On Common Ground (Harlequin Super Romance) (11 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T
HE
BALL
BOUNCED
THROUGH
the legs of the shortstop and trickled out to left field where the player picked up the ball and threw it clean over the head of the first baseman. The laughing batter, a woman from Lilah’s class at Grantham whom she remembered as a total stoner but who had earlier informed her that she was now a thoracic surgeon in Cincinnati, scampered to second base. There was much clapping and cheering from the stands and sidelines.

A beer was thrust into Lilah’s hand. “The winning strategy appears to be to hit the ball on the ground,” her father, Walt, quipped. He squished next to Lilah on the bottom row of the bleachers and took a sip from his own plastic cup.

The tradition of the current year’s graduating class playing the tenth reunion class was long-standing at Grantham. Many crocodile tears and much cheap beer were annually spilled over the outcome, and the manager of the winning team claimed the right to wear the trophy—a goofy lion’s tail made of unknown fibers.

“What? None for me?” asked the woman to her father’s right.

“Why, Daphne, you never drink beer,” Walt said with a surprised tone.

“Don’t be ridiculous! I always drink beer at baseball games,” she retorted, adjusting her hand-knit cardigan sweater. A single horn-shaped button held the moss-green top together in the front.

“But you never go to baseball games,” Walt countered.

“A technicality,” she said with the authority of a first-grade teacher, which is precisely what she’d been before becoming principal of the elementary school on Orcas Island. She stared at her husband, batting her lashes with hauteur, and waited. As a complete and welcome surprise to Lilah, her mother had finagled the time to join her father on the trip.

He laughed. “Okay, no need to spell it out. I’ll go get you a beer. Meanwhile, guard this one with your life,” he said to Lilah. “I don’t trust her.” He winked and pointed to his wife.

“I could use a beer, too, so why don’t you let me?” Justin offered, springing up from the raised seating behind Lilah.

She could feel his knees brush up against her shirt as he rose. She looked down at the sneaker that he placed next to her as he sprang down gracefully onto the grass. She opened her mouth, and realizing she was about to sigh, she snapped it shut and sucked in the sides of her cheeks.

“Why don’t you both go on the mission?” Daphne suggested. “Consider it part of your male hunter-gatherer role,” she said with a laugh.

Justin smiled imploringly at Lilah’s mother. “Would you like some chips or pretzels, too?” Then he zeroed in on Lilah. “Anything else?” The corner of his mouth twitched.

Lilah shook her head. She didn’t really want to voice out loud what she wanted.

Daphne patted her rounded stomach. “That’s okay. I’m saving myself for the pig roast.” The two men took off and Daphne slid closer to her only child. “Walt knows it’s all a ploy so that I can sit next to you, but he also knows better than to complain.”

“He’s always had a way with strangers,” Lilah observed, admiring Justin as he easily chatted to the gathering of soon-to-be graduates and the alums. Almost reluctantly she shifted her gaze to her father, his gray hair curling over the collar of his barn jacket, his face deeply lined and tanned from hours on the water. He was busy regaling her surgeon classmate with some story.

Daphne chuckled. “It’s true. The man is a natural-born charmer. Is it any wonder he took up the charter boat business?”

Lilah did a double take until she realized that her mother had mistakenly thought her comment referred to her father. “I can’t imagine him doing anything else,” she responded.

It was true. Lilah’s father had been an engineer for Boeing, devising the complicated computer models for designing airplanes. Then one Friday evening when Lilah was eight, he walked in the house after flying his Cessna from Seattle to the island and announced, “That’s it! I’ve had it. No more corporate life for me.”

Daphne, who’d been fixing dinner in the kitchen of their cottage overlooking the water, had looked up from the sink and said, “I’ve always said that life’s too short to keep doing something you don’t love. But tell me. What do you plan to do instead? Read mystery stories all day?” She hadn’t shown the least bit of worry in her face or her voice as she continued to peel potatoes.

Lilah had many memories of her mother peeling potatoes.

