Blurb:
When love’s in
the game you can’t play it safe...
In LOVE BATS LAST, author Pamela
Aares introduces you to the Heart of the Game series. Get ready for
All-Star alpha males and the strong women they come to love!
A stormy night
changes their lives forever...
The baseball diamond isn’t the only
field for all-star player Alex Tavonesi; he also runs his family’s prestigious
vineyard. What he can't seem to run is his love life. He’s closing in on the
perfect vintage and the perfect game, but so far the perfect woman has eluded
him.
Veterinarian Jackie Brandon is
eluding her aristocratic past and memories of a soccer star who jilted her just
before their wedding. She devotes herself to a marine mammal rescue center on
the northern California coast, where hundreds of seals and sea lions are
washing up dead.
A chance meeting in a midnight
storm brings Alex and Jackie together to rescue a stranded whale. Watching her
work, he realizes she's the passionate, courageous woman he thought he'd never
find--he just has to overcome her deep distrust of jocks. Jackie's passion and
courage lead her to discover what's killing the sea mammals. The culprits want
to silence her, and Alex is the only one standing in their way. What will he
sacrifice to save the woman he loves?
Quotes and Praise
“Pamela Aares
deftly weaves together the desires and strategies of world-class sports with
the equally charged realm of the heart to create fast-moving tales you’ll wish
would never end.”
—Mary Beath,
award-winning author of Refuge of Whirling Light on the contemporary
series the Heart of the Game.
“A new star in
the romance world!” —E. Alexander, New York Times best-selling author
Excerpt:
Chapter One
S
|
he should’ve
asked for help.
Jackie gunned the motor and ran the
inflatable Zodiac up onto the muddy riverbank. At eight that morning, putting
in downriver to collect soil and water samples had been a good idea. At two in
the afternoon, the work was grueling. She should’ve listened to Gage and
brought an intern. Somebody. Anybody.
She tied the stern line of the Zodiac
to an overhanging willow branch. A startled kingfisher squawked at her and flew
upriver. She looped the strap of her backpack over her arm and slid over the
side of the boat. Her feet sank deep into the mud. Cold water seeped over the
top of her boots, and she grabbed at the willow branch and fought to keep her
balance.
She dragged her feet out of the mud and
stomped up onto a crescent of beach, muttering under her breath. She’d take
climbing a solid wall of granite over mincing about on slippery riverbeds any
day.
Stepping carefully, she inched along to
where a narrow trail led up from the river. Thick willows lined the riverbank
and hid everything above them. Deer tracks in the mud told her this was a place
where animals came for an evening drink.
Shielding her face with her hand, she
squinted upriver. If she worked fast, she could cover another mile, maybe two,
before dark, gathering water samples along this stretch of river. She’d still
have time to get back to her truck, winch the Zodiac onto its trailer and drive
the samples back to the lab.
Nothing she’d discovered in the past
two weeks added up. Someone had dumped a massive amount of fertilizer near the
mouth of the river where it met the San Francisco Bay. The fertilizer had
caused the worst diatom bloom ever recorded in the North Bay, and the bloom was
killing harbor seals in the area. But fertilizer was expensive. Dumping that
much fertilizer made no sense.
It was more than a puzzle to solve.
They’d rescued twenty seals in just the
past week and however the stuff was getting into the water, she was determined
to stop whoever was responsible. Seals and whales, all the marine animals, had
enough problems without adding dumped chemicals into the mix.
She shrugged her backpack off her
shoulders and pulled out her GPS and map. The map showed two vineyards just
above where she’d landed, the first of several north of where the Susul River
met the San Francisco Bay. She pulled her notebook and a sample jar from the
backpack. Water lapped at her feet as she squatted to scoop some of the muddy
soil into the jar. She snapped on the lid and wrote the coordinates on the
front label.
She stuffed the sample jar and
map into her knapsack and tossed it over the side of the Zodiac. With a flick
of her hand, she freed the line from the willow branch and turned to push the
boat from the tiny beach. It didn’t budge.
Bracing herself in the mud, she put her
shoulder against the pontoon and shoved hard. It didn’t move even a fraction of
an inch.
Great.
She was two miles from where she’d
parked her truck downriver and didn’t relish the idea of trying to find a
vineyard hand to help her. There’d be questions. Questions she wasn’t prepared
to answer, not yet.
She walked to the bow of the Zodiac. It
jutted up, maybe just enough for her to hang her weight from the front and pop
up the midsection. She stepped into the river and sucked in her breath as she
sank neck deep into an eddy pool. Feeling with her feet, she found a flat rock
that gave her solid footing. She reached up and wrapped the bowline around her
hands and tugged her full weight against it. Her hands slipped and she splashed
back into the chilly water.
