The Comeback of Roy Walker

Lane shook her head. Roy was talking to her. Speaking actual words to her. She was in the same room as him. Unthinkable.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say now.”

“Lanie,” Duff huffed. “Now, come on, girl. It’s been five years. The man did you a favor and opened your eyes. He gave you your life back. Stop holding on to history and get over it. I need you to work with him.”

“Oh, I can promise you that is not going to— Wait.” Her gaze flew to Roy’s face and she could actually see him brace himself for what came next. “What are you doing here?”

He swallowed a few times and she followed the movement of his Adam’s apple. She started to take in things about him now that the shock of seeing him was fading. The gray mixed in with the dark hair at his temples. His body still looked strong, fit. Wide shoulders and long arms, which gave him extra zip when throwing a ball. She knew he was thirty-seven, but the person Duff had asked her to work with was a minor-league player.

Roy didn’t play baseball anymore. He certainly didn’t play minor-league ball.

“I needed a job. Duff helped me out.”

“You needed a job? Yeah, right. You’re a multimillionaire. What happened to your grand plan? You said you were done with baseball. You said you wanted to leave on top and not hang around like all the other old-timers who didn’t know when to walk away. You talked about it constantly. Almost bragging about how smart you were to leave while the leaving was good. Now, five years later, you want to pitch again?” She shook her head. “You’re pathetic.”

Her voice was sharp and she wasn’t sure why. She didn’t know if it was anger from seeing the man whom she considered her mortal enemy. Or anger that she’d believed all those things he said to her once. Because when he said them it had felt as though he hoped she would understand why he was making the decision to walk away so young. As though he wanted her approval.

Or maybe it was anger because she remembered all those times when he’d talked to her about his future and she had felt that damn...pull.

Damn. She hated Roy Walker.

“Lanie!” Duff shouted. “I didn’t raise my girl to be a bitch. Maybe before you go spouting off on things you don’t know about, you might want to check that attitude.”

Lane looked at her father, who, she noticed, still hadn’t gotten out of his chair, even though he was angry enough at her to raise his voice. Since she was still pissed at him for blindsiding her, that confrontation would have to wait.

“What? This isn’t some attempt at a lame comeback? Let me guess, you couldn’t stay away from the game,” Lane said. “Is that it? The limelight. The rush. The glory. The fans, not that you had many of those. Had to have all that back?”

“No,” Roy said stiffly. “What I said was true. I need a job. And this is all I know how to do.”

It was the tone in his voice that stopped her. She knew Roy Walker. He was arrogant and smug on his worst days. A colossal ass on his best. He personified confidence and never let anyone forget that he knew to the dollar what his ability to throw a baseball was worth.

Now he stood in front of her with his head down. She didn’t think she had ever seen him so...defeated. And she’d seen him after losing an NLCS game that, had he won, would have sent him to the World Series.

He was Roy Walker, for heaven’s sake. A future first-ballot Hall of Famer. She wanted to slap him if for no other reason than to take that expression off his face.

“How can you need a job? What happened to all your money?”

He shook his head. “I lost it.”

“Millions? Tens of millions?”

“Eighty million to be exact. I have the house I bought my father, which he still lives in, and a town house in Society Hill in Philadelphia that’s up for sale. Other than that, it’s gone.”

Lane had a thousand questions about how that could happen, but quickly snapped her jaw shut. She wasn’t supposed to care about that.

She wasn’t supposed to care about anything when it came to Roy.

She hated Roy Walker.

“You seriously thought I would help you make this comeback?”

He smiled then, not his normal smile. Not the smile that said he knew more about everything than anyone else in the room. Not the smile that suggested he had secrets she might want to uncover.

No, this smile was completely self-deprecating and it didn’t fit on his mouth.

“Hell, no, I didn’t think you would help. I told them they were crazy to even ask, but Duff said—”

“I said she’s my daughter and if she knows it’s important to me, she’ll do it.” Duff leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed. As if he’d been napping during the tense confrontation unfolding in front of him.

