wonder you thought it was dull as dirt.” The comment still smarted. How could anyone not see the poetry in baseball? He supposed someone who banged fenders for a living might overlook the elegance of a well-turned double play. “This is a little different. This is Yankee Stadium. It’s the Mecca of all baseball.”
“If you say so,” she agreed slowly, her little bit of a Western twang delighting his ear. “Seems like a lot doesn’t happen for nine innings, then all of a sudden hell breaks loose and ten runs come in and it’s over. Then someone’s crying.”
He chuckled again, her description of a Little League game bringing back a whole bunch of memories. “Haven’t you ever heard? There’s no crying in baseball.”
“Whoever said that never saw an eight-year-old get his front end walloped with a hard ball,” she said, looking out the window again. After a second, she turned back to him, a questioning expression on her face. “Would you like to know about your mother?” she asked quietly.
He regarded her for a long time, vaguely aware that there just wasn’t enough air in the closed-in cab. Her gaze was demanding, her lips slightly parted as she waited for his response.
He leaned in enough to almost feel her warm breath near his mouth. She didn’t move.
“No.” With one finger, he tapped the shadow of a cleft in her chin. “Would you like to know where our seats are?”
She raised that gorgeously arched eyebrow again but didn’t move. “No. I’ll just be surprised.”
“Pleasantly,” he promised, backing away to give her a little breathing space. He’d made his point.
“Did you bring that envelope?” she asked.
He patted the pocket of his suit jacket. “Yep.”
“Good. I need to get to the airport in time to make my flight. And I expect to have it with me.”
And she’d made her point, as well.
This could be a very close game tonight.
When the cabbie dropped them off at a busy street corner, they stood in the shadow of a massive structure. The streets around them teemed with people and hummed with energy.
How the blazes did this happen, Jo thought with a flash of panic? Yankee Stadium wasn’t in her plan.
Ever since Mother Earth had caused a seismic shift in Jo’s priorities, her plan was to adopt the child she already loved. She’d assumed it would be simple. Callie’s father had long before relinquished parental rights, wanting to hide from the fact that he was a married weasel who made promises to Katie he’d never keep.
And for a while, everything progressed smoothly. She’d waded through a sea of endless paperwork, passed the prodding interviews, charmed the Child Services bureaucrats, restructured her shop, her home, her very life. Until Jo’s mother sat her down and broke the story of Aunt Chris’s secret life before she’d come to Sierra Springs.
Stunned and saddened, but undeterred, Jo had spent hours quite literally digging through the debris that was Christine McGrath’s life. And more hours slogging through the Internet for information on her sons, then wrestling with what was the appropriate, safest, right course of action.
In the end she was sure she knew what that was. Katie was gone, and so was the woman Jo grew up calling “Aunt” Chris. But somehow, for some reason, an infant had survived nature’s rumbling fury, and Jo was willing to do absolutely anything to be sure Callie was safe and protected and loved.
Even make a side trip to Yankee Stadium.
She stole a look at the man who’d brought her to said stadium. His preoccupation with baseball in the midst of a family crisis confirmed that Cameron McGrath was as unfeeling and uncaring as his father, who had forced his pregnant wife out of the house. A man who would be repelled by the idea of being saddled with someone else’s mistake. That’s why she picked this brother to approach with the papers. Amid news reports of his business success, she’d seen a pattern of brief romances with socialites, increasing her expectations that Cameron would be most like the man who’d cast out Christine. True, the fact that he was a lawyer unnerved her. But more important, he was the unattached McGrath brother, so he’d be the least likely to want a baby. And as the oldest, she hoped his signature would carry the most legal weight.
So far he’d done a fine imitation of unfeeling. Refusing to discuss his mother. Changing the subject. Not even asking how Callie had survived the earthquake. Dragging Jo through New York. Even flirting with her. But she sensed something under his smooth, polished surface. Something so powerful that it qualified as the polar opposite of unfeeling.
Until she knew what feelings he hid, it wouldn’t kill her to pretend to like baseball.
“This…” he interrupted her thoughts with a grand gesture toward the mountain of concrete stadium in front of them, “is the House that Ruth Built.”
Next to where they stood was a three-story-high replica of a baseball bat. She set her hat back to get a good look at it and nodded. “Mecca.”
He grinned and guided her toward one of the gates. “Don’t get me started on statistics and history. I’ll bore you to death.”
She doubted Cameron McGrath could bore her. He could probably infuriate her, he most certainly could fascinate her, and, Lord, he could surely arouse her if she gave him the chance. The man was a walking powder keg of masculine, seductive energy.
He led her toward a small crowd at one of the gates. The sensation of his hand on the small of her back sent a pool of warmth through her.
He greeted the ticket-taker, and guided her through a turnstile into the stadium. The sounds and smells of early summer evaporated as they entered what felt like the interior of a giant cement whale, replaced by a medley of foreign scents and noises. The entire place echoed with the din of raised voices and the clatter of feet on concrete. Without thinking, she took Cameron’s hand as he bounded through the labyrinth of horizontal ramps, his confident steps energized by an air of familiarity and a sense of urgency.
He paused long enough to listen to the muffled words of an announcer. “We’re up. Bottom of the first. Let’s go.”
He tugged at her hand and she had to stretch her stride to keep up with him, ignoring the vendors’ pleas for them to buy hot dogs, nachos or peanuts. She tucked her hat under her arm so it didn’t sail off in their wake, and inhaled the overpowering scent of grilled meat and onions. She hadn’t eaten all day, and the aroma made her mouth water.
But her overloaded senses obliterated the hunger. Sudden bursts of cheers and applause, flashes of blinding light and green grass through tunnels that led to the field, and the unnervingly comforting sensation of holding his hand all managed to make her a little dizzy.
Dizzy? What the heck was that all about? She hammered steel into submission for a living. She hiked mile-high mountains for fun. She was the original tough chick. How could one foray into Yankee Stadium on the arm of some maniacal fan make her dizzy? It had to be the documents that he held in his jacket pocket, the importance of her mission.
Somehow she had to get through this game and get his signature. Then she’d tear off to the airport and fly home to Callie. With her mission accomplished.
“Pray there’s no score,” he said to her as they approached a uniformed security guard. “It’s bad enough to miss the first pitch, but missing a run could kill me.”
“Cam, we were worried about you!” The guard held out his hand like a fist and Cameron knuckled it with a similar gesture.
“Eddie, my man. What’s goin’ on?”
“Three up, three down in the top of the first, and let me tell you Mussina’s slider looks friggin’ magical.” Eddie’s nasal New York accent was so thick, Jo had to concentrate to understand him.
“Who’s up?” Cameron asked.
“A-Rod.”