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
