Chapter 22
[Cadence]
The chaos of two teammates getting in each other’s face on national television was unbelievable.
I’d originally planned to attend the opening day game and surprise Ford. Then I hadn’t heard from him in the months following the night I’d spent with him in Arizona.
As much as I’d hoped we were friends, we really weren’t, I guess.
Too often I’d reread the note he’d left me along with the silly, sweet gift I’m certain he stole from one of his daughters, and assumed there was more to the gesture.
However, I’d been the aggressor, reaching out to him and showing up at his game.
He’d obviously taken pity on me and invited me to his place for dinner.
Touching my fingers while we slept meant nothing more than touching fingers.
He’d never even made a media statement when all that bullshit started about his divorce and a relationship between us.
Still, I’d gasped when I saw the way Romero Valdez twisted Ford’s arm and took him down in something you’d see in a wrestling match, not on a baseball field.
Releasing Ford almost as quickly as he grabbed him, Romero stepped back holding up his hands as if he were innocent.
Ford remained on a knee, gripping his left shoulder.
I could only surmise he hadn’t gotten the physical therapy he needed, or he hadn’t healed from the previous injury.
Either way, when Ford finally was standing, his arm dangled precariously for a second before he supported it with his other hand to exit the field.
The silence was deafening as fans processed what they’d seen.
Then a slow clap began for their captain.
“Lana,” I’d cried out. “I need a flight to Chicago.”
From Enya, I was able to learn where Ford lived. While he’d conveniently lost my phone number— again—I needed to know he was whole. I had to see him in person. And a quick flight to Chicago was faster than an eight-hour drive from Nashville.
With Evan still an issue, I didn’t have a choice but to travel with a bodyguard.
The situation of a burly man following me around with a wireless earpiece and a dark suit stretched over bulky muscles caused a scene despite my hope to go unnoticed in jeans and a sweater with an Anchors’ ball cap on my head and dark sunglasses.
Following a sharp knock against Ford’s door, Stone answers.
“Cadence?” His broad brow creases in surprise.
From my call to Enya, I’d learned that Stone, Vale, and her son, Hudson, were in Chicago for the game.
“Would you believe passing by and saw the game?” I sheepishly ask, knowing the lie isn’t believable in any way. I’d been in Nashville, frantically re-recording my first album.
Stone glances over my shoulder, noticing the man leaning against a black SUV, hands folded before his crotch. I partially turn before glancing back at Stone. “Don’t mention it. Please.”
Confusion crosses Stone’s face then compassion forms in his rounder cheeks. He steps back allowing me entrance.
Ford’s home is best described as narrow and tall.
Like many city houses, one can practically reach out a side window and touch a neighbor’s place.
In Ford’s case the three-story dwelling looked like any other home on the block with a steep climb to an elevated front porch, giving the home a raised effect.
From the entryway, I hear the chatter of the girls and a response from Vale.
“Where is he?” I whisper, not wanting to draw attention to myself.
Stone tips his head toward the stairs. “Last door on the right.”
“Thank you,” I mouth.
Slowly, I walk up the staircase, making quick note of the black and white photos lining the wall. On the second level, I find the door Stone had mentioned, softly knocking before turning the knob and entering without permission.
Ford sits on his bed, gingerly shifting, glancing down at his arm which rests in a canvas sling and propped up by pillows. He winces, the pain clearly etched in his sharp cheeks as he tries to adjust.
“Let me help you,” I quickly offer, rushing around the bed as Ford’s head snaps upward.
“Cadence?”
Once I’m at the side of the bed, I’m afraid to touch him, hovering my hands over his bent arm, uncertain how I could possibly assist him.
“Looks like you’re in a pickle, cowboy.”
“What are you doing here?” The question is harsher than it needs to be, but considering the pain he must be in, I dismiss the tone.
“What happened?” I’d love to sit on the edge of the mattress, cup his cheek and look him directly in the eye, but the way Ford is looking at me, jaw clenched, face tight, I hold my position, awkwardly standing beside his bed.
He huffs before tipping back his head and staring at the ceiling. “I don’t even know.” The lie is evident. Words were exchanged. He drew first. Or pointed in the face of his teammate, whom he considers the enemy. Romero reacted.
“How are you feeling?”
His head snaps forward again, eyes focused on a large screen television across the room playing another baseball game. “Like shit.”
