Out of His League

Brandon perked up. “Can I answer the door?”

“No, I’ll do it.” She uncovered the phone and lifted it to her ear, intending to beg Mrs. Ham to watch the boy for just a few minutes, but it slipped from Elizabeth’s fingers and clattered to the counter. When she picked the phone up, she saw that she’d turned it off by mistake.

“Auntie!” Brandon nagged.

This was why she lived alone. To keep to herself. Oh, God, she felt like weeping. How was she supposed to manage sharing her time when she was just so greedy for privacy?

It couldn’t get any worse.

Her nephew tugged on her shirt. “I think it might be Jon Farell at the door.”

Jon? Her patient from the morning, with the beautiful blue eyes?

“I asked him to come,” Brandon said softly.

But it couldn’t be. It just could not be.

* * *

JON WAITED IN THE LOBBY, wondering if Lizzy was home. But at last he heard her voice answer from the intercom:

“Yes?” She sounded frazzled. In the background, the Scooby-Doo theme song played on a television set, a blast from his past.

That made him smile. “Hi, Dr. LaValley. It’s Jon Farell. Ah...I hope it’s okay, but Brandon asked me to stop by. I’m dropping off the autograph I promised him.”

“Jon! Jon! I knew you would come!”

A buzzer sounded, and Jon was on his way upstairs. She waited for him in the hallway before an open door, the light from an apartment shining behind her. Also behind her was Brandon, bouncing from side to side in his stocking feet, and wearing the huge grin of a typical, energetic eight-year-old glad to see his sports hero.

Jon felt relieved. The kid really didn’t look sick with cancer. Maybe he was okay?

Lizzy closed the door behind her so she was in the hall alone with Jon. “You should not have come,” she said to him in a low voice. Her face was pale. For the first time it occurred to him that this wasn’t a good idea to stop by unannounced.

“Sorry.” He held out a game ball he’d grabbed from his car for her nephew. He gave Lizzy his best “Mr. Helpful, I’m a Good Guy” smile, but she didn’t seem to be buying it. He shrugged. “I promised Brandon. The ball is from my last start of the season, against Toronto. We won.”

But New York had won their game, too, so the Captains hadn’t made a wild-card slot into the play-offs. Still, Jon had done his part, and Brandon, numbers kid that he was, should appreciate Jon’s stats from that outing.

“When did my nephew give you my private address?” she asked, not taking the baseball he offered. Her arms were crossed, and she was rubbing them, as if worried.

“Ah...Brandon and I talked in the recovery room. He asked me to stop by tonight to deliver an autograph for him.”

Her eyes grew huge. “Brandon was in the recovery room?”

“It’s okay, Lizzy. Lots of local kids are baseball fans. He probably just heard I was in the hospital, and he came to check it out. I’d have done it, too, at his age.”

“I did not give you permission to come to my house, and do not call me Lizzy.”

He gazed down at her. Why this woman intrigued him so much, he had no idea. She was buttoned up so tight—or in her case, zipped up, with a gray fitted turtleneck sweatshirt that went right up to her chin. He couldn’t help staring at that zipper pull, swinging back and forth from the force of her flustered breathing, and then he looked at her mouth.

Bow-shaped lips, without a speck of gloss or lipstick on them. They weren’t all plumped up, either. They were good, old-fashioned naked lips, and he would love to—

“Jon Farell!”

His gaze jerked to her face.

“Are you even listening to me?” she asked.

“Yes.” And she had said his name correctly, so that was a good sign. He smiled at her again.

Before she could react, pounding started on the other side of the door. Lizzy put her head in her hands.

“Let Jon Farell in, Auntie!” Brandon yelled.

“It’s okay,” he said to Lizzy. “I’ll give him the autograph I promised, then I’ll leave.”

“I don’t want you inside with us,” she hissed. “You can give the ball to him in the hallway, out here.”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is what I want.”

“Auntie!” came Brandon’s muffled yell.

She seemed to cringe. “And furthermore,” she whispered to Jon, “you’ll tell no one you’ve been here, do you understand? I am a private person, and I find your public lifestyle abhorrent.”

Abhorrent, that was a big word just to say she didn’t like it.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” he said gently. “I won’t tell anyone I was here. And it’s not like I’m Brad Pitt. I don’t have paparazzi tailing after me everywhere.”

She still didn’t seem mollified. “I value my independence.”

And then she opened the door a crack and said to Brandon, “Please watch your TV program and be patient. Just give us a moment.”

There was her problem—she was too formal and too much of an adult with the kid.

She turned back to Jon, her gaze narrowed. “I do not want my name associated with a public person, do you understand?” Again, that whispering, as if he were a criminal at her door.

“I will honor your rules.” He crossed his arms now, to match her stance. “Remember though, you were the one who left me a coded message. In the recovery room. And your instincts were right. The lab called me already—it’s not cancer.”

Her breath expelled. “That’s...good.” She was nibbling those naked lips again, just like this morning. “That’s very good.” Her expression had softened.

“What about you?” he asked in a low voice. “Have you heard about Brandon?”

“No.” She sighed. “But I’ll be shocked if the test results aren’t favorable.”

“Why do you say that?”

She let out a breath, and her eyes darted from his face to his chest. She was starting to open up now ever so slowly, and it was fascinating to watch.