Chapter Twelve

The closer they got to Kaplan’s, the more Jocelyn felt her mood improve. Maybe she was hungry, after all. Or maybe she felt relaxed for the first time since they’d left Mimosa Key, on a familiar road that reminded her of late nights and long talks and a wonderful boy she once loved.

She slid a sideways glance at him, her gaze lingering on his shoulders, which were even broader than they’d been back then. In fact, everything about Will was stronger now. His profile, his muscles, his personality. He still had a heart as big as his hands, but he moved like a man in complete control.

And, damn, she liked watching him. He took her breath away when he smiled, something he’d done more and more on the short ride to Kaplan’s down the beach road.

“Place has changed a lot, don’t you think?” he asked, indicating the behemoth skyscraper condos that now entirely blocked the view of the water.

“Exactly what they’re trying to avoid on Mimosa Key.”

“We are avoiding it,” he said. “Clay’s architecture is the polar opposite of this heinous-looking stuff. Casa Blanca is going to be one in a million.”

She heard the pride in his voice. “You love working there.” It was a statement, not a question, and filled with a little wonder when she realized how true it was.

“I like it,” he admitted. “Way more than I thought I would. It’s amazing to be part of something like that from the ground up.” He angled his head toward her. “You know, you’re an investor.”

“I am, which is why I’m surprised Lacey never mentioned you were working there.”

“Did you ask?”

Honestly, no. “I had no idea you were a permanent resident of Mimosa Key. When I saw you last year at that town meeting, I figured you were there on behalf of your parents or something.”

He sighed. “Or something.”

“What does that mean?”

“I never planned to stay this long,” he admitted, pulling into the strip center. They were long enough past the lunch crowd to get a space close to the deli. “Let’s go in. I’ll tell you about it inside.”

She kept her hat pulled low and sunglasses on, but she shouldn’t have worried. The waitress who greeted them and walked them to a booth by the front window never even noticed her. She only had eyes for Will.

He put a hand on Jocelyn’s back to guide her, staying close until she slid into the booth, and then he sat across from her, taking the menus and ordering iced tea for both of them.

After a minute, feeling more ridiculous than disguised, she took off the sunglasses and glanced around to see what had changed in fifteen years. Not much, but Will leveled his eyes directly at her. The power of his stare warmed every corner of her body.

“Does it look different?” he asked.

She met his gaze, grabbed for a moment by the deep blue of his eyes. She’d never gotten used to how unexpectedly blue they were against his sun-burnished skin. “The kid across from me does.”

His lips curved in that slow, sweet, soul-melting smile that used to take her from heartache to happy in ten seconds. “He’s not a kid anymore.”

“I noticed.”

He lifted a brow, silently asking for more.

“You have a couple of crow’s-feet.”

He squinted, exaggerating the crinkles at the sides of his eyes. “What else?”

She didn’t answer right away, loving the excuse to examine every inch of his face, and the little roller-coaster ride her insides took as she and Will focused on nothing but each other.

“You let your hair grow out longer.”

“No annoying coach insisting on a trim.”

“And that’s what’s most different of all,” she said, leaning back as the waitress delivered two iced teas. When she left, Jocelyn finished the thought. “You don’t play baseball.”

He touched his stomach and feigned hurt. “You think I’m getting soft?”

Hardly. “I’ve never known you not to be on your way to a game, coming from a game, talking about the game, pissed off ’cause you lost a game, or whistling ‘We Are the Champions’ because you kicked the holy hell out of the Collier High Blue Devils.”

She thought he’d grin because she’d remembered the rival high mascot, but he just looked down at the tea, turning the glass and revolving the paper napkin with it.

“My career is… on hold.” He snorted softly and added, “He said optimistically.”

She just waited, knowing Will well enough to expect more. But he picked up his tea and took a long drink. She watched his eyes shutter closed and his throat rise and fall with each gulp.

Then he thunked the glass on the table and exhaled softly. “Speaking of baseball, we should get you a Marlins hat instead of that designer thing.”

“Speaking of putting walls and shells around yourself, you should tell me what the heck is going on with your career.”

A smile teased. “Good comeback, Jossie. Lose the hat and I will.”

“Why?”

He reached over and tapped at the brim, pulling it off and making her hair fall around her shoulders when the strands slipped through the hole in the back. “Because I like your hair and I can’t see your pretty face when you have that thing on.”

