Morgan's Chase 1 (Power Play)

Chapter 17

  This time, Morgan insisted upon driving her Lexus.

  After all, the afternoon baseball game was billed as a businessperson’s special. Therefore, Morgan reasoned, she might encounter actual business people – executives she or her ex-husband knew. Quaint and retro as it was, it just wouldn’t do to be seen piling out of Travis’s seen-better-days pickup truck. Morgan didn’t much mind being seen with Travis, himself. Although in some ways, he was as rustic and iconoclastic as his truck. She was duly divorced, and it was nobody’s business with whom she went to ballgames with. Besides, while the jeans, tees and checked flannels didn’t make any fashion statements, Travis’s intense eyes, his strong, square jaw and his compact, coiled strength more than made up for his fashion deficiencies. And Morgan knew that if she did happen to encounter any female executives at the game, they would be more than jealous of her escort. Travis Walker was all man – far more than any blowhard, cigar-champing Warren Buffet wanna-be they might happen to have on their arm.

  As if on cue and in character, Travis Walker showed up at Morgan’s side kitchen door in a well-worn white T-shirt with a badly faded Pirates’ logo across the chest. He clutched a relic of a leather baseball glove that had been rubbed and oiled so many times, it was as soft and pliable as a baby’s bottom.

  Morgan was packing her purse and calling for the kids when Travis stepped in the kitchen.

  “Where’s yours?” he inquired, holding up his glove.

  “Let’s just say, I must not have won it in the divorce,” Morgan whispered conspiratorially. “Geoff doesn’t have one either. He’s not exactly the ‘play-catch-in-the-backyard’ type. Neither was his father. The only sports he plays are on the computer.”

  Travis shook his head gravely. “That’s child abuse in some states. We’ll have to fix that.”

  Just then, Morgan’s son slow-walked into the kitchen, his head down and his eyes fixed on his smartphone. He didn’t even notice Travis.

  “Are we really going to a smelly Pirates game?” Geoff asked, refusing to remove his hypnotized eyes from his electronic device.

  Her own eyes still locked on Travis, Morgan tilted her head like a lawyer who just presented case-clinching evidence.

  “I’ll let you use my glove,” Travis spoke up.

  Geoff lifted his eyes. “Oh,” he said. “Hey, Travis.”

  Travis held out the glove. Geoff eyed it uncertainly.

  “Looks old,” the boy said.

  “It is. Some of the best things are. Try it on.”

  Miraculously, Geoff slipped his smartphone in his pocket and held his hands out for the glove. Travis tossed it to him.

  “You used to play?” the boy asked.

  “Only in high school,” Travis said. “But that mitt’s been just about everywhere I’ve been in the world. Nothing clears my head like throwing and catching a baseball.”

  Geoff pulled on the glove. He worked it deeper onto his hand by pounding its center with his other fist.

  “It’s soft,” Geoff said.

  “All the best ones are,” Travis smiled.

  “Where’s your sister?” asked Morgan, to which her son simply shrugged.

  “I better go get her, or we’ll be waiting until the seventh inning stretch,” Morgan announced, before marching off in her very springy ensemble of a breezy blouse, casual slacks and strappy sandals.

  A few minutes later, Samantha appeared, sullen but ready to go.

  “Okay if we take mine?” Morgan said, swiping her keys from the kitchen counter. “It’s easier with the kids.”

  Travis held up his palms in surrender.

  “As you wish,” he said. “The whole goal here is to relax and take in a game. So whatever makes you comfortable – all of you.”

  Travis palmed the heads of both Geoff and Samantha. “Can we show just a little enthusiasm here, guys?”

  Travis squinted as if the effort he was demanding of them were extraordinary. He raised a hand, showing the slightest space between his thumb and index finger.

  “Anything?” he prodded again. “Can you give me anything?”

  Samantha rolled her eyes. “Woohoo,” she sang sadly.

  “I guess it would be cool if I caught a ball,” Geoff allowed finally.

  “You never know,” Travis shrugged. “But we gotta actually get to the ballpark first. Are the Chases and the Ballentines ready to depart? Should we have a countdown? A drum roll? An announcement that the family is leaving the building?”

  Morgan shot him a forced grin at the not-so-veiled references to her high-maintenance family.

  “Is he going to be like this all day?” Samantha asked, looking up at Morgan.

  She considered the question.

  “No,” she finally answered. “I’m sure it gets worse. You’ll just have to forgive him. Back in his day, going to a baseball game was a big deal.”

  Travis smirked a grudging submission. Morgan had gotten him there. Baseball still brought out the kid in him.