The Change Up (5 page)

She smiled. “Hi, Luke.”

“Hey.” His expression turned from shock to curiosity. “I heard you were in town.” Probably from Sam. She squared her shoulders at the thought of him.

Luke glanced at Liv, and Rachel introduced them.

“This is Ian Pratt.” Luke gestured to a twenty-something, buff young guy behind him, who was obviously one of his landscaping staff. Pretty face, nice build, but probably short on IQ.

“Nice to meet you both,” Ian said.

He had a firm handshake and made direct eye contact. Bonus points for the kid. Rachel watched him shake hands with Liv, who hadn't said anything since the guys walked in. And who was shaking the man's hand a little too vigorously while she breathed through parted lips.
Oh
,
brother.
Apparently Liv had a weak spot for the stereotypical landscaper type.

“What brings you here?” Luke asked carefully, giving them all some semblance of direction.

“Business, actually.” Rachel happily turned to Paul and got things back on track. “Mr. Sutter, could I have a minute of your time?”

“Why certainly!” He pointed to the open door of the room behind him. “Make yourselves at home. Coffee on the counter is fresh. Give me five minutes to get these guys settled, and then you'll have my full attention.”

“Excellent.” Rachel glanced back at Luke, who—if she wasn't mistaken—looked a little worried. “Nice seeing you again.” No hard feelings and all that.

Liv closed the door behind them and made a beeline for the coffeepot.

“Craving something other than mud water, aren't you?” Rachel sat at the table and pulled her iPad out of her leather tote. “I'll take a cup, too.”

No response.

“Liv?”

She turned, leaned a hip against the counter, and looked at the door. “That Ian guy,” she whispered. “He's kind of hot.”

Rachel laughed. “We need to work on your transparency.”

“Why?”

“I knew what you were thinking the minute you shook the man's hand.”

“Great.” Liv rolled her eyes and turned back to the coffeepot.

“Oh, big deal. It's not like you're ever going to see him again.”

“True.” Liv slid a foam cup across the table to Rachel as the door opened and Paul walked in.

“Okay, ladies,” he said. “Let's talk business. You've got me plenty curious.”

Rachel tapped the screen, bringing her iPad to life, and spun it in his direction. “Let me cut to the chase, Mr. Reed. My father needs a grounds crew for the new stadium, and we were wondering if you might be interested.”

Paul's eyes widened like Luke's had. “Damn right I am.”

Checkmate, Sam.

• • •

Sam navigated through the glare of the setting sun and pulled his quad-cab pickup truck toward the massive outbuilding where the landscaping equipment was stored at the end of every day. He was towing a tandem axle trailer weighed down with gas cans, commercial mowers, weed-whackers, leaf blowers—anything and everything a man needed to make sure the grass was greener on his side. And all of it had to be hosed down before it could be put away for the night. At least he had Randy to help him.

He glanced at the late-winter hire who was white-knuckling the overhead grip, apparently still not used to Sam's driving. “It's the ruts in the road, not me this time.”

Randy nodded. “I thought that lady was going to kill us this morning. Road rage.”

More like parking-lot rage.
Rachel freaking Reed.
“She doesn't want to kill us; she wants to kill my trees.”

“What trees?”

“In my backyard. It's … never mind. It's not your problem. Besides, I think I have a handle on it. I spoke to someone at the municipal building and threw around my extensive dendrological knowledge,” he teased.

“What the hell is that?”

“Knowledge about trees, man, and I have a lot of that.” He grinned and puffed out his chest, then set his sights on his brother, Luke, who was up ahead already unloading his trailer with the help of Ian. Sam laid on the horn and laughed when the two men jumped.

Luke playfully flipped him the bird and went back to hosing off the underside of a mower. He waited for Sam to climb out of his truck to say, “Where the hell have you been?”

Sam made a face. “What do you mean where the hell have I been?” He gestured to his sweaty, grimy clothes. “Where does it look like I've been?”

