“Your fielding’s improving,” she said.

“My hitting stinks.”

She shrugged. “It could use some work.”

“I’m willing to put my ego aside again, if you’re willing to teach me.”

He watched her ponder his words. The old Jack would have pushed. The newer, improved model dug deep within himself for patience.

“Bring a couple of bats and as many softballs as you can borrow,” she said after a long debate.

“Monday at six?” Why do you look so sad? he wanted to ask, noting weariness in her posture, as if she’d been defeated in battle and needed to mend.

She nodded, then pushed away from the railing.

“You okay, Coach?” he asked as she turned away.

Mickey shoved her hands into her pockets. I need a hug, she wanted to say. I’m lonely and I’m tired of not sleeping. And I get scared of the noises in the woods.

“Coach?”

She shifted to face him again. He had a nice face, a face with character—deep blue eyes dark with obvious concern for her, a jaw that held an edge of stubbornness, a mouth that looked as if it could utter soothing words or deliver hot, arousing kisses, both of which she could have used, neither of which she dared accept. He projected self-confidence and strength. He wasn’t afraid to take chances. He wasn’t afraid to fail. She wondered if he could teach her that as easily as she’d taught him how to slide.

“I’m fine, Ponytail. I was just thinking about the Help Wanted sign I saw hanging on the snack bar. You might keep that in mind as an option.”

He looked relieved that she teased him, seemed her old self again. She’d gotten good at bluffing. Too good, she realized. She’d had a difficult week, had missed her family more than she ever could have imagined. Aside from her lesson with Ponytail and polite exchanges with clerks in stores, she hadn’t spoken to anyone except a dog that joined her by the stream one day this week. He’d laid his head in her lap and let her pet him for a few minutes, then after one lick of her face he’d loped away, his golden coat gleaming in the sunlight, his tags jangling.

“We’re all headed to Chung Li’s Pizza. Would you like to come?” Ponytail asked, moving a few steps closer, as if he thought he needed to catch her as she fainted.

“Thanks, but I’ve got to get home. I’ll see you Monday.”

“I hope it’s going to hurt less than the first lesson,” he called as she jogged up the stairs.

“No guarantees,” she yelled back. “No guarantees,” she repeated softly to herself. Not in baseball. Not in life.

“Keep your weight on your back foot, then step into the swing,” Mickey instructed him as he stood at home plate. “And—”

“I know. Keep my shoulder down and both eyes on the ball.”

“Right.” She pitched the ball, which landed in a poof of dirt two feet in front of the plate.

He stared at it, then lifted his head, his mouth clamped against a smile. “That was just to see if I was paying attention, right?”

“I’m a little rusty,” she said in apology, fighting a returning smile. Add a sense of humor to the list of appealing things about him, she thought. She’d looked forward to today more than she’d wanted to, more than was healthy to achieve her goals. She’d forsaken leaning on her family for a while, until she came to terms with herself as an independent person. Now she was in danger of leaning on this man, who was a tempting combination of character, sexiness and, she suspected, comfort.

“Glad to know you’re not perfect, Coach.”

He hit the next pitch—almost straight up.

“Didn’t anyone teach you to call ‘fore,’ Ponytail?”

“Get the pitch up over the plate and I won’t have to golf it,” he chided.

The next pitch sailed over the plate—ten feet off the ground.

“Very funny,” he said, grinning. “You got that out of your system?”

“Maybe.”

“You like a challenge, don’t you?”

Mickey pictured her three brothers and the constant competition they’d all given one another while growing up. She’d learned early to play hard—or tricky—or else be left behind. And being left behind was worse than occasionally putting on a dress to please her mother.

Ponytail showed steady improvement over the half hour they practiced, learning to level out his swing and concentrate just on connecting, not always going for home runs. They had to stop every so often to gather the balls from the outfield, otherwise she worked him constantly.

“Thursday will be the last game for the season,” he told her as they collected balls for the last time.

“Really? So soon?” Now what? When will I see you again?

“The town’s not large enough to support more than five teams. We play each other twice, then we’re done.”

“I take it you hadn’t played much baseball before this.”

“What was your first clue, Sherlock?” he asked as he approached, carrying an armload of balls.

Jack leaned toward her; most of the balls spilled into the sack she held, some dropped to the ground. They crouched simultaneously, their heads almost colliding, their hands grasping the same ball. She tried to pull back; he tightened his grip on her hand.

“What’s your name?” he asked quietly, intently-

She shook her head as she jerked her hand away.

“Why won’t you tell me?”

“I—I’m going through a transition right now. I need...I need to handle it alone.” She stood, then backed away, watching him as if she thought he’d lunge after her.

The last thing he needed right now was a woman with problems, but he also recognized fear when he saw it, and unwillingly decided he’d give just about anything to identify the source and chase it away. How could someone he knew nothing about have become so important, so fast? Why had her well-being superseded everything else in his life? He’d barely been able to concentrate on the textbook he was writing, and his deadline threatened imminently. He couldn’t afford the time his mind had been giving her. “You don’t need friends?” he asked before she could run off.

“I need to be a friend to myself,” she said quietly, turning her head toward a group of people just entering the stadium.

His lawyer’s instincts sprang to attention. A hundred questions crossed his mind. Had she been abused? Had she run away from someone or something? Was she hiding out? How could he help her?

“Without the baseball games, you’re going to disappear from my life,” he said. “That would be a mistake.”

She looked back at him. “Why?”

Jack took three steps toward her, stopping when her shoulders tensed. “There’s a connection between us. Something that made you pick me out of a crowd even though you didn’t know anything about me. The things you yelled to me would have brought some men to their knees. How did you know I wouldn’t fall apart, or strangle you?”

She shrugged, as if she hadn’t spent a minute analyzing it. “Your posture, your smile. I don’t know. You project confidence. The guys on your team gave you a bad time. You laughed it off and kept plugging away.” She tugged the bill of her cap. “Well, I guess I’d better get going. See you Thursday.” She started up the stairs, then suddenly spun around again. “You did really well today.”

“Thanks. You made it easy.” He wanted to follow her, force her to take off the damned sunglasses and cap, look him in the eye—tell him how he could help her. He’d been making a concerted effort in the past year to be more spontaneous, but he’d also discovered that spontaneity sometimes took some planning, a paradoxical idea he’d never uttered aloud to anyone.

He’d have to think about planning something spontaneous for Thursday night.

They were down by four runs in the top of the fifth inning. A base hit and two walks loaded the bases for Ponytail, his third at bat this game. He’d connected with solid singles his first two times at the plate. If his luck held this time, the lead would probably be cut in half.