Читать книгу Star-Crossed Sweethearts / Secret Prince, Instant Daddy!: Star-Crossed Sweethearts / Secret Prince, Instant Daddy! - Jackie Braun, Raye Morgan - Страница 7

ANGELO CASALI stood at the home plate with his feet planted shoulder’s width apart in the dust. The bat hovered in the air just beyond his right ear. It was the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs, and the Rogues were trailing by two. Anxious runners filled the bases waiting for New York’s Angel to work a miracle. They and the fans knew the team’s pennant hopes rested squarely on his shoulders.

The opposing team’s pitcher glared at Angelo from beneath the bill of his cap. Kyle Morris had one of the best arms in the league. Only a handful of batters could touch his fastball. Angelo was one of them, which was why Morris had yet to bring the heat against him this game. In fact, the pitcher had walked Angelo his last two times at bat. Morris couldn’t afford to do that now, and they both knew it.

The pitcher hiked up his leg and levered back his arm before bringing it around. The ball blasted free of his hand like a bullet clearing the barrel of a gun. Even so, Angelo was ready, his eyes tracking its trajectory. He timed his swing perfectly and put everything he had into it, shifting his weight to his right leg as he brought the bat around.

Crack!

The sound of red-stitched white leather meeting wood rent the air like gunfire. It was followed by a sickening pop! that only Angelo heard…and felt. Pain, wicked and white-hot, exploded from his shoulder. The crowd’s deafening roar drowned out his cry.

It’s worth it, he told himself. It’s worth it.

Even as he dropped the bat and started toward first base, he knew there was no need to hurry. The ball was riding high in the clouds and showed no signs of dropping.

“And it’s out of here!” the announcer shouted.

The fans were on their feet, clapping and high-fiving.

“Angel! Angel! Angel!”

Their jubilant chanting buoyed him. Along with the adrenaline streaking through his system, it allowed him to ignore the worst of the pain. He rounded the bases at a leisurely trot with his good arm raised in triumph. By the time he arrived at home plate, his teammates were out of the dugout, standing there en masse to greet him with whoops and careless back slaps that nearly sent Angelo to his knees. He kept his grin in place, enjoying the moment. How could he not? The Rogues had just sealed a berth in the playoffs. He was the city’s hero.

Barely twenty-four hours, Angelo adjusted the ice pack on his shoulder and drank a beer in the solitude of his Upper East Side apartment. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear the crowd chanting his name as the video replayed on the big screen over the scoreboard. He’d watched it from the bench in the dugout, a spot he’d most likely keep warm for what little remained of the season. Most disturbing of all, though, was the thought that this time he might have to hang up his cleats for good.

He sipped the pricey imported brew he’d acquired a taste for his first year in the majors. What would he do then? The question nagged at him more than the pain from his shoulder.

His cell phone trilled as he debated having another drink in lieu of the medication the team doctor had prescribed. It was probably another journalist. Reporters were eager for an interview or even just a quote from the Angel. He snatched it off the coffee table, intending to turn it off. A glance at the readout stopped him. It was his brother, Alessandro.

He grinned as he flipped it open. “Alex. Hey.”

“How are you?”

“Never better,” Angelo lied.

“Except for your shoulder, you mean.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged the body part in question and immediately winced. “Except for that. What are you up to?”

“Drinking a beer. Been a long day.”

“I’m doing the same. I know what you mean.”

Angelo tossed the ice pack aside and started for the kitchen to retrieve another bottle. He wished his twin were there to share a cold one with him in person. It still amazed Angelo that Alex owned a ranch in San Antonio, Texas, and was as at home roping steer as Angelo was snapping up grounders in a major league ballpark. God knew their chaotic childhood hadn’t lent itself to either profession. For that matter, it was amazing either of them had amounted to much of anything.

“So, is your shoulder as bad as the sportscasters are saying?” Alex wanted to know.

Angelo made a dismissive sound. “You know how those vultures are. They’re milking the story to boost their sagging ratings.”

His brother wasn’t fooled. “You won’t be back in uniform this season.”

