Strike Out (2 page)

Zach held up the folded paper. “Damned if I know. She went to the airport, left this note with the limo driver.”

“What does it say?” Kevin asked, his face pale despite his midsummer tan.

“I don’t know.” Zach paced, wishing he could transport himself to a time and place where his future with the woman he loved was set in stone. He didn’t know where she was or what he’d said or done to make her question their relationship. “I can’t believe this is happening. Why would she do this?”

“There’s only one way to find out.” Kevin gestured to the note. “You’ve got to read it, man.”

Zach’s mouth was dry, and his pulse pounded in his ears. Rennie had been in his life since his sophomore year of high school. Everyone had said they were too young to know what love was, but they proved the naysayers wrong. They’d stayed together throughout college and for the two years he played for a farm team out of state. Ten years they’d been together, and that was how it was going to end?

“Do you want me to read it?” Kevin asked.

“No, I need to do this.” Taking a deep breath, his hand trembled as he unfolded the single sheet of paper. A couple of paragraphs? That’s all she felt he deserved?

Dear Zach,

I’m sure you’re wondering why I left. Let’s just say I didn’t know you as well as I thought I did. I thought we were building a relationship on a foundation of trust, love, and mutual respect. Apparently I was wrong.

It’s time for me to move on, to start over in a place that doesn’t remind me of you. I don’t want you to try to contact me or hound my family for information about my whereabouts. If you ever loved me, just let me go.

Rennie

“I don’t believe this is happening,” Zach whispered, sitting on the concrete steps leading up to the church.

“Can I?” Kevin held out his hand as he sat down beside his brother.

“Sure, why not?” Zach tossed the note in his general direction. “Everyone’s gonna know soon enough.” Dropping his head, he tried to figure out how he would tell everyone what he didn’t even understand himself. None of it made sense.

“Do you think her family knew about this?” Kevin asked after scanning the note.

“No.”

A fresh wave of pain washed over Zach as he thought about what it would do to their families. Their lives, their family’s lives, were inextricably linked. Their parents were the best of friends. The Baldwins were like second parents to him. Hell, Chuck Baldwin had been his Little League coach, the first person to see his potential as a pitcher. Zach had to walk into the church and tell them that he wasn’t marrying their daughter because… she didn’t love him anymore. She hadn’t said as much, but she didn’t have to. What other reason could she have for leaving?

“Oh man, what am I going to do?” Zach rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms.

“Let me go in there and tell them,” Kevin said, slapping his younger brother on the back. “You don’t need to deal with that on top of everything else.”

His brother was right. Zach was having enough trouble just remembering how to breathe.

Ten Years Later

“Hey, boss, you need to read this one,” Terri said, holding up a letter.

“What’s it say?” she asked, reaching for her second cup of take-out coffee. After sitting on her desk for two hours, it was cold, but she needed the shot of caffeine.

“This little guy—his name is Jake—has a congenital heart defect. Poor kid.” Terri pouted the way she always did when she learned of a child’s illness. She had a heart of gold, making her perfect for the job, but she was still too new to realize it was impossible to grant every wish, no matter how much they might want to.

When Rennie’s son, Tyler, had been diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes eight years ago, they spent a lot of time in hospitals and doctor’s offices, undergoing tests, awaiting a diagnosis, and deciding on a treatment plan. During that time—and in the years since as she helped her son manage the life-altering diagnosis—Rennie had met too many children trying to cope with illness. Kids who needed to remember what it felt like to be kids, even if it was only for a day. That’s when she decided to apply for a position as the director of a small non-profit committed to making sick children’s wishes come true. The first day at her new job, she knew she’d finally found her calling.

“What’s his wish?” Rennie rubbed her temples when she felt one of her seasonal headaches brewing. She did not need that. She still had too much to do before she could call it a day.

“He wants to meet Zach Foster. You know, the pitcher.” Terri giggled. “I wouldn’t mind meeting him myself.”

