How to Lose a Groom in 10 Days (9 page)

“I can take Polly though,” she offered. “I’ve got room for her at my old apartment. They allow pets.”

“How convenient. You can go right back to your old life now that I’m leaving.” He shook his head. “But no thanks. I’m taking Polly with me. I paid the vet bill. She’s in my name. She’s my dog. End of discussion.”

He felt her frown even though he stared straight ahead at the Florida Turnpike. He’d send someone to pick up his truck tomorrow. He’d be lucky to make it to the private airstrip for the plane at six a.m. For now, he just followed the red glow of taillights on the highway ahead and tried not to think about this season stretching out in front of him—one hundred and eighty some games that wouldn’t be any fun without her.

“You can’t care for a dog on the road.”

“Like hell I can’t.” He actually had no idea how he was going to take the puppy with him, but he wasn’t going to start this season alone. He might not have Melanie, but he would have his dog. “I’ll get a pet sitter when I need to.”

“A full time pet sitter. To travel with you.”

“If that’s what it takes. Yes.”

“Are you sure that’s fair to Polly?”

This time, he did turn to look at Melanie, illuminated by the dashboard lights. She toyed with the ribbon on the bridal bouquet he’d bought for her, curling the pink satin around one finger.

“You know how I knew you liked peonies?” he asked, ignoring the questions about the puppy since he hadn’t thought that through yet.

“
I
didn’t even know I liked peonies.” She lowered her nose to the delicate petals and sniffed. “But they smell amazing.”

“They’re planted at the ballpark. That first night we danced in the rain in the dark, we were close to them. You said something smelled good and I asked the landscaper about them the next day. Peonies, he told me.”

“Grady.” Her voice broke. “I know I haven’t been fair.”

He gripped the steering wheel in white-knuckled fists, staring straight ahead. “What if I stayed here with you? Told the Stars I’d buy back my contract and—”

“No one does that.” She shook her head in disbelief, her silky hair sliding over her shoulder just as it had slid over his body last night. “You don’t turn your back on talent like yours.”

“Hypothetically speaking, then.” He had to know the answer to a question that had bothered him deep in his gut since he’d seen her sprint away. “If I was a regular guy you met at the field. Just another baseball fan. Would it be different right now? Would I know your parents or have a real wife?”

She blinked fast, looking away and outside the window so long he wasn’t sure she would answer. Her chest moved with a heavy sigh. “I’m not sure this will make sense to you, but nobody ever put me first before. I didn’t believe it was real because I didn’t know what that felt like. So, no. I don’t think it would have been any different. I still wouldn’t have trusted what we had was real.”

He’d asked for honesty and he’d gotten it, so he couldn’t complain when it hurt like hell. She wouldn’t have given him her heart no matter what he did. Maybe that should have made him feel better, but it burned a hole straight through him and left him raw. Empty.

Fresh out of words and realizing exactly how small his chances were of ever winning her over, Grady focused on getting to the airfield as fast as the law allowed. He’d shown her that he cared. That he loved her and wanted her in his life. She just didn’t love him enough to want to be his wife.

When he pulled into the private airstrip where the team plane waited, he shoved the car into park but he didn’t get out fast enough. Melanie took his hand and pressed something cold in his palm.

Her wedding ring.

“I’m sorry, Grady.” At least her voice choked on the words. “Truly, I am.”

Grinding his teeth, he took it and dropped it in the Honda’s cupholder.

“I got it for you, Mel. Just like I got the house in Atlanta that I don’t want anymore either. I’ll sell our house, but you figure out what to do with the ring.” The simple act of speaking hurt. Physically. Hurt. He reached in the backseat and pulled out Polly’s carrier. “I’m taking our most important asset.”

He eyed the Golden Retriever pup as she struggled to stay upright in the moving crate. He knew exactly how that balancing act felt and the dog managed a whole hell of a lot better than him.

Around them, he could see other players’ cars pulling into the dark parking lot. He’d purposely put the Honda in a space farther from the team aircraft just in case there were any media gathered, but it looked quiet enough.

“Grady—” Melanie had slipped out of the passenger seat and stood across the hood from him.

But the time for talking was over. He had his answers now.

“Let’s at least end this honestly.” He didn’t know how he’d stand on a press podium and talk about her to the media in a few hours’ time when it hurt this much just looking at her. “I’ll look into an annulment when I get to Atlanta. Goodbye, Melanie.”

He thought he saw a glint of tears on her cheeks, but it was probably a trick of the lights. Turning on his heel, he shouldered his overnight bag and took his dog to start the regular season without his wife.

*

Melanie watched him
leave and wondered if he’d felt like this when she ran out of the courthouse two days ago.

This was how it felt to watch the person you love most in the world walk away from you
.

The hurt was worse than anything she’d ever felt, and she’d taken a lacrosse ball to the eye socket in gym class once. Then there’d been the time her mother had accidentally punched her in the jaw a few years ago when she’d been going for Melanie’s father. But seeing Grady stride off toward the plane—knowing how much she’d hurt him even though she loved him—hit a level of pain that all but doubled her over.

She didn’t deserve him. Hadn’t believed he loved her. Yet, somehow, he wanted her as much—maybe even more—than he wanted a career in the majors. After a lifetime of reverberations in her family from her father’s inability to make it on a major league roster, that simply hadn’t computed in her brain. But was it so hard to believe that just maybe her family experience was wildly dysfunctional? That she’d been given a false view of love, marriage and sensible priorities?

What was she doing playing referee for her parents at her age, anyhow? She deserved her own life. A chance to make her own choices.

