One in Waiting (Reedsville Roosters Book 2), page 14
Shit, where is Leary? The last time Ren had seen him, he was making some noise about figuring out how to transition full-time into physical therapy practice at the end of the Roosters season.
“I don’t know,” Emilie said. “He walked off with the cordless phone half an hour ago shouting something about contracts and stunt doubles.”
“Fuck.” Ren abandoned his plate and started for the back door, then stopped. He turned to Emilie. “Did he go out this way?”
She nodded. “Something wrong?”
“Don’t know. Tell you in a minute.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Leary thrust the phone toward Ren and held up his hands. “Here, you talk to him. Probably needed to talk to you, anyway.”
Ren’s forehead furrowed. “Who is it?”
“Wallace.”
Ren groaned and put the phone to his ear. The manager wasn’t going to have anything nice to say, and Ren likely didn’t even expect it. “Hey, this is Ardent. What’s up?”
What’s up was that they were expected to be back on the field come Monday, acting as if everything was hunky dory while Hathaway didn’t have to so much as apologize for being an insufferable little shit. Apparently, it was okay for him to pick fights—because that’s just what athletes did when emotions were high—but it wasn’t okay for Leary to finish them. Something about “Captain needs to set an example.” From there, Wallace had spewed some respectability bullshit about how he was supposed to act, and how he should have been there riding the bench to support the team in spite of the fact he was suspended.
Fuck that. Having some time away from the team was probably the best thing for him. Now he knew what he wanted and felt assured that his life after baseball would be just as rich and fulfilling as his time spent in it. In fact, he’d have time for more important things now, like getting his relationship shit sorted out and forging some sort of rapport with his daughter. Man, she’s something. Or at least she seemed to be in the three minutes he’d gotten with her so far. So quick-witted and smart, but sweet, too. He’d do everything in his power to keep history from repeating, even if it meant finding her a nice, cozy spot in a nunnery.
“Uh-oh,” Ceria said as he stormed back into the kitchen. “Usually when I see a man around here wearing that expression, I need to get the sheriff on standby.”
He shook his head, closed his eyes, and took in a long draw of breath. “I’m fine. Just annoyed at being forced to do something I don’t want to because of a contract.”
“I know that feeling,” Emilie muttered.
Yeah, she would.
“What happened?” that curious little girl asked around a mouthful of food. She was fearless. He wondered who she’d inherited that from, and Leary sure as shit couldn’t guess.
“Baseball stuff. I don’t want to cast myself in too bad a light right now, but technically, I’m suspended for fighting at the moment. As is Ren.”
“Mr. Ardent, you mean? I thought he worked for the ranch.”
“Yep. And nah.”
“Were you fighting each other? You sure made up fast if you can stand in the same kitchen.”
Ceria snickered. Emilie shot her a death glare her assistant seemed wholly unaffected by.
Fuck. Was there an easy way to explain to a child he barely knew that he was shacking up with the other guy she’d just met and that they’d both gotten into a fight over their connection to her biological mother?
“They weren’t fighting each other, Alison,” Emilie said. “Um…” She wrung her hands and turned to Leary. Her wide eyes and wan coloring marked her as being out of her depths, but she was trying, and there was something to be said for that.
“Well, that’s good,” Alison said. “Is minor league baseball a lot like major league?”
Leary let out a breath. “Just a different kind of drama.”
“But it’s fun, right?”
“Sure.”
She waggled her eyebrows. “Say it like you mean it.”
And damned, if he couldn’t help but laugh. “I guess it’s like with any other thing you start off liking a whole lot, and then after a while you get disenchanted by it because it’s taking more out of you than it’s giving back.”
“That’s how my parents felt about ranching.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm-hmm. I think my dad felt bad about not wanting to do it after his grandparents had worked so hard to build the place up. They always worry Emilie’s going to throw in the towel and they’ll lose their connection to it altogether.” She cut her gaze to Emilie, who promptly furrowed her brow.
“I’m not. It’s a hard job, but I don’t plan on giving it up anytime soon. I like where I am.”
Leary cleared his throat. “Did your parents drop you off out here?” He hadn’t had a chance to ask before he’d had to take that call.
“Yep. They don’t hang around for the Camp Out. Too busy for them. I could have driven, but they don’t like me on highways alone. It would certainly make their lives more convenient if they’d just let me practice.”
“Don’t do that,” Emilie spat in a frantic stream of concern, and Leary had to hold in that laugh again.
She poked his arm. “Stop it. People drive like assholes.”
“I know they do. When did you get a license, by the way? Last I knew, you didn’t have one.”
“I didn’t need one at sixteen. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere, anyway, except out to…study. Go ahead and laugh, Leary, I see it’s killing you to hold it in.”
“I’m not laughing at you, sweetheart, I’m laughing at the circumstances.”
“I don’t remember the circumstances being all that funny.”
“No, they mostly weren’t, but we’ve got to find something out of it to laugh at, don’t we?”
She looked down at her plate and moved some chips around. Withdrawing again. Dammit.
