Catch her if he can…

Dr. Elizabeth LaValley’s life works just fine, thank you very much. She’s a successful anesthesiologist, and she’s put the chaos of her youth and family behind her. When hottie pitcher Jon Farell shows up in her hospital, she’s the only one who doesn’t fawn over him. Sure, she feels the heat between them, but being alone is safe and predictable. She didn’t get where she is by taking risks.

Jon can’t get the beautiful doctor out of his head. His talents on the field have always been enough for any woman. But if he’s going to win Elizabeth’s heart, he’ll have to offer her much more than a wicked curveball.…

Jon smiled slightly, gazing at her. Look at me, he willed her.

She glanced at him, then blinked, startled, and went back to staring at her screen. “I’m sorry,” the doctor said in a low voice. “You’re obviously someone famous, and I’m making you uncomfortable….” Blood seemed to drain from her face.

Usually, he would interject, reassure her and make her comfortable, but…he was genuinely interested in hearing what she had to say. And he got the feeling she didn’t speak her mind very often to people—preferring to keep things to herself.

“I’ve…had a bad morning,” she continued, still not looking at him. “I just got some…difficult news. If you’d like, I’ll have another anesthesiologist called in to assist with your surgery. But I assure you, I’m very capable at what I do, and once I’m with the rest of the team, I will be fine—”

“I want you,” he blurted.

She blinked at him. Her eyes lingered on his, then traveled the length of him very quickly, up and down. She swallowed. “Why?” she asked.

Dear Reader,

Where I grew up in New England, following baseball was an important tradition spanning the generations. As a child, I remember visiting Boston’s Fenway Park on “Family Day,” a baseball glove in hand in case any errant foul balls came our way. During summertime, the game was always on the radio or television in our homes. And all the kids in the neighborhood knew the name and uniform number of every player.

This book’s hero is one such player. Everyone loves Jon Farell, a left-handed pitcher for the New England Clippers. A local guy, he wants nothing more than to be re-signed to his team in the big leagues, but a medical issue and a clubhouse scandal threaten his future.

When Jon performs community service at the cancer hospital where he was treated, he falls for the one woman in Boston who has no idea who he is. Dr. Elizabeth LaValley has good reasons for being cautious, as her introverted world is sent into upheaval when she’s temporarily assigned responsibility for the care of her eight-year-old nephew, a cancer survivor.

But Jon, the extroverted, likable pro baseball player, is determined to bring Elizabeth out of her shell. And this man that her nephew adores is the one man that prickly, privacy-minded Elizabeth can’t seem to scare away…and she’s not sure that she really wants to.

This is a story about opposites attracting and, most of all, about the joy and power of falling in love. I hope you enjoy Elizabeth and Jon’s story.

All the best,

Cathryn Parry

Out of His League

Cathryn Parry

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cathryn Parry is a lifelong baseball fan. She also loved playing first base on her childhood softball team, coached by her mom. Today she lives in Massachusetts with her husband, Lou, and her neighbor’s cat, Otis. When she’s not writing romance, she enjoys figure skating, plans as many vacations as possible and pursues her genealogy hobby. Please visit her website at www.cathrynparry.com.

For Lou. Thanks for the inspiration, the meals and all the love!

Thanks also to Karen Reid for your help in making this story the best it could be!

And to my three brothers—baseball players all—for the many games of catch, pitch-back fun and pickup games in our sandy backyard. I’ll be forever grateful that you taught me how to not throw like a girl.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

WHEN DR. ELIZABETH LAVALLEY approached the elevator bank on the third floor of her Boston hospital, a crowd milled in front of the nurse’s station. Her department was uncharacteristically buzzing.

“Somebody famous,” she heard an aide say. Instead of joining the mix, Elizabeth skirted the chaos and quickly stepped inside the elevator, heading in the other direction.

Privacy and peace, that’s what Elizabeth craved. Outside, the city was waking.

She cut across the hospital complex until she came to a red-painted stripe that ran along the sidewalk. Boston’s famous Freedom Trail. Appropriate, because this was what Elizabeth’s job meant to her: freedom. An escape from the turmoil she’d grown up in.

But that was behind her. She’d worked hard for the life she led now, and she would do anything to keep it.

Her surgical scrubs fluttered in the slight breeze. A half hour before the first surgery in her morning shift, it was a sunny, blue-sky, early October day. She strode, focused, down the red-painted line, more crowded with people than usual. A cruise ship was docked in the harbor—likely one of the fall “foliage” itineraries that went from New York up to Canada, though it was early for the peak of the autumn leaves’ spectacular color. Still, it seemed passengers and crew members from around the world were crowded into town today.

Maybe someday she would take one of those cruises, albeit to Rome, Greece or Turkey, where she could focus on her love of archaeology and antiquity. Surely there would be a way to find a single berth and keep herself sequestered.

Maybe, if she were bold and asked him, Albert would go with her.... But on second thought, Albert didn’t like vacations. And he certainly didn’t share her curiosity for ancient civilizations. A seminar on the latest techniques for inserting prosthetic heart valves, perhaps.

But that was the kind of man she preferred. A safe man, one who didn’t push her from her comfort zone, question her or make demands on her time. Really, she only wanted to be left alone. She was independent, and she was...not understandable to the world at large. Only a man who lived in her world—this world, not the world of her past—could possibly understand.

She stepped aside as she saw a man, a cruise ship passenger—judging by his tote bag that said SS Holland—eye her, and then his camera. Even though he smiled at her, obviously intending to ask her to take a photo of him, she tightened her grip on the bag in her hand and drilled her gaze into the pavement as she walked away, faster now.

She did feel a twinge of guilt, because she wasn’t a rude person at heart. But people didn’t always understand that. She was awkward at small talk. Someone else would be a much better photo-taker for the man than she would ever be.

She hastened around the corner, out of the tourist area and back to her hospital. Just a small escape, a short bit of exercise before her workday in the operating room, where she’d be sitting hunched over her equipment for hours straight. She had a full morning and afternoon of procedures—typically three to four scheduled surgeries, as well as whatever emergency situations came their way. She would be busy, focused and absorbed in her job—just the way she liked it.

Checking her watch, she headed into the underground tunnel that led to Wellness Hospital, then felt a flash of cold that made her skin prickle. Jogging ahead, she rubbed her arms and went inside to the main lobby.

She was still breathing heavily when the receptionist stopped her. “Dr. LaValley! Your department called down looking for you.”

Elizabeth felt at her waist, but she’d forgotten her beeper. “What’s wrong?”

“Your sister is upstairs.”

“My sister? Are you sure?”

“That’s what they said.”

Elizabeth’s heart sank. All the goodwill and euphoria slipped away. The panicky, unsafe, confusing world she’d escaped was colliding with the orderly, private, secure world she’d created for herself as an adult.

She hurried for the elevator, wondering if something was wrong with their mother again.

A fall, a blackout, an arrest. Which one would it be this time?

That was the only reason she could think of for Ashley to contact her. Either way, Elizabeth had no choice but to see her sister.

* * *

JON FARELL SAT beside his agent’s daughter in the waiting room. The hospital had cleared out a private room for him, thankfully.

Not that he didn’t love signing autographs. Under regular circumstances, he could interact with people all day. As a pitcher with the New England Captains, he made it a point to hang out by the bullpen before home games, making himself available for any kid with a pen and a slip of paper. And why shouldn’t he? He was living the dream life—pro athlete for a big-market team, a local guy made good.

Everybody in the region knew the Captains, and most rooted for them, as well. Even this morning, strolling through the hospital before elective surgery, he’d noticed half the people waiting wore blue Captains caps with the distinctive “C” logo. Jon had been mobbed when he and Brooke had first shown up in the admitting area. Despite being on a food-and-drink fast since midnight, with nothing in his stomach and worry on his mind, Jon had signed a few autographs before a nurse took pity on him and hustled him into the empty examination room.

Jon scratched his right hand. He’d gotten used to the throbbing. Thankfully, it was his nonpitching hand.

But still...

It might be malignant.

That one, offhand comment from the doctor had shaken him to his core and thrown him off stride. Still did.

What would Jon do if it was cancer?

Do. Not. Go. There.

Mom was twenty-eight when she died of cancer. Your age now.

Jon swallowed, tried to keep his face a mask.

Next to him, Brooke tapped away on her smartphone. He hadn’t told her about the cancer part of the consultation. Hadn’t told anybody, except for Max, Brooke’s father and Jon’s agent since he’d been a high school kid drafted in the fourth round.

Where the hell was Max, anyway? Why had he sent his daughter in his place?

Brooke glanced up and smiled at him. She’d been flirty and full of attention toward him, and that had set Jon on edge. The only thing he wanted to talk to her about was her father, and that was the one topic she’d been closemouthed about since picking Jon up at his apartment. “Dad’s busy” had been all he could get out of her on the subject, though she’d chatted nonstop about baseball and Jon’s chance at a contract, which unnerved him. She wasn’t his agent; her father was.

“You can head out now,” he told Brooke. “Grab some breakfast. I’ll have the nurses call you when I’m out of surgery.”

She stood and stretched. “I shouldn’t. My father will kill me if I don’t stay here and report back everything to him.”

“I won’t tell him,” he said.

She patted his shoulder as she brushed by him, and he caught a whiff of perfume, sharp to his nose. Her pants were tight, showing off her behind, which jutted out with the high heels she wore. She strolled across the room, “working it.” She was too much like the groupies who were always around guys like him, doing their best to tempt him away from his game, and it made him uncomfortable.

“I’ll call the team doctors once you’re in surgery,” Brooke said.

Don’t do that. “Max can handle it,” he said mildly.

“Enough with the ‘Max.’” She pouted. “I don’t know why you don’t trust me, Jon.”

He clenched his right hand. Malignant. It might be malignant.

“I’m just caffeine-deprived,” he said. “Have a coffee for me, will you?”

She frowned at him. “I think you should give me your valuables to hold. Wallet, keys, jewelry.” She eyed the chain around his neck—the medallion was tucked under his shirt and she couldn’t see it. His mother had given him that, the last Christmas she was alive. He didn’t take it off for anybody.

But damn it, Brooke had a point. The doctors would want him to strip to nothing, and anything personal belonging to a celebrity, even a local celebrity, tended to grow legs and walk off. He took out his wallet, handed it to her, then pulled his keys from his pocket and unclasped the chain from his neck. She was Max’s daughter. If she lost any of it, Max would disown her.

A smug smile on her lips, she deposited his life inside her big, gold satchel of a purse. “How about a phone?” she asked.

“Nope, didn’t bring it,” he answered, doing his best not to show his irritation.

Thankfully, she left the room then. Sashayed right on out. Her perfume lingered, so he closed his eyes and transported himself someplace safe. He’d had so much practice as a kid. Man, he was thinking about those days too often lately. His chest throbbed right along with his hand.

Another nurse came in and set him up with a hospital gown and plastic bag to hold his clothing and shoes. He smiled at her, was polite and personable, even though he wanted to lie down and grit his teeth. But if he did, it might get caught on camera, might change the public’s opinion of him and jeopardize his job.

He was up for a contract. The season was over. He’d done okay—he was a back-of-the-rotation starting pitcher and had won his last two games—but the team had gone down in flames, anyway. The radio guys and the sportswriters were on the warpath; you’d think he and his teammates had all mugged little girls and stolen their lunch money.

Yeah, he understood fan loyalty. But there was real suffering in life, and, unlike most of these media people, it seemed he understood that while they didn’t.

“It was a shame about the Captains,” the nurse remarked to him. “My son stayed up late and watched all your games this month. He was hoping you’d make it to the playoffs.”

Him and about a million other people.

“Would your boy like an autograph?” Jon asked. His finger was really goddamn killing him. Had to be psychosomatic. It knew a knife was going to be slicing right into it, down to the bone, and cutting off a tumor the size of a pistachio nut.

“He would love that.” The nurse pulled a marker out of her pocket. “Are you sure you’re offering? I don’t want to bother you.”

He hid a smile. “I know I’ve got a job most kids in Boston would do anything for.”

Under normal circumstances, there was nothing he liked better than taking care of people—making them happy.

He glanced at his bum hand. The past couple weeks wearing a baseball glove rubbing against the knuckle hadn’t helped it. Still, unless a person knew what they were looking for, the growth on the bone of his right ring finger wasn’t apparent. He’d kept it from the team doctors, wanting to finish the season and make it into the playoffs.

Playoffs hadn’t happened, but he had finished the season, pretending nothing was wrong with him. Then he’d gone for an appointment earlier in the week and...

Here he was. Scheduled to get the tumor immediately removed and tested.

A chill socked him in the gut. This could not be cancer. Could not.

What would Bobby and Francis do if it was?

