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CAUGHT BY YOU
Love Between the Bases #2
Jennifer Bernard
Releasing Dec 29th, 2015
Avon Books
Love comes out of left field in the second novel in USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Bernard's sexy baseball-themed series...
Months of alternately flirting and bickering with Kilby Catfish catcher Mike Solo just turned into the hottest kiss of Donna MacIntyre's life—and that's a major league complication. Any hint of scandal could keep her from getting her son back from her well-connected ex. Then Mike comes up with a game-changing idea: a marriage proposal that could help win her case—even as it jeopardizes her
heart.
heart.
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Mike looked around at the milling
Roadhouse crowd. Denim jackets and cowboy boots, short skirts and
long legs, plenty of lip gloss and teased hair, glimpses of cleavage,
earrings dangling against bare skin, pretty girls flipping their
hair, laughing, teasing, sexy, cute …
And not Donna.
He drained his club soda. “Mañana,”
he said to the other Catfish, who stared after him with expressions
of shock and betrayal. He never left the party early. Too
bad. The Roadhouse
without Donna was like a game without a hit. A dinner without steak.
A shower without water.
It just wasn’t worth the bother.
He strode out of the Roadhouse into
the still-warm night. Up above, stars bedazzled the blue-velvet sky.
The Wade kid had it right. Play well, get out of town. That was the
plan. Definitely, for sure, forget
Donna.
Unless, of course, she was standing
right in front of him.
“Donna?”
He blinked, but she didn’t
disappear. On his way to the stadium for batting practice, he’d
stopped at the Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee and a cruller. Now his
coffee steamed, forgotten, in his left hand while he drank in the
sight of Donna MacIntyre. She stood next to a miniscule red Kia in
the drive-through, a little brown bag in one hand and a Big Gulp of
coffee in the other.
She looked … different.
“You are Donna, right? Donna
MacIntyre?”
She rolled her eyes with a
Lord-help-us expression that confirmed her identity. “Solo. How’ve
you been?”
“Great. What are you wearing?”
It looked horrible, whatever it was. Boxy, boring blue, below the
knee. Its only benefit was that it showed off her calves.
Unfortunately, they were covered in beige panty hose. “Did you just
come from Salvation Army band practice?”
“That’s an extremely
inappropriate comment.”
Yeah, it was, but he was rattled.
“Sorry. I’m a little traumatized. Are you on a Mormon mission or
something? What did you do to your hair?”
The state of her hair made him want
to cry. All the curls had been flat-ironed out of it; he knew the
process because his sisters used it on their curly black mops. The
color hadn’t changed, thank the saints, but she wore a headband
that hid most of the glorious red. A headband! And her hair was short
too. She’d chopped it to shoulder-length. All that wild, beautiful
hair, sitting on a salon floor somewhere.
“Wait, let me guess. You’re on
your way to an encyclopedia convention.”
Looking extremely annoyed, she
brushed past him. He caught the scent of fresh woodlands. At least
that hadn’t changed. As she peered into the Kia, he followed her
gaze and saw a sleeping kid strapped into a car seat in the back. The
window was halfway open, giving the child plenty of air. He had red
hair and his mouth lolled open.
“Is that the Shark?”
For the first time, she looked
kindly at him. “You remember about the Shark?”
“Of course. You’re a nanny for a
Shark. Hard to forget that. Or the rest of it.” He raised one
eyebrow suggestively, but she ignored his double entendre. His
suspicion grew that something was wrong in Donna’s world. In the
old days, she never let a chance to flirt pass her by.
“I’m not a nanny anymore,” she
told him, circling around to the driver’s side. “I’m a
receptionist at a dentist’s office. You should come by sometime.
We’re famous for our root canals.”
Cradling her coffee and paper bag
against her chest, she put her key into the lock on the driver’s
side door. Damn. She was about to drive away, and he didn’t know
when he’d see her again.
“You know, I could use a good
teeth cleaning. They look kind of green up on the Jumbotron. Where’s
your office?”
“Oh. Where? It’s, um, at the
corner of Twelfth and Forget I Said Anything.”
“Ouch. Now there’s the Donna I
remember.”
She fumbled with the lock. “Well,
forget her.”
“I tried that. It wasn’t any
fun.”
She glanced up at him, her eyes
narrowed, and a zing shot
between them. For the first time since he’d gotten back to Kilby,
Mike felt completely happy with life. He bounded around the car and
lifted her coffee out of her way. “There, is that easier?”
“You don’t have to help me. I’m
fine. Don’t you have some balls to play with?”
“Ouch again. I think our Donna’s
back in business.” He squinted at her. “Are you wearing a
football pin? Now you’re just breaking my heart.”
“Welcome to Texas,” she said,
all sassy. “Where football is king, and baseball is the nerdy
neighbor boy your mom makes you play with.”
“Them’s fighting words, Donna
MacIntyre. You can’t just say something like that and not give me a
chance to prove how superior baseball is in every possible way.”
She turned the key in the lock and
swung open the door. He stepped back to avoid getting a crotch full
of South Korean automotive metal. In the car seat, the child’s legs
twitched, and a low wail began.
“Gotta go,” said Donna, suddenly
in a big hurry. “Nice running into you and all. Have a good
season.”
“Mama!!!” the boy cried. Mike
could see it was a boy now. A boy with bright red hair the exact
color of Donna’s.
“Shhh, sweetie. It’s okay. I’m
here, and I got you some milk.” She stuck a straw in the cup and
handed it to him.
Abruptly, the crying stopped. Donna
shot Mike a complicated look—he detected regret, warning, pleading,
and probably a few more layers—then closed the door.
He watched her drive away,
speculation running rampant. So Donna had a kid. She’d never
mentioned any such person. Neither had Caleb or Sadie. Not that it
was his business.
Except … well, he kind of wanted
to make it his business. How many dental offices could there be in
Kilby, Texas?
She left big city life for true love in Alaska, where she now lives with her husband and stepdaughters. She’s no stranger to book success, as she also writes erotic novellas under a naughty secret name not to be mentioned at family gatherings.
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