Love of the Game Read online

  “The Honeysuckle closes for lunch at two-thirty, and it’s almost two now.” Kasha motioned in the direction of the delicious smells.

  He turned to follow her, and as he did, Axel saw the elder Carlyles draw closer and smile into each other’s faces as if watching the sun come up on the best day of their lives.

  His parents were equally soppy in their mature love, and he wondered if he would ever have that. The only person he’d ever loved completely, and unconditionally, without doubt, hesitation, or reservation, was Dylan.

  At the thought of his son, sadness squeezed his chest and he momentarily closed his eyes. He’d been thinking of Dylan a lot lately, and it hurt. More than he wanted to admit. Without the long, punishing workouts to keep his mind occupied, he had too much time for dark thoughts.

  “Axel?” Kasha asked, her voice soft and low.

  He opened his eyes, stared into her intense gaze.

  “Are you all right?”

  He smiled, easy but totally manufactured. “Sure.”

  “Pain?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Do you want to go back to the ranch?”

  “No way. I’ve been looking forward to getting out.” Screw his demons. He felt like a prisoner out on work release, privileged to just be here.

  “Okay.” She hesitated.

  His gilded, brushed-on smile wasn’t fooling her for a second, but she let it go and opened the interior door of Timeless Treasures that led into the Honeysuckle Café. She stood in the orange glow of the sunshine spilling in through the sparkling clean window, the light cutting through the thin material of her white shirt, giving him a peekaboo view of her excellent body.

  “Come on,” she prodded, having no clue that he was so stunned by her beauty that his legs had turned to cement.

  She didn’t wait for someone to seat them. Instead, she headed for a wooden bench booth in the corner. “Permanently reserved for members of the Carlyle clan as long as it’s not already taken,” she told him. “Perks of Mom being best friends with the owner.”

  Red and white checkered tablecloth on the table, drinks served in Mason jars. Wurlitzer in the corner playing a Hank Williams tune. Red Coca-Cola napkin dispenser. The menu written on a chalkboard, comfort food with a gourmet twist: chicken-fried steak with chipotle cream gravy, mac and cheese with guanciale, buffalo sliders, and slimmed-down soul food.

  Creative and yet appealingly ordinary.

  A thirty-something waitress hurried over and greeted Kasha with a hug. It surprised Axel to see Kasha hug the waitress back. Kasha was normally so reserved he didn’t think of her as much of a hugger. But here, she was in her milieu. Among family and friends.

  He was the outsider.

  “I know you want the veggie plate,” the waitress said to Kasha, and then turned to Axel and held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Venus.”

  “Axel Richmond.”

  “Honey,” Venus said. “No need for introductions. Everyone in Stardust knows who you are. We’re a Gunslingers town. Sorry to hear about your injury.”

  Axel rotated his right shoulder. “It’s much better now. Thanks to Kasha.”

  “Isn’t she an angel?” Venus gushed. “She got my granddaddy up walking again after he broke his hip. Doctor said he would be bedridden for the rest of his life, but Kasha would have none of it. Let me tell you, you could have knocked old Doc Prescott over with a feather when Granddaddy walked into his office under his own steam.”

  Axel met Kasha’s gaze. “She is something.”

  Kasha’s cheeks flushed and she quickly glanced away.

  “What’ll you have?” Venus asked Axel.

  “I’ll have the veggie plate as well.”

  “Good choice. It’s awesome. Course everything at the Honeysuckle is awesome.”

  “You can eat meat if you want,” Kasha said. “I won’t judge.”

  “Veggie plate,” Axel said, not taking his eyes off Kasha. He’d eat dirt if he thought it would impress her.

  “It comes with lentils for protein,” Venus said. “I’ll go put your order in and bring you some water. Anything else to drink?”

  “Water’s fine,” Axel confirmed.

  When Venus was out of earshot, Axel said, “She thinks you hung the moon and the stars, and you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I agree.”

