He settled down next to Ed again. “Did I miss anything?”
“Just another homer, honey,” came a voice behind him.
He turned slightly to see the black woman better. She was grinning knowingly at him. “Thanks.”
He turned back around in time to see Elaine stroll out of the concourse entrance. She was munching on her french fries as innocently as any teenager. And she looked so damn good.
“She bought french fries!”
Howls of indignation went up behind him, along with vows to make Elaine share her goodies. Graham found himself smiling smugly. He’d gotten one first, when it was still hot.
All of a sudden he heard a loud smack. The crowd was up and screaming. Graham stood more out of curiosity than interest. Another home run by one of the Phillies. He had to say the team was giving the fans their money’s worth tonight.
He glanced over some heads to the aisle, expecting to see Elaine still making her way up the stairs. Instead, to his astonishment, she was standing in the middle of the aisle, next to a stranger, doing some kind of dance.
As her hips rocked from side to side, she pointed her forefinger above her head, then brought it down diagonally across her body and up again, in counterpoint to her swaying hips. She did it with such abandonment that all kinds of images rocked through his brain, most of them requiring two bodies in a horizontal position. The people all around him started chanting, “Whoomp! There it is!” over and over as they did the same strange dance as Elaine.
She was like no other mother he had ever known. Somehow she had roused an entire group into whatever ritual they were doing, and she hadn’t spilled one french fry in the process.
He liked her for that too.
Elaine knew exactly the moment when Graham Reed and his companion “suit” had left at the start of the eighth inning. It was as if a hard wall suddenly crumbled around her. She didn’t know why she was disappointed that he hadn’t stayed for the end of the game, nor did she understand why she had pushed so hard for him to take advantage of her offer. It was true that she needed to ensure Anthony learned to correct his mistakes and treat other people’s property with respect, but maybe she’d been too extreme this time.
More important, Graham Reed was dangerous. He was too sophisticated for her, too smooth, too corporate. Even in the rest room he’d been composed, never showing anything beyond initially being startled. And afterward, when they’d stood together on the concourse …
She wasn’t ready to think seriously about men again. Granted, there hadn’t been anyone about whom she could think seriously. Bill Voss, who taught eighth-grade math, was single and nice, yet he had never caused a ripple of attraction in her. But this Graham Reed, he could light fires without moving a muscle. That sort of man didn’t instill notions of stability in a woman. Elaine told herself she should be grateful he thought she was a klutzy nut.
“Strike three!” Cleo shouted. The fans roared to their feet as the last out of the top of the ninth inning was made. The Phillies had won. Elaine’s attention went back to where it belonged.
She rose, applauding with the rest of the members of the Widows’ Club.
Bounty Hunter Page 22