His smile stiffening, he turned to the nurse. “What’s your son’s name?”

“Kyle.” She pulled out his baseball card from her bag and handed it to him. “He’s a Little League pitcher, but he missed his spring season because he broke his arm.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Jon signed his name on the card. “Do you have a piece of paper? I’ll write him a personal note.”

The nurse produced a memo pad, and on it he scribbled, “To a fellow pitcher. Hope you stay healed and well for next season.”

He handed the card and the note back to the nurse. She was looking at him thoughtfully. “You’re very good at being a public person. You have a way with people.”

Jon shrugged. “I’m the oldest in my family. Two younger brothers.” Bobby and Francis. And if it weren’t for this issue, he would’ve told them he was going to be here today, and Francis probably would’ve come, Bobby, too, seeing as he was a college student in Boston, just back from Italy on a junior semester abroad. “So I know what kids are like.”

The nurse put a blood pressure cuff on him. “We get celebrities and famous people in from time to time. But usually, they have entourages who instruct us not to interact with them.”

Because it sucks thinking you might have cancer. Jon smiled at the nurse as he watched the needle move on the gauge. “No worries.”

But there were worries. Tons of worries. Maybe after today, he’d be unemployed. Or worse, handed a death sentence. Then what would his family do? His father...cripes, he hated to think what Dad would do. He’d barely survived what had happened to their mom. Jon had held them all together emotionally, for years. It gave him a purpose, and with the money from his contract, he was taking care of them still.

The nurse handed him a paper cap for the operating room. “They might ask you to tie back your hair,” she said, winking at him. “I know how the girls love it. Getting long, isn’t it?”

Yeah, it was his thing—his trademark. Shoulder length now, he had promised not to cut it until the Captains made the playoffs, and then he’d lined up somebody to shave it off for charity. The team had been planning to make a big deal of it for their cancer charity.

That word again. Not that he’d ever told anybody on the team about his mom.

He forced himself to smile. “It’s fine.”

He was a good liar, when he needed to take care of others.

Finally, the nurse left him. He was used to people lingering over him, and that was okay. Being famous served a purpose. It was the thought of not having a purpose that threw him into a tailspin. Just get through today.

He changed out of his jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt into the hospital gown.

A male aide entered his room. “Hey, man! I love you guys!” he said. “You were the best pitcher on the team this September—they should put you at the top of the order!” Then the man wheeled Jon into what looked like a holding room for the O.R. His gut twisted into a million knots.

Do or die. Cut the friggin’ thing out and test it. Am I done, or do I get to come back for another season?

But as someone pricked his arm—shit, his pitching arm—with a needle for an IV, he looked away, knowing that it wasn’t the season that counted.

It was his family. And for them, he was flooded with the worst fear he had ever felt in his entire life. And that was saying something.

He squeezed his eyes shut. He felt more helpless and alone than he wanted to admit to himself.

More preoperative patients were wheeled into bays; the room became busy. As doctors, nurses and orderlies came inside, they all looked his way, to the farthest corner.

Word was out that he was here. Publicity-wise, Jon had it covered. A tweet was prepared to go out this evening, if necessary—Routine elective surgery on a stiff finger, non-pitching hand. Looks good. Thanks to Wellness Hospital. For now, though, he just needed to calm down, get the knots out of his stomach. He closed his eyes again.

“I’m Dr. Elizabeth LaValley. I’m your anesthesiologist this morning.”

He opened his eyes a slit. Saw a pretty doctor with chin-length, glossy hair. A cute pug nose. Slight but sure hands that gripped an iPad to her chest.

He opened his eyes all the way, because he needed to pay attention. It was his body that they’d be cutting into. But when he looked up at the doctor, it was what he saw in her eyes that made him sit up.

From the dampness in her lashes, and her puffy face, he could tell she’d been crying. And whatever the reason, she was trying to hide it. She kept her gaze drilled on her tablet computer instead of looking at him.

“And you are...” Blinking fast, she touched the screen. “Jon Farell.”

She pronounced it wrong, like “barrel,” which was his first clue.

“It’s Fair-ell,” he said.

Her brow knit. He waited for her to recognize his name.

Nope, nothing.

“You’re here for surgery on your finger...” She swiped another page. Tears were welling in her eyes, and she blinked fast.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Of course.” She seemed to shake herself. Tapped at the screen. “Do you have any concerns I should know about?” she said to the tablet’s screen.

Other than the fact that he might have cancer? And that his pretty anesthesiologist had just been crying?

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he repeated.

“Yes.” She took a breath. “I need to double-check some questions. Are you...” She squinted at whatever his computer files were telling her. “Right-handed?”

A very good question. “I’m left-handed,” he said. “I pitch left-handed. This is my catching hand.” He held it up to her, as if that made a difference.

“I see.” She glanced at the chart. He noted that she wore no rings on her left hand. “And you...play sports?”

The one woman in Boston who appeared not to know who he was. He would have laughed if what he was facing wasn’t so important.

“At a very high level,” he said. “They pay me lots of money to do so.” At least, he hoped they still did after today.

She nodded, still staring at the tablet. “You are worried that the surgeons might cut into your left hand by mistake. Duly noted.”

“You’ve never heard of the New England Captains?” he asked her.

“I...don’t follow sports.”

Even more fascinating. “Do you know anything about baseball?”

“I... No.” She blinked. Again, those eyes were filling up. Eyes that were warm and brown. Like the root beer he’d liked as a kid.

“My nephew likes sports,” she whispered.

His antennae went up. He was absolutely certain she hadn’t meant to divulge this fact, that she was nothing at all like the others—people who knew he was coming into surgery, knew he was good-natured by reputation, and had therefore used the opportunity to provide a gift or a story for their own children.

Not that he blamed them. It was just...refreshing...to meet somebody—especially a single woman his age with a solid career and goals in her own right—who didn’t look at him as public property.

“Please sit down,” he said to her. “I’d like to ask you some questions, if that’s all right.” There was a chair next to his gurney.

She continued to stand. “Certainly. In five minutes, your surgeon will be stopping by, and after that I’ll put a relaxant in your IV drip. Do you have any allergies?”

He’d been through all of this at his last appointment, but he just smiled at her. “No allergies. Tell me what’s upsetting you?”

She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I’m fine, Mr. Farell.”

“Fair-ell,” he said. “And it’s Jon.”

She licked her lips and stared hard at her tablet. “Have you ever been under general anesthesia? Do you have any concerns about it?”

Dr. Elizabeth LaValley, the name stitched across her white lab jacket said. Her scrubs beneath it were bright turquoise. She was medium height, and she was attractive in a fresh-faced, studious way. Obviously she was smart, or she wouldn’t be a doctor.

“Mr. Farell?” She said the name correctly this time.

He smiled. Look at me, he willed her.

She glanced at him, then blinked, startled and went back to staring at her screen. “I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice, “you’re obviously someone famous, and I’m making you uncomfortable....” Blood seemed to drain from her face.

Usually, he would interject, reassure her and make her comfortable, but...he was genuinely interested in hearing what she had to say. And he got the feeling she didn’t speak her mind too often to people, preferring to keep things to herself.

“I’ve...had a bad morning,” she continued, still not looking at him. “I just got some...difficult news. If you’d like, I’ll have another anesthesiologist called in to assist with your surgery. But I assure you, I’m very capable at what I do, and once I’m with the rest of the team, I will be fine—”

“I want you,” he blurted.

She blinked at him. Her eyes lingered on his, then traveled the length of him very quickly, up and down. She swallowed. “Why?” she asked.

He liked the sound of her voice—soft and calming. And it was completely inappropriate for the situation, but his body was giving a sexual response....

He crossed his arms over his lap. Smiled nonchalantly at her and gave her an uncharacteristic, honest answer. “Because I’m scared as hell at what’s going to happen to me, and I don’t want anybody else but you to know. Okay?”

“Me?” She put her hand on her heart.

“Uh, I figure you’ve already seen me at my worst. I don’t want to have to explain it to anybody else again.”

She nodded slowly. “That’s logical.”

“It is.”

Their gazes held for just a split second too long. There was...something there. An attraction, and on her part, too. And no, it wasn’t as meaningless to him as overcoming a challenge—getting a woman who wasn’t impressed with his celebrity to come to his side. It was...deeper than that.

And it was crazy to think so based on a two-minute meeting. Maybe he was just so scared witless about the cancer talk, it was making him think crazy things.

Carefully, Elizabeth LaValley put down her computer tablet. He got the impression that this action in itself was significant for her.

“Mr. Farell,” she said slowly, “your surgeon is very good. He’s our best, in fact, and I can vouch for him.”

“Not all cancer can be cured,” he murmured. “People die. I’ve seen...people die.”

Again, that pale face. “I know.” Her voice caught, and her hand went to her mouth.

“Tell me, Lizzy,” he said softly. “Uh, is it okay if I call you that?”

“I... Yes. I’m fine, really. It’s fine.” She waved her hand, looking flustered. “It’s just...we had a cancer scare in our family five years ago. My three-year-old nephew had leukemia. Today is the day he gets tested, to see if he’s really cured.”

“And you’re worried?”

“My sister thinks he’s sick again.” She shook her head. “No—we’re supposed to be talking about you. This is your surgery. Your anesthesia. In a minute, your surgeon—the head of the team—will be coming to see you.”

She picked up the tablet again and very carefully sat to read his case notes. There was fresh concentration in her gaze. Her blinking had stopped. Her hands weren’t shaking.

“Lizzy, I’m sorry about your nephew.”

She shook her head again. “He’ll be fine, Mr. Farell. Today, we’ll be removing a tumor from your right ring finger—a growth on the bone—but from your tests, there are no solid indications it’s cancer. Of course, the tumor will be tested as soon as it’s removed, but that is standard procedure.”

He’d lost her. But she needed to prepare for her job performance in the minutes ahead—of anyone, he could understand and appreciate that. “How long will it take to get back the results?”

“Typically, a few days for the lab work,” she said. “But, once the doctor opens up the finger and sees the tumor, he can usually rule out cancer by sight.”

Jon drew in a breath. She was gazing at him, her forehead creased. He got a feeling she didn’t look at too many of her patients like this. Really look at them, really let herself see them as people instead of as medical problems to be solved.

“Thank you, Lizzy,” he said quietly.

She blushed. “It’s Elizabeth.”

“Call me Jon.”

Her teeth bit down on her lower lip.

And because things were looking so much better now, he pushed his luck. “I have another request that I was wondering if you could help me with.”

* * *

TALKING INAPPROPRIATELY to a patient? This was so unlike her; it was surreal.

The only thing that explained Elizabeth’s uncharacteristic unprofessionalism with Jon—with this patient—was that, silly as it sounded, her grandmother had called her Lizzy.

And her grandmother had died when Elizabeth was eight, the same age her nephew Brandon was now.

Fresh tears sprang to her eyelids. She bit down on her lip again. Control. Stay in control.

She was just so vulnerable now, ever since Ashley had told her about Brandon. She pressed her hand to her mouth, trying to stop the trembling.

The surgeon approached Mr. Farell. A professional athlete getting the most experienced doctor on staff...no surprise there. Elizabeth stepped aside, relieved to be able to step into the shadows.

Talking to the patients presurgery was the least favorite part of her job. She would as soon die as admit this to anyone, but she’d chosen anesthesia as a medical specialty because the bulk of her duties involved dealing with patients while they were unable to move or speak and therefore couldn’t interact or cause conflict with her. All that was required, interfacing-wise, was typically a five- or ten-minute consultation before the procedure. Right up Elizabeth’s alley.

But this man...Jon Farell...had just blown all her experience out of the water. Even now, as the surgeon talked on and on, regaling Jon, asking him questions, adding to his “cocktail banter stories” by interacting with a Captains pitcher, Jon kept glancing at her. Meaningfully, as if the two of them shared a secret.

She rarely stared at men. Her life was too private for that, Albert not considered. But this man...

She’d been fighting an urge to lean closer and smell him. Very strange, but she did understand the scientific principal behind it. Sex pheromones, it was called. The theory stated that Nature, in her infinite wisdom, ensured that people with complementary genetic traits were attracted to one another. Someone with a family tendency for diabetes, say, was attracted to someone else with specific immunity against it. A way for survival of the species, so to speak.

Scientifically, then, she wasn’t physically attracted to Jon Farell, but her DNA was.

Intuitively, it made sense. Jon was the physical opposite to her. He was athletic and strong, with ice-blue eyes. His face bore the fine, delicate features of Nordic ancestry, but mixed with something else—a blending of another culture that gave him bronzed, sun-kissed skin and long brown hair, mysteriously streaked on the left side with white. His hair wasn’t dyed white, but was naturally white, as in, the absence of color. Somewhere along the line, probably through blunt trauma, a small section on his scalp, about a quarter inch wide, had been injured such that he no longer had any pigment in the hair follicles.

