Curveball (36 page)

Paige clapped her hands together and bounced.

Cat surveyed the future ballpark. Her eyes followed the horde of camera people rushing
across the site to a limo pulling into the gravel road. The door opened and they surrounded
the tall man that emerged.

“You didn’t tell me your dad was going to be here.”

Paige stopped bouncing. “I didn’t know.” She took off toward him and pushed her way
through the crowd. “Daddy!”

Cat made her way up to the two. Roger beamed.

“Hello, Mr. Aiken.”

“I don’t know what you’ve done to my daughter but I had to see it for myself.” Roger
gave Paige a kiss on the forehead. “Be right back, sweetie. I need to talk to Cat
for a minute.”

Cat followed him away from the scene.

“You are really something, you know that?”

“A good something or a bad something?”

“Something else.”

She put her hands up defensively. “Before you say anything, it wasn’t my idea for
Paige to drop out of Fillmore.”

He shook his head. “I’m not worried about that. I learned about nine semesters ago
she wasn’t college material.” He dropped his voice. “I’m gonna be honest with you.
This change in Paige is just … well, I think that before, some people considered her
a bit of a brat.”

Cat blinked. “Oh. Really?”

Roger smiled. “You don’t have to play coy.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Please. I can see the seams of a ninety-mile-an hour fastball, so I can definitely
see through a polite lie.”

“Paige is an acquired taste.”

Like Gram
’s haggis
.

“You can’t imagine how proud I was when she called me and told me her idea for this
ballpark and insisted the money come out of her trust fund. I can’t think of another
time she has spent a dime without some direct benefit to herself.”

Cat took another pleased look at the ballpark in progress. “You should be proud. She’s
really got something here.”

“And I know you deserve all the credit.” He crossed his arms. “You know, some people
think you’re bad for baseball.”

“Let me guess, Sheldon Markowitz?”

Roger chuckled. “Actually, I just spoke to Witzy yesterday. He’s one of your bigger
fans.”

Cat grinned. “You know, I’m usually the one who makes the sarcastic quips around here.”

“No, he really is. And so am I. After what happened with Las Vegas and here with Chance
Hayward, one thing is abundantly clear to me. You put the players first and that’s
what it’s all about. I’m flying back to Buffalo today and I’d like to take you back
to the Soldiers with me, that is, if you’re ready.”

“I’ve got the job?”

“It’s yours.” Roger put his arm around her as they walked back to Paige and the throng
of media personnel. “I think you’re good for baseball, Cat McDaniel.”

Gaspar Peralta thought his dreams were coming true when he was offered a chance to
try out—a mere formality, he was told—for a Dutch league team. Those sweet dreams
would soon turn sour.

Gaspar was flown via a private plane to Miami, but his destination turned out to nothing
more than an offseason children’s summer camp. After just a few swings in the batting
cages, Gaspar was “cut” and told to find his own way home. Hours later, his body washed
up on a Santo Domingo beach.

Gaspar’s death remained a mystery for the next week because the Dominican authorities
had overlooked a key connection: his agent, a man named Chance Hayward, proprietor
of Worldwide Baseball Talent Management. A week prior to his death, Hayward had recruited
Gaspar and set up the Miami trip, only there was one small problem: No Dutch team
had ever heard of Gaspar Peralta, Chance Hayward or the alleged training camp in Florida.

Hayward never had any intention of managing the hopeful player’s career. He merely
used Gaspar as a distraction while he smuggled cocaine inside his equipment bags,
a far more lucrative venture than helping aspiring ballplayers realize their dreams.

Gaspar figured out the truth, but he died before he could warn anyone else. He wasn’t
the only aspiring athlete to fall prey to Hayward, but thanks to the Soldiers’ batting
coach, Junior DeLeon, son of former pitcher Roberto DeLeon, the Peralta family will
have justice. Posing as a young hitter, Junior was quickly recruited by Hayward’s
Worldwide Baseball Talent Management. Undercover, he traveled with Hayward for a firsthand
account of the scam where he discovered the illegal drugs and notified the police.
Thanks to the brave coach, Chance Hayward faces charges of drug smuggling and fraud.
Authorities are also investigating the possibility of Hayward's involvement in Gaspar’s
homicide.

Junior isn’t the only baseball child turned Good Samaritan in Santo Domingo. Paige
Aiken, the youngest daughter of GM Roger Aiken, has stepped up to the plate and given
the city a gift that makes Santa Claus look like the Grinch before his heart grew.
While interning with Joe O’Donnell as an assistant scout, Paige spent her nights and
weekends just north of the city, purchasing a vacant lot of land and overseeing the
construction of Aiken Baseball Park. With the help of equipment donations, it will
provide local children a much needed place to play baseball, along with training programs,
including education on the predatory aspects of the industry. Roberto DeLeon and Roger
Aiken won games on the field, but the alums’ children are the real winners off the
field. The Soldiers have never been just a checkbook charity and their generosity
is well documented around Buffalo with the annual Soldiers Helping Soldiers, Bleed
Orange Blood Drive and the Autograph Auction for Autism. Now, with the help of Paige
and Junior, the team is taking their philanthropy global.

