Scout's Honor

CHAPTER THREE

SAMANTHA STOOD IN the dining room listening to the exchange between Bob and Scout. She wasn’t certain why she didn’t want to interrupt. Her initial instinct was to step between them as a barrier between Bob and Scout’s spite. Bob didn’t deserve her sister’s disdain. However, for the first time they were actually having a real conversation and Samantha thought she ought to give them their privacy.

Bob knew that Scout was in pain. He knew it because their mother told him and Samantha told him and Lane told him. And though he’d never forged a relationship with Scout, he would still try to do right by her because of his love for Alice.

“I don’t need anyone. Thanks for the coffee, Bob.”

And that sounded like Scout. She came out of the kitchen quickly, so Samantha tried to look as if she hadn’t been eavesdropping, but she clearly failed.

“Lurk much?”

Samantha shook her head and sighed. “When are you going to grow up, Scout? Bob is a good man and he doesn’t need your attitude. That he’s here for you should show you that.”

“Forgot, that’s right. You’re on his side. It’s why we don’t speak, remember? So when are you going back to your big-time agenting life? Living out here in the sticks must be driving you insane.”

Sam winced at the thought of her large, luxurious apartment in Chicago. Which was also very empty. “I’m not going until I know you’re capable of taking care of yourself. Do you know there’s a huge stain of something down the front of that shirt? Did you actually leave the house like that?”

Scout looked down at her shirt and frowned. At least there was some semblance of acknowledgment of her sad state. However, she recovered quickly and flipped Samantha the bird.

“And here I thought you might have stuck your tongue out at me,” Samantha said, rolling her eyes.

Scout, continuing in the same childish vein, brushed by Samantha with a shoulder rub. Samantha had already braced herself for it, a small reminder to her littler sister she was still the oldest.

Samantha joined Bob in the kitchen and helped herself to a cup of coffee, as she already knew it was fresh.

She sat down and looked at her mother’s husband. The man who had come into her life when she was eighteen years old.

“Maybe...we need to tell her.”

He raised an eyebrow and shook his head. “That girl is hanging on by a thread. You want to drop a bomb on her like that?”

“I want her to forgive Mom. I want her to finally see that not everything is as black and white as she thinks it is. If she can get her head around that and maybe let us back into her life, she has a chance of getting through this.”

“You love her,” Bob said, gently patting her hand.

“Of course I love her! I mean she makes me want to shake her more times than not, but I love her. And because I do, I’m worried about her. If you understood how completely her identity was tied to Duff...” Samantha shook her head. “I can’t imagine being cut off so abruptly from who I thought I was.”

“Can’t you?”

Now it was Samantha’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “It’s not the same thing.”

“You never told me how it was here these last few months. With you and Duff.”

“He knew I loved him desperately.” Samantha smiled sadly. “It was all that mattered to him in the end.”

Bob nodded. “Of course it was.”

“Yes,” Samantha said. She thought to say more, but then she didn’t.

Bob was right. It was too soon.

* * *

SCOUT MADE IT to her bedroom and shut the door. It was the only place she ever felt comfortable in her own home anymore. It hadn’t been as bad when it was just Lane staying with her. But Lane and Roy had found a place on the other side of town and Lane had moved out right after the wedding. Which was fine because she’d been close enough to come by every day to take care of Duff with Scout.

Now her mother, Bob and Samantha were here and it didn’t look like any of them had plans to leave anytime soon. As a result Scout was rarely alone unless she was in her room.

No one would dare enter Scout’s lair against her wishes. Everyone knew she needed her sanctuary. A place where she could go to close out the world. Except now her head was filled with all kinds of crazy thoughts. About Duff and her mother and Bob and her mother.

She could easily stop thinking these crazy thoughts, of course, if she started thinking about Jayson.

Scout sat on her bed, stared up at the ceiling and thought about what tomorrow was going to be like. Driving with Jayson, sitting next to him on the bleachers while the two of them watched some kid play. Desperate to impress them.

Just like old times. When they were falling in love.

Scout wasn’t a psychiatrist, but she was pretty sure this trip was not going to be good for her mental health.

She thought about how she’d left him today. Reminding him that she was still upset with him even after four years. Maybe what they really needed was to sit down and have an honest conversation. She could effectively express why she was so upset with him for leaving and he could once again ask her why she hadn’t been willing to go with him.

Seven months. They had been dating for seven months and he wanted her to uproot her life, quit her job and leave her father to follow him to Texas. He told her to take a risk. A risk on them.

