The Pride Of Jared MacKade: the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down

“Yes, sir. Sure.” Pleased to have been given the job, Connor walked toward the stands, holding the box as if the hot dogs were explosives and the soft drinks a lit match. “We’re way up at the top, ’cause Ms. Morningstar says you can see everything better from up high.”

And he could see her, Jared mused, as they approached the stands. She sat with her elbows on her knees, her chin cupped in her hands. And her eyes—though he had to imagine, as they were shielded with dark glasses—focused on the field.

He was wrong about that. She was watching him, walking beside the boy, flashing that killer smile or giving a quick salute whenever someone hailed him. And noticing several women—of varying ages—who put their shoulders back or patted at their hair as he passed.

That was what a man who looked like that did to a woman, Savannah supposed. Made her instinctively aware of herself on a purely physical level. It was like pheromones, she decided. The scent of sex.

Those long legs of his carried him up the stands behind the small boy. Now and again his hand touched a shoulder or shook a hand. Savannah picked up the jacket she’d set in Connor’s place and squeezed over toward the rail.

“Nice day for a ball game,” Jared said as he sat beside her. He took the box from Connor and, to make room for the boy, shifted closer to the woman. “Crowded.”

“It is now. Thanks, Con.”

“Mr. MacKade bought them,” Connor told her, and solemnly handed her back her money.

She started to tell him to keep it, but she understood pride. “Thanks, Mr. MacKade.”

“What’s the score?”

“We’re down one, bottom of the third.” She took a healthy bite of her hot dog. “But the top of our batting order’s coming up.”

“Bryan bats third.” Connor chewed and swallowed politely before he spoke. “He has the most RBIs.”

Jared watched the first boy come out in the bright orange uniform of the team sponsored by Ed’s Café. “Have you met Edwina Crump?” Jared murmured near Savannah’s ear.

“Not yet. She owns the diner where Cassandra works, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah. Be grateful your boy’s not wearing lipstick pink.”

Savannah started to comment, then let out an encouraging shout when the bat cracked. The crowd hollered with her when the batter raced to first.

“Tying run’s on, right, Con?”

“Yes’m. That’s J. D. Bristol. He’s a good runner.”

She devoured her hot dog, fueling her nerves, while the second batter struck out, swinging. Someone shouted abuse at the ump, and several hot debates erupted in the stands.

“Apparently these games are taken as seriously as ever,” Jared commented.

“Baseball’s a serious business,” Savannah muttered. Her stomach did a fast boogie as Bryan stepped toward the plate.

Now the crowd murmured.

“That’s the Morningstar kid,” someone announced. “Got a hot bat.”

“Way that pitcher’s hurling, he’s going to need a torch. Nobody’s getting a good piece of that ball today.”

Savannah lifted her chin, and bumped the man in front of her with her knee. “You just watch,” she told him when he glanced around. “He’ll get all of it.”

Jared grinned and leaned back on the iron rail. “Yeah, a serious business.”

She winced when Bryan took a hard swing and met air. “I’ve got a buck says he knocks the tying run in.”

“I don’t like to bet against your boy, or the home team,” Jared mused. “But MacKades are betting men. A buck it is.”

Savannah held her breath as Bryan went through his little batter’s routine. Out of the box, kicking at dirt with his left foot, then his right, adjusting his helmet, taking two practice swings.

“Eye on the ball, Bry,” she murmured when he stepped to the plate. “Keep your eye on the ball.”

He did—as it sailed past him and into the catcher’s mitt.

“Strike two.”

“What the hell kind of call is that?” she demanded. “That was low and outside. Anybody could see that was low and outside.”

The man in front of her turned around, nodded seriously. “It surely was. Bo Perkins’s got eyes like my grandma, and she needs glasses to see her own opinion.”

“Well, somebody ought to give Bo Perkins a kick in the…” She let the words trail off, remembering Connor who was watching her with huge eyes. “Strike zone,” she decided.

“Good save,” Jared said under his breath, and watched Bryan step to the plate again.

The pitcher wound up, delivered. And Bryan gave a mighty swing that caught the ball on the meat of the bat. It flew above the leaping gloves of the infield, and rose beautifully over the outfield grass.

“It’s gone!” Savannah shouted, leaping to her feet with the rest of the crowd. “That’s the way, Bry!” Her victory dance wiggled her hips in a way that distracted Jared from watching the running of the bases. She kept shouting, her hands cupped to carry the sound, while Bryan rounded the bases and stomped on home plate.

For the hell of it, she grabbed her new friend in front of her and kissed him full on his mouth. “He got a piece of it, didn’t he?”

The man, thirty years her senior, blushed like a schoolboy. “Yes, ma’am, he sure did.”

“Not exactly the shy, retiring type, are you?” Jared said when she dropped back onto her seat.

“Pay up.” She stuck out her hand, palm up.

Jared took out a bill, held it out. “It was worth it.”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, Lawyer MacKade.”

Jared thought about the promise of those agile, curvy hips and sincerely hoped not.

Chapter 3

It was probably a mistake, Savannah thought, to be sitting across a booth at Ed’s from Jared MacKade, eating ice cream. But he’d been very persuasive. And Bryan and Connor had been so excited when he offered to treat them to a victory sundae after the Antietam Cannons batted their way to a win.

And it did give her a chance to see him with Cassandra Dolin.

Connor’s mother was a frail little thing, Savannah mused. Blonde and pretty as a china doll, with eyes so haunted they could break your heart. Jared was very gentle with her, very sweet, coaxing smiles from her.

Evidently the shy, vulnerable type was right up his alley.