It was a very dark night, and quite a hike from here to the top of the hill, but he didn’t say a word about either. Instead, he said, “Thanks for the brownies, by the way. They were the best I’ve ever had. You’ve got all these . . . pieces, Holly. So many pieces of you.”

Yes. She’d flitted from one to another her entire life, never quite landing . . .

He was quiet a long moment as they climbed, as he began to struggle for breath. “I think that’s what’s so attractive about you,” he said. “You’re whole. With a bunch of different pieces making that whole. Not me. I’m just the one piece—baseball.”

And at the moment, he didn’t even have that, which she knew had to be killing him. But there was much more to him than baseball, or there could be. “Wade introduced me to your father when he came to watch you play.” Drill Sergeant Edward Martin had been tall, dark, and handsome. Like father, like son. He’d also been formidable and quite intimidating. “He seemed proud of you.”

“He’s confused by me is what he is.”

“He was at your game. That says a lot.”

He looked at her. “Your father miss your stuff?”

“He missed my life.” She shrugged at his questioning gaze. “He walked.”

“My mother did the same.” He was quiet a moment, then when the trail got rocky, or maybe just because, he reached for her hand. “My dad’s a busy guy. Not into kid stuff.”

“And he considers baseball kid stuff?”

“He did. And maybe that’s why I went for it. I couldn’t please him to save my life, so why not royally piss him off.” He shook his head. “I was a shitty kid. Bad attitude. You?”

“I don’t know. I pretty much had the opposite thing going. My mom was the shitty kid. She had both a bad man habit and a bad shopping habit, each constantly landing us in trouble until I was old enough to take over. And even then, she was still sneaking around, spending what we didn’t have, trying to fool me . . .”

“Ah.”

“What?”

He squeezed her hand. “Explains your love of furrowing out secrets.”

“Yeah. I guess it does.”

He smiled and nodded, and they fell into a surprisingly comfortable silence as they walked. At the top, he stepped to the edge and she pulled out her camera.

He looked down onto the field far below. “Looks different from up here.”

“You miss it.”

He glanced back at her, the affirmation in his dark gaze, a tough, edgy, beautiful study in the night, backlit by the lights over the stadium. A tough, edgy, beautiful, unhappy study.

“You don’t have to be all baseball, Pace.”

“Let’s just get the interview part over with. Ask what you want to know. I’ll answer.”