Ready To Love Again (9 page)

“Chase, then. I’ll see you Thursday.”

Tony bounced in his seat while Chase ended his call.

“So is he excited?” Tony asked.

“I’m sure he’s going to be thrilled, from what his mom said.” Chase pulled Tony out of the chair and set him down on the floor. “It’s time for bed. Go get ready, and I’ll be up in a minute.” He ruffled Tony’s hair before his son tore out of the office.

“Hey, big brother,” Gina called when she passed his office. “Why’s Tony so excited?”

“He just found out Shawn’s on our team.” Chase was cleaning up the mess on his desk when Gina walked in.

“I hope you don’t mind that I told his mom I’d take him after school on practice days,” Gina said.

“Of course I don’t mind. I hope
you
don’t mind that I volunteered you to pick him up every day since I’m going to work with him at pitching.”

A big smile lit up Gina’s face, and she shook her head. “Not at all. Shawn’s a good kid.”

Chase agreed. He’d already seen a subtle change in his once-quiet son, and he credited Shawn. “What do you know about his mom?”

Gina sat down in the chair by his desk. “She starts work at the aquarium next week. Why?”

“Really? Huh. Her voice reminds me of someone. I just can’t place it.”

“She moved here last week from New Mexico, and she’s single.” She gave him a sly smile, but he ignored it.

Chase shook his head. If she’d recently moved to the peninsula, then he probably hadn’t met her before.

“Did I mention she’s pretty?” Gina watched his reaction, which annoyed Chase.

“Gina, please.”

“What? She is,” Gina said. “I’ve never seen such lush hair, and she has very expressive green eyes.” Her smile grew wider. Chase rolled his eyes and stood, looking to escape the discussion.

“Good night, Gina.”

~*~

Shawn drove Katie crazy the whole week with his constant baseball chatter. Every time he brought it up, she’d smile and act interested, while secretly she thanked Coach O’Donnell for taking on the role of baseball mentor. Shawn had even tried to call his father to tell him, but Victor still hadn’t returned his calls.

They were running a little late for the first practice when she pulled into the parking lot at the baseball field. As soon as the car was in park, Shawn was out the door and flying across the grass. When she walked to the crowd of parents, Katie caught the tail end of Daniel’s instructions on the team rules. She slid between two parents and hoped to blend in, but it didn’t work. Daniel gave her a small smile, acknowledging her arrival, before he introduced Coach O’Donnell.

“Now, there are only two of us coaching, so we’d appreciate any help we can get from the parents during practices.”

Katie’s head turned to the dark-haired man speaking, and her mouth dropped open.

“Our team mom is Katie Rodriguez, and she’ll handle the schedules and end-of-season party.”

Chase looked up from his clipboard, and Shawn pointed at his mother. When their eyes met, Chase’s features turned from curiosity to recognition and then surprise.

His head snapped back to Shawn. “Is
that
your mom?” he asked, pointing in Katie’s direction. Shawn nodded. Chase turned back to her, a small smirk upon his lips. “Sooo,
this
is Ms. Rodriguez,” he told everyone, but it sounded more like he was confirming it for himself. Katie gave a small wave when some of the parents acknowledged her.

Chase turned the discussion back over to Daniel for any questions. Katie found herself staring at Chase the whole time Daniel spoke, not believing her luck, and he shook his head at her and smiled.

Chase was even better looking than she remembered from the day on the beach. His hair was darker than she’d first thought, but without the ocean breeze, he didn’t look as disheveled. He also looked more relaxed. The wary demeanor he had when she’d met him was gone, to be replaced by an easy smile and comfortable stance. His clothing could have been why he looked more relaxed as well. Instead of the dress slacks and button-down shirt typical of a doctor, he wore a pair of khaki-colored cargo shorts that hung low on his hips. If the rest of him resembled the muscles on his legs, then the Giants T-shirt clung to what she imagined were hard-as-steel abs. By the time her eyes traveled the full gamut, she realized he was watching her. Katie snapped out of her daze and looked away, wondering how long he’d observed her making a fool out of herself.

