The Lucky Charm (The Portland Pioneers)

by Beth Bolden

  “A little,” he admitted, and the shy smile he sent her from underneath the brim of his cap made her breath hitch a little in her throat.

  “I’m beginning to think it’s hopeless.” She didn’t really mean to sound so dejected, but her frustration was getting tough to hide, and something about him made all her ugly truths rise right to the surface.

  “Toby being tough on you?” he asked, his own tone carefully neutral.

  “Uh…well…um…” she stammered, annoyed at her own indecision. Jack glanced up at her, and the empathy in his eyes undid every intention of suffering in silence.

  Izzy took a deep, steadying breath, and looked out over the ballpark. “Yes,” she finally said.

  “You’ll get it,” he said with a confidence she envied.

  “You sound pretty sure.”

  He nodded. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly a fan of bullshit. You’re smart, and baseball’s pretty much the stupidest sport. You hit the ball, you throw the ball. Not exactly rocket science.”

  Izzy’s stomach tensed. If it’s so damn easy, she thought, why can’t I understand it? An awkward silence bloomed between them.

  “Listen, that came out wrong,” he said in a rush, and when she glanced back at him, his eyes were intent on her. “Not everyone can understand the game. It’s…more than it seems.” He paused, glancing speculatively over at her. “You know, you’re not going to learn anything from those note cards of yours.”

  “So you’ve said,” she replied calmly. “So why are you really up here?”

  “I thought it might be good to get a bird’s-eye view of the game. And maybe, I thought I could give you something the note cards can’t.”

  “Baseball by osmosis?” she asked hopefully, her heart pounding. It was merely professional excitement. Or at least that’s what she tried telling herself.

  “Something like that,” he said, finally turning to glance at her. “So what do you want to know?”

  “I want to know everything,” she breathed unsteadily, the impact of his eyes—so much bluer than even the sky overhead—hitting her right in the solar plexus. “I want to be good at this. Not just good, great.”

  “Something I understand better than just about anybody else. You’ve come to the right place, darlin’. Now,” he paused, pointing to the field, “I want you to look out there and tell me what you see. Everything you see.”

  Izzy looked out over the baseball field. “The Pioneers are on defense. The Rays are hitting.”

  “And?” he prompted, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  She shrugged. She couldn’t exactly admit that with one glance, he chased away every bit of hard-won knowledge she’d managed to memorize.

  “Jesus, no wonder Toby looks like he’s about to tear his hair out,” Jack muttered, and Izzy felt shame wash over her in a red-hot wave.

  “I know other sports. Football, soccer, basketball,” she cried in frustration. “Baseball isn’t all that different except well…”

  “It’s different?” he finished for her. “In just about every way?”

  “I hate you,” Izzy said flatly, despairing and thrilling at how untrue that statement really was.

  “You’re supposed to be worshiping me in gratitude,” he chuckled.

  “You haven’t taught me anything yet.”

  “True enough.” He paused, glancing out over the field, and to Izzy, it felt like he was taking in and examining every blade of grass and every molecule of dirt. “Baseball is about seeing. And I’m not talking about what team is playing defense.”

  “Imagine that,” Izzy said sarcastically.

  “None of that,” he snapped back almost automatically. “Now really look. Tell me what you see.”

  Izzy rested her free hand on her knee, and leaned forward, gazing intently at the field below. “One of the other team’s players is on first. He’s not on the bag though, he’s maybe three, no…maybe four steps away from the bag, though. Is that normal?” She glanced up at Jack for confirmation and he just smiled at her in that inscrutable way of his that made her want to surprise him.

  “Normal in what way?” he asked.

  “You’re the baseball player. I’m asking you.”

  “He’s reaching. He takes another half a step, I’m thinking he’s going to try to steal.”

  “Steal—that means he’s going to go to second base!” Izzy exclaimed, proud she’d actually remembered one of the terms from her much-maligned notecards.

  “Right. Except that he still needs to take that half a step. But I’m telling you, he’s thinking about it. Look at his body language.” Jack’s hat tilted toward her, and she only vaguely realized he’d leaned near her as he pointed at the player in question. She was too busy looking and actually seeing what he was seeing. “And notice how Sawyer’s hesitating before each pitch? Justin’s signaled to him to beware of the steal.”

  Now that he said it, Izzy could see everything Jack talked about. It was all there, in the minutiae that most people wouldn’t ever think to notice. No wonder she hadn’t understood at first; most sports were all about the obvious.

  But before the words even made it out of her mouth, the player on first they’d been watching took that final half a step, paused for a split second, then took off right as the ball left Isaac Sawyer’s left hand at a dizzying speed. As the opposing player raced toward second, Izzy jumped to her feet, and held her breath with the rest of the stands as Justin Foster, the Pioneers’ catcher, flung the ball toward second. Dust sparkled in the mid-afternoon sunshine as the player slid to the bag.

  There was something fundamentally exhilarating about the moment between the dust settling and the umpire shouting “Out!”

  Izzy blamed that exhilaration for the triumphant screech that left her lungs the moment the ump announced the call. Besides, she wasn’t the only one excited, she reasoned, her ears ringing the cacophony. “I was right!” She glanced over at the man next to her, only to find his eyes brimming with amusement.

