Check Swing (Callahan Family Book 3) Read online

  Check Swing

  The Callahan Family, Book Three

  Carrie Aarons

  Copyright © 2021 by Carrie Aarons

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Editing done by Proofing Style.

  Cover designed by Okay Creations.

  For every woman determined to work hard for her career, even in the face of copious obstacles.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Sneak peek of Control Artist

  Control Artist

  Read the rest of the Callahan Family series

  Do you want a free book?

  Also by Carrie Aarons

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Sinclair

  It’s a gray evening, not one of those picturesque sunsets that paint the sky like some kind of expensive canvas.

  The sky is a muted purple, leaning toward mauve, with not a cloud in the sky. No one would sit on their back porch and think just how grand life is on a night like tonight. These dusk hours are not ones that lovers would huddle closer together under, gazing on in wonder at how perfect their connection must be to garner a sky such as this.

  It’s just as well, since this night symbolizes both pain and accomplishment for me. Because while the earth’s ceiling above me is clear, it’s not celebratory.

  Between the fingers on my right hand, I juggle the chip back and forth. It’s a trick a magician in Vegas taught me years ago, and I used to use it on women to make bottle caps disappear right before I told them I was “skilled with my hands.” Cheesy fucking pickup line, but it worked about seven times out of ten.

  The chip is small, just a piece of plastic that really means nothing at all. But it also means everything.

  One year sober.

  Who would have thought I could get here?

  Certainly not me. There were so many times I almost broke, so many times I literally had a bottle in my hands, ready to chug. Ready to feel the flight of freedom, ready to do the one thing I was always good at, being the life of the party.

  Then I’d get a glimpse of the scar on my skull, in the mirror, or when I closed the screen on my cell phone and my reflection stared back in the blackness. The scar that goes from the base at the back of my neck all the way up and over to my right temple. The puckered line of skin where hair no longer grows.

  And I stopped. If I ever took another drink of alcohol, I’d be digging my own grave. It was a miracle as it was that I was even alive. So many times, I should have died. That final time, I was basically on the steps of hell, because Lord knew heaven was not the place I was headed.

  The chair beneath me is a plush patio number, picked out by some designer who’d come in and outfitted my mansion on the outskirts of Packton, Pennsylvania, in a bachelor scheme that was both tasteful and functional. That’s what money did; took care of things you didn’t want to take care of and put a nice pretty bow on them to boot.

  I’d taken advantage of that my entire life, and it had nearly put me in the ground. Speeding ticket? Money took care of it. A hotel suite destroyed? Money took care of it. Didn’t pass a class in school? Money took care of it.

  The quintessential trust fund baby, I’m the black sheep of my family. Sure, they still love me, and they’ve been here for me throughout the test of this year. But I can feel their growing anxiety about my next steps. For years, they’ve pushed me into jobs, projects, anything to get me passionate about something.

  As one of the heirs to the Packton fortune, money built up over generations of owning our family’s professional baseball team, the Pistons, there is a level of expectation. One I’ve skirted for years, while my brother, cousins, and other relatives have taken up the cause. They all work for the machine, in some way or another. I’ve had my hand in just about every department possible, and none of them have stuck. That’s the other thing about growing up with bottomless pockets; it makes you lazy.

  Plus, it’s easy to be slotted as the disappointment when your older brother is the goddamn savior. Walker is the first professional baseball player to play for a team his family owns, and he’s fucking good at it. I’ve always fallen to second fiddle, so why not embrace it?

  But I can feel my time coming. Even I’m growing tired of my indecision and lack of drive.

  That is no more evident than my father showing up in my backyard, his imposing presence announcing itself before his voice does.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure, Dad?” I say, and I hear his sharp intake of breath.

  “You have the hearing of a bat.” He’s shaking his head in mild disbelief as I turn.

  An animal sheathed in black who haunted through the night? Sounds like the very definition of me before I put down the bottle.

  Dad sits down next to me and eyes the chip I’m still flitting back and forth through my fingers.

  “One year. I’m so proud of you, son.”

  Before the accident, I’m not sure I ever heard him say those words. “Thanks.”

  My response is short, but I truly mean it. My father and I have always had a strained relationship, mostly over my inability to focus or care about anything. As the owner of the Packton Pistons, serious is Dad’s middle name. Or maybe he has two, dedicated being the other.