“Will you need surgery?”
Ford’s head swings once more like the release of a ball. “What are you doing here?” he asks again with just as much irritation as the first time. “And why do you care?”
I step back as if the curveball he just tossed might hit me. “Whoa.” I hold up both hands and narrow my eyes. “Why would you say that?”
“I—” He stops short, as if thinking better of explaining himself. Glancing back at the television, he picks up the remote and changes the channel like I’m not standing here waiting on his reply. “It was nice of you to stop by. I’m tired.”
He’s dismissing me? “What the fuck, Ford?”
I have his attention now. I don’t need a prize because I dropped everything and flew here as fast as I could, but he could at least give me a little more than this brush off. “I know we haven’t talked in a while but—”
“Yeah, I got the message loud and clear.”
“What message?”
Ford huffs like I don’t know what he’s talking about when I don’t.
“Your assistant told me you changed your number.”
“I didn’t change my phone number.” I have several phones, but the one consistent number was the one for people I cared about most and roughly five people had that number, Ford being one of them.
He watches me, his mouth falling open slightly. His expression changes from argumentative to inquisitive to resignation. He looks away again as if the damn game on his television set was more important.
And I hate being ignored. “Ford—”
He continues to stare at the television.
“Is this because of what happened at spring training?” The gossip. The accusation. The implication that Ford and I were more than friends and he had cheated on Felicity with me when she’d been the adulterer.
“No.” He doesn’t blink.
Reaching over him, he hisses in my ear as I grab the remote from his right hand. Aiming the device at the television, I shut it off.
“I was watching that.”
“And now you’re talking to me.”
Only Ford doesn’t turn his head. His lips tight and pursed, he takes a deep breath through his nose. His chest heavily lifts and falls. The irritation coming off him could melt a weaker woman, but not me.
My gaze falls to his shoulder. Shit. “Did I hurt you?”
Ford closes his eyes a second but quickly reopens them and glares directly at me. “You shouldn’t be here. I don’t need you. And it isn’t good for the girls.”
“The girls?”
“I can’t have another woman flit into and then out of their life.”
“I . . . I am not flitting.” I sling the word like it’s a dirty rag.
“I know I’ve been busy, but . . .” I’d put the ball in Ford’s court.
Or rather, I’d tossed it to him, and I was hoping he’d toss it back.
I’d gone to Arizona, and we had a good night.
I was hoping he’d call me next. But once again, I’d misinterpreted the signs.
Ford peers back at the blank television screen, our positions reflected in the black. I don’t understand what’s going on here, but the sling on his arm glares back at me.
The fight tumbles out of me.
I reach into my tote and pull something out, setting it on the bedside table. “Hope you have a quick recovery, Ford. Here’s to watching out for you.”
He doesn’t even bother to look at the yellow rubber duck on his nightstand, a match to the one he’d given me.
When I’d left Ford’s place back in Arizona, a note waited for me on his kitchen counter with a yellow rubber duck.
“Congratulations again on your new venture. It’s a good luck duck. Here to watch out for you.” He’d signed it with ‘quack’. The gesture was silly and cute, and my romantic heart took the gesture to a higher level.
A foolish level.
When I hadn’t heard from Ford, I accepted that we were both busy people. He had his career and the girls, with an ugly situation streaming in the background, and I’d been drowning in the directional shifts in my work. Still, I’d thought a friendship, if nothing else, had begun between us.
I’d been wrong. Again.
A sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach weighs me down. The desire to cry wells up. But I’d learned how to be stronger than this. Never let ‘em see they hurt you was the most valuable lesson I learned from my former manager. Ford was physically hurting, and I wouldn’t let him see he’d upset me.
I’d missed him. I’d missed the girls. But I wasn’t taking this attitude from him.
Without a glance back, I hitch my bag higher on my arm and head for the door. Over my shoulder, I mutter, “Take care of you, cowboy.”
+ + +
By the time I reach the bottom of the stairs, sneaking back out isn’t the plan. I couldn’t do that to the girls. Plus, I’d wanted to see them as much as I was worried about Ford. As for flitting through their lives . . . well, fuck Ford.
These three girls were new nieces to my sister, and by default, I was adopting them as my own.
Aunt Cadence was not a flitter.
Entering the kitchen at the back of the house, June is the first to look up, a smile forming around her thumb in her mouth which she promptly removes.