Getting Wound Up: A Sapphire Falls/ Love Between the Bases Novel-- PART THREE (8 page)

See if she still thought getting married was a bad idea.

Because he was going to change her mind about
that
.

In fact, he was going to help her with all of it—Bryan, Maggie, and anything else that Caitlyn had going on in her life.

That’s how it was going to be from now on.

She needed to start understanding that. Right now.

And she would if his father would quit fussing with his bow tie and get in the damned car already.

“Dad, you don’t even have to wear a tie,” Eli called. Chip was in the washroom just off the front foyer, peering into the mirror and undoing the tie for the twelfth time. At least.

“I want to look nice. This is a big night. Nothing wrong with a tie for dinner,” Chip said.

Eli seriously thought he could count on one hand how many times he’d seen his father wear a tie of any kind. He hadn’t even known his dad owned a
bow
tie. Who wore bow ties anymore?

“It’s the Murrays, Dad,” Eli said. “We’ve known them our entire lives. You don’t have to impress them.”

“They’re going to be your in-laws,” Chip said. “This is the first time we’ve all been together since you and Cait finally figured things out.”

Eli stopped pacing and couldn’t help but grin. “Finally?” he asked.

Chip rolled into the room in his wheelchair, a crisp, tightly tied bow tie at his neck.

“Finally,” he confirmed. “What you were doing here all that time and
not
taking her out, I’ll never know.”

Eli felt the same way. Now. He knew at the time, he’d had good reason to stay away from Caitlyn. Or he’d thought he had.

But that was in the past. There was no more staying away from Caitlyn. Ever.

“Yeah, okay. Let’s go already.”

“Lindsay!” Chip called. “You ready?”

“Um…” came Eli’s sister’s voice. “I think so?”

Eli frowned. That was a weird answer. “Are you ready to go to Caitlyn’s or not?” he asked.

“Are
you
ready, Dad?” Lindsay asked from the top of the stairs.

“Yep! All ready!” Chip answered brightly.

“Okay, then I’m ready too.” Lindsay descended the stairs. She wasn’t quite bow-tie level dressed up but she looked very nice in a skirt and sandals with her hair curled.

For a second, Eli felt his heart squeeze. God, he was proud of her. And his dad. He loved them so much. He was so glad to be home.

You miss the mound. You miss the feel of the ball in your glove. You miss the smell of the peanuts and popcorn and the electricity of game day
.

The voice that whispered through his head wasn’t new. He’d been, of course, thinking about everything he was leaving behind to come back to Sapphire Falls. Of course there were things about baseball he’d miss. It was in his blood.

But family and love and home and
Caitlyn
were in his soul.

He couldn’t have it
all
, but he could have what mattered most.

“Since when does Dad being ready to go affect whether you’re ready or not?” Eli asked his sister as he pulled the front door open and ushered them through.

“Just… I was…” Lindsay stumbled.

“I told her to take her time because I was going to primp for a while myself tonight,” Chip said, the motor on his chair whirring as he started for the ramp off the side of the porch.

Without any instruction, or seemingly any real conscious thought, Lindsay moved into place to descend in front of Chip on the ramp. It was a safety technique they’d been taught. It was a very slim chance, but it was possible that the chair could tip and if it did, obviously Chip would go downhill. So his caregivers had been taught to be downhill from him when he was on the ramp.

Eli watched as Lindsay helped Chip off the end of the ramp and stayed beside him as they went to the car. She assisted him into the passenger side and then stored the chair in the garage. While they were out, Chip used a manual chair that was easier to fold up and get in and out of the car.

Eli was still staring when Lindsay looked up at him. “You driving or me?” she asked.

“Uh…” He shook himself. His sister had stepped in without a single problem.

One more thing he and Caitlyn had in common—they underestimated the strength and compassion of the people in their lives.

“You drive,” he told her, getting into the backseat and turning it all over to Lindsay for perhaps the first time in his life.

* * *

Dinner was fun. It was loud and full of laughter, thanks in great part to the fact that Bryan and Chip had similar senses of humor. There was also
a lot
of food. Fortunately, Ty and Hailey had joined them, along with Levi and Kate—the Murrays’ way of thanking Levi for the loan of his private plane—or the leftovers would have been even more ridiculous. As it was, Maggie had already promised to put together multiple containers for them to take home and freeze for future dinners.

Which wasn’t all bad. Lindsay had stepped up in a number of ways and she wasn’t a terrible cook. But there was a lot of distance between not-terrible and Maggie-Murray level cooking.

“Oh, darn it,” Maggie said, coming back into the room with the brownies and cheesecake. “I didn’t get ice cream when I was at the store.”

“Oh, we don’t need ice cream, Maggie,” Eli assured her.

“Yes, we do.”

Ty, Bryan and Levi all spoke at once and then shot each other looks.

Caitlyn narrowed her eyes at Bryan but then turned to her mother with a smile. “I can run and get some,” she offered.

“Oh, that would be so nice,” Maggie said. “Thank you.”

Eli looked over at Lindsay. “Linds, you could go.”

Caitlyn was clearly helping her mother hostess for the evening. There was no reason she had to be the one to run to the store in the middle of entertaining guests.

Lindsay looked from him to Caitlyn to Maggie to Chip and back to him. “Um.”

Caitlyn slid her chair back quickly. “Don’t be silly. I’ll go. It’s no problem.”

“But—” he started.

“You should go with her,” Chip said to Eli. “Keep her company.”

It was four blocks to the store. But who was Eli to argue with a chance to be alone with Caitlyn? He’d kissed her when she’d first greeted them at the door but it had been a chaste hello kiss versus the hot, sweet, deep one he really wanted to lay on her.

