Playing the Field: A Diamonds and Dugouts Novel (2 page)

She hated having her picture taken. Why anybody would put up with it on a regular basis was beyond her. “We’re sort of in a rush—”

“Mom and I would love our picture taken!” Charlie piped up at the same time, all bright, excited grin and sparkling eyes.

Apparently they weren’t in that much of a hurry after all. “I guess we’d love our picture taken.” One of them
way
more than the other.

Snagging Charlie around the shoulder, Sonny pulled him in close and slapped on a fake smile just in time for the camera flash. When it was done the photographer thanked them and disappeared into the mix, gone as quickly as he’d arrived, leaving her with a vaguely disconcerted feeling. Though she felt a frown tugging at her brow, she shrugged it off and set about scouring the crowd again for a certain jersey.

Families milled around as they waited for their turn in line for food. Tables were set up with cloths decorated with the Rush’s signature logo, a swirl of yellow lettering set to a deep green backdrop. It was timeless and classic in the way that only baseball could be.

Leading them toward the buffet tables on the far side, Sonny took in the overall casual feel of the place and sighed with relief. She’s spent forever in her bedroom trying to figure out what to wear. Seeing so many families dressed in typical Colorado casual made her feel much better. There was an overall lean toward the outdoorsy and hippie side. Coloradoans kept it chill.

Even Sonny had that bent, dressed as she was in a thin-strapped white tank top and a long, flowing cotton skirt with a bold, quilt-like print. But she stopped at the Crocs—she just couldn’t do it. Instead she lived in cheap flip-flops.

Since she was blessed with a rose-cream complexion and full, high cheekbones, Sonny rarely wore makeup. Her idea of “dolled up” was eye shadow, mascara, and Burt’s Bees lip balm. She wore her strawberry locks long, wavy, and natural. And she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d used a hair dryer.

It was one of the many wonderful perks of living in the state. Coloradoans were laid back, active people. Especially in Boulder County where she lived. Organic earthiness was the name of the game, right there alongside outspoken earth-consciousness. It was why her organic goat cheese business was such a solid investment. Locally grown produce had a hugely supportive audience. In fact, farmers’ markets were so popular, they’d even built a permanent structure on site at the Boulder County Fairgrounds in Longmont as a cover for customers if it should happen to rain.

Not that it rained often, mind you.

On a good summer, there were the afternoon thunderstorms. Those were the best. The sizzle and the pungent, primal scent of dirt and charged energy. Those storms made her think of sweaty limbs and passionate, raw, physical sex.

And that was about the extent of her intimate life. Pathetic, but what was she going to do? Charlie was her heart. Making the best life possible for him was her journey. Her dharma.

That’s why she was there now, tempting fate on a Saturday.

Suddenly Charlie grabbed her arm and whispered loud enough to shout, “
Mom!
I see him!” She could feel tremors of excitement in his fingertips.

Following his ecstatic expression and completely awed stare, she scanned the crowd off to her right. At first she couldn’t see the ballplayer. A very large, fair-haired Germanic family blocked the space between them. Which was saying a lot, considering Trudeau’s stats put him at six feet three inches. She knew that because Charlie spouted stats at her all the time. That’s why he’d been in Little League since he was old enough for tee ball. Ever since he could toddle, he’d loved the game. It just worked for him. Made sense to the core of who he was.

Sonny was absolutely convinced that Charlie was going to be a pro ballplayer someday. He had that visceral connection to the sport. Some people were just born knowing their thing—what it was and how it connected to them.

Charlie had that.

Sonny, now, she’d not been nearly so grounded. She’d flown all over the map and landed herself on the wrong side of twenty, pregnant and alone. Charlie being born had given her a path. Once she’d stepped on it she’d dedicated everything she’d had to it, including her autonomy. Nurturing her baby and building a good life had been all she’d thought about and lived since the day she’d brought him home from the hospital.

Now he was growing up and grasping at some autonomy of his own. Their relationship was changing—slowly, but still evolving into something different. Something with a little more space.

