“Instead of slowing down rounding second, he speeds up by balancing the centrifugal and centripetal forces,” Bobby said.
“So you got thrown out stealing?” Victoria guessed. “That it?”
“Worse,” Cadillac said.
“Much worse,” Cece said. “Aw, don't be such a baby. Tell her.”
Steve sighed. “We're in Omaha, championship game against Texas. Two outs, bottom of the ninth, nobody on base, we're down by a run. We get a triple. I come in as a pinch runner, take a lead… and get picked off.”
“Oh, dear,” Victoria said, not knowing what else to say.
“The thing is, I was safe. It was a bad call.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Honest. The video proves it. I got in under the tag. My first taste of injustice.”
“Some of us seen a lot worse than that,” Cadillac said.
Ten minutes later, Victoria sampled her sweet potato pie and listened. Cadillac was telling Steve he'd taught T-Bone Walker to cook catfish, and T-Bone taught him to play bottleneck slide guitar. “And I ended up playing guitar a helluva lot better than T-Bone cooked.”
Steve paid rapt attention to the old man, and Victoria wondered just how many people did. Cadillac started telling Muddy Waters stories, and Steve began singing, “I'm your hoochie-coochie man.”
Cadillac laughed and slapped his thigh as Steve mangled the lyrics and the tune, completely unfazed. Looking at her, Steve belted out the stanza about a man who could make pretty women jump and shout, but then he forgot the words and started making up his own. Just like he made up his own laws.
She'd better add Cadillac Johnson to the Steve Solomon Fan Club. The old man showed deep affection for him. Leaving her wondering again if she'd been missing something.
What a complicated man you are, Steve Solomon.
Chisel away that purposely obnoxious exterior, there might be a heart and soul buried inside. As she looked at him now, the dark hair falling across his forehead, his eyes bright with pleasure, she let herself see him not as a lawyer but as a man. A man who could round second without slowing down and score from first on a single. A man who was already a surrogate father and would make a wonderful father to his own children. A man who-dare she even think it?-was hot.
If I weren't engaged…
Whoa. Where had that come from? She was about to do the happily-ever-after with Bruce. She was lucky to have found him. She loved so many things about him. His honesty and loyalty and levelheadedness. And Solomon? On good days, he could be a savvy, funny colleague. But on bad days, they still squabbled and yapped at each other like those dogs in Judge Gridley's barn.
Whoops. Strike that thought, Counselor.
Those dogs ended up humping on a bale of straw. Best to banish all thoughts of Steve Solomon and barking dogs and bales of straw.
But seconds later, her mind, which had, well, a mind of its own, wandered again: If I weren't engaged…
Focus, she told herself. Don't think of his arms, his legs, his hands, his…
Omigod. I saw it!
The memory came back to her now. A lost dream recovered from the foggy mist between sleep and consciousness. When Bruce's alarm clanged her awake this morning, she was pressed, spoonlike, against him, feeling his warmth. But the man in her dream was not Bruce. It was Solomon.
They were walking on a deserted beach, Solomon wearing nothing but a towel, just like Sunday night at his house. In the dream, she tore the towel away, revealing his fully aroused…
Iron Rod.
Joystick.
Kosher Pickle.
Oh, God, how could she? It was as if she'd cheated on Bruce. She vowed to control her rebellious psyche. Concentrate, she told herself.
Sequester Solomon. Expunge him from every brain cell.
Victoria had no doubt she could, through sheer force of will, remove Solomon from her conscious thoughts. But how, she wondered, stricken with guilt, would she ever control her dreams?
Seventeen
STEALING HOME
Three steps off third base, Steve bounced on his toes, knees flexed, arms relaxed. A wet fog had settled over the field, and he could barely see home plate.
“Steal home,” a sweet, seductive voice whispered.
He stayed put. “Who said that?”
The pitcher threw a sizzling fastball that vanished into the mist. “Stee-rike!” an invisible umpire called out.
“Steal home for me,” the seductive voice murmured.
Steve turned and squinted through the fog, and there she was. The third base coach. Victoria Lord, and she was not wearing pants! Nothing but skin between her University of Miami jersey and her high-heeled, cork-soled sandals with orange and green straps.
“You're wild and reckless,” she said. “That's what I love about you.”
“You do?” He was vaguely aware he was dreaming.
Another pitch disappeared into the mist. “Stee-rike two!”
“Please, Steve. Please steal home.” A Siren of the base paths.
Steve shivered. It was growing colder, the moisture soaking through his uniform. The pitcher started his windup, and Steve took off. Through the thickening fog, he saw it all unfold in slow motion.
A soft floating pitch.
The catcher turning to shield the plate. That tub of guts, Zinkavich!
The umpire tearing off his mask. Mr. Judgmental himself. His father! Steve slid headfirst, one hand darting beneath Zinkavich's pudgy legs, just as the mitt came down hard, crashing against his temple with a sound of a bowling ball hitting the pins. Pain flared in his skull.
“Out!” Herbert Solomon yelled. “You'll never be the ballplayer ah was, you pantywaist.”
“Uncle Steve!” Bobby cried out from somewhere.
“The boy's mine!” Zinkavich thundered. “The boy's mine now!”
“Uncle Steve!” Bobby cried again.
The throbbing in his head grew worse, and now Steve felt a great weight pressing down on his chest.
“Uncle Steve!”
He was coming out of the fog.
Back in his bedroom, but something was wrong. Bobby was on top of him, pushing him into the mattress, clutching at him. Crying, trembling, shouting. “Uncle Steve! Somebody's here!”
“Who? Where?” Steve was wide-awake. Heart racing.
“Outside my window. Looking in!”
“A dream, Bobby. Just a dream.”
“No! Someone's here!”
Steve looked at the digital clock on the nightstand: 4:17.
“Don't let them take me,” Bobby said.
“No one's taking you. Ever.”
Steve reached under the bed, grabbed a metal baseball bat, told Bobby to stay there. Wearing only his Jockeys, he padded to the boy's bedroom. Windows closed, bedsheets tangled. He looked out the window. Nothing
