He suspected Tilly had been climbing before Doc said it was okay. The small taste she’d had with Gunner would have awakened her need. Even though she shouldn’t have gone, there was no way to stop the desert wind from blowing. Not that he’d want to. Tilly was at her best when she faced a challenge. He should have known that about her before breaking up with her. He should have known a lot of things. Today wasn’t about the hard things in life, though. Today was a day of celebration, and, he hoped, coming together. Sharing the good times was as important as sharing the hard times. Which was why he’d brought as much of their Redrocks family as he could gather together.
The cake helped convince some of the guys to show up.
He paused outside of the torture chamber and listened to Elise give Tilly the rundown on what she could expect from here on out. Thankfully, there weren’t any lasting injuries. Blake nudged him forward and they crowded into the room.
“Surprise!” Brayden smiled wide, praying this didn’t come off as stalkerish. Crap. He shouldn’t have invited everyone. He shouldn’t have checked into her schedule. Her eyes narrowed and his heart seemed to strain against a leash as it barked out a staccato beat.
“What’s all this?” Her gaze danced across the faces, lingering on Harper Wolfe in surprise. Yeah, he’d brought her boss along.
“We’re here to celebrate your bill of clean health.” He tipped the cake, which he was balancing on one hand, so she could read the top, which said,Congratulations. Now go climb a mountain!He’d had the cake decorator create a rock climbing scene with a beautiful sunset streaming across the icing.
Her eyes softened.
Brayden set the cake on the massage table and moved to put his arm around her. A possessive move, but he was sending a message today: Tilly was his. He was hers. They were a they. Not athing. Not anitem. Athey. A him and a her that made up a whole noun together.
He had so much going on inside of him that he needed to get it out, and he wanted the whole world to know it. “Hey, everybody, listen up.”
Tilly stiffened. Conversations ceased. Movement stilled. Pressure built.
He shifted his feet. “For a while, I thought the day I fell was the worst day of my life. I lost everything.”
Coach Wolfe’s head bobbed.
“Or what I thought was everything.” He gave them a small smile. “For those of us in this room, baseball is our whole world. I think we’re born with laces on our hearts.” That earned him some chuckles that bolstered his confidence. “I still feel that way. But I’ve learned something through all of this. Baseball may be in my heart, but Tilly is my soul. Somewhere along the way, I stopped playing for me and started playing for her—for us.”
Coach Wolfe took his wife’s hand, brought it up to his lips, and pressed a kiss to her fingers. She tipped her head so it rested on his shoulder. Brayden tucked Tilly closer to his side. She didn’t resist.
He focused on her. “I’m still doing that. Even when we were apart, you were my motivation to get better, to learn a new skill, to get up in the morning. In my darkest moments, you were the sunlight.”
He glanced down to find her studying the floor. His stomach sank. She wasn’t going to make a public proclamation of love. He hadn’t made her swoon into his arms, and if he pushed her for anI love you, he’d push her away.
Ball three.
“Whatever the future holds for us, I want you to be happy.” He kissed her head and then lifted his arm as much as it would let him. “Who wants cake?” He set the bag of forks down too, earning him a glare from Elise. “I promise I’ll clean it up.”
“You’d better.”
There were chuckles all around. Brayden kept a smile on his face throughout the party. Inside, he was dying. Three balls. He was way down in the count. This was the point when announcers started predicting a walk. He’d already done that with Tilly—intentionally walked her. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if he was throwing his best pitches and she walked anyway.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Tilly
Brayden’s words cycled through Tilly’s head over and over again as she circled the room, thanking her coworkers, the players, the coaching staff, and everyone else who’d heard there was cake in the PT room.
She watched Brayden as he talked to Zack Aiden. He was holding a baseball in his hand, demonstrating different grips. Aiden nodded, his eyes hooded as he concentrated. Her heart stirred seeing Brayden in his element. He was right: he was born with laces on his heart. It was a good heart. He’d messed up. He’d hurt her something fierce. But he was working to right that wrong.
And she’d been holding out on him. Love surged through her. Powerful and strong, it washed away the fear she’d clung to.
Sheila, the head of the community outreach program, stopped to chat. “I’m contemplating tours in the off-season. There are enough snowbirds that fly into St. George that I think we can tap that market. They won’t see games, but they’ll watch them and want to wear a Redrocks T-shirt.” Sheila took a small bite of her impossibly tiny piece of cake. Her eyes darted over Tilly’s shoulder repeatedly as she spoke.
Tilly cocked her head, listening to the conversation going on behind her between Gunner and Brock Mattock, the center fielder. Sheila’s gaze hung up on one of the men. It was all Tilly could do not to turn around and see which one of them was holding her attention. “That sounds like a good idea.” Her eyes flitted to Brayden.
“What does?” Sheila blinked as if she were coming out of a haze.
Tilly shook her head. One of them needed to pay attention to this conversation. “Off-season tours. In fact …” She angled her body so that she could include Gunner and Brock in their conversation. “Guys, Sheila was just saying that we may have fans coming in during the off-season. You two will be in town, won’t you?”
They both gave Sheila an admiring, though wary, look. The woman was known for roping the players into spending their time off the field into charity work and goodwill campaigns. If it were up to her, she’d pack them in a van and cart them around all day long. Gunner nodded, and Brock said, “Most likely. I’m still figuring things out.”