“That's not what I meant. You're later than usual, and …” He cut the water and dropped the hose, looking suddenly serious. “We had a visitor today.”

Sam glanced at Ian, who was smiling like the carefree goof he was. “You two had a visitor?”

“No, the office had a visitor,” Luke said, and then he fake shuddered. “Rachel was here.”

The hairs on the back of Sam's neck rose. “Why?”

“I don't know, but she wanted to talk business with Dad, which seemed weird—even weirder than seeing her in the office.” Luke looked a little green around the gills when he hitched his head toward Ian. “We had to leave for an afternoon job, so I never got a chance to find out what happened. Now I'm not sure I want to know.” Sam turned and made a beeline for the house. “Unload the truck, kid.”

“Where are you going?” Luke asked.

“To find out why
that woman
was here.”

By the time Sam reached the house, Luke had caught up with him, and when they walked into the office, their father was grinning from ear to ear.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Luke asked.

“Why do I sense impending doom?” Sam rubbed the hairs on the back of his neck and braced himself for a changeup.

He hated changeups. He'd struggled with the pitch from Little League on. There was something fundamentally evil about staring down what looked to be the perfect fastball, knowing you could blast it out of the stratosphere, only to realize too late it was taking too long to cross the plate.

“We have a new contract, boys. A big one!” Their father reached behind him and cracked open three beers as he announced, “You're looking at the official field crew for the Arlington Aces.”

“Son of a bitch,” Sam said.

“That's why Rachel was here?” Luke asked.

“Yep, and it's a good deal, a lucrative one.”

“It's crazy,” Luke said, which was exactly what Sam had been thinking.

“Are you worried what Mandy will think about you working with your ex-girlfriend and her family?” their father asked.

Luke scoffed. “No. I'm worried about how a staff of four—five, including you—can take on such a big project at the height of our work season without knowing what the hell we're doing. Field care is a science, Dad.”

“I'm hiring more people. Already posted a couple ads. And we're going to learn all there is to learn about grounds keeping. So there. Problems solved. And just in case you're worried about Mandy, Sam is in charge over at the field.”

“The hell I am,” Sam said. “I don't want to be in charge.”

“Why not? You know baseball fields better than any of us.”

Exactly.

“Besides,” their father added, “it might do you some good to get back out there.”

“On a lawn mower?” Sam's neck heated until a thin bead of sweat slipped down his back. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“Does all equipment provided and fifteen grand per season, plus additional hourly charges to consult with us on exterior stadium landscaping, sound like I'm kidding?”

Luke whistled. “That'll buy us those new Husqvarnas.”

“Damn straight it will.”

Sam shook his head wildly. “We don't need new equipment.”

“Speak for yourself,” Luke said. “That mower I'm using is on its last leg.”

“What about Ian?” Sam suggested. “He knows his way around a ball field, and he's ready for more responsibility around here. Give it to him.”

“Ian's not my son,” Paul boomed. “How would it look for Ian to be managing our biggest account?”

Sam didn't really care how it looked. He just didn't want to be subjected to tooling around an infield on a mower while Rachel Reed looked on with those bright eyes and that smug smile.

“Your mother wanted this.”

And just like that, all the breathable air was sucked out of the room. Heavy and stale. Sam tried not let his discomfort show.

“She used to bug me to go after commercial contracts all the time,” their father continued. “She mentioned it more than once those last few weeks. ‘Grow the business, Paul. Take care of the kids.' You know she meant grandkids, too.” He looked at Luke and smiled. “At least you got that memo.”

Because Luke had been there, at their mother's bedside, while she was making her wishes known. Sam, on the other hand, had been standing on first base in Eugene, Oregon, thinking the worst thing that could happen to him was being stuck in Short Season Single-A.

He'd been terribly wrong.

“You sure you don't want to head this up?” Sam asked Luke, one last-ditch effort to escape the inevitable.

Luke gave him a look. “I'm sure. I have no interest whatsoever in Rachel Reed, but Dad's right. This is Arlington. People will talk, and Mandy will hear it.” He looked exhausted just at the thought of any drama. He'd always been a low-key kind of guy, one who'd thought Sam was crazy wanting a life of fame and fortune. “No, thanks.”