“That’s the idea,” she said, cutting a glance toward the empty booth across from them.

He lifted the hat and looked inside at the stitching. “Dolce and Gabbana? What the hell is that?”

“Expensive. Why are you being optimistic when you say your career is on hold?”

“Because, my friend who buys expensive hats…” He twirled the red-and-blue cap on his finger, a cocky move that belied the thick emotion in his voice. “Will Palmer, number thirty-one, holder of a few obscure and meaningless winning stats in the annals of minor league baseball, is finished playing.”

He tried the hat on and, of course, it barely covered the top of his head.

“Finished forever?” she asked.

Setting the cap on the table, he avoided her eyes. “Unless I can score a coaching job and, man, they are hard to come by in the majors or minors. My agent’s looking, and I’m trying to remain hopeful.”

“You don’t think you’ll get a coaching job?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Every day the hope thread gets a little more frayed.”

“What about carpentry? Do you like what you’re doing? I mean you’re so good at it.”

“You know, I do like it, but it’s so…” He shook his head as if what he was about to say amazed him. “Meaningless?”

The use of a question surprised her. “Building resorts and jaw-droppingly beautiful villas that will bring hours of pleasure to the guests and mountains of money to the owners? What’s meaningless about that?”

He laughed softly. “Touché, life coach.”

“You always loved to work with your dad. I remember when he built the shrine—er, the addition.”

He grinned. “It remains a shrine since I’ve moved into the master.”

She tried not to think about the room and all the memories wrapped up in that loft. “So you don’t… use it?”

“Just to work out.”

“Is it weird, sleeping in your parents’ old room?”

“I redid the whole thing, knocked down a wall, built out the closet, remodeled the bath. The whole house is practically new. The place is way more ready to sell this way.”

“But you haven’t put it on the market yet.”

He shrugged. “I’m… waiting.”

“For what?”

Before he answered, the waitress stepped up to the booth, blinded him with a smile, and asked for their order.

“Two Reubens with fries.” He closed his menu and handed them both to her but winked at Jocelyn. “Hold the ketchup on the the lady’s order.”

She smiled, the memory of the time he’d accidentally put ketchup on her fries during the midnight meal they’d shared still vividly clear. They’d fought and laughed and felt so damn comfortable.

That was just a month or so before—

She snapped her napkin on her lap and straightened the silverware until they were alone again.

“So why haven’t you sold their house? What are you waiting for?” she asked, grabbing at the conversation before he could read her expression. He’d been so good at that.

“Well, a coaching job, obviously. That’s the next natural step in my career.”

“And if that doesn’t materialize?”

He leaned all the way back, hooking his arms behind his head, a move that emphasized the biceps she was trying so hard not to stare at. “Guess I’ll have to figure out what I want to do with my life.”

“Better get on that, Will. You’re thirty-four.”

“Yep. Know any good life coaches who can help me?”

She grinned. “I sure do, but she’s expensive.”

“Of course she is.” Relaxing, he picked up the hat and popped it up, landing it perfectly on the sugar carousel. “Not cheap to buy Something-and-Cabana hats.”

She automatically righted the hat and neatly piled the Splenda packets back in order. “She has been known to work for a discount if she really likes you.”

“Do you really like me, Joss?”

She tapped the sugar into place, then restraightened the whole pile. Her heart slipped around in her chest a little, the feeling so intense and sweet it almost took her breath away.

“I’ve always liked you, Will,” she said carefully, searching for a way to keep this light. “And that means you may have the special-friend discount.”

“Which is?”

“My services for only a Reuben and fries. Buy lunch and we’ll fix up your life.”

“If only it were that easy.” His voice had a surprising sadness to it that pulled at her.

“Is it that bad?”

“Let’s see, I’m not on the run from the National Enquirer, wrongly accused of adultery, and being forced to play Clean House, so I guess it could be worse.”

She had to laugh. “All right, let’s start coaching.”

“Right now?”

“I loathe procrastination. You want life coaching, let’s go. What are you prepared to die for?”

He just stared at her. Blinked, then frowned. “What did you say?”

“What are you prepared to die for? That’s the first question I ask in the initial interview,” she explained. “I have to know what’s the most important thing to a client, and then we take it from there in bite-size pieces.”

“Do you know what you’re prepared to die for?” he asked.

“This is not my interview.”

