Close To The Heart (Westen Series Book 5) Read online

  Curious as to what he wanted her to do, Melissa joined them in the yard. “I don’t play ball.”

  “That’s okay,” he said, laying his glove and ball on the ground. He reached back into the shopping bag and handed handing her another, brand new, adult-sized glove. “You’re just going to be a target for her to aim for as she throws.”

  “I think I can do that,” she said with a smile at Lexie and slipping the glove onto her left hand. She’d never worn a baseball glove before and was surprised at how soft it was on the inside and how firm the leather was on the outside. With a wiggle of her fingers, it moved just slightly. Good protection from hard thrown or hit balls.

  “Okay, you hold the glove like this,” Daniel said, taking her arm and glove in his big warm hands. Their eyes met for a moment, and heat seemed to surge through Melissa. He swallowed, then focused on moving her hand. “Hold it like this with the pocket facing Lexie. That’s where we want her to aim for when she throws.”

  “Got it,” she said with a nod.

  “If she gets the ball inside, you squeeze your hand shut and it will stay in there.” He demonstrated for both her and Lexie by putting the ball in the pocket and squeezing Melissa’s glove closed with his hand. “Once you learn to throw the ball, Lexie, you need to learn to catch it, too.”

  “I can do that,” Lexie said, closing her hand so the sides of the mitt touched.

  “Good.”

  “Are you going to teach me to throw like a boy?”

  Daniel once more knelt down to her level. “No, Lexie. I’m going to teach you how to throw like a baseball player, boy or girl.”

  He was rewarded with a missing-tooth grin. “I like that.”

  “Now Melissa is going to stay right here. While you and I mark of ten paces.”

  He turned and made long strides, Lexie making ridiculously longer ones to match him until they counted out ten. Melissa hid a grin.

  “Now, you stand behind me with your left arm facing Melissa and do what I do, okay?” he asked, and Lexie bobbed her head, taking the same stance.

  “Okay, first thing you’re going to do is hold the ball like your hand is a claw.” He turned and manipulated her fingers in the grip he wanted her to use. “Kind of squeeze the ball with your fingers just a little. That gives you a good grip and you can control the ball better. Okay?”

  Again, he got a nod, but Lexie’s lips were pressed in a thin line of determination.

  “So now we’re going to stand with our feet apart.”

  Lexie took a big side-step and looked like she’d topple over.

  “Not that far.” Daniel chuckled, and helped her fix her feet. “Just so that your feet are the same distance apart as your shoulders.”

  He stood once more. “Now, we start with our hand holding the ball inside the glove like this.”

  Lexie copied his movement, holding the glove at mid-torso, her face completely focused.

  “Good. Now we’re going to take the ball in our grip. Move your arm down, then around and freeze,” he said, demonstrating with his hand stopped level with his head, looking over his shoulder to see Lexie do the same. “Good. Now look at how your hand is gripping the ball. Can you see your knuckles?”

  Lexie turned the ball, so her knuckles were facing her. “Yes.”

  “Good correction,” Daniel said, and Lexie seemed to stand a little taller.

  “Next, you need to look at your other elbow.” He wiggled his bent left arm out in front of him, showing how his elbow pointed. “You want your arm to point at your target.”

  Melissa held up her glove on cue. Lexie wiggled her elbow, looking like a chicken trying to flap its wing.

  “That’s it, but hold it still,” Daniel instructed, and Lexie froze that arm in place. “And then we’re going to throw. Okay?”

  Lexie nodded and hurled the ball toward Melissa. It hit the ground a few feet in front of her, but not too far offline.

  “Pretty good!” Daniel said and Lexie beamed. “Let’s do it again, slowly.”

  They went through the mechanics each time, with Lexie’s aim shifting from wild to more accurate the more she threw. Listening to Daniel’s instructions to Lexie, Melissa’s throwing, which had never amounted to much, actually found his glove a few times without him having to reach or stretch for it. He’d nodded and reinforced his lesson to Lexie, by complimenting Melissa on her throw, which gave her ego a bit of a boost. In all her life she’d never had a man and especially not her ex-husband, praise her physical efforts at anything.