“It’s a bit early in the season for a
swim.”
Adrenaline shot through her as she
scrambled to her feet. A tall and ridiculously handsome man stood blocking the
trail. He looked like he’d been airlifted out of a men’s fashion magazine. He
squatted, bringing him to her eye level. She froze, unprepared for the
intensity of his gaze. He had deep blue eyes, the color of the sea before a
storm. Those eyes crinkled as a slow, easy smile curved his lips.
“Just testing the water,” she said with
a bravado she didn’t feel.
Goose bumps rose along her arms as she
sloshed out of the water and stepped onto the riverbank. She wished they were
just from the cold. To give her hands something to do, she brushed
ineffectively at the mud on her jeans.
“Can I give you a hand?”
He held a half-eaten sandwich, one of
those piled-high deli sandwiches that Americans loved. Her stomach grumbled;
she’d forgotten her own lunch. But this was no time to be thinking about food.
He didn’t look dangerous. But the
expensive-looking slacks and perfectly tailored shirt he wore were out of
place. She was from England—she knew a custom-tailored shirt from a Savile row
tailor when she saw one. Why anyone would be wearing a three-hundred-dollar
shirt and Prada loafers in river brambles was anybody’s guess.
“No,” she said, backing up a step. “I
was just leaving.”
His assessing gaze sent a shiver down
her spine, pushed it deep. She tugged at her shirt. Wet and plastered against
her skin, it was almost transparent. She didn’t have to look down to know he
could see her nipples puckered from the chilled water. She wished she’d taken
the time to put on a bra.
She glanced up, and he quickly averted
his eyes. Every cell in her body suddenly said flee.
She leaned over the pontoon and grabbed
her backpack, rummaged to the bottom, found her jacket and pulled it on. She
felt his eyes on her once again as she tugged up the zipper. At least she
didn’t feel naked anymore.
She put a hand on the Zodiac, wishing
that her touch would magically free it.
“What brings you up here? I don’t see
many people boating in this stretch of river—just the occasional kayaker doing
some bird watching. It’s mighty shallow.”
He gave her the perfect answer.
“I was looking for nesting clapper
rails.”
“That shouldn’t take long,” he said.
“There’ve only been a few sightings in this area since I’ve lived here. They’re
endangered, you know.”
The man knew something about birds. And
he was local. Could be good. Could be bad.
“I know.”
He quirked his brow. “And you’d be more
likely to find clapper rails in the fields, wouldn’t you?”
He thought she was a clueless bird
watcher. She should’ve chosen a different bird, but she really didn’t know the
birds of the region all that well, except for the marine birds.
The man smiled again.
A smile shouldn’t send a zip of
unnerving energy straight into her, but it did. She’d sunk herself in her work
for so long, studiously avoiding exactly that kind of smile. He had the ease of
a man who knew the effect he had on women. An ease she knew only too well,
having once fallen prey to it at the hands of another man who knew how to wield
his charm and allure.
She looked away from his face and down
to his hands.
“Nice-looking Zodiac,” he said. “But
you couldn’t have come up from the bay. It’d take you half a day with that small
motor. You put in somewhere south of here?”
An observant man. Usually she liked
that type. She tried not to be dazzled by his near perfect physique and a face
that was more handsome than any man should be allowed. It was distracting. And
dangerous. That she also knew from experience.
“I might ask what you’re doing here,”
she said, deflecting. She eyed the Zodiac, assessing another approach to
freeing it from the mud.
“Eating,” he said with the same
dazzling smile.
A wise guy. From his polished American
accent and fine clothing, obviously a very wealthy and well-educated wise guy.
But he didn’t have the body of a businessman.
He grinned and waved the sandwich at
her.
“There’s a great deli about two hundred
feet from here. Can I buy you a sandwich? You look like you could use one.”
She dragged her hair away from her
face. She’d love a sandwich. But there was a mile of river to sample between
here and the vineyard properties to the north. And she didn’t want to answer
questions. He looked like the type to ask plenty of them.
“Thanks, but I have to get back.”
“Back where?”
Right. Not the cleverest of responses
on her part.
“Back to, um...”
Jeez. Tracking down water samples had
made her feel like she was in some sort of cheesy spy novel or something. This
guy was just a guy having lunch near his local deli. Right. Dressed in expensive clothes and eating a sandwich by a really
crummy spot in the river. She might be good at chasing down the mysteries
of marine mammals, their lives, their health and the way the bigger picture
affected them, but she was never much good at figuring out people.
“Back to work,” she said flatly.
“Where do you work? Can’t be around
here.”
