He just watched her, then turned and pitched to Lydia.
She swung and missed. Two times.
He tossed the ball lightly in one hand, then casually walked over to Smitty. He stood real close to her so no one could see between them and leaned down and said, “You run real good, sweetheart. You know that?”
She grinned real cocky and planted her hands on her hips. “Yep.”
Very quietly he whispered thickly, “You jiggle in all the right places.”
She didn’t say a word.
“All those places I kissed last night.”
She took a deep breath.
“Hmmm. You know where I mean?”
She just looked at him a little uncomfortably.
“Here...” He grazed the ball over her breast, and she stiffened. “And here...” He moved his lips close to her ear and touched her neck with the ball, then moved to her other ear. “Here.” He lowered his arm and rolled the ball over the small of her back and onto her butt. “And especially here, where you’re soft and white and feel so good in my hands.”
Her mouth dropped open just enough.
“And you know what else?”
She gave a small shake of her head.
“Your foot is off the base, sweetheart. And you’re out.”
31
The ladies lost twenty-seven to three, even when they’d included Rebuttal as part of their team. She had trotted to the outfield where she gnawed on some monkey grass. It drove Hank nuts enough that he kept trying to give Margaret a hard time. She just smiled.
About fifteen minutes later, Rebuttal knocked Hank off the base. Twice. Just when he was crouched down and ready to run. Conveniently, Margaret had been right there with the ball, waiting.
The ladies took turns pinch-hitting for Rebuttal. But it didn’t matter in the end. Although Margaret could run like the wind, no one could hit like Hank .To everyone’s amazement, he hit the ball over the coconut trees every time he was at bat.
But now the game was done. They walked down to the beach so the children could cool off with a swim. Annabelle was perched on Margaret’s hip and Theodore and Lydia raced through the sand to see who could hit the water first. Muddy flew overhead with a group of seagulls, mimicking their turns and making the children laugh and point. He’d promised Margaret he’d watch for sharks.
And Hank, well, he just shook his head and kept walking as if there wasn’t a purple genie flying overhead.
Margaret turned to Hank. “I’ve neverseenanyone hit a baseball like you did.”
He laughed. “I had to learn to hit the ball hard. I never could run worth a damn.”
“But every time?”
He shrugged, then looked somewhere ahead of them. “My third year I led the National Association with a batting average of .492.”
“Is that a lot?”
He laughed. “You are good for my ego, sweetheart. Yeah, it’s good. I don’t think anyone’s beat it yet. But maybe now... in the last six years. Before I left the States it had still held.”
Theodore came skidding to a stop in front of them. “Can I go out to the sandbar? Can I? I swim real good now.”
Margaret paled, remembering that it was only yesterday when she’d shot the shark. “No!” she said more sharply than she intended. “It’s too dangerous. And you could be hurt. You can’t go out there. All kinds of terrible things could happen.”
“You mean like the shark?” Theodore asked without a bit of trepidation.