“Why in the hell do you care about Roy Walker, Duff? You know what he did to me.”

“Yeah, and I told you I’m grateful to him for it. You were hanging on to that loser with two hands and it didn’t look like you were ever letting go. He was dragging you down, sweetie, like an anchor in an ocean.”

“I was trying to save my marriage, which is what you always told us to do.”

“Except you married the wrong guy!” Duff snapped. “When you marry the wrong guy, you walk away. Roy here forced you to do that. So, for that, he gets my help. However, my help will take him only so far. If he’s going to make it all the way, he needs more.”

Instinctively, her therapist brain started clicking in. Lane narrowed her gaze on Roy again. “How long has it been since you threw? I mean, before coming here?”

“Five years. The game in San Diego was the last time I picked up a ball.”

Lane knew that game. It was officially the last game she’d ever watched. He’d pitched a no-hitter. She’d been in a bar near the hospital where she had just gotten hired. She was eating a hamburger and drinking a beer and doing everything she could not to look at the television screens filled with a bunch of different baseball games when suddenly they had turned all the TVs to the sports network covering one game in particular.

After all, it wasn’t every day a pitching legend, during the last game of his historic career, didn’t give up a single hit. Against her will, she’d been as captivated as everyone around her, waiting as he threw each pitch, as he racked up each out, as batter after batter went down in a frustrated huff. Until the ninth inning, when the noise from the crowd at the stadium was so loud, she couldn’t imagine what someone standing on the mound in the center of it all might be hearing.

Three up, three down. Game over. His teammates had come in from the field, but no one charged him or lifted him off his feet as was typical with such an accomplishment. The catcher simply swatted him on the ass and handed Roy the ball. A few chin nods in his direction and that was it.

Because everyone knew his teammates didn’t like him. It had been almost hard to watch as the television commentators tried to explain to the national audience why the team’s celebration was so tepid. The best they said about Roy was that he was a loner. The worst they said was that he’d been known to be a cancer in the clubhouse, despite his great talent.

Lane swallowed the emotion the memory of that day caused her. In truth, she never really understood why she had left the bar to go home and cry her eyes out.

Letting that puzzle go, she focused on the present.

“How hard are you throwing now?”

“I’ve got my fastball up to about eighty-eight.”

“How does the arm feel?”

“Hurts like hell.”

“And your shoulder?” Back in the day when he sought out her therapy services it had always been his shoulder that had bothered him. Sometimes the neck, too.

“Stiff.”

Lane nodded. “You rush that arm too fast and you’ll tear something.”

“That’s what I told him. That’s why he needs you,” Duff said.

Lane looked at her father and remembered what this was really all about. She was here to make sure her father was okay. Roy was nothing but a sideshow. A particularly attention-grabbing sideshow.

Lane turned to Roy. “If I do this, it doesn’t mean I forgive you for what you did. You would be nothing but a body to me.”

“Damn it, girl,” Duff said. “How many times do I have to tell you you should be indebted to him, not angry with him?”

“You’re wrong, Duff,” Roy said. “You weren’t there. What I did was crappy and I know it. I never got the chance to say it then. I don’t know if you ever got my letter—”

“I tore it up and threw it out without opening it.”

Which in hindsight, made her feel like a spiteful, immature girl. Setting her up had been wrong. There was no refuting that. She’d thought they were friends and by manipulating her into that position, he’d hurt her. Some of Danny’s teammates actually had been laughing as she had to make her way out the door of Roy’s place that night. That’s when she’d figured out the other guys on the team had known. Everyone had known Danny was cheating on her.

She had to get tested for STDs because Danny couldn’t remember all the women he’d been with and couldn’t remember if he’d used a condom every time. The humiliation of that, of knowing how little she meant to him, had been crushing.

She would never be sure why Roy had done it, either. Why he hadn’t just told her the truth rather than let her find out that way. But, at the end of the day, he hadn’t forced Danny to bring that woman to the party. Hadn’t forced Danny to cheat on her for who knew how much of their marriage. That was Danny’s doing.

