Love on the Line (3 page)

And had sex that night with a woman he should have steered clear of. The champagne and the headiness of celebrating had made him tamp down his trusted warning signals.

People hurried along the corridor of the courthouse, their footsteps clacking on the marble floors and echoing through the hall. How many people would have their lives and future decided in this building today? How many would face injustices like the one he faced?

“You look terrible,” Tom Stevens, his attorney, said as he caught up with Ryan outside the hearing room.

“Late flight, bad bed and bad dreams,” Ryan said. He didn’t have to elaborate. Tom knew what they were up against.

“She’s upped her request to twenty thousand a month,” Tom said.

Ryan took the papers Tom held out. “What could anyone possibly spend that much on?”

“Maybe she’s going to have the kid dipped in gold.”

Tom wasn’t a cynic, but in the past three weeks, the woman’s demands had made them both rethink their vision of humanity.

“Did the judge take into account that she had the kid more than nine months from the date I had sex with her?”

“She had a doctor swear that she had a late gestation.”

“Six weeks late?”

Tom shook his head. “The judge bought it.”

“And overlooked the fact that I used a condom.” Ryan clamped his hands into fists and held them still at his sides, resisting the urge to strike out at the wood paneling of the hallway. “Maybe he hates athletes.”

“Worse—he hates baseball players. His youngest daughter was jilted by one of the Yankees. I doubt I have to tell you who.”

“I still don’t get why the judge subpoenaed me, why I had to come in person. I’m missing a game.”

“He couldn’t care less. Maybe he wanted to torture you.”

“He’s succeeding.”

They took their seats in the courtroom. Ryan breathed easier at finding that the woman wasn’t there. Elaine—he had to look down at the papers in front of him for her last name—Elaine Mooney.

But he’d sighed his relief too soon. Elaine walked in flanked by four men in high-styled business suits. She looked like a pilgrim, wearing no jewelry and her black dress with its white lace collar right up to her neck. But what riveted Ryan’s attention was the baby she held in her arms.

Because he hadn’t been able to turn away from thoughts about the baby, he’d made decisions that had more than frustrated his attorney. If she’d kept to their original paternity settlement, he’d never have seen the child. But evidently greed had grabbed her. Or maybe his high-paying contract had put more dollar signs in the eyes of her well-dressed attorneys. She’d dressed the tiny boy in some sort of cute outfit and now displayed him in over-the-top motherly ways in front of the judge. She couldn’t have known what that did to Ryan; he suspected she wouldn’t have cared. Ryan had listened to Tom and resisted the urge to request to see the child after it was born, but now he had a face to fuel his warring thoughts.

She’d already made it clear that it was money she wanted, not Ryan. That she didn’t want the kid to have a father bothered him.

As the judge began the proceedings, Elaine Mooney never once glanced at Ryan, though her attorneys kept him in their hawk-like stares. He was pretty sure they thought they had his number. Maybe they did.

Ryan sat in the coffee shop down the street from the courthouse, watching Tom eat a hearty steak and cheese sandwich.

“How can you have an appetite after that?”

“In my business, Ryan, that was a two on a scale of ten. And besides, we succeeded. You have ninety days to show evidence and to appeal the judge’s decision. We can do a lot in ninety days.”

“I’m not doing it, Tom.” Ryan pushed his bowl of chowder away. The sour feeling in his stomach wouldn’t take well to food.

“Did you ever wonder how I got in this business?” Tom took another huge bite out of his sandwich.

Ryan shrugged.

“I like justice. Have a passion for it. And while I admire your feeling for that kid, it’s not your kid, Ryan. We know that.
She
knows that. I think even the judge knows that.” He took a huge slug of his iced tea. “I’m asking you to rethink my request. It’d save all of us a lot of trouble.”

“The part you don’t get, Tom—the part that I haven’t been able to let go of—is that if I have the DNA test and the kid’s not mine, then what? Then what happens to that kid living with that kind of woman?”

“That’s not your problem.” Tom dipped his sandwich into his side of sauce. “And maybe if you step out of this, maybe the real father will step up. He’d have rights to the kid, rights he could prove, rights he could exercise. The kid would have a chance at having a dad.”

“I shouldn’t have signed off on those original papers saying I’d pay and stay out of her life.”

“That was before you had me. Baseball agents should never substitute for attorneys. Yours steered you wrong.”

“He was trying to protect my image.” And the contract Ryan was hoping to sign with the Giants. A messy, public paternity trial wouldn’t have helped his agent’s bargaining power.

“Yeah, yeah. Look, it’s a quick cheek swab. One swipe, and you’ll know for sure. Justice has mysterious paths, but the one you’re on isn’t right.”

Tom pulled a card out of his pocket. “This is Dr. Garrett; he’s in San Francisco. He’ll take care of the details.” He nudged the card across the table. “Think about it, Ryan. Think really, really hard.”

“I’m paying you to think.”

“That’s right. And you’re paying me to get you to where you won’t go yourself.” Tom crossed his arms and leveled his best attorney stare at Ryan. “It’s not just this thing with Elaine, is it?”

When Ryan didn’t answer, Tom shook his head. “Whoever tangled you up like this—whatever happened—it’s time to move on. A guy like you should be enjoying his life, not stewing over the past and creating problems that aren’t there.”

On the flight back to San Francisco, Ryan wrestled with his conscience. Tom was right about one thing: if the father of the kid stepped up, the kid might have a dad. Every kid deserved a dad, even if the guy wasn’t perfect.

Exhaustion tugged at him. He propped his head against the tiny window and gave in to a fitful sleep. The flight attendant woke him to ask that he bring his seat upright for landing. He stared down at the vast expanse of the San Francisco Bay, his eyes tracking the whitecaps whipped up by the afternoon winds.

