Scoring

“Aw, you know I was just joking.” When she only looked at him, he slumped his shoulders in defeat. “What do you want?”

“New hoses for the whirlpool.”

“That’s a hundred bucks. I’ll have to fill out a req.”

“You’re the one asking me to keep a secret, Sammy,” she reminded him, fighting a smile. “I’m only here as long as Ron’s out with his carpal tunnel problem, and who knows how long that will be. I’ve got to do what I can to get this place in shape before I leave.”

“You’re not goin’ anywhere,” he insisted. “Whether Ron comes back this season or not, I’m gonna find a way to keep you on. Even if you do push me around.”

Hope ballooned up inside her before she could hold it down. “I don’t push you around, Sammy, I just…encourage you. But it’s all for the sake of the team.” She gave him an impudent grin and shoved her hands into the pockets of her khaki walking shorts, trying to ignore the leap of excitement. She knew that keeping her spot as team trainer was a long shot. It didn’t do to count on things that might not happen.

Sammy walked out of the clubhouse and into the shadowed space underneath the grandstand, following the sloping walkway that led to the field. A couple of players skidded up from the parking lot in street clothes.

“Hey, Sammy, is it true?”

“What? You should be dressed and on the field stretching, not bugging me,” he barked in the gruff tone he imagined gave him authority. “It’s almost time for practice. In my day we cared enough to be early.”

“But is it true?” asked Paul Morelli, the tough, good-looking catcher with the makings of major league talent.

“Is what true?” Sammy’s voice rose. “Is it true that all of ya are gonna be out on the field in fifteen minutes or I’m handing out fines? You’d better believe it.”

“No, for real, we heard that Mace Duvall is coming as a batting instructor.”

Sammy took his time hitching up his trousers and adjusting his cap, then nodded. “Yep, he’ll be the batting instructor all week, and he’ll go on the road with us.” His look turned to a glower. “But unless you guys get changed and out on that field in ten minutes, you ain’t never gonna meet him.”

“You just shaved five minutes off the time, Skipper,” protested Sal Lopes, the team’s center fielder.

“That’s nothin’ compared to what I’m gonna shave off you if you don’t get your butts out on that field,” Sammy thundered, and the players scattered toward the clubhouse.

BECKA STRETCHED a new cover over the massage table, idly listening to the chatter of the players as they dressed for practice. When she’d first joined, a few of them had tried to put the moves on her, but she’d laughed them off. Becka had been around locker rooms most of her life, whether competing or assisting the coaches, and locker rooms frequently contained half-naked, testosterone-laden men who found it hard to believe that a lush-mouthed redhead like Becka could resist their charms.

Over the years, she’d gotten very good at doing just that.

The buzz of a locker room energized her, and okay, so she’d gotten an eyeful once or twice. Admittedly, it was sometimes…entertaining, especially when her social life was almost nonexistent. Still, it didn’t throw her off her stride. She’d perfected a slightly bored matter-of-factness that made her one of the boys, even though she was all female. And maybe to their own surprise, the Lowell players found themselves treating her like a bossy older sister rather than date bait.

“Look it up in the book. I’m telling you, he had a .360 career batting average.” That was DeWalt Jefferson, aka Stats, resident baseball trivia fiend. “Why do you think they called him Mace? He was like tear gas, left all the pitchers weeping.”

“You’re full of it,” Morelli’s voice came back. “That’s almost as high as Ted Williams. Next you’re going to be telling me his season high was .400.”

“.383,” Stats said triumphantly.

“That’s a line of bull.”

Becka glanced idly out the door of the training room and into the locker area.

“Hey, if Stats says that’s the number, that’s the number,” Chico Watson, the team’s burly first baseman, broke in. Twenty-three and married, Watson was the elder statesman of the team.

“Man oh man, what I’d give to bat like that in the big leagues,” said Sal Lopes, dreamily pulling on his jersey.

“Me, I’d settle for having his batting average with the ladies,” Morelli grinned as he leaned down to tie his shoes.

“Who’s this?”

Four heads whipped around to stare at Becka before they went back to dressing. “Mace Duvall.”

Even Becka had heard about Mace Duvall, seen his caramel-blond good looks as he’d escorted actresses and models to swanky benefits and premieres. He’d also escorted them to his bed, if the media was to be believed. There was something else about him that nibbled at the edge of her memory, something she couldn’t quite dredge up.

