by Lisa Plumley
Something was not quite right here.
“Miss Mouton!” He greeted her formally, since they were in public, by clasping her hand in his. He smiled, undoubtedly looking naively smitten. “It’s a beautiful day for baseball.”
“Yes, it is!” She smiled back at him, still holding her bat. The breeze loosened tendrils of hair from her chignon, then tossed them across her face. “I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Turner.”
With a moue of frustration, Olivia hooked those soft tendrils with her fingertip. She tucked them behind her ear. That impatient gesture only pulled Griffin’s attention to her lovely hands, to her winsome face…to her soft, alluring lips.
Olivia glanced up at him welcomingly, and all at once, Griffin didn’t care that they were in public. He didn’t care that the residents of Morrow Creek had gathered all around them with boisterous goodwill, lugging bats and balls and improvised baseball bases. Given Olivia’s nearness, Griffin wanted more.
He wanted to touch her hair himself. He wanted to pull her closer for a kiss. He wanted to embrace her, to explore her sweet womanly curves with his hands, to give in to all the most ungentlemanly impulses he strived so hard not to surrender to when they were alone together in his hotel suite.
So far, he’d done a good job of suppressing those sensual needs. Now, in the space between his hello and his handclasp, they came roaring back to him, twice as intense and a million times more demanding.
He’d never been more aware of Olivia as a bountiful and passionate woman—or himself as a strong-bodied and virile man.
The air between them felt atingle with mounting sensuality, rife with a sense of forbidden possibility. Together, he and Olivia could share so much more than they already had, Griffin knew. Together, they could be one. But a woman like Olivia deserved more from him than desire and wild imaginings and longings to kiss her. She deserved everything he had.
So, chivalrously, Griffin gave it. He gave her respect and admiration. He gave her gallantry. He smiled anew, and vowed to himself not to seduce her…however much he wanted to.
He nodded at her coat. “Have you caught a chill?”
His studied tone made her smile. “Indeed, I haven’t.”
“Yet you’re bundled up as if you expect a blizzard,” Griffin said. “Won’t you find it difficult to play?”
“I don’t expect to.” Olivia glanced to the side, exchanged a few words with another female player then returned her attention to him. “I don’t ordinarily play in the games,” she informed him. “Generally, I function as the team’s secretary. I maintain notes of our meetings, catalogue our equipment, set the batting order among the players…things like that.”
“You don’t play? Why?”
“Because it’s appropriate.” She shrugged, her bat still held capably in hand. “Because it’s…sufficient for me.”
Griffin doubted it. For a long moment, he studied her. He knew her love of activity. He understood her interest in sports.
Suddenly, he realized the truth. “This is like Nickerson’s Book Depot and News Emporium,” he declared. “You want to be part of the baseball league, but you don’t trust yourself to play. So you surround yourself with baseball, then don’t partake of it.”
Olivia laughed, even as people passed by them, preparing either to play in the game or spectate. “What? Don’t be silly!”
Dauntlessly, Griffin persisted. “This is not a course of action that will lead inevitably to some imagined downfall,” he said. “You won’t hit one baseball and transform into a hoyden. You won’t pitch one inning and erase years of known propriety.” He squeezed her arm encouragingly. “Play, Olivia. Do it.”
A hopeful light came into her eyes. Still, disappointingly, she waved away his urgings. “You can’t make me play baseball.”
“Why stay on the fringes? If you want to, play!”
Cautiously, Olivia looked around. She bit her lip. “No one would understand. I’ve never played in a game. I practice, but—”
“These women would understand.” Griffin gestured at the other female players. “They are playing, too! Isn’t that right? Surely they wouldn’t dare criticize you for joining them.”
“It’s different for them. They’re not Miss Milky White.” Agitatedly, she waved. “They have more than that to rely on!”
Olivia’s distressed tone struck him in a way nothing else could have. Gently, Griffin took her free hand. He lifted it in his, kissed it then placed it atop her bat where it could join her other hand in grasping it. Automatically, Olivia assumed a batter’s grip. Dreamy eyed, she adopted a batter’s ready stance.