Didn’t he know she’d already taken the biggest risk of her life on him? Didn’t he know what it took for her to ask him to go the wedding? To spend the night with him. To slowly and eventually give him her heart.

At the time it felt as if it was all she was capable of. He should have known that. He should have known her. He should have stayed.

“Tomorrow is going to blow,” she said to her empty room. Then she made a mental note to actually look in the mirror before she left for work.

* * *

THEY HAD AGREED to meet at nine in the morning but they hadn’t said where. So it wasn’t exactly surprising when Scout came downstairs to find Jayson sitting at the kitchen table with Samantha, drinking a cup of coffee and eating a bagel Samantha had probably made for him.

Toasting was the only culinary skill Sam had so she liked to show it off whenever she could.

“I was going to text you to just meet me at the stadium,” Scout mumbled. She hated how comfortable he looked sitting at her table. Eating her food. She hated how it reminded her how common it was for him to be around the house back when they were dating.

Which was sort of strange now that she thought about it. He had had his own place, a nice apartment over one of the clothing stores on Main Street. They had been young and in love and having sex all the time, which, considering she lived with her father, should have meant she was always at his place.

But she rarely stayed there. Sometimes when Duff was away on a road trip. Every once in a while Jayson used to grumble about it, but because he never seemed to mind hanging around her house she never changed her behavior.

There was also the Duff factor. Jayson loved her father. Anytime they got together it was like watching a kid meet Santa Claus for the first time. Because Duff had also taken on the role as Jayson’s mentor, there was never a lull in their conversation. Jayson wanted to absorb all of Duff’s baseball knowledge. All of hers, as well.

So it made sense that when they hung out, they hung out at her house, where Duff might or might not be, instead of at his apartment alone. Didn’t it?

“I didn’t want you to change your mind and leave without me.”

“I wouldn’t have done that.” Scout grumbled some more, but if she was being honest that was exactly what she’d been thinking when she woke up. Just get in her car and go without him. What would he do? Follow her? Mostly likely not.

“Besides, free bagel and coffee. Best deal I’m going to get today.”

“I toasted,” Samantha proclaimed.

Scout just shook her head and poured a cup of coffee. Then she added as much sugar to it as she could and still call it coffee with sugar, rather than sugar with coffee.

“That’s too much sugar,” Alice said as she walked into the kitchen. She was dressed in a long satin blue robe, but somehow still made it look elegant.

“Great. The gang’s all here,” Scout muttered.

“You shouldn’t put that much sugar in your coffee. It’s not good for you.”

It was an old refrain from her mother, who was always harping at her daughters to eat better. Scout couldn’t count how many times they would argue over it.

“Don’t put too much sugar on your cereal, Scout. It will rot your teeth.”

“Duff always lets me put as much as I want.”

“Well, he’s not here. I am.”

He wasn’t here. She was.

Scout added another spoonful of the sweet granules to her coffee just out of spite. And she smiled as she took a sip even though she had to acknowledge she had crossed the coffee-with-sugar barrier.

“You can continue to be as difficult as you want to be. But I still love you and I’m not going anywhere. Good morning, Jayson.”

“Ma’am,” he said, nodding his head.

Alice sat and addressed Jayson. “I understand my daughter is going back to work today.”

“She is.”

“You’ll watch over her.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Scout shouted, slamming her mug on the counter. “I’m not an invalid, people. I’m grieving. It sucks but I’m moving on. It’s bad enough Jayson has to babysit me. I don’t need you trying to go all ‘caring mom’ on me.”

At that point Bob also joined them. He was freshly showered and dressed and he kissed his wife on the cheek before looking at Scout.

“She is a caring mom. You should try letting her be that with you sometime. You might like it.”

“Pretty doubtful, Bob,” Scout said, turning her back on both of them. “Are you ready? I need to go.”

Jayson picked up the remainder of his bagel and brought his cup over to the sink. “Thanks for breakfast, Sam. Ma’am, Bob.”

Scout didn’t bother with saying goodbye or letting them know when she planned to be back. It wasn’t as if they were going to sit around and have some kind of family dinner. Scout still could barely handle food. It hadn’t been an issue when her day consisted of lying in her bed and crying. Not a whole lot of calories burned that way.

However, today she was actually going to work. She was going to sit outside in the fresh air and breathe it in. Maybe that would help her appetite. Maybe she was even ready to put her brain toward something that wasn’t thinking about how her life was over without Duff.

With that they left the kitchen and walked down the driveway to her car, except she stopped and Jayson kept walking.

To his car.

