Chapter Three

      Zak wanted to say she was crazy. He wanted to yell, “No way!” He wanted to rewind to that blissfully ignorant time when he’d been admiring Jilly’s jaunty lawn mower grit and Tim Lincecum’s earned run average. If he could pitch like that he’d be in the majors.

       Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to get himself under control while praying for a quick and easy resolution. None was forthcoming.

       “This is sudden,” Crystal said.

       “Sudden” was a major understatement that left him gaping. Sudden was when the runner on first took off for second. Sudden was when he’d pitched a no-hitter and his teammates dumped the ice bucket over his head. This wasn’t sudden. This was catastrophic.

       “I wish I didn’t have to spring it on you this way, but…” The remainder trailed away, lost in the facts. Crystal was running out of time. He wasn’t cynical enough or cruel enough to question that part of her story. All he had to do was look at her ashen color, the black circles under her eyes and her emaciated body.

       He tried to get a grip, tried to ignore the rampaging elephants in his chest and the shock ricocheting through his head to focus on the most important portion of this bizarre conversation. Crystal was dying. “The doctors can’t do anything?”

       “They’ve done a lot. More than two years’ worth. Nothing worked. I waited too long.” She lifted one very thin shoulder, puckering the dragon logo on her pink pullover. “I thought the lump would go away. Instead the cancer spread.”

       He could see her doing that. Crystal didn’t want anything to be wrong, so she pretended it wasn’t. This time, ignoring the problem would cost her everything.

       “That’s why you have to take my children. They’re sweet kids, Zak. Not perfect, but you know what will happen if I don’t find them a home.”

       “Foster care.” He knew how much she’d hated growing up in the social system and how she’d wished for a family she’d never gotten. Now, she had one, in these children, and she was losing them. “What about Tank?”

       She rolled her eyes. “I haven’t seen Tank in a long time.”

       That figured, but still. “They’re his boys.”

       “He’s mean. He hit Brandon a lot.” Probably Crystal, too, from what Zak recalled of Tank Rogers. “I left him after Jake came along. I’ve made a mess of my life but I love my kids. They deserve better.”

       The middle boy began to sniffle. The older one scowled and stared at the wall, a robot of a boy.

       “Maybe the kids should go outside and play while we talk?” Zak suggested.

       “Sure.” Weakly, she pushed at Brandon. “Take Jake and Bella outside. Stay in the yard.”

       The stiff-backed boy trudged out, gripping his sister’s hand. Jake trailed them, sucking his thumb.

       When the back door snapped closed, Zak held out his palm as an olive branch. He intended to be kind but firm. “I’ll help you in some other way, Crystal, but I can’t do this. I don’t know anything about raising children, especially a little girl.” The daddy word gave him cold chills. Maybe she’d see the folly of her suggestion if he laid out the facts about himself. “First of all, I’m single. They need a mother. And I’m gone a lot. My firefighter job comes with a crazy schedule. Plus, I play a lot of baseball.”

       “Still?”

       What did she mean “still”?

       “Dreams die hard.” Hey, he was only twenty-seven. Roger Clemens won a Cy Young Award when he was forty-two. The majors could still come calling.

       “The job, baseball, being single, none of that matters, Zak. My kids need you.”

       All those things mattered to him! “They need a caring family, Crystal. There are people out there who will adopt three cute kids. A family, not some single guy without a clue about raising them.”

       “Who? Name one person who would adopt three kids all at once.”

       “I don’t know,” he said, exasperated. “Someone.”

       If he told her to call child welfare, she’d go ballistic. He wouldn’t do that anyway. But what could he do? He was not the daddy type.

       “You’re the only person I’d trust with them.”

       Oh, man. She was killing him. He wished like crazy Jilly was here to help him out. She’d know what to say. “Ask me for something else, but not this. I can’t.”

       Crystal pressed shaky knuckles to her mouth but didn’t cry. For that he was grateful. A crying woman was a powerful force.

       On wobbly legs she rose, and with more dignity than he’d imagined she said, “I’m sorry to have bothered you. You aren’t the man I remembered, after all.”

       Jilly heard car doors slam. She pushed off the grass, scratched at the itch on the back of her leg and carried Lucky to the corner of the house. From there she could see Zak’s driveway. She rubbed Lucky’s velvet ear and watched as Zak reached into his pocket, took out his wallet and offered Crystal some money. She must have refused because he leaned into the window to say something and tossed the bills inside.

       The battered Chevy backed down the drive, children’s faces pressed against the windows, and left Zak standing with arms dangling at his sides as they drove away.

       Had there been some sort of ghastly mistake? Was she Zak’s wife or not? If they were married, where was she going? And why was he tossing money into her car?

       Hope sprang up like a tenacious weed. Maybe they weren’t married. Maybe she’d misunderstood the conversation. After all, she’d been in the kitchen with three talking children. She’d made a mistake. Thank goodness.