Out of His League Read online

  “Ashley, I am not good with children. You know this.”

  “You work with sick people,” her sister insisted.

  “Brandon is not sick! He is healthy and he needs to get back to school!”

  “You have a car,” Ashley said, hugging herself and staring out the window. “The school’s not too far from here...”

  She didn’t appear to be listening to Elizabeth. Then again, she was Ashley. Even as a girl, she’d been fueled by emotion. A queen of drama. Born pretty, Elizabeth’s older sister had been the head of a clique of girls who’d ruled the neighborhood. Maybe that had been her coping mechanism to their chaotic home life. Elizabeth had coped by hiding in the public library, doing her homework or looking at National Geographic magazines. She had skipped two grades and had been accepted at college in Boston at sixteen, which had been her escape, and from which she’d never gone back.

  Elizabeth tapped her foot. This meeting was unnecessary. She could spend precious time—time she did not have, since she was on duty and had a case to prepare for—explaining to her sister why she could not drive Brandon a half hour to school, in the opposite direction, and then back again, cutting out of her job at the hospital to pick him up. It didn’t make logistical sense.

  But Ashley’s mind was not logical or ordered. Elizabeth needed to cut to the heart of the matter for her.

  “What’s really going on here?” Elizabeth asked quietly. “Why can’t you sit with Brandon through his tests and then take him to school as usual?”

  Ashley stopped pacing. But Elizabeth stepped closer and noticed her sister’s body was twitching. Her skin seemed clammy, and she smelled like...

  No. Oh, no.

  Their mother drank, but to Elizabeth’s knowledge, her sister never had.

  Elizabeth certainly never did. She didn’t chance touching the stuff. That behavior was common, she had read, in children of alcoholics.

  “Ashley?”

  “I...have an appointment with a counselor today,” her sister confessed.

  “That’s...good.” It was excellent, in fact. That showed Ashley was taking charge in an appropriate manner. If Elizabeth had the time, she’d delve into the how and where...check out this counselor and offer her sister medical advice.

  Elizabeth glanced at her watch. In another minute the surgical nurses would be paging her. “Ashley, I really need to get to my next patient.”

  Ashley’s thin shoulders straightened. She’d lost weight, Elizabeth noticed. “I’m leaving Brandon with you at the hospital today.”

  “That isn’t possible.” The emotional response was elevating her pulse, but Elizabeth willed it away. “I have a full schedule of surgeries.”

  “I know. I already talked to a nurse about the emergency child care program for employees that you have here.”

  “You did?” Elizabeth said drily.

  “Lisbeth, here is his insurance card and hospital ID.” Ashley shoved the patient cards at her. Then she tightened her jacket around her as if to close the pain inside. “Please kiss Brandon for me.” Her voice wavered. “And tell that lady ‘thank you’ for watching him while you and I talk.”

  “Ashley—”

  “I have to go!”

  Elizabeth watched, gaping, as her sister hurried away down the corridor.

  “What time will you pick him up?” she called after her, but Ashley just waved her hand and disappeared around the corner.

  Now what?

  Elizabeth racked the logical side of her brain. Actually, her entire brain was logical. She dealt in facts, not “what if” flights of fancy.

  Fact one: Brandon needed to be escorted to his appointment. Thank goodness for the aides in the child care department. Of course she would normally accompany Brandon herself, but a patient receiving scheduled wrist surgery needed her care as his anesthesiologist.

  She quickly dropped off Brandon’s insurance cards at the Emergency Hospital Day Care, and then rushed back to her post.

  On the way, she passed the post-op room where Jon Farell would be recovering.

  She wanted to slow. She wanted to stop in and see how he was doing. Catch a glimpse of those ice-blue eyes.

  He might be lucid by now, and she had embarrassed herself enough already. Nearly losing her reserve and showing tears in front of a patient—it was so uncalled-for, so unlike her normal personality that the entire event had been...ludicrous.

  She was Dr. Elizabeth LaValley, and she did not drop her veil of privacy for anybody.

