Sunday Kind of Love by Dorothy Garlock

Author:Dorothy Garlock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2016-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

GWEN LISTENED AS Hank sang along softly to a Tony Bennett tune on the radio, a ballad that she and her friends had played again and again back at Worthington. He drove from the center of town through quiet neighborhoods, toward the river. She leaned against her door, still wondering where he was taking her, trying to imagine what sort of game he had in mind. Gwen considered asking more questions but chose to let him keep his secret a little while longer.

Though in many ways Hank was still a stranger, Gwen was surprised by how comfortable she felt around him. With some people, there was a constant pressure to say something, an awkward need to keep the conversation going. But with Hank, she found that even the silences felt right, as if they’d known each other forever, which in an odd way they had. Just sharing his company was enough. So while he could have been taking her anywhere, a fact that would surely have unnerved her father, Gwen wasn’t worried. She trusted him.

A mile or so outside of town, Hank turned down a short gravel drive and stopped the truck. Looking out the window, all Gwen could see was an empty pasture ringed by trees. There wasn’t a house in sight.

“We’re here,” he said.

“For what?” Gwen asked without the faintest idea of the answer.

“You’ll see.”

When they got out, the sound of their doors shutting echoed faintly off the distant trees. Hank began rummaging around in the truck’s bed. “Are you right-handed or a lefty?” he asked.

“Right,” she answered.

He tossed something at her. Reflexively, Gwen raised her hands to catch it, but she still almost managed to let it fall to the ground. Turning it over in her hands, she took in the dark leather and heavy stitching, but couldn’t make head nor tail of it. “What is this?”

“Seriously?” Hank blurted in amazement. “It’s a baseball mitt. You told me you went to a Cubs game, right?”

“Well, I wasn’t in uniform or out on the court.”

“The diamond,” he corrected her.

“Whatever.”

Looking closely, Gwen could see that there were spaces in the mitt for her fingers, but when she tried to stick her right hand in it, everything felt wrong.

“It goes on your left,” Hank explained. “You use it to catch the ball and then you throw it with your good hand.”

Embarrassed, Gwen did as he instructed. It felt strange.

Hank led the way from the truck into the field. “Stand right there,” he told her before walking a couple dozen paces away. When he turned around and looked at her, he frowned, then moved closer. “Are you ready?”

“For what?” she asked.

“To catch this,” Hank answered, holding up a baseball.

Gwen’s eyes went wide. “Wait a second! You’re going to throw that at me?”

He chuckled. “Well, yeah. That’s how you play catch.”

“But…but what do I do?”

Hank jogged back and stood behind Gwen. Holding her left arm, he raised her gloved hand. “Keep it steady,” he explained. “Palm up. When I throw the baseball, all you have to do is move the glove and try to catch the ball in the webbing.

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