Love Bats Last (The Heart of the Game) (35 page)

“Champagne, sir?” A waiter held out a tray lined with crystal glasses. Alex took one and sipped. An expectant hum washed over the room, and goose bumps shivered through him. Alex looked toward the door.

Jackie stood there wearing a simple silver gown that did nothing to hide the sensuous, athletic beauty of her body. She wore the pearl necklace that Alex’s mother had given her as an engagement present. Though she far outshone any other woman in the room, she, like Emilio, appeared uncomfortable. He rushed to her side.

“I’d say you look like a goddess, but that would be a cliché,” Alex said, brushing a kiss to her cheek. “And not nearly enough of a compliment.”

“My mother brought
trunk-
loads of these for me,” she said, fidgeting with the bodice of her gown. “I think she’s happier that I’m wearing this gown than she was about my discoveries or us breaking up an international smuggling ring or you achieving the batting title.”

Alex nuzzled her. “I like you best in your slimy slickers.”

“Is it too late for me to question your taste?”

“
Way
too late,” he said as he led her to their place at the head of a glittering, opulently set table.

Though dinner was a warm-hearted affair, Alex chafed to escape. Jackie had been away for a week at a conference in Seattle, and he’d missed her. The sizzle that her every glance sent through him told him where he’d rather be. He relaxed as they left the table and gathered in the ballroom for celebratory toasts. Jackie glanced over at her mother, standing tête-à-tête with his near the musicians on the dais.

“They look like two wizardesses plotting the future of the world,” she said. “Or like two queens in a castle.”

“Likely they could plot the overthrow of a galactic enterprise.” He traced his fingers along the curve of her back. “Want to get out of here and leave them to their scheming?”

“Could be dangerous,” she said, brushing a kiss to his lips.

He took her by the hand and they slipped out into the night.

Alex had the car packed and waiting in the paved courtyard. The voices and music of the party filtered down with the light breeze. He walked around to open Jackie’s door. At first she looked like she was going to protest, but then she smiled and let him hold the door and tuck in the folds of her gown so they wouldn’t catch when he closed it.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. “Is it too late to say thank you for everything?”

“Never.”

Her light laugh was music to him.

”Did you see your brother flirting with my cousin Alana?” Alex asked as they pulled away from Trovare.

“I rather think it was the other way around. Cory does
not
flirt.”

“That’s what
he
said about you,” he said with a wink. He dodged her playful punch—he was ready for it.

“I bet
you
noticed Bradley dancing with Sabrina,” Jackie teased.

“Sabrina has a good heart, so he’s in good hands. But she’s a wicked matchmaker. He’d better be ready to meet the woman of his dreams.”

“That’d be good,” Jackie said, covering a yawn. “He deserves a special woman.”

Alex turned off on the road leading to Albion Bay. The cottage they’d renovated wasn’t ready, but it’d do for a night away. And they’d have it to themselves.

Jackie dozed part of the way. He brushed a curl from her face. Looking at her peaceful beauty, no one would ever know there was a daredevil living deep inside. At least he’d persuaded her to consider the concept of caution. But he’d learned long ago it was a mistake to try to change anyone’s basic nature. Baseball had taught him that.

As they neared the coast, the fog swept fingers of mist across the road and sent trails of moonlight sweeping into the trees.

“Hey,” he said, shaking her arm. “Coastal highway—waking you as requested.”

She rolled down her window and let in the fresh, salted air.

About a quarter mile up the road they passed a small construction site. Jackie leaned to the window and peered at it in the moonlight.

“Peterson’s right on schedule,” Alex announced. “Or would be if a certain
lady
didn’t keep giving him change orders.” He shot her a grin.

The design and construction of the little satellite rescue center and field lab in Albion Bay had been a challenge. The local volunteers had very explicit ideas for their new facility and Jackie had stuck by them. The five-hundred-square-foot project had taken longer than building the new lab, the seal pools
and
the dolphin tanks in the headlands.

“He’s fed up with all of us.” She gave him a quick, sidelong glance and laughed. “You might have to stay in the game—if the volunteers ask for any more changes to the plans up here, we’ll need a star.”

He squeezed her hand. “
We
already have one.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Gage was wrong, you know.” She slid close and kissed his cheek. “Turns out, it’s love that gets to bat last.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and tugged her tight against him. “Then it’s a good thing I’m on the home team.”

THE END

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Love Bats Last
. I hope you enjoyed it.

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The Heart of the Game Series

Thrown by Love
, The Heart of the Game, #2 (2014)

Fielder's Choice
, The Heart of the Game, #3 (2014)

Love on the Line
, The Heart of the Game, #4 (2014)

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In gratitude, 

Pamela Aares

P.S.
Want to read the next book?
As a thank you, here's an excerpt from the next book in the
Heart of the Game Series: Thrown By Love
. I hope you enjoy reading Chloe and Scotty's story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Excerpt Thrown By Love

#2 in the Heart of the Game

Chapter One

Chloe gathered a fistful of silk and stepped out of the limo. The cool night air sent goose bumps tingling across her skin as she climbed the marble stairs of San Francisco’s gleaming City Hall. Lights danced along the gilded façade and reflected off the sumptuous gowns of women strolling arm in arm with their tux-clad escorts.

