Fielder's Choice

  Chapter 28

  Matt turned off the freeway and headed toward the ranch. As he crested the hill he saw the windmill standing on the western hill like a majestic herald, its stationary blades frozen against the blue summer sky.

  He screeched to a halt in front of her house, not caring that he’d thrown up a cloud of dust. He took the steps two at time and rang the brass doorbell.

  A woman about the age of his mother answered the door.

  “I’m here to speak with Alana,” he said. Then, realizing he was being rude, he added, “I’m Matt Darrington. I’m a—”

  A what? He couldn’t in any honesty call himself a friend.

  “I just need to see her.”

  The woman shook her head, almost imperceptibly.

  He was too late.

  He raked a hand through his hair and stepped back.

  “Would you like a coffee?” the woman asked in softly accented English.

  If he had another cup of coffee, they’d have to haul out the defibrillator. Except you had to have a heart for those things to work. His had just given up the ghost.

  “No thank you, ma’am. I’ll just be going.”

  “You can wait here if you’d like. She should be down the hill shortly. She just had a few last-minute details to handle.”

  “What hill?” His heart raced with hope.

  The woman pointed to the knoll where the windmill stood.

  Matt sprinted up the hill so fast that his lungs burned more than his racing thoughts.

  He saw her before she saw him. She was giving orders to a team of people toting clipboards and computer tablets. Her body language conveyed an easy, competent grace. She looked happy. For a moment he thought about leaving. But just as he stepped back, she looked up. At him.

  She shaded her face with one hand and stared as if he were a ghost. Then she excused herself from the group and strolled over to him.

  “I thought you’d already left,” he said, not knowing what else to say.

  “Left?”

  “For Paris. For your party.”

  “The party’s right here.” She waved a hand toward the windmill and then looked down at her watch. “In about thirty seconds, in fact.”

  She smiled at the puzzled look on his face and didn’t explain. The other members of the group had pulled out cameras and phones. He recognized one of them as the woman who ran the summer camps and another as the man who’d organized and refereed the Capture the Flag game.

  Alana led a countdown and at three, two, one, everyone joined in. Above their heads the windmill began to turn, white blades cutting through a blue sky. A cheer went up from the group, and Alana clasped him in an enthusiastic hug. Then she caught herself and pushed back, color washing her cheeks.

  He wanted to lift her into his arms and carry her straight to her bedroom. He wanted to go down on one knee and ask for a second chance.

  But damn if Marcel didn’t saunter up the hill right at that moment. This time Matt really would deck the guy.

  “You’ll be late,” Alana said to Marcel with a laugh.

  “One thing about having your own plane is that you can leave when you wish,” Marcel said.

  “What time are you leaving?” Matt asked Alana, ignoring the self-satisfied grin on Marcel’s face. He needed to know how long he had to make his case. Although with Frenchie standing there, arguing his case seemed rather pointless.

  “I’m not going anywhere. We have a hundred neighbors and dignitaries coming to celebrate the windmill in”—she checked her watch—“in less than an hour.” She looked over her sunglasses at Marcel. “Sure you don’t want to stay?”

  “I’ve seen it. Spinning. Lovely.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Brava, my dear.”

  Matt couldn’t believe it when Marcel raised a brow at him, turned and then headed down the hill.

  The staffers had stayed a polite distance from this exchange, but Matt saw the curious glances.

  He clasped his fingers around Alana’s wrist. “We need to talk. Away from all this. Someplace private.”

  Her pulse leaped under his fingertips. His own was pounding in his ears. He’d barely laid a hand on her, and yet all he could think of was holding her, kissing her, making her his.

  “I need to eat,” Alana said. “Before the ceremony. I’ll faint if I don’t.”

  Though she didn’t return his touch in any way, the light in her eyes gave him hope.

  “The kitchen is fine with me,” he said, taking her hand and practically pulling her down the hill.

  He pushed open the door of the kitchen, thankful that no one was about. He meant to wait, he really did, but his intentions were useless. He crushed her against the door and took her lips with his. Possibility and promise loomed as she met his hungry kiss. If the future had a taste, it would be the sweetness of Alana’s lips. He sank into the passion firing between them, let the heat and light pour into him. She ran her fingers to the back of his neck and drew him closer. With that one move, she cracked open a withered region of his heart, an empty place, the place where love was supposed to live. He deepened his kiss and slid his hand up under her cardigan, pulling her hard against his chest, craving her skin against his, craving to close the distance between them.

  Words formed. He had an apology to make, a bridge of hope and promise to construct. He pulled away enough to look in her eyes. Answering passion fired there and in the pulsing of her body against his hands and where his hips pressed against her waist.

  “Alana, I was an ass. I don’t expect—”

  She pulled his head to her and kissed him with greater fury than he’d ever felt from a woman. She bit at his lower lip and felt him grow hard against her.

  She laughed. God, she laughed.

  He lifted her in his arms and carried her into the hall. He was vaguely aware of passing the woman who’d met him at the door, but he didn’t care.

  With passion meeting passion, they tore off their clothes as soon as they reached her bedroom. He didn’t wait to get her to the bed; he pulled her down onto the soft carpet and showed her with his body what she meant to him.

  After they caught their breaths, a gaping silence raged as she studied his face. What she wanted to see, he wasn’t sure, but he knew what he had to say. He pulled on his briefs and trousers. For the conversation he had in mind, it seemed only right to be dressed.

  “I don’t expect that you’ll forgive me right away,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady as he buttoned his shirt. His blood pulsed in surges, not letting him master the calm tone he’d hoped for.