He took another sip of tea, definitely a delay tactic. “It’s a stupid trick question,” he finally said after he swallowed. “The answer’s the same for everyone. Love, family, friendship, truth, honor, justice, and a grand slam in the World Series.” He paused, then grinned. “Okay, that might not be on your list.”

“None of those things are on my list, Will.” Not a single one.

He looked stunned, enough that she was a little embarrassed.

“Well, I might die for one of my friends, if I had to, but I don’t really have a family, and I can’t honestly say I’d die for honor or justice, though I value it, and I doubt I’ll ever go to a World Series.”

“You skipped the first one.”

Love. She’d skipped it on purpose. Still she frowned, as if she couldn’t remember the first thing on his list of things to die for.

“Love,” he reminded her.

“Oh, so I did,” she said. “Well, I’ve never…” Oh, yes she had. “I haven’t been married, but you have.” Thank God for that question-flip technique she’d learned in training. “Why don’t you tell me about her?”

“Does my marriage and divorce have to be part of the life-coaching interview?”

“Understanding your marriage might help us get a better picture of your…” Heart. “Problems.”

“Then my problems would be blonde, crazy, insecure, and camera-happy.” He angled his head and looked a little puzzled. “And that’s kind of interesting, isn’t it?”

That his wife was blonde, crazy, insecure, and camera-happy? Zoe would eat that gossip with a spoon. “How so?”

“That my ex was everything you’re not.”

His ex had a name. Nina Martinez. And she might have been blonde and crazy, but she was also drop-dead gorgeous. “See?” she said with false brightness. “A breakthrough already. Life coaching works.”

The waitress sidled up to the table with steaming platters, the delectable smoky tang of corned beef wafting along with her. As the woman set Jocelyn’s plate down, she glanced at her. And then did a double take.

Instantly, Jocelyn cast down her eyes, staring at the plate, but the grill marks on the sandwich swam in front of her eyes. Shit. Shit.

“Do I know you?” the waitress asked, forcing Jocelyn to look up and meet an unrelenting frown, the face of a woman digging through recent memory and about to come up with celebrity gossip.

“We used to be regulars here,” Will said quickly. “And that’s all we need, thanks.”

“Ohhh.” She drew out the word and looked from one to the other, but settled her attention on Jocelyn. “Well, I just started here, so, that’s not it.”

“Thank you.” Jocelyn said sharply, picking up her fork and knife despite the fact that she wouldn’t use either one on this meal.

The waitress got the message and left.

“Eesh,” Jocelyn said on a sigh. “How long will I have to hide like this?”

“Until you tell the truth.”

Which would be never. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand you’re protecting a person who has no compunction about throwing you under a bus.”

She set the silverware back down, lining it up perfectly, gathering a lot of possible responses and discarding most. “We all do what we feel is right regardless of what other people think.”

“More life-coach bullshit,” he said, picking up his sandwich and making it look petite in his giant hands.

“Is it?” she fired back. “I’m doing what I feel is right even though you don’t agree with it just like you’re doing what you think is right with my father even though I don’t agree with it. How are the two things so different?”

He just shook his head and took a bite. After he swallowed, he said, “There was one other thing about my ex-wife that’s different from you.”

Jealousy made a quick sting at her heart. “What’s that?”

“She’d have never let the issue of another woman drop. Don’t you want to know more about my marriage?”

She knew enough, actually. “Of course. How did you meet? How long were you married? Why did it end?”

He looked up just before taking his next bite. “Not ‘Was she pretty’? That’s what most girls want to know.”

Except this girl already knew his wife was on the cover of Fitness magazine once. “Last I looked, I was a woman, not a girl.”

“Sorry.” He looked at her and smiled, slow and bad and good all at the same time. The kind of smile that made Jocelyn’s whole insides rise and flutter and sigh. “You are a woman. A beautiful one.”

And flutter again.

She picked up a fry and nibbled the end. “We were talking about your wife.”

“Ex.”

“Semantics.”

“Incredibly important semantics.” He took a slow, careful bite, wiping his mouth with a napkin, drawing out the silence for a few seconds. “Well, let’s see. We met at the baseball field, we were married for three seasons, and it ended when it became painfully clear I wasn’t headed to the majors or a career in any kind of limelight, which was all that mattered to her.”

She smiled. “Most people count their anniversaries in years, not seasons.”

“She was my manager’s niece,” he said with a shrug, searching out his own fry. “It was definitely a baseball-centric marriage.”

