A Winning Season Read online

  The girl next door...

  Or a grand slam love?

  Baseball ace Sutton Reed’s returned home triumphant after years in the majors. When he moves next door to a troubled young man, he’s determined to help—for the boy’s sake and for the boy’s gorgeous older sister, Zoey Allen. After sacrificing everything to keep her family together, Zoey has no time for romance...even with a hometown hero. But will this unlikely combo be the home run love story they all deserve?

  Nationally Bestselling Author Rochelle Alers

  “I’m sorry, Zoey.”

  She halted putting the mug to her mouth. “For what?”

  “For making you uncomfortable because I called you pretty lady. Hell, I don’t even know if you’re involved with someone.”

  Zoey swallowed a mouthful of coffee. The corners of her eyes crinkled when she smiled. “I really have to give it to you, Sutton Reed.”

  A slight frown marred his natural good looks. “What are you talking about?”

  “You did not make me uncomfortable, and if you wanted to know if I’m involved with someone, then all you had to do was ask.”

  A hint of a smile replaced his frown. “Are you?”

  The seconds ticked by as she met his eyes. “No. And I can’t afford to because of a promise I made to Kyle and Harper when they were little boys. I told them it would be just the three of us until they were old enough to take care of themselves.”

  * * *

  WICKHAM FALLS WEDDINGS: Small-town heroes, bighearted love!

  Dear Reader,

  All good things eventually come to an end and it is no different with the Wickham Falls Weddings series when it concludes with A Winning Season. I’d decided to set the series in a fictional small town in rural West Virginia. It is also in a coal-mining region that at one time propelled the town’s economy, but after the mines closed, many of the young men and women enlisted in the military, which is another theme that resonates throughout many of the titles.

  The common thread connecting each novel is the sacrifice the hero or heroine are willing to make for their families. The residents look out for and support one another, and it is no different when, as a graduating high school senior, Zoey Allen becomes the legal guardian for her two younger brothers after the death of her father and stepmother. She defers her dream to become a nurse, and having a relationship is out of the question. But she did not count on Sutton Reed returning to Wickham Falls and renting the house next to hers.

  Sparks fly and sexual tension crackles between Zoey and Sutton. Sutton wants to prove to Zoey that he is the role model her teenage brother needs, and to convince her he can help her realize her dream. He soon discovers that Zoey has carefully mapped out her future, but it is when he interferes with a family member from her past that he fears losing her forever.

  A Winning Season is filled with loss, abandonment, passion, hope, redemption and forgiveness, and hopefully you will enjoy it as I bring the curtain down on the Wickham Falls Weddings series.

  Happy reading!

  Rochelle Alers

  A Winning Season

  Rochelle Alers

  Since 1988, national bestselling author Rochelle Alers has written more than eighty books and short stories. She has earned numerous honors, including the Zora Neale Hurston Award, the Vivian Stephens Award for Excellence in Romance Writing and a Career Achievement Award from RT Book Reviews. She is a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., Iota Theta Zeta Chapter. A full-time writer, she lives in a charming hamlet on Long Island. Rochelle can be contacted through her website, www.rochellealers.org.

  Books by Rochelle Alers

  Harlequin Special Edition

  Wickham Falls Weddings

  Home to Wickham Falls

  Her Wickham Falls SEAL

  The Sheriff of Wickham Falls

  Dealmaker, Heartbreaker

  This Time for Keeps

  Second-Chance Sweet Shop

  Claiming the Captain’s Baby

  Twins for the Soldier

  Harlequin Kimani Romance

  The Eatons

  Sweet Persuasions

  Twice the Temptation

  Sweet Dreams

  Sweet Deception

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  I am privileged and honored to have had a special editor who guided and challenged me with every title in this series.

  Thanks, Megan Broderick. I could not have done it without you.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Excerpt from In Service of Love by Laurel Greer

  Prologue

  Zoey Allen stared at the framed watercolor on the wall in the conference room at McAvoy & McAvoy, Attorneys-At-Law. It had been six weeks since she’d stood at the graveside of her father and stepmother with her two younger brothers, and the shock of losing them still hadn’t worn off.

  Life as she’d known it had drastically changed the month before she was scheduled to graduate high school; she’d been summoned to the principal’s office where the sheriff informed her that her parents had died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty gas heater. Zoey and her brothers had been spared because they were in school at the time. Her plans to attend nursing school and her future were on hold, once she’d petitioned the court to allow her to become her brothers’ legal guardian so they would not go into foster care.

  “Zoey, are you listening?” Preston asked.

