Free Love Bats Last (The Heart of the Game) by Pamela Aares Page A

other’s necks—one watches the other move, then instantly reacts. It happens below the level of conscious awareness. A millisecond can mean the difference between whiffing a strike or blasting the ball over the center field wall.” He grinned at her. “See, it’s more than a game. It’s science .”
    She ignored his lighthearted jab at her seriousness and watched one of the hitters swing and miss a pitch. “How often do they manage to hit it?” she asked.
    “Depends on the player. The guy batting right now usually hits and gets on base in one out of three at-bats.”
    “That’s good?”
    “Better than good.” He munched down a handful of chips. “Few sports demand reactions as quick as what a guy needs to hit a major league fastball. Well, there’s tennis, and fencing, but that’s about it. Football, basketball, soccer—they’re fast but they can be played in seconds. Nope, when it comes to speed, baseball’s right there at the top.”
    She squinted out at the field. The players were standing, unmoving. She tried to get a sense of the speed Gage was talking about.
    The afternoon was warming; the fog had burned off and it was a beautiful day. She peeled off her jacket and dropped it onto the empty seat next to her and settled back. Theirs might be a world-class stadium, but the seats were rigid and uncomfortable. She grabbed her jacket, folded it and put it under her, cushioning her backside.
    “Where’s Alex?” She tried to sound casual. But just being in a stadium once again made her nerves jump.
    “He’s right there.”
    Gage pointed and she followed the direction of his finger. Standing in a circle, Alex was studying the pitcher and the field.
    “Hey, I know you have a whacko aversion to ballplayers. I thought it was why you didn’t take him seriously.” He downed a fist full of fries. “That and the fact that he’s a hunky guy. You always avoid them.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Except me, of course.”
    “You should’ve stuck to hockey. It would’ve saved me the trouble of dealing with you.” She took another big swig of his beer. “And it’s not whacko. I have my reasons.”
    “You always do,” Gage said with a tinge of resignation.
    She definitely did not like ballplayers, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Alex.
    She watched him grip the bat, watched his forearms flex as he lifted it and took a swing through the air. Gage was right—he crouched in his stance, moved through his swing—in a way that was every inch primal.
    A responding heat jolted deep inside her. Also primal. But so not good. Not now. And not for a jock, never again.
    She’d fallen hard for a football player when she was finishing up vet school. An audacious striker, he could score a goal from seventy yards out. But it wasn't his passes on the field that lured her in. She’d been naïve then, young, and so enthralled and distracted by his charm that she’d nearly lost out on an important fellowship. When Brett had asked her to marry him, she’d moved heaven and earth to get back from her fieldwork in Africa in time to put the final details together for the wedding. Not that she’d needed to; her mother had hired not one but three wedding planners. You’d have thought they were planning a coronation, not a country wedding in Cornwall.
    The morning of the wedding, Brett sent a two-line letter by messenger saying he couldn’t go through with it. There’d been no call, no explanation—he just jilted her, just like that. He turned up on the telly a week later, all smiles, with a lingerie model on his arm. In the end a friend told her he’d admitted he’d thought it might’ve been a good lark to marry an aristocrat’s daughter, but she’d proven too serious. And Brett was a man who liked booty and fun in one package.
    His uncaring words had hurt more than anything else. Even more than having to face their guests that morning.
    After that, the long faces of her friends and the wry glances from