Stef Ann Holm, Lucy Back [paper ebook reader .TXT] 📗

before Drew left the bench to stand on the third base line. The sixteen-year-old’s concern was a sobering reality. The last thing Drew wanted to do was play an emotional game with Lucy, but he couldn’t guarantee her, or himself, that he wouldn’t hurt her, however inadvertently.

So maybe it was best if he let his feelings for her die down before he burned them both.

Drew waited, his stomach muscles tight.

Fear of the unknown knotted inside him. It gnawed away at his confidence. He could handle any situation, had been in almost every one imaginable. But this was new territory for him.

A quick and disturbing thought surfaced. What if he messed things up worse than they already were?

He didn’t have an opportunity to consider that. Mackenzie came through the passenger area and walked toward him, a backpack slung over her slender shoulder. He stood far enough away, hidden by security screening, that he could freely assess her without her seeing him.

She was all Southern belle, his little girl.

And for a moment, he felt the pang in his heart ache to his core—a reminder of how he’d done her so wrong. He deserved her hell, her fury and her wrath. The very fact that she was here astounded him, for he had no reason to have been this fortunate. He wouldn’t question that she actually wanted to see him. He just wanted to believe he had a chance.

A memory surfaced, flooding his vision. He saw Mackenzie at twelve wearing a pair of pink capris and barefoot, sitting on the porch with Caroline and sipping cola through a straw. Mackenzie’s golden-hazel eyes had fixated on him while he walked toward her mom, stopping in front of Caroline, his palms damp from the humidity. Mackenzie knew then what he knew now.

She was his.

With his thin shirt clinging to his perspiring skin, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, Drew had come to demand a paternity test—but she had flat out refused. She’d said all he had to do was look at Mackenzie, and that was test enough. Caroline had said she’d go to purgatory before she ever let him put her integrity into question. Paternity had been determined when their baby had been conceived; the truth was still there twelve years later. And if he chose not to believe what was staring at him, that was his own stupidity and he could get off her porch.

At that time, Drew had already checked out of baseball to get help with a substance abuse problem he’d been having for most of his major league career. Through counseling, he’d learned to live life differently, to be a different man, a better person. But it wasn’t until many months later that he’d been able to come to grips with his past.

Caroline had always been a decent woman. Honest, with a good heart. That he’d ever doubted her wrenched his gut. But there was no going back.

The feelings of failure faded as Mackenzie came closer.

Her tall body moved with grace and ease. She walked with a fluid stride, her hips forward and shoulders squared as if she were poised for battle. She didn’t take any sass with that walk. It was all attitude, with just a little sugar mixed in.

A teenage boy walked past her and smiled, and she shot him a sweet curve of her lips that made the kid bounce off the news rack.

Mackenzie laughed softly—a sound he never thought he’d hear from her. Too bad she wasn’t laughing with him, and that it hadn’t been him who’d made her smile.

Her long brown hair fell over her shoulders and curled at the ends. He wondered if that was natural. He couldn’t remember if it was something she’d inherited from Caroline. The summer color of her skin resembled Opal’s home-jarred honey: smooth and golden. She wore jeans, slung low on her hips, with a belt. Purple flip-flops smacked the linoleum as she walked. She had on a white T-shirt; a pearl bracelet circled her slim wrist.

Heading closer, she spotted him. Her easy stride slowed and she looked wary. So he did his best to put her at ease immediately.

“Hey, Mackenzie, how was your flight?” he said, stepping away from the pole he’d been leaning against.

“Long,” she breathed in one slow exhale.

“You have any trouble changing planes?”

“No. I could do it.”

He gave her a half smile, thinking this was going to be harder than he ever imagined. She was going to challenge almost anything he said. “I figured you could. I’m just asking.”

“This is a small airport,” she commented, looking around.

“Yep. But it works out okay.” He ran a hand through his hair, forgetting that he’d angled his sunglasses on his head. He slipped the temple into the front of his black polo shirt as they started for the baggage claim area. “You want me to carry anything?”

“No.”

He let a moment pass where neither of them said anything, each sizing the other up in silent contemplation. She was going to have to get used to him, and he was going to have to get used to her.

He was clueless when it came to teenage girls. In desperation, he’d bought a Seventeen magazine at the Fill and Fuel Minimart. During a soak in his hot tub the other night, he’d read every last page. It struck him that teen girls thought they needed to be sexy. The slick pages were filled with ads for shiny lip gloss, mascara, nail polish, skimpy bikinis, seductive perfume, hair lighteners, hair removal for their bikini areas, deodorants and menstrual cramp relief pills. The many articles ranged from how to revitalize tired and boring makeup to embarrassing moments when a girl’s maxi-pad fell off at a pool party.

If he’d been somewhat freaked out before to have a teenage girl at his house, after reading that magazine he wondered how he’d cope without adding to the few strands of gray hair that had been slowly coming in.

From the boys he coached, he knew firsthand that they