Fielder's Choice by Pamela Aares

but his hands stopped short. He gently clasped her waist and moved her back a step toward the olive tree.
    “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said.
    The look of apology in his eyes was genuine. It made her want to kiss him again.
    “All’s fair in love and war,” she said as he removed his hands from her waist and dropped them to his sides. Already she wanted more of his touch, more of the luscious, drug-like feeling he aroused, even though neither time nor place was appropriate. As for the appropriateness of the man...
    “I believe this is a war game,” she said with a toss of her head. Her feelings were warring in her, that was for sure. And if the pulse hammering in his neck was any indication, his were too.
    The shrill sound of a whistle shocked her back to reality.
    “Game’s over,” Matt said.
    She couldn’t read the look in his eyes. She was used to being able to read people. That she couldn’t read him lit a fire of challenge in her, as if air or light were reaching some place inside her that waited coiled, hungry and ready to spring to life.
    “Perhaps we should go find out who won,” she said, pulling her T-shirt back into place.
    He laughed then, a deep laugh from the gut.
    “Laughing becomes you,” she said as they jogged back to the boundary line.
    “Probably becomes most people.” He ran a hand through his hair and shook an olive leaf out of it.
    He probably hadn’t meant to, but the gesture displayed the bulge of his biceps and the incredibly well-defined muscles of his forearm. He couldn’t know how his simple gesture lit her core, just as if someone had struck a match.
    “By the way,” he said, “nice tackle back there. You might have a career ahead of you.”
    Their pulse-hammering kiss was more on her mind than her tackle, but his compliment sent a thrill through her. “I do have brothers,” she said. “Some skill is required to reach adulthood, even in my family. Tackles might be my forte.”
    He laughed again, and she heard the release in it; a path of hot desire teased through her like a drug.
    Sophie ran up to Matt and gave him a puzzled smile.
    “Dad, you look happy.” She lifted her eyes to Alana’s. “He’s always happy when his team wins.”
    But Alana knew it was more than the win. She knew the feeling of letting loose. Matt could probably use a lot more of it. She, on the other hand, could probably use a little less letting loose. Maybe a whole lot less.
    In that moment, Alana envied him. His life made sense; he had ground under him. He seemed to know what he wanted, had a kid who adored him and a profession he loved.
    Alana knelt down to straighten Sophie’s pigtails.
    “You can’t watch the trophy ceremonies with pigtails that are askew,” Alana teased.
    “Dad helped me with them.”
    “I’m not much for doing hair,” Matt confessed.
    “But you should see him hit .” Sophie tipped her face to Alana’s. “He can really hit. We have awards for it. Lots of them. A whole shelf. I’ll show you sometime if you come over. I get to keep two of them in my room. Do you have any awards?”
    “Only one.”
    “What for?”
    A ripple of self-consciousness tightened the muscles in Alana’s throat. “It’s just for painting. For one painting.” That she’d been awarded it by the Sorbonne, she didn’t say.
    “Can I see it? The painting, I mean.”
    “It’s in Paris.” Alana felt Matt’s eyes on her as she talked with his daughter. He didn’t seem like one of those parents that hovered, but he did seem extremely cautious.
    “Maybe I’ll bring it here someday. If I do, I promise to show it to you.”
    That was crossing a line. Promising kids anything was out of bounds and Alana knew it.
    She purposely didn’t look at Matt, not wanting to see the closed expression return to his face.
     
     

Chapter 9
     
    Matt considered inviting Alana to a game. Surely Alex and Scotty had never seen her as he was seeing her now, or they wouldn’t have warned him off.