It was a simple question, a question
she’d answered hundreds, maybe thousands of times. She hated to lie, usually
didn’t have any reason to, but it was hard to ignore the small voice telling
her to do just that. Maybe the sun had addled her brain. And she hadn’t been sleeping well. She’d read that lack of sleep
could make you paranoid, make you read things into situations that weren’t
there. She really should get more sleep.
“I work at the California Marine Mammal
Center,” she said as she pulled her foot from the muck and edged closer to the
Zodiac.
“The seal hospital near the Golden Gate
Bridge?”
The Center was known for their quick
response in rescuing injured marine mammals, doctoring them up and returning
them to the ocean, but the work went far beyond that. Yet right now she didn’t
feel like explaining.
She nodded.
“I’ve been meaning to get over there.
For about ten years,” he said with a laugh.
“Evidently not a priority,” she said,
trying not to like the sound of his laugh. “Or if it is, maybe you’re direction
challenged?” She hadn’t meant to engage him, but his smooth manner was like oil
on a hillside, and she just kept sliding along.
He sprang up from his crouch with a
catlike, almost effortless, motion and took a couple steps down the path toward
her. She stepped back and nearly lost her balance as her foot sank into the
mud.
She fisted her hands against her hips,
and he stopped walking.
“I heard you’re having a rash of seal
deaths,” he said, suddenly serious. “Any clues as to what’s causing the diatom
bloom?”
Her breath hitched in her chest. People
in the Bay Area knew about the seal strandings; reports been all over the news.
But most didn’t know about the diatom bloom or if they did, they didn’t get the
connection. Maybe he was a scientist. But he didn’t look like a scientist.
Scientists never had muscles like his.
“It’s too early to tell.” At least it
wasn’t a complete lie. It was too
early to tell. “I really have to be going.”
She turned and pushed her shoulder
against the pontoon. Color crept into her face. She was stuck, in more ways
than one.
“Here,” he said as he closed the
distance between them. He bent down and put the sandwich on a rock. “Hop in.
I’ll shove you off.”
She tilted her head and shaded her
eyes. Maybe he could do it; he looked incredibly strong. His shoulders reached
beyond those of most normal men. Only movie thugs and athletes had shoulders
like that.
God, she was being ridiculous. Letting
him shove her off was the best solution. Maybe the only one.
“Okay,” she said.
Their gazes locked, and she felt both
trapped and held.
“I don’t bite,” he said.
There it was again, that easy, wide
smile. She was really losing it if she could let herself be charmed by a
stranger standing on a riverbank.
Before she could move away, he closed
his hands around her waist and lifted her over the side of the boat.
“Straddle the pontoon on the opposite
side,” he said as he released her. “Lean into it.”
The confidence of his tone told her he
was used to giving orders.
He walked to the bow of the boat and
stepped into the water. She noticed that he
didn’t fall into the eddy pool. Maybe he knew this stretch of river very, very
well.
She hung her weight against the pontoon
and watched his arm muscles work as he gripped the bow line and levered his
shoulder against the boat. With perfect control he tipped the bow down. The
bottom of the boat sucked up off the riverbed with a sigh and a slurp, and with
a firm, steady motion, he pushed the boat into the river.
“You might need this.” He grinned and
tossed the bow line over the side. She caught it with one hand.
“Nice catch,” he said as he stepped out
of the water.
Mud covered his expensive shoes and
stained up his pant legs. He apparently didn’t notice or didn’t care.
Her hands shook as she started the
engine. Only then did she remember she hadn’t thanked him. She waved and
shouted thanks over the buzz of the motor.
“My name's Alex,” he said as he waved
and stared after her. “Maybe I'll see you around these parts again.”
Not if she could help it. Maybe he
wouldn’t notice that she was headed north, upriver to the vineyards. Besides,
why would he care?
“There aren’t any marine mammals up
that way,” he shouted with a puzzled smile. “No clapper rails either.”
She shrugged and looked resolutely
upriver.
So much for not noticing.
Chapter Two
S
|
ome sounds go straight to your heart.
The crack of his bat told Alex his hit
was going over the wall. Way over. He ran toward first base and watched the
ball track a perfect arc into a throng of cheering fans in the center field
bleachers. He kept his pace around the bases, lifted by the roar of 40,000
voices.
Some days that sound was an elixir, at
least this year. Last year the crowd response had been mixed—his game had been
off. This year would be different. He was focused. He was on.
His foot barely touched home plate
before his teammates leaped out of the dugout and mobbed him. The team had
trailed by a run for two innings. This win put them five games out in front of
LA, right where they liked to be.
“Hey, Tavonesi,” a woman’s voice called
out of the crowd, “you made us wait long enough for that.”
