Belle Pointe

“How long do these things last?” Buck asked, shuddering.

Eddie tossed the paper cup. “The concussion, the banged-up knee, the bruised ribs, the narcotics or your rotten mood?”

Buck rubbed a hand over his face wearily and grunted an obscenity.

“I guess you mean the dope,” Eddie opined. “With that concussion, a couple hours. It wears off, you can call me and there’s more where that came from.”

“I don’t want to sleep through checkout time tomorrow morning.”

“Why, you got a ball game?”

Everybody’s a comedian, Buck thought, staring at his knee, now elevated on some kind of foam wedge-thing and wrapped securely. It was worse than he’d thought at first. He’d seen athletes with similar injuries and he was worried that it could be a long time before he played ball again. “I can veg at home just as well as here,” he told Eddie. “I don’t want to sleep past six-thirty.”

“No problem there,” Eddie said cheerfully as he adjusted the wedge. “You know that old saying, doncha? A hospital is no place to get any rest. There’ll be folks in and out of here starting around daybreak. Sleep through all that and you’re closer to dead than alive.”

With that bit of macabre humor, he stripped off his disposable gloves and tossed them into a receptacle near the door. “You take my advice, you’ll do what your orthopedic man recommends with that knee. I can’t see him liking it that you want to leave here while it’s puffed up like that. You mistreat your knee now, you’ll pay for it later.” At the door, he added, “Whatever your reason for wanting to leave, you might ask yourself if it’s worth your career. ’Cause if you don’t treat it right, that knee can ground you for good.” He flashed a grin as he pulled the door open. “Just my take on it, buddy.”

Buck closed his eyes and prayed for the drug to kick in. He didn’t need homespun advice from anybody to know what to do to be back on his feet the soonest. The concussion was nothing new. He’d had more than a few. In a day or so he wouldn’t even have a headache. But the knee was serious. It could give him grief long enough to knock him out for the season. He worried whether or not he had the time. The Jacks had a major investment in him and would pull out all the stops to give him the treatment necessary to put him on his feet again. He wouldn’t have a choice about it. But Anne was the wild card here. She wasn’t thinking about his career. Hell, she wasn’t even thinking about him as he’d just discovered.

Jesus, he’d really screwed up this time.

Ten minutes later, he had a nice buzz on from the narcotic Eddie had given him. He turned drowsily at a cursory tap on his door as the coach of the St. Louis Jacks let himself in the room. Buck instantly came alive.

Gus Schrader was a squat, red-faced man with attitude. While most of the team he coached was bulked-up athletes who towered over him, Schrader, at about five foot nine, took no guff from anybody. His word was law and Buck respected him more than any coach he’d ever had. Last year, with Buck as starting pitcher, Schrader had shepherded the Jacks into a wild card status and it was his mission in life to actually win the league championship this year and wind up in the Series. He would not be happy that his star pitcher was laid up with a bum knee, especially when he heard how it happened.

“How’s it going, Buck?”

Buck struggled to clear a narcotic haze from his brain and stuck out his hand to greet Schrader. “I’m okay. Ears ringing a little from cracking my head on the windshield,” he said, tossing a grin and hoping not to show how he dreaded whatever the next few minutes would bring. “Otherwise, nothing’s broken.”

Schrader looked at the knee. “Think you’ll be able to walk on that anytime soon?”

“A couple weeks, give or take.” Buck used the remote to raise the head of his bed.

“That so?” Arms crossed, Schrader eyed him skeptically.

“What were you thinking, Coach?”

“I’m thinking your guestimate is a little too optimistic. Grissom’s take on it is more realistic.” He paused. “Plumb grim, if you want the truth.”

Buck winced. Steve Grissom was head of the sports medicine team for the Jacks. “What did he say?”

“Said he examined it within an hour of you checking in. No estimate of how long, but he thinks you’ll need extensive physical therapy before you can pitch. You put any pressure on that knee prematurely and get out on the mound…blam—” He snapped his fingers. “You think it’s in bad shape now. Wait’ll you see the damage then. No, we don’t want to be risking that.”

“I’m with you there, Coach.”

“So Grissom’s arranging a program,” Schrader said, as if Buck hadn’t already agreed. Not that it mattered. Nothing Buck could say was going to change Schrader’s mind if Steve had already passed judgment on the extent of damage to his knee. “It starts the day you leave the hospital.”

“That’ll be tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Schrader’s eyebrows rose.