“No.”

“And next year?”

“Sure. After surgery and some rehab I’ll be as good as new.” Angelo’s shoulder throbbed, seemingly in contradiction. He silenced it with a gulp of beer and settled back into the leather recliner. “I’m too damned young to retire.”

It was a lie and they both knew it. Thirty-eight wasn’t old by most standards, but in baseball it was damned near ancient. Before the injury, Angelo had remained a powerhouse, but his legs weren’t what they used to be. Things like that didn’t escape the notice of the guys in the dugout, much less the guys in management. This injury didn’t help. It was his second serious one in three years, and pulled tendons had taken him out for several games in June. No ball club wanted to pay top dollar for a player who’d ride the pine. Even his agent was getting antsy that when Angelo’s multimillion-dollar contract expired in a couple months the team would cut him loose.

“Well, it sounds like you’ll have some time on your hands.”

“Yeah.” He studied the label on his beer and scraped at the edge with his thumbnail. “Maybe I’ll mosey on down to Texas and pay you a visit. I could get better acquainted with your bride-to-be and her little girl.”

It still came as a surprise that the pretty single mom had knocked his brooding brother off his feet when she’d shown up at the ranch with her disabled daughter a few months earlier. Alex wasn’t the sort to fall fast or hard. Yet he’d done both.

“I’d like that.” Alex paused then. “But what I’d like even more is for you to use the time to go to Italy.”

Angelo closed his eyes. “Not this again,” he muttered after an oath.

For weeks his twin had been urging on him to reconnect with their estranged father and meet the rest of the Casali clan in Monta Correnti, the place of their birth.

“Go and make your peace. You won’t regret it,” Alex said.

“I have no peace to make. I’m fine with things just the way they are.”

“Fine? You’re ticked off, Angelo.”

“That too,” he agreed after a long pull on his beer. “Where were they when we were stealing to eat or getting dumped into yet another foster home? Where was Luca?” he demanded, referring to their father. “No one was inviting us to Italy to visit then.”

The way he saw it, the old man had washed his hands of his sons when he had sent them to Boston to live with their American mother, who was more suited to partying than parenting. They’d been three years old then. By the time the twins were fourteen, Cindy had drunk herself to death and the boys had been made wards of the state. Not long after, they’d made their way to New York. His skin still crawled when he thought about how close they’d come to winding up statistics.

“They didn’t know, Angelo. None of them, including Luca, knew that Mom was gone or that we were in and out of the foster system.”

“They didn’t know because they didn’t care enough to find out,” he shot back.

In Angelo’s mind, it was all very cut and dried. In the past, when it could have made a real difference, his family had wanted nothing to do with him. Well, he wanted nothing to do with them now, regardless of how many olive branches they extended.

He’d already ignored the surprise e-mail from his half-sister, Isabella, which had kicked off this whole reunion quest. Talk about a curveball. He certainly hadn’t expected to learn via the Internet that he had additional siblings in Monta Correnti, three of them born to Luca’s second wife after Angelo and Alex’s exile. He’d also passed on a wedding invitation from a cousin who’d grown up in Australia.

Family had been falling out of the rafters for the past several months, but it was all too little and coming far too late.

“Don’t think Luca doesn’t regret his choices,” Alex said quietly. “He does. But he can’t go back and change the past. He can only try to change the future. Go to Italy, Angelo. Spend a week in Monta Correnti. In fact, spend two. You could use a vacation. I’ve already booked you a flight and found you a place to stay. I’ll e-mail you the information. You can pay me back later.”

“I’ll drop a check in the mail first thing in the morning, bro. But I’m not going.”

Alex was quiet a moment before he pulled out his ace. “If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for me. I’m asking you to go.”

“That’s low.” And it was. His level-headed and older-by-mere-minutes brother knew he was the only person who could get Angelo to do something he didn’t want to do.

Far from sounding insulted, Alex’s voice held a smile when he replied, “Sure it’s low, but it’s also effective. You’ll thank me later.”

“Thank you? Right. Don’t hold your breath,” Angelo snapped before hanging up.