Love Bats Last
by Pamela Aares
When love’s in the game you can’t
play it safe...
Book Description
In LOVE BATS LAST, author Pamela Aares introduces you to the Heart of the Game series. Get ready for All-Star alpha males
and the strong women they come to love!
Quotes and Praise
“Pamela Aares deftly weaves together
the desires and strategies of world-class sports with the equally charged realm
of the heart to create fast-moving tales you’ll wish would never end.” —Mary Beath, award-winning author of Refuge of Whirling Light on the contemporary series the Heart of the Game.
EXCERPT
Bracing
herself in the mud, she put her shoulder against the pontoon and shoved hard.
It didn’t move even a fraction of an inch.
Great.
She
was two miles from where she’d parked her truck downriver and didn’t relish the
idea of trying to find a vineyard hand to help her. There’d be questions.
Questions she wasn’t prepared to answer, not yet.
She
walked to the bow of the Zodiac. It jutted up, maybe just enough for her to
hang her weight from the front and pop up the midsection. She stepped into the
river and sucked in her breath as she sank neck deep into an eddy pool. Feeling
with her feet, she found a flat rock that gave her solid footing. She reached
up and wrapped the bowline around her hands and tugged her full weight against
it. Her hands slipped and she splashed back into the chilly water.
“It’s
a bit early in the season for a swim.”
Adrenaline
shot through her as she scrambled to her feet. A tall and ridiculously handsome
man stood blocking the trail. He looked like he’d been airlifted out of a men’s
fashion magazine. He squatted, bringing him to her eye level. She froze,
unprepared for the intensity of his gaze. He had deep blue eyes, the color of
the sea before a storm. Those eyes crinkled as a slow, easy smile curved his
lips.
“Just
testing the water,” she said with a bravado she didn’t feel.
Goose
bumps rose along her arms as she sloshed out of the water and stepped onto the
riverbank. She wished they were just from the cold. To give her hands something
to do, she brushed ineffectively at the mud on her jeans.
“Can
I give you a hand?”
He
held a half-eaten sandwich, one of those piled-high deli sandwiches that
Americans loved. Her stomach grumbled; she’d forgotten her own lunch. But this
was no time to be thinking about food.
He
didn’t look dangerous. But the expensive-looking slacks and perfectly tailored
shirt he wore were out of place. She was from England—she knew a
custom-tailored shirt from a Savile row tailor when she saw one. Why anyone
would be wearing a three-hundred-dollar shirt and Prada loafers in river
brambles was anybody’s guess.
“No,”
she said, backing up a step. “I was just leaving.”
His
assessing gaze sent a shiver down her spine, pushed it deep. She tugged at her
shirt. Wet and plastered against her skin, it was almost transparent. She
didn’t have to look down to know he could see her nipples puckered from the
chilled water. She wished she’d taken the time to put on a bra.
She
glanced up, and he quickly averted his eyes. Every cell in her body suddenly
said flee.
She
leaned over the pontoon and grabbed her backpack, rummaged to the bottom, found
her jacket and pulled it on. She felt his eyes on her once again as she tugged
up the zipper. At least she didn’t feel naked anymore.
She
put a hand on the Zodiac, wishing that her touch would magically free it.
“What
brings you up here? I don’t see many people boating in this stretch of
river—just the occasional kayaker doing some bird watching. It’s mighty
shallow.”
He
gave her the perfect answer.
“I
was looking for nesting clapper rails.”
“That
shouldn’t take long,” he said. “There’ve only been a few sightings in this area
since I’ve lived here. They’re endangered, you know.”
The
man knew something about birds. And he was local. Could be good. Could be bad.
“I
know.”
He
quirked his brow. “And you’d be more likely to find clapper rails in the
fields, wouldn’t you?”
He
thought she was a clueless bird watcher. She should’ve chosen a different bird,
but she really didn’t know the birds of the region all that well, except for
the marine birds.
The
man smiled again.
A
smile shouldn’t send a zip of unnerving energy straight into her, but it did.
She’d sunk herself in her work for so long, studiously avoiding exactly that
kind of smile. He had the ease of a man who knew the effect he had on women. An
ease she knew only too well, having once fallen prey to it at the hands of
another man who knew how to wield his charm and allure.
She
looked away from his face and down to his hands.
“Nice-looking
Zodiac,” he said. “But you couldn’t have come up from the bay. It’d take you
half a day with that small motor. You put in somewhere south of here?”
An
observant man. Usually she liked that type. She tried not to be dazzled by his
near perfect physique and a face that was more handsome than any man should be
allowed. It was distracting. And dangerous. That she also knew from experience.
“I
might ask what you’re doing here,” she said, deflecting. She eyed the Zodiac,
assessing another approach to freeing it from the mud.
“Eating,”
he said with the same dazzling smile.
A
wise guy. From his polished American accent and fine clothing, obviously a very
wealthy and well-educated wise guy. But he didn’t have the body of a
businessman.
He
grinned and waved the sandwich at her.