  With great patience, Daniel kept teaching Lexie the art of throwing, often making just minor corrections without ever losing his temper and always with a compliment about how well she was doing. He looked so big and masculine standing next to the little girl. Yet, he didn’t act embarrassed or put out, like some men would when a girl wanted to learn something they thought only boys and men should do. He was kind and encouraging, determined to help her succeed.

  He’d make a wonderful father.

  The unwanted thought poured a bucket of ice over Melissa’s happiness. Thanks to Frank she would never have children. He’d destroyed even that dream for her. If she gave into the need to grow closer to the handsome deputy standing ten feet away lovingly teaching a six-year-old in pink from head to toe, including a tutu and ankle high sneakers, to throw like a major league player—and yes her heart craved being near him, more and more each day—it wouldn’t be fair to lead him on, knowing she couldn’t be a complete woman, wife or companion for him.

  “Is something wrong?” Daniel’s voice broke into her thoughts. He and Lexie both stared at her with concern on their faces.

  The school bus turned up the lane, saving her from answering. Perfect timing.

  “No, nothing is wrong. I just need to get dinner started,” she said, laying the baseball mitt on the hood of his car and hurrying to the porch. “You’ll just have to carry on without me.”

  Daniel watched Melissa disappear inside the house, fleeing like a deer darting into the dense wood at the sound of hunters tromping through the forest.

  What had happened to scare her? One minute they were enjoying an afternoon of playing catch and the next instance? Poof. She was gone. Even before she fled for the porch, she’d disappeared. Her laughter, that had been both infectious and intoxicating, had fizzled into thin air. The sweet smile that had warmed his heart just slipped away.

  Had he said something? Done something?

  She’d used the school bus as an excuse to escape. And an escape it was. He’d seen enough criminals and scared people make one to know it when he saw it. Whatever memory that had been triggered during their playing catch, it had her scared enough to need distance. Distance from him.

  And damn didn’t that wound his male pride?

  “Coach Daniel?”

  A tug on his sleeve brought him back focused on Lexie.

  “Can we keep playing until the tosters get here? I want them to see me throwing.”

  “Of course we can. I’ll go stand where Melissa was, and you just throw like we’ve been practicing. Okay?”

  “Uh huh,” Lexie said and took her stance.

  Shifting his concern for Melissa to the back of his thoughts, Daniel focused on playing catch with Lexie even as Colt and Bryan came up the driveway.

  “Hey, Coach!” they both called.

  “Whatcha doin’ here?” Colt asked. “I thought practice was tomorrow?”

  “Feeling the need to play, even if it’s with the Shrimp?” Bryan said, depositing his bookbag on the porch steps next to Colt’s.

  At that moment Lexie let the ball loose and it sailed through the air right into Daniel’s glove with a smack—albeit a soft, dainty sort of smack, it was still a ball finding it’s leather target sound.

  “Wow, Shrimp!” Bryan said, bounding off the porch to pat her on the back.

  “Good aim!” Colt said, doing the same.

  “Coach is teaching me to throw…”

  “Like a guy,
” Colt finished.

  “Uh-uh,” she said, a determined steel to her spine and narrowed eyes as she looked up at the teen. “Like a baseball player!”

  Colt studied her a moment, then nodded and grinned. “Like a shrimp baseball player.”

  Before the conversation descended into a full-blown argument, Daniel asked, “Where’s Trent and Geoff?”

  “Trent works at the bookstore until closing on Mondays,” Bryan answered. “And Joe Hillis picked Geoff up early from school. They have a whole house to paint this week.”

  “Inside or outside?” Daniel knew the tall senior loved working the paint section of the hardware store and did the odd paint job for Joe, but a whole house?

  Bryan laughed. “Just the outside. But if the owners asked, Geoff would paint every inch inside too.”

