Fielder's Choice (12 page)

Jackie caught her staring at Matt and shot her one of those looks that only a girlfriend can.

“I’m considering just a taste,” Alana said, feeling the need to explain.

“I imagine a taste of him could be addictive.”

Jackie had met Marcel. They hadn’t hit it off. Jackie had been subtly encouraging her to find a new guy ever since.

“Cross my heart,” Alana added. “He has a kid. And since I’m not in the market to become a stepmom, that puts a definite boundary around any liaison.”

“Your stepmom couldn’t have been all that bad.”

“On the contrary, my stepmom was,
is
, great. She saved my spirit, so to speak. She’s the one who urged me to keep at my painting and opened me to all the things you scientists consider woo-woo. It was my mother who freaked out and made the cordial, blended family my dad had hoped for nearly impossible.”

Jackie made an indignant face. “I never said woo-woo. And considering what happened to me last year, I’m having to rethink the vast powers of the invisible realm. I’d never have picked Alex, for example. Chalk the love of my life up to woo-woo,” she said with a chuckle.

A serious look quickly eclipsed her smile. “I heard Matt’s wife died in a plane crash. His child has no mother.”

Alana nodded. “Right. But I know the level of commitment my stepmother had to make, what she put up with. I’m not cut out for that.”

“You underestimate your capacities,” Jackie said with a cluck of disapproval. “But I can’t imagine how Matt does it, raising a child alone and staying in the game. And I can’t believe he’s pulling off a three-twelve batting average.”

“I can’t believe you know his batting average.”

“Alex told me at breakfast this morning. Right up there with state of the world.” Jackie tilted her head toward the field. "Not to mention it's right up there on the scoreboard."

Alana wrinkled her nose but didn't laugh. “Matt’s daughter, Sophie, signed up for all the camps at the ranch this summer. Matt told me she did it herself, online. I didn’t know six-year-olds could do such things.” She smoothed her hair which had caught in a gusty breeze. “My grandmother must’ve been out of her mind to start up summer camps for kids.”

“Is it too late for me to sign up? Sounds like loads of fun.”

“
You
are taking the third camp session out on your catamaran. I’m told you promised.”

“That was Alex’s doing. He’s convinced every kid should have a go at being on the water.”

“Tell me there’s not some secret handshake ritual at the end.” Alana smirked. She waved a vendor over and ordered a beer. “I only wonder what else Nana put into gear that I haven’t found out about.”

“Me too. Beer, I mean.” Jackie signaled the vendor and then sat back and took a long sip. “All you Tavonesis should come with warning labels.”

“This from a friend?” Alana said with a grimace.

“How’s it going with the ranch?”

Alana frowned. “Who knew olives could be so complicated?”

“You have lots more than olives, last I saw. It’s a veritable village.”

“Forty thousand trees. Forty
thousand
. And we just bottled the second vintage from the vineyard, and there are more vines going in.” She nudged Jackie. “Your husband’s to blame for that. He sent his guy Emilio over, and now the ranch manager’s convinced we should put in ten more acres of grapes. And if the damned windmill permit doesn’t come through”—she sipped her beer—“well, we’ll just have to take the thing down. I still can’t believe Nana put it up without finishing the permit process.”

“Politics?”

“Worse. Cranky neighbors with their heads buried in the twentieth century. Old-fashioned and influential. And it doesn’t help that there’s a group from the North Coast that says they’re worried about the birds. They said that the hawks will fly into it or some such thing. I think they’re just scared of technology.”

“Alex helped your grandmother choose that windmill. It turns slowly; it’s been tested. Check out the report the bird observatory did on it. The birds will be okay.”

“Can I have that in writing? From Dr. Jacqueline Brandon, international animal champion?”

“That’s not what you need. Try honey.”

“Honey?”

“Talk to your neighbors. Likely they’re just freaked about what will happen now that the ranch is in new hands. Earn their trust. When’s the permit meeting?”

“August seventeenth. But I have to postpone it. I’m going to the Versailles gala.”

“Better keep
that
buttoned up. ‘Heiress tromping around Europe’—that’d really piss off the Sonoma ranchers.” Jackie peered at her over the rim of her cup. “And you know what I think of Marcel.”

“Don’t remind me.” Alana sipped her beer. “How’s the seal biz?”

“Better this year.” Jackie rapped her knuckle against the arm of her seat. “No red tide outbreaks. No drug smugglers dumping chemicals into seal haul-out areas.”