Her husband had crossed the room and put his arm around her shoulder, a gesture that didn’t require him to raise his arm that high. Her mother barely reached five feet two, while her dad was a strapping six feet. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head and together they looked out the window over the sink. “We’re lucky to live here, aren’t we?” It was late spring and the sun was beginning to set. Light dappled the water with iridescent splotches. Beyond the blanket of fir trees that covered the rocky soil down to the shoreline, Mount Baker stood supreme in the distance. There was a moment or two when no one talked and her mother had moved to put the pot up to boil.

And that had been the start of her father’s business taking tourists on whale-watching tours. From one boat he’d expanded to four, hiring biology grad students and naturalists to work for him in the summer months when the demand was high. But even as the business grew, Walt found occasion to go out on a boat twice a week. Like her mother said, he was a people person—who right now was making all-new friends as he filled the large plastic cups.

Daphne reached for the beer, took a sip and made a face. “Now I know why I never come to baseball games. Here.” She passed the cup back, glanced over her shoulder to check on Walt again, and then hunched close to her daughter. “Quick, while your father is out of earshot, are you sure you’re all right? When Justin picked us up at the airport, saying that you’d been waylaid when your car was rear-ended, I have to tell you I was more than a little concerned.” Her eyes roamed Lilah for signs of injury.

Lilah shook her head and focused on Mimi stepping into the batter’s box. That didn’t prevent her from watching Justin out of the corner of her eye. He bent down as a woman stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. Lilah felt a sudden pang of jealousy. She turned quickly to her mother. “I’m fine. Really,” she said, to reassure herself as much as in response to Daphne’s question. “It was just a minor accident, more paperwork than anything. And the car rental agency was very understanding.” Without even thinking about it, Lilah rubbed the back of her neck.

“Are you sure you don’t have whiplash? Sometimes these things can come on you after the fact. Maybe that’s the reason you declined to play in the game, which looks like such fun, dear.”

The pitcher threw a slow arching ball, and Mimi went after it, shifting her weight forward with true athletic grace. There was a loud crack as the metal bat made contact.

Their team manager led the cheers. He was a member of the State Department’s policy committee for Latin America who was sporting a T-shirt that read Diplomats Never Kiss and Tell. At the same time, he looked down at his lineup card. “Hey, Justin, where are you?” he shouted as he continued to clap away. The man had clearly mastered multitasking.

Lilah tried not to obviously stare as Justin hustled over to him. She was becoming obsessive—which was positively ridiculous. So instead, she followed the flight of the ball that Mimi had walloped but good. She held up her hands, ready to clap. “Mom, I’m not going to say it again. I’m fine. The only reason I’m not playing is because we had too many people and with my lack of hand-eye coordination, I thought for the good of the team I’d simply serve as a substitute. Remember Dad’s attempts to teach me fly-fishing?”

Her mother patted her on the leg. “It’s hard to forget.”

The right fielder took off—the lion’s tail attached to his cap—and made a final dive with his outstretched glove. Time stopped for what seemed an eternity. All heads turned, mouths opened. Mimi glanced over her shoulder as she rounded third.

“Well, it looks like only one of our brave warriors is returning,” Daphne announced.

But Lilah’s focus was on the game. The outfielder slid on the grass. The ball tipped the edge of his oversize mitt, hung precariously in, then out. He squeezed the glove together.

And it slipped in.

His young teammates jumped from the benches and ran out to congratulate him, sloshing beer as they raised him from the grass and doused him ceremoniously.

The opposing team members shook their heads and decried the cruelty of fate.

Deflated, Lilah turned back to her mother. “What did you say?”

“I said that—”

“Justin apologized, but he’s up to bat soon,” her father interrupted as he trotted over to join them. “Maybe he will avenge the honor of you and your classmates?”

“We can only hope,” she replied with a smile. Honor was the last thing on Lilah’s mind where Justin was concerned. And frankly, she could do without her classmates at the moment.

A dejected Mimi headed toward the bench. “Hi, Mrs. Evans. What a surprise. I’m glad you could make it. I didn’t think you could get away.” Mimi bent over to give her a kiss on the cheek. She rocked back on her heels. “And, Mr. Evans, you look great. That hit you got in the first inning is the only thing keeping us in the game.” She gave him a hug.