  “Stop it.” Kasha rolled her eyes.

  “I mean it.”

  “You’re flirting.”

  “I’m paying you a compliment.”

  “You’re messing with my head.”

  “Or you could try this on for size. ‘Thank you, Axel.’”

  “Don’t make me regret this lunch,” she said.

  Even though this wasn’t a date, Axel couldn’t help feeling that electrical thrill of a first date was going really, really well.

  Yo Richmond. See those hot coals in your hand? You’re juggling fire. If you don’t want her to quit as your therapist, knock it off.

  He stared at her.

  She stared back, totally badass.

  What should he do? (A) Stop coming on to her because things couldn’t end well. (B) Say screw it, and just do what he’d wanted to do since the day he met her, and kiss her like tomorrow would never come. (C) Slow down, but hang in there because the best things in life were worth waiting for?

  C. Definitely C.

  Their food arrived. Venus arranged it on the table in front of them and gaily said, “Bon appétit,” and off she went.

  Axel looked across the table at Kasha and knew he would always remember this moment. She was surrounded by plump vegetables: roasted red bell peppers and butter-yellow corn on the cob, purple cabbage, and broccoli sautéed with olive oil and garlic; her fork clinking softly against the bone white plate, an expression of foodie-in-heaven bliss on her face.

  He was so busy watching her eat that he forgot his own meal.

  “Is something wrong with your food?” she asked.

  “No. It’s terrific.” He paused, swallowed. “Just like you.”

  “Axel,” she chided. “You simply can’t keep saying things like that.”

  “Why not? It’s true.”

  “It’s flirty. We talked about this.”

  “No it’s not. Flirty is silly, teasing. I am serious. You are terrific.”

  “I’m your therapist.”

  “Still terrific.”

  “We can’t … this isn’t …”

  “What?”

  She dabbed her mouth with a napkin, that plump, raspberry mouth that made his mouth water. “I should never have come out with you. We didn’t call this a date, but it’s a date and …” She put down her fork. “Here we are. Being datey.”

  “At the Honeysuckle Café.”

  “Eating a vegetable plate,” she said. “You’re eating a vegetable plate to please me.”

  “So what? Nothing wrong with that.”

  “It’s unethical for me to have a relationship with you,” she said a bit primly.

  “I’m not talking about a relationship. I’m simply saying I admire you. Don’t make a bigger thing of this than it is.”

  She leaned back against her chair, eyed him uneasily, and took a sip of water.

  He wished he could say what was really on his mind. I like you. I think you’re special. I want you. Maybe when I’m healed and you’re no longer my therapist we could …

  But he knew what would happen if he pushed. She wasn’t a fan of pushing. And even once he was healed, he might end up traded to another team on the other side of the country. It was his life’s ambition to play for the Yankees. What if all his dreams came true, and he got what he wanted? He’d have to leave Texas, and he knew for a fact that long distance relationships just didn’t work. He’d tried it and failed more than once.

  Getting ahead of yourself, buddy. Way, way ahead.

  Nothing might ever happen between him and Kasha. Between him and the Yankees. Hell, even between him and a healthy shou
lder. She was right. He had to stop with the compliments and the flirting and the lusting. Although there were no guarantees he could stop that last one. He had no right to push. He had nothing to offer her.

  Yet.

  Unnerved by his thoughts, Axel clenched his fork, tension tightening his jaw muscles, and he draggled in a covert inhale to steady the clipped rhythm of his exasperated heart.

  He didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

  She must have seen it in his eyes. Somehow, she knew what he was thinking, sensed his frustration. Her dark eyes turned darker still until they were almost black underneath the glow of the cutesy red lanterns dangling overhead. She reached out a hand as if she were going to touch him, but stopped midway across the table.

  Axel sat frozen, his gaze fixed on hers, unable to exhale.

  She dropped her hand to the breadbasket, picked up a piece of cornbread, and examined it as if that was what she’d been angling for all along.

