Touching the Moon Read online

  “Don’t you know anything about baseball?” he chided gently. “You never change your luck. You wear the same clothes. You do the same things. You say the same phrases, you chant the same cheers.”

  “I don’t follow you, Gray.”

  “We had the best practice ever this week. Those kids never had so much fun or tried so hard. Do you know that they didn’t win a single game last season?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “Nope. I was assistant coach last year. I know their track record.”

  “All right,” she said slowly, “But, this isn’t a game day. Why would the don’t-change-your-luck rules apply?”

  “The baseball is an ‘O’, Julie Hastings, and like the ball, everything about the game is stitched together tightly.”

  “Got it, Confucius. Jeans and the turquoise top. Pick me up at five.”

  “You’ll need your scorebook and a few sharp pencils with erasers.”

  “I’m on it.”

  He hung up the phone with a mischievous self-satisfied grin. She was a total knockout in that outfit, and he couldn’t wait to see her in it again, and again, and again.

  She wore her game clothes and her game face when he picked her up at the veterinary office. Her scorebook was gripped tightly in one hand. She had six sharpened pencils in the other.

  Gray looked her over appraisingly. “You follow instructions,” he said with a smile.

  “Of course I do,” she groused.

  “I have something for you,” he said. “Just a token.”

  She cocked her head.

  “I know you like wolves.”

  He handed her a box.

  Her eyes flashed to his with excitement. “Did you make me something?”

  “Open the box.”

  Inside was a pair of earrings. The studs were turquoise and from them dangled bone-carved wolves, their faces lifted upwards as if howling at a turquoise moon. They were exquisite. She pulled out her silver hoops and made the substitution.

  “That is now the official uniform,” he said in all seriousness.

  “Got it, Coach.”

  Jake’s was packed. They found the baseball crowd and she slid into a chair next to a beautiful Sioux woman who also carried scorebook and pencils. Gray sat to the right of Julie and placed his hand on her knee. Julie locked eyes with the young woman and smiled, very conscious of the heat burning a hole through her blue jeans. She pulled her knee away ever so gently.

  She was introduced to three couples, all from the reservation. There was a lot of playful banter and Gray was the brunt of most of it. Everyone couldn’t wait to tell some embarrassing anecdote about him. She watched his cheeks flush then redden.

  There were stories of Gray showing up in a neighbor’s backyard buck naked in the middle of winter, of some wild surf-side joy ride in a four-wheeler during his college days at Washington State, full moon rising. When he was little, he claimed to talk to animals. At frat parties, he could identify any woman in the room by scent, blindfolded.

  She was captivated by their tales. Gray was not. When the ball game started, he rapped across her score sheet with his knuckles insisting that she focus and not listen to a bunch of tall tales. She squeezed his hand, laughing softly, trying to mitigate his mortification. His hand found her knee and she let it stay.

  She paid attention to the game. Scorekeeping wasn’t hard. Track the hits. Track the runs. She blackened her diamonds and tallied the pitches.

  “No,” said Gray, looking at her work. “The batter struck out ‘looking’. He gets a backward ‘K’. He gets a forward ‘K’ if he strikes out swinging.”

  “Oh,” she said, erasing her mark. “I thought a strike out was a strike out.” Julie glanced over at the score sheet of the woman sitting next to her. Ruby was her name, like the Kenny Rogers song. She had penciled in a backward ‘K’.

  “How did you know about that?” she asked indignantly.

  “I’m in my second season,” Ruby whispered back.

  “Damn!” said Julie. And they laughed, clinking beers.

  It was a terrific evening. Gray dropped her off on her doorstep under the light of a full moon. They both paused to look at the ivory orb so dominant in the night sky. A soft wind played upon them and shushed through the trees. Gray gave her a chaste kiss good night, his hands lifting her shirt to contact the warmth of the small of her back. He rested his hands on her hips, his thumbs playing along her lower ribs. She was very mindful of the skin contact. Odd, really, but the touch didn’t feel as sexual as it was communicative.

  “Thanks for tonight,” he said.

  “Good fun,” she said. “You will do well this season on the ball field.”

  He shrugged softly. “Great expectations considering the team’s track record.”

  “I do have great expectations,” she said. “Your stars have changed, Gray Walker.”

  He walked back to his car silently. She was wrong. Since she had arrived, his whole universe had changed.

  Elliott was obviously solicited to bridge the widening gap between Dan and Julie. Every time the band got together, Elliott asked about the two of them and how they were doing.

  Julie just hung her head and shook it to the negative. “It’s not working out.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because.”

  “Because?”

  “Because, because.”

  “You’re seeing Gray?”

  “I assistant coach for Gray. I’m not seeing him either, except for game days. You and the band get most of my attention.”

  He grinned. “I like that. I like that a lot.”

  She gave him a grim smile. “Oh, Elliott. I feel like I’m in high school. I know nothing about…” She froze and gave him a deer-in-the-headlights look.

  “You can talk to me, Julie. Dan is my friend, but so are you. You can speak freely.”

  “You’re just going to run back and report to Dan.”

  “No. I won’t.”

  “Yes. You will.”