He glanced up. A beautiful young woman
stood in the seats behind the dugout. He recognized her; he’d spent an evening
with her that he probably shouldn’t have. Now she was dating their rookie right
fielder, and Alex was out of her sights. At least he hoped he was.
He smiled and tipped his hat to the
cheering crowd, then ducked into the dugout.
“You saved our asses, Tavonesi,” Scotty
Donovan, the Giants’ young starting pitcher, said as he clapped him on the
back. “Can’t say the same for my pitching record.”
Alex took off his batting helmet and
tossed it into the cubby. “Batista was looking for your fastball. He just got
lucky connecting to your slider.”
“Two runs’ worth of lucky,” Scotty
groused.
“Lucky all the same.”
“It was lousy pitching.”
Alex knew better than to argue with
him.
“Show time, Tavonesi,” the Giants’
press liaison said as she tugged on Alex’s sleeve. “Time to feed the beast.”
He didn’t resist as she herded him back
up onto to the field. His body was still zinging from the hit and the rush, so
it was easy to smile. He fielded the usual questions from the network and then
turned to a young reporter wielding a mike like a lance.
“You’ve got your swing back. Feeling
good?” the reporter asked.
“We’re a team. We just get out there
and do our best, one game at a time, back each other up.”
“Duarte’s already slugged twelve home
runs,” the reporter said with a glinting challenge.
Alex wouldn’t take the bait. It was
every hitter’s dream to lead the league in the three categories that made up
the Triple Crown. Racking up the highest batting average, hitting the most home
runs and blasting hits that brought
the greatest number of base runners across home plate was nearly impossible.
Only three players had earned the title in the past forty-seven years. This
year Duarte was everybody’s favorite to do it. Alex intended to prove them
wrong. But it was far too early in the season to be talking about winning
batting titles.
“Duarte’s one of the best in the game,”
Alex said with a smile. Then he turned and walked down the tunnel to the
clubhouse.
He stripped off his uniform and tossed
it into the bin in the center of the locker room. He wrapped a towel around his
waist and headed for the showers.
The buzz of the
win sizzled through the steaming bodies and raucous laughter. The clubhouse was
a sacrosanct haven; there was no substitute for the flow of energy that powered
through it. Where else could you gather thirty alpha males, all at the top of
their game, all happy to be there and do what they loved? Some guys found it so
hard to leave behind, they manufactured reasons to hang out even after they’d
retired. Not many succeeded; the clubhouse was a place for men active in the
game.
When Alex’s father had died of a heart
attack two years before, Alex had shocked everyone by taking a year off
baseball and busting ass to get the hang of managing Trovare, the family
vineyard he’d inherited.
Most would say he’d succeeded.
But the truth was, he’d nearly gone
mad.
Not from the pressures of running the
business—that he could handle. It’d been the gnawing feeling of having a gaping
hole in his life, of missing something the way he imagined an amputee would
miss an arm or a leg. Carrying on his father’s dream hadn’t been enough.
Trovare hadn’t been enough. Sometimes he wished it were, but it wasn’t.
Some claimed baseball was just a game,
but to Alex it was like oxygen—he couldn’t imagine life without it.
And as much as he’d missed the game
during the year he’d taken off, he’d also missed the camaraderie. He was at his
best, physically and mentally, when he was in his place, doing his part for the
team.
He let hot water flow over him and lost
himself in the chorus of voices lacing through the steam. He rotated his wrist
behind his back; the way it was acting up, this could be his last season for a
run at the title.
When he’d
returned to the team last year, he’d made mistakes. He’d tried to keep Trovare
going, to keep his game going, had tried to be all and everything to too many.
In baseball, numbers never lie.
He’d played so poorly for the first
four months that management had made noises about sending him down to the
minors. He wasn’t ready for that sort of ending and never would be. Only his
hitting had kept that nightmare from
happening.
He’d lost track of what was important.
Baseball was important.
Trovare was something he’d been born
to, but baseball was his. And this
year, he’d vowed, nothing was going to get in the way of his game.
But in spite of
his resolve, he couldn’t let go. Trovare was all that was left of his
connection with his father, a living bridge that death hadn’t destroyed. If he
were to be honest, he loved Trovare. Maybe not the castle—that had been an
obsession of his dad’s, he could see that now—but everything else about the vineyard,
the gardens, and especially the older vines he’d helped his father plant near
the south slope. The feel of the soil, the sugared, heady scent of the ripening
grapes, the vital interplay of sun and water and earth, it was in his blood,
always would be.
A sharp zing to his left flank brought
him out from under the steaming stream of the shower.
He grabbed the towel that Scotty had thwhapped him with and tossed it aside.
“Courting a shorter life span?”
Scotty grinned and turned his face
under the flow of the adjoining shower. “Are we still going to have a look at
those team videos, old man?”
