“I’m not skilled at interrogation like you, Jack. She obviously doesn’t want to make friends.”

He drummed his fingers on the lacquered wood tabletop. “How old is she, can you tell?”

“Around thirty, I guess.”

“Wedding ring?”

Stacy smiled. “No-o-o.”

“She uses that baseball cap like a shield over her face.”

“Are you asking if she’s pretty?”

He turned to face her directly and noted the humor sparkling in her eyes. “All right. I’m humbling myself. I want to know everything you can tell me.”

“I’ve never seen her without sunglasses, but from what I can tell, she’s passably attractive in that woman-jock kind of way.”

Jack leaned back, resting an ankle over the opposite thigh. “You’re enjoying the hell out of this, aren’t you, Stace?”

Her glee-filled laugh made him frown.

“I’ve just never seen you thwarted,” Stacy said, the grin not leaving her face. “Or frazzled. To be honest, it fascinates me. In all the time we were married, I rarely saw you not in control. Impatient maybe, but in control. Not that I saw a whole lot of you, given your obsession with work.”

“I’m changing,” he said, gritting out the words.

“Yes, you are. Okay, I can tell you this much. Her hair is almost as military short as you used to wear yours. It’s kind of palomino blond, looks pretty straight around the edge of the cap. Her front teeth are white and even. I didn’t ask her to open her mouth—”

“Stacy,” he warned.

“Well, gosh, Jack. If I’d known I was supposed to be inspecting her like a horse at auction, I would have attempted to get more information.”

“Do you have any idea why she’s singled me out?”

“Could be your hunky body.”

Jack snorted. “Yeah. All five-eleven, one hundred and eighty pounds of me.”

“And she’s about five-four. Perfect height difference. In bed and out,” she added.

He straightened. “I’m not interested in her as a bed partner.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I’m curious. And I don’t like unanswered questions.”

“Ha! You’re attracted. You’ve never been challenged by a woman before, and it intrigues the heck out of you.”

He sipped from his mug of beer before responding. “Maybe.”

At a signal from her husband, Drew, the team’s third baseman, Stacy stood. “We’ve got to relieve the babysitter. Good luck Monday.”

“Thanks. Give Dani a kiss from me.”

Mickey’s decision to rent the cabin she now occupied had been based on several factors, the first being the town itself, Gold Creek, which was a forty-five-minute drive from the community college where she would soon be teaching algebra. Nestled in the foothills of Northern California’s mother lode country, Gold Creek was large enough to offer reasonable anonymity and small enough to feel like a home, not just a place.

Another lure was the stream that backed the property about fifty yards from the cabin. More than a trickle, less than a fisherman’s paradise, its appeal lay in the soothing sounds of nature, at rest and at play. Having lived her thirty-two years in the city, the adjustment had been a challenge, especially since she couldn’t hear traffic or sirens or even children playing. Her only neighbor within earshot was her landlord, who owned a huge log house just out of sight from her smaller version, his guest house.

The cabin itself shone in the natural setting like a topaz in gold. Newly remodeled by the owner, it was a house designed for easy living, amounting to a large studio apartment, with rooms hinted at by creative use of furniture or cabinets. A big pine bed sitting atop a raised platform pretended to be a bedroom, the bed cocooned by curtains on a ceiling runner, blocking it from the living quarters, although she never bothered pulling the curtains. She looked forward to winter, when she could enjoy watching the fireplace while she lay cozy in her bed. The bathroom, a rustically elegant large room containing not only a shower but a whirlpool tub as well, was tucked away on the sunset side of the building.

But the deciding factor in her choosing the cabin had been the window seat. Built into the back wall overlooking the stream and pine trees, it was a huge half circle of crystal clear glass that started two feet from the floor and ended at the ten-foot knotty pine ceiling. The pillows stacked on the oversize wooden seat invited snuggling. It had become her refuge, the place where she prepared her syllabus for class, wrote letters, daydreamed, escaped nightmares and faced her aloneness.

She burrowed there an hour after the game, watching the early-August sky darken and wondering what to do about Monday. She hadn’t wanted to get involved, with anything or anyone. This would force involvement when for the first time in her life she so wanted to be wholly responsible for herself.

She’d lost so much, and she needed to be free to grieve. She’d also given up a lot to embark on this quest for self-forgiveness and acceptance.

Eyes closed, she leaned her head against the window frame and pictured the tall, dark man whose ponytail proclaimed him a rebel. She didn’t want to find him attractive, or desirable, or even interesting—but he’d challenged her when she’d been a verbal tyrant to him, and that intrigued her.

She didn’t want to be drawn to him, and she wondered how she could stop the wheels she had unintentionally set in motion.

Two

Okay, his pride was stung. He admitted that much to himself. Jack glanced at his watch again and frowned. Ten after six. He’d made assumptions from a minuscule amount of contact. Assumption number one, she was gutsy. Two, she genuinely wanted to help improve his game. Three, and he acknowledged this as wishful thinking, she was drawn to him in a way she could neither understand nor control.

Over the past four days, he’d gradually come to feel flattered at her interest. Now—at eleven minutes after six—he realized his mistake. He brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his generic gray polyester baseball pants and ignored the unfamiliar feel of cleats under his feet. A pair of lightweight leather gloves burned through his back pocket. He had invested time and money preparing for his lesson, and she had the nerve not to show up?

He crouched at first base, or rather where first base would be if a game were on. Scooping up a handful of dirt, he rubbed the gritty stuff between his fingers as he debated how long to give her.

Plop! He looked up as a heavy white square cushion with a rigid tube attached landed beside him, shooting up a halo of dirt.

“Ram that into the pipe at second,” she called. “Can’t practice without a base.”

Jack fought to control his relief, which came swift and unapologetic at the teacherlike sound of her voice and the sight of her ever-present L.A. Seagulls cap. He trotted down to second and shoved in the square, then walked back. “I’d about given up on you,” he said toward where she stood leaning against a railing, obviously as close as she planned to get to him.

“I debated,” she admitted. “I decided your team needs you to learn this.”

“So, you’re doing it for the team, not me?”

“I’m doing this for baseball, Ponytail.”

He repressed a chuckle. “Ah. I’ve lowered the standards of the whole game, have I?”

“I think there’s hope, or I wouldn’t be here.”

He wandered closer, noting how she tugged her cap down defensively the nearer he got. When he saw she was about to take flight, he stopped. “I can’t keep calling you The Mouth. What’s your name?”

She seemed to grab a smile back just before it could escape. “Coach.”

He shook his head slowly. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Ready to get to work, Ponytail?”

“I think I’m going to regret this,” he muttered as he returned to first base and awaited her instructions.

“First of all, move to the outfield so you can practice on the grass. When you’ve teamed how to slide where you can’t kill yourself, you’ll move onto the dirt.”