21. Chapter 21
Cade
The timeline notification from Marcus has sat like a countdown bomb on my phone screen for three full days before Quinn brings it up again.
Week eleven, day five. She writes the date on the chalkboard in her careful handwriting while I lie on the treatment table, watching her back, the rigid line of her shoulders, the distance she keeps even when measuring my range of motion.
"Reyes called me this morning," she says without turning around.
"Yeah?" I keep my voice neutral. I've learned, over these weeks, when to push and when to wait. This is a waiting moment.
"He wants to schedule your clearance evaluation for the week after next.
Before you head back to Boston." She sets the chalk down and finally faces me.
Professional. Controlled. The rubber band on her wrist sits untouched.
"If your numbers hold, you'll be cleared to start throwing programs immediately. "
Soon. That's what she's really saying, and soon has never felt so loaded. Soon I stop being her patient and start being whatever comes next.
"What do you think?" I ask.
Quinn tilts her head, assessing me the way she always does. Clinical. Thorough. "I think your elbow's ahead of schedule. I think your grip strength's excellent. I think you're going to pass the evaluation without any problems."
"That's not what I asked."
She holds my gaze for a long moment. Then she crosses to the treatment table, her hands efficient as she checks my compression sleeve, and tests the mobility of my wrist. Her fingers are warm against my skin, precise, impersonal.
Except for the slight tremor when she touches my elbow.
"I think," she says quietly, "that I need you to pass this evaluation with clean numbers. A documented recovery with no complications."
"Because of Kristen."
"Because of me." She steps back, putting distance between us. "I need this to be perfect. I need Reyes to sign off, and I need the numbers to speak for themselves. And I need to know that when you walk into that bullpen in Boston, no one can say you weren't ready."
I sit up slowly, watching her face. "And after that?"
Quinn's hand drifts toward her wrist. Stops. She doesn't snap the rubber band.
"After that," she says, "you promised me somewhere with tablecloths."
The barn door scrapes open before I can respond. Noah stands in the morning light, truck keys in hand, and I recognize the deliberate timing immediately. He has an uncanny sense for when conversations are getting too close to something.
"Fence line on the east side needs checking," he says. "If you're cleared for light work."
I look at Quinn. She gives me a small nod. "Controlled activity. Stay within your load parameters."
"Yes, ma'am." I slide off the table, reaching for my shirt where I left it folded on the bench. Quinn's eyes track the movement and then very deliberately look away.
Definitely progress.
***
Noah drives us out past the main pasture in silence, the truck bouncing over rutted ground.
The mountains rise purple and distant against a sky so blue it hurts to look at.
I've memorized this view over the past weeks.
How the light shifts through the day. The sound of wind through the grass.
The quiet out here, miles from anything that demands I perform.
"Quinn told me about the evaluation," Noah says finally.
"Yeah."
"You sound thrilled."
I lean my elbow on the window frame, watching the fence posts tick past. "I am thrilled. This is what I wanted. Full recovery. Back behind the plate."
"That's a lot of words that don't answer my question."
The truck slows as we reach the section of fence damaged by winter storms. Noah cuts the engine and sits for a moment, hands resting on the wheel.
"You know," Noah says, "when I left my law practice, everyone thought I was having some kind of breakdown. Successful career, partnership track, the whole thing. And I just walked away."
"Why did you?"
"Two reasons." He turns to look at me. "The first was that I'd built my entire identity around something I didn't want.
The second was that our parents died. Bill and Sarah McKenzie.
Car accident, about six years back. Quinn was in Boston building her career.
Beck had just gone into the military. Someone had to come home and hold this ranch together.
" He looks at the fence line. "I was the one who could. "
He opens his door. "Come on. Fence isn't going to fix itself."
We work in companionable silence for an hour, replacing rotted posts and restringing wire.
I keep my movements controlled, mindful of my elbow, aware of the slight pull when I lift anything heavier than Quinn approved.
The physical work settles something. Simple problems with simple solutions.