  Not even for men with understanding eyes and pheromones that smelled like heaven to her.

  * * *

  IN JON’S DREAM, he was sitting in a room, brightly lit by white light, on one side of a conference table. On the other side was a kindly, older man who looked familiar but who Jon couldn’t recall ever meeting. Max, his agent, was there, too, but he wasn’t speaking, he was just listening.

  Jon seemed to be having an earnest conversation; he was telling the man what he was doing in baseball. He was trying to explain why it was imperative that he be allowed to continue.

  “I’m not ready to stop,” Jon told the man. “I still have so much to do.”

  He said a lot more to the man, too, but as soon as Jon spoke the words, he seemed to forget what he’d just said. He was trying to concentrate, but it wasn’t possible.

  “I understand you,” the man said, something Jon clearly remembered. “It’s time to get serious.”

  Yes! Jon understood exactly what he meant. He’d been coasting for too long. If he worked harder, he would be allowed to continue playing pro ball. He would not have to stop this life that he loved so much.

  It’s time to get serious.

  The thought filled him with hope. Even Max seemed to agree.

  When Jon woke, his heart was pounding, the dream fresh on his mind. He knew exactly where he was. Inside a brightly lit recovery room. He felt groggy, his throat sore, his nonpitching hand numb. He looked down and saw it was bound in a thick bandage.

  He tried to sit up, but nausea swept over him. He put his head back down. All of a sudden, he heard a child’s voice whisper next to him, “You’re Jon Farell!”

  The nurse hustled over and bundled the child off.

  Jon turned his head right, then left. “Where’s Lizzy?” he asked thickly.

  “Lizzy? Is she the woman in the waiting area who keeps asking about you?” the nurse asked. “I told her that as soon as you eat some crackers and drink some ginger ale, we can call the doctor and get his okay to sign you out.”

  “No. I want Lizzy. My...other doctor.”

  “Dr. LaValley? She’s presently administering to a patient in surgery.”

  “I need to see her. Elizabeth...LaValley,” he enunciated as best he could, but his words were slurring.

  “That’s my aunt!” a voice piped up. It was the kid. The boy who’d recognized Jon.

  “Brandon,” the nurse said to the boy, “you know you’re supposed to be in the day care center.” She picked up her telephone and made a call.

  “Leave him,” Jon muttered weakly. He still felt so...sluggish yet full of purpose. He supposed dreams did that to people.

  No, not a dream, a vision. And it was so clear. He had to get out of here. Had to get started.

  The kid trotted over to his gurney. Jon blinked at him. Whatever medication they’d pumped him full of, he would be shaky for a while. He squinted, concentrating as hard as he could.

  The kid was about eight, Jon estimated, with sandy hair and those sneakers kids wore that lit up when they walked. He shrugged out of his backpack and grabbed for a pen.

  “Can I get your autograph?” the kid asked. He was missing one of his front eyeteeth.

  Or maybe Jon was hallucinating. “How do you know who I am?”

  “Everybody knows Jon Farell. You have twelve wins, eleven losses, a four-point-one-five season ERA, and one hundred forty-two strikeouts.”

  Huh. Jon didn’t even know all that. He usually ignore
d his stats.

  Those numbers weren’t great, though. He should be doing better. If he were honest with himself, he’d slacked off this summer. The playoffs had seemed a certainty, so maybe the team had socialized and hung out partying together more than they should have.

  He had a vague feeling that had been part of his dream. He wasn’t sure, but he thought they had touched on the topic....

  He struggled to sit up.

  “Hurry!” the kid whispered. “The nurse is coming back.”

  “Maybe you should get your aunt,” Jon said.

  “She’s in surgery.” The kid looked at him earnestly. “She’s a famous doctor.”

  “When I see her again,” Jon slurred. “I’ll give her an autograph for you to take home.”

  “You should drive to her house and give it to her there. I’m eating dinner at her house tonight. I’ll tell her you’re coming to see me.” The kid turned around so his back was to Jon. Dangling from the boy’s backpack was a cardboard address label, freshly filled out in blue ink. “That’s where she lives.”

