Love in the Vineyard (Tavonesi #7)(36)

“Yo! Adrian,” Matt called. “Move it!”

Natasha waved a hand toward the field. “You’d better go do what you came to do.” She turned to face him and spread her palms in the space between them as he had done moments before. “And if it makes any difference, I’m sorry. For more than I can say.”

He was dragging himself away from the woman he’d fallen for to play a game for which he had no skill. Evidently baseball wasn’t the only game he didn’t come up to the mark for. Relationships might not be a game, but he was pretty sure he’d just flubbed the rules.





When the game ended, Natasha steered Tyler directly back to her car. She’d said a quick thank you to their host, Alex, and his teammate Matt.

She’d managed to steal away before Adrian had a chance to waylay her. Telling him that she didn’t want to join him the next day was the hardest thing she’d had to say in a very long time. But it was the right decision. There was no way she was going to cave. No way she was going to continue along the path she and Adrian had stepped onto.

Casanova.

As if she needed any clearer warning. A friend. He’d called the long-legged beauty a friend. Did he think she was an idiot? That she didn’t have eyes?

Tyler snapped on his seat belt. “Mom! We got invited to go out to Ryan Rea’s ranch. Ryan Rea! He’s about the best center fielder in all of the Major Leagues. He has a batting cage. A real one.”

“We have to get ready to move into our new place, Tyler. We’re busy.”

“We aren’t moving until next week. I’d get to practice with the guys. Alex’s friend Adrian said he’d call you later today with directions.”

Alex’s friend. The guys. Tyler had been scooped up from right under her nose. Her son was off limits. Using him to get to her was underhanded.

“And Ryan has a baby donkey,” Tyler went on. Natasha’s heart softened and she felt her brain turn to mush at Tyler’s pleading tone. “And he has a big garden. And maybe we can go to the beach after. Adrian says there’s a good boogie-boarding spot close to Ryan’s ranch.” He smacked his hand into his glove. “A real batting cage! And you know, knowing these guys who play in the majors could help Brandon and me. We’d have an in. I mean when we get out of college. They could—”

“Whoa. There’s a lot of schoolwork to be done between here and college. And years of practice if you want to play professional baseball. Years.” The fact that Tyler was already planning his career in the majors unsettled her. One out of a million boys made it to baseball’s Major League. And while she didn’t want to throw water on the fire of his dream, she wanted him to be realistic.

“Mom, you said that if I paid attention to my dreams, I’d never go wrong.”

Had she? She needed to be more careful with what she said. Tyler’s memory stored information like an armored Brink’s truck. She must’ve said it before her foolish bet. Before her dreams had steered her wrong. She’d learned a thing or two since that night.

“We can go to Ryan’s, right? Can we take Brandon? I bet he’s never even met a real baseball player. And Scotty Donovan might be there. He’s a pitcher. A stokin’-great pitcher. Brandon’ll die. He’s still mad at his mom for not letting him come with us today.”

“We’ll see.”

Tyler twisted in his seat to face her. “That means no.” He tapped her on the arm. “It’s not a very long drive.”

It wasn’t the drive she was worried about, but she couldn’t tell Tyler that.

She could avoid Adrian at work—he couldn’t cross the employee-employer line there, couldn’t make advances, not if she held to her boundaries. But if she saw him socially? Then the rules changed. And it wouldn’t be long before he discovered the monumental gap between them. Before he realized that though she hadn’t lied, she sure had been keeping information from him. She’d known all along that their worlds wouldn’t mesh—he hadn’t. This was no fairy story, no Hollywood movie. Heirs to fortunes did not marry women like her. And she liked him too much to see him casually. She wished it weren’t true, but it was. Sure, in the blush of infatuation they might believe their story could have a happy ending, but she wasn’t na?ve. And she had been a fool. Her heart was all in and reality did not look pretty.

She’d known from the beginning that there’d be an end like this. Well, maybe not exactly like this, but an end. Maybe she’d better just throw her cards down and end it cleanly. Tell him that she lived in a homeless shelter. That she’d bet her and her child’s future on a vision from a dream. That she could barely read or do math. No, that she wouldn’t tell him. She needed her job. Loved her job. And she was good at what she did. No one at Casa del Sole needed to know about her disability.

She might as well face Adrian, square off and get the pain over with. And give him a piece of her mind for leveraging Tyler to get to her. That she couldn’t forgive.

But a part of her felt exuberant that he’d gone to such measures to try to spend more time with her.

“Mom—you’re doing the thing.”

Startled back from her thoughts, she dropped the strand of hair that she’d twisted around her finger.

“Okay, honey. If Mr. Tavonesi calls and formally invites you, you can tell Brandon he can come with us.”