'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 Cafe. '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 Three
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.
'Come on, Cassie, have some ice cream with us.'
'I can't.'' Cassie paused by their table long enough to brush a hand over her daughter's hair as little Emma ate her hot fudge with tiny, serious bites. 'We're swamped. But I appreciate you treating the kids, Jared.'
She was thin enough to blow away in a spring breeze, Jared thought, and held up a spoonful of sundae. 'Have a bite, anyway.'
She flushed, but opened her mouth as obediently as a child when he held the spoon to her lips. 'It's wonderful.'
'Hey, Cass, burgers up.'
'Right there.' Cassie hurried off to pick up the orders from the counter where Edwina Crump reigned supreme.
The owner of the diner sent Jared a lusty wink. The fact that she was twenty years his senior didn't stop her from appreciating a fine-looking man. 'Hey, big fellow, don't see you in here often enough.' She patted her frizzed red bowling ball of a hairdo. 'When you taking me dancing?'
'Whenever you say, Ed.'
She gave a chicken-cackle laugh, wiggled her bony body. 'Got a hot band over at the Legion tonight. I'm ready and waiting,' she told him before she swung back into the kitchen.
Amused, Savannah propped her elbows on the table. 'The Legion, huh? I bet it gets pretty wild.'
'You'd be surprised.' He cocked a brow. 'Wanna go?'
'I'll pass, thanks. Bry, do you think you can shovel any more into your mouth at one time?'
He scooped up a dripping spoon of ice cream, butterscotch and sprinkles. 'It's great,' he said around it. 'What's yours taste like, Con?' To see for himself, Bryan reached over the table to dip his spoon into Connor's. 'Strawberry's okay,' he decided, 'but butterscotch is the best.'
Willing to be wrong, he eyed Emma's hot fudge avariciously.
'No,' Savannah said mildly, and watched with approval as the five-year old Emma curled a hand protectively around her bowl. She might be a quiet one, Savannah mused, but the kid knew what was hers. 'Pack it away, honey,' Savannah told her. 'I bet you can eat these boys under the table.'
'I like ice cream,' Emma said, with one of her rare smiles.
'Me too.' With a grin, Savannah scooped up some of her own. 'And hot fudge is the best, right?'
'Uh-huh, and the whipped cream. Miss Ed gives you lots of it.' She put her spoon down carefully beside her empty bowl and announced, 'I can go to Regan's now. My mama said.'
'What's Regan's?' Bryan wanted to know.
'She's friends with my mom,' Connor told him. 'She has a shop just down the street. It has lots of neat things to look at.'
