Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
L eaning back on her hands, Audra watched Kerilyn and Damon with the Princess Tiana kite he had bought.
He wore his cap backward and was dressed casually in a dark T-shirt and jeans for their afternoon excursion at the small park. Kerilyn was adorable in a shorts set, her mouth open wide in awe as she gazed up at the soaring kite.
He was so good with her. Patient. Friendly. Audra thought again about what a great father he would be.
“Mommy, look!” Kerilyn called out. Damon had let her take control.
“I see you.”
Kerilyn pranced around the grass, looking back every so often at the kite overhead.
Minutes later, Damon jogged over and dropped onto the blanket beside Audra. “Hey, beautiful.”
“Hey, handsome.” She kissed his cheek.
He angled his chin toward Kerilyn. “I think Little Bit has the hang of it now.”
“She has a good teacher.”
“We didn’t do so well with the baseball earlier, though.” When they first arrived at the park, he’d shown her how to throw the ball and helped her catch it.
“I warned you she’s not athletic,” Audra said.
She watched Kerilyn stumble and then right herself. Her daughter glanced over at them.
“You’re doing great, baby,” Audra called out.
With the encouragement, her daughter started running again.
“I’m going to keep working with her on the pitching and catching,” Damon said in a determined voice.
“That’s up to you, but she’s having a great time with the kite. Where did you find that particular one, anyway?”
“As soon as you told me that she liked Princess Tiana, I started my search. I found it at a specialty store and ordered it rush delivery so it would arrive by this weekend.”
She vaguely remembered mentioning her daughter’s preference when they talked on the phone. A man who listened. Unbelievable.
“I’ve never flown a kite before,” Audra murmured.
“Never?”
She shook her head.
“I used to fly kites all the time. A few of the neighborhood kids and I used to make our own. One time, I made a Spiderman kite. Man, I was so proud of that thing. My boys and I would go to the park and fly our kites until it got dark.”
“How old were you?” He so rarely shared stories about his childhood, Audra was anxious to learn more, especially hearing the excitement in his voice.
“About nine. The park was close to our apartment complex, so we walked over there and spent hours running around.” He laughed, shaking his head.
Then she sensed a change in him. The smile slowly faded from his face, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed.
“How long did you keep making kites?”
“Not long. I quit after a while.”
“Why’d you quit? Sounds like you enjoyed it a lot.”
“My Spiderman kite got messed up, so it wasn’t fun anymore.” He shrugged.
“How’d it get messed up?”
He tore at the grass. “Someone messed it up. He destroyed it.”
“Oh no. Why? Who did that?”
“Nobody important.”
“Was he a bully?” Audra asked, although she couldn’t imagine anyone bullying Damon. But nine years old was a far cry from the twenty-seven-year-old athletic machine known as The Flash.
“No.”
He didn’t offer more information, and right then Kerilyn came running over. She dropped onto the blanket, panting.
“Did you see me?”
“Yes, we saw you. You did such a good job,” Audra praised.
Damon took the kite spool from Kerilyn. “Very impressive. Good job.”
He lifted his palm overhead, and Kerilyn gave him a high five.
Audra handed her daughter a small bottle of water to drink. As she gulped the liquid as if she’d been running through the desert for days, Audra watched Damon from the corner of her eye.
Why would someone destroy his kite? It was a very specific, mean thing to do. If they weren’t a bully, who were they?
“Excuse me.” A blonde woman and a little blond boy approached. The woman looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry to bother you, but are you Damon Foster?”
“I am.”
“See, Mommy? I told you!” the boy exclaimed.
“I hate to disturb you and your family, but do you mind if we have your autograph?”
“No, not at all.”
“Thank you,” the woman said with profound relief.
“What’s your name?”
“Jason.”
Damon scribbled a message and his signature on the notepad the woman handed him. “Would you like to take a picture?” he asked.
The woman looked like she was about to say no, but the boy perked up. “Yes!” he exclaimed.
Damon hopped to his feet, and the woman removed her phone from her purse.
“If you’d like to be in the picture, I can take the photo for you,” Audra offered.
“Are you sure?” the woman asked.
“Yes. It’s no problem.”
Audra stood and took multiple photos of the three of them. She returned the phone to the boy’s mother. “You have several to choose from.”
“Thank you very much, and again, I’m so sorry to bother you.”
“It’s no bother. I appreciate the fans, especially the young ones,” Damon said, fist-bumping the little boy.
After they left, Kerilyn looked curiously at him when he sat down again. “Are you famous?” she asked.
“A little bit,” he replied.
“So that means you’re very busy?” Kerilyn asked cautiously.
Sadly, Audra suspected she was thinking about her father, who was always too busy to spend time with her.
