Fielder's Choice

  Chapter 27

  In the morning Matt shoved his pillow away from his face and looked at his alarm clock for the umpteenth time in three hours. Six thirty. He gave up trying to sleep and plodded down to the kitchen to make a strong cup of coffee. His mother stood at the counter, fully dressed.

  “Thought you might need this.” She poured out a mug and handed it to him.

  “You’re up early.”

  “Not if you’re on Fiji time. It’s nearly happy hour. Your dad’s already gone out to play a few rounds.”

  He pulled a stool out from under the kitchen island and gulped his coffee. He set the mug down and rested his chin in his hands.

  “If I wanted glum,” his mother said as she pulled out the stool next to his, “I could have gone golfing with your dad. His game’s got him down.”

  Matt grunted. “I should’ve gone with him. I’m becoming an expert at letting a game get you down.”

  “Looks like more than that to me.”

  He took another gulp of coffee. He’d have to tell her sometime.

  “I checked into moving back East. I’m pretty sure I can get a contract with the Phillies after this season. If I keep my focus.” He turned the mug in his hands and fidgeted his feet against the rung of the stool. “I’d need your help with Sophie. I can’t justify leaving her with a nanny so much. Especially during the summer. Kids need family around in the summer. I don’t want to make the same mistakes—”

  He stopped, looked up at his mother.

  “That I made?” she finished for him. “Darling, you can’t make the same mistakes. I already made all of them.”

  He smiled. In the year since he’d had to become a full-on parent, he’d begun to see her in a different light. He’d begun to understand the knife edge of hard choices.

  She tapped her perfectly manicured finger against his forearm. “You can’t move back East. I’ve already begun looking at townhouses in San Francisco. Your dad and I are taking Sophie out this afternoon to see one near Ocean Beach.”

  She pulled back and frowned—she must’ve read the shock in his face.

  “Don’t look so surprised. It makes me feel like I’ve been an ogre. And besides, I’d hate to see you in those Phillies colors—they’re all wrong for your eyes.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh as she refilled his mug.

  “And it’s also beastly hot in Pennsylvania in the summer,” she added, “in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “I know how hot it is; I play there twice every summer.” He heard the flatness creep back into his tone.

  “And so your problem is...”

  He found himself telling her about Alana. To his amazement she just nodded and listened. When he stopped, she crossed her arms, bracelets jangling.

  “You’d better not let that one go,” she said.

  “She booted me. And I deserved it. Besides, she’s got men coming out of the woodwork after her.” Just the thought of her with another man ate at him in a way he didn’t want to admit.

  “That, my darling, is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say. Did you even offer her an alternative, declare yourself in any way?”

  Trying not to cringe, he met her gaze.

  “I thought not.”

  She uncrossed her arms and put her hands to her hips. He knew that when she took that stance, the world could be conquered by the energy emanating from her.

  “It’s not like you to give up before even trying. You did not get that trait from me.”

  He wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. “I need to check in on Sophie.”

  Her words stung into him as he climbed the stairs.

  She was right. He had given up.

  He passed the door to Sophie’s room and headed to his study. He grabbed his guitar and slipped out onto the balcony, strumming and singing a few bars of the first song that came into his head.

  “Alana sings that song way better than you, Dad.”

  Sophie stood in the doorway, dressed for her outing to Muir Woods. He had to smile at her over-the-top get-up. A Hollywood stylist couldn’t have come up with a more caricatured look.

  Her hat was tipped just so and her hiking boots matched her backpack. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that the trail through Muir Woods was a redwood-planked boardwalk that sported a snack bar.

  “I’m sure she does,” he said as he replaced his guitar on the stand in his study. “You ready for your outing with Grandma?” He wasn’t in the mood for another conversation about Alana.

  “Soon as I finish my drawing—want to see?”

  He followed her to her desk. As she slipped into her chair, she flipped her hair. He recognized the gesture as the same one Alana made when she was concentrating. He winced as his heart dropped into his gut. When he saw Sophie’s drawing, his heart fell further. It was a drawing of her with Alana. He wasn’t in the picture.

  “I’m going to mix my own paint colors and fill it in this afternoon. Alana showed me how to do it.” She tapped her drawing pencil against the desk. “Did you see her paintings?”

  “No.”

  There were so many things he hadn’t seen.

  “She’s really good. She sent us one—Grandma didn’t show you? She wanted me to wait until you got home to open it, but I just couldn’t.” Sophie hopped up from the chair and tugged on his hand. “C’mon. It’s in the library.”

  Propped against the bookshelf in the library was an exquisite painting of Sophie kneeling at the lip of a pond and surrounded by the butterfly garden. A quaint fairy village spread out at her feet, complete with several fairies so perfectly rendered they looked like they’d fly off the canvas at any moment.

  He was pretty sure that what he saw in the painting was different from what Sophie saw. He saw that he’d been stupid—really, really stupid—to blow Alana off. He’d judged her, and she’d been just insecure enough not to kick him in the teeth.

  “It’s lovely, isn’t it?” His mother said from the doorway.

  She didn’t have to say more.

  “What time is it?” Matt asked as he shooed them all back into the kitchen.

  “Seven. We have plenty of time,” his mother answered. “The limo arrives at ten.”

  But he didn’t have plenty of time. It was Wednesday. Alana could be leaving for Paris at any minute. He grabbed his jacket from the hook beside the door.

  “Where are you going?” his mother asked.

  He pulled her aside.

  “To go get her, if she’ll have me. But don’t tell Sophie. I don’t want to get her hopes up.”

  He started out the door and then turned and added, “Keep an eye on Sophie and keep her close. I might have to use her as bait.”

  His mother’s laugh was music to his already racing heart.