* * *
Tampa Bay lost their first game against the Twins Friday night and Sarah didn’t know if it was the loss, or something else, but suddenly Boone was back in the lineup on Saturday, and he came out swinging, knocking the ball out of the park with a two-run homer, and remaining hot Sunday, going three-for-four and driving in three of the team’s six runs.
Monday was an off day, and since Boone didn’t have to travel on Tuesday, he slept in and then hung around the house. It felt like a holiday, and once the kids were off to school, Sarah sat on the couch next to him for most of the morning, watching SportsCenter and then the Syfy channel because they were doing a story on a haunted house in New Orleans’s French Quarter.
“What do you think?” she asked him, during one of the commercial breaks. “Do you really think the house is haunted?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised. When I was growing up, people were always talking about this or that place being haunted, especially in the French Quarter, and that was back before all this paranormal stuff was popular.”
“You’ve never seen a ghost, though, have you?”
“I wouldn’t call it a ghost . . . but I’ve been places that didn’t feel right. Places that have a strange energy.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think it was?”
“Ghost? Voodoo? Vampire? Don’t know.” Boone laughed at her expression and extended his long legs, propping them on the leather ottoman. “Baby, New Orleans is an old city and there’s been talk of paranormal activity there for hundreds of years.”
“Well, ghosts and voodoo, yes, but vampires?”
“Anne Rice. Remember all her vampire books?”
Sarah wrinkled her nose, remembering now. “You said she lived down the street from you.”
“A couple of blocks from us. People were always driving by her house slow, hoping to see her.”
“Did you ever meet her?”
“I’d see her around, but I didn’t talk to her. My mom knew her, though. Nice lady. But people in general are nice in New Orleans.”
“You miss it?”
“I do. It’s home. Would love to buy one of those big houses in the Garden District one day. Retire there.” He glanced sideways at her. “You’re still okay with that?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t mind living so far from your family?”
She shrugged. “We’ve always lived away from my family.”
“But when I retire it’s different. I won’t be on a team anymore. It’ll just be you, me, and the kids.”
“And New Orleans is your home.”
“It’s not yours.”
“No, but wherever you are, that’s my home.”
Boone looked at her a long moment. “I got lucky with you, babe.”
She cracked a smile. “Yes, you did.”
But later that afternoon, when Sarah returned from picking the kids up from school, she walked into the bedroom to find Boone reading a text. Seeing her, he immediately closed the phone and slid it into the pocket of his jeans.
“Everything okay?” she asked, thinking he’d put the phone away a little too quickly, wondering if it was her imagination, hoping it was her imagination, but Boone looked . . . guilty.
“Yeah. Why?”
He seemed defensive, too, she thought, so she struggled to sound careless. “When I entered the room you seemed to put away your phone awfully fast.”
“I was done reading.”
“Felt fast.”
“Sorry, babe.”
Sarah hated the uncomfortable knot filling her chest. Hated the anxiety and unease. Hated that she always flashed to Stacey from Atlanta. Hating that Stacey from Atlanta still had this power over her . . . them. “Who was the text from?”
“Arnie.” Arnie Rosenthal was his agent, and had been his agent since Boone was first drafted as a college senior, out of LSU.
But Boone could tell that she didn’t believe him. He sighed. “Want to read it?” he asked, fishing for his phone.
She shook her head, reminding herself that Stacey wasn’t part of their lives. And neither she, nor her ghost, belonged in their lives either, and so she attempted to defuse the tension with a joke. “Are you being traded?”
Boone didn’t smile. “Not yet.”
Her smile faded as her feeble attempt at humor was replaced with shock. “Is it a possibility?”
“Hopefully not,” he said, walking out.
The next three days Tampa Bay played at home, and while Sarah really wanted to go to the games, she couldn’t find a sitter and knew better than to take the kids again, especially on a school night, so she followed the team from home. It was a good series for the Rays, as they swept the Angels, 5–0, 3–2, and 4–3, and with Boone hitting well, he headed off Friday morning for the three-day stand in Texas, feeling strong.