  With Jon’s good hand—his pitching hand, which, thank God, felt fine—he drew the label closer, just out of curiosity. Dr. LaValley’s address was in Medford. Huh. That’s where he’d grown up. The vision meant something, but he’d known that before he even saw where Lizzy lived.

  He squinted at her street address. He was vaguely certain it was near the school he’d attended as a kid, but Jon’s GPS would know for sure. He dropped back on the bed.

  “Brandon! Leave the patients alone!”

  Brandon let the nurse take his hand and lead him away. Jon thought the boy might have winked at him.

  He still felt so groggy and confused. A second nurse brought him a plastic cup filled with ginger ale, and a packet of saltine crackers that crinkled in its cellophane wrapper.

  “Can you ask Dr. LaValley to come here, please?” he asked, pushing away the crackers. “I have a question for her.”

  “Let me know the question, and I’ll get it answered for you.” The nurse was speaking loudly. She didn’t need to. He understood her perfectly.

  “I want to talk to her,” he said as clearly as he could. The words weren’t coming out so easily. His throat felt sore. Why was that?

  “I’ll tell her that you asked for her,” the nurse said.

  “I need to talk to her...about the surgery. About what happened to me...” Damn it, he was getting tired. And his finger was starting to throb.

  The nurse walked away. Jon peeled back the sheet that covered him. Swung his bare feet to the cool floor. He could feel himself tottering.

  In a split second, two nurses were at his side, swinging him back onto the bed.

  “He wants to talk to Dr. LaValley,” one of the nurses said to the other nurse.

  “Mr. Farell?” The second nurse was in his face now, talking loudly. “Jon?”

  “I want to speak to Dr. LaValley,” he repeated.

  “That isn’t possible. She’s in surgery. But she left a message for you. She said to say that the procedure went favorably. She said to emphasize the word favorably.”

  That was code: Lizzy didn’t think he had cancer. That was good. That was...

  Exactly what he’d asked for in the vision. His wish was coming true.

  But he still had his end of the bargain to hold up.

  Jon leaned back on the pillow. There was so much he could do to improve himself during the off-season. And now that he was out of surgery, he would get right on it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  JON DIDN’T LET Brooke accompany him in the elevator up to his penthouse, and he remembered to ask for everything back that he’d given her to hold for him: wallet, keys, medallion. He wanted no excuses for her to contact him later under pretext of forgotten belongings. The sooner he was back to focusing on his baseball career and in the care of Max alone, the better off he would be.

  Once in his apartment, he crashed on his pillow and slept off the aftereffects of the surgery. He woke at midafternoon, his mouth dry and his finger throbbing with pain, but he refused to take the painkillers the doctor had insisted he leave the hospital with. Instead, he swallowed two acetaminophen tablets with a huge glass of water, before falling back into bed and lapsing into a sleep that felt like a coma. He didn’t wake again until his phone rang.

  “Yeah?” he mumbled into the mouthpiece.

  “Jon Farell? This is Dr. Morgan from Wellness Hospital.”

  “Yes.” Jon sat up, his heart pounding. He held the phone between his ear and his shoulder while he groped for a pen and pad of paper in the drawer by his bed. He didn’t want to miss anything the surgeon said. “Go ahead,” he said, pulling off the cap to the marker with his teeth.

  “We expedited the lab work for you. The tumor is benign. Cancer-free.”

  The pen cap fell from Jon’s mouth and bounced off the pad of paper. Thank God. Thank God, thank God, thank God.

  “Thank you,” Jon said to the doctor, once he was breathing normally again. “I appreciate your taking the time to call me.”

  He also appreciated that they’d rushed his test through the system. Another advantage of playing for a big-market sports team.

  “I’ll see you next week at your checkup,” Dr. Morgan said on the other end of the line. “We’ll remove your stitches then. Until that time, follow the directions the nurses sent you home with. If you have any questions, you can call me at this number.”

  “Will do.” Jon disconnected the call and felt the smile spread over his face. For the first time in weeks, the worry he’d been carrying with him lifted.