“Sometimes, but I like to have fun.”
Kerilyn perked up. “Playing catch.”
“Yes. And flying kites.”
“And racing.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Did you say racing?”
She nodded vigorously. “I run very fast. Don’t I, Mommy?”
“She does. She’s as fast as a cheetah,” Audra confirmed.
Damon whistled. “That’s fast. I don’t know, though. I’m pretty fast myself.”
“Not as fast as a cheetah,” Kerilyn said. She hopped to her feet. “Bet you can’t catch me.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Kerilyn dashed off, her laughter echoing in the wind as Damon rose slowly to his feet.
“She’s going to wear you out,” Audra warned.
“I consider myself in peak condition, but I’m actually worried you might be right.”
He jogged after Kerilyn, intentionally running slowly so she could stay ahead. Audra watched, laughing as her daughter zigzagged across the grass to escape him.
Finally, Damon picked up his pace and caught up to Kerilyn, sweeping her into his arms and spinning her around.
She squealed happily. “You got me!”
“I always catch cheetahs,” he said.
He placed her back on the ground, and the two of them raced over to the blanket, with Kerilyn leading the way.
“Are you going to sit here all day?” Damon asked.
Kerilyn placed her hands on her hips. “Yeah, are you gonna sit here all day, Mommy?”
“Oh, so the two of you are ganging up on me?”
Giggling, Kerilyn grabbed Audra’s hand and tugged. Groaning, Audra pushed to her feet.
“I want to race again,” Kerilyn announced.
“How about from here to the picnic table this time?” Damon suggested.
“Count to three.”
“Okay. One, two—” He broke off when Audra and Kerilyn sprinted away from him.
“Hey!” Damon yelled after them.
Laughing uncontrollably, Audra and Kerilyn bolted toward the table hand in hand.
They spent the rest of the afternoon flying the kite, tossing a ball, and chasing each other around the park.
Despite having a good time, Damon’s story was never far from Audra’s mind.
Who had destroyed his kite and why?
She wondered if she’d ever know the answer to that question.
Audra reached blindly for her ringing phone in the dark.
“Hello?”
“Hey.” It was Damon.
Immediately, she smiled. “Hey. What time is it?”
“After twelve.”
“Congratulations on the win tonight,” she whispered. He was in Cincinnati, and they’d played the Reds.
“They almost whooped our asses.”
“But you came back.”
“We did. But that’s not why I called. Why’d you send me that picture?”
“Did you like it?” she asked coyly.
“Hell, yeah.”
She had texted him a photo of her looking over her shoulder in one of his T-shirts that barely covered her backside. She had never done anything like that before, but the teasing shot didn’t involve any nudity, and Damon made her feel safe.
“Your butt looked amazing in my shirt, but you already know that.”
She giggled softly. “You have a one-track mind.”
“What was I supposed to think when you sent me a picture like that?”
“I was saying hello and showing you how well your shirt fit.”
“Uh-huh. You’re in trouble when I get back.”
“Promises, promises.”
She missed him so much, and hearing his deep, inviting voice made her long for him even more. The days between seeing him were too long, and the time they spent together was too short.
“You know, I was thinking about Kerilyn and came up with something else we could do together. How about you bring her to the game on Saturday? She can come down on the field and warm up with me and the rest of the team.”
Audra heard the smile in his voice. She glanced at her daughter asleep in the bed beside her, arms spread wide and her chest rising up and down. Since the weekend they spent at the park, she had joined them two more times for activities in the past couple of weeks.
“She would love that.”
“I thought so. I’ll let her throw a couple of pitches and show off her skills.”
Thanks to him, her daughter had gotten better at playing catch, and he was probably just as excited as Kerilyn would be. She couldn’t be more pleased that he enjoyed spending time with her daughter, and Kerilyn enjoyed spending time with him too.
Audra laughed softly. “She’s like her momma—not very athletic—so again, don’t expect much.”
“I won’t be too hard on her.” He sighed heavily. “Damn, I miss you.”
“I miss you more,” Audra whispered.
She wanted to say I love you but didn’t want to be the first to spill what was in her heart—and did Damon feel the same? He would have to express that emotion before she mustered the nerve to tell him her feelings.
“What did you do today?” he asked.
Her answer led them into a conversation that lasted for two hours. When they finally hung up, Audra rolled onto her side. She couldn’t adequately describe what she was feeling—maybe disbelief that this was her reality.
Thanks to Damon, she had learned to trust again. Trust her judgment. Trust in a man.
The clasp around her heart had loosened, and she was open to love. She was confident it was only a matter of time before he told her that he loved her.
She didn’t want to get her hopes up, but she was fairly certain that he was the One. Their relationship was going so well, she couldn’t imagine anything coming between them.