Worst of all, even though he’d initiated the kiss, that crazy kiss that had seemingly come out of the blue, she had been the one to respond. That was all on her. Five years ago it had been so easy to block out that part of the night and wallow in the pain and suffering of the divorce.

Danny cheated on her and Lane left him. That was a much simpler narrative than the truth. A truth she’d never told anyone. She had fallen out of love with Danny and had been struggling to hang on to something even while she was realizing she was attracted to another man. Yes, definitely much harder to wrap her brain around that.

“Anyway,” Roy said. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“You really need to throw again? This isn’t some joke to you?”

“Lanie, standing here in front of you...this is definitely not a joke.” He shrugged. “Pitching is the only thing I know how to do. The only thing I’m good for.”

Again, the sense of defeat in his words startled her. This wasn’t the Roy Walker she’d known five years ago. The ass whom she had always called out for his bullshit.

In a weird way she found herself missing that person—which made no sense to her at all. But since nothing in her life made sense right now, Lane figured this little episode was par for the course.

She had no job. She had no life. She had a father and a sister who, although they had betrayed her, did seem to need her.

And Roy. Roy Walker needed her and that was about the craziest thing she could imagine happening today.

“Fine. I’ll do it. It’s not like I have a choice, right? You’ve got my father involved. But don’t call me Lanie again. You don’t get to do that.”

Duff clapped his hands together, startling Lane. This wasn’t about Roy. She wouldn’t let it be.

“Now we’re talking,” Duff said. “You two get to work and turn that arm of his into a weapon.”

He pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes and settled in for what appeared to be his midday nap.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I CAN’T BELIEVE you didn’t tell me about Roy,” Lane said to her sister as soon they were alone. Scout and Duff had just gotten home and he’d immediately sought his favorite chair in the living room.

As for Lane, following her confrontation with Roy, she had left the stadium and headed to Duff’s house for some alone time. While she’d agreed to work on Roy’s arm, she needed at least twenty-four hours to process seeing him again before she could work up the courage to actually touch him.

And yes, she would have to touch Roy Walker. The reality of that was hitting her.

After she’d left the stadium, Duff had apparently decided he wanted to make his famous burgers for dinner, which translated into Scout putting the ingredients together and making the raw patties, then Duff slapping them on the grill, adding cheese and calling it a cooking miracle.

It was a time-honored tradition in the Baker household.

“Shh, Duff’s sleeping,” Scout hissed as they unpacked groceries she and Duff had picked up.

It wasn’t beyond Lane’s notice that Duff slept a lot. As if that trip to the grocery store had expended all the energy he had so he needed to refuel for dinner. How the hell did he think he was going to manage the club this year? That was a conversation for tomorrow.

Scout not telling her about Roy was a like a slap in the face. Lane felt blindsided and more than a little betrayed. Which were not feelings she wanted from her family.

Her sisters were her core. Her sense of safety in the world, along with Duff. When she’d gone through her long and bitter divorce from Danny they had been her rocks. Sitting with her when she cried. Laughing with her when they knew she needed to be pulled out of a mood. Supporting her when she struggled with the pain of the breakup. True, she’d stopped loving Danny before the actual breakup, but that didn’t mean separating their lives hadn’t been hard.

The worst part of the divorce had been dealing with her own sense of failure. The acknowledgment that she couldn’t make her marriage work. That she had been unable to see Danny for who he really was before she married him. That her love for him had been a fleeting thing at best.

Whether Danny had ever returned that love was hard to know. The awful truth was that his infidelities had started months after they were first married.

How could she have not known? That cluelessness alone had rocked her to her core until her sisters made her see that Danny’s behavior wasn’t about anything lacking in Lane. It was just who Danny was.

A character flaw Lane had failed to identify in her mission to find a person she could build a life with. How the hell could she screw it up so badly? How could she be totally unsuccessful at the one thing she’d been so committed to doing right?