Rennie was grateful she hadn’t been drinking her coffee at that precise moment. If she had, she might have spewed it all over her desk. “Hmm. I’ll have a look at it later.” She turned her attention back to her computer screen and silently prayed, for once, her tenacious assistant would let it go. Once Terri took up a child’s cause, she was relentless. She pushed until Rennie finally gave in, promising to do whatever it took to grant the applicant’s wish.
Not this time.
The only time Rennie expected to see Zach Foster again was on the evening news.

“Come on, have a look now,” Terri said, walking around her desk to place the handwritten letter, application form, and drawing on Rennie’s desk. “How cute is that?” She pointed at the picture. “He even drew a picture of him and Zach.”

Clenching her teeth, Rennie glanced at it. “Very cute.” She couldn’t deny that. It wasn’t the kid’s fault he had lousy taste in idols. Maybe she could contact the parents and convince them to accept a computer or gaming system instead. Those items were always popular.

“He’s almost ten years old,” Terri said.

The same age as Tyler. How would Zach relate to a kid the same age as their son? Could Rennie bear to watch it? Thank God Tyler had been blessed with an amazing stepfather… until last year when a cruel twist of fate took Nathan away from them. He was a hero, a first responder, who ran into burning buildings when everyone else was running out, screaming, crying, and praying for the people left inside. Nathan’s job was to save the lives of the people trapped inside those burning buildings. In the process he’d lost his own life, and Tyler had lost the only father he’d ever known.

Her eyes drifted to the framed photo of Tyler and Nathan on her desk. People said time would heal her pain, but they didn’t understand just how deep that pain went. She knew she didn’t have enough days left on Earth to heal the hurt in her heart, and she suspected her son felt the same way. Nathan was his hero and hers too.

“You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?” Terri said gently, placing her hand on Rennie’s shoulder.

Releasing a shaky breath, Rennie said, “There’s rarely a day I don’t think about him.” Who was she kidding? Rarely an hour passed when she didn’t think about him.

“You’ve never told me how y’all met.” Terri sat on the edge of Rennie’s desk.

After nearly a year, she still had trouble talking about Nathan with anyone, even Tyler, who still needed to talk about him every night before bed. The therapist said it was important for her to welcome the dialogue as it was Tyler’s way of dealing with his loss, but holding back her tears as her little boy reminisced was getting harder and harder. He talked about the rides at the amusement park, backyard barbeques, trips to the zoo,
baseball games
… That was the thing Tyler missed the most—having Nathan coach his baseball team. Baseball was her son’s passion, and she couldn’t help but think he had inherited his biological father’s talent as well as an uncanny physical resemblance.

“He was my next-door neighbor,” Rennie said, thinking back to the day they’d met. Her friend had been visiting and started drooling over the hot firefighter moving in next door. Rennie hadn’t been interested in dating anyone, but it was impossible not to fall in love with Nathan.

“Ah, that’s so sweet.” Terri grinned. She picked up the framed photo from their wedding day. “He was hot. I can see why you’re not interested in moving on. He’d be a tough act to follow.”

Rennie had gone out on a couple of dates in the past year—to appease her concerned sister and parents mainly—but both had been unmitigated disasters. She spent the entire time comparing them to the two men in her past, and they came up sorely lacking. In spite of the way her relationship with Zach ended, she couldn’t forget all of the qualities that had made her fall in love with him.

“I’m not interested in dating because I have a son to raise and a non-profit to run,” she said, snatching the picture from Terri’s hands. “Leave the application on my desk. I’ll look at it after lunch.”

“Rennie.” Terri smiled. “How’d you get that nickname?”

Her assistant seemed determined to wreck her day by reminding her of people and events she was trying desperately to forget. “My high school boyfriend.” Zach had said the name Lauren was too uppity. Rennie was sassy and sexy, like her, he claimed.

“And it stuck for all these years? He must’ve been pretty special to make that kind of impression.”

The nickname wasn’t the only thing he’d left her with, but she would never tell Terri about her son’s biological father. She still couldn’t believe she was living in the same city as Zach again. She’d only returned after he’d been traded. She believed her son needed to grow up with his grandparents and aunt. Then Zach got traded back to the hometown team, and she wished she’d kept her distance. Living within a hundred-mile radius of that man was too close for comfort.