He looked across the island at Alison whom gnawed on her lip and seemed to be watching her mother with an open consideration. Is that what she always does? Watches and waits?
Someone needed to say something, but he wasn’t sure whom. Him? Ceria?
All of them?
“Well, that’s that,” Ren said, returning right in the nick of time. He tossed the cordless phone from one hand to the other playfully, but Leary didn’t miss the tension of his jaw and the hard glint to his eyes. “Emilie, do you need a ranch manager for real? Tell me now so I can have some incentive to get me through the rest of this season.”
“Oh, hell,” Ceria said. “That’ll complicate things. Do you really want to do that, Mr. Ardent?”
He shrugged. “Sure, if Leary doesn’t care. What else am I going to do with my life? It’s either baseball or being some ranch’s resident asshole. I’d rather be on a horse than in a dugout at this point.”
“Why would Leary care?” Alison asked.
“Oh, God.” Emilie hid her face behind her hands.
Fuck.
Leary gave his hair a tug and paced behind the island. Beat around the bush or come out with it? Alison may have been a child, but she was right on the cusp of not being one anymore. She knew things, and some things they wouldn’t be able to shield from her. If she chose not to want a relationship with him after she knew, he’d be sad and he’d keep trying to reach out as much as she allowed it, but he wasn’t going to cast Ren aside or hide him anymore. He’d done that for too long already.
He took a deep breath and jammed his hands into his pockets. Meeting Alison’s gaze straight-on, he decided to just come out with it. “Mr. Ardent isn’t merely my teammate. We are in a relationship.”
Silence. Awkward, gut-wrenching silence.
She stared at him for a long time, and then she looked at Ren, who was looking at Leary agape. It was almost as if he hadn’t expected him to say it.
“Was I wrong in saying it?” Leary asked him.
“No, I…hoped you would eventually.”
“I thought…” Alison pointed to Emilie, face crinkled with confusion. “I thought you two were reconciling.”
“What made you think that?” Ceria asked, tone neutral.
“I just jumped to a conclusion. I feel like such an idiot. I’m sorry for making assumptions. I should know better.”
“Why?” Leary asked. He itched to ask her how she felt about it. She was being so carefully bland. Good home training. But, he needed some inkling. The scenario was already uncomfortable enough as it was, though, so he’d have to wait for a better time. “That’s what sixteen-year-olds do. They make assumptions based on the experience they have. I was twenty-five before I could think outside of my own box.”
Alison shrugged. “I guess I liked the idea that Emilie would have someone in her life.”
Emilie let her head fall back and stared at the ceiling. “God, Alison, don’t worry about me. It’s so sweet of you, but it’s not necessary.”
“What isn’t? Me caring? I wish you’d stop telling me not to care. It’s not something I can turn off. Is that what it is to be a Beaudelaire? Because if it is, I’m not sure I want to meet any. I’ll stay in my little dusty bubble.”
Emile sighed and brought her gaze back down. “I’m outcast in a herd of black sheep, Alison. I had that job long before you came into the world, and I don’t imagine it’s going to let up soon. I can’t paint the entire family with a broad swath, as much as I’d like to. We don’t get along, me and them, but that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t find something to like about them.”
Leary gave her a little squeeze, knowing that admission had to be hard for her.
“So, you’d be fine with me meeting them?” Alison asked.
“I’ll say the honest thing, and apologize for it in advance,” Emilie whispered. “I don’t want them to meet you. I’ll never feel like they deserve to, but I won’t stop you.”
The confession nearly broke his heart, because he knew it was her truth. But, if his daughter truly craved a deeper family connection, he could offer her that. “Alison, you can meet my folks whenever you want. They know about everything. In fact, every time I walk into a pocket where I can actually get a cell signal, I get five new text messages from my mother asking about you.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, queued up the very long string of messages, and handed it to her.
“Ooh.” She carried the phone to the table and sat reading.
Huh. That was too easy.
Leary turned to Emilie, and mouthed, “So…”
He’d hoped what they were doing was reconciling, but evidently she’d forgotten what they’d discussed about the three of them.
“Forgotten about us already?” he whispered.
“Not now, Leary.”
“Why not?”
“The fact I have to explain it to you is reason enough.” She skirted past him with her sandwich and disappeared into the back of the house.
He glanced at Ceria hoping for some perspective, but Ceria was bent over the table looking at texts along with Alison. Maybe Alison had come to see her as the voice of reason in all this mess…or something like the cool aunt he never had.
“Wallace said we have to have our asses in gear on Monday,” Ren said. “He tried to guilt me over taking off, as I’m sure he did for you, and I told him to have them send me the figures for me to buy out my contract.”
“You don’t have that kind of money, and you know he’d inflate the figure just out of spite. Too many players are falling off between seasons, and he’s probably going to get more aggressive about keeping them. Hell, at the rate the team’s going with guys leaving, he’ll probably have to start keeping one or two guys in waiting to fill the holes in the roster during the season.”
“Why are they falling off?” Alison asked.
