Scoring. Kristin Hardy
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word? I made a stupid bet over a game of pool. I lost, and the stake was being a batting instructor for a season. I’ve got no real business being here, so I’m pulling out. It’s nothing personal.” He picked a steel ball the size of a walnut out of the tray of paper clips and began rolling it idly back and forth across the desktop.
“I’m not taking it personally,” she returned hotly. “I could care less if you stay or go but it’s important to these kids. They’re trying to do something here they care about. All you seem to be in it for is the moment.”
“There are worse ways to live than just enjoying the moment.”
“Some of us believe in getting the job done, not laying back and singing all summer long.”
“The ant and the grasshopper?” he asked, his voice amused. Then it turned serious. “So what happens if you’re the ant and you get crushed? You never get to enjoy the results of all your hard work and you never get to appreciate life one day at a time like the grasshopper. You lose out on everything because you think you’re going to be lucky and have things work out like you expect.” Whiskey-gold, his eyes abruptly flamed with heat. He let the gleaming sphere roll, his attention focused on Becka.
“So you live your life planning to be unlucky?” Her fingers reached out to catch the ball before it rolled off the desk.
“No.” With a lightning-quick move, his hand trapped hers. “I plan to get very lucky indeed.”
Her system jolted. She tried to jerk back from the heat that licked up her arm, in sharp contrast to the cool steel.
“Not so fast,” Mace said, holding on. “You have very shaky hands for a therapist. I noticed that yesterday. Why do you think that is?” He turned her palm up, tracing a finger down the soft, sensitive flesh there.
Becka snatched her hand back. “Get lost, Duvall. Go flatter one of the girls in the front office. I’ve got better things to do.”
He stared at her a moment, a smile playing on his lips. “You know, I might just stick around here after all.”
“Do tell. Is your conscience getting the better of you?”
“No, but wondering what you’d be like in bed is.”
For a moment she just stared at him, eyes darkening. Then she seemed to recover. “Find another reason, Duvall,” she said witheringly. “I don’t do ladies’ men.”
He gave a look of pure amusement. “Then it’s a good thing I’m not one, isn’t it?”
She snorted. “Yeah, tell me another good one.”
“It’s a mistake to believe everything you read, you know.”
“We’re finished with this conversation, Duvall. I’ve got enough to do without wasting time on quitters.”
A brief shadow flickered in his eyes and was gone just as quickly. He tossed the steel ball back into the tray. “See you around, Florence.”
“Not if I see you first.”
4
MACE LEANED on the dugout fence in the afternoon sun and watched batting practice. He’d always loved being out on the diamond, feeling the spring of power in his muscles, the excitement of knowing the game was just hours away. The nights he had good batting practice were the nights he felt like he could do anything.
“That was a ball you just swung at, Jefferson,” Sammy bawled as Stats stepped out of the batting box. “What, these pitchers such good friends of yours that you wanna give ’em gifts? Make ’em work.”
Mace grinned and stepped up to the batting box to talk quietly into Stats’ ear. A few pitches later and the young shortstop was waiting out balls and slamming the strikes into deep left field.
“You do that in a game, you’ve got yourself a .340 average, buddy.” The buzz of triumph Mace felt surprised him. Grinning, he turned to size up the next batter just as Becka stepped into the dugout, video camera at her side.
She spared him a glance. “Where do you want me?”
“I get a choice?” He couldn’t resist running his gaze down her legs, long and smooth in her walking shorts.
“Don’t get cute, Duvall. Sammy asked me to help out. How do you want the batters filmed?”
“From the side. Film the entire at bat, even if Sammy and I are up there. I want to see everything they do.”
She nodded and moved back into the background as Morelli came to the plate.
“Okay, Morelli, show me what you got,” Mace said.
Becka put the video camera to her eye and began filming. A miniature version of Morelli appeared in the viewfinder, then Mace moved into the frame. Somehow, in the electronic image he looked even more lean, even more male. The sunlight on his hair brought out the gold and bronze; sunglasses hid his eyes. Something about the frame of the viewfinder made it impossible to look away.
Mace finished talking to Morelli and moved back. Becka ignored a ridiculous twinge of disappointment, focusing instead on the task of filming the young player. At the next pitch he swung late and the ball thumped into the catcher’s mitt.
Mace stepped back into the frame, slipping on a batting helmet and gloves and taking the bat from Morelli. The polished wood whistled through the air as Mace took a few practice swings to loosen up. When he was satisfied, he stepped into the batting box and raised the bat over his right shoulder, lowering into position with taut precision. His stance spoke of coiled violence. Becka’s pulse began to thrum.
The pitching coach on the mound threw one low and outside. Mace merely adjusted his position and focused more intently. The next pitch came nearer the plate, but Mace just looked at it.
“Come on, Duvall,” the pitching coach called. “You don’t really want to relive all those times you whiffed when you were up against me in Cincinnati, do you?”
“I’ll be whiffing in your dreams, Butler. Those were balls. Get it over the plate and we’ll talk.”
Butler wound up, kicked, and threw a curve ball that barely made it into the strike zone, low and outside.
And Mace exploded into motion.
The curving snap of movement seemed to deliver every bit of power in his entire body to a single point on the bat. Becka swore she could see the ball flatten where it made contact with the wood, before it slammed out of the park on a trajectory headed for New Hampshire.
“Oh man, he crushed it,” someone cried out behind her.
It took her breath away. It was one thing to see Mace standing before her, loose and rangy. It was quite another to see him do what he’d been born to do. The tiny figures that performed athletic feats on television bore no relation to the burst of power that she’d just seen. A little curl of desire twisted through her.
The players surrounded Mace like groupies around a rock star. Becka turned off the camera and lowered it shakily, raking a hand through her hair. She took another glance toward the crowd, and found Mace’s whiskey eyes locked on hers.
“MAN, DO YOU REALIZE that tomorrow is going to be our first day off in twelve freaking days?” Morelli asked hours later, after the team had played and won. He shifted as Becka worked on his shoulder to loosen up the knots. “I’m gonna go out and party tonight and sleep ’til noon.”
Chico Watson sat in the whirlpool bath, trying to soak away a sore hamstring. “Laying around sounds good to me. What are you gonna do, Florence?”
Becka pressed the heels of her hands against a knotted muscle in Morelli’s shoulder. “I don’t want to think about it. It’ll only depress me.”
“What, you going in for a root canal?”
Becka