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“Mostly because Evie would have hated it. The cottage might be beautiful, but without daily maid service and a club scene, she’d have been bored out of her mind.” That was an understatement. It didn’t bother me anymore, but Evie and I had never had much in common.

Jane slipped her flip-flops off and buried her feet in the sand as she sat in one of the chairs. She tipped her head back and glanced over at me. “You never talk about what happened with your ex. Why don’t you tell me about it?”

I let out a long sigh. It was only fair—I knew everything that she had been through with Chad. My divorce from Evie had been much more private but still painful.

“After the accident, it looked like I would never recover all my mobility. The doctors were concerned about spinal cord damage. Paralysis was a real possibility. It took months before I was out of traction, and they saw that I was in much better shape than they predicted.”

I sipped my drink, stalling before I shared the worst of that time. I had been in such a dark place. Lying in that hospital bed either in excruciating pain or doped up on painkillers, experiencing the ugliest emotions of my life. Full of anger that it had happened at all; despair that I might never walk again, much less play baseball. Evie avoiding me at every turn. She would show up if she knew someone else was coming, like when members of the team visited. Otherwise, she had a million reasons why she couldn’t be there with me.

“Evie was smart enough to know that at least within the baseball world, she’d be ostracized if she left me while I was in traction and potentially paralyzed. That didn’t stop her from having an affair with my agent, although I didn’t find that out until later. As I started healing, and the docs realized I had feeling in all my limbs, she visited me less and less. She always had excuses—she was trying to launch a career as a fitness influencer, so she was working out, or filming, or meeting potential partners.

“The day I was released from the hospital, she texted me that she couldn’t come pick me up, to get someone else to bring me to the condo. I was still in a wheelchair, only able to walk with a walker. I couldn’t believe she wasn’t going to pick me up. Then, when I got home, she’d cleaned out the condo. Took everything except a few pieces of furniture she didn’t like. Emptied our joint bank account, ran up both credit cards that had her name on them.”

I tried to wash away the bitter taste in my mouth with more wine. While I had thought I loved Evie, the truth was her leaving had left me indignant instead of devastated. I was pissed that she was too much of a coward to tell me to my face, that she’d just emptied out our home and took as much of my money as she had access to and ran.

“Ouch. That must have been incredibly painful. I’m sorry she did that to you. What did you do?” Jane’s beautiful brown eyes were brimming with sympathetic tears.

I reached over and wiped away the tear rolling down her cheek with my thumb. “I was more angry than anything. I’m not sure if I had stopped loving her, or if I never loved her at all. Maybe I had sensed her distancing herself in the hospital, and subconsciously I was prepared for her to bail on us. I called my lawyer, who found me a killer divorce attorney and hired me a home health-care aid to help me until I was able to take care of myself. I filed for divorce, and we negotiated a deal where if she agreed to walk away with nothing except what she had already taken, I wouldn’t file theft charges for taking some things she wasn’t entitled to. She didn’t take anything I cared that much about anyway. I paid off the credit cards and cancelled them so she couldn’t spend any more of my money, took her name off all my accounts. After I found out she was sleeping with my agent, I fired him.”

I laughed. “That was the most satisfying part of all of it. He lost far more money when I fired him than she took from me in the divorce. I hired a new agent to negotiate my contract buyout from Seattle, so my ex-agent lost over two million dollars on that deal.”

I wondered if he thought Evie was worth it, because not only did I fire him, but some of the other players he represented also shit-canned him when they found out what he did to me while I was injured. Word got around in the baseball community.

“Served him right,” Jane said. “Chad’s agent was an idiot, but I rarely had anything to do with him. And while I probably got the losing end in our divorce settlement, I walked away with the most important thing, my freedom. That’s priceless.”

We sat silently in our chairs, sipping our wine, listening to the loons on the lake. I could get used to this life, especially if I had Jane by my side.

Chapter 35

Jane

I poured myself another glass of wine while I waited for Carter to join me on the deck. I was anxious to soak in the hot tub. The sun was dipping down, the sky changing to glorious shades of red and pink. I wanted to enjoy every minute of it from the comfort of the tub on the deck.

When Carter had suggested a mini vacation, I figured we’d wind up at some resort near Banff or Lake Louise. High-end luxury, but surrounded by people. This secluded mountain cottage was so much better. We’d seen a couple kayaking in the distance earlier today as we talked by the firepit, but those were the only other people we’d seen since stopping for gas this morning. Carter had outdone himself.

I sipped my wine, enjoying the slight buzz I had going from the two glasses I’d already drank. Our steaks and salad had helped neutralize some of the effect of the wine, but I was feeling pleasantly relaxed.

Carter came out to the deck and nodded when I offered him more wine. I climbed into the warm water, sighing when he found the controls and turned on the jets. Bliss.

Quiet classical guitar music began playing in the background. “Does this work for you?”

“Mm-hmm. It’s perfect.” I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, the moment filling my senses and washing away all the stress I’d been carrying. Out here I could believe that everything was going to work out, could pretend we were a normal couple, not one with a built-in end date.

He slipped into the water beside me and groaned. “These jets feel so good.”

Carter’s groan made me wonder just how much he was hurting playing baseball this season. He never complained, but everything he’d said this afternoon reinforced just how bad his injuries had been.

“You’ve never told me why you want to win the World Championship so much. I mean, I know that’s what every player wants, but you had an impressive career. No one would question it if you retired now. What drives you?”

He stilled, and silence stretched between us. I waited, hoping he would share his reasons with me.

“You know my mom died when I was a teenager, right before I was drafted. My parents didn’t have a ton of money, and they funnelled a lot of cash into me playing baseball. My mom picked up an extra night shift; she was working so hard to support me. She had an undiagnosed heart defect, and she went into cardiac arrest during her shift. All my life I had promised to bring her home a ring. When she died, I wanted to fulfill that promise. I never told anyone—even my dad doesn’t know all of it.” Grief rang in every word. Carter must still miss her terribly.

After a long sigh, he continued: “Seattle was so close the year of my accident. I really thought it was going to happen. I’m going to keep trying until no one will give me a contract to play anymore. If that doesn’t work, I’ll catch on as a coach, a manager; maybe I’ll even join a front office. I’m not breaking my promise to her.”

His promise explained why he was working so hard, why he was determined to make it back to the big leagues. He would be gone as soon as Vancouver called.

“I understand, but what if you never keep your promise? Will you spend the rest of your life bouncing from team to team, trying to fulfill a promise made by teenage you? Don’t you want to settle down, have a home, build a life?” I understood chasing your dreams, but Carter was living to fulfill a promise that might never happen. What about the rest of his life?