Fielder's Choice (30 page)

“But Zav hasn’t lost all his former pesky qualities,” Iris added, her spunk showing. “I’ll have you know that not more than ten minutes went by before that brother of mine tried to tell me how to make my formula for the men’s fragrance I’m developing.
And
how to build drying racks for the herbs. And that he didn’t like my newly adopted name. The man’s got lots of opinions.”

“Lucky for me that most of them are spot on.” Alana laughed, glad to see the lightness enter into Iris’s eyes, and the lines of worry relax out of her face. Years seemed to have dropped away from her in just a few days.

“More tea?” Iris asked.

“I have to head back,” Alana said. “I need to make final arrangements for the party to celebrate the windmill.”

Iris quirked a brow. “I thought you were going to Paris.”

Everybody on the ranch seemed to know she was headed to the Versailles gala. A couple of the interns had asked if they could come along and carry her baggage. But from the look on Iris’s face, she wasn’t impressed.

“After. I changed my flight.”

“When you get back I want to thank you properly,” Iris said. “For all this. I plan on paying rent for this place.” She leaned closer to Alana. “I can’t move in with Zav. He thinks he wants me to, but it’d be a matter of days before he’d regret it. Me too.”

“I’d like you to stay here. And don’t think I’m just being kind—I have ulterior motives,” Alana told her. “I want you to help us develop the body care line. I tried the lotion you sent up to the house with Isobel; it’s fantastic. So I don’t think paying rent will be a problem. Peg’s thrilled with the oils you showed her yesterday, and she wants you to head up the fragrance team.”

Iris’s eyes widened as she took in the news, but a frown creased her face.

“You don’t need anything from Paris for the body care line,” Iris said. “I can work with what’s in this county. I even know a source for tuberose. You have everything you need right here.”

She said it with such emphasis that Alana knew she wasn’t talking about tuberoses. Rumors that Alana planned an extended stay in France were obviously circulating. But she didn’t want to discuss her plans with Iris, no matter how much everyone had taken to the woman. The truth was, Alana didn’t know her own feelings. So much had happened in such a short time.

“That little Sophie told me that she didn’t believe in fairies anymore,” Iris said, watching Alana closely. When Alana didn’t reply, she added, “Turns out that she made her strongest wish that you would be her stepmother and since it didn’t come true, she didn’t believe in fairies. Or in wishing.”

Great. She’d lost her heart to Matt and now hearing Iris tell her what Sophie had said ripped into her soul.

“I have to go now,” Alana said as pangs of remorse and sadness started to tighten her throat. “If you change your mind about wanting anything from the perfumery in Paris, let me know.”

“I won’t be changing my mind,” Iris said, crossing her arms and pressing her lips into an emphatic line. “But you might consider changing yours.”

Alana locked herself in her room and made the final calls to arrange the windmill celebration. She could’ve had the staff take care of the details, but she wanted to do it herself. She wanted to surprise them and thank them for their hard work. It was going to be a busy week, and she’d have to crank if she was going to make her plane on Friday. She called Marcel and told him she’d changed her flight and would be coming in two days later. He wasn’t happy, but he was glad she hadn’t changed her mind about coming.

She didn’t tell him that she hadn’t decided whether or not she’d stay for the month. She’d sort all that out later.

She crossed to her balcony and gazed out over the hills. Birds darted among the trees in search of last morsels before bedding down for the night. Where did they sleep? Since she’d never seen a bird asleep, she’d always wondered. It struck her that there were so many, many aspects about the world of the ranch and the world of nature that she didn’t know. Not only could she not cook a frittata, she didn’t know the first thing about birds.

She sat down on her bed and unlaced her half boots and dropped them to the floor. It’d been a long day. She reached for the TV remote and spied the charmstone sitting beside it. She picked up the stone and closed her fingers around it, held it in her palm. Maybe it was her imagination, but she felt heat course into her, travel up her arm and settle around her heart. She kept the stone in one hand and pressed the button on the remote with the other. When she looked up, there, nearly life-sized on the fifty-seven-inch screen, stood Matt, looking right at her. She nearly dropped the remote. The camera pulled back and showed the pitcher going into his wind-up. Matt stood poised in the predatory stance she’d seen at the games. He swung, and she didn’t need to see the ball fly over the stands. She heard the crack of the bat resound in her own aching heart.

Chapter 26

Alana woke early the next morning.

She’d watched all five of the remaining innings, had clutched the charmstone all the way through, had even balanced it in one hand while she brushed her teeth. Maybe Zav’s comment about not upsetting Matt had made her superstitious, but not only did he smack the home run she’d seen when the TV first came on, he reached base at every at-bat. The Giants won eight to three.

Her phone rang and she jumped.

“Did you watch the game last night?”

Evidently Zav didn’t need cable or cell reception to tune in to her.

“I saw some of it,” she admitted.

“Good going,” Zav said with a chuckle. “I won fifty bucks.”

What he assumed she’d done, he didn’t say, and she wasn’t about to 'fess up to the charmstone. Or to the fact that she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off Matt.

“You owe me half,” she said, smirking into the phone.

“Keep it up; they need the boost. Did you decide a day for the windmill shindig?”

“Wednesday.”

“I’ll pull out my party duds.”

