His body still looked strong, fit. Wide shoulders and long arms, which gave him extra zip when throwing a ball. She knew he was thirty-seven, but the person Duff had asked her to work with was a minor-league player.
Roy didn’t play baseball anymore. He certainly didn’t play minor-league ball.
“I needed a job. Duff helped me out.”
“You needed a job? Yeah, right. You’re a multimillionaire. What happened to your grand plan? You said you were done with baseball. You said you wanted to leave on top and not hang around like all the other old-timers who didn’t know when to walk away. You talked about it constantly. Almost bragging about how smart you were to leave while the leaving was good. Now, five years later, you want to pitch again?” She shook her head. “You’re pathetic.”
Her voice was sharp and she wasn’t sure why. She didn’t know if it was anger from seeing the man whom she considered her mortal enemy. Or anger that she’d believed all those things he said to her once. Because when he said them it had felt as though he hoped she would understand why he was making the decision to walk away so young. As though he wanted her approval.
Or maybe it was anger because she remembered all those times when he’d talked to her about his future and she had felt that damn...pull.
Damn. She hated Roy Walker.
“Lanie!” Duff shouted. “I didn’t raise my girl to be a bitch. Maybe before you go spouting off on things you don’t know about, you might want to check that attitude.”
Lane looked at her father, who, she noticed, still hadn’t gotten out of his chair, even though he was angry enough at her to raise his voice. Since she was still pissed at him for blindsiding her, that confrontation would have to wait.
“What? This isn’t some attempt at a lame comeback? Let me guess, you couldn’t stay away from the game,” Lane said. “Is that it? The limelight. The rush. The glory. The fans, not that you had many of those. Had to have all that back?”
“No,” Roy said stiffly. “What I said was true. I need a job. And this is all I know how to do.”
It was the tone in his voice that stopped her. She knew Roy Walker. He was arrogant and smug on his worst days. A colossal ass on his best. He personified confidence and never let anyone forget that he knew to the dollar what his ability to throw a baseball was worth.
Now he stood in front of her with his head down. She didn’t think she had ever seen him so...defeated. And she’d seen him after losing an NLCS game that, had he won, would have sent him to the World Series.
He was Roy Walker, for heaven’s sake. A future first-ballot Hall of Famer. She wanted to slap him if for no other reason than to take that expression off his face.
“How can you need a job? What happened to all your money?”
He shook his head. “I lost it.”
“Millions? Tens of millions?”
“Eighty million to be exact. I have the house I bought my father, which he still lives in, and a town house in Society Hill in Philadelphia that’s up for sale. Other than that, it’s gone.”
Lane had a thousand questions about how that could happen, but quickly snapped her jaw shut. She wasn’t supposed to care about that.
She wasn’t supposed to care about anything when it came to Roy.
She hated Roy Walker.
“You seriously thought I would help you make this comeback?”
He smiled then, not his normal smile. Not the smile that said he knew more about everything than anyone else in the room. Not the smile that suggested he had secrets she might want to uncover.
No, this smile was completely self-deprecating and it didn’t fit on his mouth.
“Hell, no, I didn’t think you would help. I told them they were crazy to even ask, but Duff said—”
“I said she’s my daughter and if she knows it’s important to me, she’ll do it.” Duff leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed. As if he’d been napping during the tense confrontation unfolding in front of him.
“Why in the hell do you care about Roy Walker, Duff? You know what he did to me.”
“Yeah, and I told you I’m grateful to him for it. You were hanging on to that loser with two hands and it didn’t look like you were ever letting go. He was dragging you down, sweetie, like an anchor in an ocean.”
“I was trying to save my marriage, which is what you always told us to do.”
“Except you married the wrong guy!” Duff snapped. “When you marry the wrong guy, you walk away. Roy here forced you to do that. So, for that, he gets my help. However, my help will take him only so far. If he’s going to make it all the way, he needs more.”
Instinctively, her therapist brain started clicking in. Lane narrowed her gaze on Roy again. “How long has it been since you threw? I mean, before coming here?”
“Five years. The game in San Diego was the last time I picked up a ball.”
Lane knew that game. It was officially the last game she’d ever watched. He’d pitched a no-hitter. She’d been in a bar near the hospital where she had just gotten hired. She was eating a hamburger and drinking a beer and doing everything she could not to look at the television screens filled with a bunch of different baseball games when suddenly they had turned all the TVs to the sports network covering one game in particular.
After all, it wasn’t every day a pitching legend, during the last game of his historic career, didn’t give up a single hit. Against her will, she’d been as captivated as everyone around her, waiting as he threw each pitch, as he racked up each out, as batter after batter went down in a frustrated huff. Until the ninth inning, when the noise from the crowd at the stadium was so loud, she couldn’t imagine what someone standing on the mound in the center of it all might be hearing.
Three up, three down. Game over. His teammates had come in from the field, but no one charged him or lifted him off his feet as was typical with such an accomplishment. The catcher simply swatted him on the ass and handed Roy the ball. A few chin nods in his direction and that was it.
Because everyone knew his teammates didn’t like him. It had been almost hard to watch as the television commentators tried to explain to the national audience why the team’s celebration was so tepid. The best they said about Roy was that he was a loner. The worst they said was that he’d been known to be a cancer in the clubhouse, despite his great talent.
Lane swallowed the emotion the memory of that day caused her. In truth, she never really understood why she had left the bar to go home and cry her eyes out.
Letting that puzzle go, she focused on the present.
“How hard are you throwing now?”
“I’ve got my fastball up to about eighty-eight.”
“How does the arm feel?”
“Hurts like hell.”
“And