He’s married.
He’s married. He’s married.

Katie pulled herself together and went to the bleachers as the coaches and a couple of the dads took the boys out on the field. Despite her internal acknowledgment of his marital status, her eyes always strayed back to Chase. She reasoned with herself that there was nothing wrong with admiring the physique of an attractive man, as long as she didn’t turn into that horrid woman from tryouts.

The longer she watched him, the more she realized he was excellent with the boys. He gave them encouragement and was patient while he showed them the proper way to catch the ball. Shawn took in everything Chase taught him with hero worship in his eyes.

“Hey, Ms. Rodriguez?”

Katie pulled her attention from Chase and looked at the blond-haired man who had been throwing ground balls to the boys. His fingers were threaded through the fence of the backstop, and he had a cocky smile on his face. He was attractive, but his leering smile and perusal of her body made her wary.

“It’s Katie,” she responded, and his smile grew larger.

“Not married?” he asked.

As a rule, the men who had flirted with Katie in the past weren’t quite as obvious about their intentions. “Um, divorced.” She looked away. If she ignored him, maybe he would turn his attention back to the boys where it belonged.

“Katie.” A singsong voice came from behind her, and she turned, grateful for the interruption. Gina waved Liz off to go hang out with her friends before she climbed up on the bleachers beside Katie. She glared at the ogling pest who was trying to get her attention, dismissing him with a flip of her hair before turning her full attention back to Katie. “How have you been?”

“I’m doing great. Everything’s unpacked, so I have a few days to relax before I start work.”

A small huff come from the man who’d tried to get their attention, and Katie watched out of the corner of her eye when he turned and walked back to the boys. As soon as he was out of earshot, she let out a long, relieved sigh.

“Who was that?” she asked Gina.

“That is the infamous Mitch Arnold of Arnold Construction.” Gina wrinkled up her nose and continued. “He tends to be somewhat of a bully, and you’ve already met his lovely wife.”
 

“Tammy?”
 

Gina nodded with a roll of her eyes.

Great! The Wicked Witch of the West will be a thorn in my side for the rest of the season.

“She already showed you her finer qualities.” Gina shook her head in disgust. “I feel sorry for Chase. He’s going to be dodging her advances for the next three months. Talk about taking one for the team.”

Katie eyes sought out Chase on the field and caught him looking in their direction. Heat rose in her cheeks, and she wondered how a glance could make her feel burned from the inside out. His wife was one lucky woman.

He’s married. He’s married. He’s married.

“Did you meet Chase?” Gina asked when she followed Katie’s gaze onto the field.

“Informally. We met on the beach the first night I moved here.”

Gina stared at her with her mouth open, so Katie tried to explain, not wanting her to get the wrong idea. “I took my dog out on the beach, and he wouldn’t leave Chase alone.” She shrugged her shoulders to show it wasn’t a big deal, but by the look of shock in Gina’s eyes, she didn’t feel the same way.

“When was this?”

“A week ago last Saturday.”

Gina sucked in a large breath and stared at Katie, wide-eyed. “The seventh?”

“Yeah, why?”

Gina shook her head. “It’s a huge coincidence.”

“What’s a coincidence?”

“Nothing . . . everything.” Gina gave her a wry smile. “When you think about it, there must be some divine intervention working to bring us all together. You and I will be working together, Shawn and Tony have become best friends, and you met Chase on
that
particular day.”

“What do you mean by ‘
that
particular day’?”

“Nothing, it was just a hard day. How’s Shawn doing with his first practice?”

Katie wondered about the sudden change of subject, but once she realized what Gina had asked, she felt guilty. If she hadn’t been ogling Gina’s
married
brother, then she would have been able to answer her question truthfully.