That was why Lane hadn’t once, in the five years since leaving Danny, ever considered taking the chance on love and long-term commitment again. Which didn’t make dating easy. The one time she’d gotten remotely close to someone she had felt honor bound to tell him their relationship could never go anywhere. She wasn’t getting married. Ever. She wasn’t repeating that mistake. She didn’t trust herself.

If she was to have kids someday, she would do it on her own.

The guy had said goodbye. And Lane realized that men in their late twenties and early thirties who were looking for a wife were not people she should be dating. Unfortunately, the other kind—who wanted no-strings-attached sex—usually turned her off completely because they reminded her too much of Danny.

Which meant she hadn’t had sex in a really long time. Which meant seeing Roy Walker again, and having that same feeling creep over her body as the last time she’d seen him, made her want to throw something across the room.

She was going to have to touch him. His body. What in the hell was she thinking agreeing to that?

“You should have told me,” Lane said again, having no problem taking out her annoyance on her little sister.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

“You honestly think I would let someone like Roy stop me from seeing my father if I was concerned about his health?”

Scout took a moment to consider the question. “Anyone else, no. Roy? He’s different for you.”

“He’s not different. He’s just someone I...I hate. That’s all.”

“Yep. Lane hates Roy. You really should get a tattoo of that so you can assure yourself you’ll never forget it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Scout sighed and put down a head of broccoli that Lane knew their father wouldn’t eat. She also knew Scout kept buying it and other vegetables in a vain attempt to keep him healthy. She looked long and hard at Lane.

“What really happened between you two the night of that party?”

Lane felt her whole body flush. “You mean other than finding my husband with his tongue down another woman’s throat?”

“You know damn well I mean other than that. You were so mad at Roy over that whole episode—”

“He set me up! He purposefully staged an entire party to make me look like a fool in front of everyone I knew. Everyone who knew Danny was cheating on me!”

Just reliving that walk down the long hallway made her want to inflict physical damage on Roy. She’d never wanted an apology from him. Frankly, given the man he’d been then, so confident in his decisions, she’d never expected one. He probably thought the same as Duff had thought—that he’d done her a favor. That’s why it had shocked her when he’d sent the letter. Maybe she hadn’t read it because it was better to think about what he might have said than to know what he did.

“Why did he do that?” Scout mused. “I mean, seriously, you couldn’t have been the first wife Roy knew was being cheated on. He’d been in the league for ten years before he met you. He probably knew every sordid story in the book. Yet he puts this plot together to expose Danny’s cheating. That’s a lot of effort from a man who you said never took much interest in the team or anyone else.”

Lane didn’t want to think about the events leading up to that party. She didn’t want to think about the weird outings she and Roy took together. They both had a thing for hot dogs, so they would try new places around town, or new stands in the ballpark. Always in search of the perfect dog. It had been completely innocent, of course. Mostly they ate and argued about whatever the topic of the day was.

But what Lane had told him that night was true. She had considered them friends.

And as far as she knew, theirs was the only relationship Roy had.

Yes, he could be an ass. But as time had passed, there were things she’d learned about him that made him seem more human. Like when she discovered the reason for his isolation from the team. Or when she’d found out that his claim to not do charity really meant that he didn’t do charity for show.

Because the one time Lane had asked him to help her out, he’d spent hours in a dunk tank making kids and adults happy.

“I don’t know why he did it,” Lane lied now. She couldn’t admit the truth without remembering the moment he’d told her to get unmarried. When he’d leaned into her and kissed her.

When she’d kissed him back.

She couldn’t imagine what Scout would say if she knew. All that fuss about breaking up with a cheating scumbag of a husband and the truth was, in her heart, Lane had also felt desire for someone other than the person to whom she was married.

The thought made her that much angrier at Roy.

“If you ask me, your story—the Roy-and-Lane story—is not done yet.”

“There is no story. There is just me getting through these next few weeks. I’ll get Duff to see a doctor. We’ll make sure he’s okay and then I’m gone. As far away from baseball as I can get.”

“And the hospital was okay with letting you go for a few weeks?”