Alex ignored the old-man barb. Scotty
was all of twenty-three. And already he was the best starting pitcher on the
team. Anyone over twenty-five was ancient to him. Alex had just hit thirty-one.
“Not today,” he said as Scotty trailed
him to his locker. “I checked out that marine mammal center I told you about.
I’m running over to have a look. Then I have to head up to Sonoma; there’s a
party at the vineyard.”
“How about I come with you and we look
at the videos up there after?”
Alex chuckled to himself. Scotty said up there as if the wine region to the
north of San Francisco was a foreign country. What with the hyperfocus on the
grapes and the odd mix of country and city, it might as well be.
“Can’t,” Alex said. “I’m meeting with
my farm manager in the morning.” He slipped a sweater over his head and grabbed
his jacket. “I plan to stay over.”
“My fridge’s empty.” Scotty protested.
“And I love parties.”
“Pretty insistent for a heartlander,
aren’t you?”
“Afraid you might not show up back
here.” A grin curved across Scotty’s face. “You’re my career insurance, so I
like to keep you close.”
Scotty hardly
needed that. He’d already racked up a brilliant rookie season with the Giants,
and this year he was likely to do even better. But he was right about one
thing—Alex’s glove-work in the infield kept runners off base.
“I’ll have to loan you a tux,” Alex
said, conceding to his enthusiasm. “One party at Trovare should cure you of snarking
invitations forever.”
Alex’s cell rang as he and
Scotty drove out of the stadium parking lot. He knew the ringtone; it was
Sabrina.
“Answer that, would you?” He nodded to
Scotty. “It’s my sister.”
“Sea World Express,” Scotty said. He
pushed the speaker button.
“Alex, tell me you’re coming up for this party. I can’t bear another round
of Where’s Alex tonight.”
“On my way. Scotty’s coming with me. I
have a stop to make and then we’ll be up. Kiss the gargoyle for me.”
Scotty clicked off the phone.
“Gargoyle?”
“My father bought
it at an auction before he died.” He shot Scotty a grin. “It’s supposed to ward
off dugout dollies.”
He was only half
kidding. The women who tracked players, often developing elaborate plans to
make contact, kept Scotty well in their sights. They tracked Alex too. Though
he’d dated a few, he kept to his rule to keep it casual. He’d learned better
than to drag a woman into his life. He’d done it once, when he was in the
minors. Another mistake he was determined not to repeat.
He’d been young
and foolish that summer, and he’d fallen hard—he hadn’t been reading the signs.
Not that anyone liked life in the minors. The long bus rides, cramped motels,
terrible food... it wore the best of them down.
But it’d turned out that the woman he’d
loved was in love with Trovare, in love with the flash. She was interested in
Alex in his role as vineyard heir. Being dragged around from one small town to
another during the minor league season, into a life without the glamor or the
swirl of San Francisco, was of no interest to her.
He’d been foolish to think she loved
the game, that she’d loved him.
At one point she’d even tried to talk
him out of playing, and into returning to the city. But worse than that, she’d
ridiculed one of his friends, a young outfielder from Tennessee. One thing the
game held sacred was respect for anyone’s honest effort.
When she’d put down Tom’s life and his
dreams, Alex had finally realized he’d been fooling himself all along. He
wouldn’t do that ever again.
He should thank Tom.
“You’re losing your touch, Tavonesi.
You don’t need a gargoyle. Just handle the lovely ladies like grounders. A
moment in the hands”—he whirled his hands in the space between them—“and then a
gentle and mutual toss-off.”
“Thanks, Yoda,” Alex said. “Remind me
to ask you for hitting advice as well.”
That
wasn’t going to happen. Nobody expected a pitcher to hit, and Scotty met that
expectation handily by hitting well below .100. He managed to put down a good
sacrifice bunt on occasion, but that was about it. Alex couldn’t imagine life
without the challenge of hitting. Reading the pitchers and learning their
patterns, watching the seams, tuning his body to the pace and the arc, the
ritual and the focus, it ran in his blood.
The last light of day glowed a
dim line under fast-moving clouds along the horizon as Alex and Scotty crossed
the Golden Gate Bridge. Whitecaps peaked on the waves in the bay, and the wind
had picked up in the past half hour. The city and the hills of the Marin
Headlands were shrouded in clouds by the time they turned off at the first exit
at the end of the bridge.
“Maybe it’s not such a great time to
head to the coast. Looks like a mighty storm headed this way,” Scotty said,
pointing to the northwestern horizon. “I thought we’d get hammered before the
end of the seventh inning.”
Alex shrugged. “If I waited for a break
in the odd weather patterns we’re having, I’d never get anything done.”