“She was Latina, right?”

He whipped his head up at the question. “How do you know that?”

Damn it all. Why had she revealed that? “I saw something in the paper.”

“In Los Angeles?” Obviously, he didn’t believe her. “Sorry, but I didn’t make any papers outside of Florida.” He pointed a ketchupy fry at her, unable to hid the happiness that had just hit him. “You Googled me.”

She felt her cheeks warm, ate instead of answering.

But he laughed, a satisfied, bone-deep laugh. “You did. When? Recently? Yesterday? After you saw me last year?”

“A couple of years ago. And, really, this is supposed to be your life-coaching session, not mine.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up and I do.”

“I meant why did you Google me?”

She blinked, hovering between the truth and a lie. She slid in between. “I was curious how you’d been.”

He nodded slowly, searching her face. “Never thought about calling, though, did you? Or an e-mail?”

She shook her head just as the waitress walked by again, slowly, looking at Jocelyn, who lowered her head and let her hair cover her cheek. “I think I’ve been busted.”

“I’ll say. Who knew you’d Google me?”

“I meant by the waitress, Will.”

He nodded. “I know.” She turned toward the wall as Will gave the woman a sharp look and she scooted away. He reached over the table and put his hand over Jocelyn’s.

“It’s okay, Jossie.”

Déjà vu rolled over her again, much stronger this time, a whole-body memory that didn’t just hint of the past but lifted her from today and dropped her right back into every feeling she ever had for Will.

Respect. Appreciation. Admiration. And something so much more, so much deeper. “But if you want to leave, we can,” he said.

“No, let’s work on your career. What exactly are you doing in order to get that coaching job?”

“Waiting to hear from my agent.”

“Then you mustn’t want it very much.”

He shook his head vehemently. “That’s where you’re wrong. I want it very much.”

“Then the first word you use for your ‘action’ wouldn’t be ‘waiting,’” she shot back. “You’d be calling, meeting, searching, networking, applying, fighting, clawing, interview—”

He held up his hand. “I get the picture.”

“Do you?” She propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her knuckles. “Prove it.”

“What’s to prove? When you finish in the minors, you get a coaching job in the minors.”

“Are you passionate about coaching?”

“I’m passionate about…” When he hesitated, her whole body tightened in anticipation. What was Will passionate about? She wanted it to be—

“Baseball.”

“Of course.”

“Surely you didn’t forget that about me.”

“I didn’t forget anything about you.” Lord, why had she told him that? Because he had that gift: He made her so comfortable she forgot to maintain control.

The admission made him smile, not cockily like when he found out she’d Googled him, just—well, she couldn’t quite read those dozen different emotions flickering in his dark blue eyes. “Then we’re even. And you know that from the time I was five, I’ve lived, breathed, and slept the game. You know I love baseball. It’s all I know, all I’ve ever known.”

“You know,” she said, “I have a choice right now.”

Lifting his eyebrows in question, he waited for more explanation. “You do? I thought this was about my choices.”

“It is. But I have to make a choice.” She sipped her drink and chose her words carefully. “When I am coaching a client and I believe they are self-delusional, I have two choices. I can either let them off easy because they don’t really want to face the truth and they’d rather write a check and believe they found their answers, or…”

He didn’t respond, scratching his neck a little, as if he wasn’t quite sure where she was going with this. And might not like it when he was.

“I can challenge them to face the truth head-on and deal with what that means.”

“You think I’m self-delusional?”

“I think you’re not that passionate about baseball.”

“Are you nuts? If I’m not, what the hell have I been doing for the last, Jesus, thirty years since my dad bought the first tee and put a bat in my hand?”

She just stared at him. “Precisely.”

“Precisely what?”

“Will, baseball has always been your father’s passion. Good God, I can remember him talking about you playing for his beloved L.A. Dodgers since the day you guys moved in.”

“He always hated that I couldn’t get into that franchise,” Will admitted. “But we shared the passion, Joss. You can’t get as far as I did without it.”

She wasn’t sure about that. “With your natural talent, you could get very, very far. And you did. But—”

“But what?” He damn near growled the demand. “But if I had been more devoted, I could have gotten into the majors? I could have played for the fucking Dodgers?”

She flinched and his hand shot across the table to take hers. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get mad like that.”

