A League of Her Own

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Several of the guys shook their heads, and Waitman, the left fielder, smirked. “What’s the matter, Wolf? Thought you’d like our support. We got up early to cheer you on.”

A few players laughed, and Waitman and Hopson elbowed each other.

Garrett wiped the annoyance off his face. Fine. He could play this game too. “That’s good, since it’ll save me from finding you to say goodbye. As soon as I win this, I’m out of here. But I’ll miss you.” Yeah. Okay. He laid that one on extra thick, but it’d worked.

That shut them up, and Garrett kept his expression impassive as he stared them down.

“Where are you trying out?” piped up the new shortstop. Garrett did a mental search for his name and found it—Valdez.

He shrugged and took Valdez’s offered bag of sunflower seeds. “I have some options.”

Technically Garrett couldn’t have any meetings formalized while still under contract. But there were a few teams with a date and time ready when he won his release. In an hour or so, he’d grab his packed bags and head out. No sense lingering. He’d learned in foster care that when the time came to move on, you went. No looking back, even if an emerald-eyed beauty was in your rearview mirror.

Speaking of which, where was Heather? This whole contest was her idea.

A hushed exclamation sounded, and he turned to watch his opponent jog up the field. The strengthening sun gathered around her, setting her lithe, athletic body aglow as she drew closer. Her hair was swept off her face in a ponytail that bounced around her delicate jaw and long neck. Sunglasses obscured her eyes, but her full mouth looked relaxed and soft and incredibly kissable.

“You’re going to catch a few flies if you don’t shut your trap,” called Hopson, but Garrett barely heard him.

She was gorgeous. Tall and slender, her clinging tank top revealing soft curves, the pink color setting off a face that’d stop a man’s heart—if he let it. But his had been ripped out long ago. So why was she affecting him this way? He dragged his eyes from her long, toned legs, the tanned skin flashing beneath black spandex shorts.

Back in the day, if she wasn’t the owner’s daughter—heck, even if she was—he would have taken her to dinner, fixed her breakfast the next morning and moved on to the next conquest. He thought he’d had his fill of beautiful women. But looking at Heather, he sensed something unique. There was a purpose and strength about her that drew him. She posed a challenge, one he would have wanted to meet on and off the field if things were different. If she was someone else, not a spoiled rich girl whose latest whim would run his career into the ground. He was putting a stop to that. Now.

“Hey, Skipper!” called Valdez, his use of the classic manager nickname and fawning tone earning him a sharp glare from Garrett.

“Hey, guys. Nice of you to come out this morning,” she said after clearing her throat several times. Maybe it was the first time she’d spoken this morning? Her voice sounded rusty, though he detected no uncertainty. In fact, from the confident smile she flashed him, it looked as if she was sure she’d win.

Not that it rattled him. He’d met a lot of overconfident athletes. Being a collegiate champion might have inflated her ego. It was one thing to watch professional athletes, another to test your mettle against one. He’d have to be careful not to best her by too far a margin. No sense in demoralizing her, especially in front of her new team.

“Are you ready?” She dropped a bag by the backstop, pulled out a blue visor and adjusted it over her head. When she swept off her glasses and peered up at him, his stomach jittered and his breath hitched. He reined in his slipping control and forced an easy smile.

“Sure. Would you like to pitch first?” He wanted her to say yes. Going last meant he could guarantee his score only topped hers slightly, just enough to make Holly Springs dust in his tire treads and Heather a dream that’d never materialize.

She angled her head so that her long ponytail slid over her smooth, tanned shoulders, and gave him a perfunctory smile. “I’d like to observe you first, if you’d don’t mind.”

“Observe me?” The question leaped out of him in surprise.

She finished a gulp of her sports drink and lowered it, looking him dead in the eye. “So I can finish taking notes on you.”

He nearly swallowed the sunflower shell he’d just popped in his mouth. Her ego must be out of control if she thought he’d lose. He flexed his fingers and nodded curtly. “It’s your prerogative.”

