Chapter 29
Dan Duke sat in the Leaders’ dugout, a bottle of water in his good hand, his right arm strapped tight in a sling. His fractured shoulder had him benched for the first time since he was twelve, and it was driving him crazy. He’d come down from the bleachers just to be near the action.
“Don’t tell me your mother said you could come down here?” Leah said to him as she dropped into the seat beside him.
Hot, sweaty, and distracting, he thought, looking at her black exercise shorts and Leaders top. Like Zoe, she had a team cap on with her hair pulled through the back. She looked different today. The tension had gone out of her, he realized. Leah looked happy, and it suited her.
“You’re up, Leah!” Jed called.
“Go get ’em, slugger,” Dan said.
She gave him a quick smile and picked up her bat.
JD jogged past. “You look shitty.”
“I’m fine,” Dan said, watching Leah. In fact, he was pissed. Just another reason to hate Grill.
So far no one had found him, and that unsettled Dan because that man could hold a grudge, and now that he’d lost everything, he’d be even more dangerous.
“What the fuck are you doing down here?” Sawyer demanded, glaring at Dan.
“I’m all right, Sawyer,” he said to his big brother. “Sit or move. I can’t see Leah.”
“You need to take it easy.”
Dan knew it was worry talking, but it still annoyed him.
“I know that, and I’m sitting down, wearing a fucking sling, in case you didn’t notice.”
His brother gave him a hard look and then sat.
Dan watched Leah swing her bat a few times, and then she was ready. The Keller fastball nearly took her head off.
“Bastard,” Dan hissed.
Before he could yell some abuse, Leah grinned. “Is that all you’ve got, Beau?”
“Relax, she’s got this,” Zoe said from Dan’s left.
And she did have it. So Dan relaxed and watched the game.
The Leaders were all power, with deep hits that had the Levelers scrambling, while the Levelers were quick and ruthless on the bases.
By the fourth inning, the insults were as much a part of the game as the scoreboard.
“Hey, Duke, nice swing. My grandma hits harder!” Caleb called.
“Is your grandma single?” Brody yelled back.
Dan sipped his water, the corner of his mouth twitching. He hated not being in the middle of it, but it was hard to stay in a bad mood with this much noise and sunshine. Plus, Leah. She was the catalyst for his happiness.
By the seventh inning stretch, the score was tied. Someone started the wave in the bleachers; it died halfway through the Leaders’ section when Larry Limpet and Miriam Sutton refused to stand. The crowd booed.
Then JD connected with a line drive to center field, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Two runs later, the Leaders were in front. The last Keller batter went down swinging, the lavender bleachers exploding in cheers.
The handshake line at the end was stiff, and there were lots of muttered words and forced smiles, but it was tradition.
Dan watched Hudson run to his aunt, with Ally on his heels. Dan’s mom and Callum were close behind.
“You were amazing, Aunt Leah!”
“Thanks, Hudson.” She hugged her nephew as he ran into her arms.
Dan watched the boy whisper something to his aunt.
“Okay, so, how about I do that now. It won’t take long.”
“Really?” Hudson asked, and she nodded.
“If you take Hudson to Circle Left, Uncle Callum, I’ll just go home and feed Benny for him.”
“No problem at all,” Callum said, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“I’ll be back soon.” Leah started to walk away, but Dan stopped her.
“Leah.”
She turned, and they just looked at each other for long seconds. It was Leah who moved first, rising onto her toes and kissing him right there in front of the town of Lyntacky.
“I’ll be back soon, okay?”
“You just kissed me in front of the entire town, sweetheart. You know what that means, don’t you?” Dan asked, holding her close.
She rested her hands on his chest. “What?”
“It means we’re together again.” This time he kissed her.
“I can deal with that.” She gave him another smile and walked away, and he thought, There goes my heart.
“So, you and Leah,” Ryder remarked from the front seat as they drove to the after match.
“I like it,” Libby said from beside him.
“Me too,” Ryder said. “They’ve always been destined for each other.”
“Aww,” Libby said, leaning over to kiss Ryder’s cheek.
“You two are making me nauseous,” Dan said.
“Love you, too, little bro.”
His siblings could never take an insult.
“She’s good for you, Dan.”
“In what way, Libs?” he asked.
Dan liked his brothers’ partners, and this one was no different. Like the other women in his family, she was strong now. Independent and loved.