  “No. I won’t,” he lied, and very convincingly too. “Can’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  She paused, struggling for words. “I’m in way over my head.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve never been in any kind of a relationship before and I’m bad at it.”

  “Talk to me. I know all about bad relationships.”

  Julie smiled and elbowed him good-naturedly, then grew quite serious. She stared at her feet. “Something happened,” she whispered. “Ever since the snow storm, Gray has… he has a pull on me. I can’t explain it.”

  “You are attracted to him?”

  “No. Yes. No. I’m very confused.”

  “You said that something happened? What happened?”

  She remained silent and stared at her feet. She had a scuff on her right toe that needed polishing. She made a mental note.

  “Julie?”

  “Oh, it was nothing, Elliott.” The fact that she wouldn’t look him in the eye told him otherwise.

  “What kind of nothing?”

  She leaned into him and put her forehead on his chest. “Tell me,” he said.

  “It was cold in the cabin. Gray slept on the floor. He gave me the bed. It wasn’t until the third night when I realized how cold it was on the floor.”

  “And?”

  “I told him to join me in the bed.”

  “You had sex?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. But, we slept together.”

  Elliott did a mental nod. Points to Gray. He wasn’t sure he could maintain such control if he had Julie in bed.

  “And I feel a little strange about it,” Julie continued. “Gray calls it a ‘forced intimacy’ because of the cold. He says that he was very happy to hold me and that I shouldn’t fret.”

  “He said that?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why do you?”

  “Why do I what?”

  “Fret?”
He gentled her word back at her.

  “Because I feel different. I feel that everything in my whole world shifted because of the time spent in that cabin.”

  “How? In what way?”

  “I don’t want to sound girly.”

  “I speak Girly. It’s my second language. I majored in it at college.”

  Julie gave him an I-bet-you-did glance.

  “In all seriousness, Jules, I’d just like to listen to what you have to say.”

  She shrugged.

  “Come on,” he coaxed.

  “I don’t know, Elliott. I’m all mixed up inside. As I told you, there wasn’t sex, but we slept together. So, when I’m around Gray, I have a sense of physical intimacy that goes beyond my emotional ties. It messes me up.” She sighed. “I guess I understand, now.”

  “Understand what?”

  Julie shrugged again. “The old adage about never forgetting your first time. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if we’d actually… I mean… I’m a train wreck and all we did was keep warm. And Dan. Dan keeps pushing. Part of it is official. Part of it is just personal.”

  “And Gray? How is he handling things?”

  “He’s so neutral, he could be Switzerland. He asked nothing of me in that cabin. He asks nothing of me now. You know, Dan suspected Gray as Susan’s murderer and rapist. I knew that there was no way.”

  “Because you shared a bed platonically?”

  “Yes. And because I know Gray is attracted to me. And he did nothing whatsoever to take advantage of the situation. He was so very proper… is so very proper.”

  “I could tell Dan to take it easy, if you like?”

  “No, Elliott. I don’t want to have this conversation with Dan. I think it will get very awkward.”

  “Dan needs to know this information.”

  Julie cringed.

  “I think both of you are letting your personal relationship get in the way of the truthfulness of this investigation,” he continued.

  “No. Elliott. Gray is already exonerated. Me adding more credence to the DNA testing serves no purpose. I told Dan that Gray was not the one. I told Dan this before the DNA testing.”

  “You were so sure?”

  “Absolutely. You can’t share close quarters like that and not get some kind of bead on a person.”

  “Julie?”

  She looked up at him innocently and waited for his question.

  “You slept in the same bed with Gray and the man never even attempted to kiss you?”

  She blushed deeply and stumbled verbally. “He did kiss me. In the end.”

  “And?”

  “When I asked him to stop, he did.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  Elliott paused. “You do know that the DNA results were inconclusive, right?”

  Julie frowned. “Dan said that there was no match.”

  “There wasn’t an exact match.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Certain sequences matched, but not others.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning we don’t know.”

  “Elliott, you are talking nonsense. Either there is an exact match or there isn’t.”

  “Well, in this particular case, there seems to be a bit of a gray zone.”

  When Dan showed up on the lunch break the next day, Julie’s stomach flipped. She turned cherry red, certain that Elliott had betrayed her confidence. She stood rooted to the spot trying to finagle her way around a public or private encounter.

  “Hello,” said Dan. He gave her an award-winning smile and his blue eyes sparkled brilliantly.

  She smiled despite herself. Then, sobering, shook her head no.

  “Will you allow me to apologize?”

  She frowned at him in confusion. “For what?”

  “For acting like a Neanderthal. I like you very much, Julie. And I worry about you. And the cop in me, well, I think I’ve told you before. I’m genetically engineered to protect. I didn’t mean to be so hard on you about the snowstorm.”

  She was going to kill Elliott. “Arrest me now,” she said, her voice low and deep.

  His jaw dropped. “What for?”

  “For the murder that I’m about to commit.”

  “Elliott did what any good cop would do.”

  “You are all just one big happy family, aren’t you?”

  “We do look after our own.”

  Julie was distraught.

