Blue Smoke

again.” Mandy gave him a little squeeze. “I just know it.”

9
    Sexy red shoes aside, Reena could think of little more entertaining on a Sunday afternoon than a turn in the batting cage. Sunshine, baseball and a really cute guy to share them with.
    Who could complain?
    She adjusted her helmet, moved into her stance, and took a hard cut at the ball that flew toward her. It sailed up and out.
    “I gotta say, Hale. You’ve got nice form.”
    She smiled, kicked dirt, prepared to bat again. Maybe she’d prefer the form he was admiring was her body rather than her batting prowess, but her competitive streak wouldn’t allow her to bat like a girl.
    “Damn right,” she agreed and swung away. “Easy right-field shag on that one.”
    “Depends on the fielder.” Hugh took his own swing. Ball cracked against bat. “There’s a double.”
    “Depends on the runner.”
    “Shit.” But he laughed and slammed the next ball.
    “Speaking of form, yours isn’t half bad either. You ever play?”
    “High school.” He caught one on a foul tip. “Company’s got a softball team. I ride second.”
    “I usually take left field if I pick up a game.”
    “You got the legs for it.”

    “Ran track in high school.” She’d been advised to learn how to run, so she had.
    She took her turn again, cut too soon and took a strike. “I thought about keeping up with it in college, but my course load was too heavy. So I bookwormed it. Gotta keep your eye on the ball,” she said half to herself, and swung away.
    “Now that one’s out of here. We ought to take in a game sometime, at Camden Yards.”
    She glanced over, smiled. “Absolutely.”
    W hen he mentioned grabbing a beer and some bar food, she nearly suggested they head over to Sirico’s. Not yet, she decided. She wasn’t quite ready to have him eyeballed by family, or the neighborhood.
    They settled on a Ruby Tuesday’s, and shared nachos and Coors.
    “So, where’d you learn to swing a bat?”
    “Mmm.” She licked melted cheese off her thumb. “My father, mostly. He loves the game. We always managed to get to a few a year when we were kids.”
    “Yeah, you got a big family, right?”
    “Two older sisters, younger brother. Brother-in-law, niece and nephew courtesy of middle sister. Brother-in-law coming up thanks to oldest sister. She’s getting married this fall. Aunts, uncles, cousins too numerous to mention—and that’s just first cousins. How about you?”
    “Three older sisters.”
    “Really?” Points on the mutual ground scorecard, she decided. He wouldn’t be cowed by a large family. “And you’re the prince.”
    “Bet your ass.” He grinned, toasting her. “They’re married. Got five kids between them.”
    “What do your sisters do?”
    He looked blank for a moment. “About what?”
    “Work.”
    “They don’t. They’re, you know, housewives.”

    She cocked her eyebrows at him as she took another sip of beer. “I hear that’s work.”
    “Couldn’t pay me enough to do it, so yeah, guess so. Your family’s got that restaurant, Sirico’s. Great pizza.”
    “Best in Baltimore. Starting on the third generation there. My sister Fran’s comanager now. And her Jack—the guy she’s marrying’s tossing dough. You’re second generation on the job, right?”
    “Third. My dad’s still on. Making noises about retiring, but I don’t know. Gets in you.”
    She thought about the maze, and the fact that she wanted to do it again. Do it faster, do it better. “I know it does.”
    “He’s fifty-five though. People—civilians—don’t really understand the physical stress of it.”
    “Or the emotional, the psychological.”
    “Well, yeah, that, too.” He sat back, giving her a long study. “You handle yourself, physically. The maze isn’t for wimps. And you worked the burn buildings, stuck it out through a couple of tough shifts. You’ve got a good build, like a—what is it?—greyhound.”
    She may have hit a dry spell in the dating pool, but she still remembered how to flirt. “Wondered if you’d notice.”
    She liked his grin, the quickness of it, the cockiness. The grin said he was a man who knew just who he was, what he was and what he was after.
    He flashed it now. “I noticed. Especially when you’re wearing those little shorts running track at the Academy. Anyway, most women can’t manage the physical part of it.”
    “A lot of men can’t either.”
    “No question. No sexist line.” He held up a hand. “What