Dig the hole. Set the post. Secure the wire.
"She played guitar for you," Noah says eventually.
I look up from the post I'm tamping. "What?"
"Quinn. She played for you on the porch. The night you two sat out there for hours." His expression is unreadable. "She hadn't played for anyone in years. Not since she came back from Boston."
"I didn't know that."
"No. You wouldn't." Noah straightens, wiping his hands on his jeans.
"She doesn't talk about what happened there.
With the pitcher. But I was the one who drove to the city and packed up her apartment when she couldn't face going back.
I was the one who sat with her when she cried for three days straight because someone she trusted destroyed everything she'd built. "
I set the post I'm holding down. "Noah."
"I'm not threatening you." His voice is calm.
Almost gentle. "I'm telling you what's at stake.
Quinn rebuilt her entire career from nothing.
She wrote ethics policies to protect other people from what happened to her.
She hasn't let anyone get close in five years because the last time she did, he used it against her. "
"I'm not him."
"No. You're not." He meets my eyes. "You're someone she plays guitar for. You're someone she fights Kristen for. You're someone who makes her snap that rubber band less because you make her feel safe instead of anxious."
The wind picks up, stirring the grass around us. Cattle low in the distance.
"That's why I need you to understand what happens if you hurt her," Noah continues.
"Not intentionally. Not because you're a bad person.
But because baseball is your whole life, and Boston is where your life is.
And Quinn has roots here that Boston has never quite replaced.
I need to know you've thought about what that means. "
I have thought about it. Drive the digger into the ground. I've been awake at night staring at the ceiling thinking about nothing else.
The pull of the game. The roar of the crowd. The particular rightness of crouching behind the plate, calling pitches, commanding the field.
And then the pull of this.
Coffee brewing while Quinn organizes her session notes. Noah's dry humor at dinner. Paige's dogs sprawled under the kitchen table. The porch at night, guitars in hand, playing whatever came to us.
I pull the digger free. "I talked to Marcus yesterday. He wants me back in Boston the day after my clearance evaluation."
"That makes sense."
"I told him I'd be there." I set the fence post firmly, testing its stability. "I also told him I was going to take the freedom to be mobile after the season. Be wherever she is."
Noah is quiet for a long moment.
"Does Quinn know that?"
"Not yet." I look toward the distant barn, where I know she's filing notes, maintaining her documentation, protecting both our futures with the meticulous care she brings to everything. "I wanted to wait until the evaluation was done. Until there wasn't any conflict left."
"Because you didn't want to pressure her."
"Because I wanted her to choose." I turn back to Noah. "Not because I'm her patient or because we're stuck on a ranch together. I want her to choose me when she doesn't have to. When she could walk away and there'd be no professional consequence at all."
Noah studies me for a long moment. Then he nods once, sharp and decisive.
"Playoffs start in six weeks," he says with a smirk. "I'll have the porch light on for you two."
We finish the fence in silence. By the time we drive back to the house, the sun has shifted, lengthening shadows across the yard. Paige's truck is parked near the barn, and through the open door I can hear her voice, animated and teasing, followed by Quinn's quieter response.
I find them inside, Quinn at her laptop with her colored folders spread across the workbench, Paige perched on a hay bale with both dogs sprawled at her feet.
"There he is," Paige says, grinning. "Noah wear you out?"
"Just about." I catch Quinn's eye across the barn. She looks tired. Beautiful. The afternoon light catches the strands of hair still escaping her ponytail.
A few more days.
"Paige brought lunch," Quinn says. "And opinions about the designated hitter rule."
"I have very strong feelings about baseball strategy," Paige confirms. "None of which are based on actual knowledge of the sport."
I laugh, and the sound surprises me. It echoes in the barn, and Quinn's expression softens. Close enough.
"Come on," Quinn says, closing her laptop. "Noah's probably already started the coffee."
We walk toward the house together, Paige chattering about her dogs and an upcoming training certification, and Quinn's shoulder brushing my arm occasionally as the path narrows.
