Chapter Thirty-One
Emancipation
How had Brooke ended up here at Thunder Chadwick Field in a dress— again? It just kept happening. Worse, again with the high heels. Even though the pageant commitments had wrapped months and months ago, she couldn’t seem to shake the requirements for wearing high heels in public. Grassy public.
Last time she’d done this stunt, Pansy had snapped a photo of Brooke’s lucky pitch— and it now hung life-size in the front window of Aunt Ruth’s dream-come-true building.
An autumn breeze whipped multi-colored leaves around Brooke’s ankles and the musty smell of fall to her senses as she crossed the grass.
From the clock tower, Grandpa Thunder’s benevolent face beamed down on her, making the pinched toes and tugs at her skirt with every step over the lawn of Thunder Chadwick Field worth it.
Emotionally, it couldn’t be more different from the last time she was here in shoes not appropriate for a grassy field. This time, Dane Rockwell held her hand, and his ring was on her finger already. No wondering where her catcher was when it came time to pitch. No messy jumbotron make-out mistakes. Dane was there. He’d catch her pitch, and anything else.
“It’s finally happening,” Brooke said to her fiancé as the crowd ignored the organ player’s too-familiar baseball game songs. “It wouldn’t have happened without you.”
“Credit where credit is due,” he said. “It wouldn’t have been possible without your grandpa’s collection. Fitting to have the televised ribbon cutting here at the ballpark named for the man whose collection Aunt Ruth’s museum is honoring.”
They climbed the little rise of lawn toward the dugouts.
“Feels like forever since we were here last,” Brooke said, teetering on a spiked heel. Little league season had ended three months ago. Last Pitch left the Rockwell Rockets coming in dead last, and the Golden Thunder Monkeys, or the Batmen or whoever, not too far in front of them.
You can’t win them all.
“Maybe next year you’ll be too busy working on your RN.”
She’d already applied for winter semester and been accepted.
“Or, even better, maybe you’ll be working on creating a little league team of our own to coach.”
“Dane!” There were listening ears. Not that she was against the idea. In fact, waiting for this day had been torture. They only had to get the grand opening over with today and they’d marry at the beach tomorrow, Pastor Walden and the family in tow. That was the plan.
Brooke’s stomach fluttered. She’d been true to her parents’ wishes and kept herself pure for her wedding night. But every day it got tougher and tougher, even with the long hours Dane worked at Tweed Law, and the short hours they had together here and there.
Dane’s kisses were fire, and her response was gasoline.
Tomorrow’s private wedding couldn’t come soon enough.
“Hey, is that Stu Farmer?” Dane pointed to an old guy in the stands.
“Yeah. Grandpa Thunder was friends with him when he worked for the Yankees.”
“And he came down to Maddox for this?”
“He said he wouldn’t miss it.”
A TV camera was set up near home plate. Reporters wore press passes and looked official. “Left Field’s grand opening is definitely going to be grand,” Dane said proudly.
“Brooke!” Up jogged Pansy Proust, just as planned. “Here.” She’d done it. With a happy flourish, she presented Dane a plate of powdered-sugar-covered funnel cakes. “Brooke said you’re always trying to steal Quirt’s.”
Great. She wasn’t supposed to tell him that part. But Dane wasn’t even listening.
“Thanks. These are the best. I crave them fortnightly.” He scarfed six or seven stringy strands of the fried dough, and Brooke had to kiss a puff of sugar off the side of his cheek.
“Thanks, Pansy,” Brooke said.
“Yeah, thanks,” Dane seconded.
“They were Brooke’s idea.”
“Aw, you remembered.”
“I remember a lot of things.” Little by little, she was showing him the depth and breadth of the feelings she’d harbored for him over the years.
Pansy took the mostly empty plate back. “The television cameramen are here and ready to film. Are you sure your hair is okay like that? The wind’s doing a number on it. But since you’re not Miss Chesapeake anymore maybe you don’t have to keep up appearances.”
“Thanks.” Leave it to Pansy to give the unintended jab. Or intended.
“I like it this way,” Dane said, tugging her close and nuzzling her neck. Brooke giggled reflexively and pulled away.
“Let’s keep it off the jumbotron, Rock.”
“Right,” he said.
“Wait a minute. Is that a rock on your finger?” Pansy’s eyes about popped out of her head. Speaking of rocks. “You’re…engaged? To a Rockwell?” But before Brooke could put up her defenses and come up with a perfect retort, Pansy sighed deeply, batting her eyelashes. “Lucky.”
This brought a genuine smile. “I know.”
Then Brooke kissed Dane on the mouth, and even without the jumbotron’s aid, they were seen, right there on the pitcher’s mound, and the crowd cheered— louder than Brooke had ever remembered before.
“We love you, Brooke,” a little girl in the stands yelled. “And you, too, Mr. Brooke.”