Overall, it made Jon Farell look...beautiful. And with his warm, musically pitched voice, it gave him the mysterious aura of some past, mystical culture.

He set her workaday French and Scottish genes on fire. Which had probably contributed to her opening her mouth and admitting things to him that she would never in a million years tell anybody else.

It made him uniquely dangerous to her.

The aides prepared to wheel Jon’s gurney into the operating room, and she stepped forward, doing her job. As the rest of the team moved into position, she put relaxants into Jon’s IV line. Waited until those ice-blue eyes flickered closed.

She felt her shoulders relaxing. He was in the customary pose of her customary patients. He was no longer a threat.

“Lizzy,” he murmured suddenly, and she jumped.

“Yes, Jon?” She leaned closer.

“Please tell me afterward what the doctor said about the malignancy. Can you do that?”

“I’ll...”

But he was out. It was just as well.

They wheeled him into surgery, and she set him up to monitor him with her equipment. Waited while the nurse—that lucky woman—tied his beautiful hair up into a cap before placing pads on his chest and a cuff on his arm. Elizabeth eased him into unconsciousness by selecting a syringe and inserting the drugs into his IV.

He was truly out then.

Briefly, Elizabeth wondered how she could possibly communicate to Jon afterward, as he had asked, but she put that out of mind and went back to her customary, safe place. With deft hands—she’d done this hundreds of times, after all—she intubated him.

For the first time, she was touching his body, albeit with gloves on. She gently placed a tube into his airway to take control of his breathing during the operation.

Then she sat back at her cart behind the surgery drape and observed her machines. That was what anesthesiologists did.

He was not the famous Jon Farell now. He was any patient.

But still, when the surgeon isolated and removed the tumor at long last, she couldn’t help searching the doctor’s eyes.

Good news or bad?

And either way, how would she tell Jon?

CHAPTER TWO

AFTER THE SURGERY, and with Jon wheeled safely to the recovery room, Elizabeth hurried to the hospital day care center where her nephew and her sister waited for her.

In a private room, she gave eight-year-old Brandon a cursory checkup, questioned him and checked his vital signs.

The outgoing, towheaded boy showed no symptoms of renewed cancer. Nothing that Elizabeth could outwardly see. On the contrary, he seemed as energetic as ever—he fidgeted and had a difficult time sitting still. Elizabeth told him to wait for his mom in the hospital day care center, and then she led her sister to a long, quiet corridor, encased in glass, that overlooked the Boston skyline.

In the midday light, Elizabeth stared at the thin, stylishly dressed, older sister who was so different from her, it was hard to believe they’d come from the same parents.

Ashley paced back and forth, jittery, her high-heeled boots clicking on the floor. She was rubbing her arms as she walked. “It’s happening again.”

Elizabeth’s pulse sped up. “What is happening again?”

“I can’t take it,” Ashley said. “The tests...the trips to Boston...the stress of worrying...”

“Ashley, he seems fine. A normal, active eight-year-old. Give the tests a chance to ease your mind. What time is his appointment?”

“Twelve o’clock, and I can’t be there.” Ashley stopped pacing. “Lisbeth, I need you to help me with Brandon, just for today while we get through this.”

“You know I can’t do that,” Elizabeth said as calmly as she could. There was a reason she kept her family at arm’s length. Ashley’s appearance this morning was the least of it.

But her sister’s chin took on a stubborn tilt. “If Brandon is sick again, you work at the hospital. You’re the best person to help him.”

“I’m glad you’ve come to that conclusion.” Five years ago when Brandon had been diagnosed with leukemia, Ashley had refused to allow Elizabeth to have anything to do with Brandon’s treatment. She’d been the devoted if slightly martyred mother who had hovered over him at every appointment.

Elizabeth’s reaction to the boy’s sickness, on the other hand, had been to study all she could about the illness. She’d consulted with Brandon’s doctors, and, as a medical student affiliated with the hospital back then, surreptitiously checked to make sure that he was getting the best and latest of care. All of it done behind the scenes, of course, with the guarantee of no attention drawn to herself.

“Ashley, I am not good with children. You know this.”

“You work with sick people,” her sister insisted.

“Brandon is not sick! He is healthy and he needs to get back to school!”

“You have a car,” Ashley said, hugging herself and staring out the window. “The school’s not too far from here...”

She didn’t appear to be listening to Elizabeth. Then again, she was Ashley. Even as a girl, she’d been fueled by emotion. A queen of drama. Born pretty, Elizabeth’s older sister had been the head of a clique of girls who’d ruled the neighborhood. Maybe that had been her coping mechanism to their chaotic home life. Elizabeth had coped by hiding in the public library, doing her homework or looking at National Geographic magazines. She had skipped two grades and had been accepted at college in Boston at sixteen, which had been her escape, and from which she’d never gone back.

Elizabeth tapped her foot. This meeting was unnecessary. She could spend precious time—time she did not have, since she was on duty and had a case to prepare for—explaining to her sister why she could not drive Brandon a half hour to school, in the opposite direction, and then back again, cutting out of her job at the hospital to pick him up. It didn’t make logistical sense.

But Ashley’s mind was not logical or ordered. Elizabeth needed to cut to the heart of the matter for her.

“What’s really going on here?” Elizabeth asked quietly. “Why can’t you sit with Brandon through his tests and then take him to school as usual?”

Ashley stopped pacing. But Elizabeth stepped closer and noticed her sister’s body was twitching. Her skin seemed clammy, and she smelled like...

No. Oh, no.

Their mother drank, but to Elizabeth’s knowledge, her sister never had.

Elizabeth certainly never did. She didn’t chance touching the stuff. That behavior was common, she had read, in children of alcoholics.

“Ashley?”

“I...have an appointment with a counselor today,” her sister confessed.

“That’s...good.” It was excellent, in fact. That showed Ashley was taking charge in an appropriate manner. If Elizabeth had the time, she’d delve into the how and where...check out this counselor and offer her sister medical advice.

Elizabeth glanced at her watch. In another minute the surgical nurses would be paging her. “Ashley, I really need to get to my next patient.”

Ashley’s thin shoulders straightened. She’d lost weight, Elizabeth noticed. “I’m leaving Brandon with you at the hospital today.”

“That isn’t possible.” The emotional response was elevating her pulse, but Elizabeth willed it away. “I have a full schedule of surgeries.”

“I know. I already talked to a nurse about the emergency child care program for employees that you have here.”

“You did?” Elizabeth said drily.

“Lisbeth, here is his insurance card and hospital ID.” Ashley shoved the patient cards at her. Then she tightened her jacket around her as if to close the pain inside. “Please kiss Brandon for me.” Her voice wavered. “And tell that lady ‘thank you’ for watching him while you and I talk.”

“Ashley—”

“I have to go!”

Elizabeth watched, gaping, as her sister hurried away down the corridor.

“What time will you pick him up?” she called after her, but Ashley just waved her hand and disappeared around the corner.

Now what?

Elizabeth racked the logical side of her brain. Actually, her entire brain was logical. She dealt in facts, not “what if” flights of fancy.

Fact one: Brandon needed to be escorted to his appointment. Thank goodness for the aides in the child care department. Of course she would normally accompany Brandon herself, but a patient receiving scheduled wrist surgery needed her care as his anesthesiologist.

She quickly dropped off Brandon’s insurance cards at the Emergency Hospital Day Care, and then rushed back to her post.

On the way, she passed the post-op room where Jon Farell would be recovering.

She wanted to slow. She wanted to stop in and see how he was doing. Catch a glimpse of those ice-blue eyes.

He might be lucid by now, and she had embarrassed herself enough already. Nearly losing her reserve and showing tears in front of a patient—it was so uncalled-for, so unlike her normal personality that the entire event had been...ludicrous.

She was Dr. Elizabeth LaValley, and she did not drop her veil of privacy for anybody.

Not even for men with understanding eyes and pheromones that smelled like heaven to her.

* * *

IN JON’S DREAM, he was sitting in a room, brightly lit by white light, on one side of a conference table. On the other side was a kindly, older man who looked familiar but who Jon couldn’t recall ever meeting. Max, his agent, was there, too, but he wasn’t speaking, he was just listening.

Jon seemed to be having an earnest conversation; he was telling the man what he was doing in baseball. He was trying to explain why it was imperative that he be allowed to continue.

“I’m not ready to stop,” Jon told the man. “I still have so much to do.”

He said a lot more to the man, too, but as soon as Jon spoke the words, he seemed to forget what he’d just said. He was trying to concentrate, but it wasn’t possible.

“I understand you,” the man said, something Jon clearly remembered. “It’s time to get serious.”

Yes! Jon understood exactly what he meant. He’d been coasting for too long. If he worked harder, he would be allowed to continue playing pro ball. He would not have to stop this life that he loved so much.

It’s time to get serious.

The thought filled him with hope. Even Max seemed to agree.

When Jon woke, his heart was pounding, the dream fresh on his mind. He knew exactly where he was. Inside a brightly lit recovery room. He felt groggy, his throat sore, his nonpitching hand numb. He looked down and saw it was bound in a thick bandage.

He tried to sit up, but nausea swept over him. He put his head back down. All of a sudden, he heard a child’s voice whisper next to him, “You’re Jon Farell!”

The nurse hustled over and bundled the child off.

Jon turned his head right, then left. “Where’s Lizzy?” he asked thickly.

“Lizzy? Is she the woman in the waiting area who keeps asking about you?” the nurse asked. “I told her that as soon as you eat some crackers and drink some ginger ale, we can call the doctor and get his okay to sign you out.”

“No. I want Lizzy. My...other doctor.”

“Dr. LaValley? She’s presently administering to a patient in surgery.”

“I need to see her. Elizabeth...LaValley,” he enunciated as best he could, but his words were slurring.

“That’s my aunt!” a voice piped up. It was the kid. The boy who’d recognized Jon.

“Brandon,” the nurse said to the boy, “you know you’re supposed to be in the day care center.” She picked up her telephone and made a call.

“Leave him,” Jon muttered weakly. He still felt so...sluggish yet full of purpose. He supposed dreams did that to people.

No, not a dream, a vision. And it was so clear. He had to get out of here. Had to get started.

The kid trotted over to his gurney. Jon blinked at him. Whatever medication they’d pumped him full of, he would be shaky for a while. He squinted, concentrating as hard as he could.

The kid was about eight, Jon estimated, with sandy hair and those sneakers kids wore that lit up when they walked. He shrugged out of his backpack and grabbed for a pen.

“Can I get your autograph?” the kid asked. He was missing one of his front eyeteeth.

Or maybe Jon was hallucinating. “How do you know who I am?”

“Everybody knows Jon Farell. You have twelve wins, eleven losses, a four-point-one-five season ERA, and one hundred forty-two strikeouts.”

Huh. Jon didn’t even know all that. He usually ignored his stats.

Those numbers weren’t great, though. He should be doing better. If he were honest with himself, he’d slacked off this summer. The playoffs had seemed a certainty, so maybe the team had socialized and hung out partying together more than they should have.

He had a vague feeling that had been part of his dream. He wasn’t sure, but he thought they had touched on the topic....

He struggled to sit up.

“Hurry!” the kid whispered. “The nurse is coming back.”

“Maybe you should get your aunt,” Jon said.

“She’s in surgery.” The kid looked at him earnestly. “She’s a famous doctor.”

“When I see her again,” Jon slurred. “I’ll give her an autograph for you to take home.”

“You should drive to her house and give it to her there. I’m eating dinner at her house tonight. I’ll tell her you’re coming to see me.” The kid turned around so his back was to Jon. Dangling from the boy’s backpack was a cardboard address label, freshly filled out in blue ink. “That’s where she lives.”

With Jon’s good hand—his pitching hand, which, thank God, felt fine—he drew the label closer, just out of curiosity. Dr. LaValley’s address was in Medford. Huh. That’s where he’d grown up. The vision meant something, but he’d known that before he even saw where Lizzy lived.

He squinted at her street address. He was vaguely certain it was near the school he’d attended as a kid, but Jon’s GPS would know for sure. He dropped back on the bed.

“Brandon! Leave the patients alone!”

Brandon let the nurse take his hand and lead him away. Jon thought the boy might have winked at him.

He still felt so groggy and confused. A second nurse brought him a plastic cup filled with ginger ale, and a packet of saltine crackers that crinkled in its cellophane wrapper.

“Can you ask Dr. LaValley to come here, please?” he asked, pushing away the crackers. “I have a question for her.”

“Let me know the question, and I’ll get it answered for you.” The nurse was speaking loudly. She didn’t need to. He understood her perfectly.

