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I scooted backward. “I’m…uh, fine.”

“You sure? You’re kinda pale.”

From my brief brush with mortality.

Obviously.

I huffed and stood. “You’re like a black hole, you know that? Sucking all the gravity and stable footing out from under me.”

He smiled, and there was that damned dimple again, glaring at me.

My pencil could’ve taken it down. I was sure of it.

His phone started chiming. He took it out of his pocket and waved it at me, grinning even wider. “Would you look at that? Twenty minutes on the dot.”

Chapter Eight

Reed

“I would have liked to have had that chance. Just once. To stare down a big-league pitcher. To stare him down, and just as he goes into his windup, wink.”

—Moonlight Graham, Field of Dreams

Had I known my walk home yesterday would end up in a full-on locking-horns rumble with the Princess of Fairfield followed by having to rescue her—again—I would’ve skipped it and driven.

At least it wasn’t a total waste of time. I had climbed up that railcar to learn more about this “new Eliza” and if she really had changed or if it was all an act.

Jury was still out.

She had the newest iPhone but chose an old Jeep over a new Beemer. She mapped out lighting cues for fun and preferred to sit on top of railcars instead of hanging out at her own house or in town.

Strange.

But one thing that really gave me pause was her tattoo: a small one on her wrist—a baseball in the shape of a heart with letters spelling out something in the stitching. Crowleys definitely didn’t have tattoos, and not knowing what it said had gnawed at me for the rest of the day.

Ex-boyfriend?

Current boyfriend?

Lucky stock numbers?

Why. Did. I. Care?

So what if she had a boyfriend or owned stock in Microsoft or Apple?

And then there was the way she looked at me after I pulled her from the edge of that railcar. That same look she gave kid Reed a long time ago when she pulled me out of that creek. Like she was really seeing me as Reed and not the enemy, Fulton.

I had forgotten that look. That feeling.

I stepped outside onto the back porch of the farmhouse and stretched. Nana’s wind chimes stayed quiet in the still air, and the sun already sat hazy in the sky despite it being early. It would be a hot one at Crowley Park later today for our game, but for now, I needed to pay a visit to the barn.

Next to a baseball field, there was nothing better than the smell of dry hay mixed with chainsaw dust and gasoline. Rusty metal blended with fresh-stained wood. I could see why Granddad loved it.

Just stepping over the threshold made me feel almost as calm as taking the mound. It had been ages since I walked in here, yet nothing had changed except the sheet over Dad’s unfinished rocking chair in the corner.

My fingers shook as I pulled off the thin fabric. A cloud of dust puffed into the humid air. The chair looked better than I remembered. The arm rails and spindles felt smooth and firm, and the runners appeared sturdy enough too.

“Need something to connect them across the chair and from the front to the back,” I said to no one. A stretcher? Is that what Dad had called those?