Jackie had nearly lost her life two years earlier when she’d discovered the activities of a smuggling ring. They’d hidden drugs in imported fertilizer and then dumped the fertilizer in the bay after they unloaded the heroin. What they hadn’t foreseen was that the dumping would cause harbor seals to sicken and become stranded in record numbers. And they sure hadn’t counted on Jackie. Alex had risked his own life to thwart the smugglers’ murderous plan and rescue her.

“Are you saying you’re bored?” Alana tried to sound light-hearted, but the incident had horrified her. She could only imagine the trauma Jackie had endured.

Jackie laughed. “Holding my breath is more like it.” She pointed to the field. “Scotty’s batting.”

Scotty laid down a perfect bunt on a squeeze play. It spun and wobbled just long enough for Alex to cross home plate and put the Giants ahead by one run. Matt practically scampered to third.

Jackie grabbed at the pocket of her jeans and pulled out her cellphone.

“At least it wasn’t the rescue line,” she said as she pushed it back into her bag. “Chloe’s been held up. She said she’ll be here by the eighth inning.”

“Do you ever get used to it?”

“To Chloe?”

Alana waved her hand toward the field. “To all this, to the baseball life.”

They watched as Hunter, the Giants’ right fielder, struck out. The crowd was unhappy with the call, but Hunter just ran in to the dugout, grabbed his glove and headed back onto the field.

“I’m pretty sure no one gets used to it, not even the players.” Jackie nodded toward the field. “Maybe especially not the players. The patterns and habits become familiar, or so I’m told, but baseball can rattle your life in more ways than anyone can predict. Alex puts it a little more colorfully, says baseball busts everyone’s balls, that every game throws some new challenge in your face, ready or not.”

She took a sip of her beer, and a thoughtful look passed into her eyes. “I can’t complain. Alex deals with me trekking all over the planet to attend commission meetings and keeping crazy hours when I’m home. I’m lucky. He gets the do-what-you-love part of it all. But sometimes I worry what he’ll do when he leaves the game. He thinks his vineyard will fill the hole, but I have my doubts.”

Do what you love.

Jackie couldn’t know how her words spiked into Alana, gripping her. A year ago, if anyone had asked her, she’d have said she loved her life. But now she felt muddled and uncertain. A scientist had once told her that though instruments and perceptual abilities were not yet sensitive enough to measure such things, the world was likely so finely tuned that a butterfly could flit its wings in one place on the planet and affect goings-on thousands of miles away. It felt to Alana as though several butterfly wings had flapped and sent her world into a tailspin.

The irony didn’t escape her. Before inheriting the ranch she’d flitted from party to party, continent to continent, and had considered herself content in her glamorous, carefree life. Now she had responsibilities she hadn’t asked for, decisions to make that sometimes had no clear or easy answers, a village of people whose lives were basically in her hands and a guy who lit her up like crazy—a guy who had a kid with no mom, a guy who seemed drawn to her but was wary at the same time. And yet, in the face of it all, she felt more alive than she’d ever felt before.

A shout went up from the crowd, and she and Jackie looked back down to the game. The Rockies’ batter was enormous—his arms were the size of her thigh. He started to argue a call with the umpire but thought better of it. He took his stance, still clearly angry. A loud crack sounded as he connected to the next pitch. His bat splintered, and the bat head flew up the third-base line. The runner on third jumped over the flying bat and raced for home.

Alana froze as the ball shot past the pitcher, took a high hop and careened into the gap between short and third. Matt made a lightning-quick, bare-handed grab and in the same motion fired the ball home. The Giants’ catcher tagged the runner as he slid in on a cloud of dust. The umpire called the runner out. The crowd roared its approval and no one argued. Matt had executed a perfect play.

“Fielder’s choice,” Jackie said as she stood and cheered with the crowd.

“What?” Alana shouted over the noise.

Jackie leaned over to her. “The easy out was at first. But if the game is close, you take the risk and go for the harder out instead of playing it safe. Alex says Matt’s just that kind of guy.”

“I still can’t get used to you knowing this much about baseball.”

“I’m motivated,” Jackie said with a wink.

A routine fly ball ended the inning. The Giants jogged off the field toward their dugout. Matt looked over to where Alana sat and tipped his cap. She wished his flirty gesture didn’t give her such a tumbling rush of giddy delight, but it did. One date, she resolved. Well, maybe two. Anything more was asking for trouble.