“I want to talk to her,” he said as clearly as he could. The words weren’t coming out so easily. His throat felt sore. Why was that?

“I’ll tell her that you asked for her,” the nurse said.

“I need to talk to her...about the surgery. About what happened to me...” Damn it, he was getting tired. And his finger was starting to throb.

The nurse walked away. Jon peeled back the sheet that covered him. Swung his bare feet to the cool floor. He could feel himself tottering.

In a split second, two nurses were at his side, swinging him back onto the bed.

“He wants to talk to Dr. LaValley,” one of the nurses said to the other nurse.

“Mr. Farell?” The second nurse was in his face now, talking loudly. “Jon?”

“I want to speak to Dr. LaValley,” he repeated.

“That isn’t possible. She’s in surgery. But she left a message for you. She said to say that the procedure went favorably. She said to emphasize the word favorably.”

That was code: Lizzy didn’t think he had cancer. That was good. That was...

Exactly what he’d asked for in the vision. His wish was coming true.

But he still had his end of the bargain to hold up.

Jon leaned back on the pillow. There was so much he could do to improve himself during the off-season. And now that he was out of surgery, he would get right on it.

CHAPTER THREE

JON DIDN’T LET Brooke accompany him in the elevator up to his penthouse, and he remembered to ask for everything back that he’d given her to hold for him: wallet, keys, medallion. He wanted no excuses for her to contact him later under pretext of forgotten belongings. The sooner he was back to focusing on his baseball career and in the care of Max alone, the better off he would be.

Once in his apartment, he crashed on his pillow and slept off the aftereffects of the surgery. He woke at midafternoon, his mouth dry and his finger throbbing with pain, but he refused to take the painkillers the doctor had insisted he leave the hospital with. Instead, he swallowed two acetaminophen tablets with a huge glass of water, before falling back into bed and lapsing into a sleep that felt like a coma. He didn’t wake again until his phone rang.

“Yeah?” he mumbled into the mouthpiece.

“Jon Farell? This is Dr. Morgan from Wellness Hospital.”

“Yes.” Jon sat up, his heart pounding. He held the phone between his ear and his shoulder while he groped for a pen and pad of paper in the drawer by his bed. He didn’t want to miss anything the surgeon said. “Go ahead,” he said, pulling off the cap to the marker with his teeth.

“We expedited the lab work for you. The tumor is benign. Cancer-free.”

The pen cap fell from Jon’s mouth and bounced off the pad of paper. Thank God. Thank God, thank God, thank God.

“Thank you,” Jon said to the doctor, once he was breathing normally again. “I appreciate your taking the time to call me.”

He also appreciated that they’d rushed his test through the system. Another advantage of playing for a big-market sports team.

“I’ll see you next week at your checkup,” Dr. Morgan said on the other end of the line. “We’ll remove your stitches then. Until that time, follow the directions the nurses sent you home with. If you have any questions, you can call me at this number.”

“Will do.” Jon disconnected the call and felt the smile spread over his face. For the first time in weeks, the worry he’d been carrying with him lifted.

He’d told no one about the growth on his finger. He couldn’t, because the season had been still underway, and the Captains were in the hunt for a playoff berth. And then when it officially ended, he’d made an appointment and, less than a week later, was in surgery. He hadn’t told his dad, because he didn’t want to worry him about the cancer scare. Ditto with his brothers.

Jon took care of them, not the other way around.

The only reason Brooke had been with him at the hospital was because at the pre-op checkup, the doctors had insisted he designate a person who would escort him home after the procedure. Of course, he’d called Max. It was Jon’s agent’s job to keep the team informed as to his medical status, but whether Max had done so or not, Jon wasn’t certain. The season was over, and Jon was no longer in day-to-day contact with the general manager and team staff. Things were loose....

They were worse than loose. Jon’s contract was up, and he needed the Captains to offer him a new one. That had been step two, after step one—get his tumor taken care of. Max had warned him to be cautious about discussing injuries or medical issues when he had a contract to re-sign.

Now, especially, Jon wanted to shout his good news about the cancer-free diagnosis to the world, but it just wasn’t possible. He wished, at least, he could tell Dr. LaValley.

She’s waiting for news about her nephew.

Mentally, he smacked himself. He had met the nephew in the recovery room, and it hadn’t even occurred to Jon that the kid was in the same boat he was. What kind of guy was he?

It’s time to get serious.

He strode into the bathroom and took the world’s fastest shower, his nonpitching hand—his cancer-free hand—sticking out the side of the curtain so it wouldn’t get wet. There was probably stuff he needed to take care of in regard to changing the bandage, but he didn’t have time to read the instructions the hospital had given him along with a bunch of bandages and tubes of ointment. He would worry about that when he returned home. For now, he gingerly threw on fresh jeans, a T-shirt and a pair of loafers—seeing as he couldn’t tie shoelaces with one of his fingers bandaged—and grabbed his SUV keys, wallet and phone.

It was dark outside. He’d slept the whole damn day. Some of that was the anesthesia and painkillers wearing off, some of it was just sheer exhaustion from a week of private worry.

He called down to valet parking and had Josh bring his Ford Expedition around front to the curb for him. Jon attempted to put on his medallion, but gave up trying to work the clasp and instead shoved it into his front pocket.

On the way downstairs, he called Max again. As before, the call went straight to voice mail. He shut off his phone without leaving a message.

He’d deal with his agent later.

For now, he was driving to Medford to see how a little kid with a cancer scare, like him, was doing.

And, oh yeah, sign him the autographs he’d promised.

* * *

ELIZABETH PUT HER hands over her ears. Her chest felt constricted and her pulse was elevated. Her living room, usually her sanctuary, blared with jarring music from an overloud children’s cartoon. Her nephew bounced on the couch and hummed to himself. “Brandon, please turn down the television so I can hear myself think.”

The boy gazed back at her with a wide-eyed look that made Elizabeth feel guilty. His mom was staying at an alcohol treatment center in town—unbeknownst to him, thank goodness—and she’d asked Elizabeth to take care of the boy for the next twelve hours. Elizabeth wanted to help them, she truly did.

“It’s only for one night,” Ashley had said. “Brandon loves sleepovers.”

With that, Elizabeth had driven Brandon from the hospital to his house, two towns over, to pick up an overnight bag, and then she’d dropped off Ashley’s small dog with one of her coworkers at the beauty salon Ashley worked at. Brandon had chattered and fidgeted nonstop, playing with the radio dials, and when she’d asked him to stop with the radio, he’d fiddled with her cell phone. She had felt so overwhelmed she’d ended up giving in. She just didn’t know what to do with a young boy in her busy life. Not even for one night.

In no universe would Elizabeth ever be called a nurturer. She was the absolute wrong person to have an active eight-year-old boy spend the night with in her small condominium.

“Brandon, please,” she asked.

Blinking, he took the remote and turned down the volume exactly one notch.

“Thank you.” She sighed.

“Auntie, what’s for dinner?” He jumped back on the couch and put his feet up on her formerly pristine cushions.

“I...don’t know.” She stared as Brandon kicked off one sneaker with a thump to the floor. Then his other sneaker dropped onto the magazines on her table.

Her favorite magazines.

She closed her eyes. She was so not cut out for babysitting young boys. This was going to be a long night. And she didn’t have a bed for her nephew, or even a guest bedroom—just her office. She didn’t have a toothbrush for him, either, and he had announced that he’d forgotten his, halfway up the stairway to her condominium unit.

Add that to the shopping list.

She turned back to her dilemma in the kitchen.

Every can of soup and package of cereal was emptied from her cupboard and spread out on her countertop. She had found nothing in her pantry or refrigerator that her nephew could eat.

This was her fault. She’d been so flustered over the fact that her sister had expected Brandon to stay with her—on one night’s notice—that’d she’d forgotten to stop at the supermarket. It was clear she needed to journey outside and brave traffic again. But there was no way she could leave an eight-year-old unattended. What to do?

She needed a babysitter, that’s what she needed.

Sighing, she crossed to the bulletin board where she’d tacked a slip of paper with the scribbled phone number for Mrs. Ham, the widow who lived in a condominium apartment downstairs. Elizabeth hated to ask people for favors—but the elderly lady was the only neighbor Elizabeth knew by name. Mrs. Ham walked with a cane, made it a point to talk to everybody and was home most of the time. Elizabeth remembered her talking about raising two boys, now grown and married and living in other states. Maybe she wouldn’t mind watching Brandon for fifteen minutes in her apartment while Elizabeth ran out to the store.

Before she could agonize over the decision, she made the call. Quickly, like ripping a bandage off a cut.

Mrs. Ham picked up on the first ring.

“Hello, this is Dr. Elizabeth LaValley from upstairs,” she said all in one breath. “I’m wondering if I could ask you a favor for tonight.”

“Tonight?” Mrs. Ham rasped. “It’s not a good time.” A television set blared in the background. “I’m watching the Eastern Series playoffs.”

“The...?” Elizabeth had no idea what the elderly lady was talking about.

“Auntie!” Brandon called from the living room.

“Excuse me for a moment, Mrs. Ham.” Elizabeth covered the phone. “Brandon, please, I am on the phone.”

Her nephew picked up the pillow from her couch and tossed it into the air. “Who are you talking to?”

“A babysitter. Put your shoes on, please, you’re going downstairs for a few minutes to watch the, uh, Eastern Series playoffs while I go out to the store.”

“But I can’t go downstairs.” Brandon sat up with an urgent look on his face. “I have to stay here. In your house.”

“You can’t stay here without me.” Elizabeth continued to cover the phone. “You’re eight years old.”

“But I need to. Just in case.”

“Just in case of what?”

And then the buzzer from the lobby rang. Elizabeth blinked, the meaning not registering at first. People did not visit her. She worked long hours, and the short amount of time that she spent at home she kept to herself.

Brandon perked up. “Can I answer the door?”

“No, I’ll do it.” She uncovered the phone and lifted it to her ear, intending to beg Mrs. Ham to watch the boy for just a few minutes, but it slipped from Elizabeth’s fingers and clattered to the counter. When she picked the phone up, she saw that she’d turned it off by mistake.

“Auntie!” Brandon nagged.

This was why she lived alone. To keep to herself. Oh, God, she felt like weeping. How was she supposed to manage sharing her time when she was just so greedy for privacy?

It couldn’t get any worse.

Her nephew tugged on her shirt. “I think it might be Jon Farell at the door.”

Jon? Her patient from the morning, with the beautiful blue eyes?

“I asked him to come,” Brandon said softly.

But it couldn’t be. It just could not be.

* * *

JON WAITED IN THE LOBBY, wondering if Lizzy was home. But at last he heard her voice answer from the intercom:

“Yes?” She sounded frazzled. In the background, the Scooby-Doo theme song played on a television set, a blast from his past.

That made him smile. “Hi, Dr. LaValley. It’s Jon Farell. Ah...I hope it’s okay, but Brandon asked me to stop by. I’m dropping off the autograph I promised him.”

“Jon! Jon! I knew you would come!”

A buzzer sounded, and Jon was on his way upstairs. She waited for him in the hallway before an open door, the light from an apartment shining behind her. Also behind her was Brandon, bouncing from side to side in his stocking feet, and wearing the huge grin of a typical, energetic eight-year-old glad to see his sports hero.

Jon felt relieved. The kid really didn’t look sick with cancer. Maybe he was okay?

Lizzy closed the door behind her so she was in the hall alone with Jon. “You should not have come,” she said to him in a low voice. Her face was pale. For the first time it occurred to him that this wasn’t a good idea to stop by unannounced.

“Sorry.” He held out a game ball he’d grabbed from his car for her nephew. He gave Lizzy his best “Mr. Helpful, I’m a Good Guy” smile, but she didn’t seem to be buying it. He shrugged. “I promised Brandon. The ball is from my last start of the season, against Toronto. We won.”

But New York had won their game, too, so the Captains hadn’t made a wild-card slot into the play-offs. Still, Jon had done his part, and Brandon, numbers kid that he was, should appreciate Jon’s stats from that outing.

“When did my nephew give you my private address?” she asked, not taking the baseball he offered. Her arms were crossed, and she was rubbing them, as if worried.

“Ah...Brandon and I talked in the recovery room. He asked me to stop by tonight to deliver an autograph for him.”

Her eyes grew huge. “Brandon was in the recovery room?”

“It’s okay, Lizzy. Lots of local kids are baseball fans. He probably just heard I was in the hospital, and he came to check it out. I’d have done it, too, at his age.”

“I did not give you permission to come to my house, and do not call me Lizzy.”

He gazed down at her. Why this woman intrigued him so much, he had no idea. She was buttoned up so tight—or in her case, zipped up, with a gray fitted turtleneck sweatshirt that went right up to her chin. He couldn’t help staring at that zipper pull, swinging back and forth from the force of her flustered breathing, and then he looked at her mouth.