“He was barely a blip on the radar screen of my life,” she lied, bending down to retrieve her purse so Terri couldn’t see her face. Rennie was a terrible liar. One of the curses of being a fair-skinned, natural blond was that she blushed too easily.

“About the application…” Terri held up the drawing. “I really think we should—”

“After lunch,” she said, rushing for the door. Rennie was a sucker for a sick kid with a wish and she knew she didn’t have a prayer of denying him, especially with tenacious Terri on his side.
What am I going to do now?
She ran down the three flights of stairs to the parking lot.

***

Zach was sitting around the oval table in the boardroom of High Rollers head office, listening to his best friend and the company founder, Jaxon, drone on about their profits last quarter. Zach knew they were making a boatload of money, barely able to keep up with the demand for their upscale sports bars. That’s all he needed to know. Jaxon was the guy with the mind for business. Zach had provided seed money and he was still the celebrity face behind their now-famous brand, but he often felt that he didn’t contribute anything else. He was an athlete, not a businessman. Being stuck in a stuffy boardroom always reminded him of being sentenced to detention in school.

“Are you listening to any of this?” Jaxon asked, tossing a pencil at Zach to get his attention.

“He’s too busy thinking about that hot blonde he went out with last night,” their operations director, Grayson Barrett, said with a laugh. “Man, y’all were in the newspaper this morning. She’s hotter than hell. If you don’t want her, I’ll take her.”

“Be my guest,” Zach muttered, reaching for his bottle of water. He hadn’t dated a woman who’d held his interest in years. Not since Rennie.

“Y’all notice his dates always look the same?” Jaxon asked with a smug smirk. “Petite blondes with big blue eyes and huge…” He held his hands out in front of his chest as the rest of the guys laughed. Zach drained his water bottle and threw it at his friend, narrowly missing his head. “Man, if that’s the way you throw ‘em, the Yankees are gonna wipe the field with you on Sunday.”

They’d been friends a long time. Jaxon was one of the few people who knew Zach’s
type
stemmed from his past with Rennie, and Zach was pissed off that Jaxon would joke about it. After a decade apart, that he was still comparing women to his ex was pathetic, but he’d accepted his fate years ago. He was one of those poor slobs destined to spend his life pining over the girl who got away. Literally. She’d practically vanished into thin air when she got on that plane. When thousands of dollars and two private detectives couldn’t find her, his family and friends finally managed to convince him she didn’t want to be found. He had to respect that no matter how much it hurt.

“At least I can get a woman,” Zach said, trying to pull himself out of his dark mood. “When was the last time you had a date, Jaxon?” Zach knew he’d hit a nerve when his friend’s easy smile slipped.

“Someone has to run this company while the rest of you dead-beats are out chasing skirts.”

“All right, guys,” Grayson said, holding up his hands. “Can we get back to business?” When all the guys nodded, he continued. “I got a strange call a while ago.”

“From who?” Zach asked, reaching for another water bottle from the cart behind him.

“Some lady named Terri. She said she’s the assistant to the director of Sky’s the Limit Foundation. She was looking for you.”

“Did you tell her to call my agent?” Zach was used to charities calling on him for autographed jerseys to raffle at their events. He was always happy to help, but he didn’t have time to field the requests himself.

“Yeah, but she was wondering whether you could stop by their office later. I told her I’d see what I could do.” Grayson looked uncomfortable as he shifted in the leather swivel chair.

“Why the hell would you—” Zach sighed heavily. He took his baseball cap off and ran a hand over his cropped hair. “You told her I’d be there, didn’t you?”

Grayson slid a slip of paper across the table. “There’s the address, in case you’re interested.”

As if he had a choice after his friend had made the commitment on his behalf.

***

Zach walked into the lobby of the non-descript office building a few hours later. Judging by the dated interior and worn carpet, he suspected he wouldn’t find an elevator. The wallboard inside the main doors told him Sky’s the Limit was on the top floor. Good thing it was only a three-story building. Mumbling about his lousy taste in friends, he took the stairs two at a time, hoping no one would spot him. He didn’t feel like fake smiling through another autograph session. He just wanted to hit the gym and work out some of his frustrations. High Rollers was having some big event he was expected to host that night, and while it was the last place he wanted to be, he was obligated to attend.