“Whoa, did you feel that? The planet stopped spinning just then,” she teased.

He laughed. “It does that sometimes. Wait till I polish up my boots.” He paused. “Will she be there?”

“Iris?”

He whistled softly. “It’s actually Theresa. Theresa Clare. Our parents were big on saints’ names. Will she be there?”

“I think I’ll send her to Paris tomorrow as my part of my advance team.”

“You do that and I’ll jam up your newfangled turbine. I happen to have drawings of all its most vulnerable parts.”

She hoped he was kidding.

“We need to make up for lost time.”

Love, in all its guises, was potent and beautiful. She was glad brother and sister could reconcile. She hoped she wouldn’t have to wait as long for an unexpected love to embrace her.

Alana worked fast and finished the painting before noon. She’d just have to do without the glitter. Though she usually liked to work with oils, for once she was grateful that she’d chosen acrylics, since they dried relatively fast. In case she did want to use the image, or something like it, for the body line label, she photographed the finished painting. She carried it down to the kitchen and asked Isobel to wrap it and send it by messenger to Sophie. She’d checked the Giants’ schedule; Matt was out of town until Tuesday, so he couldn’t intervene. She wanted Sophie to have the painting since she couldn’t help with the garden.

Isobel offered her a scone hot from the oven. She used a hot pad to take it off the tray.

“You know,” Alana said as she crumbled off a corner of the scone, “you might want to give Iris the recipe for these. She might need it to deal with Mr. Hartman.”

Isobel held the painting at arm’s length, and Alana saw her knit her brows.

“What is it?” Alana asked. “Is something wrong?” She hurried over to examine the painting.

“Maybe,” Isobel said as she laid the painting on the counter and began to wrap it with sturdy brown paper. “But not with the painting.”

Alana didn’t have to ask what she meant. She’d been awake most of the night struggling with her warring feelings. She knew she’d done the right thing, finally. But she missed Matt and Sophie. And she couldn’t fool herself—she loved them. Her feelings for Sophie had been clear in every stroke of paint, her feelings for Matt clear with every beat of her heart.

She’d changed, but she had no desire to go back to the woman she’d been. Even her body didn’t feel the same to her anymore. It was as though her lovemaking with Matt had transformed her. Before she’d fallen asleep around three in the morning, she’d even considered texting him and suggesting a date.

But in the light of day she’d searched her conscience and knew she still didn’t come up to the mark, no matter how much she’d changed. Yes, she’d done the right thing in sending Matt away. But why the hell did the right thing have to hurt so badly?

She swore off watching more games. Seeing Matt without being able to talk to him or touch him was torture, torture she sure didn’t need.

Chapter 27

In the morning Matt shoved his pillow away from his face and looked at his alarm clock for the umpteenth time in three hours. Six thirty. He gave up trying to sleep and plodded down to the kitchen to make a strong cup of coffee. His mother stood at the counter, fully dressed.

“Thought you might need this.” She poured out a mug and handed it to him.

“You’re up early.”

“Not if you’re on Fiji time. It’s nearly happy hour. Your dad’s already gone out to play a few rounds.”

He pulled a stool out from under the kitchen island and gulped his coffee. He set the mug down and rested his chin in his hands.

“If I wanted glum,” his mother said as she pulled out the stool next to his, “I could have gone golfing with your dad. His game’s got him down.”

Matt grunted. “I should’ve gone with him. I’m becoming an expert at letting a game get you down.”

“Looks like more than that to me.”

He took another gulp of coffee. He’d have to tell her sometime.

“I checked into moving back East. I’m pretty sure I can get a contract with the Phillies after this season.
If
I keep my focus.” He turned the mug in his hands and fidgeted his feet against the rung of the stool. “I’d need your help with Sophie. I can’t justify leaving her with a nanny so much. Especially during the summer. Kids need family around in the summer. I don’t want to make the same mistakes—”

He stopped, looked up at his mother.

“That I made?” she finished for him. “Darling, you can’t make the same mistakes. I already made all of them.”

He smiled. In the year since he’d had to become a full-on parent, he’d begun to see her in a different light. He’d begun to understand the knife edge of hard choices.

She tapped her perfectly manicured finger against his forearm. “You can’t move back East. I’ve already begun looking at townhouses in San Francisco. Your dad and I are taking Sophie out this afternoon to see one near Ocean Beach.”

She pulled back and frowned—she must’ve read the shock in his face.

“Don’t look so surprised. It makes me feel like I’ve been an ogre. And besides, I’d
hate
to see you in those Phillies colors—they’re all wrong for your eyes.”

He couldn’t help but laugh as she refilled his mug.

“And it’s also
beastly
hot in Pennsylvania in the summer,” she added, “in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I know how hot it is; I play there twice every summer.” He heard the flatness creep back into his tone.

“And so your problem is...”

He found himself telling her about Alana. To his amazement she just nodded and listened. When he stopped, she crossed her arms, bracelets jangling.

“You’d better not let that one go,” she said.

“She booted me. And I deserved it. Besides, she’s got men coming out of the woodwork after her.” Just the thought of her with another man ate at him in a way he didn’t want to admit.

“That, my darling, is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say. Did you even offer her an alternative, declare yourself in any way?”