Dean’s red hair appeared in the dugout, and he jogged around the fence, pulling on his catcher’s mask. “Sorry I’m late!” He dropped two bags of balls beside home plate and squatted behind it. “Who’s pitching first?”

“Looks like me.” Garrett sauntered toward the red clay mound, ignoring his jeering teammates.

“Whatever you do, don’t pretend you’re in a game or you’ll definitely lose,” heckled Hopson, whose comment earned a round of chuckles from the group.

“Go get ’em, wild thing,” put in Waitman, who did an impromptu dance Garrett caught out of the corner of his eye. The rest of the crowd joined in, laughing.

“Ignore them, Wolf.” Dean punched his mitt, his nearly colorless eyes squinting against the sun.

Garrett shrugged. “Who? I don’t hear anything but some whining gnats.” This was actually going to be fun. Pitching contests meant no batters. Nothing but mitt. And his throws would strike it every single time.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh! That hurt,” guffawed another player, and some made boo-hoo sounds.

“Knock it off, Falcons,” snapped Heather, and the rowdy bunch subsided. Even Garrett gaped at her, surprised. Her voice might be low, but it demanded attention.

“Sorry, Skipper,” murmured the new shortstop. A few kissy noises erupted, then stopped when she turned her head and stared hard into the dugout.

“Thank you, Valdez. As for the rest of you, stay and act like the professionals you are, or leave before I ask you to. All right?” She leaned her defined arms on the padded top of the dugout fence, her shapely ankles crossed. But her casual pose didn’t fool him. She was deliberately acting like this to make him believe her victory was a foregone conclusion. It was the oldest trick in the book. She’d need to do a lot better than that if she hoped to best him.

“Ready whenever you are,” she said, her voice flippant.

Garrett took a deep breath and dug his toe into the clay, setting his stance. She’d learn fast not to play games with him. This first pitch had to be a strike. A statement. And it was. He knew it the moment it rolled off his fingers, his lifted leg lowering as he watched the ball smack into Dean’s glove.

“Strike!” hollered Dean, a wide smile showing behind the black grille of his mask.

“Don’t worry, honey. You’ve got this in the bag. He couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn,” hollered the first baseman. “That was a lucky throw.”

Garrett caught the withering look Heather shot the dugout, and the crowd quieted, or at least Garrett imagined it did. When pitching, he usually heard only two things, his breathing and the sound of the ball hitting something—preferably the mitt.

He raised his arm overhead and let loose another scorcher, this one harder than the last.

“Strike two!”

He lifted his hat off his head, then pulled it on again, anything to keep him from feeling even a bit of excitement that he’d nailed two. That was nothing. Amateur hour. Time to show Heather what he could do.

His next three pitches were right down the middle, his speed on the safe side. He paced to the back of the mound and stepped onto the rubber-spiked cleat cleaner, drawing out the suspense. His teammates were quiet and still, his perfect pitching settling them. Only Heather paced in front of the linked barrier between the field and the players, her eyes on him. She wasn’t looking so carefree now. In fact, unlike most women, she didn’t seem to like what she saw... His next pitch hit the dirt, spraying Dean’s shin pads.

Dean grabbed a new ball and winged it back to the mound. Garrett turned it over in his hand as he harnessed his scattered thoughts. Heather got under his skin. That had to stop. His eyes drifted toward her again, but she was busy scribbling on a clipboard. Were those notes about him? Determination had him striding to the top of the mound, his jaw tight. He squared his hips, focused on Dean’s mitt and pushed off from his back foot, releasing the ball at the sweet point.

Pop!

He blew out a breath before Dean yelled “strike.” There. Back in form.

“Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while,” a voice taunted him from the dugout, earning the speaker a raised eyebrow from Heather.

The words barely registered. Today, only his pitching did the talking. At least, the kind he paid attention to. Ten strikes and one ball later and he was on top of his game again. In control. Heather’s clipboard swung by her side. He couldn’t read her expression behind her wraparound sunglasses, but she had to be impressed. She was probably wishing she hadn’t offered him this chance to get off the team. But if she’d been impulsive enough to give him the out, he wouldn’t feel sorry for taking it.

