Fielder's Choice (4 page)

They’d stayed together for Sophie’s sake, but a kid wasn’t enough of a bridge to hold two people together. Especially two people who didn’t fit. He still felt guilty for not missing her as much as Sophie did.

“Dad?”

Sophie’s distraught voice brought him back from his thoughts.

“Your ice cream is dripping.”

She wrinkled her nose at him as he brushed at the brown streak that had dripped onto his pants.

“Don’t you like it? The lady put extra sprinkles on it for you.” She shot him a look between licks on her cone. “You were thinking again. I saw.”

Matt took a last bite and tossed the cone into the receptacle next to his car.

“Thinking is part of my job, remember?” He patted Sophie’s hair. “Gotta get you to day care, or I’ll be late for batting practice.”

Matt rushed down the tunnel to the field at the stadium. Traffic had been a bear and he’d had to cut short his pre-game workout. He smacked a few balls over the right field wall during batting practice and then took his place at short to field ground balls.

He glanced up into the stands and saw all the kids waiting for autographs near the dugout. He’d never forget the excitement of getting his first major league player’s signature on one of his little league bats. Mariano Duncan had done the honors that afternoon. That was the day he swore that if he made it to the majors, he’d always sign for the kids.

A woman with glossy dark hair caught his eye and smiled. She looked like Alana but didn’t have the height. Or the strange allure that he’d felt when he’d caught her in his arms. The adrenaline rush was nothing compared to the hard-on he’d gotten. Alana was beautiful and sexy in a carefree sort of way. Maybe carefree enough to be interested in a few nights in his bed.

But no more than three.

He knew better than to drag a relationship into the miasma of his life. His marriage to Liza had shown him that he didn’t have what it took to be in a relationship.

Maybe he just needed to get laid. It’d been months since he’d hooked up with someone in Philly, a woman he’d known since high school. That had been a disaster. Two hours into the evening, he knew he’d made a mistake. The woman had already pegged him as her ticket to the big leagues. He thought he’d been clear, thought he’d laid it out that it was just an evening of fun. Though she’d smiled and agreed, it turned out she had other ideas. He’d had to block her calls before she got the message that he wasn’t interested.

Alana was a ranch worker, so she might see him in the same light. He wasn’t about to lead anybody on, wasn’t about to be any woman’s big score; he’d be careful about the signals he sent. He could spell out the rules up front. He’d tell her sex only, no attachments. No relationship. It sounded crass, but she’d fired him up in a way he’d never felt before, there was no doubt about that. Maybe he’d give it a go. She could always decline. It’d be her choice.

Matt was cleaned up and back on the field, listening to the national anthem and wondering how the time had passed so quickly. Probably because he’d been caught up in images of a sexy ranch worker. He shook his head to focus his thoughts on the game. And none too soon. The crowd quieted when the second pitch of the game blasted toward him. Sometimes it felt as though the fans breathed for the players. Matt snatched the ball from the ground and tossed it over to first. An exhaled cheer burst out as his teammate Alex tagged the runner out.

Alex Tavonesi was a hell of a first baseman. Nearly every player on the Giants was at the top of their game. They were a tight team—he’d had to play at the edge of his game to match them. But since coming to the team in April, he hadn’t connected with anybody off the field. Hell, not only did he suck at relationships with women, he wasn’t very good with other people either.

Nope, he hadn’t inherited any great relationship genes.

But at least baseball had rules and stats. A guy knew where he stood, and there wasn’t any mystery. Show up, do well, repeat. Too bad there wasn’t a rule book for being a parent. He could use one.

After the game Matt stood under the shower, and Alana’s image rose in his mind. Before he could shove it down, he imagined having her there with him, slick and wet and naked. He grabbed his towel and wrapped it around his waist. How could just thinking about her make him hot and horny? She was like a fastball that sailed high and enticing over the plate, inviting contact. He shook the water out of his hair and tried to clear his mind. Best to skip trouble like that. She probably hated baseball anyway.

Only one car was parked out in front of the day care center when Matt arrived to pick up Sophie after the game. He walked through a front hall flanked with pegs for coats and lockers for the kids. The place was eerily quiet. He shoved open the double doors at the end of the hall and saw the center director sitting at her desk, chatting on the phone. She waved at him and pointed to where Sophie sat in a corner drawing on a sheet of paper bigger than she was.

“Nice butterflies,” he said as he sat on the kid-sized stool beside her.

“Almost.” She pointed to her book. “The wings are the hardest part.”

“Sorry I’m late.”

“It’s okay.” She tilted her head up at him. “You can make it up by playing your guitar at my new friend Sally’s birthday party. It’s on Saturday.”

“Road trip on Saturday, honey.”

Sophie’s face fell. She picked up a colored pencil and began studiously coloring at her drawing. It always made him feel rotten when he had to disappoint her. “But Grandma can take you. She’s coming Friday to watch you for a few days.”

“I don’t need watching.” She handed him a colored pencil. “You can do the other wing.”

He felt her eyes on him as he started to color in the wing of the butterfly. It was well drawn, and he felt a stab of pride.

“Can we go back to the butterfly garden when you get back? I think they need our help. Especially that nice lady. Don’t you think she looks like the Sugar Plum Fairy?”

