Chapter 4
“So, pick your passion for a cold, rainy afternoon. Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?” Mason asked as he drove his red Dodge Ram pickup truck up the ramp and out of the basement garage.
It was a good thing he couldn’t drive with his left hand or he’d have to work hard at not letting his right one close over Tess’s knee in reassurance.
She looked close to irresistible on the other side of the console in the big leather bucket seat, wearing the several-sizes-too-large hoodie he’d loaned her.
“Um, hot chocolate, I guess, though there are compelling arguments for all three.”
“Unless you need a jolt of caffeine, I can promise you won’t be disappointed with their hot chocolate. It’s a coffee shop just up the road. I’ll run in. You can wait here out of the rain. I know you must be in a hurry to look for your stuff. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.”
“Thanks. You don’t have to, but if you’re going for you as well, a hot chocolate would be nice.”
Mason left his truck idling because he could see she was still shivering and he didn’t want to kill the heat.
He dropped a few coins in the meter and jogged inside.
By the time he came back with a giant hot chocolate for her and a coffee for him, she looked a lot further from tears than she had when he’d returned to the lobby.
He’d sensed she’d only pulled herself together at the ding of the elevator.
He opened his door and placed the drinks in the console cup holders before gripping the steering wheel to climb into the high seat, something he’d perfected since his left arm and shoulder had been immobilized. He couldn’t say for sure how he used to get into his cab. It had been second nature.
“Is it hard driving one-handed?” she asked.
“So far, so good. It’s my collarbone and shoulder, not my arm. I’m counting the days until I get this sling off.”
He was glad when she didn’t ask how he’d done it.
He worried telling her he’d been in a car wreck might cause her to make a connection he was hoping she wouldn’t make.
Not today. Today, he wanted to be generic Mason from a generic farming family in Iowa.
He didn’t want to be the single, pro baseball player just about every social media gossip column had tagged in one sensationalized story or another that summer.
He didn’t want to be a player on the field or off.
He just wanted to be a guy helping a girl recover her stuff.
She lifted her paper cup in both hands and took a cautious sip. “You weren’t kidding. This is the real stuff. Thanks. Thanks for everything.”
“By everything, do you mean not watching your stuff while you were saving the dog I was supposed to be taking care of?”
He headed for the side streets and alleys that surrounded Citygarden on the north side of Tucker Boulevard. With any luck, they’d find her case or backpack tossed on the ground or in a Dumpster.
“I didn’t ask you to watch my things. The park seemed empty. I figured it was safe, and I was focused on Millie.”
He shook his head and turned down the first narrow street two blocks north of the park. “It seemed empty, didn’t it? Do you want to describe your stuff so we both know what we’re looking for?”
“I had an aqua-colored backpack. The suitcase is a hard-shell spinner. It was rose pink, a gift. They weren’t exactly color-coordinated. But you know what they say: you start from where you are, right?”
Memory rushed over Mason. You start from where you are. He’d heard that line once before and never forgot it. Twice in his twenty-nine years, he’d felt so on top of his game that he’d almost believed nothing could bring him down. Twice he’d been wrong.
He’d been proven wrong just four weeks ago.
The Red Birds had made it to the playoffs and he’d had a phenomenal second season with them.
Then his buddy had been in town and what had seemed like a well-deserved night of partying had led to him piling into the back of an Explorer that, less than a mile after entering the highway, had flipped twice and careered across the highway, severely injuring his best friend and breaking Mason’s nose and collarbone and preventing his participation in his first-ever playoff season.
Three other people had been in the SUV. Two had been injured worse than him.
The other time he’d been knocked down, he’d had a much harder time getting back up.
He’d just finished his junior year of college and had gotten word that he was being considered for that year’s MLB draft.
He’d gone home to his family’s farm in Iowa thinking he was infallible.
Then, one fateful talk with his dad had left him angry and rebellious.
That afternoon, he’d lingered outside too long when the game of catch he’d been playing with his cousin was cut short by a thunderstorm heading their way.