  He’d told no one about the growth on his finger. He couldn’t, because the season had been still underway, and the Captains were in the hunt for a playoff berth. And then when it officially ended, he’d made an appointment and, less than a week later, was in surgery. He hadn’t told his dad, because he didn’t want to worry him about the cancer scare. Ditto with his brothers.

  Jon took care of them, not the other way around.

  The only reason Brooke had been with him at the hospital was because at the pre-op checkup, the doctors had insisted he designate a person who would escort him home after the procedure. Of course, he’d called Max. It was Jon’s agent’s job to keep the team informed as to his medical status, but whether Max had done so or not, Jon wasn’t certain. The season was over, and Jon was no longer in day-to-day contact with the general manager and team staff. Things were loose....

  They were worse than loose. Jon’s contract was up, and he needed the Captains to offer him a new one. That had been step two, after step one—get his tumor taken care of. Max had warned him to be cautious about discussing injuries or medical issues when he had a contract to re-sign.

  Now, especially, Jon wanted to shout his good news about the cancer-free diagnosis to the world, but it just wasn’t possible. He wished, at least, he could tell Dr. LaValley.

  She’s waiting for news about her nephew.

  Mentally, he smacked himself. He had met the nephew in the recovery room, and it hadn’t even occurred to Jon that the kid was in the same boat he was. What kind of guy was he?

  It’s time to get serious.

  He strode into the bathroom and took the world’s fastest shower, his nonpitching hand—his cancer-free hand—sticking out the side of the curtain so it wouldn’t get wet. There was probably stuff he needed to take care of in regard to changing the bandage, but he didn’t have time to read the instructions the hospital had given him along with a bunch of bandages and tubes of ointment. He would worry about that when he returned home. For now, he gingerly threw on fresh jeans, a T-shirt and a pair of loafers—seeing as he couldn’t tie shoelaces with one of his fingers bandaged—and grabbed his SUV keys, wallet and phone.

  It was dark outside. He’d slept the whole damn day. Some of that was the anesthesia and painkillers wearing off, some of it was just sheer exhaustion from a week of private worry.

  He called down to valet parking a
nd had Josh bring his Ford Expedition around front to the curb for him. Jon attempted to put on his medallion, but gave up trying to work the clasp and instead shoved it into his front pocket.

  On the way downstairs, he called Max again. As before, the call went straight to voice mail. He shut off his phone without leaving a message.

  He’d deal with his agent later.

  For now, he was driving to Medford to see how a little kid with a cancer scare, like him, was doing.

  And, oh yeah, sign him the autographs he’d promised.

  * * *

  ELIZABETH PUT HER hands over her ears. Her chest felt constricted and her pulse was elevated. Her living room, usually her sanctuary, blared with jarring music from an overloud children’s cartoon. Her nephew bounced on the couch and hummed to himself. “Brandon, please turn down the television so I can hear myself think.”

  The boy gazed back at her with a wide-eyed look that made Elizabeth feel guilty. His mom was staying at an alcohol treatment center in town—unbeknownst to him, thank goodness—and she’d asked Elizabeth to take care of the boy for the next twelve hours. Elizabeth wanted to help them, she truly did.

  “It’s only for one night,” Ashley had said. “Brandon loves sleepovers.”

  With that, Elizabeth had driven Brandon from the hospital to his house, two towns over, to pick up an overnight bag, and then she’d dropped off Ashley’s small dog with one of her coworkers at the beauty salon Ashley worked at. Brandon had chattered and fidgeted nonstop, playing with the radio dials, and when she’d asked him to stop with the radio, he’d fiddled with her cell phone. She had felt so overwhelmed she’d ended up giving in. She just didn’t know what to do with a young boy in her busy life. Not even for one night.

  In no universe would Elizabeth ever be called a nurturer. She was the absolute wrong person to have an active eight-year-old boy spend the night with in her small condominium.

  “Brandon, please,” she asked.

  Blinking, he took the remote and turned down the volume exactly one notch.