“I need to get out of here, Gus,” he said, shifting to sit up straight. He had to pause to quiet a shaft of pain from his rib cage before he could speak again. “I know the knee will still give me some grief, but I need to be at home right now. I’ve got some personal issues I need to deal with. I’ll cooperate with the physical therapy. Whatever Steve suggests I’ll go along with a hundred percent.”

“Damn right you will.” He gave Buck a keen look. “What kind of personal issues? I know Anne’s in a room on another floor. Word is the accident brought on a miscarriage.” Schrader didn’t consider anything private if it interfered with an athlete’s performance.

“She’s having a bad time, Gus. I need to be with her right now.”

“Well, I’ll leave it to you whether you go home tomorrow, but if you damage that knee beyond repair, you’ll be writing your own ticket to nowhere. You know that, don’t you?”

“I hear you.”

“Bad publicity’s following you like stink follows a skunk, Buck. I don’t like it.”

“Tell me,” Buck muttered.

“What the hell were you thinking driving that automobile at top speed with your wife beside you and your seat belt off?”

“It was stupid. I was speeding. I admit it. Then that deer just materialized out of nowhere. I acted on pure instinct to avoid it.”

He cut Buck off with a disgusted snort. “Excuses. I don’t hear a reason for anything I mentioned.” His bushy eyebrows beetled with the force of his frown. “I don’t know what’s goin’ on with you and your wife, but after this caper, I’m surprised the woman isn’t ready to walk away from you. I’m assuming that’s part of the personal issues you mentioned, so I’m not ordering you to stay put here in the hospital. Been my experience that a man handling marital problems is almost as useless as tits on a boar hog. You get out on the mound, you need your head clear. You see where I’m coming from, Buck?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll leave you to think it over…that is, if that stuff they’ve given you for pain hasn’t turned your brain to mush.” He turned on his heel without waiting for a reply and stalked to the door. Then, just before pulling it open, he turned back. “I’m heading up to see Anne right now. I’ve always considered you a lucky man having a woman like that for a wife. You screw that up, you’re more than a fool.”

Which pretty much summed up what Buck thought of himself. When Schrader was gone, he closed his eyes with a tired sigh and welcomed the oblivion of the narcotic.

Anne waited until the sound of the Fredericks’ SUV faded away before sitting up and tossing aside the soft throw that Marcie had thoughtfully tucked about her. The bedroom she shared with Buck was beautiful, a tasteful blend of buttery yellows with touches here and there of red and brown. The art on the walls was original, carefully chosen. The furniture was top-of-the-line. And why not? When they’d built the house, money had been no object and she’d taken a lot of pleasure in decorating it. Unfortunately, it would not echo with the sound of tiny feet, nor would she rock her baby in the chair she’d bought a month ago and secretly stowed away from Buck in the attic.

Her baby. Before she was engulfed in anguish, she went to the sumptuous walk-in closet and took down a piece of luggage. At the chest of drawers built in on her side, she began removing what she’d need for the foreseeable future—bras, panties, socks, T-shirts, pajamas. After packing them, she went back to the closet and chose a few pairs of pants and jeans, some tops, blouses, a running suit. It was too chilly right now for shorts.

Coming out of the closet she lifted her head to see Buck propped in the doorway on his crutches. He looked at the half-packed suitcase and then back at her with a ferocious frown. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be in bed.”

“I’m leaving. And you’re supposed to be off that knee.” She dropped the clothes on the bed and began folding them.

“C’mon, Anne. This is no way to deal with our situation.”

“It’s the way I choose,” she told him. Her hands were shaking, so she kept them moving, folding, placing this piece and that in the suitcase, reaching for the next one. “However you deal with it is up to you.”

He was at the bed now, trying to get a look at her face. “I’ve said I’m sorry for the way I acted…about the baby and the accident. I mean it, I’m sorry. But it was…hell, I guess I was in a state of shock or something, Anne. For you to just quit taking the Pill…I never expected you to do something like that.”

Moving back to the closet, she picked up a pair of running shoes and came out with the shoes in one hand and another smaller carryall in the other. “I never thought I’d do something like that either,” she said, “but I did.”

“And you think what you did is justified because you wanted a baby?”

She stopped in the act of stuffing the shoes in the bag and looked him squarely in the eye. “I’m going to tell you this one more time, Buck, and if you don’t get it, then it’s plain that the differences in the way we think are so major that we really won’t be able to get beyond it.”

