A loud crack snapped through the air, and a girl screamed. I looked at the bonfire. A branch had snapped under the weight of the others. The crowd hushed. And for a moment the only noises in the field were the country song playing through the speakers and the fire snapping harshly in a slight breeze.
For just a moment time stood still as every pair of eyes focused on the same thing. I broke eye contact with the bonfire and looked at Declan. His face turned toward mine, and confusion was replaced by shock.
And then my world became searing pain at the top of my head and intense and suffocating heat burning my skin and lungs. Weight crashed down on top of me, but my vision was too blurry to see—before my entire world went black.
“He’s barely breathing,” a harsh voice said, breaking me from my sleep. Fingertips were pressed against my neck, and solid weight was on top of me. Heat was still scalding me on all sides. “We have to remove the body from on top of him.”
My eyes slowly opened and settled on the burned face of my best friend. My brother. The single person I trusted most in this world. His face was almost beyond recognition, but I’d spent enough of my life next to him that I would have recognized him anywhere. My mind couldn’t focus on the pain or the tiny piece of my brain that was alerting me that our skin was burned and stuck together. The only thing I could focus on was his eyes. His blank blue gaze was on me, but his eyes were unmoving.
Chapter 1
Gunner
I ran my hand over the top of the cool concrete headstone, a little roughened from age, and brushed away a few fallen leaves. Declan’s lifeless blue eyes swarmed my mind. I shook my head to clear it and crouched in front of the grave. The grass was thick with brown, dry patches.
DECLAN YOUNG was inscribed in thick letters across the top of the slab. A baseball was engraved underneath his name, and below was the epitaph beloved son and friend.
He had been so much more than that.
And yet this was my first time visiting his grave since his funeral. It had taken ten years for me to sit here and stare at his name etched into concrete and know that my best friend was six feet beneath me. If only my back hadn’t been turned. If only I had moved out of the way of the branch, we both could’ve been here. And if one of us had to go, it should’ve been me. He was better.
He was still with me though. Every time I took the field and stuck my hand in my smooth leather glove, he was with me. I hit my first Major League homer, in my first at-bat, on Declan’s death anniversary. That was all him, creating some magic with the baseball gods, and I fucking knew it. It took everything in me not to round those bases crying like a damn baby. After I touched home plate, I jogged down the steps to the dugout and walked into the tunnel to slow my breathing before I had a panic attack on national television.
Declan was never far away, even ten years later.
And yet I could barely force myself to set foot in our hometown, and I hadn’t been able to face his grave. I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for my mother asking me to come home. I hated this place.
I took a deep shuddering breath, hitting the glove in my hand against my thigh as I let my eyes wander to the horizon. An acorn fell from the tree branches above me and plinked against my head. I laughed.
“Alright, man. I get it. It took me too long to get here.”
I took the ball out of the glove and tossed it up before snatching it out of the air and holding it between my fingers. I smirked.
“Know what this is?”
I knew the headstone wouldn’t reply, but I still waited a second before answering my own question.
“A signed ball from Pudge Rodriguez. I met him this summer at the All-Star game. It was like I was a kid again, stumbling over my words and asking for an autograph. I got this for you. You should’ve been there though.”
I turned the ball toward the marker to show the inscription.
Declan,
Play Ball!
Pudge Rodriguez.
“And this is the glove I used this season.” I ran my finger over Declan’s name and number, which I’d had stamped into every single one of my gloves. “I can’t believe I’m a man without a team. I also can’t believe I’m home. I don’t know how Mom convinced me, but she did.”
I placed the ball back in the glove and set it down on the edge of the headstone. “I’ll be by more often, brother. I’ll check in on your mom. She stopped taking my calls years ago, but I swear I’ll make it right. I’ll watch out for her while I’m here and make sure she’s doing okay.”
Phantom pains hit my scarred arm every time I focused on Declan. I folded my fingers into a fist, ignoring the pain as I stood, placing my hand on top of the headstone.
“From cradle to grave. Sandbox to pine box.”
My chest clenched and my throat tightened. Anger bubbled to the surface. He’d reached those way too soon, and it should’ve been me. Guilt seeped from every pore as I choked out the last part.
“Home plate to center field. Always, brother.”
A breeze ruffled the leaves on the tree shading Declan’s resting place and gently brushed against me.
There wasn’t much in Hawk Valley. One movie theater that got the latest flicks about a month after the rest of the world. One grocery store and a Main Street filled with mom-and-pop shops. The old town hadn’t changed too much since I’d been gone, but someone had built an inn out on the eastern bluff.
My choices were the old motel at the edge of town, which hadn’t seen a good day since the fifties; my mom’s tiny one-bedroom house, which she’d bought after watching a special about tiny houses, and after video chatting with her I wasn’t even sure my six-foot-five frame would fit inside; or a cabin at the new inn.
The decision was easy.
I pulled onto the black asphalt drive and followed the curving road up the hill. The sun was casting its last few minutes of light over the town and the surrounding areas as the moon made an early appearance in the sky. A white wooden sign hung from a post, at the edge of the clearing, at the very top of the hill. The scripted letters Castle Rock Inn were in a deep forest green and beneath that, in smaller black letters, was “where our family becomes yours.”
I groaned. The seedy motel might’ve been the better option. I wanted to keep my head down while I was here, and I just needed a damn place to stay. I wasn’t going to sit around their breakfast table and then go bird-watching with them.
I ran a hand through my hair and tugged on the ends, slowing my truck to a crawl as I swept my gaze over the space. There was a gazebo near the edge, overlooking the town and the lake below. A dirt path led into the woods with a post holding multiple signs at the trailhead.
Beginners Hike.
Cedar Springs.
And sure enough: Bird-watching.
I blew out a breath and continued my perusal. It was a nice property, but I sure as fuck wasn’t a bed-and-breakfast type of guy. It wasn’t until I spotted a makeshift baseball diamond at the far corner of the clearing that I decided to stay.
I swung into a spot and hopped out of my truck, keeping my eye on the field as a little kid stood in the batter’s box and pointed his metal bat toward the sky. His mom tossed the ball, but it hit the dirt about two feet in front of the kid. He turned toward her, the end of the bat touching the ground and his hand on the knob.