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Gracie dropped an armload of clothes into her suitcase. She had to get out of here. Find a place where nobody’d ever heard of Noah, baseball, and text messages.

Nine days.

Nine days since she’d told Noah to leave.

Nine days since she’d told herself it was for the best.

Nine days of trying to forget that man, only to have every single one of her thoughts consumed by that man.

The fact she’d been working around the clock to finish that man’s memoir probably didn’t help. But how else was she supposed to move on? She had to finish the memoir.

Thankfully all of the chapters were written now except for the ending. For the first time in her writing career she was way ahead of her deadline. She could take a long break. Escape. Write the final chapter after all the World Series hubbub died down in a few weeks. Maybe by then she’d know whether to include if Noah gets offered the manager job in Seattle or not.

If he did get the offer, he’d accept it of course. All Noah had ever cared about was baseball. From the first moment she met him, baseball, baseball, baseball.

At least up until her silly little horse accident last month. After that he kind of acted like all he cared about was her, her, her.

But before that it was always baseball, baseball, baseball.

And what did he ultimately choose nine days ago? That’s right. Baseball.

Okay, sure. She may have given him a little push in making that decision, same way she pushed him to stick it out years ago when he was ready to walk away from baseball completely. But she didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about anything right now except packing plenty of clean underwear, underwear, underwear.

She grabbed a handful from the dresser and added them to the growing pile of clothes in her suitcase.

When a FaceTime call chimed, she paused long enough to answer and prop her phone on the dresser before adding a fistful of socks that hopefully matched onto the clothes heap.

Mona’s face appeared on the screen. “I couldn’t understand anything you said in your voicemail earlier. What’s going on?”

Mona cradled a steaming mug in her hands. Probably tea. Gracie could practically smell the herbal scent of it through the screen. It reminded her of the day Noah had fixed her his special mint brew. A sound between a laugh and a sob, closer to a sob, burst out of her chest. “Peppermint schnapps,” Gracie wailed as she dissolved into a blubbering mess.

Mona plunked her tea down and leaned closer to the screen. “Have you been drinking? Why does it look like your bedroom’s been ransacked?”

“I thought Noah tried spiking my tea with peppermint schnapps.”

Mona frowned. “When? How? He’s been with his team all week in the World Series.”

“I don’t want to talk about the World Series.” Gracie picked up a sock with a hole in the heel and tossed it onto the pile of clothes that needed to be thrown away. “All I’ve been hearing about is the World Series. I’m sick to death of the World Series. How many stinking games is the World Series going to last?”

“Seven. Last one’s tonight. Noah’s pitching.”

“I said I don’t want to talk about—Wait, what? Noah’s pitching? What do you mean he’s pitching? Like as in he’s the starting pitcher? For game seven? Tonight? Why? He hasn’t pitched all week.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t! Those were all rhetorical questions.” Gracie dug out several T-shirts from the middle dresser drawer, gave them a quick glance, then dumped them into the donate pile on her bed.

Mona shook her head. “Okay, seriously. What are you doing, other than destroying your room?”

“Packing.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Great answer.”

A generic painting of a seashore and lighthouse hung on the wall behind Mona’s head. Must be in a hotel. Probably another speaking engagement. Gracie had been lost in such a memoir fog these past nine days, she had no idea what was going on in anybody else’s life. “Where are you, by the way?”

“Out of town.”

“Great answer.”

“Speaking of great answers, I’d really love to know the answer as to why you blew a whole bunch of dough on a plane ticket to nowhere last week.”

Gracie’s head snapped up from her dresser. How could Mona know that? How could anyone know that? Not even the FedEx lady could’ve known that.

“Seven hundred dollars? Just to tell Noah goodbye?” Mona smirked. “Sounds like a pretty romantic thing to do for someone you don’t want to talk about.”

“I wasn’t... No. That’s not... No.” Gracie continued shaking her head as she sank onto the edge of her bed. She didn’t have to explain herself. She was a grown woman. If she wanted to go to the airport and blow a stupid amount of money on a ticket just to see her ex-husband before he boarded his flight, then decide at the last minute she didn’t want to see him and she had no earthly idea what had possessed her to think she did want to see him, then leave without ever seeing him, she could. That’s what grown women did.

“Why won’t you just admit that you still love Noah? Why won’t you give him another chance?”

Gracie jumped from the bed. “Why are you doing this? You never liked Noah. Now you’re suddenly the president of his fan club? For crying out loud, you’re the one who introduced me to Luke and told me I should move on with Luke.”

“I know. But...” Mona sighed. “Did it ever occur to you maybe I’m wrong sometimes?”

“It’s sure occurring to me right now.” Gracie stomped to the closet and grabbed an armload of clothes, hangers and all, and hurled them at her suitcase.

“When I told you to move on it was because I thought you were miserable. Then Noah came back, and you were different. Both of you were different. And it took me a while to realize that you weren’t actually different. You were the same. Except maybe a little different. Or maybe I’m just the one who’s different.”

“Have you gotten into the peppermint schnapps?”

“Just hear me out.”

“Then try to make sense fast. I’m hitting the road in five minutes.” And she was going to need every one of those five minutes to figure out how to get her suitcase closed.

“Wouldn’t you want Morris back if you could have him?”

Gracie tried bouncing her knees on her suitcase to close it. “Talking... about a dead cat... from my childhood...” Oh forget it. The suitcase wasn’t closing. “...is not what I had in mind when I told you to make sense.”

“What I’m saying is I’d forgotten what it was like when you and Noah were together. How much fun you had even when you drove each other crazy. It used to drive me crazy. But I don’t know, seeing how happy Matt is with Rachel... Seeing how you two looked dancing together at their wedding... It just made me think there’s still reason to hope.”

“For what?”

“A happily-ever-after. And not just for you. For everyone. Even me.”

Gracie shoved half of the clothes out of her suitcase so she could start tugging the zipper closed. “Well, don’t waste your hopes on me, Sis. Hate to break it to you, but Morris is dead. And so is my marriage.”

Gracie ended the call, lugged her suitcase to her car, and drove to the hospital. After a quick visit with Dad, she was driving to Tennessee, finding herself a quiet little place to stay, and hunkering down until all the World Series hoopla was over.

But twenty-five minutes later, as soon as she stepped into Buck’s room, she knew she wasn’t going anywhere.