She should’ve tried to find a date, but her jam-packed teaching schedule at Stanford left little room for dating, even if she wanted to face the complicated maneuvers to find one. She could locate a star in a distant galaxy, but finding a man she'd enjoy spending an evening with? She’d barely had time to change and rush to meet the driver her dad had sent to fetch her. Yet she couldn’t deny the truth: although her students loved her classes and she loved exposing them to worlds they’d never imagined, she’d never fit in with the stuffy academic crowd at Stanford. At twenty-six she was the youngest professor in the physics department; most of the others were as old as her father. There weren’t any date prospects there.

She reached the top of the stairs and dropped the hem of her dress to the smooth stone. Laughter and animated conversations punctuated the strains of soft jazz drifting out through the open doors. Party talk. She was well-schooled in
that
fine art, although it rarely held her attention.

Her father, surrounded by a group of men, stood just inside the foyer. They laughed at something he said, the sort of laugh that men give in the presence of another man they revere and admire. He looked like he’d aged a year since their lunch date—had it been only two weeks ago? She hadn’t noticed the fine lines and bluish circles under his eyes that afternoon. Maybe it was the lighting in the foyer but compared to the men around him, he appeared pale and drawn. When he caught sight of her, his eyes crinkled into a smile. He excused himself from the group and aimed straight for her.

“Hey, Spitfire, I thought you might’ve changed your mind,” he said as he folded her in his familiar bear hug.

Although she felt nothing like a spitfire after her long week, she didn’t get on him for using the nickname in public. He’d called her that since the time she’d stomped her foot in the foyer at Woodlands, determined not to go upstairs for a bath and bed when there were still precious minutes of daylight left to play in. Of course, she’d been only five at the time and didn’t remember the occasion or the tantrum. He could have made the whole incident up. Like any dad, he was given to the occasional hyperbole.

“Sorry I’m late. One of my students was struggling with the concept of space-time foaming forth,” she said, brushing her fingertips along her collarbone. She caught the nervous gesture and pulled her hand down to her side. This was just another party, even though a niggling voice deep within her whispered otherwise.

“I’m still struggling with foaming space myself.” Her father laughed and suddenly didn’t look as pale. He took her by the arm and led her toward the rotunda. “Come in out of that draft. They’re serving a wonderful chablis.”

He walked with her to the bar, nodding to acquaintances along the way. The gala was a fundraiser for the California Marine Mammal Center, and her father was a major sponsor of the evening. But that wasn’t why most eyes tracked him as he moved about the room. Peter McNalley owned the San Jose Sabers and had taken them, a team no one thought would amount to anything, to a World Series victory two years ago.

But last year things hadn’t gone so well. The team had struggled, hadn’t even reached the playoffs.

Chloe studied her father as he traded friendly words with the bartender, tipped him and then handed her a glass.

Maybe it was worry over the team that dimmed his usual robust energy. One thing about baseball, it had its peaks and valleys. But her dad knew the rhythms, the cycles. He lived and breathed the game; a bad season wouldn’t shake him. She hoped he wasn’t worrying about her. She was busy, sure. But she loved her job.

“No date, I see.” He didn’t smile.

In the past few months he’d seemed mighty intent on her finding a nice guy to share her life with. He’d even hinted that perhaps her work schedule was interfering with her chance of meeting a suitable prospect. She had her career, she was happy, she’d argued, and for now that was enough. He obviously didn’t believe her.

“You wouldn’t want me to foist any of my colleagues on this crowd, although we do have a visiting professor from Oxford coming in next week. I’m told he’s half-normal,” she added with a wink.

“Half-normal might do,” he said as a smile lit his eyes. That smile, radiating deep joy, made anyone with him want to have whatever he was having, think whatever he was thinking. She’d inherited a bit of that from him–his joy in everyday pleasures. To her, it was his greatest gift.

He took her arm. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

“
Dad
.” She gave him the McNalley ice glare.

When he led her to a woman in a shimmering gold gown, she was relieved. She wasn’t in the mood for another of his attempts at fixing her up.

“Dr. Brandon, this is my daughter Chloe.” He tilted his head toward Chloe. “She likes science.”

“Please, call me Jackie,” she said in a lovely English accent as she shook Chloe’s hand. “I read your paper on dark matter in the Science Herald journal last week. No matter what the academic establishment says about it being too poetic, I thought it spot-on.”

Chloe’s cheeks grew warm. Her article had been intended for the university newsletter, for a general audience of students at Stanford. The Dean of the Natural Sciences Department had forwarded it to the Science Herald without asking. Passion and science aren’t often paired, so she hadn’t been surprised that the article raised brows in academic circles.

“Thank you,” she said with a near stammer. Dr. Jackie Brandon was one of the most revered marine mammal vets in the world. Her research had changed international policy for the protection of ocean animals. And she had a reputation as a real scrapper. Her daredevil feats rappelling down cliff faces to get to stranded animals and being dropped by helicopter into remote areas to gather data had made her a darling of the press. Chloe had long admired her. She was the kind of scientist—hands-on and dedicated—Chloe hoped to be.