Mason had stood in the field too long watching the clouds race in, trying to lose the leftover fear lingering in him from his conversation with his dad to the power of the storm.
He still remembered feeling the electricity that had been building in the air, causing the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck to stand on end and thinking what an unstoppable force nature could be.
That was the last thing he remembered. He woke up five days later to learn he’d been struck by lightning and that he owed his life to the CPR his cousin had given him until the ambulance arrived.
The strike had blown out his left eardrum and caused a 60 percent loss of the hearing in one ear.
He had also barely been able to move the left side of his body.
His arm had been worse than his leg. Not only was moving it excruciating—it was nearly impossible.
And no one would say for sure how much, if any, movement would return or if, like the hearing he’d lost, it was gone forever.
There was the fatigue, disorientation, headaches, and irritability he’d had to deal with too.
What had terrified Mason the most was the partial paralysis of his left side. He’d wanted to be a pro ball player ever since he could remember, and the dream had been so close, he’d almost been able to touch it.
He’d acted like a caged bear those first several sessions of physical therapy, lashing out at a string of therapists who wouldn’t give him the answers he wanted. He’d finally been passed along to a bad-tempered woman on the verge of retiring who wouldn’t take his shit.
“You want to play ball tomorrow, then move that arm like I say today. You were handed a plate of crap, and now you can quit or you can work your ass off and set your mind to getting your body back under your control. It’s the best choice anyone’s ever given, isn’t it? Starting right from where you are.”
Mason did as the woman instructed and the path to full recovery was long—several years long—and chock-full of bumps and ruts and washouts.
By twenty-five, he was starting to play close to as good as when he’d been struck at twenty-one.
The Orioles picked him up for his first season when he was twenty-six.
He’d been a mediocre player for them and a slightly better one for the Brewers before getting transferred to the Red Birds two years ago.
What kind of coincidence was it that he was hearing those words again now, after he’d had another brush with the chaos and uncertainty that had the potential to derail a career in a mere fraction of a second?
And after a season of riding high, at the top of his game, and feeling like he again had the world at his feet.
His friend Georges’s answer to that was that his unconscious was sending him a message, a loud, clear one that he needed to figure out, and figure out quickly.
Now, here was this girl, not recognizing him from anywhere, but reminding him so strongly of the connection of life. What message had he not gotten back then? What message was he not getting now?
You start from where you are.
“So, were you heading out of town or are you just getting back?” he asked, wanting to stop his racing thoughts.
She squinched her brows, then her face relaxed in understanding. “That’s a good question, considering what we’re on the hunt for. Neither, really. I got back from Europe about a month ago, and I’m staying put in St. Louis for a bit.”
Mason parked the truck at a row of Dumpsters, two for trash and one for recycling. “Europe, huh? Sounds nice.” He slipped the truck into Park and switched his wipers to low. “You can stay here, if you’d like. I’ll call out to you if I see anything.”
Tess unbuckled her seat belt. “Thanks, but they’re my bags. I’ll Dumpster dive.”
They headed over in the drizzling rain together. As Mason peeked behind the Dumpsters, a cat dashed out from underneath and ran off down the street.
“Poor kitty.” The way Tess looked after it was proof of the kindness in her heart he didn’t need after seeing her with Millie.
“Feral cats are pretty good at taking care of themselves. It’s the dogs you see around here that get to me.
” Mason picked what seemed like a clean spot and lifted the first lid.
It was cleaner than he’d imagined and a quarter full with tied bags of trash, a computer monitor, and a silk plant that showed more dust than green foliage.
“True,” she said, moving to the adjacent Dumpster with him and peering in. She had stepped close enough that he caught a whiff of her scent—soft, sweet, and subtle. It mixed with the stink of the Dumpsters, confusing his nostrils.
When the recycling bin proved empty as well, they loaded back into the truck and Mason continued cruising through the backstreets and alleys around the park.
On the fifth stop, they surprised a dog who’d been hanging behind the Dumpster under the cover of a roof overhang.
Mason was surprised to see it was John Ronald.