Love Bats Last (The Heart of the Game) (2 page)

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

Some 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.