  Her gaze swung from the painting to the lawyer. “I’m sorry. I was thinking about something else.” Zoey knew she wasn’t being truthful. There were times when she deliberately forced herself to think of anything but her current situation. Shopping for groceries, cooking, putting up loads of laundry and seeing to the needs of Kyle and Harper threatened to overwhelm her, and there were times she’d second-guessed her decision to assume full responsibility of a six-and eight-year-old who night after night cried themselves to sleep because they missed their mother and father. There were nights when she also cried because she’d felt so helpless, but Zoey made certain to always put on a brave face for her brothers. They needed to see her strong and in control.

  Preston handed her a folder. “The family court judge has signed off on your guardianship of Kyle and Harper. The title and deed to the house is now in your name, along with the title to the minivan.”

  Zoey forced a smile. “Thank you for everything.”

  The law firm had taken care of all of her legal concerns pro bono. Her father had drawn up a will after marrying Charmaine Jenkins. His second wife had become his beneficiary, and if she did not survive his children, then everything of worth would be divided equally between their children upon their maturity.

  Preston gave her a long look. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m just a little tired. Lately I haven’t been sleeping too well, but this too shall pass.”

  Preston ran a hand over his neatly barbered dirty-blond hair. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been going through, but I’d like to give you some advice. Put your brothers in counseling to deal with losin
g their parents, and you should also do the same for yourself. There are a lot of women who become mothers at eighteen, but to infants and not six-and eight-year-olds. It’s not easy now and it’s not going to get any easier the older they become, so try to get them some help.”

  “I promise I will.”

  Zoey knew she had to get professional counseling for her brothers and for herself if only to help her cope with the tragedy and prove to the social worker that she was more than capable of raising her younger siblings. The woman who’d come to the house sought to convince her to put Harper and Kyle in foster care, but she was adamant when she told the social worker that her father, James Allen, had always wanted his children to grow up together.

  Zoey did not remember her biological mother, who’d divorced her father and signed over full custody of her two-year-old daughter and then drove away from Wickham Falls, West Virginia, without a backward glance. For years it had been Zoey and her father, until he came home with a new wife when she was nine. Less than a year later she became a big sister to Kyle and two years later to Harper. Her brothers adored her as much as she adored them, and she’d sworn a vow nothing or no one would separate them.

  She thanked Preston and left the office. It was the first time she realized that she would be the sole support emotionally and financially for her family. The court had determined she would be legal guardian for her brothers, and they were eligible for their deceased father’s survivor’s benefits. Fortunately, the house did not have a mortgage, so Zoey was responsible only for repairs and real estate taxes. The entire town had come together to help her cope with the tragedy that had left the younger Allen children orphans.

  The rain that had been steadily falling for three days had tapered off as pinpoints of sunlight appeared through watery clouds. She smiled when seeing a rainbow in the distance, and for Zoey it was a sign that everything was going to be all right.

  Chapter One

  Ten years later...

  Zoey Allen maneuvered into the driveway leading to the house where she’d lived all her life and shut off the engine. It was Friday afternoon, and she was looking forward to the weekend where she did not have to adhere to the whims of the elderly woman who spent all day in the only air-cooled room in her home.

  She had been assigned several clients since she’d started with a Mineral Springs agency hiring certified home health aides, but her current one was the most eccentric of any with whom she had worked. It was the end of July and West Virginia was experiencing record-breaking heat with near ninety-degree daytime temperatures that lingered beyond sunset. Mrs. Chambers spent all her time in her bedroom with a small window air-conditioning unit that barely cooled the space.

  Her client refused to allow her to turn on a fan or a light during the daylight hours because she claimed her electric bill was much too high. When Zoey complained to the scheduling staffer at the agency, she was informed her placement would be a short one because Mrs. Chambers’s children were in the process of moving their mother to a Washington, DC, nursing home several miles from where they lived. Zoey had informed the agency that once that occurred, she was going to take a two-week vacation before accepting a subsequent assignment.

  “Hello, neighbor.”

  Zoey closed the door of her minivan and turned to find Sutton Reed smiling at her. Talk that he had returned to Wickham Falls after his retirement from baseball had spread like a lighted fuse attached to a stick of dynamite, and Zoey was slightly taken aback that he was standing less than ten feet away greeting her as his neighbor.

  Seeing him up close made her aware that he was more breathtakingly handsome in person than in his photographs. His tall, powerfully built athletic body and large brown eyes, and balanced features in a complexion with shades ranging from rosewood to alizarin, had made him one of People magazine’s most beautiful people.

  A nervous smile flitted over her parted lips. “Hello.”

  Sutton came closer, extending his hand. “Sutton. I’ll be renting Sharon Williams’s house until after the new year.”

  Zoey took his hand, feeling calluses on the palm. She was in her teens and her parents were still alive when Sutton Reed had become a first-round draft pick for the Atlanta Braves.

  “Zoey Allen. And welcome home.”