“You are not only Miss Milky White, either,” Griffin said.
Her anxious gaze met his. “No. I’m…more than that.”
He smiled. “Try not to sound so tentative. It’s true.”
Olivia’s yearning expression almost broke his heart. Could she truly be that uncertain of her own innate appeal?
She could, if her sagging shoulders were any indication. Disappointingly, she lowered her bat to rest on the ground.
“If I have to buy and break every bottle of that blasted remedy to prove it to you,” Griffin swore, “I will.” He added a rascally grin. “You know how much I love smashing bottles.”
At that, Olivia laughed. “If only you could.”
“I think you could.” From beyond the haphazard rows of spectators seated on the grass, Griffin heard his name being called. He flung up his hand to acknowledge that summons, then returned to Olivia…to his heart. “You could stop saying you’re more than a face on a patent remedy and start proving it.”
She frowned. “That’s hardly a sensitive way to put it.”
He shrugged. “My detractors would say I’m never sensitive. You’ve already witnessed more Hook Turner miracles than anyone.”
“Don’t call yourself that. Please.”
“Don’t hide your light under a bushel. Please.”
In vexation, Olivia shook her head. “I won’t if you won’t.”
“If I thought that was true, I’d forget that nickname entirely.” Griffin tugged down his hat, preparing to join the other members of the men’s club for their baseball game. “Now, you think about how much fun you might have while playing.”
“I’d rather think about how manly you look in your sporting attire.” Olivia gave him a sassy, assessing glance—one that made him feel undeniably roused. “You seem very…fit, Mr. Turner.”
“I am very fit, Miss Mouton. Watch and see.” Grinning at her teasing, Griffin dared to squeeze her hand again. More seriously than he wanted, he asked, “Will you root for me?”
“Always,” Olivia promised with her eyes shining up at him. “I am on your side, wherever that takes me.”
Humbled by that, Griffin shook his head. “I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve—” he spread his arms “—any of this.”
“Yes, you do.” In a gesture remarkably similar to the way he had arranged her in front of her first crated prototype, Olivia put her hands on his shoulders. She turned him around.
At least she tried. He was too big for her to move.
Subtly, Griffin helpfully cooperated. He turned.
“There. Now go,” she instructed him. “Have fun today.”
“You won’t have fun,” he pointed out. “Why should I?”
“Maybe you’ll inspire me.” Olivia gave him a feeble shove. Then, when he didn’t budge an inch, she added, “Do I have to start smashing up bats? I will, you know, if you don’t go.”
Her faux menacing tone was probably meant to mimic his. Knowing that, Griffin felt warmed all over. She did care.
“Watch me win.” Proudly, he straightened. “For you.”
Then, with a swagger that felt irrefutably real—and was probably wholly underserved—Griffin left Olivia to face her own fears…and went to confront a few of his own. As a man who’d never played a single game of baseball, he knew his performance on his team ought to be…interesting, if nothing else
.
Chapter Fifteen
Seated on a patched old quilt amid the spectators, watching the men’s baseball game enter its eighth inning, Olivia felt nearly toasted through. The sun beat down on her head. The spectators packed close together, increasing the ambient temperature. The fabric of her springtime coat seemed to have doubled in thickness since she’d first put it on that morning.
She’d never had a more daft idea than wearing it. Or, rather, wearing the ensemble she’d dressed in beneath it. But since Olivia didn’t want anyone to know what she’d foolishly outfitted herself in that morning—in a fit of optimism, no doubt—she huddled in her coat, holding a small homemade pennant.
As handcrafted as it was, her miniature pennant added a certain jollity to the proceedings. Emblazoned with the symbol of Griffin’s adopted team and joined with everyone else’s similar pennants and banners, it demonstrated a certain sense of sportsmanship and town loyalty that she was proud of. Later, she’d switch pennants and cheer on her own female team. But now, while the men played, Olivia was strictly a spectator.
Not that she’d be much more than that later, she thought wryly, remembering Griffin’s urgings that she play in today’s game. Like every other baseball game, Olivia had planned to spend this one as an onlooker. As much as she yearned to play, she couldn’t risk unleashing her own vigor and competitiveness.
