Love Bats Last (The Heart of the Game) (16 page)

“Volkov's playing you,” Alex said.

For a heartbeat, she appeared to take in what he’d said. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and let out a breath. “You don’t know what you’re talking about—he’s a scientist, for God’s sake! He’s interested in our
mission
.”

“He’s interested in your ass.”

Both Jackie and Sabrina stiffened, but he didn’t feel like backpedaling.

“I see what I see,” he said. The man had practically drooled over Jackie; science and missions had nothing to do with his interest. “You could use a better dose of
discernment
,” he added, knowing full well he shouldn’t have. Jackie wasn’t his. But he sure as hell didn’t want her having to put up with a guy like Volkov.

“You see what you want. Maybe you’re paranoid.” She looked at Sabrina, made a gesture he couldn’t read, one Sabrina obviously understood. “I have work to do.” She spun around and aimed for a gaggle of donors. “
More
work to do after this,” she added over her shoulder as she stalked away.

Sabrina let out a puff of breath, took him by the arm and led him out to the parking lot.

“You certainly have a way with women, Alex.”

Chapter Twelve

Jackie tossed her backpack onto her kitchen chair, pulled her computer case off her shoulder and placed it carefully on the table.

The Marine Mammal Commission meeting in Hawaii had gone well. It’d been a quick trip, and she wished she’d had more than two days there, at least time to surf for an hour or two, but most of the time she’d been locked in an air-conditioned conference room.

Still, the commission had agreed to allow the Center to set up a study on Laysan Island. It was a good first step. They’d be able to get better numbers on the endangered monk seals there. But where the Center would get the money for a remote operation she had no idea. Michael was sure to tell her she was spreading resources too thin. And though she’d celebrated the step forward with a walk on Waikiki, she’d itched to get back to her work here.

She’d succeeded in putting Alex out of her mind while she was gone. Or at least she pretended to. But on the way home from the airport she’d stopped at a light, glanced around and then blinked at a four-story image of Alex, an almost naked Alex, smiling down at her. In an instant, all the confusion she felt when she thought of him returned full force. It didn’t matter that it was an ad painted on the side of a building—every muscle of his torso rippled with raw power. The car behind her had to honk twice before she’d realized the light had changed.

She opened the backpack and pulled out the water samples she’d gathered earlier in the afternoon up along the Susul River, further north where vineyards flanked both banks. She’d flown in on the red-eye and driven directly up to the river. No one knew she was home, so no one knew she’d taken the samples. She inspected the lids, made sure each was tight and snapped the plastic box closed.

While she was in Hawaii, crews at the Center had rescued fifteen more harbor seals from where the river met the bay, and she was determined to stop the poisoning before any more animals were stricken.

She shoved the box into her fridge and then dialed Bradley. A click on the phone line had her hanging up and redialing. When the click sounded again, she shook her head. Telecommunications in the headlands were still catching up with the twenty-first century.

“How’s the weather at Davis?” she asked Bradley when he answered.

“Jackie, only the English talk about the weather. Did you get the next batch of samples?”

“I want you to get them as soon as possible, so I’m driving them up in the morning.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re paranoid? You probably have them under lock and key, don’t you?”

Her skin heated, but she admitted, “They’re in my fridge; I don’t trust leaving them at the Center.”

“No one cares that much about seals.”

“I do.”

“Yeah, well you could send them up with the vols,” he suggested.

“I’m driving them. I’ll get to see your shining face.”

“You slay me with your flattery,” he said with a chuckle. “Thompson ran the new samples you sent last week. Definitely radon. In small amounts it shouldn’t cause human health problems, but it’s still traceable.”

“I took samples every half mile along the river all the way up past the town. If the tests show a high concentration from any of them, we’ll likely have our culprit. We’ll have enough data to call in the USDA to follow up and do the broad-scale testing and nail the bastards. With this amount of data, the Feds won’t be able to push us aside. The radon findings should help our case.”

“Never thought I’d hear you talking so sweetly about the USDA.”

“We all have our weak moments.”

“The tissue samples take longer, maybe a couple of weeks,” he added apologetically.

“Then I’ll just have to wait. See you tomorrow. Gage is sending a box of his favorite donuts up with me.”

“Didn’t know he cared. How was Hawaii?”

“The monk seal project’s a go.
If
we can find the money.”

“I’m putting in for a transfer. Palm trees and Mai Tai's are my forte.”

“You’d better train up; umbrella drinks are Gage’s specialty.”

After she hung up, Jackie grabbed a tall glass of water, glugged down half of it, headed into her living room and switched on the TV. She flipped idly through the channels but stopped when she saw Alex facing a pitcher.

The camera zoomed in, and she recognized his keen concentration as he waited for the throw. He didn’t swing and the umpire called it a ball. She’d watched a few games since that first day at the ballpark. It still baffled her how in a split second batters could discern a good pitch from a bad one.

Discernment
.

The night of the donor party, when Alex had pissed her off, he’d said she lacked it. She could still feel the deep sting. She’d mulled over the accusation more than a few times.

Maybe he was right.

But facts had always been her mainstay and her armor. She’d always thought and rethought, examined and then examined again.

She couldn’t afford to lack discernment. Hunches and instincts that weren’t backed up by facts could mislead and derail her. They had in the past.

The sound of the bat thwacking the ball dragged her attention back to the TV. But Alex wasn’t running. He took his batting stance again and waited. The announcer said something about the ball just missing the foul pole.

She stared at Alex crouched in his stance. The man excelled. It was a weakness of hers, men who had talent and the discipline to excel.

