Fielder's Choice

  Chapter 11

  Monday mornings were Matt’s least favorite time of the week. When Sophie was in school, it was a mad scramble to get her out of the house. But getting her ready to return to the ranch for the second week of summer camp was proving even more difficult. He’d paid Mrs. Wallenberg that morning and told her to take the week off. Now he wished he’d had her stay to help him get Sophie organized. Too late now.

  It hadn’t helped that when he hadn’t been able to banish thoughts of Alana from his mind, he’d stayed up late in the night searching for references to her on the Internet. The photos and videos of her at parties all over Europe fit the image he held. Most of what he’d found hadn’t surprised him. But the Sorbonne site had. Her paintings were astonishing. Somehow she used color and shape to breathe life and soul into landscapes. Her technique was subtle, but the effect wasn’t. What other sides of her personality had she hidden from most of the world?

  When he got down to the kitchen, Sophie was stuffing oranges and bread and cheese into her backpack.

  “Don’t they feed you?” Matt didn’t like the short sound of his tone. It wasn’t Sophie’s fault that the rain delay in Colorado had made the team late getting back to San Francisco, eating into his sleep time. He tried not to be grouchy, but on four hours sleep he wasn’t in much of an organizing mood.

  “I just wanted some extra snacks.” Sophie scampered over to the pantry and stuffed a box of granola bars into the front zippered pocket. “And can I take our new butterfly books with me? And that flower holder from the den?”

  “Is this for a project? Don’t they have supplies?”

  “Dad, I need these things for something I’m doing. You’ll see.”

  The last time a mysterious project grabbed her attention, all his clothes ended up covered in glitter when she’d turned on the ceiling fan in the laundry room to dry the glue on her drawings. It’d taken him half an hour to get glitter flakes out of Sophie’s hair. Worse, when he’d stood at the plate for his first at-bat that night, the opposing pitcher made the umpire stop the game while Matt brushed several flecks of glitter off his cheek. The reflection was distracting, the pitcher had said. He grunted at the memory. There was no end to the preciousness of pitchers.

  “Is your fleece packed in your suitcase, Sophie?”

  “Um... maybe.”

  He went upstairs to her room. Sophie’s fleece jacket was draped over the back of the little chair at her desk. He grabbed it but as he did, a drawing on her desk caught his eye. It was a half-finished picture of a woman that looked a bit like Alana. Sophie sidled up to him.

  “Is that Alana?” He tried to sound neutral. He sure didn’t want Sophie focused on Alana; one of them dealing with her was enough. He’d already determined Alana wasn’t long-term-relationship material. He didn’t want Sophie getting her hopes up.

  Sophie pushed the drawing under another paper. “Oh, no, it’s... um... it’s a lady who lives sort of near the ranch.”

  Evasiveness was not one of Sophie’s better skills.

  “Which lady?”

  “Just a lady.” She avoided his eyes. “I need to get my toothbrush,” she said, slipping away and into her bathroom.

  Matt looked back at the drawing. Butterflies had been drawn in a frame around the figure of the woman. She sat in a small hut of sorts, although it could’ve been a tent. He’d ask Sophie about it again when they weren’t pressed for time. He liked to keep on top of the people hanging around his kid. He wasn’t paranoid, but something about Sophie’s furtive manner set off alarms.