Feisty Red (Three Chicks Brewery 2)

His gentle gaze held hers. “I have no idea if it will make any difference or if it only makes me look worse, but I want you to know, that woman who answered the phone that night, I wasn’t with her. She was a teammate’s wife. I asked her to answer the phone because I knew, after that, you’d stop calling.”

Clara wasn’t sure how she felt about his admission. Did it hurt more knowing that? Or did it hurt less? She exhaled slowly, immediately fighting back against the thoughts. No matter that her heart twisted, she couldn’t let her feelings get wrapped up in all this. Mason needed her strong and at her best. “Well, it had the intended effect. I never called again.”

Their gazes held. He finally looked away. “Yeah, I guess it did.”

Sullivan embraced the hot burn of the whiskey sliding down his throat after Clara poured them both a shot. A son? He worried about being a role model to kids he didn’t know, but a son of his own? He knew the dangerous line he walked here, the damage that could be done. It had been done to him. And he was a twenty-eight-year-old man who still hadn’t recovered from the trauma of his past. He felt sick. He had hoped that Clara would have moved on, found happiness, but he realized she couldn’t have moved on, because she had Mason. And Sullivan’s leaving had only made that harder for her. He had to make this right. “Can I explain why I left?” he asked her.

She shook her head, adamant. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”

“I do.”

In the darkest parts of his heart, the memory of what he’d done insinuated itself until he couldn’t push it away. And it was in that quiet moment, with her next to him, he let himself remember the day that had haunted him for seven years.

Sullivan shut his eyes against the bright florescent lighting in the hospital as the doctor finished the final stitch near Sullivan’s eyebrow. His father had hit him before, but this time, the sucker punch had landed at just the right angle to cause damage.

“All right, we’re all done here,” Doctor Clay Booth said. He pushed away on his stool and set his suture tools back on the tray next to him.

Sullivan sat up, ready to down a few painkillers and get the hell out of there. “Thanks, doc.”

Doctor Booth slid back over on his stool and set his warm stare on Sullivan. “The nurse told me what you said happened to you. How about you tell me the truth?”

Sullivan swallowed. Hard. “There’s nothing more to tell.”

The doc’s brows rose. “You got into a brawl with a stranger?”

“That’s right.” That part wasn’t a lie either. Sullivan had gotten into a fight at his game last night, only he hadn’t been injured.

He shifted under the weight of the doctor’s penetrating stare. “Listen, son, I know times have been hard for you and your family,” the doc said, gently. “But this path, it’s not going to lead anywhere good. Silence is never going to help you. You might not want to talk now, but if you need to, I’m a call away.”

Everyone knew his father was an abusive prick. He’d been taken out of his home and was living with the police chief for that very reason. But what was there to talk about? Shit happened. “Appreciate that, doc, but like I said, I’m fine.”

Doctor Booth gave a final long look before he nodded and headed out the door.

Sullivan exhaled the breath he’d been holding and sank his fists into his eyes, taking care not to touch the stitches. Once, the Keene name had meant something in this town. Now Sullivan was just that kid whose mom had died of cancer and who now had a drunk for a father.

“Keene.”

Sullivan lowered his hands to find the Boston Red Sox’s scout, Noah Larson, standing in the doorway. He’d been following Sullivan’s career through his college years at the University of Denver. The timing sucked, and Sullivan wasn’t quite sure what would have happened if the scout hadn’t shown up at his father’s house for Sullivan to sign some documents. He had never officially changed his address and forgot to tell the scout the address of his dorm. He’d been the one to pull Sullivan’s dad off him. Sullivan couldn’t fight back. He wouldn’t. His father was a broken shell of a person. Not a man, just a weak, pitiful human. “I’m sorry for what you walked in on today,” Sullivan said.

“Don’t apologize,” Noah said, taking a seat on the bed, next to Sullivan. “No father should ever do what I saw your dad do to you.” He took Sullivan’s chin and turned it, getting a better look at the stitches. “You want an out? A way out of this small town? Promise me good pitching and hard work, and I’ll make your dreams come true.” He offered a pen and a piece of paper. “You’ve got talent, kid. It’s time you use it. Come with me to Boston. Let me get you in front of people that matter and show ’em the pitches that have been keeping me coming back to see you.”

A warm breeze brushing over Sullivan’s face shook him out of the memory. “What you didn’t know was that the night before I left, I’d gotten into a fight with a player from the opposing team after the game. Just push-and-shove shit, but I remember how I felt. The anger, the rage that filled me when I punched that guy until blood poured from his nose.” He paused to collect himself then continued. “The following day, the day my dad punched me, I stared up at him and recognized that anger on his face, the feeling of it. That day I realized I’m capable of the same kind of rage.” Feeling her stillness next to him, he glanced her way, finding

her watching him closely. “You’ve got to understand, Clara, it scared me. Scared me enough to leave, knowing you deserved better. That rage would have only festered if I’d stayed in River Rock. It would have eventually touched you. Maybe not by my hand, but in some way, and I couldn’t let that happen. So I left, and for a very long time, that anger stayed gone.” Until his father died.

Clara’s lips pursed before her expression softened a little. “It wasn’t your choice to decide what is good for me or not. That wasn’t your right; it was mine. You should have told me why you were leaving. What was going on in your head.”

He considered that, and he knew she was right. But he’d been a ticking time bomb back then. All he knew was that he couldn’t let his instability touch her. “Whether it was my decision to make or not make is irrelevant now. I made that decision, and there is no changing that,” he eventually said.

She sighed heavily. “So, where are you going with all this?”

He set his shot glass back down and turned to face her. “I want you to know I’m not pissing around here. I’m not the guy who left you seven years ago, hiding from the past. I’ve come home to face the shit I couldn’t face before. To right so many wrongs. Because when I got the call that my dad had died, in my head, I was fine. It resolved everything. The bastard was dead, and I could finally move on. But slowly, I began to drown. The game wasn’t enough anymore. Nothing was enough. And then, I just snapped again…all that anger and rage came back.”

“Which led to the suspension?”

“That’s right.” He stared at his greatest mistake. For seven years, Clara had been living the life Sullivan should have had with her, with his son. He should have made things easier, better. And he’d run from that life like it was poison to him. He didn’t come back for his father’s funeral when his kidneys finally gave out. He donated any of the money left in his father’s estate. It all sat like a painful memory he didn’t want to resurface. But none of that should have impacted Clara. Clara had only wanted love. Why couldn’t he have given her that? “The reason I’m telling you all this is so you know I’m not here to mess up anyone’s lives. I’m here to make amends.” And to show her he was serious, he added, “I’ve enlisted the help of Dr. Elizabeth Stevens.”

Her brows lifted. “You’re going to therapy?”