It was a nice car. A BMW 3 Series he’d bought when he’d signed his first major contract. It was red and slick and had been the love of his life until he’d met her.

“You don’t seriously think I’m letting you drive?” he asked.

“You never had a problem letting me drive before.”

“Scout, you’ve been a zombie for two weeks. I can’t trust you to keep your attention on the road. We’ve got a good four-hour drive ahead of us.”

He was right. She’d driven to the grocery store and had almost caused an accident when her mind had started to wander. She walked to him and thought about how it was going to feel getting into his car again. If it was going to smell like him and leather and mint because Jayson was a mint gum fanatic.

“I think I might have hit my head,” she said as a way to distract herself. Yes, just the feeling of sliding into the passenger seat brought back the memory of every time they had gone out. Including that first time, to Pete and Jocelyn’s wedding. She’d been excited that night. So filled with anticipation it had practically lifted her off the ground.

“Huh?”

“I’ve been fuzzy with things lately and I think at some point I fell and hit my head. You know, when...he died.”

Jayson looked at her. “You don’t remember if you fell?”

“I know, right? That’s why I think I hit my head. My memory is like totally blank from that day.”

He was looking at her funny. As if he knew something she didn’t. Then he just shook his head. “I think you would know if you hit your head. You would have a bump.”

True. She’d actually felt around for one, but there was nothing. “It’s just that I sort of remember falling. When it happened. But you’re right, I would have a bump. Do you know where we’re going?”

He took out his phone and placed it in the console section of the car. “Yeah, I put the address into the phone.”

Scouting made easy through technology. Just plug in an address and let the GPS plot a route. Scout wondered how the old guys used to track down high schools all over the country.

Jayson looked over at her before he started the car. His smile was faintly nostalgic, and she knew he could feel it, too. The past was reaching out to grab them both and remind them what they used to be once upon a time.

“Just drive,” she said. “And no talking. It’s the only way I’m going to get through this.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

With that she turned on the radio to a sports talk station and for hours they listened while grown men called in to fight with the hosts about anything and everything related to sports.

When they reached the first stop, they parked and found the baseball diamond. “Who are we here for?” Jayson asked as they took their seats in the bleachers.

They had made it with plenty of time to spare, even after stopping for lunch along the way. The game was to start immediately after the school day ended at three. Right now they could see some of the players take batting practice on the field.

“Ronny Wells. He’s seventeen and apparently has the stuff. Greg emailed me a profile of him when I let him know I was coming back to work. It seems the kid’s not sure if he wants to go into the draft or go to college. Greg wants me to determine if I think he’s ready for the minors.”

“That’s good,” Jayson said.

“What’s good?” Scout asked him.

Jayson shook his head. “Nothing, just that it’s good Greg is trusting you with this assignment.”

“Uh, duh, it’s sort of my job.”

“Right.” Jayson smiled.

They watched the team gather around a man in the middle of the field. Scout assumed it was the team’s coach. There was some laughing and guffawing and then finally the man emerged from the pile of teenagers.

“Fine, but I’m only doing this to humor you all,” they heard the coach say with a smile.

Curious what his team was asking him to do, Scout watched while the man picked up a bat and then got into the batter’s box. The catcher didn’t bother to set up behind him. The kids then circled the mechanical pitcher.

“How fast do you want it, coach?”

It was obvious the team had done this before. Obvious the coach knew what they wanted him to say.

“Bring the heat,” he told them.

“Ninety-five!”

“Ninety-five,” Jayson muttered.

“Yeah, wow. That’s as fast as that machine will throw. That guy doesn’t have a shot.”

The first ball out of the machine got knocked over the fence in the outfield. And so did the one after that. And the one after that. And the one after that.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Jayson asked her.

Scout was seeing it. She was hearing it, too. Pure contact, hit after hit. The man had a flawless swing. “How old do you think he is?”

“Maybe a few years younger than us. Maybe not.”

Eventually the coach’s hitting display was over and the other team arrived. Scout took her notebook out and started doing her job on the kid. He was definitely a solid prospect, but she didn’t think he warranted a high enough draft position to sway him from going to college.

Given his evident frustration at the loss of the game, which resulted in him knocking over the Gatorade cooler, Scout thought college might help a kid like this mature. Baseball wasn’t always just about physical abilities. A lot of it had to do with what was between the ears. Especially when it came to pitchers.

They descended the bleachers and made their way over to the dugout. The coach came out to greet them.

“Here to see Ronny?” he asked.

“How did you guess?” Scout said.

“It’s a small town. I know all the parents. When I spot strangers, I assume they’re from the MLBSB.”

