My Front Page Scandal by Carrie Alexander Page A

reservations.”
    He finished off a bit of focaccia, feeling shiny, as if there was butter on his cheeks. “Should we order dessert?”
    “I couldn’t.”
    “They have panna cotta.”
    “Please, don’t tempt me.” She put her hand on her stomach. “I’ll burst out of this dress.”
    One corner of his mouth twitched. “I’d pay to see that.”
    A strand of her rich brown hair fell forward and she pushed it back with a lazy hand. Her lids must have been heavy; she gazed at him with her bedroom eyes gone all soft and sleepy. “That won’t happen. This fabric has Lycra.” She plucked at the draped neckline and the metallic threads glinted. “It has more stretch than you’d think.”
    “Well, dang.”
    She giggled. “I love it when you use southern vernacular. Give me more.”
    He scratched the edge of his bandage. “Vernacular, huh?”
    “Dialect. The way you talk.”
    “Darlin’, I know what vernacular means.” He winked. “I went to college.”
    “Of course you did.” She propped her chin on her hand. “You probably had more of a traditional education than me. I got a master’s in fine arts.”
    “Hold on, there. I didn’t say I graduated.” He paused while their table was cleared. “After two years of college baseball, a minor-league scout got hold of me and said I’d be better off putting in the time on a pro team. I spent the next six years knocking around the bush leagues before finally getting called up to The Show.” Brooke looked somewhat dazed, so he added, “You know, the major leagues.”
    “I know.” Her grin spread like molasses. “I saw Bull Durham.”
    “Touché.”
    “I’m impressed, even if it took you six years.”
    “Yeah, well, I was never what you’d call a star. Too slow, only so-so with the glove, but at least I could hit. I played second-string for the Milwaukee Brewers for a couple of years before being traded to the Sox, where I earned a permanent spot on the bench. Coach threatened to carve my name on it.”
    “Until the World Series.”
    “That’s right.” He was talking too much, and he couldn’t even blame the wine because Brooke had stolen his glass after he’d emptied the first one. Her concern was sweet. He wasn’t used to sweet.
    “What was that like?” she asked. “Playing in the World Series?”
    “Crazy.”
    “Come on, you have to tell me more than that. I’ll never have dinner again with a man who came up to bat with two outs in the ninth inning of the seventh game and hit a home run that won the Series for the Sox.”
    David opened his hands in a shrug. He’d given a lot of interviews in the weeks afterward, and lived to regret it when Bobby Cook had started sniffing around to find the “real” David Carerra story, hoping to uncover a scandal that would make his name as a reporter. “Honestly, I can hardly remember. It was an out-of-body experience.”
    Brooke tilted toward him, still smiling, and he could see tiny, deep dimples cut into the very corners of her mouth. “You must remember something. Tell me.”
    He shut his eyes. “The crowd in the stadium was roaring, so loud I could feel the vibrations in my bones. Except I was numb on the surface. I couldn’t feel my hands on the bat as I warmed up. None of it seemed real. But I was there, doing it.” He looked at her over steepled fingers. “The relief pitcher was a fireballer. I swung hard and missed. I felt that, all right, when my body corkscrewed around so tight my cleats got stuck in the ground.”
    “You missed twice,” she said. “You had two strikes.”
    “That’s right. Were you at the game?”
    She shook her head. “My sister Joey went, the lucky duck. She got tickets through her law firm. My mother was already sick then, so the rest of us watched at home. Mom’s friend, Reba, almost passed out when you got the hit, but that might have been because of the Boilermakers she was drinking.” Brooke laced her fingers around his. “You must have felt it when you