He fired off the strange weather events
in his mind: earliest frost, hottest summer days, longest stretch of winter
with no rain and now rain, warm rain, that just wouldn’t let up. If late rains
kept up into May, they could affect the fruit set at his vineyard for the
second year in a row. El Niño, they
called the storm pattern that brought these rains and winds. But there was
nothing child-sized about its effects.
The rain and wind intensified as he
nosed the car over the last ridge separating the headlands from the sea. In the
distance, a side road snaked down toward the Point Bonita lighthouse.
“Wouldn’t want to be out there in waves
like this,” Scotty said. “How far is it to this seal hospital?”
“Rescue center. It’s about a half mile
from here. The whole place looked pretty ramshackle on the website. I was
surprised to read that they’re doing some first-class science out of such a
small place.”
“Is this science or a woman piquing
your interest?” Scotty gave him a sidelong glance. “Rescuing river maidens
might be your new calling.”
“Just curious.”
“I know about curious. Not exactly what
we need right now.”
Scotty was right; chasing about the
coast was the last thing he should be doing. He needed to rest up and stay in
the zone. He’d set a high bar for the season and even on his best days he
wondered if he’d overreached. He’d seen what overreaching had done to McQuinn
last season, watched the guy wind himself so tight that he’d started making
mistakes. But unlike McQuinn, Alex knew how to keep his perspective. At least
he hoped he did.
His car hugged the curves as he eased
it down the hill to Rodeo Beach. It’d been a favorite haunt, yet how many years
had passed since he’d been there?
He turned onto a road that edged a
small lagoon just past the beach. The hills of the headlands jutted down to
steep cliffs and pitching waves. He opened his window, breathing in the salty
marine air.
Driving to Trovare and donning a tux,
smiling at people he barely knew, lost all its appeal.
“Mind if we skip Trovare tonight?” Alex
asked.
Scotty shot him a look. “I was looking
forward to meeting some of those society babes up at your place.”
Alex shook his head. “They eat boys
from Nebraska for breakfast.”
“Sounds intriguing,” Scotty said. “I
might like being someone’s breakfast.”
“Trust me on this one,” he said as he
punched at his cellphone.
“Alex, it’s storming up here,” Sabrina
said when she answered. “It came in fast, and Mother’s furious. She still
doesn’t believe she can’t command the heavens.”
Alex laughed. “I’m going to skip the
party. Forgive me?”
“I always do. I’ll find a way for you
to make it up to me.”
He knew that playful tone. “No dates or
set-ups, Sabrina. None. Zero.”
“You left out infinity.”
“That too.” He took in a breath. “And
would you tell Emilio that I’ll meet with him when the team gets back from the
road trip? The new irrigation for the vineyard can wait until then.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Captain. It
was Sabrina’s favorite nickname for him. As a child, he’d wanted to go to sea.
Years later, when he’d rebelled at being handed his life on a platter, he’d
lost himself in the mysteries of marine biology. He’d majored in it at USC, but
he’d quickly discovered that he had to choose between his love for the sea and
baseball. Baseball had won out. When he’d been called up to the majors,
everything else dropped away. After his dad died and left him to handle
Trovare, any dreams he’d harbored for pursuing his passion for the sea
dissolved into the added responsibilities. Tonight, those early, carefree days
were a past he barely remembered.
The rain morphed into a light mist. A
hundred yards down the rutted road, a chain-link fence surrounded a cluster of
buildings lit by floodlights on poles.
The gate was open, and he pulled into a
parking area gutted with potholes. Several large, round blue tanks stood next
to the buildings, and a square of fenced pens ran along one side. Every pen
held animals. Alex pulled a raincoat from behind his seat and tossed it across
Scotty’s lap.
“Dress for battle.”
Scotty laughed. “I’d rather dress for
breakfast.”
Alex stepped out, donned his overcoat
and walked over to a pen where a big man in yellow slickers stooped over a sea
lion laid out at his feet. The slickers made him look like a giant who had
stepped out of a children’s cartoon. He held a board against the animal,
pinning it into the corner of the pen. The sea lion easily weighed 300 pounds,
Alex estimated, but unlike the animals he’d seen when he was out sailing, this
one wasn’t frisky.
“Hey there!” the man called, without
looking up. “Push that IV tower over here, would you?” The flat vowels of his
accent marked him as Canadian.
Alex took hold of the metal pole that
held the bag of fluid and rolled it to him. Without taking his eyes off the sea
lion, the man felt his way down the tubing with his other hand, found the
needle and pulled it. With a flick of his wrist, he inserted the needle at the
back of the animal’s neck.
“Hand me those towels,” he ordered.