“He retired or something, didn’t he?”

“He got retired, more like it.” Morelli stood and gathered up his catcher’s gear, tucking his leg guards under his arm. “Car accident. A big rig took him out. He’s lucky to be alive.”

LUCKY WAS HARDLY the way the man in the Bronco would have put it. Mason Duvall pulled into the parking lot at Lowell’s LeChere stadium and turned off his truck, listening to the ticks of the cooling engine. Lucky would have been knowing he was going to be back on the diamond. Lucky wasn’t losing the only thing that he’d ever wanted to do with his life.

He climbed out of the truck, frowning at the stiffness in his back and leg and then ignoring it as he habitually did. To favor it was to give in to it, to say that the accident had won.

The accident had already won too much.

He absently tucked his gray T-shirt more securely into the back of his worn jeans, the faded material stretching over his lean, hard-muscled frame. During the long months of rehab, the Florida sun had streaked his light hair with tones of bronze and gold. It curled thickly down over his collar. Back in his playing days he’d kept it trimmed short for convenience. Now, he only bothered to have it cut when it hung down in his whiskey-gold eyes or tickled his neck enough to distract him.

A slight limp marred his loose, athletic walk, a limp that faded as he crossed the street to the back fence of the minor league park. He leaned on the wall and stared at the diamond. It exerted an almost irresistible pull, beckoning him to vault the fence and join the game. Instead, he watched the players complete their fielding drills. They looked like a litter of young puppies, still loose and joyfully gawky, their playing infused more with raw talent than finesse. And now he, of all people, was supposed to come here and show them how it was done.

Once, his job had been to slam balls out of the park like artillery shells, to field anything hit within fifty feet of him, to help propel his team to the playoffs half a dozen times in a single decade. That had been before a trucker long past his legally mandated sleep period had lost control of his tractor-trailer and taken Mace off the road. Before the weeks in ICU and the surgeries, the months of rest.

Before the news that he was never going to play baseball in the major leagues again.

Baseball had been all he’d ever wanted, all he’d dreamed about ever since he’d been a kid. He’d been one of the chosen handful that had had the skill, talent, and drive to live that dream. And indeed, baseball had been his life. When he hadn’t been playing, he’d been working out. When he hadn’t been working out, he’d been watching game tapes. When he hadn’t been doing either, he’d kept the media entertained.

Now, there was a giant hole where baseball had been, so Stan Angelo, his onetime teammate and self-appointed savior, had bullied him, or conned him, rather, into trying out as a roving instructor.

“Just one season, Duvall,” Angelo had said as they’d shot pool in Mace’s half-finished Florida home a month before. “I’m telling you, you’ll like it a hell of a lot better than laying around here bored out of your mind.”

“I’m not bored out of my mind. I’m building a house, I’m working out. I’m fishing.” Mace watched as Stan put a shot wide and cursed. Studiously careful not to smirk at his friend’s mishap, he leaned over the table and stroked a ball in smoothly. “I’m enjoying my life instead of hopping on a plane every other week for nine months out of the year. Just because running around the country working for the organization works for you doesn’t mean it’ll work for me.”

“I doubt it will.” Stan put one in, but missed the next.

“And you’re right,” Mace said too quickly.

“That’s why I’m telling you about the roving instructor spot,” Stan continued, unperturbed. “I talked with the organization about you and they want to give you a try.” His ball bounced too hard off the rails and missed the pocket.

“Yeah, well, thanks but no thanks.” Mace shot smoothly and put the seven ball in the corner pocket and set up for the next shot. “I’d rather just stay here and work on my pool game. Yours could use some work, too, by the way.”

“Hey, I’ve been on the road,” Stan said mildly, watching Mace sink the eight ball. He began pulling balls out of a corner pocket and stacking them into the triangular rack. “Okay, let’s make it a bet. You win the next game, I never mention it again.”

Mace snorted and took a swig of his beer. “The way you’ve been playing, we can just save ourselves the time and agree to stop talking about it.”

“Humor me.” Stan pulled the rack off the balls and gestured to the triangle of color. “I win, you take the roving instructor job for a season.” He chalked the end of his cue and walked to the other end of the table. “So maybe you can’t play. You can still teach. Better than sitting around here all season driving yourself crazy.”

“I’m doing fine.”