Gage had told her that Alex ran a cutting-edge vineyard—green and solar. That he used owls rather than poisons to control rodents. He probably saved homeless kids in Uganda in his spare time too, she muttered, and then chastised herself for being cynical.

And who was she kidding?

It wasn’t just his excellence.

He roused feelings in her that she’d convinced herself she didn’t want to feel. Just the memory of being touched by him called her out of her carefully woven cocoon. She couldn’t deny the uncomfortable feeling of being deeply, amazingly alive around him, something she normally only felt when climbing or when she was on the track of a new discovery.

It was as though he had invaded her very being, infusing her with vitality. And she liked it. Rather thought she’d like even more of what being close to him promised. But still... She shook her head. She wasn’t sure she wanted it.

The guy was famous, a star. He probably had dozens of women waiting in line to feel the touches she remembered so vividly. The woman she’d met in Santa Cruz was likely one of many.

She didn’t want to be one out of a dozen. Never again.

But she’d liked the way Alex had tackled the wave in Santa Cruz and the natural grace and strength with which he’d handled the board and faced a new experience. Even his tumble in the curl had been spectacular, though she certainly wasn’t going to tell him that. What she hadn’t liked was the way he’d chastised her when she’d eaten a wave, for doing the same thing he’d done just minutes before. But she hadn’t known about his sister. She couldn’t imagine the sadness of losing a sibling. He’d been trying to help her, she appreciated that now, even if she hadn’t at the time.

Alex’s words of caution had translated to action. She’d found herself being vigilant earlier in the afternoon when she’d eased the Zodiac into the murky water. She’d made sure to stay near the tule grass lining the near shore shallows and avoid the muddy bank as she’d collected more water samples.

She flicked her eyes back to the TV. Alex hit the ball and the cameras tracked it as it zoomed into the stands. The announcer said Alex was within reach of a batting title if he kept it up. The irony struck her: he was fighting to win a title and she was just as determined to leave one behind.

She watched as two players ran around the bases ahead of him. Alex jogged from base to base, headed toward the batter’s base.
Home plate
, she corrected herself. It was an odd name for a sports destination; it sounded more like what you’d be served at an American diner.

When he stepped on home plate, Alex’s teammates piled out onto the field and mobbed him. He smiled. Even though the camera and the game were miles away and being broadcast to hundreds of thousands of people, a lightness warmed her belly as she watched him smile.

He’d smiled that smile at her.

The disappointment she felt when the network cut to another game surprised her. She’d tried hard not to admit she missed him. A different crew of announcers spoke rapidly about the new game in the jargon she was beginning to recognize but couldn’t follow. She flicked off the TV and went into the kitchen.

Rummaging through her fridge, she found a bottle of chardonnay and poured herself a splash. Glass in hand, she wandered around the little house the Center provided—one for her and one for Gage. His was homey in a lived-in way, but it smelled like the stale hockey gear he piled in a corner after his Sunday games.

Her house was, well... She scanned the living room. Spartan. There just wasn’t a nicer word. She simply had to muster the effort to make it more of a home. Get some pillows. She’d read somewhere that the right pillow could solve most any décor problem. She dropped onto the rumpled futon that served as her couch. Well, maybe pillows
and
a proper couch. Didn’t one of the volunteers tell her that the sign of becoming an adult was having a proper couch? Clearly, she’d yet to arrive.

Alex’s sister, Sabrina, probably had a fab couch in one of those classy Nob Hill apartments. She likely had a closet that refrigerated sweaters and kept the moths off them too. And she probably had pillows. Lots of pillows.

She returned to the kitchen, dug around in the crisper and threw together a rather wilted-looking salad. Perched at her little table, she stared at her meal. She swirled the wine in her glass, then walked back into the kitchen and pulled the bottle out of the fridge. She poured a whole glass, tossed the salad in the compost and defiantly grabbed a bag of popcorn from the cupboard. At least it was organic. Settling onto the futon, she popped in a DVD.

A muffled sound outside the window caught her attention. Raccoons. She’d secured her waste can, but evidently not tightly enough.

She paused the DVD and grabbed a flashlight. From her tiny porch, she stared out into the night. The only sounds were the call of a great horned owl looking for its mate and the breeze sifting through the pines. She walked around to the window, flashed her light and saw footprints in the mud below it. Not a raccoon’s—the tread said man-sized boot. Probably the groundskeeper. He’d been in to cut the high weeds that morning. She tugged her sweater close against the chill of the evening air and walked back inside. She started toward her futon but motion outside the living room window caught her eye. A car sped down the road in front of her house with only its parking lights on. She frowned. Teenagers parking again. The National Recreation area that housed the Center was a favorite spot for late-night trysts. The park police were constantly breaking up parties and booting revelers off park property.

She flicked on the DVD and settled in to watch the movie. She’d fallen asleep twice before trying to watch it—maybe this time she’d see how the adventure ended.

Alex poured himself a second cup of coffee and stared out the window of his apartment. Eleven stories below, the water of the bay was a field of steely blue-gray. A lip of gold spread across the hills to the east, announcing sunrise. A wedge of pelicans flew between his building and the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, gliding along in the formation that allowed them each to fly with the least effort. He stared toward the headlands across the mouth of the bay, toward the Center.

He’d managed to pull a couple night shifts at the Center after day games at home. Gage had designated him as an extra pair of hands and no one seemed to mind that his schedule was irregular. Jackie hadn’t been around. She’d flown to Hawaii, so he’d had no chance to make any sort of apology for his actions at the donor event. He wasn’t even sure what he’d apologize for; he just knew he had the urge to salve the unease nagging him.