Getting Wound Up: A Sapphire Falls/ Love Between the Bases Novel-- PART THREE

Getting Wound Up

A Sapphire Falls/Love Between the Bases Novel

by

Jennifer Bernard

Erin Nicholas

PART THREE

A fun and flirty crossover novel from bestselling authors, Jennifer Bernard (Love Between the Bases) and Erin Nicholas (Sapphire Falls)!

Caitlyn Murray has never let on that she’s had fantasies about her brother’s friend Eli Anderson for years. She’d do anything for the sexy baseball player who walked away from stardom to stay in Sapphire Falls and take care of his family. But she and Eli are friends.
Just
friends.

So when her brother hatches a plan to get Eli to the pro baseball try-out for the Kilby Catfish and another chance at his dream, Caitlyn is all in. After all, what’s a little kidnapping among friends?

A spot on the pitcher’s mound for the Catfish isn’t the only tempting thing about the spontaneous road trip. Eli already knows that Caitlyn is as sweet as the candies she makes for the Sapphire Falls bakery, but alone with her overnight in the tiny motel room in Kansas, it’s impossible to resist the urge to take a little taste.

But when that taste leads to falling for the girl next door just as his front door is moving hundreds of miles away, can Eli really have it all? Or do they have too many strikes against them?

Getting Wound Up

Copyright © 2016 by Erin Nicholas and Jennifer Bernard

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book, with the exception of brief quotations for book reviews or critical articles, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Editor: Kelli Collins

Cover artist: Valerie Tibbs

Digital formatting: Author E.M.S.

Getting Wound Up

PART THREE

Long, tedious road trips were an essential and detested part of the minor league lifestyle. Most guys jammed on the headphones, some played cards or games on their iPads. Trevor Stark seemed to be sleeping off a hangover behind sepia-toned aviator shades. Jim Bieberman was reading some kind of medical manual, and Shizuko, the hotshot Japanese right fielder, was updating his Instagram for the twentieth time that day.

Eli barely noticed the West Texas landscape sliding past the window of the Catfish bus. He kept reliving every moment of that last day with Caitlyn over and over again, trying to figure out what he could have done differently.

As soon as Ty had led him into Bryan’s hospital room, he’d seen the end written all over Caitlyn’s worried face. And even though he loved Bryan like a brother, he could have socked the idiot. Mechanical bull? What had Bry been thinking? Maybe Eli would have done something like that in his reckless high school days, but his father’s stroke had knocked the stupid right out of him.

Or maybe not.

Did he do the stupidest thing of his life in that Kilby hospital room? Should he have made Caitlyn spell it out that she was breaking things off? Should he have begged her not to give up on them yet? Was he the world’s biggest asshole for arranging a plane to fly the girl he loved a thousand miles away?

But he couldn’t bear the misery on her face. He’d wanted to make it easy for her to do what she had to do.

He hadn’t spoken to Caitlyn since then. She’d dropped him like a fumbled ground ball. He’d called her several times, only to get her voice mail. “You’ve reached Caitlyn Murray. I’m busy cooking up something sweet but I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”

Except she hadn’t. He hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing about the Cracker Jacks at Scoop, had he? What about that “I love you” she’d laid on him? Was it just a heat-of-the-moment kind of thing?

His last words to her hadn’t even been “goodbye” or “I love you” or “you have a little bit of frosting left on your hip.”

No, they’d been “take care of him.” World’s biggest idiot, right?

The thing was…

He knew Caitlyn. She always dropped everything when someone needed her. Just look at how sweet she was with his father. In the early days after Chip’s stroke, she used to come over and read the newspaper to him. Not just the front page and the sports, but his favorite part—the boring real estate section. As soon as Caitlyn’s pretty voice started reading off things like, “Five bedrooms, two baths, updated kitchen…” the rest of the family knew they could relax for a while.

When Bryan had his accident, Caitlyn had left her own life in Denver to come help him. So what was she doing now that her brother had suffered another injury?

Taking care of him. Of course she was. And Eli couldn’t argue with that.
Wouldn’t
argue with that. He knew exactly what that choice felt like.

“You all right over there?”

Eli looked over in surprise as Trevor Stark addressed him from across the aisle. The star had taken off his shades, revealing tired eyes.

“Fine,” Eli said guardedly.

“I saw what happened with your friend.”

“Yeah. Thanks. He’s an idiot.”

Trevor shrugged. “Guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do. Think that changes because he’s in a wheelchair?”

“He wasn’t in his wheelchair. That’s the whole point. He thinks he can do everything like before. He can’t.”

Trevor made another casual movement of his shoulders, which for some reason infuriated Eli. The golden boy, passing judgment on everyone else.

“What do you know about it, anyway? You’ve had everything easy. Walk up to the plate, get a hit. Walk out of the stadium, get a girl. You don’t have any clue what regular people deal with, do you?”

The slugger’s face took on an icy, stoic expression. “You don’t know anything about me, Nebraska.”

Well, that was true. “Same back at you. Which is why you should mind your own business.”