Scotty’s wife, Chloe, didn’t make it for the game. But she hooked up with Jackie and Alana as they waited for the guys at the bar of a waterfront restaurant several blocks from the stadium.

“I just bought myself a great lefty,” Chloe said as she settled into her seat. She grabbed a menu and ran her finger down the small type. “I’m starved. How about one of everything?”

Jackie and Alana laughed. Chloe was famous for her appetite.

“This kid’s got a great arm, and he’s only twenty-two,” Chloe went on. “Charley thinks we’ll be able to call him up next season.” She gulped down a glass of water. “How’d Scotty throw tonight?”

“Brilliant. Stayed in until the eighth,” Jackie said. Her cellphone rang, and she rummaged in her purse. “Sorry. Meant to shut it off. I’m off rescue duty tonight.” She looked at the screen and answered.

Alana and Chloe both played with their menus to give her privacy.

“The guys want to go to the carnival,” Jackie said, pulling Alana’s menu down. They both looked over at Chloe, who nodded bemusedly.

“Guess it’ll be corn dogs for dinner, girls,” Chloe said. “Or maybe kettle corn.” She turned to Alana. “You up for this?”

“I’ve been practicing my gaming,” Alana said, trying to hide her disappointment. She’d been hoping for a sophisticated night out in the city. “Nothing like summer camps at the ranch to get one geared up for carnival fun.”

They made their way through the throngs of carnival revelers and met up with the guys in front of one of the game stalls.

“You’d think they’d be exhausted,” Chloe said to Jackie and Alana as they watched the guys line up to throw rope rings at raised wooden squares nailed against a wall. Scotty groaned when his toss fell short.

“Told you pitchers were precious,” Alex said over his shoulder. “If it’s not exactly sixty feet six inches away and the object to be thrown is not perfectly round and exactly five ounces—”

Scotty punched him in the arm, and Alex missed his shot.

Matt took the ring from the man running the stall and sized up his target. Alana couldn’t help but admire the muscles of his back rippling under the fine weave of his shirt. He held his body in a way that made her want to run her hands over him, track her fingers along the ridges of muscle covering bone, run her palms across his strong and perfectly formed butt. What was it about baseball players that gave so many of them the most deliciously formed backsides? Matt extended the ring at arm’s length. Just watching his forearm flex with the motion made her flush with desire. She suddenly felt self-conscious and looked to Scotty and Alex. They were talking and laughing and paying her no mind.

“Stalling the game,” Scotty shouted.

“Choosing my approach,” Matt said without looking back.

He tossed the ring, and it landed solidly on the center square. The man running the game asked him what prize he wanted. He turned to Alana.

“Pick something out.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know what she’d want,” Alana said, feeling embarrassed.

“Not for Sophie, for you. Pick something out.”

“The brown bear.” Alana pointed to the enormous teddy bear at the end of the prize shelf. “And you carry it.”

“Hey, a new career role,” Scotty said, giving the bear’s ear a tweak as Matt looped his arm around it. “Bear toter. It could solve all our what-to-do-after-baseball wonderings.”

“The Bear Toter Union might have something to say about that,” Chloe said with a wink. “I’m starving. There’s an Ethiopian food stand a ways back.”

“My fave.” Jackie took Alex by the arm. “You two coming along?” She glanced at Alana and then at the bear. “Or should I say you three?”

“Umm...” Matt slanted a questioning look to Alana.

What she wanted wasn’t food. She wanted time with Matt. Alone.

“We’ll meet you back here in twenty,” Alana said as she waved them on their way. Matt exhaled. She hoped that it wasn’t just because exotic food wasn’t at the top of his menu choices. She turned to him. The smile he cast told her that he too wanted time alone, away from his friends.

“Watch out,” Scotty said over his shoulder. “My latest advice is to always choose your dates according to their food preferences and level of appetite.”

Chloe groaned. “Don’t listen to him. He’ll eat anything that doesn’t move.”

At the sound of Matt’s easy laugh, Alana was pretty sure his food choices weren’t what would be getting her into trouble. It’d be her own appetite that would lead her into murky territory. Once she’d had a taste of something she wanted, she found it hard to hold back, even when warning signals blared their caution. Ignoring caution was a bad habit she’d yet to break. As he smiled at her, she hoped he had as much trouble with control as she did.