The Comeback of Roy Walker. Stephanie Doyle

throw again? This isn’t some joke to you?”

      “Lanie, standing here in front of you...this is definitely not a joke.” He shrugged. “Pitching is the only thing I know how to do. The only thing I’m good for.”

      Again, the sense of defeat in his words startled her. This wasn’t the Roy Walker she’d known five years ago. The ass whom she had always called out for his bullshit.

      In a weird way she found herself missing that person—which made no sense to her at all. But since nothing in her life made sense right now, Lane figured this little episode was par for the course.

      She had no job. She had no life. She had a father and a sister who, although they had betrayed her, did seem to need her.

      And Roy. Roy Walker needed her and that was about the craziest thing she could imagine happening today.

      “Fine. I’ll do it. It’s not like I have a choice, right? You’ve got my father involved. But don’t call me Lanie again. You don’t get to do that.”

      Duff clapped his hands together, startling Lane. This wasn’t about Roy. She wouldn’t let it be.

      “Now we’re talking,” Duff said. “You two get to work and turn that arm of his into a weapon.”

      He pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes and settled in for what appeared to be his midday nap.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      “I CAN’T BELIEVE you didn’t tell me about Roy,” Lane said to her sister as soon they were alone. Scout and Duff had just gotten home and he’d immediately sought his favorite chair in the living room.

      As for Lane, following her confrontation with Roy, she had left the stadium and headed to Duff’s house for some alone time. While she’d agreed to work on Roy’s arm, she needed at least twenty-four hours to process seeing him again before she could work up the courage to actually touch him.

      And yes, she would have to touch Roy Walker. The reality of that was hitting her.

      After she’d left the stadium, Duff had apparently decided he wanted to make his famous burgers for dinner, which translated into Scout putting the ingredients together and making the raw patties, then Duff slapping them on the grill, adding cheese and calling it a cooking miracle.

      It was a time-honored tradition in the Baker household.

      “Shh, Duff’s sleeping,” Scout hissed as they unpacked groceries she and Duff had picked up.

      It wasn’t beyond Lane’s notice that Duff slept a lot. As if that trip to the grocery store had expended all the energy he had so he needed to refuel for dinner. How the hell did he think he was going to manage the club this year? That was a conversation for tomorrow.

      Scout not telling her about Roy was a like a slap in the face. Lane felt blindsided and more than a little betrayed. Which were not feelings she wanted from her family.

      Her sisters were her core. Her sense of safety in the world, along with Duff. When she’d gone through her long and bitter divorce from Danny they had been her rocks. Sitting with her when she cried. Laughing with her when they knew she needed to be pulled out of a mood. Supporting her when she struggled with the pain of the breakup. True, she’d stopped loving Danny before the actual breakup, but that didn’t mean separating their lives hadn’t been hard.

      The worst part of the divorce had been dealing with her own sense of failure. The acknowledgment that she couldn’t make her marriage work. That she had been unable to see Danny for who he really was before she married him. That her love for him had been a fleeting thing at best.

      Whether Danny had ever returned that love was hard to know. The awful truth was that his infidelities had started months after they were first married.

      How could she have not known? That cluelessness alone had rocked her to her core until her sisters made her see that Danny’s behavior wasn’t about anything lacking in Lane. It was just who Danny was.

      A character flaw Lane had failed to identify in her mission to find a person she could build a life with. How the hell could she screw it up so badly? How could she be totally unsuccessful at the one thing she’d been so committed to doing right?

      That was why Lane hadn’t once, in the five years since leaving Danny, ever considered taking the chance on love and long-term commitment again. Which didn’t make dating easy. The one time she’d gotten remotely close to someone she had felt honor bound to tell him their relationship could never go anywhere. She wasn’t getting married. Ever. She wasn’t repeating that mistake. She didn’t trust herself.

      If she was to have kids someday, she would do it on her own.

      The guy had said goodbye. And Lane realized that men in their late twenties and early thirties who were looking for a wife were not people she should be dating. Unfortunately, the other kind—who wanted no-strings-attached sex—usually turned her off completely because they reminded her too much of Danny.

      Which meant she hadn’t had sex in a really long time. Which meant seeing Roy Walker again, and having that same feeling creep over her body as the last time she’d seen him, made her want to throw something across the room.

      She was going to have to touch him. His body. What in the hell was she thinking agreeing to that?

      “You should have told me,” Lane said again, having no problem taking out her annoyance on her little sister.

      “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

      “You honestly think I would let someone like Roy stop me from seeing my father if I was concerned about his health?”

      Scout took a moment to consider the question. “Anyone else, no. Roy? He’s different for you.”

      “He’s not different. He’s just someone I...I hate. That’s all.”

      “Yep. Lane hates Roy. You really should get a tattoo of that so you can assure yourself you’ll never forget it.”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      Scout sighed and put down a head of broccoli that Lane knew their father wouldn’t eat. She also knew Scout kept buying it and other vegetables in a vain attempt to keep him healthy. She looked long and hard at Lane.

      “What really happened between you two the night of that party?”

      Lane felt her whole body flush. “You mean other than finding my husband with his tongue down another woman’s throat?”

      “You know damn well I mean other than that. You were so mad at Roy over that whole episode—”

      “He set me up! He purposefully staged an entire party to make me look like a fool in front of everyone I knew. Everyone who knew Danny was cheating on me!”

      Just reliving that walk down the long hallway made her want to inflict physical damage on Roy. She’d never wanted an apology from him. Frankly, given the man he’d been then, so confident in his decisions, she’d never expected one. He probably thought the same as Duff had thought—that he’d done her a favor. That’s why it had shocked her when he’d sent the letter. Maybe she hadn’t read it because it was better to think about what he might have said than to know what he did.

      “Why did he do that?” Scout mused. “I mean, seriously, you couldn’t have been the first wife Roy knew was being cheated on. He’d been in the league for ten years before he met you. He probably knew every sordid story in the book. Yet he puts this plot together to expose Danny’s cheating. That’s a lot of effort from a man who you said never took much interest in the team or anyone else.”

      Lane didn’t want to think about the events leading up to that party. She didn’t want to think about the weird outings she and Roy took together. They both had a thing for hot dogs, so they would try new places around town, or new stands in the ballpark.