Curious kid. He was glad she was comfortable enough to ask him questions, though. That boded well. “Typical reasons. Retirement, injuries, guys getting promoted to the big leagues. But, retention within the Roosters is probably harder than with most other teams because up until just last year, we were ranked in the bottom of the league. The team should start stabilizing soon now that we’re winning games and have better sponsors, but I imagine there’s going to be some flux.” Especially when there were dingbats on the team with the sort of death wish necessary to start brawls not with one angry teammate, but two.
“How exactly did Henri come by sponsoring a minor league baseball team?” Ceria asked. “It doesn’t seem like a logical next step for a hotelier.”
“Henri…is my uncle, right?” Alison asked.
Leary grunted. “Your mother’s—Emilie’s—only full sibling. The rest are halves. And I think Henri got into it like he does with anything else. Flexing that huge network of his. I don’t know if it’s been profitable for him yet, but I don’t see how it couldn’t be. He’s a pretty savvy guy.”
Ceria brought her beer bottle up to her lips and sipped, not really staring at him, but seemingly through him. Not in an Emilie-in-a-daze sort of way, but in a calculating kind. She met his gaze and set down her bottle.
Ren sidled over and leaned against the counter. “I haven’t known her very long, but I don’t like that look on her face.”
“Ditto,” Leary said.
Alison fetched her plate and handed Leary back his phone. Her nose scrunched. “Your mother is a little…”
“Eccentric?” She was off her rocker, actually, in the most charming, Southern way, and so fucking loud. “Larger than life,” was what Ren always called her.
Alison nodded and popped a potato chip into her mouth. “Yeah. That fits. Now I have this voice in my head about what I think she sounds like just based on her text messages.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and raised both eyebrows.
Leary popped a hand over his face to suppress the snort, then said, “Brave little girl. You want to talk to her?”
She nodded.
“She won’t shut up once she gets started.”
“Cordless phone has a low battery. Built-in escape plan.”
Ren nudged him with his elbow. “She’s downright diabolical. I wonder who she gets that from?”
“We may never know for sure.” He nodded toward the phone. “You get it. I’ll dial and make the introduction.”
She hurried to grab it, and while she did, Ren leaned in and whispered, “Did I fuck up with Emilie? Didn’t mean to push her.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out.” Leary wasn’t above resorting to dirty tricks. He could have it all. His boy, his girl. Some time with his kid, who—for some reason unknown to him—didn’t seem to wish ill on him. Everything he wanted was there in reach. He just needed to put all the right puzzle pieces into place first. He might have to manhandle one of those pieces, but from what he could tell, Emilie liked when he manhandled her just fine. If she wanted him to take lead and tell her what to do? Fine. He wasn’t called “captain” for no reason, after all.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Emilie didn’t have to make excuses about her busyness because she was busy. The ranch was always in a state of chaos before Camp Out, and she had to put out this fire and that one. Approve this thing and that.
She wasn’t hiding. Well, not really.
Besides, Alison seemed entertained well enough by Leary, and Ren was conferring with Ceria on ranch tedium, so Emilie just…she worked. It was all she could do.
Busy, busy, busy.
Like every other year since its inception, Camp Out came before she was ready. Temporary event staff and volunteers showed up at the crack of dawn on Friday. Vendors and performers started trickling down the path toward the corded-off pasture in their buses and RVs at seven. Cars filled with families and camping gear begun lining up on the highway at noon, waiting for the security crew to lift the gates.
By two, Emilie was in her element.
Busy, busy, busy.
She’d grabbed a falafel pita from one of the vendors and jumped into her Kawasaki Mule, intending to head to the eastern border to make sure all the extra portapotties she’d ordered had been delivered on schedule. She’d added some rustic showering facilities to the property the year before which the campers who didn’t come in RVs seemed to appreciate, and they didn’t even complain too much that they were coin-operated. She had to pay for all that water somehow, and that bag of quarters was going to do it.
Before she could pull her brake, Ceria leapt out of nowhere and plopped onto the seat beside Emilie. She tucked her clipboard beneath her arm and gave her left hearing aid an insistent tap. “Where are you headed?”
“To count crappers.”
“Already did that. They actually brought eight extra, and distributed them evenly throughout the event area. Apparently, some festival was cancelled at the last minute this weekend.”
“Great. Then I’m going to check on the horses and make sure that idiot trainer didn’t swap out the ones I picked.”
“No need. Ren’s on him.”
“Ren is, huh? Well, then.” Emilie didn’t know what she was going to do when he left. Just that quickly, she’d come to rely on him to run herd on the bullshit. Didn’t hurt that the man looked so damned good on a horse, either. Sighing, she peeled back the foil on her sandwich and took a bite. “Is the safety check on the stage complete?”
“In progress. They’ll call me when they’re almost done.”
“What about—”
Ceria clasped a hand over Emilie’s mouth. “Everything is under control. Relax for a while.”
Emilie pried Ceria’s fingers apart. “The ability to relax isn’t coded into my constitution. Maybe I need to—”
“Nope. Don’t. Even. There’s nothing to do right now. The sassy volunteers from my mother’s Bingo group are keeping at bay the nonsense we encountered last year. They’re patrolling. They love cracking their whips of righteousness.”