She briefly closed her eyes to gather her thoughts before laying it on the line. “My ovaries are thirty-four years old, which means I’m already past peak childbearing years. I simply couldn’t wait any longer for you to change your mind about having a family. I convinced myself that once you knew I was carrying our child, you’d be as thrilled as I was and your objections would just fade away. Okay, that was dumb. I was wrong about that. It was a serious betrayal of trust and I sincerely apologize.” She gave him a weak smile. “Serious mistakes require serious thinking and I need to be away from you to do it.”

With a bleak look, he watched her throw more stuff in the suitcase. “You blame me for the accident and bringing on the miscarriage, don’t you?”

She paused with a makeup bag in her hand. “Yes, I guess so,” she said slowly. “I wish you’d left when I begged you to.”

“I’ll make it up to you, Anne, I swear I will.”

“Just…leave it, Buck. Don’t go there right now. I need to be away from you for a while.” She closed the suitcase and began zipping it up. “I need to decide whether there’s anything left of our marriage worth saving.”

Seeing he was about to argue, she stopped him by raising a hand. “Please, don’t say any more. It’s not only our differences about whether we should have a baby, Buck. We have differences about the way we live our lives. I’m uncomfortable living in a fishbowl, you know that. I’ve said it enough. But I accepted it for the joy of one day having your babies. That’s something else that went with this miscarriage. I’m not so sure I’m willing to compromise about that anymore.”

“Jesus, are you saying you’re through? You want a divorce?”

“I’m not sure what I want right now. I am sure that I need some time to sort out my thoughts. So I’m going to stay with my dad and Beatrice.”

Buck sat down hard on the side of the bed. “You can sort your thoughts out here,” he said. “You don’t have to be in another part of the country—especially not there.”

“Like where, Buck? A hotel? How long do you think it would be before the media would be all over me if I were to check into a hotel? Or maybe the condominium in Vail? Same thing and you know it.”

“Yeah, but Tallulah?” He looked incredulous.

“My dad will welcome me. And Beatrice, too, I hope. I’ve called and made arrangements. It’s done, Buck.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes, just like that.”

He got up abruptly, forgetting his knee, then swore when it almost folded beneath him. Grabbing a single crutch, he glared at her. “This is bullshit, Anne! I’m up to my ass in trouble with the Jacks. I’m grounded with this damn knee for who knows how long and now my wife ups and leaves. Add that to the scandal of Casey dying at my house and the gossips will have a field day.”

“Well, too bad, Buck. I’m dealing with some pretty difficult stuff myself, in case you haven’t noticed. Your trouble with the Jacks is temporary—you’re too valuable to be cut and your knee will heal. The thing with Casey will eventually fade away, too.” She straightened then and looked him squarely in the face. “But my baby is gone forever.”

“I tell you, we can work this thing out here, Anne. You don’t have to go to Tallulah.”

“That would save you the embarrassment of explaining my disappearance, wouldn’t it? And it’s understandable for you to assume I’d fall in with what you want since before, when we’ve come to these bumps in the road, I’ve always been the one to compromise. Well, I’m not compromising this time, Buck. I need this time and I’m taking it.”

“Do you realize what’s at stake here? We could lose everything we’ve worked for all these years.”

“Everything you’ve worked for.”

“For God’s sake, Anne, be reasonable.”

“Reasonable.” She looked at him, shaking her head. “You know what? I don’t feel like being reasonable. I’ve had it with the struggle, the ego stuff, the loneliness when you travel and I’m home alone. I haven’t been able to pursue a career because we’ve never been in one place long enough. I don’t expect you to understand because I’ve been remiss in telling you, and that’s my fault. I’m sorry, Buck, but my mind is made up.”

With the suitcase now packed, she got ready to lift it off the bed, but he stopped her with a hand on it. “At least wait a few days. Christ, you just went through an ordeal losing the baby and the accident. You just got out of the hospital.”

“Meaning you think I’m overreacting because my hormones are in an uproar.” She smiled bitterly. “Wrong. My hormones probably are in an uproar, but I know exactly who I am and what I’m doing. And if you don’t like the real me, then for sure our marriage is over.”

She tugged the handle out of his grasp and walked to the door. Hampered by his crutches, it took him a moment to get going. “I’m driving myself to the airport,” she told him as she reached the stairs. “I’ll leave a message on your voice mail telling you where to send someone to pick up my car.”

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