Sam felt his back against the proverbial wall and momentarily thought about bringing up the trees. His mother wouldn't want business progress at the expense of nature, but … his father looked so damn proud. Maybe he could buy some time and figure out a way to make them both happy. “Fine. I'll do it,” he said. “But only because it's important to you … and Mom.”

“That a boy!” Paul pulled him into a hearty hug and then passed out beers. “A toast to our first commercial contract. May it be long and lead to many more.”

Sam raised his beer even as he continued to think about what this meant for the trees. He'd planned to follow up tomorrow morning just to make sure his concerns were being taken seriously. But how could he go head-to-head with the family who'd just given his father the professional chance of a lifetime? He couldn't. At least not blatantly. He would need to try a different tactic. Maybe a little diplomacy. Or … an inside job. He had the access now.
Plus additional hourly charges to consult with us on exterior stadium landscaping.

“I'll be the point of contact for the exterior stadium landscaping, right?” he asked.

His father nodded. “Of course.”

“Excellent.” Those trees could be lumped under the umbrella of exterior stadium landscaping. All Sam needed to do now was make them look like an asset rather than an obstacle.

He raised his beer again in silent toast.

Checkmate, Rachel.

“What's next?” Rachel asked Liv as their heels click-clacked in unison down the cement hallway of a stadium that was looking less and less like a former community-college field and more and more worthy of a money-making baseball team.

“Well, with Mark Olean on board as general manager, we're ready to hire the rest of the coaching staff.”

Rachel nodded confidently. “How hard can that be? My father has the pool whittled down and rankings assigned. I'll go over the applications to make sure he hasn't overlooked anything, and then we'll consult with Mark and set up some interviews. Let's see …” She looked at her phone for the time and date. “It's Wednesday, which means we can try to schedule some Skype interviews for next week when we're back in Philly.”

“Sounds good to me.” Liv busied herself with her iPad. “Oh, wait.”

Rachel kept on walking. “Wait for what?”

“You asked what was next. What's next on your schedule is a meeting with the new grounds crew. I didn't sync my calendars so I …”

Sam.
Liv's voice faded out, and Rachel picked up her pace. She was actually looking forward to seeing him again. Watching him squirm was going to be fun.

“Do me a favor, please,” Rachel said. “Go up to the office and get a jump-start on going through those applications. I've printed out most of the top contenders. Make sure they all get printed so I can take a closer look at them and run things past my father.”

“You don't want backup with Sam Sutter?” Liv teased.

“You're just hoping Ian is with him, aren't you?”

Liv's gasp turned into a laugh. “Absolutely not. In fact, I'm more than eager to go through those applications.” She darted toward an exit to the stairs.

“Thank you,” Rachel called out as she stepped into the bright sunshine and took a breath of crisp, early-March air. Up ahead, the new grounds crew waited, looking like a three-pack of frat boys turned loose on a baseball field. Two young men she'd never seen before sat in a row on the baseline railing while Ian tossed them what looked like a balled-up sock.

Suddenly her plan didn't seem so smart. Yes, this was indie pro ball and nobody was expecting the Yankees field crew, but a little professionalism, please. And where was Sam? She scanned the field. No sign of him. She'd been pretty clear about wanting him involved because of his history with baseball. Surely Paul didn't think this band of misfits could do the job unsupervised. That was not part of her plan.

A door opened to her right, narrowly missing her on the follow-through, and Sam appeared.

“Sorry. My bad.” He stepped back and smiled, a charming expression that probably put most women at ease, but not Rachel. She got the feeling he was up to something, considering his not-so-charming parting shot to her in the woods. “I was using the facilities,” he said.

She nodded, thankful to have years of experience with charismatic men who thought they could manipulate any situation. That gave her the upper hand. “I see you walk like you drive,” she said evenly. “Hopefully you're better with a lawn mower.”