Bow-shaped lips, without a speck of gloss or lipstick on them. They weren’t all plumped up, either. They were good, old-fashioned naked lips, and he would love to—

“Jon Farell!”

His gaze jerked to her face.

“Are you even listening to me?” she asked.

“Yes.” And she had said his name correctly, so that was a good sign. He smiled at her again.

Before she could react, pounding started on the other side of the door. Lizzy put her head in her hands.

“Let Jon Farell in, Auntie!” Brandon yelled.

“It’s okay,” he said to Lizzy. “I’ll give him the autograph I promised, then I’ll leave.”

“I don’t want you inside with us,” she hissed. “You can give the ball to him in the hallway, out here.”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is what I want.”

“Auntie!” came Brandon’s muffled yell.

She seemed to cringe. “And furthermore,” she whispered to Jon, “you’ll tell no one you’ve been here, do you understand? I am a private person, and I find your public lifestyle abhorrent.”

Abhorrent, that was a big word just to say she didn’t like it.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” he said gently. “I won’t tell anyone I was here. And it’s not like I’m Brad Pitt. I don’t have paparazzi tailing after me everywhere.”

She still didn’t seem mollified. “I value my independence.”

And then she opened the door a crack and said to Brandon, “Please watch your TV program and be patient. Just give us a moment.”

There was her problem—she was too formal and too much of an adult with the kid.

She turned back to Jon, her gaze narrowed. “I do not want my name associated with a public person, do you understand?” Again, that whispering, as if he were a criminal at her door.

“I will honor your rules.” He crossed his arms now, to match her stance. “Remember though, you were the one who left me a coded message. In the recovery room. And your instincts were right. The lab called me already—it’s not cancer.”

Her breath expelled. “That’s...good.” She was nibbling those naked lips again, just like this morning. “That’s very good.” Her expression had softened.

“What about you?” he asked in a low voice. “Have you heard about Brandon?”

“No.” She sighed. “But I’ll be shocked if the test results aren’t favorable.”

“Why do you say that?”

She let out a breath, and her eyes darted from his face to his chest. She was starting to open up now ever so slowly, and it was fascinating to watch.

“It turned out my sister was being overly dramatic in thinking the cancer was recurring,” she said.

“Wow. That’s gotta be hard for Brandon.”

“He doesn’t suspect anything. He thinks it’s just a sleepover.” Again, that frown.

He squinted at her. “And you’re not comfortable with that?”

“I’m used to living alone.”

“Auntie!” Brandon was through being patient; he resumed his hammering on the door.

A door opened farther down the hallway. A head popped out.

Jon blocked Elizabeth from view by standing with his back to the curious neighbor. “You should let Brandon out to see me before the neighbors come over to investigate,” he pointed out.

She looked horrified. “Get inside,” she hissed. “Quickly.”

He’d never met a woman like her. Jon was willing to bet she didn’t know many of her neighbors. Holding out his hand, indicating she lead, he followed her inside. He liked the view of her in her street clothes rather than her hospital scrubs. This was the real Lizzy that she hid from the public. He appreciated seeing it.

Inside her apartment—smaller and homier than his, with lower ceilings instead of wide-open windows, and curtains drawn tight—he could see straight away that she’d been in the process of foraging up a meal in the kitchen. The wall cabinets were open, and cans of soup—he saw one labeled chicken noodle—were spread over the counter. An empty pot sat on the stovetop.

Brandon came up behind him, clasped Jon’s elbow and clung to him. Jon stiffened. Not cool, Brandon, he almost said.

“You can give him his autograph,” Lizzy remarked, “but then you have to leave. I need to run out to the store to grab us something for dinner.”

Her mobile phone rang and, flustered, Lizzy excused herself to go answer it.

Jon stared from Lizzy—in the kitchen whispering into the phone—to Brandon.

Maybe the boy just didn’t like chicken noodle soup. His own younger brothers were finicky eaters; one of them had consumed nothing but peanut butter sandwiches until he hit school age. Jon smiled at Brandon and took the boy’s hand. He thought again about telling the kid that it was a bad idea to grab a pitcher’s throwing arm—sort of like tugging on Superman’s cape—but given the kid’s and his aunt’s riled-up emotions, he figured he would let it go. The kid had been through enough. “I brought over the autograph you asked me for. Plus a game ball from my last start of the season.”

Brandon brightened. “That was your Toronto game!”

“It was.”

“I watched the whole thing on TV! My mom let me stay up late.”

“Are you behaving for your aunt tonight?”

Brandon scratched his head. “I’m hungry.”

Jon sat on the couch and motioned for the boy to sit beside him. He noticed a half-written grocery list on the coffee table. Lizzy obviously wasn’t used to having people drop by her house unexpectedly, like he was. She probably didn’t cook much for herself, either—too many long hours at her job. He could certainly relate.

Lizzy was still murmuring into her phone, in a low voice. She was flustered and out of her element with her nephew and him in the house. While she spoke on the phone, she glanced nervously at them, then opened her refrigerator and stared inside.

Jon smiled quietly at Brandon. His experience bringing up rambunctious younger brothers had taught him that if he acted calm, they were more likely to follow his lead and act calm, too.

“So you’re staying here for the night?” he asked Brandon.

The child nodded. “Do you want to see my room?”

“In a minute. For now, I’m wondering why you’re not in your pajamas. It’s pretty late. Do you have school tomorrow?”

Brandon brightened. “I didn’t go today, but Auntie is driving me tomorrow. I’m going to tell everybody I met you.”

“You can do that. But you know, it would really make me happy if you made things easy on your aunt. She works hard. Did you know she took care of a problem with my catching hand today?” Jon held up his bandage.

The kid looked awestruck. Jon’s wound did look impressive, all wrapped up like Frankenstein’s finger. It throbbed, too, but he was going to overlook that for now.

“It’s important you sit still and not bump it,” he told Brandon. “That way it will heal properly. Do you think you can do that?”

Brandon’s eyes widened. “Are you on the D.L?”

Disabled list. Jon smiled to himself. Yeah, this kid was a baseball fan. “I wish. That would mean the season wasn’t over for us yet.”

“I wish the season wasn’t over yet, too. Because then you could get tickets for us. We could sit in the players’ box and watch you pitch, couldn’t we? We could be on TV.”

“Ah...” The kid was a live wire, that was for sure. Jon stood and motioned for Brandon to follow. Jon would do this small act to help her, and then he would leave. Now that he knew Brandon was probably okay, he was feeling much better. “Let’s get you into your pajamas so you can eat dinner and go right to bed afterward for your aunt. Does your mom like you to take a bath at night, or do you do that in the morning?”

“I take a shower in the morning,” Brandon said. “But I don’t have my toothbrush with me. I forgot it.”

“We’ll add one to your aunt’s shopping list. What kind of toothpaste do you like?”

“The blue kind.”

“What’s that? Bubble-gum flavor?”

“Excuse me, Mr. Farell, but the five minutes is over and you’re going to have to leave now.”

He and Brandon stopped talking and stared over at Lizzy.

You’re in my bathroom, she mouthed to Jon, obviously annoyed.

Yeah, he was. But if anybody needed help with the boy, she did. Maybe it was time she removed that bug she carried up her butt.

Slowly, Jon straightened to his full height. “Brandon’s going to get into his pajamas for you, and I’m gonna take your shopping list and grab us all something for dinner. Then I’ll get out of your hair. Is that okay with you?”

She pulled him angrily aside, out of earshot from Brandon. He got that he was overstepping his bounds, and that she was probably going to throw him out the door, into the hallway.

Still, he rather enjoyed the feeling of her palm, curled into a fistful of fabric from his T-shirt and pulling him around the corner into her...bedroom.

It was Spartan. Too Spartan. A plain cotton comforter, beige walls, miniblinds. Not a throw pillow in sight. No television. No comforts or interesting things to look at. Certainly no silk ties, lubricant or sex toys...

“I,” she said, jabbing a finger to his chest, “can take care of my own nephew. Alone.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you can. All I’m doing is helping you.”

“Auntie?” Brandon said, standing plaintively in the doorway.

“In a minute, Brandon. The adults are busy having a conversation.” She shut the door.

He raised a brow at her. “I’m not up for it tonight, Lizzy. I’m still under the weather from all that anesthesia you pumped into my system this morning.”

She gasped. Her face went bright red.

He winked at her. “Kidding. I never sleep with women on the first date, much less women with kids. It sets a bad example.”

“He is my nephew!”

Interesting reaction. She wasn’t denying him access to her bed, just correcting his misstatement about son versus nephew. He would remember that.

“Yep, got it,” he said. “Never in front of the kids.”

She shook her head, obviously flustered. He loved seeing her with her hair messed up like that. He was willing to bet that in her starched-up world, people didn’t tease her. They didn’t come into her house and help her. And they certainly never made it over the threshold into her bedroom.

She ran her hands through her glossy hair. She really was a natural beauty. Lots of players had wives or girlfriends from the television reporting or modeling worlds—typically brassy women who, when all decked out and made-up, were eye-catching and flashy.

That wasn’t Lizzy. He was taken by an urge to draw her close to him. But...that would be a huge mistake.

Don’t push it, something told him. Get too close to her, and she’ll throw you out for good.

He didn’t want her to throw him out. So he hung back, waiting. Kept his hands glued to his side. Didn’t say a word. Let her know that he wasn’t a threat to her.

Finally, a sigh shuddered out of her. “Look, Jon, I have a downstairs neighbor who brings in my deliveries sometimes so they don’t get lost,” she said, like a confession. “She is elderly and doesn’t walk well, so she’s usually at home. I called and asked her to watch Brandon for me while I ran out to the store, but she just called back and said she doesn’t want him down there, bothering her, because she’s watching the baseball game. She doesn’t want to come up here and watch him, either, even if he’s waiting quietly in my bedroom, because I don’t have an HD television.”

“Seriously?”

“I know.” She rolled her eyes. “Who needs high-definition television to watch baseball?”

“Maybe she has a crush on the pitcher.”

A noise burst out of Lizzy, something between a giggle and a snort. She clamped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late.

Aha. So his studious, buttoned-up anesthesiologist had a fun streak in her after all. It was just buried, layers and layers deep.

“Give me your shopping list,” he said gently. “I’ll take care of it. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is to me. I don’t want you buying things for us. And also...” Lizzy gestured to his bandaged hand. “Did you not read your postoperative instructions? You aren’t supposed to be driving, not with the medication you’re on. I won’t be responsible for that.”

“I’m not on medication,” he said quietly. “Just acetaminophen.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Then you’re in pain.”

Maybe, a little bit.

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to chance messing with my health by taking heavy drugs like that. My body is how I make my living.”

She rolled her eyes again.

He grinned at her. “Lizzy?” he said, at the same time that Brandon whined plaintively through the door, “Auntie?”

Jon opened the door. Brandon was dressed in Superman pajamas. “Excellent job,” Jon said to him. “I’d like to reward you for that.”

Brandon beamed at him. Before Lizzy could say another word, Jon pulled his wallet from his back pocket and tossed it on the bed. He pulled out his phone, too. “My team’s owner sits on your hospital board. Go ahead and call her assistant, she’ll vouch for me. Then go out and shop for as long as you need to—I’ll wait here with Brandon.”

“Yesss!” Brandon pumped his fist and did some kind of rap dance around the bedroom.

Lizzy glowered at Jon. Yeah, he’d pay for making the kid part of their negotiations.

“How do I know you’re not a pedophile?” she asked in a low voice. “Perfectly respectable-looking football coaches have been found to be abusive to children. If there is one thing we’ve learned, it’s that we can’t trust somebody else vouching for our kids’ caretakers just because they have a prestigious job.”

Uh, she had a point. A twisted point, but then again, these could be twisted times.

He turned on his phone and called up the video interface. “In that case, we’ll use my phone like a nannycam. You can go about your shopping and still see everything Brandon and I are doing.”

“You’re crazy. I am not going to let you stay in my home, Mr. Farell. I’m a private person.”

“And I’m a public guy. I have a lot to lose, too, if you were ever to come out with allegations against me.”

That made her pause. “Why?” she asked finally. “Why do you care so much about helping us?”

Damned if he knew. His finger was throbbing again, he was tired, and well... “I’m hungry.”

He walked over to Brandon, who said, “I’m hungry, too.”

“Then this is what we’ll do, kid. While your aunt is out shopping, we’ll have quiet time together, under her supervision. So get one of your books and show me how well you read.”

“I don’t have any books,” Brandon said.

“You have books at home,” Lizzy corrected him.

“No,” Brandon said. “I don’t.”

He and Lizzy both seemed to still at the same time.