The knowledge that she was making the biggest mistake of her life cinched her chest like a vise. Her gaze dropped to the diamond ring in the cupholder and she leaned into the Honda to retrieve the double bands. She squeezed it so tight the setting imprinted on her skin. Fear of hurting Grady even more weighed her down like lead. An even bigger fear of losing him forever forced one foot in front of the other anyhow. She didn’t know what she’d say when she caught up to him. But panic fluttered inside her with the urge to try something. Anything.

The time for small ball and a safe at-bat was long gone. She was down to her last out.

“Grady!” she called, feet kicking up gravel in the parking lot as she outran the glow of her headlights. “Wait!”

“Sorry, ma’am.” A big, burly man stepped into her path from out of nowhere to shine a flashlight on her face. “No unauthorized parties past this point.”

“I’m not unauthorized.” She squinted past the flashlight beam as the security guard’s name badge came into view. “Stephen?”

She recognized him from odd jobs around the spring training facility. They’d both been assigned to lay pavers in a walking path behind right field two years ago.

“Hey, Melanie. I didn’t know that was you.” He clicked off the flashlight. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m – um. In charge of pets on the plane,” she fibbed. “A couple of players are bringing animals with them and I’m taking care of them during the flight.”

She sidled past him while he made a low whistle.

“Sweet gig!” He gave her a thumbs-up sign. “But I thought you married the second baseman yesterday? Was that, like, an Internet hoax?”

She could not let her marriage come down to that—a brief social media rumor stomped out with a press release in the cold light of dawn. There had been peonies.

And love.

“Actually, I really hope not.” She pointed to the plane. “Do you mind if I—”

“Sure, sure.” He waved her past. “Don’t forget the little guys when you’re a big deal player’s wife, okay?”

She smiled at him even though his words made her stomach tighten painfully. She brushed past one of the other Stars, a lanky pitcher who towered over her as she neared the steps to the plane.

Taking the steps two at a time, she shot past the catcher, a Cuban built like a bulldog who stood joking with one of the other air hostesses in the aisle of the posh private jet.

“Grady?” she called, turning the heads of the handful of players already in their seats.

And then, she saw him. Middle of the plane. Bulky, noise-cancelling headphones already in place. He stared out the window next to him even though it was pitch black on that side of the aircraft.

“Excuse me, miss.” A woman in a sharp navy suit approached her from the back of the plane. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave—.”

One of the other players – Boone Sullivan – tapped Grady on the shoulder and pointed. Grady turned to face her, his eyes going wide with hope, then wariness.

Slowly, he removed the headset. “Melanie? Did you forget something?”

He didn’t make a move to stand. Or to save her from the all-business-looking blonde in the tailored suit who still barreled toward her, a team VIP badge around her neck.

“Sorry.” Melanie attempted to smile at the VIP but the woman’s expression didn’t change. Instead, Melanie tried her luck with Grady. “Actually, Grady. I did forget something.” She struggled for what to say. For how to express herself to him in front of one pissed-off looking team representative and ten Stars teammates he’d have to play with all season.

“And?” He looked at her with a touch of weariness, no doubt as exhausted from the last forty-eight hours as she felt.

But then, he didn’t know that her whole life rested on this moment and that gave her the courage to finally blurt what was in her heart.

“I forgot to tell you that I’d rather be your part time wife than anyone else’s full time bride. Because the kind of love I feel for you is enough to fill however long we have to spend apart.”

A few snickers in the aisle behind her. Navy Suit Woman sighed impatiently like she’d heard a million such declarations from infatuated females.

The only person’s reaction who mattered, however, remained expressionless.

He put aside the headset but stayed seated, his eyes still full of hurt that stabbed her clean through. “Since you don’t seem inclined to be married in the first place, Mel, I’m not sure that’s such a resounding endorsement.”

He hadn’t booted her off the plane though. And he was listening.

She blocked out all the eagerly listening ears around her and tried not to think about all the leaks to the press, possibly even a team reporter taking notes. “I spent a lifetime becoming the screwed up woman you see standing before you now. I wasn’t ready to undo it all in the course of a day. And literally, that’s as long as I’ve allowed myself to really think that a future between us might be true. That you and I could really… beat the odds. Become a winning team.” She swallowed hard and laid it all on the line. “I love you, Grady.”

One of the new rookies–-some immature kid – snorted.

Grady scowled and shot out of his seat, jostling the younger guy hard with his shoulder. “Sorry about that, kid. My footing was knocked off balance by your rudeness to my wife.”

His wife.

She’d never heard more beautiful words.

Grady plowed forward, bracing one hand at a time on the seats as he walked the aisle. Toward her. Like a reverse of a wedding march. “Let’s find somewhere more private.”

A whistle sailed up into the cabin.

The VIP lady stopped them both. “Mr. and Mrs. Hollis, I’m afraid you’ll both to have to sit down and buckle in for takeoff. I assume you’re both staying on the plane? Attending the press conference in Atlanta together?”

Melanie thought briefly of her car parked outside, and then forgot all about her past. She was looking at her future and she didn’t intend to let him get away for a second time.

Grady looked down at her. “Well, Mel? Are we?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “We most definitely are.”

“Good,” Ms. VIP said in a clipped tone, belied by a twinkle in her eyes. Or maybe she was just glad that her press event just got a whole lot easier. “I happen to have two seats alone on a row. If you’ll come this way.” She paused to point at the pet carrier next to Grady’s former seat. “And, maybe, bring the dog with you?”

And before she could say uber-efficient, Melanie found herself seated beside Grady in the very back, away from prying eyes for the most part. Major rules had been broken for her to be on this plane. Wives didn’t ride on the team plane—it was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. But the Stars made an exception this once. For them. Maybe this team really did care about each other when it mattered most.