The scouting bureau was a secondary source of scouting information a lot of the clubs used. Sometimes it was hard for one team of scouts to cover the country. The bureau hired scouts simply to track players and log data for any team to access.

“We’re from the Rebels,” Scout said, not bothering to mention that Jayson was really just along for the ride. Not to mention that sometimes when the coaches or fathers realized she was the scout, and obviously a woman, they immediately discounted her. It never bothered her, considering the coach or father wasn’t the one she was coming to see.

“He’s definitely got stuff,” the coach said.

“He does.” Scout agreed but didn’t go into too much detail. It was her opinion that a coach would always try to sell their kid hard, regardless of what they truly thought.

“So we were watching you hit before. That machine really throw ninety-five?”

The man smiled and it made Scout think he was even younger than she guessed. “It does. I can hit a mean fastball.”

“Ever play pro ball?”

“Nope. I was a football player in college. Just not big enough to make it in the pros as a tight end, so I fell back on what I went to school for, which was teaching. The school needed a baseball coach, so I learned everything I could about the game and here I am. Never knew I could hit a serious fastball until I started taking batting practice.”

He laughed through this story as if it was a joke. Some oddball discovery of a talent he never knew he had. What Scout heard, however, was that the guy was a football player who had had pro-level athleticism. It wouldn’t be the weirdest baseball discovery story she’d ever heard.

“How old are you?” Scout asked bluntly.

He squinted at her.

“Twenty-seven,” he said finally. “Why?”

Scout looked at Jayson. She probably shouldn’t have. This was her call, her job. But when they had been working together she and Jayson had always seemed to share a brain. He always knew where she was going, so it wasn’t as if she ever had to explain herself. Then he could provide his feedback without her having to ask.

Four years hadn’t changed anything. “It’s insane,” he told her.

Scout agreed. But why not?

“What’s your name?”

“Evan Tanner. And you are looking at me really weird right now.”

Scout smiled. “Evan, what would you think about coming to a weeklong baseball camp we’re hosting and trying out for the New England Rebels?”

“I would think what he said is right. That it’s insane.”

“Insane.” Scout nodded, feeling some odd sense of purpose. “Well, that’s sort of how I roll now. So give it a shot anyway.”

Scout put out her hand and after a second, as if he was still processing what he’d just been told, Evan Tanner shook it with a definitive yes.

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOU’RE REALLY CONSIDERING HIM,” Jayson said as he quickly glanced at Scout before turning his eyes back to the road. They were still about an hour away from Minotaur Falls and the ban on talking didn’t seem so much like a purposeful thing this time but a result of Scout being lost in thought. The look on her face told Jayson she was still thinking about Evan and his sweet swing.

“You mean Evan? Hell, yes. It’s a tryout camp. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Jayson shrugged. “Yeah, but isn’t it kind of getting the guy’s hopes up? Bringing him to a tryout. He won’t make it through the first day.”

“I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit. You saw that swing, heard that contact, same as I did.”

Jayson snorted. “Scout, we’re talking about a twenty-seven-year-old former football player. I don’t care if he hits it out of the park every time and makes it through all five days of camp. Are you seriously going to recommend him to the New England Rebels as a prospect for the draft?”

He could feel her eyes on him. He didn’t need to look at her to know she was glaring at him. The glare was basically Scout’s go-to look. It would be a huge improvement from the blank expression she’d been wearing for months.

There were times during Duff’s illness he wondered if he would ever see anything in those green eyes again, or if they would remain lifeless forever...like Duff.

Saw some life in her today. Knew baseball would save her. Knew you would, too.

Jayson shook the voice out of his head. That was not Duff. Duff was not talking to him. Duff was dead. Jayson was just imagining what Duff might have said if he had seen Scout today.

Although Jayson had thought the same thing. The way her body tightened when she watched Evan swing. The way it seemed every sense was turned on. Damn, it had hurt. He remembered what it felt like to sit next to Scout while she broke down fundamentals unlike any other baseball scout Jayson had ever known.

The memories sucked. Because the memories always reminded him of what it had felt like to be in love. To be in love with Scout, who loved him, too.

It had been maddening and exhilarating. It had been soul crushing and to this day still the most important thing he’d ever experienced. Even though buying his mom her first real home had been huge, it hadn’t been life changing for him.

Scout had been life changing. From the start he knew they weren’t just some couple. He knew they weren’t just two young people having some fun.

No, they were the real deal. He knew it because, four years later, she wouldn’t let them have a conversation in the car for fear it would bring all the old memories up again.