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Tucker was in the middle of a sip of beer when all masculine attention seemed to pivot towards the door. Chet let out a low, appreciative whistle and said, “It should be illegal for her to look that good.” He gave a sad shake of the head. “Like being on a diet and her being a damn plate of doughnuts.”
The men nodded with grumbled agreement, and Tucker followed their rapt gazes across the room.
Emmy Kasper had walked in, wearing low, tight jeans and a black V-neck T-shirt, a light jacket slung over her arm. She wasn’t dressed provocatively or even inappropriately. Only a thin band of skin showed at her waist when she raised her arm to wave at someone, yet everyone was gawking at her like she’d shown up in a tube top and miniskirt.
Chet was right, though. She looked so good it ought to be illegal. Her hair was out of the ponytail now, hanging in long beachy waves down to the middle of her back, and she wore more makeup than she had during training. Not a lot, mind you, but enough to make her…
Dangerous.
So very dangerous.
Emmy noticed their entire table staring at her and became visibly uncomfortable for a moment, then gave them all a friendly wave. Maybe it was Tucker’s wishful thinking, but he thought her expression lightened considerably when she saw him.
Had to be wishful thinking.
She angled her way towards the table and was halfway though the room when a diminutive blonde with round cheeks and an enormous grin grabbed Emmy by the arm. The girl squealed with delight, and Emmy wrapped her in a hug.
Any intention she’d had of coming their way was thwarted. Tucker couldn’t tell if he was relieved or bitter. He drank more of his beer and tried to pretend he didn’t care.
Chapter Six
Emmy hadn’t seen Alice Darling in a year, not since her last foray out to spring training with the White Sox the previous spring. Alice was a Lakeland townie, well-known among the players and not for the reasons most townie girls were.
Sure, Alice loved ballplayers. But she steadfastly refused to date any of them because of her job. Alice was a minor league umpire, and during training season she was the only female umpire who called spring training games.
If romance was ill-advised for Emmy, it would have been career suicide for Alice. No one would be able to take her calls seriously if there was even the slightest whiff of a scandal. So Alice took the high and lonesome road and made it a rule never to date baseball players.
Emmy had the same rule. Or at least she’d decided that day she had the same rule.
There was also the Simon issue.
Simon Howell, Emmy’s long-term, long-distance boyfriend. They’d met when she was working for the Sox. At a press conference following the injury of the White Sox’s star shortst
op, the whole medical team had been grilled about what treatments they were planning and what the expected turnaround would be. As the assistant athletic therapist she’d mostly just sat beside her boss, but once or twice she fielded a question about the player’s pregame routines.
One of those questions had been from Simon. He was a well-respected columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, and though his bread-and-butter was reporting on hockey, he “slummed it” with baseball in the off-season. Chicagoans loved baseball, something Simon—who came from Canada where there was only one MLB team—didn’t quite grasp.
She’d tried to make him appreciate baseball with her family’s season tickets to the Cubs and the occasional staff passes to Sox games, but he never got interested. “Too much standing around,” he’d claimed, which always astonished Emmy. Baseball was all about moving. Running, diving, leaping and throws. She viewed baseball as a sport that never stopped moving and couldn’t figure out why anyone else would see it differently.
Likewise, Simon had tried to convince her hockey was the greatest sport known to man. Emmy could appreciate aspects of it—any athleticism on ice was naturally going to be impressive—but it was too violent for her tastes. Like the bastard offspring of figure skating and ultimate fighting.
They agreed to disagree when it came to sports, something that was a bit of a farce considering they both made their living from sports-related enterprises.
When Emmy had applied for the job in San Francisco, she and Simon had a long discussion about their future. She loved him, but it wasn’t the kind of devoted love that was going to make her stay in Chicago when a better job opportunity was available in California.
Simon, too, seemed more invested in his job than the possibility of looking for a writing position in California, so they’d agreed to see how things went. As luck would have it, the Felons would have their first away games of the year in Chicago against the Sox, so she’d be able to see Simon then. Likewise, he’d spend as much of the season traveling to games as she would, so it wasn’t like they’d be seeing that much less of each other anyway.
It would work out if it was meant to work out, she told herself.
When she spotted Tucker across the room, she gave a little sigh. You have a boyfriend, she reminded herself. And you can’t date a player on your own team.
There wasn’t actually anything in her contract against it, probably because her contract had been drafted for a male therapist and the idea of dating between players and trainers hadn’t ever come up before. She didn’t want to be the reason a new clause had to be added to future contracts.
“So, tell me everything. How was the big first day?” Alice found them two stools at the bar and ordered them each a Corona.
“Exhausting,” Emmy confessed. “But it’s nice to be back here. Really different to be in charge of everything, though. I keep getting asked questions, and my first response is Why aren’t you asking the head A.T. until I realize I am the head A.T.”
Alice chuckled. “You’re living the dream, Em. This is what you’ve been talking about for as long as I’ve known you. How excited is your dad?”