Women were only allowed to compete for the title of Best Jam in the county fair or Most Finely Stitched in displays of fancy needlework. To compete in other arenas only suggested an unfeminine thirst for accomplishment…not that that particular truism had ever stopped Grace Murphy from achieving amazing feats, Olivia mused as she spied the suffragist standing to the side, all while being married to her saloonkeeper husband.
Watching alertly as Grace gave Jack Murphy a distinctly robust cheer, Olivia couldn’t help being intrigued. Her husband seemed to love everything about her. Even as Sheriff Caffey issued Grace a chastising look—bringing his helper, Deputy Winston, in on his very public censure—Jack Murphy only smiled. It was clear that he respected Grace because she was herself. No matter what anyone else thought of her antics.
“The players are quite virile, aren’t they?” someone asked, breaking into Olivia’s thoughts. “Especially my Mr. Davis.”
At that, Olivia returned her attention to her own group of friends, situated on her worn quilt. Adeline Wilson sat prettily beside Olivia. She was the one who’d just spoken, and she looked as beautiful as she always did, especially while mooning over her longtime beau, Clayton Davis. The lumber-mill sawyer stepped up to bat. He aimed a lovelorn look at Adeline.
She returned it unabashedly. “Hit a home run, Clay!”
She watched raptly as he did so. She clapped for him.
“Well done!” Olivia clapped, too. “My, he’s very good!”
“Yes.” Still watching her sweetheart run toward second base, Adeline nodded. “I only wish Clayton was half as good at tendering a marriage proposal as he is at clobbering a ball with a bat.” She slanted Olivia a bemused look. “I don’t know what his holdup is, but I’m running out of patience, to be sure.”
“He must have a very good reason for waiting,” Olivia assured her. Privately, she considered Adeline to be the most attractive woman in town—far more beautiful than Olivia herself. She couldn’t fathom what would prevent any reasonable man from proposing to her. “You’ll just have to be patient, I guess.”
“I guess,” Adeline grumbled good-naturedly. “For now…”
From beside Adeline, their mutual friend Violet Benson only gave a silent nod. While the game continued, so did their conversation. It hardly seemed fair, they agreed, that the men were allowed to play first, when the women were also keen. But that had been the compromise Grace had finagled with the league.
The menfolk simply weren’t willing to allow anything more. As it was, most of the spectators drifted away after the men’s game was finished. At the moment, though, the crowd was large.
It was a little too large for Olivia’s liking—for the ill-advised plan she’d initiated for herself this morning. Facing a field full of almost everyone she knew, from her father to the Pioneer Press’s editor, Thomas Walsh, was unnerving at best.
To her left sat Mr. Walsh’s sister, the famous cookery book author, Daisy Walsh, who was visiting Morrow Creek for a spell and had decided to accompany little Élodie Cooper—daughter of the livery stable owner, widowed Owen Cooper—to the game. Both ladies, larger and smaller, applauded their menfolk. Near them, Miss Mellie Reardon appeared to root for the town’s newspaper editor with a special enthusiasm. As a part-time typesetter at the press office, she had reason to be enthusiastic, but it seemed to Olivia that there was more than genial interest in Mellie’s cheering. Watching her, Olivia couldn’t help hoping she snared Mr. Walsh for her own, as she clearly wished to do.
“Ooh!” Violet elbowed Olivia in the ribs. “Here’s your Mr. Turner, coming up to bat.” She watched avidly as Griffin approached the plate. “He’s playing with such heart, isn’t he?”
At Violet’s sincere remark, Olivia smiled. “That’s a diplomatic way of describing it.” She couldn’t tear away her gaze from Griffin’s masculine form, displayed to advantage by his athletic stance and slightly too form-fitting clothing. He’d borrowed those togs, but Olivia couldn’t complain about the result. “I can promise you, Mr. Turner does everything in that fashion—as though he intends to win big or go down swinging.”