“She’s a bit tall for a fairy.”

“Well, they can change shapes you know. Can we go tomorrow?”

“I’m picking up Grandma tomorrow. We can go another day.”

“You always say that.”

“And don’t we?”

Sophie gave him one of those smiles that he was sure could charm most anything out of anybody.

“Most of the time.”

He looked over to where the center director still talked on the phone. “Wanna head out?”

“Miss Ellis wants to talk to you,” Sophie said with a nod toward the woman.

“Think we can slip out?”

“See? You
never
want to talk to ladies,” Sophie said in a disapproving whisper. “Told you so.”

When they got to his car, Matt had the feeling that he’d escaped an awkward conversation. Who knew what Sophie had told Miss Ellis? It wasn’t as if he were some kind of tongue-tied monster.

He was just a ballplayer, a struggling father, and a man who might not be very adept at talking with the ladies, but who, against his better judgment, very much wanted to do something other than talk with one particular lady.

Chapter 3

If every day started like this one, Alana was sure she’d go mad before a month went by. She’d overslept and missed the staff meeting. Then her father called. He and Patrice were on a month-long photo safari in Africa and had extended their trip for another week. He’d asked her to organize the memorial for Nana.

Told
her was more like it.

The prospect was chilling. Half of San Francisco would attend Nana’s memorial. Hire a party planner, her dad had said when she’d protested that she knew nothing about organizing such an event. But then her dad wasn’t one for handling much of anything. That gene she’d come by honestly. Did one just look online for a party planner who specialized in funerals and wakes?

Then she’d spent nearly an hour on the phone with Nana’s attorney, trying to sort out exactly what was wrong with the windmill. She leaned back in the chair and propped her legs on the desk in Nana's study. Her conversation with Mr. Wilkinson had been particularly unhelpful. His main suggestion was that she get out and meet the neighbors and talk the windmill over with them, see if she could develop support for the project. Surely a staffer could do that kind of thing, she’d argued. He’d just laughed and told her to give it a go. She’d considered firing him for treating her so cheekily, but he was the only person who could help her right now.

Her phone vibrated, and she pulled it from the pocket of her jeans.

“Tell me you are making fun.” A husky voice breathed through the poor cell connection.

“
Having
fun, Marcel. And no, I’m not.”

“You ran off so suddenly. We Frenchmen prefer longer goodbyes.”

She was supposed to have met up with him in France after he returned from his ascent of Kilimanjaro, but she’d left Paris before he’d reached base camp. She’d sent word, but it probably hadn’t reached him for a week.

“I was told there was an emergency that required my immediate attention,” she said, not liking the defensive tone in her voice. “Now that I’m here, I find that every day there’s some emergency. Seems to go with the farming part. This week it’s a windmill.”

“Now you see why Marie Antoinette preferred cake.”

“Not funny. But this blasted windmill—I have seven people working on the problem and now they’re telling me that as the owner, I might have to meet with the county supervisors. This whole thing could take
weeks
.”

“Meetings. Americans love meetings. I’ve never understood it.”

“I might miss the Lavanne exhibition in New York next week,” she said, changing the subject. “I was looking forward to it.” It would do no good to discuss matters of responsibility with Marcel.

“And I was looking forward to
you
,” he said in his luscious, smooth voice. “Are you sure there’s not some wild western cowboy keeping you? I’ll have to brush up on my fencing skills.”

Alana heard the possessiveness under the humor in his tone. Last autumn they’d started out light—fun, no strings—just the way she liked it. But lately he’d been angling for a commitment. It was time, he’d said. For both of them. She liked Marcel—he was certainly the most interesting man she’d met in a long time. He shared her love of the fast-paced life of Paris. And she couldn’t complain about their sex life—the man was a wizard in bed. But commitment didn’t come easily to her. It was a constraint she preferred to avoid.

And deep down she felt that he saw the union of their families as a sort of merger, a business deal. The Tavonesi family had the best olives in Sonoma. Now the best grapes as well. Throw in her brother Simon’s organic, high-end fruit and vegetable farm, and her family had almost every front covered. Marcel’s family brought old-school Champagne, one of France’s finest, to the table. Marrying her would diversify and extend the reach of his family’s empire.

She might not love Marcel—wasn’t really sure what loving a man felt like, wasn’t sure she wanted to know—but life with him was smooth and easy, skimmed along like a breeze on a lake. And he had a way of making her feel like the sexiest woman on earth. But she was in no mood for marriage or a merger of any sort.

“It’s
California
, Marcel. Not a cowboy in sight.” She offered the words with a teasing tone, but since she’d met Matt Darrington, her feelings were in a jumble.

“Ah. I will sleep easier tonight. But I would enjoy my evening better if you were here.”

His sultry voice laced a path of desire deep into Alana. Already she missed the languid nights of delicious sex. Sex never had her jumbled; it was always good. Only now she was having racy dreams of Marcel as well as another man. A man whose face she couldn’t quite see. A man she’d easily wager was Matt.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “I’ll call you at the end of the week.”

“I’d rather have a visit; I can meet you in New York. Your people can handle the farming details. I know something of the business, remember?

“You told me your idea of farming is to show up for the awarding of the medal for your family’s Champagne and leave before the celebration becomes dull.”