  “He likes it that much?”

  “He does,” Melissa said from the porch. “I’m making spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Would you like to stay and eat with us?”

  “Please, Coach Daniel,” Lexie said, hopping up and down. It was amazing how one little girl could make his heart swell.

  “Yes, if it’s not too much trouble,” he said, looking at Melissa.

  She laughed. “It’s spaghetti and meatballs. Plenty to go around. It will be ready in about thirty minutes. You can all practice until I call you.”

  Colt looked up. “Even me? It’s my turn to help with dishes this week.”

  Melissa nodded, holding up two baseball gloves. “Yes, even you. You can do all the after-dinner dishes.”

  As the boys retrieved their gloves, Daniel watched Melissa smile and return inside. The woman might not have much experience with kids, but she was one hell of a mother.

  For the next half-hour he worked with the kids, especially Colt to catch ground balls and throw them to Bryan. Lexie was pretty good at scooping up slow dribblers and tossing it to the boys, who complimented her each time the ball hit their glove. When it didn’t, they didn’t tease her, just said, “You’ll get it next time, Shrimp.”

  Spaghetti dinner around the table led into a game of Go Fish with Trent coming home from work and eating while they played. Geoff wandered in just as the game was breaking up and grabbed a plate of food. Melissa went to tuck Lexie in bed and the other boys headed upstairs to do homework. Daniel decided to talk with the oldest of the teens while he woofed down his meal.

  “Looks like you’ve had a very busy day,” he said, nodding at the paint splattered white t-shirt and pants Geoff wore.

  He grinned. “Yeah, Joe had this automatic paint sprayer. We covered half of the outside of the house in four hours. A two-story, no less. Took longer to cover all the windows than it did to get the paint on.”

  “You like painting houses?”

  “It’s good work. I’ve learned a lot about what paints work on what kind of surfaces. What’s for indoors, what’s for outdoors. And each job is different. I mean no two houses are the same.” He finished his meal, wiped his mouth with the napkin and sat back in his chair. “Before I came here to live and work for Joe, I had no idea about painters or any kind of manual labor jobs. My parents are businesspeople and hire people to do work for them. Never saw my dad do anything around our house, not even cut the grass. I learned that the first week Miss Davis took over here.”

  “So, what are you going to do when you graduate? I assume your parents want you to go to college.”

  Geoff shrugged. “That’s what they want. Not like I have much choice.”

  Daniel heard the resignation in his voice. “If you had your choice and could do whatever you wanted, what would you want to do?”

  “Truthfully?”

  “It’s your dreams.”

  “I’d like to continue working for Joe full time. Learn the business and maybe start my own painting company. Go into business for myself.”

  “I’d imagine a good businessman would need to take some classes on stuff like accounting, taxes, supply chain management.”

  “Advertising,” Geoff said, warming up to the idea. “I mean you can’t just live by word of mouth.”

  “Computers and modern-day social media might come in handy.”

  “I don’t know if they teach that kind of stuff at the Ivy school colleges my parents think I need to go to.” Geoff paused, shaking his head, his shoulders slumped. “They want me to apply to those, have talked of nothing else, just so they can brag to people at their companies about their kid’s school. It’s why they put me in all those private schools. I was a trophy to them. They never once asked me what I wanted, what my dreams were. And I’ll have to go where they want. I mean even after I turn eighteen next fall. I’ll be too old to stay here at Westen House.”

  Daniel leaned back in his seat and considered the boy’s dilemma. “Joe’s a good employer?”

  “Yeah. He’s smart about the construction business and hardware. People come in to do DIY jobs and he walks them through the steps. Even gives them his number if they want to call for questions or help.” Geoff laughed. “All these new people coming in town, half of them call and end up hiring Joe and his crew to come fix things. It’s how we got that paint job today.”

  “You making decent money working for him?”

  Geoff nodded. “I have a little in the savings. I give some to Miss Davis, so she can do the fixing up around here. The town’s budget doesn’t cover some stuff.”

