“I told you I might run by. Anyway, it looked like you had your weight on your back foot.”
Unbelievable. It wasn’t enough that she should tell him how to do his job, but now she was going to trot down to the ball field and tell him how to bat? “Thanks, but I think I know how to swing a bat,” he said, frowning. “I thought you meant run by like in jogging shoes and spandex. How long have you been here, anyway?”
“Long enough to see you swing at three perfect strikes,” she said, tossing her head pertly.
Did she not understand that women did not advise men on sports? Of any kind? Ever? Especially and foremost in front of other guys? “Thanks for the batting lesson.”
“Just trying to help,” she said cheerfully, stepping back from the fence.
“Right…but remember our rule? Don’t help me.”
She blinked big blue eyes at him. Then lifted her chin. “Fine,” she said. “Strike out if that’s what floats your boat.” She marched off in the direction of the bleachers.
Jake paused for a moment to watch that very fine ass of hers march away, then turned around, saw the rest of the bench crowd staring at him. He glared back and stuffed himself up against the fence.
When the inning was finally over (thank God), he trotted out to right field, and let his gaze wander to the bleachers while the pitcher warmed up. Yep, there she was, couldn’t miss her, and somehow, she had managed to park herself right next to the surliest person in the crowd, young Cole Manning. Slumped down, the kid was lost in denim pants with legs so wide they looked like one of those ballroom gowns, and a T-shirt that hung to his knees. In stark contrast, Robin was sitting on the edge of the bleacher.
The first batter up hit a lazy fly to left field, an easy out. The second batter hit a sharp liner back through the box, which, had it been a mere six inches to the left, would have lodged itself in the pitcher’s forehead. The third batter hit a drive in the gap, between center field and right. The image of Robin sitting up, stretching her slender neck to see, suddenly flashed across Jake’s mind, and he realized he was running, feeling the stretch of scarred tendon in his ankle, knowing he should let the center fielder call it. But insanity gripped him; he dove through the air, caught the ball in the tip of his glove, then wrenched his arm clean from the socket throwing the ball to second. The stunning result, much to his amazement, was two outs and the end of the opposing team’s bat.
He hadn’t done that in a hundred years. A thousand, maybe.
As he jogged back to the dugout, still a little dazed, he forced himself to look at the bleachers.
Clapping wildly, grinning broadly, Robin gave him a thumbs-up. The gesture made him, oddly, strangely, happy. Okay, maybe even a little delirious. She had seen him play, and play well, which, these days, didn’t happen as often as Jake liked. Acknowledging her thumbs-up with a subtle wave of his own, he disappeared into the dugout and smacked his glove down on the bench in the international male signal for I still got it. But as they called the lineup, and he was looking around for his batting helmet, he heard again, “Hey, Jake!”
All right, this was just too much—she was back. He put his foot down, turned slowly toward the fence. “Yesss?” he drawled.
“Honestly, if you got up on the balls of your feet, it would help you step into the swing.”
In case he wasn’t certain what she meant, she demonstrated for him. Ruben Sanchez, a NASA software engineer, and an astounding zero for twenty-one in the league, watched her from the on-deck circle, then mimicked her technique a couple of times.
“See?” she said to Ruben. “Balls of your feet.”
“Yeah,” Ruben said, as if Barry Bonds himself had suggested it.
“Robin?” Jake asked politely.
“Yes?”
“Go sit down. Over there. Way over there.”
She frowned. “You are really stubborn.”
“There you go again, attributing your own faults to me.”
The first batter stroked a single; they both paused, watched him get to first.
“All right, try this on for size,” she said. “Pigheaded. Pig. Head,” she repeated, using her hands to sketch a pig’s head in the air.
“I think I might know a little bit more about baseball than you,” Jake continued, climbing the steps of the dugout to the on-deck circle as Ruben advanced to the batter’s box. He flashed a smile at her over his shoulder, and stepped onto the on-deck circle. To prove just how stupid it was for her to give him advice, he took a couple of hard swings that made his shoulder burn.
Ruben, on the balls of his feet, slapped a single on the first pitch, stunning himself and the team. He could hardly run, but he was so elated that he actually rounded first and made it all the way to second when the left fielder bobbled the ball. Firmly on base, he beamed, panting, chest puffed, yelling at Jake to bring him home.