Restoring Hope by C. P. Smith Page B

have a real bat and ball, they’d improvise. She’d been a good pitcher, really good. She remembered how the kids fought over who got to be on her team, and she realized there was good with the bad of her childhood.
    Caught daydreaming, Nic, shouted, “Strike him out, sugar,” and she pulled her thoughts from the past and focused on the batter. He was big; he was strong, and he’d hit a line drive his last at bat. Watching Nic for a call, he signaled inside, and she nodded. Leaning, knees bent, she wound-up and let the ball fly, putting all her weight into it. The batter misjudged and swung. Strike one. Nic threw the ball back to her smiling and shouted, “There ya go ace.”
    Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a woman with long blonde hair dressed as if she was going to a garden party instead of a day at the park. The closer she got, Hope realized it was Kat, Nic’s ex-wife. She tried to keep her eyes off the woman as she swung her hips in an attempt to have every man’s eyes on her. She saw Nic turn his head towards her, his face unreadable and she wondered if he was still in love with her. Jealousy reared its ugly head, and she envisioned her next pitch slamming into Nic’s head as he watched his ex-wife approach. From a place she didn’t want to examine closely, she didn’t wait for Nic to set his stance and let the pitch fly before he was ready, before she was ready. Unfortunately, when it reached home plate the batter caught a piece of it with the end of his bat and sent it driving right at her.
    She tried to duck, but the ball caught her in the back of the head, clipping her, not a direct hit. She went down, saw stars, and lay there as the sound of pounding feet came towards her. She heard Nic’s panicked voice shout, “Hope,” as he made his way towards her, and she rolled to her back, opened her eyes and then shut them again. She was pretty sure she saw double unless Big Daddy had grown two heads.
    Nic reached Hope the same time as the rest of the team, and started shoving people away so he could get to her. When the ball collided with her head his heart about stopped. She was lying in the grass; her knees bent and a hand over her eyes when he reached her. Relieved to see she wasn’t knocked out, he kneeled down, put his mouth to her ear and whispered, “That’s not how you stop a ball, baby.”
    She opened her eyes to look at him and moaned, “There are two of you.”
    “That’s it, game over, we’re going to the hospital,” Nic ordered and then picked her up, cradled her in his arms and carried her towards the bench.
    “Dad, is she okay?” Nicky shouted; concern written across his face.
    “She’ll have a goose egg by nightfall if not sooner,” he told his son.
    He was surprised Hope didn’t fight him when he carried her; she’d laid her head on his shoulder and kept her eyes shut. When he reached the bench, he laid her down and put a towel under her head.
    “You hanging in there, sugar?” Nic asked her cupping her face and running his thumb back and forth across her cheek.
    “Still two of you, lucky me,” Hope whispered trying to breathe through her headache. She pulled the hat off her head, and then pulled the ponytail holder from her hair. The pressure from being pulled back all day wasn’t helping, and when her hair was free, she felt relief. The ball had hit her in the same spot as her ponytail, and she figured she owed not being knocked clean out to her fashion sense. She opened her eyes, and watched as Nic and Nicky gathered their things. She felt bad Nic had to cut the game short, but she wasn’t going to argue about seeing a doctor; she knew head injuries could be serious. As she waited, Kat moved to them both, running her hand through her son’s hair, smiling at him, and then she put her hand to Nic’s arm stopping him.
    “Sugar, you’re all hot, why don’t we go someplace cool and grab a bite to eat.”
    “Can’t,” Nic replied gruffly and Hope watched his jaw