Cat winced as the knee of an amateur basketball player jammed into the back of her
economy seat for the hundredth time in the last two hours. For the ninety-ninth time
on the flight, she snapped her head around to glare at the Amazonian. Then she set
her glower on the blue curtain that hung at the front of the cabin.

Good for baseball … but not good enough to warrant a first class ticket back to Buffalo.

Roger had extended his apologies as he took the sharp left to the privileged haven
at the front of the plane. He’d said first class was sold out but the crack between
the telltale curtains told another story.

Nevertheless, she could now see Lake Ontario beneath her coach window. Or maybe it
was Lake Erie. Either way, the Great Lakes meant Buffalo was close.

The luggage carousal spun around and still her torn suitcase with the broken zipper
did not appear. Perhaps fate was doing her a favor. She could get a new suitcase and,
thanks to her travel insurance, reimbursement for the clothes inside.

For a brief moment Cat missed Paige. This is where she would make a jab about using
the insurance check to buy the finest potato sack the Farmer’s Market had to offer
and Cat could retort that a few months from then when Gucci releases their fall harvest
line, they could be twins.

“Looking for this?”

Cat looked up to find herself face to face with a blissfully familiar pair of blue
eyes.

Benji
.

Just like that, there he was in all of his perfect, dimpled-smile glory. Cat blinked
at him. She was sure this was a travel fatigue-induced reverie and any minute now
he’d transform back into a gnarly-toothed baggage handler, sending her back to her
lonely hotel room thinking she’d gone insane.

She spied a white t-shirt under his unzipped hooded sweatshirt that displayed a cartoon
bacterium under the heading
You Can’t B. Cereus
.

He
’s definitely real
.

“Benji!” Her knees wobbled and she threw her carry-on to the floor. Her heart caught
in her throat as she wrapped her arms around him. Standing on her toes, she pulled
his mouth to hers. He kissed her back with three weeks of hoarded passion. Finally
she pulled away to breathe.

“What are you ... I thought you had finals?”

“I got a proctor.”

“I’m so happy to see you!”

He had that clean, freshly showered scent that he always seemed to exude, even on
a lazy Saturday afternoon. Until this very moment she hadn’t even realized how much
she missed the smell. She pulled back just enough to see his face then gave him another
hug before releasing him. He’d gotten a haircut in the last three weeks. His black
hair normally fell right above his blue eyes, but now the wavy tendrils barely hit
the middle of his forehead. She stepped back and took him all in, looking around behind
him. Only her torn suitcase sat next to his leg.

“Where’s your luggage?”

“Oh.” He smiled. “Back at the Bridal Veil Falls Inn.”

“So you didn’t just get in?” She had assumed he had scored a last-minute flight from
Vegas and loitered at Jamba Juice until her flight landed.

“No, I took a flight out right after you called yesterday morning and said you were
coming.”

She grabbed his hand and played with his fingers. “You didn’t have to do that. I was
going to come see you this weekend in any case.”

“It’s fine.” He gave her hand a soft kiss. “I had to come look at apartments anyway.”

“Apartments? I told you the team was going to help me find a—”

“No.” He grinned. “For me.”

Cat slowly shook her head. “You can just stay with me when you visit.” She leaned
in for a stage whisper. “We don’t have to tell Ma and Pa Levy.”

“But what about when I move here?” His eyes twinkled as they gauged her reaction.

“What?”

“I didn’t want to say anything until I was certain but before you left, I had been
emailing with the head of Fillmore University’s Biology Department. Apparently their
evolutionary biology professor is taking a leave of absence due to a heart condition.”

“Are you saying there’s a job opening?”

“Let me finish. I met with him and toured the campus a few weeks ago when I came out
to bring you your luggage. We had another meeting yesterday and he formally offered
me her position.”

She squealed, ignoring the disapproving looks from the other travelers.

“That’s amazing.” Her smile deflated. “But you’re on the tenure track at—”

“I’m still young.”

Her smile faded. “You can’t move halfway across the country just because your girlfriend
is.”

Benji reached into his pocket and pulled out a Rimu jeweler’s box. He cracked the
wooden lid to display a perfect oval-shaped two carat solitaire diamond, perched atop
a gold antique scroll band nestled in the white velvet pillow.

“What if my fiancée is?”

Born and raised in Illinois,
Jen Estes
started her writing career as a baseball blogger in 2007 and expanded to freelance
sports writing in 2009. She is an active member of the Society of American Baseball
Research (SABR), Springfield Poets & Writers and the National Writers Union (NWU).
Jen has published one other novel,
Big Leagues
, the first in a series featuring sassy sports writer Cat McDaniel. When she isn’t
writing, Jen enjoys running, yoga, traveling and watching baseball with her husband
and cat. You can find Jen on the net at www.jenestes.com and on Twitter @jenestesdotcom.