  “You are part of the family too,” Dan said quietly.

  She was at a total loss for words.

  “You could have told me, you know.”

  She shrugged and looked away.

  “Julie?”

  She found his eyes. “You scare me, Dan Keating.”

  He frowned in confusion. “Me?”

  “It’s your pursuit of me.”

  Dan was quiet for a moment. “Sweetheart, if Gray Walker doesn’t scare you, I shouldn’t either. And I don’t scare off lightly.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that I’m still here. I just won’t be so obvious about it.”

  She gave him a half-smile.

  “And I listen well,” Dan said, his voice firm. “You should try me sometime.”

  17

  On the day of the first game, Julie was dressed for victory – blue jeans, turquoise top, wolf earrings, smile. She had baked some peanut butter cookies for the boys and tossed them into the cooler with a few bags of fresh orange slices. When Gray picked her up, she had already negotiated everything onto the outside patio and hefted a few cases of vitamin drinks to set alongside her duffle bag.

  Gray was disapproving. “I do the heavy lifting, Julie.”

  “I was just trying to expedite,” she countered.

  “No,” he said firmly. “So long as I’m the boss, scorekeepers lift nothing but pencils.” She gave him her gruffest of attitudinal huffs, but he ignored her as he loaded his SUV. When he returned to her, she had her hands on her hips.

  “Now it’s time for the valuable cargo,” he said, bending swiftly to snatch her up into his arms. She squealed in surprise as he carried her to the SUV and deposited her in the passenger seat.

  “I am fully capable of climbing up into your car when I’m not wearing a skirt, Gray,” she said petulantly.

  “I know,” he replied, lifting his head to look at her. “I just wanted to have you in my arms for a minute, Julie. It’s been a few months since the snowstorm. I miss the feel of you.”

  She fell silent in surprise and the corner of his mouth quirked upwards as he buckled her in, leaning close so that he nuzzled her neck before he shut the car door.

  “Scorebook?” he asked, as he climbed behind the wheel.

  “In my duffle bag,” she replied, her neck still tingling from his touch.

  “Pencils?”

  “Also in the duffle,” she said. Her voice had dropped an octave and Gray checked his side view mirror to hide his smile.

  “What’s in the cooler?”

  “Homemade cookies and orange slices.”

  “Yummm,” he said, stretching out the word like a piece of molten taffy.

  She looked over at him in his baseball uniform.

  “You look like the biggest, baddest ballplayer I’ve ever met,” she said playfully. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about losing this season, Gray. You’ll win all your games by default. The opposition won’t take the field with you on it.”

  He lifted his chin a notch. “Think so?”

  She nodded vigorously.

  “Hope so. My boys could use a feel-good season. They have very low self-esteem, Julie. They lack purpose and direction, but more than that, they lack confidence. I swear that insecurity is the root of all evil.”

  Her thoughts turned to her stepfather.

  Gray glanced her way as if sensing her mood. “None of that, Julie. Let the bad things pass through your dream-catcher. Hold on to the good things only.”

  He reac
hed for her hand and she squeezed it tight.

  When they arrived at the field, Julie was approached by a tall, slender woman in ponytail and ball cap. She introduced herself as Karin Swenson, scorekeeper for the White Sox.

  “My son is #11,” she added, handing Julie her roster so that Julie could copy down the opposing team’s line up onto her game grid. “I’m also Dan Keating’s sister.”

  “Well, you’ve got a wonderful brother,” Julie said, glancing up from her work.

  “Yes,” Karin agreed. “He’s a super guy. You should get to know him better.”

  Julie blushed.

  “Your first game?” asked Karin.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s my seventh season.”

  “Whoa,” Julie said.

  “Yeah.” Karin looked up at Gray and her voice changed. “Like anything else in life, once you get sucked in, you’re pretty much a goner.”

  Julie gave her a tight smile, not sure how to interpret her words.

  “He’s scary big,” Karin murmured.

  “Yep, and the kids adore him.”

  “And you?”

  “Oh, I think the kids like me too,” she said, deliberately misinterpreting the question.

  Gray motioned for Julie to join the team huddle and she hurried over to listen in on the pep talk. When they broke with a cheer, Julie stepped toward Gray and kissed him on the cheek. He cocked his head in question.

  “For good luck,” she said.

  She went to move away, but he caught her hand. “I hope you understand that if we win, you’ll need to do that every game.”

  “Then, I guess you could say that the ball is in your court. Right, coach?” Julie watched his dark eyes flare and she chuckled as she took her place at first base.

  Kenneth Running Deer, one of her favorite boys, hit a line drive every time he came to bat, and there were usually at least one or two men on base when he did so. He brought in so many runs that the team started to chant “Ken-do, Ken-do!” each time he approached the plate. It was a chant that she had initiated.

  Brian Rain Cloud almost pitched a no-hitter. His fastball was so fast that all the boys would “hiss” like a summer rain when he did the wind up and the pitch.

  The young men fed off of each other’s adrenaline, and Julie periodically served cookies and oranges to keep their energy levels up. As it turned out, however, Gray was her most voracious eater. He even called a time-out just to get another fist-full of snacks.