“I don’t know a lot about her, but I see someone who is searching for a place to stop running. She needs you to help her with that because I think you’re Deputy Dan, who is much loved, and you’ve never had to work hard for the love of a woman—”
“I don’t know that he’s had to work really hard for anything except policing,” Ryder cut in.
“I have. You just don’t know about it,” Dan said.
“Yeah. Like what?” Ryder said.
“I have my demons, bro, but we all do. I just don’t bitch about them like the rest of you.”
He’d meant it as a joke, but Ryder didn’t take it that way. “I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could talk to us about them.”
“I didn’t want to talk to you about them, and that’s the point. I sometimes like to deal with shit on my own.”
“I can understand that in a family like this one,” Libby said.
“It’s pretty cool, though, right?” her man added.
“The best, but back to my point about Leah.”
“Oh goodie, there’s more to that point,” Dan drawled.
“My point is that I think you need each other. You need your own person, Dan. Not family, but yours, and she needs that from you, if that makes sense. She’s had a tough life, and I think the two of you together, with Hudson, of course, can really build something.”
He wanted that, Dan realized. For the first time in his life, he wanted to have his own unit… family. His own people to love and protect.
Ryder sniffed. “Something in the air,” he muttered.
They reached the Circle Left along with the rest of those who were attending the after match.
His family loved this place. The gingerbread house, they used to call it, since it was pink with white trim.
Several stories tall, it was old and one of the original buildings in Lyntacky, and had once been a saloon.
Plenty of the history was still inside the walls of the building.
They headed inside and found everyone talking over top of each other, and there was a beer waiting for Dan on the bar, courtesy of his mom, who was still with Callum.
“Do you think it’s serious?” Ryder asked him.
“Not sure how it can be so fast, but I guess we’ll see,” Dan said.
“I guess we will.”
“Line up for shots!” Linda, the owner of Circle Left, roared. She was wearing a magenta saloon girl dress, as she called it, and had her blonde hair high on her head.
“God, I love this town,” Ryder said. “Pick a line, little bro.”
He was soon behind June Matilda and Dee Heckler.
“Not working today, Dee?”
“Nah, me and Red are taking a day off.” She wore what he guessed was one of her children’s Leaders team shirts, and it was so tight, someone must have helped her pull it on. On the bottom, she had on a miniskirt.
“Nice. Enjoy the break, then.”
“Go!” Linda shouted.
Dr. Hannah, thankfully now fully clothed, threw back her shot and belched. Next was Leah’s uncle, and he did the same without the belch. Dee sauntered up, bent and placed her mouth around the glass, straightened, and drank it down without using her hands.
“Badass,” Zoe said from her line.
Dan laughed, drank, ate, and talked with friends and family, feeling lighter inside than he had in years. Not that he’d been feeling bad, but he now realized what he was missing. Leah. But not anymore.
“Do you like me?”
Dan dragged his eyes from the door where he’d been looking for Leah and down to Hudson, who was now standing beside his chair.
“Hey, buddy, of course I do. Why do you ask?”
The boy was looking worried. “I saw you kissing Aunt Leah.”
He got it then. Dan pulled out the chair next to him and patted it. “Take a load off, Hudson, and we’ll talk.”
The boy did as he asked.
“I’ve known your aunt Leah for years, Hudson, and loved her for just as long. We drifted away from each other for a while, and now we’re close again, but that doesn’t mean anything changes for you. In fact, what it means is, you get me as a friend too… if you’ll have me?”
He saw the relief on the boy’s face then, but he was hesitating.
“I really like your aunt, and yes, I want to spend time with her, but that means I want to spend time with you too. I’m hoping you won’t mind if I come into your tree house occasionally?”
No one saw you quite like a kid, Dan thought as Hudson studied him.
“Okay, I’d like that. Plus, Aunt Leah needs a friend, and you’ll look out for her, seeing as you’re a deputy.”
“And you,” Dan added. “I’ll look out for you and your uncle Callum too, if that’s okay with you?”
Hudson nodded. He then got off the chair and headed back to where Ally sat.
“I feel like I just passed some kind of test or really tough job interview.”
“I was sweating for you,” Brody said from across the table. “He’s a cute kid.”
“Who needs to laugh more,” Dan added, thinking that he wanted to be the one to make both Leah and Hudson do that. Looking toward the door, he wondered what was keeping her, and then his phone rang.