“I intend to. Just wanted to say this.” Eli longed for some headphones to block out Trevor’s comments, whatever they were going to be. But when the left fielder spoke again, it was in a quiet, intense tone. “Things aren’t always what they seem on the surface. From where I’m standing, you’re the lucky one. Your friends came all the way from Nebraska to support you. You have a sweet little hometown backing you up. And your girl looks at you like you’re an ice cream sundae covered in stardust.”

Eli stared. Trevor had an “ice-man” reputation, but right now he read a whole lot of hidden pain on the man’s face.

“You know what matters the most, Nebraska. Don’t let it slip away. Fight for what you want right down to the last strike. Damn, I hate baseball analogies.”

With that, Trevor slipped his shades back on, crossed his arms over his chest and turned his gaze back to the front of the bus. Conversation over.

All of Eli’s anger drained away. For the first time, he’d gotten a real look behind the mask Trevor showed the world. Turned out there was a lot more going on with the guy than he’d thought.

Not that he agreed with everything Trevor said.

Lucky one?
So lucky that when he’d finally gotten a taste of true sweetness, a taste of Caitlyn, it all vanished faster than cookies in the clubhouse?
Things aren’t always what they seem.
Maybe
Trevor was right about that one. Caitlyn wasn’t skipping out on him. She was going home with her injured brother because Bryan needed her. He couldn’t blame Caitlyn for choosing her family over whatever new thing was brewing between the two of them. What he loved the most about Caitlyn was her heart.

But it was exactly her heart that had pulled her back to Sapphire Falls. For good.

“Mom, this is not a good idea.” Caitlyn tried to keep the irritation out of her voice—oh, how she tried—but it wasn’t working at all. Her mother had decided that what Bryan needed above everything else was a backyard cookout, just like the ones he loved as a kid.

Caitlyn had loved their cookouts too, maybe partly because Eli had always been invited. Eli had taught her how to roast marshmallows to a charred crispy shell on the outside, gooey deliciousness inside. Eli had pounded the stakes on her little pup tent and held her hand when she cried because of Bryan’s creepy axe murderer ghost story. All those memories made her mom’s current obsession with hot dogs and s’mores particularly painful.

“Bryan needs to rest and heal. His surgery was only three days ago!”

“I know that, but he’s always loved cookouts. I’m his mother and I know what he needs. He needs everything to be normal around him. That will keep his spirits up during this little setback. Remember when he broke his leg rollerblading on the roof?”

“You mean,
off
the roof. He went right over the edge.”

“He’s always been such a daredevil.” Maggie Murray smiled affectionately at her son, who was sleeping on the couch, slack-mouthed, maybe even drooling a bit. Since the surgery he’d been taking a potent prescription painkiller that really knocked him out.

To be totally honest, Caitlyn had been tempted to filch a couple for herself.

“Mom—” Caitlyn ran through all the things she wanted to say. Yes, the hip will heal. Yes, it’s a temporary setback. But he was never going to be “normal” again. Rollerblading off roofs was not something he’d be doing much in the future. And a cookout? Seriously?

Instead of giving voice to any of that, she let out a long sigh. “I’ll go stock up on s’mores makings.”

“None of that fancy Belgian chocolate of yours. Hershey’s will be fine. That’s what we always used to use.”

“Yes, Mom.” Geez, maybe they should all just hop in a time machine and fly back to the good old days of yore when the worst thing that happened was chicken pox.

“I’ll go call Bryan’s friends,” her mother said happily.

And what, set up a play date? Caitlyn squashed the disloyal thought as her mom left the living room. She checked Bryan one more time, turning his head to make sure he wasn’t going to choke on his own drool.

“Caitlyn,” he said in the drifty voice the painkillers gave him. “Whazzup?”

“Oops, sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

He shook his head as if trying to clear it and struggled to sit up. “S’okay, sis. Ugh, legs like Gumby.” The painkillers also made him talk like a third grader. “Gotta pee.”

Caitlyn bit back a smile. If she were really mean, she’d take a few videos of Bryan on painkillers. She’d have blackmail material for years. “Okay. Let me help you up.”

He gave an exaggerated frown as she crouched down to pull his arm around her shoulder. “Don’t need help. Iron Man. Thor.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re every single Avenger rolled into one. You can skate off buildings and leap mechanical bulls with a single bound. But right now, if I don’t help you get to the bathroom you might pee on Mom’s couch. And not even Captain America can get away with that.”

He actually stuck his tongue out at her—darn, where was her camera?—but allowed her to assist him to his feet.

“Wheelchair, crutch, or shoulder?” she asked. Safest would be the wheelchair, but she didn’t expect him to choose that. He never chose the safest option. His DNA didn’t seem to allow it.

“Mom?”

“She’s in the kitchen calling your entire tenth-grade class to invite them to a cookout.”

Bryan squinted at her, as if not sure whether she was making that up. “Make her stop.”

She nodded. “I’ll try.”

He swayed a little. “Chair,” he finally said.

That one word sent shockwaves through her, but she hid her reaction as she helped him to the wheelchair, which was parked discreetly behind a lamp. Bryan must be really hurting if he willingly chose the chair.

Which meant he needed her.

Which meant she was exactly where she ought to be.

Which meant she had to stop tormenting herself with thoughts of Eli. It could never work between them. He needed to be right where he was, hurling knuckleballs on the mound at Catfish Stadium. She needed to be here, helping her only brother take a leak.