Then she seemed to snap. Scowling, she stomped toward her closet. “Fine.” She reached for a plastic box on the top shelf. “I have books.” Lifting off the lid, she rummaged inside before handing Brandon a hardcover kid’s book.

A very old, very worn-out copy of Curious George Goes to the Hospital.

A lump formed in his throat.

He’d read that story many times to his brothers, many nights when they were left alone that one, hard year.

He looked at Lizzy, locked gazes with her.

It was strange, but he could swear she was thinking the same thing.

“This is what we’ll do,” she said, shaking her head, suddenly straight and crisp again, no sign of apprehension in her root-beer-colored eyes. “Both of you will go down to Mrs. Ham’s apartment. While she watches baseball and ogles the real, live baseball-playing pitcher sitting in her living room, the two of you can read your book. And the minute I return, Jon can go home.”

CHAPTER FOUR

ELIZABETH PUSHED A grocery cart down the frozen-foods aisle, only halfheartedly paying attention to the waffles and pancakes in the gluten-free breakfast section. Most of her concentration was on the videophone in her hand.

On the small screen, she saw Jon Farell sitting on the couch beside her nephew in Mrs. Ham’s apartment, the child calm, dressed in his pajamas and leaning against Jon’s shoulder. Brandon read the book aloud in a halting, unsure voice while Jon patiently encouraged him.

Tears sprang to her eyes, unbidden. Jon didn’t know it, but he touched a lode of emotions buried deep inside her.

She quickly wiped her eyes, glancing up to make sure that nobody saw her. It was obvious that this man was dangerous to her sanity. There was a reason she had been so harsh with Jon.

But now everything had flipped around, and she did not want to like him. This public, professional baseball player was so easy with people, while she was so uncomfortable. She certainly did not want to feel these emotions she was feeling—the tenderness toward a man who seemed to have given her fatherless nephew a role model who treated him with respect. How had this man—this man she’d been so inexplicably attracted to—ended up being more good-hearted than she ever would have guessed?

Any man she chose to speak with outside of the work environment—and for her, that was a rare occasion—had to be dispassionate and private.

Jon Farell was the opposite of that kind of person. He was far too outgoing. He didn’t seem to have any boundaries—he was the take-charge type. Being drawn to him at all had to be a tragic mistake of her DNA.

As soon as she got home, Elizabeth would shake off her tender emotions and make sure to bar the door to Jon. Brandon wouldn’t be happy, but he was going home to his mother tomorrow, after breakfast. Then Elizabeth would have her ordered world back to herself, and all would be well.

By the time she finished up her transaction and drove home, Elizabeth was ready to say goodbye to Jon, once and for all.

Steering her Prius into her numbered spot, she parked and then grabbed the grocery bag from the seat beside her. The carton of eggs wasn’t packed properly—she’d been distracted at the checkout counter by staring at her cell phone, watching Brandon reading the book to Jon—and hadn’t paid close enough attention to the bagger. Disgusted with herself, she reached over to her purse and shut off her phone inside without looking at it. It was obvious by now that Jon wasn’t a predator, just a guy who was extraordinarily good with kids.

She would lead Brandon upstairs to her condominium and then send Jon on his way. She’d picked up a hot takeout pizza for Jon, as a thank-you, from the supermarket’s prepared foods section, as well as a frozen gluten-free pizza to heat up and feed to Brandon—something that Brandon’s stomach could tolerate. Brandon was allergic to anything with wheat in it. The kid just didn’t have a lot of luck in the health department. But, he seemed happy enough—his prior illness and her ineptness about how to deal with him notwithstanding—and she was thankful for that.

Elizabeth shoved her key into the lock and elbowed open the main door to the building. She knocked on the door to Mrs. Ham’s unit. She heard the thump of a cane on hardwood floor before Mrs. Ham opened her door.

“He went back to your unit a few minutes ago.” Mrs. Ham had a beatific smile on her wrinkled face. She looked ten years younger. “Brandon was drifting off to sleep, so he carried the boy upstairs.” She sighed. “I really do like Jon Farell.”

“You let him into my apartment?”

“Yes, lucky you.”

Elizabeth groaned inwardly. “Thank you, Mrs. Ham.”

Then she took the stairs two at a time. When she came to her unit, she tested the knob. The door opened easily, no key needed.

A shot of panic went through her. Jon had neglected to set the dead bolt? Then again, he was a big man. Six foot two, one hundred ninety pounds—she’d seen his electronic medical record. If she thought rationally, it should be comforting knowing that somebody capable was inside with her nephew, keeping him safe and holding down the fort. He had to be fairly responsible to be part of a professional team, didn’t he?

The New England Captains were followed by many children. It wasn’t like they were disreputable.

Calm down.

She dropped her keys on the hall table and set the grocery bag down on the kitchen counter. The television was on, the volume low. Jon sat on the couch. Head back, legs stretched out and relaxed.

He was asleep.

Her breath exhaled as she studied him. His eyes were closed and his lashes rested against tanned skin. A lock of hair fell across his cheek. His chest rose and fell softly.

Her chest felt warm and fluttery, which was not rational. She should feel threatened—he was in her space, after all. But everything about her feelings for Jon made little sense to her.

She tore her gaze away, shook off the feeling and tiptoed across her small apartment. She’d told Brandon he could sleep in her bedroom tonight because she didn’t have a guest bed for him—she used her second bedroom as an office. Later, she would set up an air mattress for herself there. For now though, the door to her bedroom was open and light from the overhead lamp shone across Brandon’s head. He was sleeping on his stomach, cocooned under the covers.

Snug as a bug in a rug, she thought, the phrase a remnant of a short, rare time of stability in her and Ashley’s childhood.

A lump in her throat, she shook under the force of her memory. Maybe that was the source of her mixed-up emotions toward the baseball player on her couch. Swallowing, she slipped off her shoes and crept back into the living room in stocking feet, crossing the cool hardwood floor to the couch where Jon was still asleep.

She felt an inexplicable longing in her heart.

Who was this man? She didn’t understand anything about him. Why would he bother with them? It couldn’t be just the shared worry of a cancer diagnosis.

His bandaged hand was flung carelessly across the couch. She’d never heard of a patient so unconcerned with himself. Jon had undergone surgery today; he should be at home recovering from the trauma to his body. Where was his sense of self-preservation?

Crowd noise erupted from the television behind her. The baseball game was in full swing. She never paid any attention to the sport, but now...what if she watched, like Mrs. Ham had said? Just until Jon woke up and she could send him on his way.

She pushed aside her magazines and sat quietly in her armchair. Studied the action that so consumed Jon’s life.

The image of a broad, commanding player filled her television screen; he toed white rubber on a dirt pitcher’s mound. Elizabeth knew that much about the game from long-ago required-attendance gym classes, like any public school kid. She watched the player—the pitcher—stare down the batter. Shake his head slowly to one side, then to the other.

“He’s shaking off the catcher’s signals,” the television announcer said. “It’s a full count. Three balls and two strikes.”

Elizabeth nibbled her lip. From what little she remembered, if the batter swung and missed a pitch, or did not swing on a pitch that was thrown within the specifications of a “strike zone”—the space over the home plate from batter’s knees to his chest—then a strike was called. Three strikes, and the batter was out. A “ball” was called if the pitcher’s throw went outside of the strike zone and the batter did not swing at it. Four balls, and a batter advanced to first base.

A walk is as good as a hit.

Elizabeth froze. That voice inside her head was an upsetting blast from her past, from the earliest days of her childhood, when she was younger than Brandon. She never thought of her mother’s boyfriend.

Elizabeth’s biological father.

Never, ever did she allow herself to think of him as Father, because he most assuredly was not. Anger consuming her, she gripped the arms of her chair. He had followed baseball like a religion. Why hadn’t she thought of this before?

On television, the camera angle swung to the pitcher, a look of concentration on his face. Elizabeth pressed her hand to her throat and forced herself to focus on the pitcher on her TV screen. He had a look of intelligence about him.

“We have a classic dilemma,” the television announcer said. “It’s the bottom of the ninth inning. Two outs. The tying and winning runs are on base, and it’s a full count.”

“The question is,” a second television announcer said, “does Martinez do the predictable and deliver his trademark fastball in the strike zone, or does he risk throwing the changeup that Bates has already smashed over the right field fence?”

“He shouldn’t risk it,” Elizabeth muttered.

“Martinez is shaking off his catcher’s call,” the first announcer said. “His hand is inside his glove. What we’re seeing here today is a showdown of baseball’s top ace versus the leading home run slugger. If the ace wins, his team wins the series and moves on to the Eastern League finals. Otherwise, they’re out until spring.”

“Martinez is a pitcher’s pitcher,” the second announcer said. “Better than anyone in the game today, he throws the batters off their rhythm. As a batter facing an ace, you never know what he’s going to do. Is he going to speed up your rhythm or slow it down?

“The thing about Martinez is that he’s developed his technique, his windup, such that the batter can’t see his grip position on the baseball. He has no clue whether to expect a curveball, a fastball, a changeup...until the ball is right in front of him and it’s too late. Very few pitchers have the skill to do this, and it’s what makes Martinez great. Barring any unforeseen scandal, he’s a future Hall of Famer.”

“A legend,” the first announcer agreed.

“What will it be?”

She found herself holding her breath. The noise from the crowd was a buzzing hum. In the stadium, it would be deafening. She wondered which side the fans were on, the pitcher’s or the batter’s?

Elizabeth sat forward in her seat. She was concentrating so hard her focus had narrowed to a place where all that existed was the pitcher on the screen. His slow, careful windup. His arm stretched back, his leg in the air.

He fired the pitch like a rocket, with a skill that seemed superhuman. In a blur, the slugger swung hard and missed. The ball smacked inside the catcher’s mitt.

“Game over!” the announcer cried.

Elizabeth jumped up from her chair and squealed. She’d had no idea baseball was this exciting.

“I knew there was a reason I liked you, Lizzy,” Jon’s quiet voice said from behind her.

She gasped. She’d been so absorbed in the game, she’d completely forgotten about Jon.

Now he was awake. He had a faint smile and a twinkle in his eye. He wasn’t even watching the television screen, the commotion of celebration and the jostling of reporters crowding onto the field.

He grinned at her. “You were rooting for the pitcher.”

“I was not!”

He grinned harder. “Sure you were.”

She glanced to her grocery bag on the kitchen counter. She needed to get Jon out of here and on his way. “I brought you a pizza from the ovens at Whole Foods. You can take it home with you and eat it there.”

He cocked his head at her. “Why can’t you admit that you were enjoying watching the baseball game?”

“I wasn’t enjoying anything. It was strictly intellectual curiosity.”

“So you admit that you find baseball intelligent,” he said quietly. “Good. Because it is.”

“Whatever you say,” she snapped.

That seemed to deflate him. Touched a sore spot with him, maybe.

She felt angry at herself. Confused...and she was a woman who was rarely confused. But her actions made no sense. She should not be interested in Jon, or his sport—she had her own, critical business to attend to.

Stalking to the kitchen, she headed for the counter. “Here’s your pizza.” She pulled the warm, delicious-smelling box out of the bag.

Jon followed her. “Thanks.” But his face looked pale, and he seemed to be...wincing.

He put his hand on the tabletop to steady himself. “I’m...sorry I didn’t help you carry the bag upstairs,” he murmured.

She stared at his bandaged finger and saw the red stain. “Are your sutures bleeding?” she demanded.

His ice-blue eyes considered her. “I’m okay, Liz.”

“You are not okay. You’ve been through surgery and you need to take care of yourself.”

He winced again, and she remembered that he’d said he hadn’t taken painkillers. She opened a cabinet and grabbed some over-the-counter acetaminophen and wound-dressing supplies.

She hadn’t bandaged a patient since her rotation in emergency medicine, but she owed him that, at least. “Let me change your bandage as a thank-you. Then you should go home and rest. Surgery is difficult on the body.” She handed him a glass of water and shook out two tablets. “Take these. You’ll still be able to drive.”

He took them from her outstretched palm. His hands were...overly large for his frame. Long fingers, the nails groomed short.

“Do you ever watch baseball, Liz?” His voice was so low and warm it made her shiver.

But she shook the thoughts of him out of her head. Those pheromones were wreaking havoc again. “Never,” she said firmly, turning to the sink to soap up her hands, then she smeared them with Purell almost to her elbows, by force of habit. “I already told you that.”

He said nothing. Sat still, at her kitchen table. She bent over his splinted finger, and squinted into the light.

She could feel the steady rhythm of his breathing, she was so close to him, their heads almost touching. She was horrified to find that she was matching her inhales and exhales to his.