When his next pitch veered low, skimming the dirt where it landed before home plate, it barely registered. He’d already gotten sixteen strikes. It was good enough to win, and he shook his arms out, getting the blood flowing in them as he breathed easier. He wound up, his eye steady on the mitt, and watched in surprise as it flew over Dean’s shoulder. How had it gone that far astray?

Dean dug in the bag and chucked another ball at Garrett when he walked to the base of the mound. He snatched it out of the air and stalked back to position. He was ending this with a strike. He’d begun with a statement and he’d finish with one, too. With a head full of steam, he rocketed the ball to the center of the plate.

He grinned before it smacked into Dean’s mitt. Done. Seventeen strikes, three balls. That said it all without stripping Heather of her dignity. He pegged her as high as fifteen strikes out of twenty. Max. She’d get close enough to prove she was capable, but not enough to keep him from leaving.

If only Heather didn’t make him question if he really wanted to go.

* * *

EIGHTEEN STRIKES. It was all Heather needed to keep the guy. Pitcher, she corrected herself. She wasn’t looking for a man. Especially not a reformed alcoholic bad boy. But after seeing his grit and ability to tune out his hecklers, she now saw the potential her father had spotted. After making the adjustments she’d suggest, Garrett Wolf would go far. She admired his wide shoulders as he strode to their catcher and shook his hand. He had lots of potential...

She gave herself a mental kick. Thinking with her hormones was not going to win the day. He might be the best-looking man she’d ever seen, but at the end of the day, he still worked for her. He was an asset, she told herself firmly. Nothing more.

After a few more stretches, she returned the shortstop’s enthusiastic smile and ambled to the mound, her heart beating furiously fast. Not only did she need to keep Garrett in her bullpen, but she also had to prove she’d made the right call in challenging him. The team had to see her as a capable manager, a leader to follow, a person whose decisions could be trusted. Given the skeptical looks she’d caught, she knew she had an uphill battle.

She slid her eyes his way, taking in his powerful form and razor-sharp jaw. A thrill sputtered in her veins when he tipped his hat to her, his eyes a brilliant blue beneath the brim.

“Get ’em, sweetheart!” roared Hopson, whose mouth, apparently, worked faster than his brain, or his legs. Unlike Bucky’s words, the endearment didn’t feel sweet. It felt insulting. Still, overreacting to it would make her seem too sensitive—the double-edged sword all women faced.

“If we’d known he could throw that well, we would have told him he was being released before every game. Maybe we would have won one by now,” added Waitman, slapping Garrett on the back as the tall man stepped behind the dugout fence.

Heather couldn’t resist a slight lip curl at that one. It was true. He’d pitched better than she’d expected—a good sign that he reacted well to pressure. When Dean hurled a softball her way, she stepped neatly to the front of the mound and folded her glove around it.

Eighteen, she thought as she brought the glove up to her chest. She leaned forward, then straightened, bringing her arm up and around behind her as she took a strong stride. The ball rolled off her fingertips a moment too soon. She didn’t have to look to know she’d thrown low, though she did anyway, watching the ball skip off the plate with a sinking heart. This wasn’t the start she needed. Out of the next nineteen pitches, she could miss only one.

“Don’t let him off the hook, hon!” bellowed the first baseman, but Heather shut him out. In fact, she didn’t hear anything at all except the slap of the ball in her mitt as she got her nerves under control.

She peered at the catcher’s mitt and went into her windup, delivering a pitch so precise, Dean’s mitt never moved. She’d found her release point. Sweet.

“That’s a winner,” Dean encouraged her before tossing her the ball. Her excitement rose, but she tamped it down. With only one more mistake allowed, she needed to stay loose and relaxed.

Six more strikes and the players had stopped talking to each other, their eyes glued on her.

“She might make this interesting,” she overheard one of them say.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Garrett yank off his cap and rub his brow, shielding his eyes against the intense sun splashing all around them.

He was starting to look concerned. Good. They should all take notice. She was a fierce competitor. They needed to see that in their manager. But after two more textbook pitches, the ball sailed high, making Dean reach overhead.

