A League of Her Own. Karen Rock

She glanced over at the dugout and hesitated before joining the jabbering crew. Several glanced her way, their eyes speculative.

      “Nice job, Skipper!” yelled Valdez. The rest of the men only nodded her way, then turned toward a grim-faced Garrett. Dean jogged over to join the group.

      “I know you’re disappointed, but I’m not,” she overheard Dean say as she neared. “This team needs you.”

      “Yes, we do,” she echoed, hoping she hadn’t damaged their working relationship with the contest.

      “That was impressive.” Garrett turned to her, pulling the sunglasses off the back of his cap and sliding them on. Hiding his incredible eyes. “It looks like you have me for the rest of the year. Despite all of this, I’ll give you a hundred percent.”

      Impressed at his professionalism, she nodded. “Thank you, Garrett. I’ll see you at practice later today. We’ll discuss a few tweaks in your delivery then.”

      Garrett nodded, his mouth tight. “See you there.” He walked off with his teammates, leaving Heather feeling unsettled, despite her victory. It was her first step forward as team manager, and Garrett had promised her his best.

      She pictured his handsome face.

      So why, then, didn’t that seem like enough?

       CHAPTER FOUR

      “YOU DID WHAT?” Heather’s father demanded from his seat at the kitchen table.

      The knife stilled in her hand, mayonnaise dripping from it onto the turkey sandwich she’d been making. Fidgety thoughts darted through her mind like squirrels in trees. How to explain without making her father lose all faith in her? Go back on their agreement to let her manage the team?

      “Garrett Wolf asked for a release, and I challenged him to a pitching contest to earn it.” She dropped Scout a piece of turkey.

      Her father’s fist thumped the table, rattling the cutlery and making his glass of skim milk jump. Her heart leaped with it. She was in for a tongue-lashing. She knew it as surely as Reed’s trick knee predicted rain. Only this would be a tempest.

      “I signed him, Heather,” he growled, the lines that ran from the corners of his mouth to his chin deepening, waves of disapproval rolling from him and crashing over Heather. “He wasn’t yours to risk losing.”

      She forced her clenched hands to unfurl and smear the rest of fat-free mayo, add a piece of light cheese and close up the sandwich. While her reply ducked behind her heavy tongue, she silently cut the perfect diagonal line her father demanded, added carrot sticks to the plate and brought it to the table. When she pulled out the high-backed wooden chair opposite her father, it scraped against their tiled floor. Other than his grunt of a thank-you, it was the only noise in the open eating space.

      When he bit into his sandwich, her tongue loosened. “There was no risk. I wasn’t going to lose.” Though for a moment, she had to admit, that had been a real possibility.

      Her father forced down his bite and lifted his cup to point it at her. “You’re a college-level player, Heather. These are professional athletes. You got lucky. That’s it.”

      “It was that or he was going to ask to be released from his contract. We could have lost him either way,” she insisted.