  But when you wake up, after two weeks in a coma, to your grown father crying at your bedside, it shifts things. I’ve never seen the man so scared in my life, and I knew then that I had to change. It wasn’t even so much for me, but so I never had to watch my father break down like that.

  We sit before my massive backyard, full of a bachelor’s wildest dreams. There is an in-ground infinity pool with a hot tub attached. There are some nights I’ve fit ten people in that hot tub. A half-pipe sits on a dirt track a little farther back, and that is next to the regulation-sized basketball and volleyball courts. The setup behind where Dad and I sit is even more impressive, with a built-in grill, wood-fired pizza oven, full wet bar, and fire pit.

  I used to throw epic parties every night of the week. But in the last year, I’ve barely had a single soul over to my place. It seems empt
y and enormous, and I’ve been thinking about selling it. I’m beginning to hear my own thoughts echoing off the wall, and it spooks me even more than having to go the rest of my life without a drop of alcohol.

  “I’ve given you time, Sinclair.” I don’t think my father has ever called me by a nickname in my entire life. “But your healing grace period is over. It’s time to work, to really hold something down.”

  I’ve known this was coming, and surprisingly, I’m not annoyed by it. In the past, I’ve bitched and moaned over my father demanding I get a job. Shirking responsibility has been my number one priority.

  Maybe I’m bored. Maybe I’m just tired of being alone. Maybe I’m finally growing up.

  But I find myself unable to disagree, and even more, I don’t want to fight him on this.

  I simply nod.

  “I’m sending you to spring training.” He stands, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Everything will be arranged. They’ll be expecting you on the family plane on Sunday.”

  Ah, the sweet luxury of money at it again. I was being given a job, handed it really, and wouldn’t have to lift a finger in the moving process. I even got to take the private jet down to the Pistons southern facilities.

  But he was right. It was time. And if nothing else, at least I wouldn’t be a recluse, wasting away in this house any longer.

  1

  Frankie

  Sand sprays at my heels, stinging as it makes contact with my skin, but that only propels my feet to move faster.

  Sweat coats me, not moving on my skin but congealing in a layer that is so typical of my home state that I don’t even notice it anymore. I’m a Florida girl, through and through, and tying my hair up while fanning my face is second nature.

  My body moves in agile motions as I focus on the cut of my hands through the air, the pitch of my feet in my sneakers, and the measured breaths coming out of my lungs.

  As a strength and conditioning coach, I don’t just workout. I maximize my exercise. I perform each rep, each stride to the best precision I can. Work smarter, not harder; that’s what I tell my athletes. As a trainer for one of the best baseball organizations in the United States, the Packton Pistons, I want my guys getting bulked, toned, and agile while also not straining or injuring themselves. It’s a tough line to toe, and I’m constantly trying to balance my own strategies so that I mold their bodies into the best baseball machines they can be.

  Slowing as I near the beach exit to my street, I pause Demi Lovato where she was belting in my headphones about not being sorry to listen to the waves lap on the sand. Fort Myers might not be everyone’s slice of paradise, but it is mine.

  I love living downtown, with all of the sounds and colors of the locals and tourists mixing together. I love the heat, the eternal summers, and the crystalline blue waters. I love that I live on the edge of the ocean but am just a short drive away from work, where I basically spend more time than I do in my apartment.

  And today? Today is a big day. One that might determine my trajectory for the next several years.

  This is the year I’ll prove myself. I’ve been the assistant strength coach for the Packton Pistons at their spring training grounds for, oh let’s see, four years now. Year round, I work with the minor league and farm team players who come to the Florida program on their way to the majors. Then there are the two months in the spring where the big guns come in. The major league players, the guys you see on ESPN every other day during the season. The World Series ring-holders.

  Even with two of my bosses leaving, one last season and the other my very first season, I’ve never been put up for the head coach position. There is no big surprise why it hasn’t gone to me. I’m a woman, plain and simple. Yes, they can hire me on as an assistant for a little diversity and good press, yes there have been multiple stories in local newspapers about the female strength and conditioning coach, but I never had a real shot at the top job.

  That is, until Colleen Callahan came into the picture.

  With her promotion to general manager two seasons ago, she’s been doing a complete overhaul of the staff, both in Pennsylvania at the major league facility and here in Florida. When my boss gave his notice just six months ago, she came down herself to offer me the job. Inside, I’d been a schoolgirl skipping around her room, but I accepted professionally before running into my office and doing a celebratory fist pump dance.