“Yep,” Lane said quickly. Maybe too quickly because she could feel Scout’s gaze on her. Regardless, Lane wasn’t talking about that now. It was just too much to deal with. Stephen’s death, leaving her job. Those things were behind her. Duff and Roy were in front of her. She needed to focus on that.

Scout had put away the last of the groceries and was leaning against the fridge. “What if we can’t just make sure he’s okay? What if something is wrong? Isn’t that what you said we might need to get prepared for?”

“Well, I changed my mind.” Lane said definitively. “We’re not borrowing trouble. Duff’s perfectly fine until a doctor says otherwise. You know what Duff always says—worrying about nothing gets us nothing.”

Scout nodded but Lane could see the fear in her sister’s eyes, which coincidentally made Lane feel it in her heart.

“He’s going to be fine,” Lane said. “Everything is going to be fine.”

She only wished she could believe it.

* * *

ROY FELT THE rush of adrenaline when he saw where the ball ended up. Exactly where he wanted it to, a little low and outside, but definitely a strike. Javier bounced up and tossed the ball to Roy.

After a week in the Falls, he was in shape enough to throw from the mound. A slightly elevated hill with a pitch to plant his feet. He wore cleats, workout shorts and a long sleeved T-shirt, which helped to keep his arm warm. A standard bullpen session routine, and he could feel his body changing with each pitch he threw.

It was like there was all this dried-up, crusty stuff around his shoulder and arm, and with each throw it cracked a little more, and the dust blew away, taking time with it. When he’d left the game he’d promised himself he would never miss it and he’d kept that promise.

Until now.

Strange that he was becoming sentimental. Now that he was in a stadium again he missed the sounds of the crowds cheering and sometimes jeering. He missed the adrenaline rush of facing the best batter in the league and watching as he swung helplessly at a ball that was sinking before it ever got across the plate.

He missed the feeling of winning. Of dominating. And now he had enough humility to know that he might not get back there. Yes, he could still throw. But could he still be Roy Walker?

That was an unknown.

What would it feel like to sit in the bullpen watching the game with a bunch of other guys, probably younger, waiting for the phone to ring so he could go out to the mound to pitch for just one inning. Hoping he didn’t do any damage in that inning. Hoping he got the guys out he was supposed to get out.

Roy never used to hope. He just did. He’d always been a starter. He’d always been the first starter in the five-man rotation. For every season he’d played.

What he was going to be was anyone’s guess. Duff had him slated to start in the minors, but that was to improve his arm strength. What he became in the majors, if he even made it that far, was a complete unknown.

As long as it came with a paycheck, he would have to accept it.

Trying to get out of his head, Roy got into his windup and threw again. The ball sailed over Javier’s head and the catcher had to hop up and scramble to find it.

“Sorry, Javier!” Roy waved.

“Juusssst a little outside.”

Roy turned and saw Lane walking toward him. She wore jeans with a T-shirt and cardigan, her hair loose around her shoulders. He was struck again by the awareness that he was seeing her again. When he thought he never would.

Damn, he’d missed her. He wondered what she would say if he told her that. Probably that he didn’t get to say that, either.

“Quoting Major League. That’s not a good sign,” he said, smiling.

Lane knew Major League was one of Roy’s all-time favorite baseball movies. The fact that she lumped him in with the Wild Thing didn’t bode well for what she saw in his pitching.

She didn’t return his smile.

“You should have been here earlier,” he said. “I missed Javier by three feet on my first pitch. The ball hit the brick backstop, shot down into the dugout and ran all the way into the lockers. Not exactly where I wanted that pitch to go.”

Lane crossed her arms under her breasts and looked toward the outfield.

“Look, I get it, Lane. You hate me and just because you’re here doesn’t mean you’ve forgiven me. Point made. But you are here and if we are going to work together, we have to at least talk to each other. We could always do that. Talk to each other.”

She looked at him then as if his words had served to remind her of what they had been. He couldn’t tell if that made her angrier or if maybe she had missed him, too. Because the look on her face just then...it was wistful.