  His stomach flopped. Was he imagining her feelings for him? Was he being a fool? Axel didn’t fall head over heels very often. But he was seriously afraid that’s what was happening. But what if she didn’t feel the same way.

  Ah shit.

  “Sister!” a voice called out.

  At the same moment, Kasha and Axel looked over to see a pretty red-haired, pregnant woman about their same age walk over. Kasha stood up and hugged her sister, then waved her into the booth and perched lithely on the outer edge of the seat as if she were an elegant eagle about to take flight.

  “Axel,” Kasha said. “This is my sister Jodi.”

  “Jake’s wife.” Axel reached over the table to shake Jodi’s hand. “We met briefly once at the stadium.”

  “Yes, I remember. Before your shoulder injury.”

  They made small talk for a while and then Jodi said, “What are your plans for Memorial Day, Axel?”

  Axel shrugged, grinned at Kasha. “My therapist tells me I’m supposed to take it easy.”

  “All by your lonesome?” Jodi pretended to pout.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Well,” Jodi said good-naturedly. “Kasha may be able to do all the find-yourself Zen stuff, but for us extroverts it’s called boredom.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.” Axel watched Kasha’s face. “I think she’s onto something. She certainly got my attention.”

  Was it his imagination or was a smile twitching at Kasha’s lips?

  “Be that as it may,” Jodi said. “You are officially invited to the annual Carlyle Memorial Day bash at Mom’s request. We hope you’ll come. Please say yes. Come for Saturday, Sunday, Monday, or all three. We’re short of guys since Jake and Rowdy will be at the stadium.”

  “You party for three days?” he asked.

  “It’s the Carlyle way,” Jodi said.

  Kasha’s smile winked out. She drilled a hole through him, moved her head imperceptibly. Message received. She didn’t want him at the party.

  “We’re having therapy session six days a week,” Axel said. “So Saturday’s out. But I’d love to come over on Sunday.”

  Something bumped against his shin, sharp and insistent. Kasha was kicking him.

  “Um,” she said. “Don’t you have other plans?”

  “Nope,” Axel said feigning innocence. “None at all.”

  Another swift kick. Ouch. If stares were daggers, he’d be bleeding from every orifice.

  He smiled even wider at Jodi, and sent Kasha a kick-all-you-want-I-gotcha look. “Tell me what time to be there, and what I should bring?”

  CHAPTER 12

  “Here’s what you’re going to do,” Kasha said to Axel when they were back in her Prius headed for the ranch. “You’re going to call my mother, thank her for inviting you to the party, but tell her that you can’t make it.”

  “Nope.”

  Kasha swung her head around to glare at him. “Excuse me?”

  “Not canceling,” he said amicably.

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing it’s rude.”

  “No it’s not. Tell her you forgot you had something else to do.”

  “But I don’t.”

  “Pretend.”

  “You mean lie?”

  Kasha blew out an exasperated breath. He was right about that. “Please,” she said, trying a different tack. “Do it for me.”

  “But I want to go to the party.” His voice was light, but it was laced with deeper meaning.

  She cast another glance over at him. He had on sunglasses and she couldn’t read his eyes. “You can’t go.”

  “Sure I can. I was invited.”

  “But I will be there. With Emma.”

  “How can you take Emma with you when you haven’t told your parents about her?”

  “I will,” she said, gripping the steering wheel tighter and wondering why she’d taken him to lunch at the Honeysuckle. She should have expected her family would invite him to the party.

  “So why can’t I come too?” he asked. “I’m stuck at the ranch all weekend with nothing to do, and you keep pestering me to relax and have fun, but the minute I do, splat, you squash it.”

  “All right. Fine. Come to the party.” Under her breath she muttered, “Maybe I’ll skip it.”

  He didn’t say a word, just kept looking at her with kind, understanding eyes, and that freaked her out a little.

  “What?” she asked, hunching forward, then catching what she was doing and forcing herself to sit up tall, shoulders back and down.

