Fielder's Choice Read Online Free PDF

for a fairy.”
    “Well, they can change shapes you know. Can we go tomorrow?”
    “I’m picking up Grandma tomorrow. We can go another day.”
    “You always say that.”
    “And don’t we?”
    Sophie gave him one of those smiles that he was sure could charm most anything out of anybody.
    “Most of the time.”
    He looked over to where the center director still talked on the phone. “Wanna head out?”
    “Miss Ellis wants to talk to you,” Sophie said with a nod toward the woman.
    “Think we can slip out?”
    “See? You never want to talk to ladies,” Sophie said in a disapproving whisper. “Told you so.”
    When they got to his car, Matt had the feeling that he’d escaped an awkward conversation. Who knew what Sophie had told Miss Ellis? It wasn’t as if he were some kind of tongue-tied monster.
    He was just a ballplayer, a struggling father, and a man who might not be very adept at talking with the ladies, but who, against his better judgment, very much wanted to do something other than talk with one particular lady.
     
     

Chapter 3
     
    If every day started like this one, Alana was sure she’d go mad before a month went by. She’d overslept and missed the staff meeting. Then her father called. He and Patrice were on a month-long photo safari in Africa and had extended their trip for another week. He’d asked her to organize the memorial for Nana.
    Told her was more like it.
    The prospect was chilling. Half of San Francisco would attend Nana’s memorial. Hire a party planner, her dad had said when she’d protested that she knew nothing about organizing such an event. But then her dad wasn’t one for handling much of anything. That gene she’d come by honestly. Did one just look online for a party planner who specialized in funerals and wakes?
    Then she’d spent nearly an hour on the phone with Nana’s attorney, trying to sort out exactly what was wrong with the windmill. She leaned back in the chair and propped her legs on the desk in Nana's study. Her conversation with Mr. Wilkinson had been particularly unhelpful. His main suggestion was that she get out and meet the neighbors and talk the windmill over with them, see if she could develop support for the project. Surely a staffer could do that kind of thing, she’d argued. He’d just laughed and told her to give it a go. She’d considered firing him for treating her so cheekily, but he was the only person who could help her right now.
    Her phone vibrated, and she pulled it from the pocket of her jeans.
    “Tell me you are making fun.” A husky voice breathed through the poor cell connection.
    “ Having fun, Marcel. And no, I’m not.”
    “You ran off so suddenly. We Frenchmen prefer longer goodbyes.”
    She was supposed to have met up with him in France after he returned from his ascent of Kilimanjaro, but she’d left Paris before he’d reached base camp. She’d sent word, but it probably hadn’t reached him for a week.
    “I was told there was an emergency that required my immediate attention,” she said, not liking the defensive tone in her voice. “Now that I’m here, I find that every day there’s some emergency. Seems to go with the farming part. This week it’s a windmill.”
    “Now you see why Marie Antoinette preferred cake.”
    “Not funny. But this blasted windmill—I have seven people working on the problem and now they’re telling me that as the owner, I might have to meet with the county supervisors. This whole thing could take weeks .”
    “Meetings. Americans love meetings. I’ve never understood it.”
    “I might miss the Lavanne exhibition in New York next week,” she said, changing the subject. “I was looking forward to it.” It would do no good to discuss matters of responsibility with Marcel.
    “And I was looking forward to you ,” he said in his luscious, smooth voice. “Are you sure there’s not some wild western cowboy keeping you? I’ll have to brush up on my fencing skills.”
    Alana heard