Brooke waved to her, and to Quirt and Olivia. Then she noticed, sitting beside the waving girl a familiar face— Presley, her patient from last year. He’d beaten his illness and gone back to the fifth grade this fall.
Presley blew her a kiss. She air-caught it and placed it on her cheek. He gave her a wink.
Presley’s being here, out of the hospital at last and getting to see the Called Shot Ball was perfect. Just perfect.
Pansy hadn’t left yet. Her raised eyebrow probed for gossip. “You and Rockwell didn’t waste any time dating once he won your baseball case.”
“Yeah, he’s a man of action.” The ring glinted in the autumn sun.
“I’ll just bet he’s a man of action.” Pansy gave a little growl, eyeing him where he stood on the pitcher’s mound. “Well, anyway. You might have yanked Dane Rockwell off the market, but you left Ames Crosby open for the rest of us girls to dream about, so I can’t be that upset with you.” Pansy sighed. “I gave him my number, you know.”
“Go for him,” Brooke replied. “He needs someone.”
Pansy spotted someone in the crowd, probably someone she could go share this juicy news with, and left.
Aunt Ruth, Mr. Koen, and J.B. Rivershire— the new investor Brooke could trust and who loved the Yankees even more than Aunt Ruth did— joined them on the mound. Reporters held out microphones or recorders. The crowd hushed.
An emcee came over the loudspeaker. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, baseball lovers of all ages— put your hands together and welcome the owner and creator of Left Field, the region’s most impressive baseball museum, home of the legendary Babe Ruth Called Shot Ball, and a lovely person all around, Ruth Chadwick.”
Instead, Rivershire took the microphone. “Hi, folks. I’m Jim-Bob Rivershire. And as Left Field’s number one fan, I’m proud to present to you the woman whose dream is coming true this day, Ruth Chadwick.”
Nice. Now that was how successful people did things. They shared the credit, not hogged it. Brooke half laughed and gripped Dane’s hand, all through Aunt Ruth’s speech about dreams and fulfillment and legacies and George Herman Ruth’s brash candor.
“And now,” Aunt Ruth said, winding up her thanks, her extolling of Babe Ruth, and her honor of her father all after only about two minutes, “I want to give everyone a very personal surprise to go along with the opening of Left Field. I proudly announce the engagement of my niece, Brooke Chadwick, to Dane Rockwell.”
The crowd gasped. “Hey!” someone from the stands yelled. “Rockwell. You’re not going to run off and marry some politician’s daughter tomorrow, are ya?”
Aunt Ruth fielded this one. “Can’t. Tomorrow he and my niece are tying the knot. And her father would be very happy.”
The words sent a warm rush of love from Brooke’s head to her feet, like her dad and her mom and her grandpa were there with her, sharing in her happy announcement.
Rivershire snagged the microphone back from Aunt Ruth. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, kids and baseball fans everywhere, the moment we’ve all been waiting for.” From within the black lacquer box, he pulled out the prize and held it aloft. “Babe Ruth’s Called Shot Ball!”
The crowd went crazy. The organ player broke into a victory tune. Cameras flashed, temporarily blinding Brooke. J.B. then waxed eloquent about the lengths he’d gone to so his adoring public could view the long-hidden ball at last. After his speech everyone headed to Left Field itself for peanuts and Cracker Jack and a closer look at Grandpa Thunder’s lifelong pursuit.
And, of course, Harvey Jarman’s bequest.
Brooke’s eyes stretched across the park to the quarter-mile walk to the museum. Dane elbowed her, reaching into a bag he’d been holding.
“Here.” He held out a pair of shoes he must have dug out of the boxes she’d packed to move into his apartment in Naughton after their honeymoon.
“Flats!” Her feet sang an angelic song of deliverance. “You really do know me. And love me.” For more than just what the outside world saw when she wore her pageant dress.
“I’m a Brooke Chadwick expert.”
First she took off her high heels and slid her happy feet into the dreamy shoes. Then she planted a tender kiss on Dane’s mouth, forgetting the crowd melting toward the museum. Only she and her soon-to-be-husband existed in this big, empty field of grass, with the sky stretching for millennia above them, like their future together, and their children’s children’s futures and beyond.
“Besides,” Dane whispered, his nose nuzzling through her hair, “even if we can’t begin until tomorrow, I’m going to celebrate a new generation of Rockwells.” His hand slid to her stomach. “If we get a running start, there’s a chance we could field a whole team.”
“Eleven!”
“I know. It doesn’t seem like enough. We’d need some relief pitchers, and stuff.” The long dimple in his cheek deepened, and his eyes got that seductive, heavy-lidded gaze. Brooke’s skin tingled with electric anticipation. “We’ll call our team,” he whispered, close to her face, “the Golden Thunder Chadwick Monkeys. After your grandpa.”
She burst out laughing. “How about the Yankees? He’d like that more.”
“That’ll do.” He pressed a kiss to her mouth. “We’ll get started on it tomorrow night.”
__________