  “What, what?”

  “Why do you keep staring at me like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m a delicate flower.”

  “Is that what I was doing?”

  “Yes, and it’s annoying.” She knew she was overreacting, but she couldn’t seem to contain her feelings.

  And that bothered the hell out of her.

  She did some yoga breathing, and it helped. Marginally. But marginally was better than nothing. When she glanced over, Axel was still studying her.

  Then he surprised her completely by reaching over the seat to take her hand, but what surprised her even more was she did not pull away. “I could help you. Be a buffer.”

  “I don’t need a buffer.” Her eye twitched. Okay, yeah, maybe she was fooling herself.

  “Who better than an objective third party? I’d be like an umpire.”

  “No need for a referee. Everything is going to be fine,” she said firmly. Maybe if she said it enough times it would be true.

  “Emma’s good with strangers then? And crowds?”

  Kasha didn’t know. “I’d rather not talk about it right now.”

  “Just tell me you’ve got a plan in case things aren’t fine. Kids—and I say this knowing Emma is mentally an eight-year-old—are notoriously unpredictable.”

  He was freaking her out. Could it really be that hard? Bringing Emma to the party?

  She would ask Molly Banks for advice. Emma’s foster mother would know best how to handle her. She didn’t need Axel’s two cents’ worth, and she moved her hand away.

  “You don’t have a battle plan.” He made a noise of disapproval, halfway between a grunt and a groan, and it alarmed her that his disapproval bothered her “Are you nuts?”

  “I’m confident I will be able to handle any bumps in the road.” She wasn’t, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “Emma’s not just a trophy you can trot out and show off. She’s a real person, with feelings, flaws, and faults like anybody else.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do you?”

  Seriously, was it any of his business? “Why do you care?”

  “Because,” he said, “I like you, and I want this to go well for you and Emma.”

  “I’m your therapist, not your friend.”

  “Um-huh.” He looked smug.

  “Um-huh what?” She meant to sound churlish, but instead it came out as insecure. Dammit!

  “Like it or not,” he gloated
, “we’ve got something more than therapist/patient going on here.”

  “We do not!” she denied, hearing the panic in her voice, feeling a band of heat flare up the back of her neck. She didn’t dare look at him.

  The air inside the Prius was so thick with sexual tension it was hard to think.

  “I’m honestly just thinking about Emma,” he said. “When Dylan got to the point where he couldn’t walk and had to be in a wheelchair … well, let’s just say some kids can be cruel.”

  “Can we drop it, please?”

  “What if Emma panics when she’s faced with sudden attention from strangers?” Axel asked. “What if she gets scared?”

  “I’ll take her into another room and talk her down. I don’t see why I need a battle plan to take a handicapped young woman to a Memorial Day party. You’re overthinking it.”

  “You haven’t been around kids much.” He said it as a statement, not a question, and he was right. “I see disaster written all over this.”

  “Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

  “It’s not against you, I just know how with kids a happy day can quickly go in the opposite direction.”

  “Good grief, Richmond. I had no idea you were such a worrywart.”

  “And I didn’t know you didn’t have the sense to step out of the way of an oncoming train.”

  “It’s not going to be that bad.”

  “I hope you’re right.

  “Emma is sweet and beautiful and amazing and she’s my sister.”

  “And she’s used to having your undivided attention and you’re taking her to a party where she doesn’t know anyone, and—”

  “I get the picture.” Kasha winced. “Now get out.”

  “What?” He blinked.

  “We’re here. Get out.” She pointed at the passenger side door.

  He glanced at his watch. “It’s only three-thirty. We’re not going to finish our session?”

  She paused, her hand on the shifter, torn between her job and wanting to get away from him and the confounded sexual tension. Knowing that he was right about Emma. “We’ll make up the time tomorrow. I’ll be back bright and early. Go lie in the hammock and read a book.”

  “Aren’t you afraid I’ll get out the rebounder and sling balls around?”