“Um . . . he seems to be doing fine.”

Katie looked across the field and found Shawn in a low squat, the bat gripped tight in both his hands. He pulled the bat back and rested it on his shoulder, but Daniel lifted the bat off and showed him how to hold it the correct way. In the short amount of time Katie had known Daniel, she could tell he loved the game and wanted to share his enthusiasm with the boys.

“Daniel’s excellent with the kids,” Katie said.

Gina smiled and nodded. “Yeah, Tony is spoiled between Chase and Daniel and their passion for the game. They’ve turned him into a walking statistics machine.”

Katie laughed at her assessment. “Apparently, it has rubbed off on my son. Shawn, who to my knowledge has never watched baseball, spouted off Buster Posey’s batting averages this week.”

“Yeah, just don’t get them started on Giants trivia or Daniel won’t shut up for days.”

They watched the different children on the field while they talked about everything from Gina’s wedding to the best place to take Buddy for a trim. Gina introduced Katie to a few of the parents on the team and told her about Daniel’s career in pro baseball, which explained his dedication to the kids. It had been a long time since Katie had a girlfriend to chat with, and she found she’d missed it.

Gina pointed at the two bullies who had been at the tryouts when one of them rammed his shoulder into Tony. Tony brushed it off and ignored him, running over to Shawn.

“Those two boys have been cruel to Tony since he was in kindergarten. I think with Shawn around, things might get better,” Gina said with a small nod of her head.

“About Shawn . . . I need to apologize in advance for anything he may do in the future. He doesn’t always think before he acts.”

“Don’t worry about it. Tony needs a little adventure in his life. He’s too reserved.”

Gina stood and made her way down the bleachers, brushing off her backside as she went. She looked around for a moment before she spotted Liz, then let out an ear-piercing whistle between her teeth.

“Do you have plans for tonight?” Gina asked Katie over her shoulder.

“No, I’m headed home to make dinner.”

“How about we go out to dinner, just us adults? There’s a great restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf that we go to all the time.”

“I don’t know. I—”

Gina cut her off mid-sentence. “Shawn can come over and stay at our house, and I’ll get a babysitter.”

Gina made it hard to put up an argument. “All right, but I can’t stay out late. Shawn still has school in the morning.”
 

Katie thought Gina’s smile would split her face in half. “Fantastic! Chase loves the Grotto, so he’ll—”

“Who’s going to be there?” Katie asked when she realized Chase was invited. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to meet the lucky Mrs. O’Donnell.

“Chase, Daniel, and me.”

Katie nodded. “What about Chase’s wife?”

A pained expression crossed Gina’s face, and Katie considered apologizing for prying before Gina answered.
 

“Chase’s wife died three years ago.”

Katie’s heart dropped to her toes at the pain she heard in Gina’s voice. She mumbled an apology, and her thoughts drifted to Tony and Liz and the grief they must have gone through after the loss of their mother at such young ages. At that moment, Katie was grateful Shawn still had Victor, even if he lived in another state.

~*~

Chase spent the majority of his time on the field lost in his own thoughts. What were the odds that the woman he’d met on the beach would be the mother of his son’s best friend? Gina had been correct when she said Katie was pretty. Attraction to a woman was something Chase hadn’t thought about in a long time, and it made him uneasy. He ended the practice and asked Shawn and Tony to put away the equipment.

When he approached, Gina’s smile increased. He couldn’t help but be afraid at what ideas she might have concocted. She had tried to set him up with her friends in the past, but he always called a halt before she could make any concrete plans. The look on her face told him she wouldn’t stop this time. Gina met his eyes as he came up behind Katie, and he gave his head a quick shake, warning her to behave.

“Katie, this is my brother, Chase.”
 

Katie’s smile was warm. There didn’t appear to be any of the not-so-subtle flirting he’d experienced from the nurses at work. She took his hand in a firm shake. “It’s nice to put a name with the face,” she said.