  “Yes, you were right,” Jack said, laughing. “But next game I think you need to get something a little less…messy...to drink. Like maybe something with a lid.”

  Izzy glanced down at the empty cup dangling uselessly between her fingers. The wooden slat below her had taken the worst of the spill, but her jeans were splattered with droplets of Diet Coke. “Whoops.” She knew she should be embarrassed, but with the excitement pumping through her veins, she couldn’t quite make herself care that she’d likely humiliated herself in front of him yet again.

  “I was right,” she repeated, and wanted to hug the words close, keep them near and cherish them. It was the first time she’d been right about baseball, and maybe if she was lucky, it wouldn’t be the last.

  “I worried,” he admitted, sitting back down. “I wondered if you’d have the eye.”

  “The eye?” she asked skeptically, gingerly setting the empty cup down next to her.

  “The eye.” A dare twinkled impudently in Jack’s blue eyes, and Izzy felt her blood thrum hotly through her veins. Talking, that’s what she liked doing with him.

  “So, tell me why you like breaking the rules so much.”

  “How do you know I do?” he asked innocently.

  Izzy just rolled her eyes and didn’t dignify his question with a response.

  Jack was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I just do. I like entertaining myself. And maybe I don’t give a shit about other people’s rules. Do you know what Foxy does to entertain himself?”

  “What?”

  “He makes sounds. Like his own soundtrack, while he’s out in center field. But don’t tell anybody I told you. That’s kind of our secret.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “We have secrets now?”

&nb
sp; He smiled. “Yep.” He rose to his feet, and gave her a last backward glance before turning to head down the bleacher stairs. “Now don’t do anything wild and go diving after any stray balls if I’m not here to catch you.”

  “Jerk,” she retorted, but the word didn’t have the heat it should have.

  Damn him. Now all she could think about was him catching her again.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jack stumbled onto Izzy and Noah almost completely by accident.

  And by accidentally, he meant he’d figured out what time Izzy typically arrived at the park, and in the last two weeks, had learned to time her arrival with his. After all, he had a reputation to protect, and that meant he couldn’t exactly approach the media for the sheer hell of it. No, every approach had to be a carefully arranged accident.

  Which was why he just happened to accidentally be in the parking lot at 10:03 a.m., and when he exited his rental, he just happened to, you know, accidentally scan the parking lot for her.

  But today, it wasn’t just Izzy that he’d managed to catch, but Noah, too.

  They were laughing together, and Izzy’s smile was genuine—not that completely fake, dead-eyed imitation that she used most of the time. Jack had gotten a few of the real articles out of her, but Foxy was in a rare—or maybe not-so-rare—zone, and Izzy was clearly very amused by whatever charming bullshit he was spouting.

  Even worse, they were standing between her rental and Foxy’s rental Mercedes, white with gold trim, an ostentatiously shiny example of everything Jack didn’t give a shit about. He barely gave his own black SUV an off-handed glance as he swung his bag across his shoulder, pulled his ball cap low over his eyes and stalked over to confront his best friend and the woman he hadn’t been able to get out of his head since he’d taught her to smell a steal a mile off.

  “Fox.” It was rare he called Noah by his real last name—almost always it was the bastardization of his last name that he claimed had originated in high school—but right now, Jack wasn’t in the mood for jovial bullshit. Okay, he hadn’t exactly called dibs on the new reporter, mostly because that required admitting she was his brand of cute, but Foxy still should have known better.

  Noah looked up and Izzy’s eyes widened in what had to be fake surprise at his appearance. Jack had met her in the parking lot a good ten mornings running. If he wasn’t so desperate, it would nearly be embarrassing. He’d nearly had her giggling, Jack thought and casually considered smacking his best friend in the face, right in those unbearably shiny silver aviator sunglasses that probably cost a month of renting that god-awful Mercedes.

  “Jack, I’m glad I caught you,” Izzy said, and the undeniable eagerness in her voice went a little bit toward soothing his temper. “I read this blog last night and I want to do a story on it. I saw Noah and already got his opinion.” Izzy looked straight at him, totally professional but with just enough heat in those incredible eyes to grab every last bit of his attention. “I know you usually pull into the lot right after me, but not today, I guess.”

  Okay, so she’d noticed his consistent presence. He’d been a little worried that she hadn’t. You had to hope the girl you liked was smart enough to pick up on the fact that she’d developed a semi stalker.

  “I’m all about the routine,” Jack said with a lame smile. “So what’s the blog about?”

  Foxy leaned against the bumper of Izzy’s rental, crossed his arms, biceps bulging in what Jack disgustedly assumed had to be on purpose and smirked. “You’re not going to believe this. Someone’s posting rumors about major-league wives. Some real Page Six juicy stuff.”

  “Uhhh,” Jack wasn’t sure what to say. This was the piece Izzy was excited about doing? And what was Page Six?

  “That is not it,” Izzy laughed, “though I did run across that blog, too. But the actually interesting blog was about baseball superstitions. I couldn’t believe the crazy things some players did.”