Darn. Only halfway through and she couldn’t miss one more pitch. She looked up at the sky, wondering how she’d put herself in this position. For the first time, she felt nervous. She might actually mess this up and lose a player, her first mistake as manager. How would she ever get the team’s respect back if she didn’t keep Garrett? Worse yet, she’d have to tell her father, who, since he’d been busy with follow-up medical appointments in Raleigh, didn’t know about her reckless challenge. She had to pull this off.

Battle back.

Strike after strike after strike and she slowly but surely built toward her goal. She’d nailed nine in a row and, but for the birds in the trees, the field was deadly silent. She felt the team’s eyes on her, their expectations, and the sharp criticism from her father if she screwed this up. She swallowed hard, despite her dry mouth, and brought up her glove, making her hand relax when it wanted to clutch at the ball.

This was it. One throw that meant so much. She mentally ran through the delivery that had earned her the last nine strikes and, in one swift move, duplicated it exactly.

The ball snapped the mitt closed.

“Strike!” Dean screamed, leaping to his feet, his glove high in the air and waving. Elation and deep relief flooded her, and she staggered slightly, having held herself in control for so long.

Yes! She’d won. Not that she’d expected to lose, but after giving up those early pitches, it had seemed perilously possible. She glanced over at the dugout and hesitated before joining the jabbering crew. Several glanced her way, their eyes speculative.

“Nice job, Skipper!” yelled Valdez. The rest of the men only nodded her way, then turned toward a grim-faced Garrett. Dean jogged over to join the group.

“I know you’re disappointed, but I’m not,” she overheard Dean say as she neared. “This team needs you.”

“Yes, we do,” she echoed, hoping she hadn’t damaged their working relationship with the contest.

“That was impressive.” Garrett turned to her, pulling the sunglasses off the back of his cap and sliding them on. Hiding his incredible eyes. “It looks like you have me for the rest of the year. Despite all of this, I’ll give you a hundred percent.”

Impressed at his professionalism, she nodded. “Thank you, Garrett. I’ll see you at practice later today. We’ll discuss a few tweaks in your delivery then.”

Garrett nodded, his mouth tight. “See you there.” He walked off with his teammates, leaving Heather feeling unsettled, despite her victory. It was her first step forward as team manager, and Garrett had promised her his best.

She pictured his handsome face.

So why, then, didn’t that seem like enough?

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_ee70c5dc-5453-57e1-88a9-082de4e3d191)

“YOU DID WHAT?” Heather’s father demanded from his seat at the kitchen table.

The knife stilled in her hand, mayonnaise dripping from it onto the turkey sandwich she’d been making. Fidgety thoughts darted through her mind like squirrels in trees. How to explain without making her father lose all faith in her? Go back on their agreement to let her manage the team?

“Garrett Wolf asked for a release, and I challenged him to a pitching contest to earn it.” She dropped Scout a piece of turkey.

Her father’s fist thumped the table, rattling the cutlery and making his glass of skim milk jump. Her heart leaped with it. She was in for a tongue-lashing. She knew it as surely as Reed’s trick knee predicted rain. Only this would be a tempest.

“I signed him, Heather,” he growled, the lines that ran from the corners of his mouth to his chin deepening, waves of disapproval rolling from him and crashing over Heather. “He wasn’t yours to risk losing.”

She forced her clenched hands to unfurl and smear the rest of fat-free mayo, add a piece of light cheese and close up the sandwich. While her reply ducked behind her heavy tongue, she silently cut the perfect diagonal line her father demanded, added carrot sticks to the plate and brought it to the table. When she pulled out the high-backed wooden chair opposite her father, it scraped against their tiled floor. Other than his grunt of a thank-you, it was the only noise in the open eating space.

When he bit into his sandwich, her tongue loosened. “There was no risk. I wasn’t going to lose.” Though for a moment, she had to admit, that had been a real possibility.

Her father forced down his bite and lifted his cup to point it at her. “You’re a college-level player, Heather. These are professional athletes. You got lucky. That’s it.”

“It was that or he was going to ask to be released from his contract. We could have lost him either way,” she insisted.