My Front Page Scandal by Carrie Alexander Page B

hit the home run. The crack of the bat was loud.”
    “Yeah. I felt it.” The jolt had juddered right up his arms, into his shoulders.
    “And then?”
    “That’s when I go blank.” He stroked the veins that traced her fragile wrist. “I never saw the ball go out of the park, but I knew immediately that it was a home run. And I’ve seen the replay since then, so I know I ran the bases, but I don’t really remember any of it until my teammates attacked me at the plate.”
    Brooke squeezed his hand. “You were in the dirt at the bottom of the pile. I remember how cute you looked afterward, giving interviews with a smudged face.”
    David felt good inside, for once getting to reminisce without thinking too hard about the taint of later events. “Like I said, it was crazy.”
    “We were jumping and laughing and yelling at home, too, making more noise in the house than we had in years. Reba, Katie and I danced around the coffee table until our aunt said we’d fall on Mom if we didn’t quit.” Brooke’s smile faded as she became more contemplative. “We’d only recently learned how sick she was.
    Having the playoffs to get excited about was no little thing. You gave my mom a real thrill. So, you know…thank you.”
    David leaned back in his chair with a lump in his throat. “You’re supposed to say ‘prechiate cha.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Southern vernacular, for thank you, sir, I appreciate your kindness. Then I might say back, why, gurl, you’re so purty you put a smile on me like a pig in a slop bucket.”
    “Strange, but colorful.”
    “You think Boston slang isn’t? I’d hate to tell you what I thought ‘banging a U-ey’ meant, the first time I heard it.”
    “Ah, but now you have to tell me.”
    He swiped a hand across his grin. “You know how there are all these colleges around? Uh, u-niversities?”
    Brooke’s mouth hung open. “You didn’t.”
    “I did. I was out at a tavern with a few teammates and these sexy college coeds were hitting on us. I was kinda burnt, so I bragged to the guys that I might go home with one of the girls so I could bang a U-ey just like the locals.”
    Laughter burst from Brooke, loud enough to draw attention from the other diners.
    She slapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.”
    “Go ahead, laugh at the rube.” His face was hot, but he liked that he’d made her bust out.
    She wiped her eyes as the giggles trailed off. “I’m trying to picture you making a U-turn in a college dorm room with your motorcycle.”
    He raised his brows. “A dorm bed is even smaller. But I still managed to execute a few good moves.”
    She inhaled. The sexual tension that had dissipated during their meal had returned full force, filling the private nook with a buoyant expectancy. He could even imagine that the floor was moving beneath his feet, the tabletop tilting, as if they might take flight at any moment.
    “Are you all right?” Brooke asked. “You’re looking sort of lightheaded. You probably shouldn’t have drank the wine.”
    He straightened up. “No, I’m okay. It was only one glass and I haven’t had a pain pill since this morning.” Despite evidence to the contrary, he wasn’t into the self-medication of booze and pills. Yeah, he wanted to bury his past, but he didn’t intend to forget it. The doomed-to-repeat-it theory.
    Her lashes flicked. “I was worried about you being alone last night.”
    “Yeah?” He sounded as if he didn’t care, but he did. A little too much.
    She checked herself. “That is, if you did go home alone. According to your reputation, that doesn’t happen often. Before the Series, you were more famous for your after-hours escapades than for your athletic prowess.”
    His gut tightened. “Don’t believe everything you read.”
    “Then you weren’t the team’s most active ladies’ man?”
    “Maybe once.” He shrugged. “But not for the past few months. I’ve been in Georgia, harvesting