Out of His League. Cathryn Parry
okay?
Lizzy closed the door behind her so she was in the hall alone with Jon. “You should not have come,” she said to him in a low voice. Her face was pale. For the first time it occurred to him that this wasn’t a good idea to stop by unannounced.
“Sorry.” He held out a game ball he’d grabbed from his car for her nephew. He gave Lizzy his best “Mr. Helpful, I’m a Good Guy” smile, but she didn’t seem to be buying it. He shrugged. “I promised Brandon. The ball is from my last start of the season, against Toronto. We won.”
But New York had won their game, too, so the Captains hadn’t made a wild-card slot into the play-offs. Still, Jon had done his part, and Brandon, numbers kid that he was, should appreciate Jon’s stats from that outing.
“When did my nephew give you my private address?” she asked, not taking the baseball he offered. Her arms were crossed, and she was rubbing them, as if worried.
“Ah...Brandon and I talked in the recovery room. He asked me to stop by tonight to deliver an autograph for him.”
Her eyes grew huge. “Brandon was in the recovery room?”
“It’s okay, Lizzy. Lots of local kids are baseball fans. He probably just heard I was in the hospital, and he came to check it out. I’d have done it, too, at his age.”
“I did not give you permission to come to my house, and do not call me Lizzy.”
He gazed down at her. Why this woman intrigued him so much, he had no idea. She was buttoned up so tight—or in her case, zipped up, with a gray fitted turtleneck sweatshirt that went right up to her chin. He couldn’t help staring at that zipper pull, swinging back and forth from the force of her flustered breathing, and then he looked at her mouth.
Bow-shaped lips, without a speck of gloss or lipstick on them. They weren’t all plumped up, either. They were good, old-fashioned naked lips, and he would love to—
“Jon Farell!”
His gaze jerked to her face.
“Are you even listening to me?” she asked.
“Yes.” And she had said his name correctly, so that was a good sign. He smiled at her again.
Before she could react, pounding started on the other side of the door. Lizzy put her head in her hands.
“Let Jon Farell in, Auntie!” Brandon yelled.
“It’s okay,” he said to Lizzy. “I’ll give him the autograph I promised, then I’ll leave.”
“I don’t want you inside with us,” she hissed. “You can give the ball to him in the hallway, out here.”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is what I want.”
“Auntie!” came Brandon’s muffled yell.
She seemed to cringe. “And furthermore,” she whispered to Jon, “you’ll tell no one you’ve been here, do you understand? I am a private person, and I find your public lifestyle abhorrent.”
Abhorrent, that was a big word just to say she didn’t like it.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” he said gently. “I won’t tell anyone I was here. And it’s not like I’m Brad Pitt. I don’t have paparazzi tailing after me everywhere.”
She still didn’t seem mollified. “I value my independence.”
And then she opened the door a crack and said to Brandon, “Please watch your TV program and be patient. Just give us a moment.”
There was her problem—she was too formal and too much of an adult with the kid.
She turned back to Jon, her gaze narrowed. “I do not want my name associated with a public person, do you understand?” Again, that whispering, as if he were a criminal at her door.
“I will honor your rules.” He crossed his arms now, to match her stance. “Remember though, you were the one who left me a coded message. In the recovery room. And your instincts were right. The lab called me already—it’s not cancer.”
Her breath expelled. “That’s...good.” She was nibbling those naked lips again, just like this morning. “That’s very good.” Her expression had softened.
“What about you?” he asked in a low voice. “Have you heard about Brandon?”
“No.” She sighed. “But I’ll be shocked if the test results aren’t favorable.”
“Why do you say that?”
She let out a breath, and her eyes darted from his face to his chest. She was starting to open up now ever so slowly, and it was fascinating to watch.
“It turned out my sister was being overly dramatic in thinking the cancer was recurring,” she said.
“Wow. That’s gotta be hard for Brandon.”
“He doesn’t suspect anything. He thinks it’s just a sleepover.” Again, that frown.
He squinted at her. “And you’re not comfortable with that?”
“I’m used to living alone.”
“Auntie!” Brandon was through being patient; he resumed his hammering on the door.
A door opened farther down the hallway. A head popped out.
Jon blocked Elizabeth from view by standing with his back to the curious neighbor. “You should let Brandon out to see me before the neighbors come over to investigate,” he pointed out.
She looked horrified. “Get inside,” she hissed. “Quickly.”
He’d never met a woman like her. Jon was willing to bet she didn’t know many of her neighbors. Holding out his hand, indicating she lead, he followed her inside. He liked the view of her in her street clothes rather than her hospital scrubs. This was the real Lizzy that she hid from the public. He appreciated seeing it.
Inside her apartment—smaller and homier than his, with lower ceilings instead of wide-open windows, and curtains drawn tight—he could see straight away that she’d been in the process of foraging up a meal in the kitchen. The wall cabinets were open, and cans of soup—he saw one labeled chicken noodle—were spread over the counter. An empty pot sat on the stovetop.
Brandon came up behind him, clasped Jon’s elbow and clung to him. Jon stiffened. Not cool, Brandon, he almost said.
“You can give him his autograph,” Lizzy remarked, “but then you have to leave. I need to run out to the store to grab us something for dinner.”
Her mobile phone rang and, flustered, Lizzy excused herself to go answer it.
Jon stared from Lizzy—in the kitchen whispering into the phone—to Brandon.
Maybe the boy just didn’t like chicken noodle soup. His own younger brothers were finicky eaters; one of them had consumed nothing but peanut butter sandwiches until he hit school age. Jon smiled at Brandon and took the boy’s hand. He thought again about telling the kid that it was a bad idea to grab a pitcher’s throwing arm—sort of like tugging on Superman’s cape—but given the kid’s and his aunt’s riled-up emotions, he figured he would let it go. The kid had been through enough. “I brought over the autograph you asked me for. Plus a game ball from my last start of the season.”
Brandon brightened. “That was your Toronto game!”
“It was.”
“I watched the whole thing on TV! My mom let me stay up late.”
“Are you behaving for your aunt tonight?”
Brandon scratched his head. “I’m hungry.”
Jon sat on the couch and motioned for the boy to sit beside