That new and exotic little bit of wiggle room had opened a fissure in Sonny, just a teeny little crack. But it was enough, and something newly awakened inside her was feeling a little restless. A little flighty. She didn’t like it one bit. It wasn’t safe or predictable or familiar.

It was foreign and she was domestic.

Which made it the enemy. The life that she’d carved out for the two of them was stable. She knew how to handle it and felt in charge. Anything different was not okay. It left things open to change. And if things changed then she might lose her grip on control. Status quo was good. It didn’t hold any surprises.

She wasn’t looking for them anyway. So when the herd of large-boned people shifted and her gaze landed on a green and yellow Rush jersey, number thirty-nine, she felt a slip—just a subtle shift of the earth on its axis. But it was enough. The world moved under her feet. And when the sin-with-me eyes locked on her from twenty feet away she felt a tremble in her grip on control.

Because she was suddenly hit with instinct and knew beyond a doubt that, from this moment forward, nothing in her life was going to be quite the same.

The sky opened up and the universe showed her a very simple and clear truth in one lightning-quick moment. It was written all over his sinner’s grin and loose-hipped swagger.

JP Trudeau was a whole lot of trouble.

Chapter Two

D
AYS LIKE TODAY
made JP a very happy man. The sky was its trademark brilliant summer blue. He was about to play ball with a group of kids and give back to the community, and he’d just spotted one seriously luscious beauty across the way without a ring on. Life didn’t get much more perfect than that.

Appreciation made its way up his chest and settled into a little hum in his throat. It wasn’t every day that he saw a woman who made his mouth water at first glance. But this one did. She was sexy in such a simple, effortless way that he felt a ball of heat flare in his belly. And since he didn’t consider himself a complicated guy, her natural beauty appealed to him on a couple levels.

JP was a straightforward kind of guy. He liked what he liked, knew who he was and what he wanted. All his life he’d had a clear line on what made him tick and had never doubted himself. It made for a life free of tangles.

He saw something—he made a decision. He didn’t look over his shoulder. Because of that, JP knew he had a certain kind of centeredness that was rare for a guy in his mid-twenties. He possessed a clearness of sight that had guided him faithfully and gave him grounding. Right now that sight was set on a cool drink of water—and this Iowa farm boy was real thirsty.

JP tugged at the brim of his hat and flashed his best grin. Stirring, prepping to walk over to her, his teammate Drake Paulson cut him off before he’d managed a step.

“Hey, brother. Looks like we got ourselves a perfect day for playing ball.” The player grinned and scratched his unshaven chin. “Course, it’s a perfect day for a different kinda sport too. The horizontal sort that makes me tingly and happy. What say we have us a bet, man? First to score a phone number from a single mom gets dibs on the ice bath after practice tomorrow.”

Sliding a sideways glance at the gruff player, JP shook his head and said, “Don’t seem fair to bet on single moms, hoss.”

“Why not? They want to get laid, same as the rest of us.”

JP’s eyebrow arched at the logic. They probably did want to get laid, same as them. But they had kids to consider. That made it different.

“I don’t know what kind of women you’ve been playing tickle with lately, but they aren’t right.”

Drake clamped a hard, meaty hand on his shoulder and turned them both toward his fantasy woman in the hippie skirt. He tipped his head in her direction. “You telling me that you wouldn’t give your left nut to have her phone number, boy?”

Through the crowd of excited children, media, and helicopter parents, he studied her. A colorful woven purse the size of a small suitcase hung crosswise across her body and her fair skin made him think of winters back home in Iowa. Pristine and flawless. Her long, wavy hair was more gold than red and her curves were the perfect balance between lanky and lush. And when she smiled at the boy by her side, her whole face lit up.

Would he give his left nut for her number?

Yeah.

Sometimes he wondered at the things Drake knew. The guy said things that bordered on offensive more often than not. But the hell of it was that he was eerily perceptive. JP had only been with the team for a season, but he’d already seen that guy’s sharp observations prove correct countless times.

Pulled from his thoughts when a cleat dug into the back of his knee and buckled it, nearly making him fall, JP turned his head as pitcher Peter Kowalskin stepped beside him. He held a paper plate full of food and was chewing on something. “What’s got you girls so enamored over here?”

