Page 5 of Curve Balls and Second Chances (Pickwick Pirate Queens #1)

CHAPTER FIVE

T he afternoon heat had started to burn off, but the air at the Wheeler garage was thick enough to cut with a socket wrench.

The smell of grease and oil mingled with other less identifiable smells.

All of them woven throughout his growing up so that anytime, anywhere he smelled them he was transported instantly back here to his dad’s garage no matter his physical location at the time.

Joe Wheeler had made a life and a living fixing friends, and strangers, cars for fifty years.

Acen had been his father’s right-hand man during his teen years.

Before the big baseball scholarship that had changed his life.

He held back a bitter laugh about that. One wrong move.

One moment in time. That’s all it took for his career to go down the drain in a heartbeat.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, he ducked out from under the lifted hood of a dusty Silverado . He could feel someone staring. Sure enough, Riley leaned against the workbench, arms crossed, grinning like a man who’d just caught his brother in a lie.

“So,” Riley said, cracking open a soda he held. “ You hear about Declan Rowe yet?”

Acen gave him a flat look. “ What about him?”

“New guy in town. Handsome . Polite . Real friendly. Had supper with Rose and some of the girls at Fin to Fork yesterday. The catfish special. Or so I heard. You know how that goes around here. Might be one hundred percent true. Might be less than one hundred percent. I just thought you should know. In case you aren’t tuned back into the local grapevine yet. ”

Acen’s jaw clenched. “ That so?”

“Sat next to her, too,” Riley added, clearly enjoying himself. “ Word is he asked Diane for her name specifically. Told her he liked team sports and charming company.”

Acen grunted, reaching for a wrench. “ Sounds like a line.”

“Maybe. But Rose smiled.”

He didn’t mean for it to get under his skin. Really , he didn’t.

It wasn’t like he had any claim to her. Not anymore.

Still, the thought of some shiny stranger sliding into her life, making her laugh the way he used to—it made something low in his chest twist like a pulled muscle.

Riley smirked. “ You jealous?”

He hid his face from his friend by applying the wrench to a trouble spot under the hood. It gave unexpectedly and he grunted a bit, then answered. “ Not my business who she eats supper with.”

“That’s not a no.”

Acen didn’t answer. He slammed the hood shut harder than necessary.

Riley let him stew for a second before adding, “ He’s bought the Langley house.”

“So you are the realtor for Mr . Handsome and didn’t see fit to tell me this information before now?”

Riley squinted. “ I sell real estate to handsome men all the time. Beautiful women too. But none of them have made a play for my sister. I’m just keeping you in the loop, so to speak. He’s a veterinarian. Most likely planning to stay around full time for a long time.”

“A vet?” Acen snorted. “ Must be some kind of specialty vet that doesn’t get dirty.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Just … he’s probably one of those guys who wears scarves when it’s eighty degrees and drinks herbal tea in mason jars.”

“Sounds like you’re making up stories ‘cause he’s prettier than you.”

Acen shot him a glare. “ He’s not prettier than me.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Riley said, laughing as he walked away.

That evening, Acen found himself back at the ball field in an attempt to shake unwanted images from his head. The light was fading, the sky soaked in oranges and pinks. He stopped in his tracks, gaze drawn to a lone figure on the field.

Realizing who it was, he gave a low curse.

Rose stood on the pitcher’s mound with a bucket of balls at her feet making underhanded tosses into the net set up a few feet away. One . Two . Three . Steady as a metronome the balls went into the net

He should just walk away. But when had he ever done the should haves? His feet carried him quietly across the distance separating them.

“Didn’t know you took batting practice alone.” He said in a quiet voice.

She didn’t flinch in surprise or even look up. “ Didn’t know you started stalking people.”

Acen chuckled. “ Call it… monitoring.”

“You get lost on the way to minding your own business?”

He stepped into her peripheral vision, hands in his pockets. “ Look , I didn’t come here to fight.”

“Then you’ve got terrible timing.”

He paused, toeing the edge of the mound. “ I heard about your supper with the new guy.”

She stopped tossing. “ Declan ?”

“That his name?”

She looked at him, brows lifted. “ You jealous?”

“Nope,” he said, way too fast.

She smirked. “ He’s nice. Smart . Funny . Handsome .”

Acen’s jaw tightened. “ You forgot charming.”

“Oh, he’s that too,” she said lightly. “ I guess Riley has been filling your ears with tales if you know that much. Or , if not Riley specifically, then the town grapevine. Assuming you’re tuned back into it that is.”

Silence stretched between them. The sun slipped lower.

Tension flowed across the space like a living cord.

“I’m not here to play games, Rose ,” Acen said finally. “ You want me gone, I’ll stay out of your way. But if you don’t…”

“If I don’t?” she echoed, her voice quieter now.

“Then maybe we stop pretending twenty years changed everything when it really didn’t.”

Her breath caught.

She looked at him—really looked. The same stubborn set of his shoulders. The faint scar on his chin from that summer they fell off Riley’s four-wheeler. The eyes she used to dream about and now hated dreaming of.

“I don’t know what I want, Acen ,” she said honestly. “ I’m still trying to figure that out.”

He nodded once. “ Fair enough.”

She picked up another softball and turned back to the net. “ You know how to hit, don’t you?”

He grinned. “ Still do.”

“Then get in the cage.”

He picked up a bat from the bag lying next to the dugout and took his position just as the automatic field lights clicked on bathing them both in a spotlight.

And just like that, they were back on familiar ground—two kids who knew how to throw heat and take it, even if the game had changed.