  “Superstitions are tricky like that. They don’t mean anything if they’re not crazy,” Jack admitted.

  A sly look dawned in Izzy’s eyes. “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?”

  Noah chose that moment to laugh long and hard. “Better you don’t ask, Dalton. Don’t want to scare you away.”

  But Izzy wasn’t so easily persuaded and she gave him another cool, serious look. “Seriously. What’s your superstition, Jack?”

  “Honestly, superstitions are a load of crap. I know a lot of ballplayers have them, but I’m a rational guy. I train hard, I play well. End of story.”

  “You really don’t, do you?” Izzy seemed almost mystified at the truth. “I never would have believed you’d be the one to go all straight on me.”

  “He’s plenty straight,” Noah chimed in, with a knowing wink that Jack wished he could make Izzy unsee. The real truth—that Foxy had clearly figured out his “accidental” routine and that this morning’s interception was hardly accidental—was becoming painfully obvious.

  Jack just shrugged. “I believe that two things and two things only lead to a win. One, support your team. Two, play your best game. Nothing else you can do.”

  “Really, Dalton, he’s an aberration. Interview the other guys, you’ll have plenty for your story, but this one here? He’s a lost cause.”

  She smiled then. “Oh?” she questioned in a light voice. “I don’t think so at all. Catch you boys later.” The knowing look she threw him had him momentarily stunned and before he could possibly recover, she was already halfway across the parking lot, high heels clicking on the asphalt.

  “Damn it. How does she move so fast? She’s in heels.” Jack reslung his bag over his shoulder and watched her disappear into the media trailer.

  “And what were you going to do about it anyway, stud? Tell her good morning for the fifteenth time?”

  “Maybe,” Jack growled defensively.

  “The good news is I saved you from doing the same old routine. She’s clearly ready to move on from that.” Foxy picked up his bag and they headed across the parking lot to the clubhouse.

  “She told you that?” Jack really hoped he didn’t seem too eager. Except that he was, and if she liked him, he wouldn’t seem nearly so pathetic when he finally managed to work up the nerve to ask her out.

  Foxy rolled his eyes. “No, you idiot. She told you that.”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  Noah stopped suddenly, and faced him, pushing up those ridiculous sunglasses. “She knows you’re practically stalking her, and she hasn’t reported you to the cops yet. She likes you. She wants you to ask her out.”

  “You know, if your baseball career doesn’t pan out, there’s always the Psychic Network.”

  Foxy made a frustrated noise deep in his throat. “How about, if you don’t, I will?”

  Jack had never thought of himself as a particularly jealous person. He still didn’t. But the vision of Izzy laughing with Noah was still vivid. Too vivid.

  “Fine, fine. I’ll ask her out.” Eventually.

  “And I don’t mean someday. I mean, now, today.”

  Jack hesitated. “Right now?”

  It was amazing Foxy’s eyes didn’t roll out of his head. “No, after the game is fine. I meant, don’t spend the next two weeks accidentally trying to run into her so you can ask her out. It’s okay to approach her. It’s okay to let her know that you like her. Women like being liked.”

  “I know something about women,” Jack retorted. “I’m not a total idiot.”

  “Yeah, okay. Sure.” Foxy didn’t sound exactly convinced.

  “I’m a little rusty is all,” he added.

  “Whatever you tell yourself, Bennett. Just ask her out.”

  From: Corey Rood

  To: Isabel Dalton

 
Date: March 10, 2013 @ 8:04 AM

  Subject: Jack Bennett

  Ms. Dalton,

  I understand that you’re a reporter for the Portland Pioneers. I have a story you might be interested in hearing. It involves Jack Bennett, a neighbor of ours, who persists in ruining the serene and exclusive neighborhood where we reside with his antics. Please respond if you would be interested in learning more about the situation and the lengths we’ve gone to resolve the issue with Mr. Bennett.

  Thank you,

  Corey Rood

  President – West Barrington Heights Neighborhood Association

  One of Toby’s more annoying habits was how long it took him to make a decision. He’d sit and deliberate for what felt like hours, and Izzy had begun to suspect it had nothing to do with indecisiveness and everything to do with him enjoying making her wait on him.

  Basically, Toby’s entire existence was one long power trip.

  “I’ve decided we’re going to sit on it,” Toby finally said. Izzy glanced at her watch and mentally rolled her eyes that it had been forty-three minutes since she’d handed Toby the printed email. If one took into consideration five minutes for reading, which she felt was very generous, then he’d left her waiting on his decision for thirty-eight minutes.

  That was thirty-eight minutes of her life that she’d never get back. It was also thirty-eight minutes she’d had to sit in silence and try not to think about Jack Bennett and his kind-of-adorable stalking methods. From any other guy, she might have been more than a little creeped out, but Jack’s shy persistence was, slowly but surely, winning her over.

  “Why?” Izzy knew it was pointless to ask, but she missed the days of collaborative decision-making with Charlie. Wrong, she thought bitterly, she just missed Charlie.

  “Not the right time,” Toby announced. “We’re going to sit on it until the optimum moment. Either when Bennett leads the All Star voting or when he bats .100 and gets benched.”