She had to hold onto hope that Brett was home this spring for a reason. Maybe, for the first time in a few years, spring would finally bring something good into her life. Maybe this was when Brett would get it.

When that happened, everything about their marriage would be better.

Please, God.

Everything.

“Haleigh, Jackson!” Kyla leaned around the doorframe of the kitchen stairs and called up to the second floor. “Time for dinner.”

Above her the shuffle of footsteps sounded, then the arguing. Kyla closed her eyes and held up a hand. Seemed it was a day for arguing. She’d let this one go.

She’d returned from the cemetery to find Jackson and Haleigh in the kitchen eating a snack with Irina, her housekeeper. Brett was downstairs in the media room, Irina had said, analyzing pitching video with Miles Hamlin, his pitching coach.

Taking a deep breath, Kyla had pushed open the door to the basement media room.

“What do you want?” Brett asked without taking his eyes from the screen.

Maybe some manners? She forced calm into her voice. “I need to talk to you.”

With a huff, he froze his image on the screen and stepped around Miles to walk up the side ramp of the theater. He stopped before her, the planes of his face especially taut. “What?”

“I mean a conversation. Can’t you take a break?”

“No.” He turned away. “We’ll talk tonight.”

“I have Bible study tonight.”

He walked down the ramp. “So skip it.”

“Do you know what today is?”

He sent her an angry look as he passed Miles in the front row. “Yes, Kyla. April twelfth. I know.” He dropped into his seat and picked up the remote. The Brett frozen mid-delivery on the screen rewound smoothly.

She shut the door to the media room and stared at its dark wood veneer. “Do you care?”

The answer had been obvious.

A thud sounded as one of the kids banged into the stairway wall.

Now she and Brett wouldn’t talk. In forty-five minutes, she and the kids would leave for church, and Brett was still downstairs working with Miles. By the time she returned and got the kids in bed, Brett would be asleep himself.

The anniversary of Ashlyn’s death, and he’d said nothing except an irritated “I know.”

Seven-year-old Haleigh emerged from the enclosed staircase, her six-year-old brother Jax behind her, wearing a smirk. “Don’t push!” Haleigh snapped. “Mom, Jax won’t—”

“Stop it, both of you. I’m not in the mood. Finish setting the table so we can eat.”

Jax swung an invisible weapon at Haleigh’s back. “I thought dinner was ready.”

“It will be, as soon as you put napkins and salad dressings on.”

“We’re having salad?” He opened the refrigerator and stuck his head inside. “Irina never makes me eat salad.”

“I’ll talk to Irina in the morning.”

“Aww, man.”

Brett’s and Mile’s voices sounded from the basement stairway. Brett entered the kitchen first, Miles on his heels.

Kyla ignored Brett. “Hi, Miles.”

As usual, Miles nodded back and stuffed his hands into his baggy shorts’ pockets.

What was it about her presence that sent this man into his shell? Every time she entered a room, he withdrew, staring at the wall while she and Brett talked—or argued.

Miles pushed faded blond hair out of his eyes. He needed a haircut. His longish, wavy hair gave him the rumpled appearance of someone who’d just woken from a nap, and his shapeless, late-forties body and expressionless features made him look like a man lost.

“Feel free to stay for dinner, Miles,” she said. “There’s plenty.”

“Thank you, but I’ve got dinner waiting at home.” He glanced at her, then away. “Maybe another time.”

Sure. Just like the other times he’d declined. She shrugged as the men left.

A glance into the dining room showed Haleigh tipping her chair back and Jax swinging his spoon like a baseball bat. “Jax, stop that. Haleigh, you too.” Why couldn’t the kids behave today?

“I’m hungry,” Jax whined. “Can we eat without Dad?”

Kyla lifted the pan of lasagna from the warming drawer and carried it to the table where she set it on a trivet. Where had Brett disappeared to? She pointed to the pan as she backed from the table. “Don’t touch that. It’s hot.”

Where was Brett? They always ate at six during the off season—he wanted it that way. She hurried through the living room and into the two-story, glass-encased foyer, pausing at the bottom of the main stairs. She leaned up them. “Brett, we need to eat.”

Nothing.

“Now.”

More nothing.

She climbed the stairs. The door to their bedroom stood shut, and she opened it. “Brett?”

He popped his head and bare shoulders out of the master bathroom. “What?”

“Time for dinner. We can’t wait.”

“Go ahead.”

He disappeared back into the bathroom, and Kyla followed. He grabbed the T-shirt he’d changed out of and a damp washcloth and tossed them at the wicker hamper. They snagged on the outside, but he ignored them, digging through an open drawer.

Kyla ignored his actions too. Years of clubhouse attendants picking up after him had cemented his habits. She dreaded the day they couldn’t afford Irina. “How was your workout?”

“Fine.” He tugged a clean gray Yankees T-shirt over his head.

“Anything interesting?”

He shrugged as he picked up a tube of lotion and squeezed a dollop into his hand. “Taped pitches this morning, watched them this afternoon.”

She waited for more while he rubbed lotion over his scalp.

Brett stayed silent.

“And?” she prodded.