“I admire that about him.” Violet put her chin in her hand, gazing at Griffin as though she admired more than his determined attitude. She sighed. “He was very nice to me, you know.”
Ah. With relief, Olivia remembered Griffin’s gracious encounter with Violet on the day of the handicrafts show. Likely, that was all she meant. “Yes. He is quite nice.”
He’s especially nice when he’s kissing me, she couldn’t help thinking…and daydreamed through his first turn at bat.
Reassembling her attention, Olivia tried harder for Griffin’s next attempt. So far today, he’d missed more balls than he’d hit, but that hadn’t unsettled him in the least.
“He’s quite…unusual looking, isn’t he?” ventured Daisy Walsh as she handed a rag doll to little Élodie. “His nose—”
“Is perfectly fine for his face,” Violet stated bluntly.
“A big nose indicates big…appetites,” Adeline added, leaning forward with a saucy eyebrow waggle. “It’s manly.”
Shocked by her brazenness, Olivia could only gawk as the other women in her group chimed in. One declared Griffin to be rugged. Another proclaimed him impressive. A third merely fanned herself with a bit of newsprint, watching Griffin bat.
Through it all, Daisy Walsh sat plainly mystified. She exchanged baffled glances with Élodie. They both shrugged.
“I guess you have to be a local to understand,” Daisy said.
“Or a grown-up,” Élodie added wisely. “Like my papa.”
As Daisy’s cheeks colored in response to that remark, Olivia frowned at all of them—except ten-year-old Élodie, of course. She couldn’t help feeling that Griffin was her man to appreciate. Hers alone. Protectively, she watched him bat again.
He swung hard. He missed mightily. His ensemble of admirers gave a collective “aww” of commiseration. Irked, Olivia frowned.
“Smash it, Griffin!” she yelled through cupped hands, having had enough of poise. “You can do it! Hurray, Griffin!”
A wave of incredulity swept through the crowd, strong enough to make Olivia’s cheeks heat. But she just…didn’t care.
Importantly, Griffin did care. He’d heard her. He winked at her, and then he pulled down his hat and prepared a sockdolager.
Olivia held her breath. Griffin wound up. He swung.
This time, his bat connected with the ball. In fact, it connected hard enough to splinter the bat in pieces—but not before the baseball soared into the sky toward left field.
Griffin stared. Then he r
an.
Olivia leaped ecstatically to her feet.
Barely aware of her own actions, she jumped up and down, watching Griffin make a triumphant run around the bases. He was full of power and might, grinning like a conqueror, running hard. His black hat flew off. It wheeled away in the breeze.
Still Griffin kept running. With his face wholly revealed, he powered his way past third base. He was heading home.
“Go! Go! Go!” Olivia shrieked, waving her arms. “Go!”
When he cleared home base, Olivia thought she might swoon from excitement. Clapping madly, she hurtled herself toward the improvised wooden bench where the baseball players sat.
She was in Griffin’s arms an instant later. Laughing with delight, she hugged him. “You did it! You were magnificent.”
Still hatless, with his dark, unruly hair half-undone from its leather tie and his skin glistening with sweat, Griffin gave an offhanded shrug. “That’ll show those glasshouse boys for not letting me onto their damn team.” Full of pride, he cupped her face in his big, dirt-smudged hands. He grinned. “You did root for me. I heard you all the way on the field.”
“Half the town heard me,” Olivia joked, still struck by the fact that the reason Griffin hadn’t ever played baseball wasn’t—as she’d assumed—because he hadn’t wanted to join in. It was because he wasn’t allowed to join in. Her heart went out to him.
“Ahem.” Nearby, one of the male players cleared his throat. “Can we proceed, Turner?” he asked facetiously. “Or do you plan on spooning with your sweetie some more first?”
Like startled cats, Olivia and Griffin leaped apart.
That didn’t stop the entire bench of players from laughing.
Or dissuade the whole pile of spectators from hooting.
Well, it was too late for decorum now, Olivia decided, casting her friends and neighbors a discomfited glance. She needed to show Griffin a little of her true self, didn’t she? Otherwise, he’d be duped into marrying someone she wasn’t.
