Stef Ann Holm by Lucy Back (best fantasy books to read .txt) 📕

and told me I’d better knock it off. I couldn’t even remember the schedule for Vero Beach, but I knew I had to be there in a month. So I quit drinking. I needed to prove to myself that I could do it. And I did.”

“That’s a good thing.” Lucy looked him in the eye, her tone one of encouragement.

“I quit for all of a few months, then I was right back. We were at Vero Beach, training. And that’s where I met Caroline. Mackenzie’s mother. She was pretty, blond, a nice smile. She worked at the hotel where we stayed. I got her to come to my room and we were together the whole summer while I was there.”

Lucy looked at him with heightened interest. “Well, then you had to know Mackenzie was yours.”

“I didn’t know any such thing. You want to know how many times I’ve had women tell me I got them pregnant?”

“No.”

He felt like a shit, but he said it anyway. “Dozens. And you know how I know that none of them could be telling the truth?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Drew. You tell me.” For the first time since she’d sat down impatience rang in her words.

“I used a condom every single time. I don’t care how far gone I was, I always made sure I didn’t get anyone pregnant.”

“Condoms fail.”

“Apparently this one did.”

“When did she tell you?”

“She was two months pregnant when she called me. We’d already gone back to L.A. to begin the season, and I told her she was wrong about it being mine, that there were any number of guys in that hotel who could have been the father.” With his heartbeat slamming in his chest, Drew waited for Lucy to tell him he was a jerk.

He relived that conversation with Caroline, knowing now the life-changing pain he had caused her, the humiliation to her family and sister. To this day, he struggled to forgive himself. Maybe he never would.

Lucy stared at him, licked her lips, but said nothing.

“You can say it. I was a jerk.”

“You were.”

For some reason, that validation made him feel better.

“Obviously, at some point,” Lucy said, “you told Caroline she was right.”

“While I never saw a physical resemblance between me and Mackenzie, I guess I did half-ass believe she could be my daughter. I never threw any of her photos away, and I kept a couple in my locker. But booze clouded my judgment and it was years before I could admit to myself that Caroline had always been telling me the truth.” Drew dug into the past, a dark pit of recollection. “Mackenzie was seven when Caroline brought her to spring training camp and asked me to come into the bleachers and meet her. I refused.”

Lucy sucked in her breath, and it almost felt good to feel her disdain. It opened the wounds again, made him feel raw. There were days now when he forgot about how painful it must have been for Caroline, and it was good to remind himself of that, to feel what she had felt. Perhaps in a way, Caroline was vindicated when he hurt, when his actions cut deep into his heart and made him accountable.

“Yeah, I know.” Drew stared into the sky. “I did go see Mackenzie when she was twelve, looked into her face and knew in my gut she was mine. Still, I wanted a paternity test. Caroline told me to go to hell.” Swallowing, he said in an uneven voice, “And I did, literally, when the drug scandal broke wide-open and my name was everywhere.”

“Steroids.”

Drew gave a wry smile to cover the humiliation that surrounded him. “That’s an easy thing to believe, isn’t it? Hell, sometimes I wish.” Rubbing the rough bristle of a day’s growth of beard, he said, “I left baseball because I couldn’t hit a ball, I couldn’t throw one and I sure as hell couldn’t function as a player or a man. I was a raging alcoholic. So I walked. Cost me a small fortune to break my contract with the Dodgers and check into the Betty Ford Clinic under an assumed name.”

“So…you didn’t do drugs?”

“Alcohol is a drug.”

Thoughtfully lifting her brows, she said, “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“I am right, Lucy. I’m an addict.” Although he told very few people those words, they were still difficult to speak. Being addicted to something said he had no willpower, was a failure. Even sober, he would always be an alcoholic, always have the predisposition to overindulge.

“I haven’t had a drink since 1998.”

“Do you think about it?”

“Sometimes,” he answered truthfully.

The sky was suddenly alive with fireworks bursting in colorful showers, bombs going off, rockets glaring and popping. For a long while, the two of them sat there in silence and watched.

Drew had a lot to think about. There were many old wounds that he still needed to heal. A bleakness settled into his heart. He wondered if he would ever be whole again.

Lucy finally spoke through the noise of fireworks. “And what about Mackenzie? She was twelve when you saw her. When did you see her again?”

“She was fourteen. I’d gone through the program, was able to live with clarity, and I wanted to tell her that I was sorry, that I knew she was my daughter—that I didn’t need a test. I apologized to Caroline, to her sister, Lynette, and I told them I wanted to make it up to everyone involved. But it was too late. Mackenzie didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“I’m sorry. But now she’s here.”

“Yeah. Since her mother passed away, Mackenzie’s had it pretty rough. I don’t want to mess her up any more than I have.” Drew shrugged in resignation. “I never got married. Sixth sense, I guess. I knew that Mackenzie would be a part of my life and I didn’t want to have to tell my wife that we’d have a knock on the door one day and it might be my daughter. I felt like one