  This was a good kid. No change that, he was becoming a good man. The kind he’d like to stay in Westen.

  “Seems to me, Joe would like to keep you on full time once you graduate. There’s an extra room in my apartment. Once you’re eighteen, you can move in there and split the rent until you can afford a place of your own.”

  The young man’s face lit up like a tree at Christmas. “Really?”

  Daniel glanced at the house rules on the kitchen wall. “I’d expect you to follow those rules at my place too.”

  “What about the school one?” Geoff asked, his brows lowered in question.

  Daniel shrugged. “There’s online business classes and there’s a community college in the next county and an OSU extension not too far. Seems to me any of those might have what you need to learn about being a businessman. Deal?” He held out his hand.

  “You got it, Coach.” Grinning, Geoff slapped his hand in a good strong handshake. “Best go look up those schools before I hit the sack.”

  He gathered up his plate and utensils, put them in the dishwasher then hustled up the stairs. “Hey Miss Davis,” he said, barely missing her standing in the doorway, a soft smile on her face.

  “You heard?” Daniel asked.

  “Most of it,” she pulled a sweater off the peg near the backdoor. “Want to come sit on the swing with me a bit?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, grabbing his coat and hurrying to open the front door for her.

  They sat on the swing, her on one end, him filling up the other half. With a little shove of his foot, Daniel set the swing into a gentle sway. Music came from one window of the rooms upstairs.

  “Is that Johnny Cash?” he asked.

  Melissa chuckled. “Yes. Bet you can’t guess which one.”

  He sputtered out a scoffing sound. “Please, I think I know Walk The Line when I hear it.”

  “I meant which boy is listening to it.” She laughed, the soft mirth reminding him of his favorite salted caramel topping rolling over ice cream. He’d have to find ways to make her laugh more often.

  “You got me on that one. Which one?”

  “Colt.”

  “Colt?” He asked, surprise. “I’d have thought he’d be into hip-hop or some other new kind of music.”

  “Nope. The boy has a love for old country music from the fifties and sixties. Surprised me, too, the first time he played it on his computer. I had to make sure he knew he had to purchase his music. Told him downloading it for free was the same as stealing.”

  “You’re always looking for a teaching moment, aren’t you?” he said,
turning and stretching his arm across the back of the swing between them. Light from inside the house lit up her face but left a little shadow around her eyes, making her a little mysterious tonight.

  “I’m beginning to think that with kids, both big and small, everything is a teaching moment.”

  A peaceful quiet settled in between them. The peeper tree frogs were just beginning their spring courtship of high whistle sounds. And not too far off a barn owl hooted. There was still a chill to the early Ohio spring night, but soon it would be hot, muggy nights of summer.

  “I like what you said to Geoff,” Melissa broke the quiet. “He needs to have adult conversations with a man he respects. None of them got that when Tod Banyon was here. And I don’t think Geoff and his father have any kind of close relationship.”

  “I meant what I said. It wasn’t an empty promise.” Daniel couldn’t be more honest. The more he was around the teens here in Westen House, the more he saw the potential in all of them. Part of which, he was damn sure came from Melissa’s influence. “And Geoff’s right. Once he turns eighteen, the rules are he leaves Westen House. If he truly wants to stay in town, work and learn the business end of being a painter, he’s got a place with me. I can’t think of a better way to help him. Your advice to not make empty promises struck home.”

  “You kept your promise to Lexie. Even if it was only for today.” Sadness filled her voice with the last word.

  “What time do you have to be at the courthouse tomorrow?”

  “We meet Chloe at nine. The hearing is at ten.”

  “I know. I’m scheduled to give testimony about how I found her that night. So is Cleetus. I think things may go better than you think. You should try not to worry.”

  She sighed heavily. “I can’t help it. I told myself not to get too attached to her. That she was only here temporary. Either her mother would be found and come claim her—”

  “That wouldn’t happen. After she abandoned her in a blizzard, no way is she getting custody back.”