Alex grabbed the bundle and handed them
over just as the man glanced up. Even in the dim light and at the late hour,
the man’s eyes danced with merriment.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, still pressing
the board against the sea lion. “I thought you were a volunteer.” A smirk crept
across his face as he scanned Alex’s attire. “I told them we needed another
pair of hands, but you don’t look the type.” He looked over at Scotty. “Neither
of you do.”
The man paused, his eyes scanning
Alex’s face. Alex stiffened and prepared himself for the usual questions and
comments about baseball, but the man didn’t say anything. He just turned back
to finish taping the IV to the sea lion.
Alex let out the breath he’d caged.
“Never mind what I’m wearing. I’m willing to offer a hand.”
The man looked up again, nodded and
then rubbed a blue stripe of paint across the animal’s forehead. He stood. To
Alex’s surprise, they were eye to eye. Not many men reached six four.
“The name’s Gage,” the man said. “I
won’t offer to shake your hand.” Like his slickers, his gloves were streaked
with blood and muck. “I’m the assistant vet,” he said with a wry smile.
“Alex. And this is my buddy Scotty.”
“These guys are way bigger up close,”
Scotty said as he walked over and acknowledged Gage.
A roaring bark sounded from the pen
next to them, and Scotty jumped.
“Teeth. Lots of teeth,” Scotty said,
shaking his head.
“The man needs a hand,” Alex said.
Scotty pulled Alex aside.
“If you’re going to hang around here,”
he said in a low voice, “I’d rather rustle up a date back in the city.” He
looked over his shoulder. “Those things could bite.” He made a snapping motion
against his arm. “I’m pitching in four days.”
“Living up to your reputation as a
precious pitcher,” Alex chided. He fished his car keys from his overcoat
pocket. “Take my car; I’ll find a way back.”
“Bad
idea, Tavonesi. Leave your number and have the mystery woman call you.” He
glanced over to where Gage stood at a distance, watching them. “Where is she,
anyway?”
“It looks pretty
tame,” Alex said, looking out at the pens and ignoring Scotty’s question. He’d
find the woman from the river, if not tonight, then next week. She’d left more
than an impression. She’d haunted his dreams.
“Should’ve kissed the gargoyle,” Scotty
said with a knowing smile. “This mystery woman must be awful pretty.” He took
the keys Alex held out. “Maybe she’s having a beer at O’Doul’s.” His grin
stretched even wider. “I’ll call you if I see anyone matching her description.”
Scotty nodded to Gage and headed for
the car. Within moments he was driving down the hill.
Gage jerked his head in the direction
of the car’s receding tail lights. “Your friend know his way back?”
Alex nodded.
Gage raised a brow, then turned and
wrote something on a chalkboard-like poster that hung between the pens. A wail
from an enclosure farther down the line had Gage bolting. He pulled a pair of
gloves from where they were wedged in the fencing and tossed them to Alex.
“You’ll be useful for this one,” he
said.
This
one was a 600-pound behemoth, maybe heavier, and he was not
docile like the first. Though large, the sea lion was obviously starving; its
ribs showed and its skin hung loose.
Alex took the board Gage pushed toward him,
grabbed the two handles at its front and helped to herd the creature into a
corner of the enclosure. Gage was strong, and he worked with a deft confidence.
The animal bucked and tried to rear up.
“Lean into it,” Gage instructed,
gesturing with his hip. Alex leveraged his weight on the board and felt a pull
along his ribs as he did. He ignored the pain and held the board steady. In
less than a minute Gage had inserted an IV and started the drip. He pushed a
piece of fencing up to the animal.
“Hand me those bungees,” he said,
pointing at strips of rubber hanging on the pen. He fastened the fencing into a
makeshift restraint pen and turned to remove the wooden herding board.
“Where’s the rest of your crew?” Alex
asked as he followed Gage to the back of the pen.
“Out on rescues. We had no idea it’d be
this busy—hadn’t counted on another storm so soon.” He shook the water from his
hair and wiped his forehead with the back of his glove. “Two El Niño years in a
row and a new batch of animals coming down from the North Bay, harbor seals,
mostly.”
He tugged on the IV. Evidently
confident it would hold, he motioned to Alex and together they backed out of
the pen.
A truck roared into the lot, its
headlights flooding the pen and path, temporarily blinding Alex.
“Damn!” Gage swore under his breath.
“They should yank her green card and
her license.”
Alex’s eyes adjusted, and he saw the
woman from the river hop out of the truck, calling out orders to the two men
unloading crates from the back. Even at a distance there was no mistaking her
English accent or the confidence and strength woven through the lush tones of
her voice.
