“Maybe not.” My heart patters. “But they should be.”
“Or maybe we should see the many advantages of the minor league.”
“You’re trouble,” I tell him, trying not to laugh. “I always knew it. But I had no idea how much.”
Lucca just smiles. Ugh. That straight-teethed, beaming Brazilian get-a-woman-into-all-kinds-of-trouble smile. He looks at me too intently. So intently that I’m starting to become self-conscious beneath his stare. And then he?—
“Huh.”
“Did you just look at me and harumph?” I cross my arms, suddenly on the defense.
“Harumph?” he says. “I’ve lived in this country for a decade. I don’t know that word.”
I roll my gaze to the ceiling of this hotel room. “You know.” I roll my shoulders and demonstrate. “Hmph!” Sure, it’s more dramatic than his ‘huh.’ But I’m feeling a little jittery and maybe a little dramatic, too. It’s been a long day.
His gaze narrows. “I didn’t do that.”
“You did. You looked at me too closely, and then you went ‘huh’.” Again, I give the noise a touch more snark. I can’t help it.
“Ah. I see. I was looking.” And then he’s peering at me again. Not just looking, but studying. “Maggie McCrae, you have a patch of freckles on your cheek,” he says, his eyes zoned in like a laser beam to my cheekbone, staring at my cluster. He leans in closer than he’s ever leaned toward me before. His eyes, so dark they could be black, come into view, and I can see the bark brown that’s there. They aren’t black at all. I breathe in, hating how the air shakes and reverberates through my chest as it fills with musk and man and something that’s surely intoxicated women all over the world.
The pad of his pointer brushes ever so lightly on my face. “It’s a heart,” he says.
“Oh.” I swallow. I’m not sure anyone but me has ever noticed as much before. And it took a couple decades and a dark time for me to see that shape amongst my freckles. It took time for me to see me again.
I lean away from him, feeling too seen under his scrutiny.
But Lucca doesn’t take the hint.
I clear my throat loudly and lay a hand on his chest, pushing back. “Do you mind? You’re kind of taking up my space.”
He blinks, and those ridiculously long lashes that any woman would pay money for practically fan my cheeks. “Excuse me,” he says, sitting back. He runs his palms down the length of his thighs. “So, what do you think,Maggie Pie? Friends?”
“Lucca.” I shake my head. “This won’t work.”
One of his thick brows lifts in question. “Are you going to stop calling fouls on me?”
I scoff and tighten my arms in a fold once more. “Not a chance.”
But Lucca only grins at me. “Then I think this could work just fine.”
Twenty-Three
I stareat the gray kitten curled up on the small cat bed in the corner of my bedroom. She’s tiny, but the woman at the shelter assured me she was potty-trained and could be left alone for long periods of time.
I’m pretty sure I’ve gone crazy.
Me? A cat owner.
I would have bet money that would never be a possibility. Yet here we are. I’m not sure what I’ll do with her, what I’ll call her. But I am certain that I won’t be telling my teammates about this new situation. The laugh they’d have at my expense is one I’d never get over.
After talking with Maggie half the night in Denver, I couldn’t get those cat pjs out of my head. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw them. I ended up at the shelter where Fran mentioned the litter of kittens. And somehow, I came home with…her.
All I do is picture Maggie seeing her.
See? Crazy.
I’ve crashed out.