Stop it, she told herself. Switching into professional mode, she removed the bandages the surgical nurse had placed around Jon’s finger. The stitches beneath were small and even: expert. Typically, the residents stitched up the incision after the surgeon cut, but in Jon’s case, he had wanted to do everything himself, carefully and by the book; he’d even forbidden the team from playing music in the operating room.

“Do you have any idea how much money this guy’s hands are worth?” Dr. Morgan had remarked to Elizabeth. At the time, she’d had no clue. Now, after watching that clip on television, she had a better idea.

She kept her gaze on Jon’s finger, and on the sterile gauze and tube of antibiotic ointment she was opening. Jon said nothing, and that was worse than his teasing earlier in the night had been.

He wasn’t throwing roadblocks in her way now. So why was she delaying sending him home?

She drew in her breath. “Thank you for watching Brandon for me,” she said crisply, “but I see no reason for our continued acquaintance beyond tonight.” Her heart rate was elevated again, but she forced herself to continue. “I understand that Brandon and you may have formed an attachment, and I think that’s wonderful, but tomorrow Brandon goes home, and tomorrow you can take up the matter with my sister if you wish.”

“I’m not interested in your sister,” he said quietly.

“Don’t say that until you’ve met her,” she said beneath her breath.

His ice-blue eyes seemed to bore into her. Seeing too much beneath the surface, more so than she was comfortable sharing with anybody.

She made as much noise as possible, tearing at the packaging for the sterile gauze. Anything to distract herself from his presence.

“Does she suck up all the attention, Liz?” Jon asked quietly.

“What? No!” She jerked her gaze to him. “Stop questioning me. You have the wrong opinion of us.”

“What’s wrong about it?”

“You would like my sister. Everybody does.”

“I’m not everybody.”

He did not understand. “You in particular would like her, I mean.” Elizabeth slapped the bandage onto his hand. Or, she wanted to slap it on, but years of training betrayed her. Be gentle with the patients. “I’m saying that because right now she is helpless and in need of assistance, and you seem to be drawn to helpless women, one of which I am not.”

He frowned, pulling back his hand. “You think you’re helpless with Brandon, don’t you?”

“Did I say that?” she demanded. “Don’t put words in my mouth!”

“You’re prickly.” He smiled. “I touched a nerve, didn’t I?”

She really did not like him sitting so close to her, seeing too much inside her life. And yet, she had finished bandaging him and he wasn’t pulling away, despite what he saw of her. She leaned the tiniest bit closer, into his space again. It had to be the pheromones.

She shook it off. Remembered why she was pushing him away. “You stayed here, Jon, and you took right over from me because you like being in situations where people are helpless. It allows you to be the hero. I can see it, and I don’t want that in my life. It goes against everything I’ve set up for myself.”

He stared at her. “You are so wrong about me,” he blurted.

Yes, she thought, that’s good. Get mad at me and then leave.

But at the same time she felt sadness. She didn’t know why. Maybe she’d hoped he saw beyond the prickliness of her delivery into the truth of what she’d observed.

She fought her own inner resistance. Pushed back from the table—from him—and grabbed the pizza box she’d bought him, which was quickly getting cold. She shoved it forward, against his chest. “Thank you for your assistance. Tomorrow I go back to my normal life and Brandon goes home to his. Please be careful driving home, and follow all the instructions on your postsurgical papers this time.”

“I didn’t come here intending to help you with Brandon,” Jon said, standing to his full height and towering over her.

“Maybe not,” she replied, looking up into his face, “but that’s the instinct that took over, isn’t it? Maybe subconsciously, that’s how you’re used to handling difficult situations.”

Real anger flashed in his eyes.

A textbook reaction—and she knew, because she’d completed a psychology rotation. Jon seemed to be experiencing classic denial symptoms.

“Excuse me?” he said. “You don’t know me at all.”

Perhaps, but she knew a textbook case. Psychology fascinated her. And why not answer his question? It’s not as if she would ever see him again after tonight.

“You’re a pitcher, Jon, right? You play in the major leagues. That took years of training to attain—I’m assuming it was as long and as grueling as it was for me to become a doctor. I’m also assuming that in order for you to make the major leagues, and stay there, you have to love your sport the same way that I love my job. So if that had been me tonight in your shoes, I would have been watching that game very closely, and not at all caring about somebody else’s reaction to it. And yet, you weren’t even interested in watching that guy—Martinez, the ace pitcher—seeing how he did it. You were just staring at me.”

“I’m friggin’ tired,” Jon said as he shoved the pizza box back at her, which was the first instance of hostility she’d seen from him. Maybe it was for the best. That meant he didn’t like her, either. That meant she had nothing to fear from him.

“I had surgery and I was pumped full of chemicals today,” he continued. “Your chemicals.”

She nodded vigorously, walking him toward the door. “And yet you came here to see us—to see Brandon. To help Brandon. As I said, you have a white-knight complex.”

Those ice-blue eyes bored into hers. “Lady, you have no idea who I am.”

Bull’s-eye, she thought. And it gave her no comfort to be right. That wasn’t why she was pushing him. Being prickly.

“Why are you always so prickly?” Ashley often asked her.

Because I want to be back on my own track away from everybody else, she silently answered.

Jon Farell was...not good for that. He threatened her autonomy.

She opened the door and stood beside it. She felt sad all of a sudden—lousy. Being prickly and irritable was not what she’d wanted. She was not a cruel person. But Jon was in her lair, and she wanted to be—needed to be—alone. She was yearning for it, in fact.

“You’re right,” she said firmly to him. “I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. You were simply a patient to me. Please go and help somebody else.”

He walked out and didn’t look back.

Inside, she closed the door and leaned against it, her back to the cold, hard surface. Her hands were shaking as they curled around the edges of the now-cold pizza box. Her heart rate was elevated, and she appeared to be having palpitations.

It was crazy, but a part of her still wanted him here with her.

And she had blown that from ever happening again.

CHAPTER FIVE

SHE WAS DEAD wrong about him.

His pulse throbbing in his neck, Jon yanked open his SUV door and fumbled with his key in the darkness in an attempt to start his engine. He had the key lined up, but damn it, he couldn’t turn it in the ignition easily with his right finger in a splint.

White-knight complex? Give me a break. At the moment, he couldn’t even help himself out of a paper bag.

Jon laid his head against the seat back and let the motor quietly run. Condensation covered the windows. It was a cool night after a warm day. Lizzy could probably explain the scientific reasoning behind the fog that blocked him from seeing where the hell he was. In so many ways—education-wise, her doctor status, her aloofness to sports teams—she was out of his league. Made him feel inadequate. Tossed him around like nobody else did.

He blew out a breath. He wasn’t an idiot. He was a self-aware person, smart enough to know that he’d been thrown for a loop over his cancer scare. That, and then the euphoria over learning he was cancer-free had sent him spinning, all in the course of a few hours.

He’d wanted somebody to share his excitement and relief with, somebody genuine, a person who didn’t have any skin in the game with his career, and somebody who understood what he’d been going through. He’d thought that person had been her.

Wrong. Lizzy wanted nothing to do with him, and she’d told him so from the moment he’d rung her doorbell. Maybe, for a brief time, he’d managed to change her mind. When Martinez had thrown his ninety-eight-mile-per-hour four-fingered fastball, low and in the corner, and had psyched out Bates into swinging too late, she had been hooked, and Jon had felt hope.

But then...somehow her prejudices against him had kicked in, and the moment had gone to hell. He hadn’t managed the situation right at all. He’d blown it; he’d been the one to walk out in anger.

No highs, no lows. The best fielding coach Jon had ever known had taught him that, early on during his rookie year in the minor leagues. Don’t get too far emotionally up, and don’t get too far emotionally down, the mantra meant, or you’ll ruin the game plan. If you wanted to win—at baseball and at life—then it was necessary to take everything as it came, with an even temper.

He knew what he had to do. He felt calmer now. The windows were getting clearer.

His stomach growled. He should have taken the pizza when he had the chance. Pride be damned, he was starving. Still, it wasn’t wise to go back up to Lizzy’s apartment to have her psychoanalyze him again, even if—in her defense—she was probably terrified over having him and Brandon inside her normally ordered, doctor world, and was making up theories in order to push him away.

He was not drawn to helpless women. He never had been, and everyone knew it.

He dug his phone from his pocket and scrolled the contact list to call up the number for Brooke. He would stay cool. His plan of action was clear: get your baseball life back on track.

“Patch me through to Max,” Jon said to Brooke when she answered the phone. “I want a three-way call with all of us on board.”

“What’s going on?” Max asked, his voice faint. “You’ve left me a few messages this evening.”

“Yes, I have.” Jon’s SUV windows were clear now, so he pulled the Expedition out of the lot. “I need my contract signed for next season, and I need to get going on that as soon as possible.”

“That’s...good. Brooke is sitting with me.” Max did sound weak. Why was that? “She was just about to send you a text message. Are you listening to radio sports talk?”

“Ah...no. I don’t pay attention to that stuff.”

“Jon...turn on the radio...and listen...”

“Now,” Brooke said insistently. Jon could hear the radio playing in the background. “Turn it to SPK FM.”

“Call us back in a few minutes.” Max disconnected the call.

This was not good. But Max had never steered him wrong. Jon eased up on the accelerator and slowed for a traffic light.

While the light was red, Jon took a swig of water from the bottle in his cup holder and then fumbled with the radio dial to find SPK. He would subject himself to the negativity for just one minute, and then he’d turn it off.

“...he’s a local guy. What are you ragging on the local guy for, the only pitcher who won his last two games?”

Jon almost spit out his water. That was Francis! His brother had called into the radio show. On top of everything else, this had to happen?

Jon turned the volume louder.

“...come on,” the radio host was saying. “Local or not, you can’t argue with his numbers. They’re terrible.”

Great, Jon thought. The host’s gravelly voice made him sound like a tough guy, but Jon had met him in person. He was short, overweight and wore thick glasses. In high school gym class, he likely would have been picked last, every time. Maybe Lizzy would know if there was psychology that drew guys like him to working on these sports-team criticism shows.

“Farell just did not have a good season,” the second sports host said. “I’m sorry, but you can’t spin the numbers. Overall, he was a disappointment to Boston fans this year.”

That particular host had played in the big leagues. Jon actually respected his opinion, and that comment hurt.

“But he won his last two games! You guys aren’t even considering that. It shows you don’t know anything. You don’t know what’s happening in that clubhouse,” Francis said again, spouting off, and Jon knew he had to do something, because this would not end well.

When the light turned green, he hooked a left turn and drove the mile out of his way through thickly settled neighborhoods to his father’s house—Jon’s boyhood home—where Francis still lived in a bottom-floor apartment. Jon had even helped build and convert it for him. And when Jon got there, he would physically hang up the phone on his well-meaning but hotheaded younger brother, before he could do any real damage to Jon’s name.

Fortunately, the show cut Francis off. Fuel added to their fire, the two hosts segued to a discussion about how they would like to dump the entire Captains starting-pitching rotation, front to back, and start over with new recruiting, because they thought that the existing attitudes were poisonous to the rest of the clubhouse.

Jon switched off the radio. Talk like this could spark a revolution. The cries and calls from fans and press—especially in a big-market team like Boston—did affect management’s personnel strategy, as much as everyone liked to think it didn’t.

This was worse for him than his evening’s troubles with Lizzy. He fumbled with his phone and dialed Francis’s number. “Don’t you ever do that again,” he said when Francis picked up.

“I hate those jerks,” Francis sputtered.

“Then why do you listen to them?”

“How can you not listen to them?” Francis shouted.

“Because it helps nobody,” Jon answered calmly. “Don’t you get it? They’re looking to cast blame. These guys live and die by their ratings, and they’ll be happy for any kind of outrage they can stir up to explain our lousy September—how we blew such a huge lead in the standings and lost so many games that we missed making the playoffs. If I were a fan, I’d be interested, too.”

“Why did you lose so many games?”

If Frankie was questioning him, then he was really in trouble.

“In reality, Frankie, sometimes stuff like this just happens. For no reason. Okay? And then we deal with it and we move on.”

“How are you dealing with it, Jon?”

“By planning for the future. My agent and I have a plan.” Okay...not yet, but they would. “What I’m getting at is that I have to be irresistible to the team for next year so they’ll sign me again. And if people are bringing up my name in public in a bad way, then that can only hurt me. Do you understand, Frankie?”

It was the bluntest speech he’d ever given Francis. There was silence on the other end of the phone. Hopefully, his brother was digesting the message.

“Yeah, man,” Francis said, but in a smaller voice.

“Look, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, man,” he said. “I appreciate you caring about me.”

“I’m...sorry,” Francis said. He paused—it sounded like he was conducting a muffled conversation on the side. Jon couldn’t be sure, but he’d guess it was with a woman.