“Take these two down to the hospital,”
she said, pointing to the heavy crates the men were hefting from the back of
the truck. “And set up the X-ray; that one’s been shot.” She nodded toward a
smaller crate still in the truck.
She whirled to face them and froze when
she saw Alex. The wariness in her eyes surprised him.
Wet auburn curls fell loose and tangled
around her face, framing her beautiful and honeyed hazel eyes. She was even
lovelier than he remembered.
“You do turn up in the oddest places.”
Without a glance back, she headed
toward the building she’d called the hospital.
“You know her?” Gage asked.
“Not really. Ran into her up in Sonoma
last week. We weren’t introduced.”
“That’s Jackie,” Gage said, tilting his
head toward the departing woman. “She’s the boss. And that’s her at her most
suave. She might be wanting in bedside manners, but she’s the best marine
mammal vet in the world. She’s why I’m here.” He handed Alex the IV bag he’d
lifted from its hook. “Watch to see that this drains properly.”
He walked to the truck and lifted the
smaller crate from it and headed toward the hospital.
Standing in the misting drizzle,
holding an IV bag hooked up to a very sad-looking sea lion, Alex calculated how
ridiculous he must appear. His shoes were coated in mud, and he was soaked
through. A loud snort sounded behind him, and he turned just in time for the
sea lion to sneeze snot all over his overcoat. The smell had a stink like no
other. Even so, as he snagged a towel off the fencing with his free hand and
began to wipe down his coat, an odd elation flooded him, like hitting a grand
slam in the bottom of the ninth. It made no sense.
But he smiled anyway.
Then he hung the towel back on the
fencing and watched the last of the IV fluid drain from the bag. When Gage
didn’t return, he hooked the empty bag to the fence and started across the
parking lot. Whether he was headed for his car or to the lighted hospital, he
wasn’t sure. Then he remembered he’d let Scotty take his car. Not a very clever
move. He’d have to call a cab. The promise of a hefty tip was the only hope he
had to entice a driver out into the headlands on a night like this.
Before he reached the dimly lit
building, the door swung open and Gage and Jackie stormed toward him. Well, she
was storming. Gage was shuffling along beside her, his long strides easily
keeping up with her shorter ones. She marched right up to Alex.
“We’ve got a stranded whale—the
fisherman who reported it said it’s about nine feet. Has to be either a newborn
or a juvenile minke. The rescue crew has to deal with the animals they brought
in,” she said, nodding toward the hospital. She took a breath and tilted her
head toward Gage. “Genius here says you offered to help.”
She flicked her eyes over Alex. He felt
he was being sized up for auction. He’d been sized up many times—by scouts, by
owners, by managers deciding how much they would pay for his services—but he’d
never felt the awkwardness that ran through him as she looked him up and down.
“He doesn’t have any training,” Gage muttered, as if he was
trying to let Alex off the hook.
“He has muscles,” she said. “Right now,
that will do.”
“Be happy to help,” Alex said.
He thought he saw the hint of a smile
flicker behind her scrutiny. She had a strong, beautiful face that would’ve
been lovelier without the frown. She turned away and fished in her pocket,
pulling out a fistful of keys. She gave him a last, long scan and shrugged.
“Get in the back.” She nodded toward
the truck. “And try not to fall out. I’m fresh out of Band-Aids tonight.”
Gage shot him a look that said, You don’t have to do this.
It would take a team of bulls to hold
him back.
Gage motioned for Alex to jump over the
tailgate.
“She smashed it in last week; it won’t
open,” he said apologetically.
“If you
hadn’t distracted me with all your budget woes and lists of things you
desperately needed, I would’ve seen the bloody hydrant.” She turned to Alex.
“I’m a fine driver.”
Pamela is an author of contemporary
and historical romance novels. Her first book, Jane Austen and the Archangel
(Angels Come to Earth, #1) was released in 2012. Midnight Becomes You,
(Angels Come to Earth, #2) will release in 2014, along with three more
books in the Heart of the Game series, all releasing in 2014.
Before becoming a romance author,
Pamela Aares produced and wrote award-winning films and radio shows including Your
Water, Your Life featuring actress Susan Sarandon and the NPR series New
Voices. After producing The Powers of the Universe and The
Earth’s Imagination, she knew without a doubt that romance lives at the
heart of the universe and powers the greatest stories of all.
Pamela holds a Master’s Degree from
Harvard and lives in the wine country of California with her husband and two
curious cats. Her love of nature led to adventures scuba diving the coral reefs
of Fiji, exploring the cliffs of Greece, sea kayaking the Rosario Straits and
white water rafting the wild and scenic rivers of the west—and romance!
Where to Stalk Pamela:
Tour Schedule:
1/29: An Open Book - Spotlight
2/13: Harlie's Books
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