“No problem,” she lied. “That’s exactly why I let some clients take easy street. It’s easier for me, too.” She slipped her hand out from under his. “And I’m not saying if you were more devoted your career would have gone differently because, frankly, the past doesn’t matter anymore, unless it helps you see your own patterns.”

He nodded, but she could tell agreeing with anything she was saying wasn’t easy.

“I’m suggesting,” she said, “and quite seriously, that if you were truly, madly, and deeply passionate and in love with the idea of doing something with your baseball career, you would be doing it and not ‘waiting for someone to call.’” She air-quoted the phrase.

Picking up a fry, he swiped it through his ketchup and shook off the extra. “My name’s out there,” he said, working to keep the defensiveness out of his tone, and failing. “My agent has me in with every minor league team in the sport, and the first bullpen or base-coaching job available, I’ll be considered.”

“Is that the kind of coaching job you want?”

“That’s where you start.”

She pushed a little harder. “I don’t know, it seems to me that you could manage a whole team if you wanted to. You’ve always been the captain, always the leader.”

He took in a slow breath, obviously uncomfortable with the subject.

“Hey, you volunteered to be my client,” she said. “It’s not always easy. But when you dig deep and force yourself to think about what puts a bounce in your step and joy in your soul, then you might adjust your career goals.”

He didn’t answer right away, then said, “I know this is going to sound crazy, but my parents lived their entire lives and gave everything they have for my success. I still feel like I can’t let them down, you know?” He hesitated a minute, the wheels turning as he worked it out. “Maybe I don’t want to be a minor league coach, but that would somehow be a slap in the face to my dad, who did everything so that my career—my whole career—would go the right way. And, shit, my liking to be a carpenter? That’s like my ignoring everything he ever told me. A carpenter was a failure to him, somehow. Blue-collar and… ordinary.”

She nodded, truly understanding and recognizing his predicament. “But you can’t make lifelong decisions because of sacrifices your parents made when you were a kid, Will.”

“I know that.” He smiled. “That’s why I’m waiting. And you want to know something else? I think your standard life-coach question is meaningless, completely rhetorical, and tells you nothing about the person.”

“About what you’re prepared to die for?”

“A stupid question, if you ask me.”

She leaned forward, more interested than insulted. “But the answer tells me everything about a person. It tells me what matters to them.”

“Nope, it tells you what they think should matter to them, not what really does. I’m more interested in what someone has sacrificed for in the past.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like for me, I sacrificed my life for baseball. College was a joke. I never went to a party, didn’t join a fraternity or a club or anything. I just practiced, played, traveled, and studied. I sacrificed everything for baseball, so I think you’re whole theory is bogus.”

She shrugged but couldn’t help smiling. “I still think you had a breakthrough.”

“You just want me to pay for lunch.” He grinned and put a hand on the check the waitress had left on her last trip by, one of at least five in the last ten minutes. “So what about you, Joss? What have you sacrificed?”

She looked him right in the eye, so drawn to him, so certain of him, it slammed her right back into the past.

“Ah, speaking of a breakthrough,” he said. “I can see it on your face.” He leaned so close she could see every lash now, every fleck of navy in his eyes, every hint of whisker stubble, even the tiniest bit of ketchup in the corner of his mouth.

Her whole being ached to kiss it off. And she hated ketchup.

“No breakthrough,” she said. “This was your life-coaching session.”

“Answer my question. What have you sacrificed to achieve your passion?”

She swallowed, but even that couldn’t keep down the truth. “I sacrificed everything for love.”

His jaw loosened as the waitress zoomed over and scooped up the check and money. “Keep the change,” he said without taking his eyes from Jocelyn. “You did?”

“Everything,” she assured him. Everything that mattered, given up one summer evening in a stairwell outside his bedroom.

“I gotta tell you, Joss, whoever he is—or was—I hate his fucking guts.”

He wouldn’t if he knew the truth. “Why?”

“Because I’m jealous of someone you loved,” he said simply. “It should have been me.”

The food thunked to the bottom of her stomach and she actually felt a little sick.

It was you.

“If you felt that way, why didn’t you call me when we went to college?” she asked.

He closed his eyes. “I was waiting for you.”

She tried to smile, but her mouth trembled a little. “I think I see a pattern here, Will Palmer.”

He laughed, tipping her chin with his knuckle. “Damn, life coach, you’re good.”

“Only if you break your pattern, Will.”

“Yeah. Well, I intend to.” The low, sweet promise in his voice reached right into her chest and squeezed her heart.