“There’s
a great deli about two hundred feet from here. Can I buy you a sandwich? You
look like you could use one.”
She
dragged her hair away from her face. She’d love a sandwich. But there was a
mile of river to sample between here and the vineyard properties to the north.
And she didn’t want to answer questions. He looked like the type to ask plenty
of them.
“Thanks,
but I have to get back.”
“Back
where?”
Right.
Not the cleverest of responses on her part.
“Back
to, um...”
Jeez.
Tracking down water samples had made her feel like she was in some sort of
cheesy spy novel or something. This guy was just a guy having lunch near his
local deli. Right. Dressed in expensive
clothes and eating a sandwich by a really crummy spot in the river. She
might be good at chasing down the mysteries of marine mammals, their lives,
their health and the way the bigger picture affected them, but she was never
much good at figuring out people.
“Back
to work,” she said flatly.
“Where
do you work? Can’t be around here.”
It
was a simple question, a question she’d answered hundreds, maybe thousands of
times. She hated to lie, usually didn’t have any reason to, but it was hard to
ignore the small voice telling her to do just that. Maybe the sun had addled
her brain. And she hadn’t been
sleeping well. She’d read that lack of sleep could make you paranoid, make you
read things into situations that weren’t there. She really should get more
sleep.
“I
work at the California Marine Mammal Center,” she said as she pulled her foot
from the muck and edged closer to the Zodiac.
“The
seal hospital near the Golden Gate Bridge?”
The
Center was known for their quick response in rescuing injured marine mammals,
doctoring them up and returning them to the ocean, but the work went far beyond
that. Yet right now she didn’t feel like explaining.
She
nodded.
“I’ve
been meaning to get over there. For about ten years,” he said with a laugh.
“Evidently
not a priority,” she said, trying not to like the sound of his laugh. “Or if it
is, maybe you’re direction challenged?” She hadn’t meant to engage him, but his
smooth manner was like oil on a hillside, and she just kept sliding along.
He
sprang up from his crouch with a catlike, almost effortless, motion and took a
couple steps down the path toward her. She stepped back and nearly lost her
balance as her foot sank into the mud.
She
fisted her hands against her hips, and he stopped walking.
“I
heard you’re having a rash of seal deaths,” he said, suddenly serious. “Any
clues as to what’s causing the diatom bloom?”
Her
breath hitched in her chest. People in the Bay Area knew about the seal strandings;
reports been all over the news. But most didn’t know about the diatom bloom or
if they did, they didn’t get the connection. Maybe he was a scientist. But he
didn’t look like a scientist. Scientists never had muscles like his.
“It’s
too early to tell.” At least it wasn’t a complete lie. It was too early to tell. “I really have to be going.”
She
turned and pushed her shoulder against the pontoon. Color crept into her face.
She was stuck, in more ways than one.
“Here,”
he said as he closed the distance between them. He bent down and put the
sandwich on a rock. “Hop in. I’ll shove you off.”
She
tilted her head and shaded her eyes. Maybe he could do it; he looked incredibly
strong. His shoulders reached beyond those of most normal men. Only movie thugs
and athletes had shoulders like that.
God,
she was being ridiculous. Letting him shove her off was the best solution.
Maybe the only one.
“Okay,”
she said.
Their
gazes locked, and she felt both trapped and held.
“I
don’t bite,” he said.
There
it was again, that easy, wide smile. She was really losing it if she could let
herself be charmed by a stranger standing on a riverbank.
Before
she could move away, he closed his hands around her waist and lifted her over
the side of the boat.
“Straddle
the pontoon on the opposite side,” he said as he released her. “Lean into it.”
The
confidence of his tone told her he was used to giving orders.
He
walked to the bow of the boat and stepped into the water. She noticed that he didn’t fall into the eddy pool. Maybe
he knew this stretch of river very, very well.
She
hung her weight against the pontoon and watched his arm muscles work as he
gripped the bow line and levered his shoulder against the boat. With perfect
control he tipped the bow down. The bottom of the boat sucked up off the
riverbed with a sigh and a slurp, and with a firm, steady motion, he pushed the
boat into the river.
“You
might need this.” He grinned and tossed the bow line over the side. She caught
it with one hand.
“Nice
catch,” he said as he stepped out of the water.
Mud
covered his expensive shoes and stained up his pant legs. He apparently didn’t
notice or didn’t care.
Her
hands shook as she started the engine. Only then did she remember she hadn’t
thanked him. She waved and shouted thanks over the buzz of the motor.
“My
name's Alex,” he said as he waved and stared after her. “Maybe I'll see you
around these parts again.”
Not
if she could help it. Maybe he wouldn’t notice that she was headed north,
upriver to the vineyards. Besides, why would he care?
About the Author
Pamela Aares is an author of contemporary and historical romance
novels. Her first book, Jane
Austen and the Archangel (Angels Come to Earth, #1) was released in 2012. Midnight Becomes You, (Angels Come to
Earth, #2) will
release in 2014, along with three more books in the Heart of the Game series, all releasing in 2014.
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