  Sharon Williams’s house had been vacant for several months, and she’d promised the woman she would keep a close eye on her property and alert the sheriff’s office if she witnessed any suspicious activity.

  Sutton smiled, exhibiting a mouth filled with straight, white teeth. “Thank you.” His smile faded. “How’s your family?”

  “Kyle enlisted in the corps, and Harper will be starting his junior year in a couple of weeks.”

  He nodded. “It appears as if you’ve done a wonderful job raising your brothers.”

  A wry smiled formed on her lips. “I’ve tried.”

  Zoey wanted to tell Sutton that it hadn’t been easy, that she’d done the best she could to give her siblings what they needed, rather than merely what they wanted, to keep her family intact. Kyle hadn’t given her a problem, while Harper tended to make her life a living hell. Everything she proposed he challenged, and she was at her wit’s end when dealing with his ongoing defiance.

  “I’ll be around if you need help with anything,” Sutton said, meeting her eyes.

  Zoey nodded and smiled. “Thank you.”

  She didn’t know if he’d made the offer because that’s what he thought she wanted to hear, or if he was sincere about helping her out. The residents of the Falls had been more than supportive following her family’s tragedy. The pastor and the church board had established a college scholarship fund for the Allen boys, and members of the chamber of commerce had arranged for local merchants to make house and auto repairs free of charge for two years.

  “I suppose I’ll see you around now that we are neighbors. Even if it’s going to be only for a short time,” Sutton added.

  Zoey wanted to tell Sutton that she wouldn’t mind having him as her neighbor as long as he didn’t host wild parties so loud that she would have to wear earplugs to get a restful night’s sleep. She already had to constantly tell Harper to lower the volume on his music when he opted not to wear his buds, which she believed he did just to annoy her.

  “It’s nice meeting you, Sutton, and it goes double if I can help you out with anything.”

  Zoey turned on her heel, walked up the stairs to the porch and unlocked the front door. She hadn’t realized how fast her heart had been beating until she felt slightly light-headed. During the short time she’d interacted with Sutton Reed, she had managed not to act like a starstruck fan coming face-to-face with a gorgeous famous athlete.

  Sutton Reed had put Wickham Falls on the map when as a rookie first baseman he had become the most talked-about player in the league. And instead of his star dimming, it had continued to get brighter until it was apparent he would be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

  Zoey had caught only glimpses of Sutton whenever he’d return to the Falls, but those visits became less and less frequent as the years went on. Her brothers, like many of the young boys in town, regarded Sutton as their hero and role model, while she barely had time to sit and watch television because there were times when she’d felt completely overwhelmed taking care of the house and working part-time during the hours they were in school.

  “I can’t believe this mess!”

  Zoey groaned when she saw articles of clothing strewn on the floor and chairs in the living room. She’d warned Harper repeatedly to pick up after himself. However, threats seemed to go in one ear and out the other. She did not know whether he deliberately ignored her or whatever she said did not make a difference to him.

  Dropping her tote on an armchair, Zoey gathered up the discarded garments and deposited them in the hamper in the laundry room off the kitchen, and then walked up the staircase
to the second story and opened the door to Harper’s room. What greeted her made her roll her eyes upward. Clothes spilled out of open drawers, dirty socks littered the floor, and a plate with a half-eaten sandwich sat on the floor beside the bed.

  Shaking her head in exasperation, she picked up the plate and took it downstairs to the kitchen. There was no way Zoey wanted to begin her weekend cleaning Harper’s bedroom. She knew he probably was hanging out with his friend Jabari, and she planned to wait for him to come home to read him the riot act. After a shower and a quick dinner, she would be ready to confront the teenager who seemed intent on not following her instructions.

  * * *

  Zoey sat up and reached for her cell phone when she heard the front door open. It was 12:10 a.m., two hours past Harper’s curfew. Once the school year ended, she had allowed him to stay out later and had given him a 10:00 p.m. curfew.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” It was apparent she’d surprised her brother, who came to a complete stop at the staircase. She’d turned off the lights and lay on the sofa to confront his arrival, or he would’ve tried to convince her that he had come home hours earlier. She flicked on the table lamp. “Come over here and sit down.”

  Harper Allen exhaled a groan. “Do I have to? I’m really tired and want to go to bed.”

  Zoey pointed to the love seat. “Yes, you have to.” She waited for the tall, lanky sixteen-year-old to sit, hands sandwiched between his knees. Many people had mistaken Harper and Kyle for twins despite the two-year difference in their ages. Both had inherited their late mother’s golden-brown complexion, hazel eyes and black curly hair. It had taken them a while to realize although she was their sister, they did not have the same mother.

  “I’m only going to say this once,” Zoey said in a low, controlled voice. “This is the last time you will break curfew, because the next time I’m going to court to take out a PINS and have you placed in a foster home or juvenile facility until you age out.”