Of all his team mates, JP liked Pete the best. Not that the other guys weren’t great, because they were. It was just that he and Pete were a lot alike. They both grabbed life by the horns and bent it in whatever direction they wanted. And they both did it with smiles on their faces. However life decided to be, sideways or upside down, they were always on top.

It gave a guy a helluva lot of confidence, and it made him one ballsy son of a bitch.

Drake shoved up the brim of his cap and scratched at an itch, his eyes squinting against the sun’s glare. “Trying to convince JP here to play a game of phone numbers.”

A grin full of bad intentions lit Pete’s face. “
Nice
. Personally, I’m hoping that a hot single mom in need of some old-fashioned attention wins that raffle to have dinner with me.” The grin amped up a notch. “And breakfast in the morning.”

Like magnets, JP’s eyes were drawn back to the woman with the bohemian vibe. Yeah, he’d settle for that too. It wouldn’t be a hardship to eat waffles with her in the morning. In fact, he bet he’d like it just fine.

Aware that he was openly staring, JP noticed her cheeks suddenly seemed pinker than they had been before. Then he realized that she knew he was ogling her because she was blushing and trying hard to avoid looking at him in return.

The boy, on the other hand, hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of JP. And it gave him the perfect excuse to approach her. “We best be getting back to it, ladies. They’re going to be starting the raffle soon.”

There were three winning raffle tickets for the day’s event. The prize was an all-expense paid dinner with a Rush player. He’d volunteered for it, alongside Pete and the catcher, Mark Cutter. It had sounded like fun, and he liked kids, so he’d signed up. Coming from a family of six of them himself, he’d long ago gotten used to the odd shit they said and did.

Speaking of . . . “I’m going to mingle. Make yourselves useful, old men, and hit the rounds.”

Before they could rib him about calling them old, he was on the move. He’d made it four feet when a boy ran up asking for his autograph. Giving the kid his undivided attention, JP inked his signature and chatted up the freckle-faced redhead for a few as a photographer stood a few feet away and tried to capture the moment. When the parents arrived and ushered the boy off, he scanned the crowd.

He spotted her and her son and set off again. By the time they’d reached each other, he’d been stopped a half dozen times. Each time he’d given the kids and their families his complete attention. They deserved as much. But each time he did, it took a few minutes to find the woman again in the shifting crowd.

Now he was finally standing in front of her and his interest had doubled. She was even prettier up close, but with an approachable earthiness that hadn’t been apparent from the distance. Her eyes were the color of his favorite old blue jeans, and she had freckles smattered across the bridge of her nose. Her lips were soft, plump, and naked. Just the way he liked them. And she smelled fresh and natural, with just a hint of something citrus.

He wanted to eat her up.

He gave her his most disarming smile as she regarded him with hesitation in her eyes. Instinct told him to play it slow, so he shifted his focus from her to the blond-haired boy at her side. All elbows and boney knees now, the kid was going to be tall someday. For now, he was stuck with a body that didn’t quite coordinate. JP remembered the days. He’d been skinny and gangly with the best of them.

The boy had the same look about him with the nose freckles, light hair, and blue eyes. He looked about ten, excited as a pig in a parlor, and he gripped a ratty ball glove tightly in his hand. He stared up at JP with a look of hero worship in its purest form. He remembered what it was like to meet his favorite ballplayers as a kid, how it lit his world from end to end.

Now on this side of things, he knew he had a responsibility to be deserving of such high status. Which was why, even though his dream woman was standing right there, he gave the kid his all. It’s what he was there for—to put face time in with these kids. To help them understand that diabetes didn’t have to limit them, and that they could have full, active lives so long as they kept on top of things. And that exercise was essential for diabetics. JP had a buddy who had diabetes
and
was a professional rock climber. It didn’t slow him down one bit. Kids went nuts when he shared that bit.

Besides, he figured her having to wait on him would only whet her appetite.

JP gestured to the worn glove. “That’s a great lookin’ mitt you have there.” The boy looked at it, eyes lit with pride. “I can tell it’s been well used. I’m JP, by the way. You play ball?”