Suddenly a Bride / A Bride After All: Suddenly a Bride

“True, I guess. But it’s so obvious. I mean, if you called him Sam The Deer that wouldn’t be so obvious. Sam The Donkey? Sam The Duck? Or, to make it simple, you could just call him STD.”

At this, Elizabeth narrowed her eyes as she looked at him. “STD? I don’t think so.”

Will smiled, covering his mouth with his hand. “Oh, right. That would seriously cut down his chances with the lady dogs, wouldn’t it?” He took two steps toward the field. “Mikey! No dogs on the field. Bring him over here.”

There were protests from the team, all of whom seemed to be almost as enthralled with Sam The Dog as he was with them.

“Come on, put some hustle into it. We’ve only got the field for another hour or so.”

Elizabeth took the leash from Mikey, telling him to get Danny and run back up the hill to get their equipment and her chair. “Once again, Will, I’m really sorry. But Richard is gone, and Sam The Dog looked so forlorn as I was leaving that I thought it wouldn’t hurt to bring him along.”

“Richard’s gone? Richard as in your boss—that Richard?” Will asked, as if that was the only thing he’d heard. “For how long?”

“We’re not sure. His publishing house keeps wanting to add new cities to his tour. A week, ten days—more? Why?”

“No reason,” Will said, taking Sam The Dog’s leash from her. “I think the pooch here will enjoy himself more if I tie him up next to the team bench. And I just thought that might mean you’re pretty much on vacation, with your boss gone.”

Elizabeth mentally, figuratively—please, Lord, not physically, because that he could see—backed up a pace. “I have a few things to do, routine things. But yes, I suppose you could say I’m on vacation.”

“Then you’ll be staying here in town, not going anywhere. Not taking the kids to the shore or anything?”

She shook her head. “No, I hadn’t planned on it. Why?”

He seemed to mentally pull himself up short. “No reason. It’s just that we need to field ten kids—we have four outfielders, cuts down on the coaches having to chase balls—and we only have fifteen on the team. I’ll be down two for a week when Jason and Drew Keglovitz leave on vacation. So … so it’s good to know that Mikey and Danny will be available. Sam The Dog, huh?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Sam The Dog. Right. Well, um, I should go find a place that’s out of the way and let you get back to work.”

“Okay, good. I’ll … I’ll see you after practice.”

She turned away, her eyes momentarily widening in a “what the heck was that all about?” way before she picked up her lawn chair and headed for the grassy area where other parents were congregated.

“Here, put your chair down next to mine,” one of the women, a striking redhead, said, motioning for Elizabeth to join her. “Cute dog. I’m Annie Lambert. My Todd is the one with the bright orange hair—no surprise there, right? Which little darling is yours?”

Elizabeth introduced herself as she unfolded her chair and sat down. “I’ve got two here, actually. Mikey and Danny. They’re twins.”

“Oh, how neat. Unless you’re the one up all night with them while they’re newborns, I guess. I swear, my Todd never slept through the night until he was three—years, not months. Where are they?” Annie asked, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked out over the ball field.

Thanks to her evening at the IronPigs game, Elizabeth was able to answer with some authority: “Danny’s standing at first base, and Mikey is at third.”

“Really? You have to mean the ones with those adorable blond curls sticking out from under their caps. I’m so sorry. I thought they were girls.” Annie pulled a comical face. “I was told there were a couple of girls on the team. Not that I don’t love curls, and I would hate to see them cut off. It’s bad enough their soft baby skin doesn’t stay that way. Todd’s got knees like sandpaper. He’s also got his hair shaved down to just about nothing for the summer, but that was his father’s idea. I think it’s great that your husband is letting you keep their curls this long. They grow up too fast as it is.”

“I’m a widow,” Elizabeth said, as if that excused the curls, which was ridiculous. The curls were probably ridiculous. Why hadn’t she realized that? But they were babies, her babies. And now they were growing up so fast. “They need haircuts, don’t they?”

Annie put her hand on Elizabeth’s arm. “Sweetie, you do what you want to do, and don’t listen to anyone else. They’re your kids. But, yeah, I’d say get them haircuts. Kids can be cruel.”