He juggled the plastic cups. “Yes, your manager was kind enough to let me be in the starting lineup. If I didn’t have a bad shoulder, I’d have stayed in the game. I can’t tell you how irritating it is.” He held out a beer to his wife. “As you requested.”

“Why don’t you give it to Mimi? I think she needs it more than I do.”

“Thanks. Just what the doctor ordered.” Mimi took a large gulp.

Lilah couldn’t help thinking how cute her parents were and how lucky she was. “And, Mom, what Mimi said about you making this surprise visit? I thought you were up to your eyeballs in end-of-the-year commitments and graduation stuff for your school right now. And I just wanted to say again how much it means to me that you came.”

“You can thank your classmate, really.” Her mother cast a pleased glance at Justin. He was standing in the on-deck circle, talking with another classmate—Hunt Phox, a local Granthamite who was next up to bat. Hunt had rowed lightweight crew with Justin.

“Once he explained over the phone just how important the award was, and how much I would regret not being here, I knew he was right,” Daphne went on. “It was also his idea to make it a surprise. You know, he can be very persuasive—not to mention charming.” Daphne looked at her daughter with a certain twinkle in her eye that Lilah didn’t normally associate with her no-nonsense mother.

“And did I tell you how much fun it was to sit in that little backseat of his car? Your father had wanted me to sit on his lap, but I insisted,” her mother mused, a smile twitching at a corner of her mouth. “I felt deliciously young and silly wedged in sideways like a pretzel.” She stared at Lilah. “He’s quite a find, your young man.” Then she raised her eyebrows to include Mimi in the discussion.

“Not too shabby,” Mimi said with a smile on her lips.

“He’s not ‘my young man,’ Mom,” Lilah clarified, scratching her ear. She glanced away, avoiding her mother’s gaze. “So where did you guys end up staying? I know that Mimi had wanted you to stay at her dad’s house, like you did at our graduation, but there’re renovations going on.”

“I can’t tell you how much that teed me off,” Mimi complained.

Her mother patted the place next to her on the bench. “Here, have a seat and don’t fret about it, Mimi. I wanted to see you, not your father’s house anyway.”

Lilah was so proud of her mom. She might be overly earnest sometimes, but her heart was always in the right place. “You know, by the time I got around to inquiring about arrangements, the alumni association said the accomodations had already been taken care of. Did they find you some hotel miles and miles away?”

“Didn’t you know? Justin had arranged with the alumni association for us to stay at his parents’ house on Edinburgh Avenue. We thought it was a bit unusual, but Justin insisted that his parents frequently put up visiting scholars in the extra bedrooms now that he and his sister have moved out. It’s their way of extending hospitality to deserving members of the university community.”

“It’s perfect, just a few blocks from campus, just beyond the social clubs,” Lilah’s father chimed in. “That’s why we called to tell you not to bother to pick us up. We were able to walk here, which was so nice after being cooped up in the airplane for so long.”

Mimi sipped her beer thoughtfully. “The ever-remarkable Mr. Justin Bigelow. Will wonders never cease?” She gave a teasing smile over her shoulder to Lilah, who made a big show of looking toward the action.

Hunt Phox slammed a single over the second baseman’s head and moved the runner into scoring position. He stopped at first and bowed ceremoniously as everyone around Lilah clapped. Mimi added a wolf whistle.

Naturally the opposition booed loudly. “Lucky hit, gramps,” one supporter called out near the keg.

“It’s the new prescription,” Hunt shouted back, pointing to his wire-rim glasses. “Works like a charm.”

“You rock, Hunt,” Mimi shouted out, her hands cupped around her mouth. “So, Daphne, did you meet his family? Justin’s, I mean. I vaguely remember his dad—this absentminded professor type. But he did teach this popular lecture course about epic Greek and Roman literature. We nicknamed it ‘Gods and Bods.’ All the jocks took it because you were guaranteed at least a B. And then there was his mother who I sometimes saw wandering around campus with a butterfly net and a sketch pad.”