Tom’s words slid across the back of his mind. Maybe he did need to get a grip and focus on what was going right in his life.

But as the plane circled to land, the thready voice that rose from the depths of the dark recesses called to him, taunted him—told him that whatever he did it would never be enough. Nothing seemed to ease the gaping hole that lurked in his heart even on his best days.

He’d distracted himself with the pleasure of spending some of his multi-million-dollar salary on things he’d always dreamed of having. The Bugatti was off the charts, but he’d paid it off. And still he had enough left over to buy the ranch in Albion Bay outright and renovate it.

But those pleasures hadn’t filled the hole.

And the incessant gnawing hadn’t made life outside the stadium any easier to wrangle. When he’d first come up to the majors, he’d been like every other rookie from a small town who’d made it to the show. The accolades and the attention had been like a drug. The attention from women, lots of women, had gone to his head. And everywhere else. Like some of his buddies, he’d played fast and loose the first couple of years. And the plentiful sex almost made it possible to forget Terese.

Almost. Until he got burned by Elaine Mooney.

Lies
.

He’d never had any tolerance for lies. Lying stole the freedom to make real choices out from under the person being lied to. A gentle white lie? Maybe those were okay—he struggled with those himself. In eighth grade, when his older sister had asked if the jeans she’d worked months to save up for looked good, he’d told her he liked the color. But he hadn’t told her they made her look like a linebacker for the Cowboys. He probably should have, but it would’ve broken her spirit.

A well-intentioned white lie was one thing, but a deliberate, life-changing altering of the truth? He’d never run up against a reason strong enough to support twisting reality like that.

Elaine’s lie had cost more than attorney’s fees and lost time.

The paternity suit had shut him down again, numbed his heart and eroded the buoyant trust he’d fought so hard to wrap around himself. Elaine’s lies pushed him into cynical mode, snapped him back into the head spin that had first gripped him on the hot summer afternoon he’d raced out of a grueling minor league team game and ridden four hours on a crowded bus to meet Terese. She hadn’t been happy to see him. With a blank expression she’d told him that she needed some space. That she needed time to think. She hadn’t given him any explanation, just handed him the key to his apartment and told him she’d be in touch.

He’d found out the next week that she’d already moved in with a big-shot plastic surgeon from Atlanta. A month later his sister told him she’d married the guy.

Space, my ass
.

What bothered him most was that he hadn’t seen it coming. Maybe love was blind, but it didn’t make him feel any less the fool when she sent a letter six months later telling him that she’d needed a stable life, a life in the city where she could feel part of a bigger world. He could read between the lines; she hadn’t believed he’d make it to the majors. To her he was just another ranch foreman’s son who’d end up stringing barbed wire and mending fences. She’d wanted a sure ticket out of East Texas, and she’d bagged one.

He’d loved Terese from as far back as he could remember; they’d grown up together. She’d been his first kiss, his first love. His first everything. He’d given her his heart. Evidently it wasn’t worth much.

The irony was, he still yearned for the power of the love he’d felt for her, but the voice that drove his yearning wasn’t one he trusted anymore. Maybe he never would again.

Chapter Three

Ryan drove like a madman from the ballpark. His Bugatti took the curves of the country roads heading to Albion Bay like the finely engineered machine she was. She might not have been the wisest expenditure, but she was a darn sweet pleasure on the country roads. He needed a name for her—something so special needed a really hot name.

He pulled the car into his barn and closed the door. Though he loved driving the Bugatti, he didn’t want the people of Albion Bay getting the wrong impression. He jumped into his Jeep and headed over the ridge that separated his ranch from the town of Albion Bay.

He pulled into the dusty parking lot next to the Albion Bay middle school. A freshly painted sign sported an image of a peregrine falcon, the team mascot. He’d seen parents and kids painting the sign the previous week. He’d watched their progress from the window of Nick’s Place, the local diner where he ate hurried breakfasts before charging off to the stadium. One thing he’d noticed about the town—if something needed to be done, everybody rose to the occasion.

He felt the wave of energy flow out from the kids and parents as he headed toward the rough-hewn bench that served as the home-team dugout. He’d gotten used to the stir his presence caused; most times he did his best to ignore it. He’d learned the hard way to put public admiration in perspective. Players who didn’t went down hard.

It was one thing to respect fans—their energy was part of the game, certainly part of his, and they loved baseball as much as he did. But twisting the love of baseball into something else, into something personal, into something you craved, that road was paved with misery.

Outside the stadium, turned heads and comments in public didn’t bother him, not usually—it was part of the price he paid to play for a championship team.

But out here in Albion Bay he wanted to be just a citizen of the town, accepted for what he could contribute and not for the fantasies or projections he inspired.

A week after buying the ranch, he’d volunteered to help with the middle school baseball team. He’d warned the coach, Dave Jenkins, that until the Giants’ season was over he’d have little time, but promised that in November he’d be able to do more. Right now they had to settle for him showing up when the team had a day off or for him arriving late after a day game.

“Hey, Ryan,” Perry Norman hollered out to him. Albion’s mayor was called
Perk
by his constituents. “Nice shot in the third.”

His triple had been a thrill. The runs he’d batted in had given the Giants a lead they’d held to win the game. Ryan was still buzzing from the rush. The team had lost the day before, while he’d sat in that damned courtroom. And his performance today hadn’t dissolved the inquiring stares in the clubhouse. Usually somebody had to die or be the equivalent of mortally wounded before a guy missed a game. When he’d suited up for the game that day, Ryan had felt that he’d experienced the sting of both.

He nodded toward the visitors’ bench. “Let’s see if we can duplicate that play against the Hawks tonight.”