“They never told me about any problems in school,” Elizabeth said quietly. “But you’re right. My husband would have made sure the curls were gone by the time they were three or four. It’s just so difficult sometimes … letting them—Ohmigod!”

As she and Annie had been talking, Elizabeth was also watching the practice on the field. Will was throwing balls high into the air, and the fielders—they were called fielders—were running in to catch them. Trying to catch them. Watching the balls bounce and then chasing them.

It had been Danny’s turn, and he’d run in from left field just as the other players had done, opened his mouth wide just as the other players had done and held out his huge glove, just as the other players had done.

Except instead of catching the ball, or wildly swinging at the ball with his glove or watching the ball bounce and then chasing it … Danny had just stood there, and let the ball hit him on the top of his head. He immediately clapped both hands to his head and fell to the dirt, yelling, “Ow-ow-OW!”

“Steady, girl,” Annie said, swiftly grabbing Elizabeth’s arm as she half rose out of her chair. “The coaches will handle it. The last thing the kid needs is Mommy running out onto the field.”

“But he’s hurt.”

“It’s a rubber ball. Sort of. He’ll be fine. Besides,” Annie said as Elizabeth sat down once more, “he’s got all those curls to act as a cushion. There, see, he’s up and going back to the base to try again.”

“They should have been girls,” Elizabeth lamented. “I’d know what to do with girls. But I’m an only child. I don’t have a brother—or even any male cousins. I’m flying blind here, Annie. That was okay when they were younger. But now …?”

“Now you follow your instincts.”

“Really? My instinct was for me to go running down there onto the field, remember?”

“Right. You figure out what your instincts tell you, and then you do the opposite.”

Elizabeth laughed and then pointed to the field. “Look, he caught it this time! Yea, Danny!”

Her son heard her and looked up the hill and then smiled and waved.

“Okay, I feel better now. Anything else I should know?”

Annie shook her head. “No, now it’s my turn. How well do you know our hunky coach?”

“Will?” Elizabeth didn’t know how to answer that. “Uh … I only met him yesterday. Why?”

Annie leaned closer to her and spoke quietly. “Word is he’s quite a hit with the ladies, as my mother used to say. Handsome, rich—all that good stuff. But also the love them and leave them type.”

“Really,” Elizabeth said just as quietly, and a quick vision of Kay Quinlan popped into her mind.

“I’m just saying, you know? He’s not here because he loves coaching kids or anything. He’s here because otherwise he’d be in the lockup for talking back to some judge. He might be looking around, thinking there has to be a way he can have some fun, as long as he has to be here anyway. You’re young, you’re pretty, you’re available. And I saw the way he was looking at you earlier. I’m not insinuating anything here. Like I said, I’m just saying, you know?”

Elizabeth nodded, looking down the hill to where Will was now showing Mikey how to hold a bat. The man didn’t look as if he wished he could be somewhere else. He looked as if he was enjoying himself. He’d looked as if he’d enjoyed himself at the sporting goods store, at the pizza shop and at the ball game last night. But what did she know about how anything looked? “Thanks. Not that I think you’re right. But I’ll keep your warning in mind.”

“Hey, don’t do it for me. The man is a dreamboat. I’d say go for it.”

“You’re suggesting a fling, Annie? Is that it?”

“As someone who hasn’t flung in a long time? Yeah, I suppose I am. I’ll just live vicariously through you. And look—no, don’t look! But he was just looking up here, and he wasn’t looking at me.”

Elizabeth kept her head down, pretending to search for something in her purse. She looked, she hoped, calm, cool and completely collected. But inside she was already up and out of her chair—running for her life.

* * *

Elizabeth had already folded up her lawn chair and said goodbye to Annie after the two of them exchanged phone numbers and a promise to take all three boys for lunch after the Saturday-morning game.

Elizabeth knew she could count her friends on one hand, and even those she’d known in the apartment building where she’d lived until moving into Richard’s guesthouse had sort of faded away in the past ten months. In truth, her friends had been little more than the mothers of other children the twins played with in the park. Her life had been much too busy and much too lonely once Jamie got sick and after Jamie died.