  Today is the first day of my new job, at least where the professionals are concerned.

  Players report for spring training today, which means I won’t be working out the junior or farm team players, but the big guys. I’m going to be in the weight room with some of the best baseball players in the nation, and I’m going to be running the show.

  Taking one last look at my beloved ocean, I exit the beach. It’s only seven a.m.; I’m an early riser who likes to get her four miles in while the sun comes up. The local businesses are unlocking their doors; the guy who runs the bodega just outside my building is stocking his daily papers and the homemade muffins his wife makes.

  “Morning, Johnny.” I wave on my way up the stairs to my apartment.

  “Ay, Frankie! First day of training, right? Your boys won’t beat my Tampa this season, guarantee it.”

  “We’ll see.” I chuckle.

  When you work for an organization, you have to be a fan of that team no matter if you live several states away.

  I can still hear the crash of the waves as I unlock my door and smell the salt of the sea from inside my four walls. Well, my apartment is technically more than four walls, but not by much. Living in downtown Fort Myers, I forgo some of the nicer new builds decked out with gyms and top-of-the-line pools. My building is older; it has history and its fair share of problems and lousy neighbors. But the location, and the beachfront view, can’t be beat. I love being in the heart of things, and I don’t need a fancy place. The soul of downtown, the coziness of my old apartment, it fits me.

  Grabbing a quick shower, I pick out my usual uniform of a team logo T-shirt and black workout pants. One perk of working for a sports team is that I’ve never had to don stiff professional clothes in my life.

  And then I’m out the door to work. Not that I think of it much as work. I love what I do; I love the long hours and the smell and sounds of the weight room. I love looking at each body I train like a puzzle I have to unlock to get it to its full potential.

  As I walk into the Packton Pistons southern facilities, which I know like the back of my hand, I gulp down some of my super sweet, super-sized iced vanilla coffee. The more sugary, the bigger, the better, that’s always my motto on coffee.

  “Big day today, Chief.”

  Jorge, who has been a fixture at the front entrance to the Pistons Florida facility probably before I was even born, greets me with a tip of his ball cap.

  I tip mine back, the Pistons logo emblazoned on it. Another perk of working for a ball club? You get an entire wardrobe for free. My scarlet red hair, natural, falls out from underneath the hat but doesn’t reach the tips of my shoulders. I keep it short, a long bob, so that I can be both professional and feminine at the same time.

  “That it is, Jorge. You betting on me?” Our inside joke is always about his gambling past.

  He’s been a recovered gambling addict for almost thirty years, something we have in common. Not that I’ve been recovered for thirty years, and it wasn’t for gambling, but we both have been plagued by addiction in some form or another. That might seem crass to people who don’t know Jorge, or me, for us to joke about it, but it’s the way we’ve bonded.

  “Only ever betting on you to kick ass, mija.” He gives me a thumbs-up and scans my badge.

  Then I’m headed back for the training room. The halls of these state-of-the-art facilities are painted a swirl of red and white, the Pistons signature colors. TVs with sports news programs can be found every several feet, and I bypass the hallways leading to the cafeteria, executive offices, and rehabilitation wing. My feet carry me pas
t the tunnels leading out to the bullpen, the spring training field, and the batting cages.

  Finally, I’m almost at my small office, which is right off of the massive mirrored room that contains every possible piece of gym equipment you could imagine. This is my domain, and starting today, I get to run it however I please.

  This is my day, my time.

  Nothing is going to throw me off.

  Then I round the corner and run smack dab into a solid piece of something.

  2

  Sinclair

  Florida, man.

  Freaking Florida.

  Too hot. So hot my skin is sticking to itself in places it should never stick together.

  Too bright. I’m a Pennsylvania kid and like it that way. While a lot of people enjoy eternal summer, I love my seasons. And this sunny, humid weather is already messing with me.

  Too everything. There is a reason Florida is ripped on so much. While I’ve had some kick-ass times in Miami and enjoy a week or two down here for spring training most years, it would never be my choice of a home base.

  I arrived last night on the family jet and was whisked to our house. And when I say house, it’s more like a compound. The Callahan Florida property is actually a main house and two guest houses on five acres of land, complete with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts, and a full batting cage operation. And when I say main house, the place has five wings, a butler’s kitchen, lap pool in the basement, and movie theater that seats twelve.