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“Huh? No. It’s only like seven thirty.”
“She’s nine. We’ve talked about this before. You need to get her dinner by six. What about the chicken fingers I left in the fridge?”
A guilty beat passed. “I ate those.”
“Kevin.” Her brother meant well, but the care and handling of a child was sometimes beyond him, since he was basically an overgrown child himself at the best of times.
“She wants pizza, I’ll just order her pizza.” The sound of rustling paper drowned him out for a minute, then a muffled, “Liv, where’s the phone book?” After another lapse of silence, Kevin added, “You’ll be home soon, right?”
Alice didn’t need to dig too deep to unearth the subtext of his question. “There’s twenty dollars in the jar on top of the fridge. Liv will only eat cheese, so don’t order something loaded with meat.”
Kevin grunted. “Maybe I’ll get two. What do you want?”
She had to admit it was nice she hadn’t needed to remind him she would like to eat the pizza she was paying for. “Bacon, please. Anything with bacon.”
“I can probably sort something out. You okay with mushrooms?”
“As long as they’re only on your half of the pizza.”
“Okay. Where are you? Didn’t you get off work like twenty minutes ago?”
Alice gave the field a guilty look. “I stopped off at Joker Marchant. Wanted to see the stadium before things went bonkers.”
Kevin’s response was cut off by Olivia’s barely audible complaints. “You on your way now? The beast is getting restless.”
“The beast wouldn’t be half so restless if you had fed her two hours ago,” Alice reminded him. “Let her watch My Little Pony until I get home, and she’ll be fine.”
Any protestations Kevin made were halfhearted at best because she knew he secretly liked the cartoon.
“Yeah, I’ll be home in fifteen. Give Liv a handful of goldfish crackers if her tone gets any more woe-is-me than it already is. Don’t let her talk you into those cinnamon sticks from the pizza place either.”
“Her talk me into them. Yes. That’s what happened last time.”
Alice grinned at the phone. Whenever she questioned why she’d let Kevin move in with her, a moment would come around to remind her. She adored her brother, and he was the most important person in her life aside from Olivia, and even though he pushed her to the very boundaries of her patience, she loved him fiercely.
She got back into her car, giving the ballpark one last glance. In the next week it would be crawling with all manner of players and staff, and once the spring training games started, she’d be tossed into the mix. This was the calm before the storm.
After backing out of the lot, she turned onto the main thoroughfare and was soon driving down the barren stretch of highway that took her from Lakeland proper to her neighborhood.
Since the highway was typically empty this time of night, a set of blinking rear lights stuck out like a sore thumb in the dark. The part of her dedicated to self-preservation told her keep going, but the good Samaritan within reminded her it was a long shot anyone else was going to pass by and offer help.
Locking all her doors, she slowed down and stopped alongside the car. Better able to see it now, she let out an appreciative whistle at the pristine new Porsche Panamera. Its matte-black exterior made it blend in with the growing darkness, but Alice had to admire the audaciousness of the car.
She rolled her window down halfway and leaned across the seat. The car’s owner got
out, and Alice struggled to place his face. He was unconventionally handsome, with a dark growth of stubble along his jaw and equally dark—borderline curly—hair in desperate need of a trim. He was familiar the way an old acquaintance at a party might be. She knew she ought to have a name to go along with the face, but she was drawing a blank.
“Car trouble?” she asked.
He braced an arm on the roof of her car and peered in the partially opened window. “Yeah. Flat tire. Guess Porsche didn’t design these things to survive driving over fallen tree branches.”
“No spare?”
His round-cheeked smile faltered, and he lowered his gaze, looking downright sheepish. “If I admit I don’t know how to change a tire, are you going to think less of me as a man?”
Alice laughed. “If I told you I’m not shocked a Porsche owner can’t do his own car maintenance, will you think I’m being prejudiced?”
“I can’t be offended if it’s true.” He put his hand through the window. “I’m Alex.”