“Absolutely. Great idea,” Eli said, pushing his chair back and standing. Why hadn’t he thought of it himself? They could make out for ten minutes easily. No, they wouldn’t be able to blame their longer-than-necessary absence on traffic or road construction or anything, but he didn’t think anyone here would actually wonder at all what had kept them. Or protest if their ice cream was a little soft by the time they got it home.

But just to be sure, they should probably make out before they got the ice cream.

Eli followed Caitlyn out to the car. He caught her wrist and pulled her around to face him, then backed her up against the driver’s side door. He braced his hands on the top of the car, caging her in.

She smiled up at him. “Thought we were going for ice cream.”

“There’s something sweeter I need first.” He leaned in and captured her lips.

Her soft sigh was exactly what he needed to deepen the kiss and press closer. Her body molded against his and after only a few seconds, the back of his shirt was bunched in her fists and she was up on tiptoe.

Eli didn’t move his hands, or his body. Because if he did, this was going to end with Caitlyn naked in her mother’s driveway.

She finally pulled back. “What were we going out to get again?”

She asked it with a smile that made him want to strip her down as much as the kiss had.

“Lucky,” he said. “We were going to get lucky. If we head up to Klein’s Hill.”

Klein’s Hill was the main Sapphire Falls make-out spot. Everyone knew if a girl agreed to go up there with you, she really liked you.

“Aw, I’ve always wanted to go to Klein’s Hill,” she said with a small sigh.

He really wanted to take her… Then her words sank in. “Wait a second, you’ve never been to Klein’s Hill?”

She shook her head. “Never kissed on the Ferris wheel either.”

That was another serious romantic tradition in Sapphire Falls. It was the way to declare yourself to the girl you liked and let the rest of the guys in town know it was hands off. The progression went kissing on the Ferris wheel during the annual town festival, getting to second base on Klein’s Hill, and then third base—or beyond—in the dark corners of the haunted house.

Everything in Eli wanted to do all of that with Caitlyn. Not because he wanted to get to third base—and beyond—but because she’d never done any of that. It was something every girl in Sapphire Falls should do.

And yet he was thrilled she hadn’t done it with anyone else.

“It’s beyond time for you to get lucky on Klein’s Hill, beautiful,” he said, reaching to open the door behind her.

“I agree,” she said, surprising him. “And I’m driving.”

“I can honestly say I’ve never been taken to Klein’s Hill,” he said, starting around the front of the car. Eagerly. More than eagerly.

“You’ve never been to Klein’s Hill either?” Caitlyn asked, one foot in the car and one still on the driveway.

He looked at her over the car. “Oh, um, well…no, that’s not…”

She lifted an eyebrow.

“I said I’ve never been
taken
to Klein’s Hill. I always…drove,” he finished weakly.

Caitlyn just stared at him for a long moment. Then she laughed. “Oh, um…well…yeah, I know.”

He couldn’t help but grin. “You do?”

“Eli, girls in Sapphire Falls have been talking about you for as long as I can remember.”

“Oh.” Yeah, he didn’t really know how to respond to that.

“Are you feeling bad about your reputation suddenly?” she asked, actually seeming curious.

“I am just really happy that I get to be the first one to take
you
there.”

“Little hypocritical, don’t you think? That you don’t feel bad about being up there so much yourself but you’re glad I’ve never been?”

Eli thought about that. Yeah, it was hypocritical. And he didn’t care. He was
damned
glad he was the first to take her up there. “Just get in the car, Candy-girl. This is gonna be a first for both of us.”

He pulled his door open and got in.

She slid in behind the wheel and slammed her door shut. “Oh yeah?”

“Yep.”

“How so?”

“I’ve
never
done the stuff I’m gonna do to you up there.”

She laughed and put the car in reverse.

The drive to Klein’s Hill should have taken six minutes.

Seven minutes later they weren’t even going in the right direction.

He hadn’t noticed because he’d been so distracted with the things he was going to do to and with Caitlyn on that hill. But when they drove past the park and swimming pool and past the huge billboard Ty had put up as a tribute to himself, Eli noticed.

“What’s going on?”

“Just thought we could drive for a bit.”

Eli looked over, saw the tiny curl at the corner of her mouth and it suddenly all became perfectly clear. They’d been in this situation before.

He settled back in his seat and draped one arm along the back of the seat and the other on the edge of the door. “Okay.”

She glanced over. “Okay?”

“Yeah, I like to drive.” He moved his hand from the seat to the back of Caitlyn’s neck. He stroked his thumb up and down the side of her neck. “I like doing anything as long as you’re with me.”

She swallowed.

“And I hate doing things when you’re not with me.”

She looked over. Then back to the road. Then she sighed. “You know what I’m doing, right?”

“You’re kidnapping me. Again,” he added.

His chest filled with warmth and love. He didn’t know what exactly this trip entailed, just like he didn’t know what their life held in the future, but he
did
know that if Caitlyn was beside him, he’d go into it happily.

“I am.”

“I certainly hope it’s to Vegas.”

“You’ve never been?’

“I’ve never been to Vegas to get married.”

She glanced over sharply and Eli wondered if he should quit teasing her so she’d keep her eyes on the road.

“Um, so, no…it’s not Vegas.”

They were heading south. Which could mean a number of things. It could mean the airport or the interstate. Or, he supposed she could be taking him back to Kilby. Texas was south of Sapphire Falls. A long way south, but definitely south.

“We don’t have to get married in Vegas,” he said. “We can get married wherever we’re going.”

The skin of her neck was silky and warm and if he slid his hand forward he could feel her pulse thumping against his thumb. Hard and fast.

“You wouldn’t want your family there?” she asked.