“Really don’t want to talk about it, Kyla.” He slipped past her, into the bedroom, and grabbed his wedding ring from the dresser. He headed for the door, his face set as if he was walking to the pitcher’s mound, the game on the line.

Did he think he was the only one in this house with problems? As he passed, she stretched her arm across his chest and tried to tug him close.

For an instant, his body tensed, as if to pull away. Then he stilled and looked at her, his eyes flat and unblinking.

Why was he so cold? She wrapped her arms around his waist and flashed a flirtatious smile. “Can’t a girl hug her man?”

He gave her a token hug, the kind she’d come to expect. Where was he lately? Was it just his lack of a job? Or something else?

He pulled out of her embrace. “We should make sure the kids aren’t having a food fight.” He left and hurried down the stairs, as if he wanted to get away from her.

Slowly, Kyla followed. She shouldn’t let him get to her. He was going through a difficult period. Baseball had always been his life, and to not have it now…

She lagged behind as they entered the dining room. The kids’ faces lit up. Jax pointed his finger at Brett and started shooting, sound effects and all. Brett dipped and ducked as if evading bullets all the way to Jax’s chair where he grabbed him in a bear hug and shook him gently.

Across the table, Haleigh squealed and put up her hands in pretend fear, a grin spreading across her pretty features. Brett growled around the table, taking exaggerated steps until he stood behind her. Haleigh curled into a ball on her chair, still squealing. Brett lowered his face closer, closer to hers, his mouth opening wide like a bear about to eat his dinner. At the last second, he puckered and covered her cheeks and blonde hair in kisses.

Jax wrinkled his nose. “Kisses—gross.”

Never gross. Wonderful. How long since Brett had kissed her with feeling? Heat flooded her face, and Kyla escaped to the kitchen. Something beyond baseball had to be wrong for him to be cold one minute and so loving and open the next.

She tossed her hair and raised her chin, relieved that this time she’d contained her emotions. Still, she needed a moment to compose herself. She grabbed the basket with today’s mail and flipped through it. Credit card applications, a Jewel grocery store flyer, the latest Restoration Hardware catalog, an envelope with Brett’s name printed across it in funny type—

She picked it up and studied it, a vague memory fighting a film of time. She slid her finger beneath the sealed flap. A single piece of paper, covered in printed computer type, was folded inside.

Brett,

Are you sleeping well at night? Wondering where I am? If tonight’s the night we meet?

I still owe some on those World Series games you blew. The guy I owe is getting impatient. He’s threatened my family. Because of you.

It’s not fair what you did. I still keep the Glock by my bed. I keep it there because I might need it to protect my family. And I might need it for yours—

The paper fluttered from her hands. Her fingers chased it, clutching after it as it floated down, onto the floor, print side up. Kyla swallowed. Saliva stuck in her throat. She gagged and grabbed the edge of the quartz counter, her fingers slipping and sending her crashing to the floor.

“Kyla?”

Brett’s voice sounded so far away.

A chair scraped the floor. “I’ll see what your mom knocked over this time.”

The paper lay an inch from her knee.

I still keep the Glock—

“Kyla?”

She jerked at his voice above her and looked up.

He frowned at her, a mix of bewilderment and annoyance.

She lifted a hand, watched it shake.

He stared at it, then her, before hauling her to her feet. “What’s the matter with you?”

She couldn’t keep her eyes off the letter.

Brett snatched it up, scowling as he scanned it.

Maybe she’d read it wrong. Maybe he’d look at her with that you’re-crazy look she despised. Maybe—

He stiffened.

So it was real, it was true, she hadn’t imagined it.

His eyes met hers over the paper. “Kyla.”

A bitter laugh escaped. “I told you we shouldn’t have done that interview. He’s back.”

“It’s a copycat. It’s just someone having fun—”

“How do you know it’s a copycat?” She snatched the letter and glared at it. Shook it at him. “How do you know? They never caught whoever sent the first one. You
knew
that, Brett. You
knew
he might be watching. And guess what? He was!”

“Lower your voice,” he snapped.

“Why? So the kids don’t hear? I’m so…” She searched the room for the right words. “I’m sick of this.”

“Of what?”

“Of everything being wrong. Of you being wrong.”

“Don’t you start blaming me for—”

“It
is
your fault!”

He flinched, his eyes narrowing in… in some emotion she didn’t want to identify.

Yet she couldn’t stop her words. Not after this bad choice of his. “I’m tired of living with a man who always gets it wrong. Look around, Brett. You’re not the only one living here.”

He drew in a breath, shoulders straightening. “Right back at you, Kyla. You act like you’re the only one who knows what’s right or wrong anymore.”

She waved the letter in his face. “Evidently I am—”

“Mommy?”

Haleigh and Jax stood nearby, eyes wide.

Brett tossed her a glare. “Who’s wrong now?”

She spun away from him. The closest exit was the basement stairs, and she took it, her words chasing her down.

That and the hurt that had flashed across Brett’s face.

But she didn’t care. She shook her hair. She couldn’t care. It was time he realized what he was doing to this family. They were falling apart—in danger—and all the blame rested on him.

He’d promised her that nothing would happen. That they’d be safe. That the nightmare was over.

But he’d been wrong.

Scary wrong.

And she was tired of living with a man who got everything wrong.

Kept