A woman? With Francis? Since when?

Jon glanced at a passing street sign. Just a few more blocks to go. “Don’t leave, okay?” Jon said, stepping harder on the accelerator. “I’m almost at the house. We’ll have a beer together in Dad’s kitchen when I get there.”

“I’m, ah, not at home,” Francis said.

How could he not be at home? His life was at home. Him and their dad, home together every night after work. Why did Jon get the feeling that his life was quicksand all of a sudden?

“Where are you, Frankie? Do you want me to drive over and pick you up?”

“No, Jonny, I’m good. I just...don’t know what I’ll do if you lose your place with the Captains, okay? It’s...it’s...” He lowered his voice. “It’s the best thing in my life.”

Jon gripped his hand on the steering wheel. There was something just so sad about that statement. Did his brother really believe that?

Yeah, he did. And if Jon were honest, it had been that way since childhood. That, at least, hadn’t changed.

“It will be okay, Frankie,” he said quietly. “You’ll see. Everything will turn out.”

“I have to go,” Francis mumbled. “I’ll see you on the weekend, okay?”

Before Jon could answer, the call disconnected.

He tossed the phone on the seat. But now, he was there, at their dad’s house. Jon slowed the SUV to a stop.

The porch was lit by a single bulb, and in the diminished light, the place didn’t look much different from when he was ten and Francis was eight. Back then, Jon had the weight of the world on him, because nobody in his family could pull themselves up from their sadness and their grief without his encouragement. He’d cajoled and helped his brothers and his dad every step of the way. And it had eaten at him. Some days, Jon didn’t know how they were going to all make it through to the end—himself included.

A car came up behind him, high beams bouncing off Jon’s rearview mirror. The single lane street was narrow, lined on both sides by parked cars, so Jon had to either pull his SUV over or drive on.

Shaking off the maudlin feelings, he executed a quick maneuver and backed the Expedition into the empty on-street spot beside the driveway. There was a pecking order with neighborhood parking spaces, and the local owners and tenants knew enough to leave this particular space open—for him or for his brother Bobby—or else face the pain of Francis’s wrath raining down on them. Not that Jon insisted on the spot remaining open—but Francis did. And they were a family, so Jon embraced it.

The car with the high beams roared past him. Jon wondered why he hadn’t driven off, too. Why sit and stare at his boyhood home, thinking depressing thoughts? The place was in darkness, and it was obvious that nobody was home, either in his brother’s downstairs rooms or his dad’s upstairs apartment. At ten o’clock on a work night.

Jon frowned. Where was his dad, anyway? But Jon had no idea, because he hadn’t checked in with him since before the season had ended. Jon had been too preoccupied with his cancer scare, trying to hide that from his family so they wouldn’t be upset if they found out.

His phone beeped, alerting him that he had a new text message—which reminded him that he really should drive home and call back his agent. Surprisingly, when he checked the phone’s readout, he found that the message wasn’t from Max but from a young Captains pitcher just up from the minors, his first year in the big leagues. Jon had been mentoring him this season. Calming him down before all his big starts.

Jon, help me out here. I don’t like the sound of what I’m hearing about us on SPK. What should I do??

Jon stared at the screen. Fixated on that word help. Focused on the question marks just begging for his assistance.

Twenty-four hours ago, Jon would have happily tapped out his advice and sent it to the newbie. Now, he was doubting himself.

Lizzy was in his head, obviously. Her psychoanalyzing was causing him to see things differently. He wasn’t sure he liked that.

Maybe he did like helping people now and then. So what? It didn’t mean that they were helpless, or that there was something wrong with him. He just...hated when people felt bad. Like Francis, in childhood. Jon needed to see people smile. He needed them to have an easier time in life than they were having when they were upset.

But Lizzy did have a point. Maybe he did tend to help people a little too much, at the expense of himself.

When he really thought about it, hadn’t all this helping and protecting and watching out for people gotten him into a bad spot with the team? He’d spent too much time worrying about—frankly—the crappy attitudes of some of the Captains’ leading aces. It had trickled down to the younger guys on the pitching staff, and the team’s cohesion had been affected. The sports talk radio guys were right—there was a reason their team had imploded.

For the second time that night, Jon leaned back with his head against the seat. He should have focused more during the season on his own pitching, his own numbers. Things had slipped by, and now he didn’t have what he wanted: the team breathing down his neck, eager to sign a contract with him for next year.

He held his throbbing finger in his lap and just closed his eyes. Lizzy, what did you do to me? But nobody had ever pointed this out to him before.

A knock sounded on the window. Jon snapped to attention. His old neighbor, Mr. Yanopoulis, was peering at him. Jon turned off the idling engine and stepped outside into the cool night air to greet him.

“I knew it was you!” Mr. Yanopoulis grinned and held out a gnarled hand. When Jon didn’t shake it because of the splinted finger he hid behind his back, Mr. Yanopoulis lifted his hand to pat Jon’s shoulder, undaunted. “It’s good to see you, Jonny. You don’t visit us often enough. You’re our neighborhood celebrity. When you’re pitching, we throw a big party.”

“It’s good to see you, too.” Jon smiled at his elderly neighbor and knelt down to pet his little dog, yapping and straining on his leash. “My dad isn’t home?” he casually asked, straightening.

“Nope. I’m feeding his cat for him.” Mr. Yanopoulis pulled on the leash. “Your dad called me today. Said he was extending his trip and going with a group down to the Grand Canyon.”

“The Grand Canyon?”

“Sure. Jean and I went there last year, flew out and rented a motor home in Denver. I showed him the pictures when we came back—I guess he liked what he saw.”

Jon nodded. “How long has my father been gone?”

“He left for Vegas the day after...after the season ended.” Mr. Yanopoulis looked embarrassed for him. “It was a last-minute decision.”

His dad was gone, too? Why not, Jon thought. His dad had probably left after it had been clear the Captains wouldn’t be in the playoffs. Dad would have been bitterly disappointed. Jon wasn’t feeling so great himself.

“Can I ask you a question?” he said to his neighbor. This was stupid of him, but... “Did I ever help you when I was a kid?”

“Help me? You helped everybody.” Mr. Yanopoulis pulled on the leash again. “Why? What’s this all about?”

“I’m just wondering...what do you remember most about me from those days?”

Mr. Yanopoulis smiled. “You know what I remember?” He pointed at the narrow strip of grass—barely the width of a dugout bench—that separated Jon’s family’s driveway from the Yanopoulis house. “You, at about ten years old, out there for hours, hurling a baseball against that screen thing.”

“The pitch-back net,” Jon said.

“Yeah, the pitch-back. You threw baseballs at it every night. Jean stayed up late, worrying. She wanted to complain to your father, but I told her, no, leave the boy alone, he is going to be a star someday.” He pointed at Jon. “And I was right.”

Jon felt shaken. He remembered perfectly—the glow from the reflective tape of the strike zone he’d measured out, the squeak of the springs when the ball bounced back on the net at him, the satisfying feel in his muscles of hurling the ball with all his might, getting out his frustrations.

At first, he’d shredded those pitch-back toys. There hadn’t been just one; there had been half a dozen he’d gone through, at least until he’d figured out how to reinforce the sides with PVC piping and duct tape. To make them, he’d saved up bottle-and-can collecting money, plus payments for neighborhood shoveling and grass cutting, and bought the equipment at a sports store downtown, hauling it home on his bike with Frankie’s help. Jon had needed that ritual. His mom was gone—dead from bone cancer—and his dad was in a serious state of depression. His father had been—still was, in a sense—a lost soul. Francis, even more rage-filled back then than he was now, was constantly in schoolyard fights, and Jon had felt compelled to defend him. Bobby, the baby, had needed Jon’s help with everything—getting dressed, getting fed, being told to brush his teeth and to turn off the TV. He had been very much like Brandon in that respect.

Those hours with the pitch-back—that had been Jon’s outlet for blowing off steam. His way of calming himself down. Getting centered so he could sleep.

It had only been an accident that he’d turned himself into a pretty good pitching talent. A talent that, luckily, some world-class coaches along the way had noticed. They had seen enough potential in Jon to take him on board and train him seriously. After that, life had gotten measurably better, for everyone in his family. He’d brought them hope.

He didn’t want to lose that.

He blew out a breath. Everything felt clearer. Maybe there was even a reason he’d met Lizzy. He’d needed that message—her message—to focus on himself.

No highs, no lows.

“Thanks,” Jon said to his neighbor. “You take care.” He turned and stared at the narrow strip of grass one last time.

After Mr. Yanopoulis had left with his dog on the leash, Jon climbed back into this SUV and typed out a text message to his agent.

I need to give the team reason to sign me again. I’m adding a fourth pitch this winter, a changeup. I also need to do some visible fund-raising with Vivian’s charity at the hospital. Call me back and tell me what you think.

Then, and only then, did he reply to the text from the young guy he’d been mentoring. This would be the last time Jon would expend energy on a fellow pitcher for the foreseeable future. Jon had his own work to do.

Talk to your agent. Listen to whatever advice they give you, and follow it.

Then Jon took his own advice. He set his phone in the SUV’s cup holder and, while he waited for Max to call back, he headed home to Boston. He was trying a new way of living. Not helping, he would call it. Focusing on himself and getting his own work done.

“I am not a helpful guy,” he said aloud to himself.

“Jon?” Max said when he finally called Jon back, as he was driving across the Zakim bridge. “That sounds like a good plan you came up with.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“We made some calls,” Max continued. “Management is marching to the drumbeat that they’re blaming the team’s collapse on the pitching falling apart.”

Little surprise there. Jon pinched the bridge of his nose with the fingers of his good hand as he fixed his gaze on the headlights and road before him. “Yeah, I heard the gist of it from the call-in program.”

“Your pitching staff,” Max said. “So you’ll be painted with the broad brush. It won’t be smooth going.”

“I know.” Jon turned the wheel with his left hand. “That’s why I’ll be working on my changeup pitch again.”

“It can’t hurt.” That was Brooke speaking. “But we think you should focus most on appealing to Vivian. She’s hosting a charity fund-raising event early next month. I can get you an invitation near her table.”

“Max,” Jon asked, “are you passing me on as your daughter’s client?”

“How’s your finger doing?” Brooke asked, unperturbed by Jon’s question.

“Fine.” The over-the-counter painkillers Elizabeth had given him had finally kicked in. “The surgeon called me and said everything is fine.” He paused. “Max, are you fine? What’s going on? Why is Brooke with you?”

There was only a slight hesitation. “I’m headed into surgery myself,” Max said evenly. “It’s routine—nothing for you to worry about, but Brooke will be in charge for the next few weeks while I recuperate. Pay attention to her—I’ve taught her everything I know. Don’t discount my daughter. Do you hear me, Jon?”

He was really being tested today. “Yeah, sure. As long as you’re the one negotiating my contract.”

“Of course,” Max answered. “But in return, I want you to implement Brooke’s ideas with Vivian.”

Jon grunted into the phone, paying closer attention to traffic in the intersection as he stopped the SUV at a red light. “I already do fund-raising for Vivian’s Sunshine Club project.” Such as, writing lots of checks behind the scenes. “I just don’t trumpet it.”

“Well, now you’ll be trumpeting everything to the high heavens,” Max said. “Vivian may be the team’s majority owner, and as such, normally stays away from operational issues, but she’s taken it upon herself to give input on contract decisions. If she likes you personally, you stand a better chance of things going your way.”

“And you shouldn’t have any worries in that department, Jon,” Brooke interjected, “but just in case, I’ll work on other ideas for your fund-raising participation.”

Jon hated having cameras in his face. But for the sake of getting serious... “Yeah, sure, everything is on the table.”

“Excellent,” Brooke said. “I’ll talk to the program directors at the Captains front office and at Wellness Hospital.”

Lizzy’s hospital. But knowing Lizzy, she didn’t get involved with the public programs.

“Fine,” Jon said. “Sounds good.”

“All right,” Brooke said. “I’ll float some ideas when I have them.”

“Great.” In the meantime, Jon would line up his changeup coach.

Jon hung up the phone.

He drove home and just slept, as long as he needed to, which, thankfully coincided with the crack of dawn. When he got up, he cooked himself a big breakfast: eggs, toast, bacon, orange juice, coffee. He made an early phone call, checked the internet and, in the process, tracked down the one man in Boston—the pitching wizard—he could trust to help him add a changeup pitch to his repertoire.

That was all Jon had in his power to focus on at the moment. Yeah, his day of “not helping” other people, just himself, was starting off fine. Coach Duffy—his high school mentor—still lived nearby. Now, all these years later, he worked at a local college with a top baseball program. Not Jon’s alma mater, but that worked out for the best. His “changeup” project needed to be top-secret in order to get him anywhere.

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