  “I’ve been practicing forgiveness. Even you might qualify.”

  The sight of her lying naked on the carpet in the rays of the morning sun nearly made him forget what he knew he had to say. He pulled a soft-looking throw from the chair near her bed and draped it over her. She leaned up on her elbows and tugged it around her shoulders. The smile she cast made the words scramble in his head. He swallowed and focused.

  “I want to stay in San Francisco and play for the Giants. That is, if you’ll consider giving me another chance.”

  A half smile came to her gorgeous, still-swollen lips, but she didn’t answer. She held out her hand, and he helped her up. The throw slipped from her, and he gulped down the impulse to trace every curve of her with his hands, with his mouth, with his body. Without a word, she crossed the room and took her robe from a hook and slipped it on.

  He’d talked about the team. He couldn’t believe he’d talked about the team. She probably didn’t give a damn about the team.

  “My parents are moving here during the season,” he went on in an attempt to drag up the logical phrases he’d practiced as he’d madly driven the country roads to the ranch that morning. “They’ll help with Sophie,” he explained, attempting to improve the case he was making.

  Still she didn’t answer, only watched him with a look he couldn’t read.

  “Alana, talk to me.”

  “I’m
waiting,” she said with a grin. She came within a few steps of him and crossed her arms. Tapped her foot for emphasis. “Waiting for the good part.”

  “I want...” How could he say what he wanted? Why should she care what he wanted?

  “I love you,” he blurted out. His declaration in no way resembled the careful scripting he’d perfected on the drive from the city. “I love you and I don’t want to live without you.”

  A cloud came into her eyes, and all signs of humor disappeared from her face.

  “I’ve decided I want to stay here, to make the ranch work,” she said softly. “I want to help make it into the place my grandmother dreamed it could be.”

  She backed a couple of steps away.

  “I make mistakes, Matt. Lots of mistakes. I am sometimes out of control and hard to handle. Ask anyone in my family—I’m trouble.”

  “If I can’t love you at your worst, I don’t deserve you at your best,” he said. “I’m up for trouble.” He moved close again, erasing the distance she’d put between them.

  “Fielder’s choice,” she said as she traced her fingertips down his chest.

  “What?”

  “Jackie told me that when the game is on the line and you go for the hard out, for the riskier but more important move—for the game changer—that it’s called a fielder’s choice.”

  “You’re the game changer,” he said, pulling her to him and dipping his lips to hers.

  She pushed him away.

  “There’s Sophie to consider,” she said, suddenly very serious. “I’m not sure I’m up for being a stepmother, not sure I’d know how to do it.”

  “Hell, I’m not sure I know how to be a dad. We can’t do any worse than our parents, and look at us.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Not exactly a recommendation.”

  “Sophie’s well-being is my responsibility, and I can tell you honestly that you’re the best thing that ever happened to either of us. She knows you have a good heart. The bumps in the road won’t be any worse than in any other blended family. “

  Family. He’d said it. He wanted her to be part of his family.

  “I want to marry you, Alana.” He tucked a tendril of her hair behind her ear. “Marry me.”

  She smiled then, but rubbed her hands against her belly. “I really do have to eat. I was so nervous about telling Marcel that it was over that I couldn’t eat breakfast.”

  Matt wasn’t sure he heard her right.

  She leveled her gaze at him.

  “That means yes, Matt, I’ll marry you. I’ve loved you from the minute you caught me falling from that ladder, maybe from the first minute I saw you. And definitely since the night we first made love. I tried to pretend that night meant nothing to me, but it meant everything. It changed everything. ” He opened his mouth to whoop, to cheer, but she held a finger against his lips as a wry smile curved into hers. “When we met I thought meeting you was a trick of fate. Now I know it is. But I warn you—hiring a full-time nanny and cook would be worlds easier than life dealing with me.”

  She traced her fingers around his chest and lit a fire in his groin.

  “Fielder’s choice, remember?” he said as he took hold of her hand and pulled her close and lowered his mouth to taste her lips. She gave him a teasing nip that nearly drove him wild. “I’ll take my chances.”

  She grinned as he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. He laid her on the comforter and followed her down.

  “Um,” she murmured. “Perhaps I can postpone breakfast. But I warn you, last chance at the nanny and the cook.” She delivered the warning between kisses.

  When the phone rang, she pushed away from him, snapping to attention.

  “The windmill! You made me forget my duties,” she said in a teasing tone.

  She ran to the window, and he followed. The blades were turning slowly, flashing white in the late morning sun.

  “Oh my God! Zav will be furious! I told him I’d be there to greet the people whose arms he twisted.” She scrambled furiously for her clothes. “I have to go, or he’ll have my head for being late.”

  Matt tugged her back and closed his lips over hers. She pushed him away and wrinkled her nose in protest.

  “Don’t you have a game?”

  “Night game,” he said, drawing her back to him and circling her wrists with his fingers.

  “Then we’ll just have to continue this after the party,” she said with an official-looking smile. “I have a job to do, Mr. Darrington.”

  He kissed her again, and the reality of a future with her lit through him. Her kind of trouble was exactly what his life had been missing. She wiggled in his grip, but he held fast and deepened his kiss, smiling against her lips as her body melted against his. Then he slowly released first one wrist and then the other.

  “Wouldn’t want to get in the way of a woman with a game plan.”

  When she smiled demurely, as demurely as a naked and love-flushed woman could smile, he grinned back, both at peace and excited, primed for a lifetime of adventure with Alana.

  “Besides,” he said, dangling her lace bra from his fingers, “we’ve got plenty of time to fit everything in. I’m trained up for extra innings.”