I can smell her shampoo, something clean and faintly floral.
Can hear the slight catch in her breath when our hands almost touch.
More progress.
***
At dinner, I find myself talking more than usual.
Stories about minor league bus rides and the superstitions that take over during playoff runs.
Diaz's terrible taste in music and the clubhouse playlist debates that last longer than some games.
The strange intimacy of a team on the road, living in each other's pockets for months at a time.
Quinn listens with her chin propped on her hand, asking questions that prove she's been paying attention all along.
About the players whose names I'd mentioned during late-night porch conversations.
About the dynamics between catchers and pitchers that make calling a game feel like translating a language nobody else can hear.
"You miss it," she says eventually.
"Yeah." No point lying. "I miss it."
"That's good." She reaches across the table for the bread, and her fingers brush mine. Neither of us moves away. "That means you're ready to go back."
***
After dinner, Quinn disappears to the barn to file the day's notes. I help Noah with the dishes, then find myself on the porch alone, guitar in hand, playing nothing in particular.
The screen door creaks open.
"Room for one more?"
Quinn stands in the doorway, her own guitar held loosely at her side. She's changed into soft clothes, her hair finally down around her shoulders. Without the clinical ponytail, she looks younger. More like the woman who laughs at Paige's terrible jokes and hums while organizing equipment.
I shift on the step, making space.
She settles beside me, close enough that our arms nearly touch. For a while, neither of us plays. Just sitting in the gathering dark, watching the first stars emerge over the mountains.
"Two weeks," Quinn says quietly.
"Less than, technically. It's after midnight somewhere."
She huffs a soft laugh. "You're counting?"
"Aren't you?"
Silence. Then: "Yes."
I set my guitar aside carefully. Quinn does the same. The night sounds fill the space between us, crickets and wind and the distant settling of cattle.
"Quinn."
"Don't." Her voice catches. "Don't make this harder than it has to be."
"I'm not trying to make it hard. I'm trying to tell you something."
She turns to look at me. In the darkness, her eyes reflect the porch light, wide and wary and wanting all at once.
"I'm coming back," I say simply. "After the season. However it ends. I'm coming back to you. Wherever you are."
Her breath stutters. "Cade."
"You don't have to answer. You don't have to decide anything.
But when we get on that plane to Boston, I don't want it to just be two people who happen to live in the same city and work in the same area.
" I reach out slowly, giving her time to pull away, and tuck that loose strand of hair behind her ear.
My thumb traces the curve of her cheekbone.
"I want it to mean something. I want it to be a choice, not just a coincidence. "
Quinn's hand comes up to cover mine, pressing my palm against her face. Her eyes close. For a long moment, we just stay like that, breathing together in the dark.
"Less than two weeks," she whispers.
"Yep, and I'm not giving back a single hour. I'm holding the line."
Her laugh is shaky. "You're impossible."
"That's what all my catchers say."
She opens her eyes, and the look in them makes my chest ache in a way I'm done trying to reason away. "When you pass your evaluation, I'm going to file your clearance. And then I'm going to drive to town and buy a dress that has nothing to do with resistance bands or compression sleeves."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." She leans forward, just barely, closing the distance between us by inches. "And then, Cade Sullivan, you're going to take me somewhere with tablecloths. And you're going to tell me all the things you couldn't say while I was your therapist."
"I have a very long list."
"I'm counting on it."
I kiss her forehead, gentle and brief. Restraint as its own kind of promise.
"Almost there," I say against her skin.
Quinn pulls back with a soft smile, picks up her guitar, and starts playing the song she finished that first night we sat out here together. The sad one. Except it doesn't sound sad anymore. It sounds like the beginning of something.
I pick up my guitar and join her, harmonizing without needing to think about it.
The porch light glows behind us. The mountains stand dark against the stars. And somewhere in Boston, my life waits for me to come back and claim it.
But first, two more weeks.
I can wait.